He might make it a surprise or he may just let the world end when it does. when the sun swallows the earth.

I was listening to NPR the other day. They interviewed Harold Camping briefly and talked about how since Jerusalem has become a nation again, we have had a spike of predictions concerning the end of the world. The Bible tells us we won't be able to know the day but people seem determined to keep trying. I don't know when God is coming but I hope its soon.

Agreed stargazer, and to top that off now not only is Christendom (since we are lumped in with these people in the eyes of many, like it or not) the laughing stock of the world but now I'm seeing people openly question Christ's return and even verbally laying down challenges for God to do something if He exists. This is dangerous ground to tread on and yet they're out there doing it.

Not the first time this has happened. People have been openly questioning Christ's return and laying down challenges for God for hundreds of years. So far, God hasn't stepped up to the plate, so I doubt anyone is too worried.

This won't be the last time, either. For as long as Christianity exists, people will get restless and start doling out predictions for the end of the world. They will be wrong, every time, inevitably, but every disappointment is just a stepping stone to the next.

Now that the whole thing is over, how comes noone seems to be talking about this anymore? Any words from Camping and the like, articles? It seems to have got very quiet about this all of a sudden.

/edit: After some research, I have found exactly 1 article about it.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/22/BAKO1JJIK7.DTL&tsp=1

Well, this year so far has been notable for its disasters, hasn't it? Australia in Dec-January, Christchurch in February, Japan in March... This month we have another Icelandic volcano erupting and what about those tornadoes in Southern USA? A particularly bad one only yesterday.

These aren't trivial things. Nature is awesome and far above us. Then we learn there are planets loose in the galaxy, not just circling stars, or comets that can hit us, just like the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs. The end of the world shouldn't really be trivialised, whatever one believes and however it comes about.

Reepi, here's what Harold Camping had to say when people came up to his door to ask for interviews...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBJSibMTFHM

The other day, I was talking with a friend about the definition of sin (and later the reason for Jesus' death).
She brought up some great questions

First, she asked me to define sin.
I answered, "Sin is going against a command of God - even if the commands are unknown or the rebelling is unintentional".
She replied, "I'd disagree. By the verse in James that says 'He that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.". I'd conclude that sin is a willful transgression, and that a 'sin' and a 'mistake' are two different things".

Next she asked, "So, if sin is what separated us from God in the beginning...what did Jesus accomplish by coming to die for us? What's different now, in other words? What makes humanity's condition BEFORE his death different than AFTER?".
This actually went back to the discussion of sin. I basically said that the death on the cross saved all faithful souls from an eternal death and "vindicated" so-to-speak the faithful souls who died before Christ.

She disagreed: "If mankind was separated from God in the beginning by sin, and the only way they could retain a right relationship with Him was through sacrifices, because they could not have power over sin, then God sent the perfect sacrifice, blameless, to be the final atonement for sin and deliver us from it."
Her main argument was Jesus death was all about power over sin.

She went on, "The keyword in that "All have sinned' is 'have'. We can't be forgiven unless we've done wrong. But I believe that if one asks Him to, He gives them power to turn away from sin. And not to sin again"...."since I've been saved, I can honestly say I've never willfully transgressed against God"..."According to your definition [of sin], I probably have. Well, no, I HAVE".
I replied, "According to my definition, everybody has and will have. Humanity is in constant need of both God and Saviour".

I was wondering if anyone else had some input into these questions that are asked and points that were brought up.

I remember a scripture somewhere in Romans, I think it was, that said that we don't sin unless we know that sin is against the law. So I don't think we can sin without knowing it. Sin is something serious and purposeful, due to the wickedness in our hearts and human nature. It's not something we do accidentally, or something we did because we didn't know any better.

As for the reason why Christ died, I always believed it was to fulfill the Old covenant, and set up the new one. Before, when someone sinned, they had to offer sacrifices, and there was a sort of boundary between us and God I think. But God removed that boundary by sending His Son as a perfect Sacrifice Himself. And now we're saved by Grace through faith, instead of just the slaughtering of an animal on an alter.

~Riella

I remember a scripture somewhere in Romans, I think it was, that said that we don't sin unless we know that sin is against the law.

