Is Saturday, May 21 Judgment Day?

Is May 21 the Beginning of the End of the World?

Christian broadcaster Harold Camping has predicted the world will end beginning this Saturday, May 21. The California-based president of Family Radio announced that following the ascent of the faithful into heaven, five months of destruction and torment will take place for sinners, officially ending the universe on Oct. 21, 2011.

Drive down the USA Interstate 5 south on the way to Imperial Beach and you will run into a billboard that reads:

“The Bible Guarantees It. Judgment Day May 21. Cry mightily unto God.”

The same message has been printed on billboards throughout the country by Family Radio, a Christian ministry radio station owned by 89-year-old Harold Camping .

The billboards are used to spread Camping’s prediction that on May 21 Jesus Christ will return to rapture his church, or meet true believers in the sky and bring them to Heaven.

Five months later, Camping said, Oct. 21 will be the end of the world.

He said his predictions are based on a mathematical equation of 7,000 years from the date of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood.

Camping predicted the date of the Rapture through a mathematical formula based on biblical prophecy. MSNBC explains it this way:

“He believes Christ was crucified on April 1, 33 A.D., exactly 722,500 days before May 21, 2011. That number, 722,500, is the square of 5 x 10 x 17. In Camping’s numerological system, 5 represents atonement, 10 means completeness and seventeen means heaven.” This is not the first time Camping has predicted Doomsday, however, meaning that his math is not quite flawless. Camping previously believed the world would end in 1994, but has so far carried on another 17 years without the Rapture or the sinners’ torment.

He is positive as to the date this time, however. He and his followers have taken out ads in Readers Digest, billboards and satellite television, even sending missionaries to spread the word about the Rapture as far away as Asia.

But, while Camping may be making waves, end-of-the-world predictions are old news in the Christian community. In 1844, William Miller predicted the Rapture would occur on October 22, 1844. Some look to the end of the Mayan calendar in December 2012. However, most mainstream Christians put their faith in Bible verses like the one found in Matthew 25:13:

“Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”