The enemy within

Image by BFS Man via Flickr

As if Harold Camping’s two failed predictions of the end of the world aren’t enough (one in 1994, and one on 21 May 2011), it has been reported that he has revised his prediction to 21 October 2011.  Perhaps he is hoping that it’s third time lucky.  Atheists have had a field day with Mr Camping’s antics, as evidenced by the thousands of comments on CNN Belief Blog’s posts regarding his predictions.  If Camping has achieved anything, it is to make Christians look stupid.  This in spite of the fact that his views aren’t held by the vast majority of evangelicals.  Along with Camping’s prediction (based on a hidden code that he – and only he – has found in the Bible), Albert Mohler writes that Camping denies the doctrine of hell, has called for an end to evangelism, baptisms, and the observance of the Lord’s Supper.  He has also called for ‘true’ believers to leave their Churches.

Christians would do well to heed the warning that one of the great defenders of evangelicalism, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, gave.  He wrote that, “the greatest enemies of the true Christian faith are not those who are right out in the world militantly persecuting Christianity, or flagrantly ignoring its teaching; but rather those who have a false and spurious Christianity … It is a false and counterfeit Christianity that has always been a hindrance to, and the greatest enemy of, true spirituality.”