At The Time Appointed, The End Will ...

AT THE TIME APPOINTED, THE END WILL BE

Baptist preacher William Miller, founder of the Millerites, announced that Christ would come on March 21, 1843, and when that failed, he proposed a new date of October 22, 1844. In a Philadelphia store window the following sign was displayed: "This shop is closed in honor of the King of Kings, who will appear about the twentieth of October. Get ready, friends, to crown Him Lord of all." A group of 200 people left the city, as Lot had left Sodom before impending doom. Most of the Millerites gave up their occupations during the last days. Farmers left their crops in the fields, as they awaited the coming of Christ. On October 22, Christ never came. Again they set a date that Christ would come in five years, but of course, Christ did not come. Soon after this time, Miller died. Today, his tombstone reads, "At the time appointed, the end shall be."

Prophecy teacher Michael Baxter of England pinpointed the arrival of Christ as March 12, 1903 between 2:30 and 3:00 AM. (Thomas Williamson writes, "Presumably he was using Greenwich standard time, but I don’t really know...")

Retired NASA scientist Edgar Whisenaut published a booklet entitled, "88 Reasons Why the Rapture will Occur in 1988." The booklet sold more than four million copies in a few months and was the center of much discussion—-until the October 11 "target date" came and went with no fireworks. (Whisenaut printed a modified edition of his booklet a few years later, which discussed a few errors which he’d made in his previous calculations and described the 92 Reasons Why the Rapture would Occur in May 1992.)

Charismatic preacher and television personality Benny Hinn predicted that the Rapture would occur in 1993. He also declared that God would destroy all homosexuals in America by 1995.

(From a sermon by Gerald Flury, "You’d Better Get Ready" 1/24/2009)