Question from Website: Are you guys responsible for this end-of-the-world Rapture in May of 2011 message?
Chris: Actually, we are not. We are not, and I am not going to say that Family Radio is responsible. People keep going back to Mr. Camping, but I am not going to say that Mr. Camping is responsible either, because it goes a little bit beyond him. Actually, it goes much beyond him because it goes back to the Lord. It goes to the Lord. God takes full responsibility for the message that we are hearing today, and the Bible tells us this.
This person has more to say and I will come back to it, but let us go to Mark 13, which is the chapter dealing with the Great Tribulation and with information about the end of the world. It says in Mark 13:11:
But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate…
Now this is odd because what does God tell us in the Bible, “Meditate upon these things,” and it is the same Greek word. We are to “meditate upon these things” and “be ready always to give an answer.” Yet here in Mark 13:11, He is saying:
…take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour…
And this is referring to the hour of judgment, which is the Great Tribulation.
Why would the Lord say not to think about this beforehand and do not premeditate or meditate or prepare what you are going to say in that hour? Does anybody know? It is really pretty simple. Why would God give this kind of instruction? He did this because He has sealed up the Word till the time of the end.
Did teachers or theologians listen to what the Lord was saying here in Mark 13:11? No, they did not listen. We know this because you can find all kinds of commentaries on the book of Revelation and on the book of Daniel and Ezekiel, etc., and they developed end-time scenarios. This is why we have pre-mill, post-mill, a-mill teachings. Yet is any of this right? They might have a bit or a piece of it that is correct; but overall, it is wrong.
Why? Because they could not know. This is why they should not have bothered. They were to “take no thought beforehand.” Before “that hour,” they were not to premeditate or try to develop a doctrine of what was going to happen at the end because they would not be able to do so; it was impossible.
Now, let us read Mark 13:11 again:
…but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye…
You know, people would prefer that we do not. People would prefer that we do not bring up annihilation, that we do not talk about Jesus being “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” and that this is when He made payment for sin, that we do not speak of May 21 in 2011 as the date of the Rapture and the beginning of judgment, and that we do not mention five months of torment on earth.
Well, you see, God says to speak it.
…but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye…
“Speak ye”; declare it; share it in whatever way you can. We are always commanded to bring the truths of the Bible, the Gospel truth. We cannot hold back. We have to declare the whole counsel of God. We are commanded to share what we know.
Then in the last part of Mark 13:11, we read:
…that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
I know that there are people who do not want to hear these things. They do not like hearing these things so they blame the ones who are doing the teaching or who are trying to share this. This is who they blame, “You are leading people astray. You are all wrong. You are scaring people. You…You…You…”
They are failing to understand that God sent Jonah into Nineveh and what did Jonah say? “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” and this is a message of “time and judgment.” God is the one who told Jonah, “Preach unto it (Nineveh) the preaching that I bid thee,” and Jonah went and he preached that message exclusively, as far as we know, and the people of Nineveh believed….Jonah? No. Jonah 3:5:
So the people of Nineveh believed God…
Do you believe God? Do these people believe God? They say, “Well, I believe God, but I do not believe you!” But if I or any believer was coming and saying, “I had a dream last night. It was a really exciting and spectacular dream, and May 21 was circled in red in 2011.” Alright, do not believe that. Do not believe that. Or if they were to say, “God spoke to me through thunder,” do not believe that either. We know that since the Bible is completed, God will not speak that way; but God says in Mark 13:11:
…for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
So how does the Holy Ghost speak today? He speaks through the Word, the Bible.
Go to 1 Corinthians 2, because, yes, God speaks through the Bible, but a lot of people use the Bible. A lot of people reference the Word of God. In 1 Corinthians 2:13, we read:
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth…
This is just like Mark 13:11 that tells us that the Holy Ghost will speak, that the Holy Ghost will teach. These two verses are basically saying the same thing. So we do not speak man’s wisdom:
…but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
You see, if we do this right, if we do this correctly and faithfully and we look at these verses and compare them with all of these other verses in the Bible and then we harmonize the final idea or the conclusion—we have to remember to do this—then God says that He speaks and that He teaches.
So here, “in that hour,” God said to all of the churches from hundreds of years to not worry about it or to bother thinking about it because they were not going to know anything about it anyway. “Take no thought beforehand”; but in that hour of the Great Tribulation that we are presently in, God will speak. God, the Lord, will take the responsibility for what is declared at this time through the proper methodology of comparing Scripture with Scripture as the Holy Ghost teaches.
You know, somebody could say, “Alright, here is your conclusion,” and they could do a study comparing Scripture with Scripture or show where we did not do a well-enough job in comparing Scripture with Scripture, that would be something that we would definitely have to look at and receive correction from.
But just to take a couple of verses on the superficial level and say, “No way! There is no way that you can know this. You cannot understand the time of the end,” well, people can say this but they are not approaching the Bible in a proper way and they are not dealing with all of the information that God has unsealed.
Excerpt from Questions from the EBF Website