Harold Camping Oct. 21 Rapture: Says He's Sure This Time
Harold Camping says he's sure the world is going to end on Friday.
The radio preacher initially predicted that doomsday would occur on May 21, and believers would ascend to heaven, leaving the rest of the world to perish.
The world didn't end on May 21 but Camping says God warned us that day, and that the “spiritual judgment” came at that time.
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"What really happened this past May 21st? What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God's salvation program would be finished on that day. For the next five months, except for the elect (the true believers), the whole world is under God's final judgment," the Family Radio Web site offered an official interpretation.
The Family Radio president said that end of the world is now certain.
"We can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on Oct. 21, 2011," he says.
Camping bases his prediction on two passages from the bible. One where God tells Noah that he will bring a flood in seven days, and the other stating that for God, a day is like a thousand years; Camping thinks the world will end exactly 7000 years after the flood.
The preacher's prediction had a pernicious effect on some of his devout followers who emptied their pockets and donated items to organizations. Camping offered no apologies to his followers when his prediction was spurious, saying the choice was between themselves and God.
Camping said neither he nor his company would give any money back to the followers for his May premonition saying "We're not at the end. Why would we return it?"
Camping says that if you weren't among those saved by May 21 it’s too late.
On May 21, "each and every true believer had become eternally safe with God in Heaven" and "no one who had not become saved by that date can ever become saved."
Camping suffered a stroke in June and turned 90 on July 19.
