Is May 21 Judgement Day?

Good afternoon, everyone. Yeah, it has been a really interesting media circus in Oakland, California this past week. As those of you that heard Mr. Richards mention, you know, the base of operations of Harold Camping, the family radio group, actually is Oakland, California, and I had an opportunity to be down that way, Sabbath of May 7th. And I have never seen so many billboards. I think they'd bought up just about every billboard on the freeway, it seemed like, on the 580 going back to San Francisco, with two simple words on each billboard. May 21st, 2011, big old black letters against a white background, and then underneath that, Judgment Day. That was the entire billboard. Nothing more, nothing less. So it was pretty interesting. But like Mr. Richards had mentioned, you know, if you've been anywhere near your television or your internet in recent weeks, you know, you've heard some sort of story regarding Harold Camping. Harold Camping is the man behind Family Radio International, which is a conglomerate of Christian radio stations in the Bay Area, civil engineer by trade, self-proclaimed biblical scholar, and a radio mogul, absolute radio mogul, owned several different stations, made the exceptionally bold claim this past, actually within the last couple of years, actually, that Judgment Day will be occurring this very evening, 6 p.m. in our time zone, and 6 p.m. in the time zones of all around the world, just a split second before that time frame. He claimed that the event would be marked by a devastating earthquake, which started first in Fiji and New Zealand, which as of about 1130 p.m. last night, which marked 630 Fiji and New Zealand time, had not happened. In addition, as the time zones rolled over from Fiji on, it is still not happened. His claim, however, was that the earthquake would be like none anyone had ever seen.

The bodies of those who had died would be violently exhumed from the ground during the devastation, and then soon after that, the bodies of those who had been saved and those that God deems as His would be raptured away from this world. The bodies of those that were not saved would be upon the surface of the earth to their shame, and of course, those that are left behind would be doomed, as there is no chance of salvation after the rapture. According to Mr. Camping, thus starts five months of misery for those on earth before the world itself ends on October 21st, 2011. You know, I saw the billboards down in California and saw we actually had one of the little Volkswagen bugs driving around Salem that was just plastered with vinyl stickers everywhere proclaiming the end of the world. I was intrigued as to how he received and how he got his date. I was very interested in this, and so I popped onto his website before it was raptured away. As Mr. Richards mentioned today, it is down. I'm betting that everybody and their dog are trying to access the website and likely exceeded the bandwidth and dropped it out. But the way that he came up with it is this, and it's kind of, well, interesting. He calculated his own age of the earth to begin with. Started by calculating his own age of the earth in time of creation, so he calculated that out to be 11,013 BC. He then calculated the time to the flood from his interpretation of the genealogies in Genesis, which puts the flood at 4,990 BC, and then he has two primary ways of getting to 2011. First, he looked at the scripture in 2 Peter 3, verse 8, where we get the day as a thousand-year principle. And then what he does is he uses Genesis 7.4 to insinuate that because Noah had seven days before God would rain down water and wipe every living thing from the face of the earth, that at the end time the same thing would happen. There would be seven prophetical days, 7,000 years, until God did the same and destroyed earth. You add 7,000 to 4,990, subtracting the one year that accounts for the BCAD change, and you get 2011. But of course, that's not good enough. You have to pinpoint the exact day, and this is where things get even sketchier. Granted, they're already pretty sketchy, but this is where it gets really, really interesting. From 2011, he subtracts 33 AD for Christ Crucifixion, getting 1,978 years from when he believes Christ was crucified April 1st, 33 AD, which was a Friday.

Okay, so there's something telling there. Multiplying that by 365.2422, which is the length of a solar year, gives him 722,449 days, putting him at April 1st, 2011. But May 21st, 2011 represents the 17th day of the second month of the Hebrew calendar, which according to camping was the day that Noah went into the ark. So there's 51 days between April 1st and May 21st, so if you add that together, you get 722,500 days since camping believes Christ was crucified. Now, this is where his math gets really, really sketchy.

