Harold Camping has predicted the end will come on May 21, 2011. Is he correct or is he another in a long line of false prophets whose predictions about the end of the world and the coming of Jesus Christ have failed? We'll know by this weekend

The 89 year old Camping is a fundamentalist radio preacher and co-founder of the Family Radio network which broadcasts on several radio stations across the United States. His followers have sponsored billboards across the country and distributed pamphlets from caravans where they proclaim the coming apocalypse.

This is not Camping's first time to predict the end. In 1992 he published a book saying 1994 would see the fulfillment of Bible prophecies regarding the tribulation and coming of Christ. When it did not happen he went back to the drawing board and figured out an intricate and detailed set of figures and codes that took him more than fifteen years to work out.

“It’s just like anyone who invents something or comes to a truth or any technician — they don’t immediately make a finished product,” he explained. “I did not come to the finished product until three years ago. It was at that time that God showed some exquisite proof.”

One report says Camping came up with the May 21 date through a mathematical calculation that would crash Google's computers. It seems complex involving dates and numbers from history and the Bible, addition, subtraction and all sorts of calculations. I have studied other types of calculations and can well imagine some of what Camping must have in his equations.

According to Camping people will watch these earthquakes coming around the world to them from their television. It will arrive at each spot on the globe at 6:00 P.M. local time.

I predict Harold Camping will wake up on May 22 and begin planning his next date. Folks, the end will not occur this coming May 21.

The Bible clearly states no one knows when Jesus Christ will return. In Acts 1:7, Jesus said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” In Matthew 24:36, Christ taught similarly: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”

It is the height of arrogance and presumptuousness for any human to predict with certainty the date of Christ's coming.  Such pride contradicts clear Biblical teaching. Yet, through the centuries many have stepped out on this precarious limb of prediction and failed.  No one should undertake a study of Bible prophecy with the sole intent of predicting this or other significant events. It is folly and creates confusion on what is otherwise an important part of the Bible.

Skeptics look at doomsday predictors like Harold Camping and lump responsible students of Bible prophecy in with them. It all adds to the prevailing skepticism of our age and degrades the authority of sacred scripture.

Jesus Christ is coming to this earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But I guarantee it will not be predicted by such pitiful and shameful efforts like this.