Yet it also says, in the first chapter of Romans, that the eternal decrees of God are written on our hearts and we suppress the truth in unrighteousness so that all are without excuse.

I agree with your friend by bits, mm.

Yes, God's law is written on our hearts (the natural law which allows us to know that murder is wrong, etc.), but our environment can result in us, through no fault of our own, having a badly formed conscience.

If we have been brought up with nagging and bringing people down as the norm, for example, we will learn to nag and bring people down. That's wrong, but we may not know it because we think that it's normal.

However, if someone confronts us with the truth that our way of life is wrong and we refuse to change, then we are committing sin.

Sin requires:
1) Knowledge that the action is sinful
2) Deliberately performing the action (i.e., can't be an accident, no external force making you sin (no brainwashing))
3) Matter that opposes the natural order that God has created (sin that doesn't, as its object, oppose love of God, such as gossiping or being thoughtless) to grave matter (basically specified in the Ten Commandments and what Jesus answered to the rich young man who asked what he must do to gain eternal life)

These are very difficult questions to grapple with. I am inclined to agree with mm1991. I think we are all sinful and that we need God's forgiveness and will continue to need it even after we have been saved.

Check out Isaiah 64:4-9 to see what our righteousness is to God. That verse tells me that human beings on their best behavior and highest aspirations is still impure in God's presence. And I think that is why Jesus had to come and die. His blood cleanses our hearts that those who accept it can stay alive in God's presence.

"This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Romans 3:22-23 NIV

One of my teachers taught us this in Bible and I'm not sure if I agree with it but its still an interesting concept. That God is in the process of a 3 step purification of the world. The first was through water (the flood) and the next was through blood (Jesus) and the last will be through fire, when this world is destroyed. That's why even after Jesus died, there is still sin and suffering in the world. Because we have one more step to go through.

I don't believe that people are basically good. I think we are all sinful and even after accepting Jesus as our Savior we still need to repent sometimes. There is the story of the rich young man (Luke 18:18-29) who had to the best of his abilities kept all of the commandments but wasn't willing to give up His wealth to follow Jesus. Some could argue that his wealth had become an idol. So there are ways to sin without awareness that you are sinning. *edit* Until God reveals it to you by putting one in a situation where the sin becomes apparent. In the case of the rich man it was when Jesus asked him to give up his wealth. He then had to face how much he valued his money.

I remember a scripture somewhere in Romans, I think it was, that said that we don't sin unless we know that sin is against the law.

Yet it also says, in the first chapter of Romans, that the eternal decrees of God are written on our hearts and we suppress the truth in unrighteousness so that all are without excuse.

That doesn't erase the other scripture though. It must have been put there for a reason. It wouldn't say that people aren't guilty if they don't know, if that was a situation that was impossible. Though the truth of God and His laws are written on our hearts from the beginning, there can still be some parts of the law that we aren't aware of, or parts we misunderstand, or parts we just break without even knowing it. The point I was making was that sin has to be a conscious thing. Not something we do "accidentally".

BTW, did anyone else see that Harold Camping moved the end times date to October?

~Riella

Thanks everyone for your input! Interesting to read!
We are both studying and praying about these issues.
At this time, I still stand by what I said.

Harold Camping predicted the rapture to take place in May and the end of the world to be in October...so I guess now he's saying they will take place at the same time instead? Oy vey.

Harold Camping is unstoppable. Being wrong twice apparently can't change that.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110524/ap_on_re_us/us_apocalypse_saturday

I'm not teaching what I believe, I just say what is written in the bible.

The point I was making was that sin has to be a conscious thing. Not something we do "accidentally".

I don't think it's necessarily something we do---it's something we are. All are fallen sons of Adam and daughters of Eve: we all bear the mark of their sin, and it causes us to suppress God's law, which we know such that our ignorance is willful. It is only through Christ that escape from this vicious cycle is possible.

1) Knowledge that the action is sinful
2) Deliberately performing the action (i.e., can't be an accident, no external force making you sin (no brainwashing))

So what about sins of thought? Coveting, for instance. What about idolatry, which happens in the heart? It's not just our actions that need to be fixed, it's our hearts---they're dead to the things of God and need to be resurrected.