We arbitrarily square root the number 722,500 to get 850. This is his mathematical proof of why it's correct. So we take 722,500, we get 850, we divide by the number for atonement, which you have to understand, Harold Camping is a numerologist, so he believes that all of the topics in the Bible have numbers assigned to them. His belief is that the atonement number is five, so we'll divide 850 by five, getting 170. We then divide that number by the number of completeness, which is 10, and we're left with the number 17, which is the number for heaven. So in other words, according to Harold Camping's math, and this is how it was outlined on his site, atonement times completeness times heaven squared is 722,500 days from a supposed date of Christ's crucifixion. Therefore, clearly, May 21st, 2011, is the day of the rapture and the Judgment Day of mankind. This is the math that led to the date that we're looking at now today. Every media outlet around the world has run a story on this in recent days, and it kind of begs the question, you know, when you're looking at something like this, it is so unbelievably convoluted. Where do you even begin? Where do you even begin? Well, we're going to begin in the book of Matthew. So let's head over to Matthew 24, and we're going to start ourselves in verse 4 today. So Matthew 24 verse 4.

Matthew 24 verse 4, and we'll go ahead and read through verse 10 to begin with. So 24 verse 4 says, And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you.

Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many. To Mr. Camping's credit, he did not claim to be Christ. I mean, to his credit, I suppose. Also to his credit, he also stuck to his guns, even though his beliefs have been ridiculed all across the mainstream media. I guess that's something we can credit to him, I suppose. But take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars, rumors of wars, and see that you are not troubled. For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All of these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Now, let's draw your attention to the next verse, verse 11. Then many false prophets will rise up and will deceive many.

We have absolutely no choice but to conclude in this situation that Harold Camping is a false prophet. We have no other way around it. He's making predictions of the future. He's teaching doctrines that are contrary to God's Word, the rapture, multiple others. And he has gained a fairly large following within mainstream Christianity by a lot of these false doctrines.

This story was in the New York Post, and Mr. Richards alluded to it at the beginning of things today. But the headline was picked up by Fox News online, and the headline says, New York man spends life savings ahead of May 21st, Tuesday. It says, New York man spends his entire $140,000 life savings.

On advertising his prediction that the world will end May 21st, Robert Fitzpatrick, a 60-year-old Staten Island resident, said he spent at least that sum. So at least, it's possible even more, on 1,000 subway car placards and ads on bus kiosks and subway cars. They say, Global Earthquake, the Greatest Ever, Judgment Day, May 21st, 2011. In a self-published book, The Doomsday Code, Fitzpatrick said the Bible offers proof that cannot be dismissed.

Judgment Day will surprise people. We will not be ready for it, Fitzpatrick said in an interview with the newspaper. A giant earthquake will render the earth uninhabitable. This article goes on to say, if you want to set an alarm clock, the quake will happen just before 6 p.m. local time.

God's people will be resurrected, and it's also the day that God stops saving anyone.

Fitzpatrick hopes that he is one of the chosen ones, but he could not be really certain. He said, there's just a little doubt, most churches teach that if you believe you'll be saved, it's not our choice, it's God's choice. How many other people were taken in by this?

That's one person that spent $140,000 of his life savings. How many more?

What's really telling to me is an interview that they had with Mr. Camping. He actually granted an interview that was broadcast on YouTube back on May 11th, and the following question was asked of him. You have to realize, before this question was asked, Mr. Camping actually has about $120 million in assets from the radio organizations that he owns. A lot of that, in fact, I saw another CNN Money article that was talking about things. They believe the donations to his organization were $80 million since 2009. That's coming from individuals who believe that May 21st is the end of it all. So about $120 million in assets. And the question was, are you going to do something with all of your money before the 21st? Donate it to charity or something like that, was the question posed to him. His response is, what's the point? In other words, Judgment Day is the end of the world. That means the whole world is in judgment. It will not be business as usual at all. At all. Nothing that goes on is important any longer, either if you're a true believer and you're caught up to be with Christ, of which there are many people that this will happen to, but on the other hand, there will be almost 7 billion people who will be in a tremendous, terrible situation, undoubtedly. With those kind of earthquakes, millions will die, and the Bible teaches they will not be buried. In fact, there will be no one to bury them. It will be so awful. It will not be business as usual at all. The world will be in chaos. It will be awful suffering. Following that, the next question was asked of, I know you're convinced that this is going to happen, but if May 22nd comes around and you're still here, can we talk again? His response was, I can't even think about that question because you're thinking that maybe, maybe Judgment Day will not happen, but it will happen. I believe the Bible implicitly.

