Of course I clicked on it. What with the McNamera story I had visions of Gil the Surfer in Niven and Pournel's apocalyptic sci-fi novel Lucifer's Hammer. Gil is a character in that novel who fills out the Sci-fi trope known as "Dying Moment of Awesome" when he surfs out a tsunami created by a cometary impact, only to be swatted out of the sea by a skyscraper.
Turns out the ad was for Ronald Weinland who believes:
His apocalypse page is found at the-end.com.May 27, 2012, is the time that I have stated as being the date Jesus Christ will return as King of kings over all government on this earth. For such an event to come to pass, the Trumpets of Revelation must all sound, the United States and dollar collapse, the ten nations of Europe arise to fulfill the final revival of the Holy Roman Empire, and Russia with China must unite against Europe in WWIII.
Weinland is associated with a group called The Church of God. The Church of God is a Millenialistic group following H.W.Armstrong and his Millerite views (not just the end of the world, but requiring the observance of Old Testament holy days) , and the views of Alexander Hislop (Read the section from TCoG page on Pagan Origins).
The Church of God runs the website titled biblical-truth.com where their doctrine is presented in a more organized way.
Weinland and The Church of God are the descendants of Herbert W. Armstrong's "Worldwide Church of God" which published the magazine "The Plain Truth" and had been non-Christian (non-Trinitarian) up until after H.W. Armstrong's death in 1986.
They believe that water baptism by immersion is a required condition for salvation but do not believe that Baptism is a means of grace through which God gives forgiveness. For them, Baptism is merely a law which requires them to show everyone else their faith by the symbolic act of baptism, just another law they are required to obey:
Water baptism is the ordinance ordained of Christ by which we express our FAITH in Christ as Saviour -- our ACCEPTANCE of His death, burial, and resurrection for us, and our repentance of the old life and burial of it, rising to new and higher life henceforth. It is a beautiful ordinance, full of meaning!So, we have a denomination that is nominally Christian in that it appears to acknowledge the Trinity. This denomination denies Scripture's teaching on Baptism and the Lord's Supper as means of God's grace and turns them into works of men. The denomination emphasizes the Mosaic Covenant to the obscuring of Salvation by Grace through Faith in Christ alone. They follow the Millerite doctrine and the delusion of Hilsop's anti-Catholic and anti-Christian attacks on the origins of Christian holidays and liturgical practices. They do not have the Word taught in truth and purity and they have no sacraments. They are not the Church of God as taught by God in the Scripture.
May 27th is just a few days away. Too bad they don't remember "The Great Disappointment" very well.
Sure, God could choose to end the world on that day. But the time is up to God, and He has made it clear that no sinful human knows when He will come again:
36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. 37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Matthew 24)But there is a passage in this same chapter of Matthew that speaks of Wienland, Hilsop, Miller, Armstrong, The Church of God and others like them:
23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand. (Matthew 24)
Weinland is a false teacher based on his teaching about Scripture. His dooms-day prediction is just one facet of that teaching. But this dooms-day teaching is a very clear example of how willing to part from God's written Word.
Just when we appear to be through with Camping, another one crops up.
If Weinland and his group insist on doing according to the Old Testament requirements, let him consider the following from Deuteronomy 18:
20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
Under the New Covenant we no longer stone the false prophet, but he is still clearly labeled a false prophet and avoided. So also should Weinland be considered a false prophet and not heeded.
