Featured SongResponding to Judgment Day Predictions
Home » Blog » GeneralPosted by David L. Ward on May 21st, 2011
In the mid 1990s I used to periodically listen to a radio station in New Jersey founded by Harold Camping called Family Radio. Once I started hearing Camping teach about the Bible and learned of his failed predication that Jesus would return in 1994, I lost interest in listening. This same group has garnered a huge amount of publicity in the past few weeks, making the national media spotlight with Camping's prediction that the new day of judgment was today, May 21st, 2011.
While much biblical prophecy about the end of the world is clouded by culturally removed symbolism, all evangelical, "Bible-believing" Christians agree that Judgment Day is real. As Jesus said in Mark 13:32, "concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." The world will be destroyed and re-made, but not even Jesus knows the specific time of His return. Amazingly, Harold Camping thinks that he has come to understand the living Word of God better than the Word Himself (Jesus is called the "Word" in John chapter 1).
Predictions of a judgment day have been taking place for all of recorded history. Why? Let me suggest that it may be in part due to residual memory from the worldwide judgment that came upon the earth several thousand years ago - the great flood of Noah. Mankind has experienced the wrath of God unleashed upon the earth, and since our conscience testifies to us that there is such a thing as an objective morality, deep down we know that we deserve judgment from a holy and just God because of our disobedience. We all know it's coming, and for some that unsettling fear influences them to follow lunatics like camping even though their teaching is illogical and fantastical.
Even though Camping's prediction was wrong, let's be thankful for the attention to Judgment Day that he has brought to the entire world. Judgment Day is coming, and since no one knows when, we should call our friends and family to repent and humbly seek God's mercy while there is still time. Let's also strive to live holy lives, standing on the platform of grace, remembering with sobriety that this world and the things in it are temporary. Let's not put our hope in earthly treasure, but in heavenly treasure.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. -- 2 Peter 3:10-13
John Newton wrote a fantastic hymn text about the final judgment which I've adapted to fit the tune of "Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted."
Here is the song post
Here are the lyrics:
Day of judgment, day of wonders,
Hear the trumpet’s awful sound;
Louder than ten thousand thunders,
Shakes the vast creation round!
At His call the dead shall waken,
And shall rise from earth and sea;
All creation will be shaken,
Sinners from His wrath shall flee.
See the Judge our nature wearing,
Clothed in majesty divine!
Those who long for His appearing
Then shall say, “This God is mine!”
But the ones who have neglected
Christ, the Son of God and man,
Shall cry out, yet be rejected,
“Hide us from the mighty Lamb!”
Horrors past imagination
Will surprise the sinner’s heart
When he hears the condemnation,
“Stranger, from My face depart!”
But to those who have received Him,
Loved and served the Lord below,
He will say, “Come near, my children,
See the kingdom I bestow.”