It's plain to see when you listen to Mr. Camping in interviews, when you see what he's put together, that he is very much so deceived. He's very much so deceived. In fact, you may have heard this also in the news, this is not the first time that he's predicted Judgment Day. In fact, his last calculation put it at 1994. In addition, you have to understand one other thing about Mr. Camping. He believes that all churches of the world today are an apostasy, and so he tells his members that listen to his radio programs to drop out of their churches and begin listening to his radio program. Because all they're doing in their church is serving Satan. He made course corrections and came up with today's prediction for the 21st being the end of it, and he got an incredible following. You know, the thing of it is, brother, this kind of pattern has been established before. He's not the first person to make predictions towards the end of the world. In the late to mid-1830s, there was a man named William Miller.

Back east, he was part of a movement known as the Millerites.

That made a prediction that Jesus' return would be in the year 1843. Now, he made this prediction about the early 1830s and kept his beliefs very private for quite some time, but ultimately made his prediction public. People grabbed a hold of it, people ran with it, and it was picked up by a minister later in the 1830s and started to be printed and circulated.

He had followers all up and down the eastern seaboard, people coming west into the Midwest as well. And in the years leading up to 1843, the number of publications increased and increased and increased, and people started getting just rabid about this date of 1843. 1843 came and went.

The true believers of Miller cited some slight inaccuracies and predicted a totally different date, October 22nd, 1844, which is actually known as the day called the Great Disappointment.

And this was a day that again came and went. And once again, the people who believed in Miller at that point in time continued to recalculate and recalculate and recalculate these different dates.

And brethren, we know, you know, even within our own church history, we've had past dates that we have predicted were going to come to fruition that didn't happen. And we learned our lesson. The lesson is you don't set dates. We don't set dates. God is not going to give a man on this earth the satisfaction and exultation of being the one to predict the time of Christ's coming. In fact, he tells us this flat out. Let's go over to 1 Thessalonians. We have our 1 Thessalonians 5, and we'll start in verse 1. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 1.

And the end of verse 4, the context of that is discussing the beginning of Christ's return.

And it's written to them here in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 1. It says, But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.

For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

Verse 3, For when they say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape. The writer here is telling you, when it comes to thinking about when it's going to happen, the times and the seasons, you don't even have a need of it to be written to you. Because you know that that day is going to come like a thief in the night. It's going to catch people by surprise. It's going to be unexpected. Verse 3 indicates that that person is actually claiming peace and safety. They're thinking, all is well, all is well, and then bam, they're robbed.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, comes Christ's return. Now, Harold Camping actually uses the next verse in this series as part of his proof, because this is one of the main reputations that people use. They say, but wait, it says no one can know the date of the time. He says, oh, of course we can. Take a look at 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 4. This is his claim. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day should overtake you as a thief. You're all sons of light and sons of the day. We're not of the night, nor of the darkness. Well, his claim is that because we're not of the darkness, we have the ability to discern the exact date and time, whereas those that are not are therefore not able to.

