Pastor Hammond (Originally published May 21, 2011. Revised June 8, 2021)
In 2011, Harold Camping and his Family Radio network prophesied that “judgment day” would occur on May 21, 2011. Needless to say, Camping was wrong. His unfulfilled prophesies proved that he spoke “the thing which the LORD hath not spoken,” (Deut. 18:22).
Mr. Camping’s departure from the truth is explained, in part, by his decision to resign his church membership in 1988. How does this explain his error? According the Bible, local churches are the “pillar and ground of the truth," (1 Timothy 3:15 ). Without the benefit of correction from fellow church members, Mr. Camping strayed progressively further from Biblical truth. His understanding became so clouded that he began proclaiming false prophesies. What’s worse is that he began to teach other believers that they "should not be part of a local church.” He perpetuated his error by calling others away from the very place where they might be corrected!
Camping wrongly taught believers to depart from the very institution that God has ordained for our instruction and correction! In the New Testament, all ministries are carried-out in and through local church. Paul was sent out by a local church (Acts 13) to plant local churches. Wherever people were saved, they were both baptized into churches and discipled as church members.
The importance of church membership is also seen in the conversion of Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue at Corinth. In Acts 13, Luke records that Paul preached the gospel to Crispus and others at Corinth (18:1-7). As a result of Paul's preaching, Crispus and others believed. (18:8). Crispus was then baptized (Acts 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:14) into the “one body” (i.e. the local church) at Corinth. Paul then remained at Corinth to disciple Crispus and the other new church members for “a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them,"(18:11). Later, Paul also wrote two inspired epistles "...unto the church of God which is at Corinth..." In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul taught the baptized church members to observe the Lord's supper. In all of these facts, it may be observed that Paul had a deep commitment to the Lord’s plan to establish local churches and to edify believers in and through those churches.
For Harold Camping to have called believers out of local churches was to call them out of God’s plan for His people. Camping called believers away from the place where we “…fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit,” (Ephesians 2:21-22). His advise was contrary to the Lord’s command to not be “forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebews 10:25). And Camping called believers out of the only institution through which God desires to be served.
Today, let’s recommit ourselves to maintaining active membership in a good, Bible-believing church. If you're not already in a good church, please visit Long Hill Baptist Church in Trumbull this Sunday.