My wife and I got married on May 22, 2007. Its a very important day to me. Our fourth anniversary is coming up in about six weeks. While we’re not making any extravagant plans, there’s a self-professed prophet named Harold Camping who has gotten very wide media coverage on his belief that Jesus is rapturing everyone on May 21, 2011, and the world will end exactly 153 days later on October 21, 2011, which implies that I won’t be able to celebrate my anniversary.

I know that we are living in the end times, and that Jesus will return to the earth soon. But as you probably also agree, there’s one major problem with Harold Camping’s campaign: Only God knows the day that Jesus will return.

In this article, I won’t spend much time refuting Camping’s rationale behind predicting that May 21, 2011 is the day of Jesus’ return, primarily because I believe his logic is extremely flawed, and it ignores Matthew 24:36, where Jesus said that no man knows the day or the hour, not even Himself. What I will be discussing is why this campaign is getting any coverage at all, despite the fact that Harold Camping falsely predicted Jesus return in 1994.

A friend of mine brought this to my attention after his mom asked him about it. She saw a billboard on the highway that said that the world was ending in 2011. At first I reacted as any normal person would just by shrugging it off as another crazy thing that wasn’t all that serious. But as I began to do some research, I found that it was serious – not that the date has any validity whatsoever, but because of how many people he’s reaching with this false doctrine.

When I say “wide media coverage,” I mean it. Camping’s Family Radio has over 55 radio stations, reaching hundreds of countries including China with false doctrine. There are billboards with the date May 21, 2011 in places ranging from Pennsylvania to Ghana. Major media outlets like AOL and CNN are giving coverage to Camping and his followers. In fact, over 50,000 people recommended Harold Camping’s story on CNN, USA Today wrote an article giving exposure to this as well.

This was actually the red flag that went off to me, because while I believe that God can use the media for His purposes, I don’t believe that the media would assist in promoting a message that glorifies Jesus, the Bible, or anything in favor of God during this age. Since Jesus walked the earth 2,000 years ago, we’ve only seen the powers that be attempt to silence the gospel and the truths of the Bible. When they realized that they couldn’t silence God’s Word, they then worked tirelessly to distort and convolute the truth of God’s Word. This is what I believe is happening now, and the consequences for real believers are extremely important to take note of.

Usually when a cult leader makes outlandish claims such as this one, no one really is influenced by it, or catches wind of it, because the major media typically has some sort of filter in terms of the content that it promotes, in order to continue to be considered an authoritative source of news. Clearly that filter has been removed in preparation for the events of Matthew 24 to take place, allowing ridiculous interpretations of scripture to be promoted throughout the world, thereby allowing false prophets to speak on behalf of all of God’s people.

On May 22nd, the Christians who Camping says will be raptured will still have two feet on the ground just like they did on May 19th, if for no other reason, Jesus said that no man knows this date. While we can’t count on that to happen, we can expect the three following things to happen, besides my wife and I celebrating our 4th anniversary:

1. Major media will launch a full-fledged campaign exposing Harold Camping not as a false prophet, but Christianity as a false religion, and the Bible as false, unreliable myths.
2. The world will begin to look at Christianity as a whole as a joke, unreliable, and a belief system full of inaccurate claims on the earth and how it was formed, and major events throughout history, attempting to discredit all of the real prophets that God sent to the earth, including Jesus.
3. Real Christians speaking out against this movement will be ostracized, facing an uphill battle to convince anyone of the validity of the Bible, while Christians who aren’t mature in their faith will begin to be ashamed to associate themselves publicly with the faith.

This is a very serious matter, as it has implications for every single Christian walking the earth today, even my daughter, who is only ten months, as this series of events is conditioning the way the world views the God we serve. And unlike most cult movements, I don’t believe this is one we can just sit back and ignore. Real Christians have a duty to promote the truth about this issue, as it will be one of the major factors contributing to the great falling away referred to in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and 1 Timothy 4:1.