You know, we've been given signs of Christ's coming. All of that prophecy in Matthew 24 gives a list of the things that have to occur before his return. Some of those things we've seen, some of those things we have not seen. In other words, God has shown us the basics. We're no longer in darkness in that way. We haven't been given the exact date, but we've been shown the light of Christ's teachings. You know, there are some in the world who are in complete darkness when it's going to come to Christ's return. You know, they're going to see the lights in the sky and go, huh? What's going on? Have no idea at all. They don't have an understanding of events. You know, we've been blessed to be given access and understanding to the book. You know, there's mentions in there, just like the people of Jesus' time knew that summer was coming soon after the victory leaves butted. They didn't know the exact day, okay? But they knew that it was coming, because there were certain events that precluded that. We know we have a general time frame. We know that certain events have to happen first, but again, that exact date and time is an impossibility. In fact, let's turn over to Matthew 24, verse 36 real quick. We're going to spend a little bit of time in and around Matthew 24. So Matthew 24, verse 36, in fact, titled under my Bible of a title that says, no one knows the day or the hour. Verse 36 says, but of that day and hour no one knows not even the angels of heaven but my Father only.

Okay? Not even the angels of heaven but only the Father. So we can't know the date and the time. God's going to enact it according to his plan when he feels that it's time. So if we can't know the date and the time, then what can we do? What can we do? Let's pop back to 1 Thessalonians 5, 6 real quick. I should have had you keep your finger in there. I'm sorry. But 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 6 and we'll see what we can do. 1 Thessalonians 5, 6 says that therefore let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

You know, we in the church, we pride ourselves on our watching. You know, we do. We keep very, very close track of world events. You know, you ask people in the church what's going on and, you know, most of you guys probably saw that Obama and Netanyahu have gone head to head this week. You know, it's an interesting, interesting turn of events in the Middle East. But we do. We keep track of world events. We keep a really close eye on the Pope. Watch that guy like a hawk. What's he doing? What's the Catholic Church doing? We keep an eye on the European Union. We read between the lines in the Mideast peace process. We watch China. We watch Russia. You know, in short, we're looking for those signs of the end of the age that Christ talked about. And there's a good thing. And there's a good reason why we watch things. And it's so that when someone comes along and claims that Judgment Day is May 21st, 2011, we go, no. No, no, no, no, no. Because this hasn't happened yet. This hasn't... I mean, we don't have an abomination of desolation. Okay? We don't have an end time king of the north, king of the south. We do not have two witnesses, except for the ones that have claimed that they are. I haven't heard any trumpets. What about you guys? We don't have a mark of the beast, unless it's Facebook. You know, the list goes on. But we know that there are a lot of these things that have to happen first. We're given the signs of the times in Matthew 24 for that reason, because we have to keep track and we have to watch. So we do watch. But there's another aspect of watching that's actually more important than knowing the events and knowing the timing. There's a very much more important aspect of watching. There's a parallel scripture to 1 Thessalonians 5. I told you we'd be in Matthew 24. Again, we're just hopping back and forth, my apologies. But let's go back over to Matthew 24, and we are going to take a look at verse 42 in this case. So Matthew 24 verse 42. We're going to read three scriptures there down to verse 44.

And it's essentially a parallel scripture to what was written in 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 2. But Matthew 24 verse 42 says, Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. Same story. We don't know. We don't have the timing to an exact date and time. Camping's got it down to 559 and 59 seconds on May 21st, 2011. That much precision. He's an engineer, what can we say? Verse 43, But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. The word watch in both of these instances, if you look it up in Strong's, is the Strong's word 1-1-2-7. It's pronounced Gregor-you-o, which translates actually a little bit more appropriately in this section from watch to be vigilant. It actually has to do with vigilance. So instead of reading as watch, maybe a more appropriate reading would be, be vigilant, for you know not on what day your Lord comes, for if the master of the house had known what watch the thief was coming, he would have been vigilant and not suffered his house to be broken into. Changing the word watch to vigilant makes these passages make more sense, gives you the additional context. You can't watch a thief. They are by nature sneaky. You can't stay up 24 hours a day and just wait. You don't have that ability. So the vigilance comes in. You know, you're not going to look out your window and see the guy coming down the road and think, all right, well he's burglarized in the Wazowski's place down the road. It'll take about 15 minutes. He'll be here in 20 minutes. I'm going to go and stand at the entryway of the bat. You can't do that. We don't have that ability. So we have the ability, though, to be vigilant. We do have the ability to be vigilant because a good thief, you could be in the house and not know you even got robbed with a good thief. Somebody that really knows what they're doing, you could be upstairs and you come down and your stuff's gone. You just don't have the capability to quote-unquote watch. So we do need to be vigilant, but what are we vigilant about?

