Family Radio will be really, really embarrassed on May 22!

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. -- Matthew 24:36

But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. --Mark 13:32

It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. --Acts 1:7

And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?' When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. --Deuteronomy 18:21-22

Family Radio used to be a fairly benign, garden variety Christian radio station of the "evangelical" persuasion. In the early '90's, Family Radio personality Howard Camping decided- on the basis of the same kind of absurd, arcane eisegesis characteristic of those "evangelicals" who think the Bible is full of secret codes that tell about future events (God apparently being the Author of confusion after all!) that Judgement Day would come in 1994.

Not only did he promote the notion on his radio program, but he actually wrote a book about it. Lo and behold, the world was still around on January 1, 1995. Mr. Camping suffered the same fate as all of those all through the ages who have ignored the clear words of Jesus on the subject and presumed to claim knowledge of what only the Father knows. But the folks at Family Radio haven't learned.

Jesus said quite clearly in the passages above that no one but the Father knows the day or the hour of Judgment Day. I tried to engage a man carrying a Family Radio-sponsored sign advertising the 21st of this month as the day in conversation about these verses. He refused to discuss the matter with me. No wonder; the explaination of the matter on the Family Radio website is absolutely inane.

William Miller, the founder of the Seventh Day Adventists, confidently preached a specific date for the end of the world on several different occasions, each time coming up with an ingenious rationalization for why the world hadn't ended as predicted. Over and over again, fevered enthusiasts have disregarded Christ's words about the unknowability of the day and the hour, only to look very foolish when Jesus didn't return.

Meanwhile, there are vans driving around the Des Moines area advertising the end of the world on May 21st. Apparently people are getting quite exercised about it. I wonder what their explanation will be on May 22, when Jesus hasn't come yet.

And whenever He does come, of one thing we can be sure: it will not be on May 21, 2011. As He Himself said, no man knows the day or the hour.

Not even people with a secret decoder ring.