First of all, hopefully Harold Camping has learned not to trifle with the word of God as he has done for so long. He was wrong about September 1994, and he was wrong about May 21, 2011. How many wrong predictions does a man have to make before he and his followers realize that his predictions never entered the mind of God?

That leads me to the next lesson that I hope has been learned from all of this: I hope that those who have followed him—believed him, hung on his every word as though he had the secret key to unlock the mysteries of Christ’s return, given up so much to follow a false prophet’s false message—that they will turn from this man and support him no longer.

Having said that, I must admit that all of this May 21 teaching has actually taught me something, too. It has made me realize that I have been guilty of forgetting about the Second Coming of Christ almost completely over the years. It was not until recently, with all this May 21 Judgment Day talk, that I have actually thought about end times and Christ’s return more than I have in a long time. That does not justify Harold Camping’s irresponsible method of interpreting the Bible and leading so many astray—not by a long shot—but it certainly does make me ask myself: Have I pushed the Second Coming of Christ so far from my mind that it takes a false prophet who sets a wrong date for Christ’s return to make me think about the end? Apparently so. And shame on me for that.

It is certainly easy to do. It is easy to reason, “Well, Jesus didn’t come back last month, so he won’t come back next month. And Christ did not return last year, so he probably won’t return next year, either. For that matter, he has not returned in the past decade, so he probably won’t come back in the next decade, either….” That is no excuse, though. Christ plainly and strongly commanded his disciples to watch and to be ready. That means living for the kingdom of God faithfully and looking eagerly for Christ’s return, as is made clear by the following passage:

”Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:45–51, ESV)

Clearly, then, followers of Christ are to be serving Him faithfully and consistently and avoiding the pitfall of complacency. What a danger there is in growing lackadaisical and complacent. Such an attitude can cause us to lapse into a life of sin like the wicked servant in this passage. Woe to us if that happens because, just as with the wicked servant, the Lord might take us by surprise, exposing us as hypocrites whom He never knew.

But this has also made me realize something else: I haven’t heard the return of Christ preached much in church pulpits. The topic of the end times seems to be rarely addressed in church sermons, at least in my experience. But why? Has the emphasis been placed so much on our “best life now” that we don’t think about end times anymore? Have sermons been so focused on improving our present lives and solving our current problems that there has been no room for looking forward to the end? If that is the case, we need to take Paul’s exhortation to the Colossians very seriously:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 1–4, ESV)

What is ironic is that focusing on the end times can have a dramatic impact on our present lives. Peter wrote to Christians it was their very knowledge of the end of the world that should have an impact on their lives in the present, spurring them on to great holiness in light of the dire events that will occur at the end:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:10–13, ESV, emphasis added)

Camping was wrong, but the frenzy of concern about the end that he stirred up should make us examine what place the return of Christ really has in our hearts. Shouldn’t we be lovingly expecting his return, anticipating it greatly and eagerly? Indeed we should, and shame on us if we have not been doing so. We should be living every day with the same fervent expectation of Christ’s return as Camping’s followers did on May 21. Every day for Christians should be a sort of “May 21, 2011.”