Well, brethren, we have to be vigilant in our preparation. We have to be vigilant in our preparation. There was a show on television a while back. We got the Discovery Channel for a little while. It was like happiness in our house. We don't have television now. There's a reason we don't because I think I watch Discovery Channel like 24 hours a day for the time that we had it.

There was a show on, and I think it was on Discovery now that I said that. I don't know that it was, to catch a thief. Have you guys ever seen that show? Okay, so the whole premise of the show, the whole premise of the show, a former cat burglar that had done prison time and part of the deal when he got out, he was going to go out and help people not get robbed was his whole idea.

But he would begin the show by breaking into the house of the people who signed up for the show. And this guy pulled no punches, man. He'd bash out windows. I mean, he would throw stuff from the out. He'd break them down with shovels, whatever, climb right in, steal everything they had worth any kind of money, and out the door he went. Most of the time he stole one of their cars to drive all the stuff away with.

And people come home, and he'd never tell him when he was going to do it. They signed up for the show. They were told you were selected. That was it. And then one day they come home, and their stuff is gone. And so part of that was they wanted to have the people have that sort of feeling of what it meant to be burglarized. But then as part of the show, what happens when it was done is he'd go back and help them retrofit their house and set their house up so that in the future that couldn't happen again.

And then it would culminate with him trying to break back into the house with all the new security features and everything added. Ironically, most of the time he was still able to get back in because people would have all these wonderful security alarms and systems and then leave a window unlocked and the security system off. So, you know, human nature at its finest. But it's interesting that the equipment and the advice from house to house was pretty much the same. There were certain things that people would do that would allow them to be more vigilant than others.

You know, people that don't want to be robbed lock their doors. They own a big barking dog or a really small yipping dog. Okay, something that's going to make some noise. They install motion sensing lights, fences, pit traps. Okay, maybe not pit traps. But you know the standard. If you don't want to get robbed, there are things that you do beforehand to prevent that.

They prepare themselves for the thief because they have no idea when that thief is going to show up. They can't watch 24 hours a day. They know that he's going to be there when they least expect it. So they got to be ready. Let's take a look at Matthew 25. It's probably just across the page in most of your Bibles, if not the same page. But Matthew 25, we're going to start right there in verse one. We're going to take a look at the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.

So page... oh, page. Oh, the page is in mine. 872 in mine. I don't know about yours. But Matthew 25 verse 1 says, "...then shall... or then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard, Behold, the bridegroom is coming, go out to meet him.

Then all the virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered, saying, No, lest there not be enough for us and you, but go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut.

Afterward the other virgins came also saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Assuredly I say to you, I do not know you. In verse 13 of Matthew 25, Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.

Take a look back at verse 5 for a second. Reread verse 5 for a second. Does that constitute watching in our sense of the Word? If we think about watching, does that constitute watching? Absolutely not. All 10 of them were cold asleep. It says they all slept. They all slumbered. Nobody was staying up with how to watch posted. Rather than watching, they had been prepared. They had done what they needed to do, and all they had to do now was wait. That's all they had to do now, was wait that the announcement had arrived and they could head out to meet him. You know, oil in the Bible is a common symbol for the Holy Spirit. If we read further into the analogy, these five wise virgins had mentally and spiritually prepared themselves, nurtured their levels of the Holy Spirit, and lived their lives in God's way, were so fully prepared for Christ's coming that they didn't need to watch for the indications of his arrival. They didn't need to see them coming. They were already ready. It didn't matter if he came in the next hour, eight hours into the night, they would just simply get up, trim the wicks, and head outside. That was it. While the foolish virgins who had procrastinated didn't have themselves prepared, were scrambling at the last minute to make themselves ready.

Brother God doesn't provide a date or a time so that his people don't have the option to procrastinate.

If we had a date and a time, we could put it off until the last minute. You know, camping was talking about on one of his interviews that people had to accept Christ and be saved. A typical story of how you're saved in some of the mainstream churches. What if somebody waits until May 21st at 559 in 49 seconds and then says, I believe! But all day at May 21st, he's out looting stores. It's insane. You can't procrastinate.

If you know when something's coming and you have a deadline or a paper due in college, you have the ability to put it off. I know because I did it a lot. I was a terrible procrastinator in college and that hasn't really changed much. But if your professors at school told you that you had a paper due coming up, you had a paper due, they weren't going to tell you the exact due date. But what was going to happen was you had to have this assignment done first, then this assignment, and then sometime in the week after that assignment, I'm going to collect it, but I'm not going to tell you when. I'm just going to collect it. Okay, most wise students probably would have that assignment done when the second assignment was due, just because then the next one's coming. But if you tell me that it's due on August 31st at eight o'clock in the morning, there's a good chance I'm finishing that puppy up at August 31st at 7 30. Okay, there's a really good chance of that. And that's exactly what God doesn't want us to do. He wants us to be growing, to be actively working, to make the changes in our lives that are going to be lasting, that are leading to his way of life, and making them today, not down the road when we feel like the time is getting even closer. So the question I've got for you today is, what if, what if tonight was the return of Christ? Now, it's not. I'm not saying that at all. But what if?

Are you ready? Are you prepared? Do you have your oil? Do you have your lamp? Are you a wise virgin or a foolish virgin? I'll freely admit, I don't feel like I'm ready yet. Okay, I don't feel like I'm ready yet. And I would venture a guess that most of you are probably saying the same thing. In fact, most people that would just say, absolutely, I've done all the growing I need to do are probably lying to themselves. Harold Camping has no doubt in his mind. Well, as of writing this, he had no doubt in his mind. It's been going on in every time zone around the world since about 1130 last night. So he may be having some doubt at this point. But he had no doubt in his mind that he was going to be raptured. In fact, one of the questions in the interview was asked him, do you know for sure whether you personally will ascend to heaven on May 21st? His response, oh yes, I'm very convinced because I found in my life for a very long, long time an intense, ongoing desire that I just want to do God's will and the Bible has become super important to me. And so I do believe I'll be caught up when that time comes around in California. I came across this actually last night. It's kind of interesting. Even though he's pretty certain of his own ascension, apparently he has some doubts for some of the individuals he works with.

I downloaded this letter actually from Family Radio International that he wrote to his employees of the radio station. And I won't read you the whole thing. There's only one section that's real good. It says, here we go, the last paragraph, so as I bid you farewell, may you steadfastly continue to stand with us to proclaim the gospel through family radio. And may we all be challenged and encouraged by God's word as we read in Jude 1.21. And so the commentary that came with the letter is some of his employees, the employees said there's about 85 percent of them that work at Family Radio that don't think it's going to happen. And so they were saying, you know, that he felt like he was going to be raptured and there were going to be some of the people that worked for him that just weren't. And so this was his farewell letter to them.

Think for a second. What does tomorrow hold for herald camping? What does tomorrow hold?

Absolutely certain that at 559 in 59 seconds tonight that he's going to be whisked rather away to meet his Lord. Is he going to lose his faith? Is this going to be a deal breaker? You know, horribly macabre, but I mean, in these kind of situations before, is he going to drink the Kool-Aid? You know, I mean, this kind of stuff has happened in the past. And that was one of my biggest concerns when I started hearing about this, is, you know, the Heaven's Gate groups and some of these other groups that have happened in the past. But what now? Does he just sit and wait at this point or recalculate? It's very possible there's not a recalculation. But, you know, we know, and we know very well that we need to continue growing right up to the point of Christ's return. You know, it's not as simple as believing and being saved. We have to work at it. And we know we don't earn our salvation. We recognize it as a gift. But nevertheless, we need to be working to become more Christ-like. There are certain expectations that come with our gift. How can we ensure that we are growing and that we're ready when Christ does return? What it really comes down to is, where is our focus and where is that focus placed? Let's take a look at Colossians 3, verse 1. Over to Colossians 3, verse 1.

Colossians 3, verse 1 says, If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, and you will also appear with Him into glory.

We have to set our mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on this planet. Actually, the word translated, set your mind there, is the Greek word phrenio, that translates to what we interest oneself in. Set your mind on the things above. It's interest yourself in the things above. Our interests need to be on the things that are above, not the things here on earth. One of the most fleeting aspects of our lives is time. It seems like there is just simply not enough of it in the day to get done everything that needs to get done. Is it because there isn't enough time, or is it because the time that we do have is used for things that just really aren't all that important in some times?

A couple of the commentaries actually go as far as saying that all things aside from prayer and Bible study on this planet are a complete waste of time. That only the study of God's word is necessary in your life. The reality of being ambassadors in this world is that it's not entirely feasible. We have to be in the world while not being a part of the world. To an extent, we can't advocate for that kind of imbalance. But we do need to make sure that the things we are doing doesn't detract from our spiritual growth. It doesn't just steal our time. I'm a Facebook person. I am. And that's something I have got to stop doing so much.

Really, truly. Insane how much time you can eat up all of a sudden. It's incredible how much time. And there's distractions all over the place. There's distractions everywhere. The new big thing with my generation is the video game movements, and it still is a big thing. But that's time you never get back. It's time you never get back. So we have to make sure we're using our time extremely wisely. Let's go over to Matthew 6. Let's take a look at Matthew 6.

We'll take a look at Matthew 6 and we'll look at verse 19. Matthew 6 verse 19 says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

You know, we have to be so careful that we're not spending all of our time trying to lay up treasures here on earth. Spending so much on the physical and not as much on the spiritual. You know, we have a problem in the United States. This materialism of the U.S. This the pursuit of stuff. You know, and you start looking at... I have a really good friend who's currently in the process of switching jobs. So he's actually going from teaching here in the U.S. and he's going to be moving over to Bangkok, Thailand, teaching English over there. And he says it's been really interesting to be going through his house and looking at all of this stuff that he's accumulated in the last 20 years and going, not important, not important, not important. He goes, I've gotten it down to like, you know, like three suitcases that I legitimately need of things in my life. It's insane how much stuff he's managed to accumulate. And I think, you know, we're the same way. We're the same way. So we do need to make sure that our focus isn't always and primarily on the physical. We do need to make sure that we're focusing on the things that are spiritual. And that has to do with what we're seeking, where our primary focus lies. Let's pop over to Romans 8. Romans 8, and we'll check out verse 5. Romans 8 verse 5 tells us where our mind needs to be and where our focus primarily needs to be. So Romans 8 verse 5 starts out saying, For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Paul here goes as far as telling us the physical things that we focus on are absolutely just that. They're physical. They lead to death. The physical focus, those lusts of the flesh, we've talked about those before, but all of those physical distractions aren't leading us in the right direction. In fact, the detracting from where our focus needs to be.

We have to make sure that our focus is in one place, and that is at the spiritual point of things. There's an example of someone whose mind was only on the physical. Let's go over to Genesis 25.

Esau had a very physical mind at one point in his life, focused primarily upon his own survival. Go over to Genesis 25. We'll start in verse 29. Genesis 25 verse 29 says, Now Jacob cooked a stew, and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary.

He's already thinking physically. He's hungry. He's fatigued. He's tired.

Esau said to Jacob, Please feed me with some of that same red stew, for I'm weary, and therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob, ever the entrepreneur, says, Hey, sell me your birthright. As of this day, I'll give you some soup. Sell me your birthright.

Esau said, Look, I'm about to die. So really, what is this birthright to me? Jacob said, Swear to me as of this day. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. And here's what he got for it. Bread, a stew of lentils. He ate, he drank, he arose, and he went his way. All of it for the physicality of that moment and that time.

I can't imagine being so hungry I'd be willing to give up my inheritance, but he must have been in that place. I'm not going to judge him on that, and I wasn't there. You know, I don't know how much it was, but his focus was on the physical, and it cost him big time. Custom is inheritance.

You know, this life is not all there is. It's a trial run. It's a chance to work within an imperfect shell to achieve as close to perfection as we're capable of by the end. All along the way, we're expected to be growing, and we're expected to be making the necessary changes, and ever edging ever closer to that gold standard. You know, Luke 12, 37 says, Blessed is the servant who, when his master comes, find him so doing. Not so done, but so doing, implying current action. Still doing what he's supposed to be doing. Growing, okay? Growing and doing what he needs to do. It's a constant process. It's a process we're always undergoing right up until the very end. We can't ever find ourselves so satisfied that we just say, Well, I've achieved my full measure of perfection, and I'm done. Are you ready? If not, what does it take to get to that point? You know, May 21, 2011, we'll come and go, just like any other day in history, just like the date of October 22, 1844, with the Millerites. And likely, when Harold Camping awakens Sunday morning, he will likely face more ridicule than any other date setter in history. And I was thinking about this this morning. He really is the first date setter of the internet age. He's the first one to have done this, where the blogosphere just exploded over this. And so everyone and their dog is talking about this thing. And tomorrow morning, the rest of that internet, those that saw that it didn't happen, are going to have a heyday attacking his beliefs, his organization, and anyone found quote-unquote dumb enough to follow him. The simple fact of it is, and if you've been around the internet at all, you know this, that hell hath no fury as the internet when someone is found to be wrong. There is absolutely no mercy when it comes to someone finding somebody's inaccuracies and things on the internet. You know, we as Christians are blessed to know that there will be a day when Christ returns, and we pray that it happens very, very, very soon as we see this world going even quicker and quicker towards those events of Matthew 24, Daniel and Revelation. They're all starting to fall into place. Each year it gets closer and closer, but it is most certainly not today. It is most certainly not today. You know, before this May 21st business had kind of come up, I've always had a difficult time seeing how a false prophet could establish themselves, especially on the world scene. You know, we've had false prophets in the past. You know, David Koresh, Jim Jones, some of these guys that managed to trick, you know, groups of people to follow them, but it was never mainstream. Everybody kind of went, yeah, those guys, these guys are crazy, but not the whole world, not the mainstream. I'm starting to starting to see how this can happen now. Starting to see with the hubbub that came, just imagine for a second. I'm not saying this is going to happen, but imagine for a second. Makes this prediction completely ridiculed, you know, completely ridiculed. What if tonight at 6 p.m. Pacific Standard Time in the Bay Area, San Francisco, Oakland, there is a massive earthquake?

What if, however that happens, Harold Camping disappears? Some of his followers, disappear. Whether they're buried in the rubble, whether they take off and run for the mountains? Don't know. Does that idea now have some traction? It does. It does. I mean, there are a good number of people who are skeptics at that point that were vilifying who might go, huh, well, that's interesting. You know, it didn't happen on the world scale like he said, but that's interesting. And suddenly now you have a totally different circumstances of events that end up leading to a lot of people believing in this guy where he had no credibility before. Not saying that's going to happen, but one of those things that you could see how if somebody makes these claims and then accompanies it by signs and wonders and things, people are going to sign on in droves. And that's how it ends up mainstream. Okay? And some of those false prophets that use those signs and wonders are said to even deceive the elect, even to deceive those of God's people that know better. Yes, we have to be on guard for that. We have to watch. So brethren, as important as it is to watch the events falling into place so that we don't find ourselves deceived, it is even more important for us to be vigilant in our preparations for Christ's return. We need to ensure that when Christ does return, like a thief in the night catching us all by surprise, that all we have to do is wake up, trim the wicks, and step outside to join in the marriage and the glory of our Lord.