He’s at it again.

Harold Camping, the Bay Area religious broadcaster who famously — and inaccurately — predicted the end of the world in September 1994, is now convinced that the Lord’s second coming will occur on May 21, 2011.

Camping came to his current conclusion by way of an elaborate mathematical equation that to my nonmathematical eye looks like sheer gobbledygook. (I’ll get my brother Nate, the math whiz, to explain it to me.) Not surprisingly, Camping’s calculations look an awful lot like those he used back in the 1990s to buttress his previous prediction.

As confessed above, I’m no math genius. And I have no knowledge of the date and time of the Lord’s return. But I can say with confidence what I’m about to write:

Camping is wrong. Again.

How can I be so certain? Because, nearly 3,500 years ago, God identified a foolproof means of identifying a false prophet: “And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ — 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” (Deuteronomy 18:21-22).

Therefore, since Camping has “prophesied” previously concerning the Lord’s return, and his “prophecy” proved false — as is demonstrated by the fact that, 16 years later, we’re still here to discuss it — we can be absolutely sure that Camping is presumptuously speaking “the thing which the Lord has not spoken.” We need have no fear of anything this man says.

People have been trying since the time of Christ to forecast His second coming and, along with it, this present world’s end. Their methodologies have varied from science to pseudo-science, from mathematics to mythology, from telescopes to tea leaves. Every single one of these predictions has failed. Again, the proof lies in the fact that the earth and its inhabitants are still intact.

What puzzles me is this: Have none of these self-styled prophets read Jesus’ own words on the subject? The Lord could not have spoken more definitively or plainly than He did in Matthew 24:36-37: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” In case that statement was somehow unclear, Jesus concludes, “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44).

Harold Camping expects Christ to return on May 21, 2011. Christ Himself says that He will come at a time no one expects. Whose words would you rather believe?

God has always said what He meant and meant what He said. I don’t know why people suppose that on this one subject, God varied from that pattern, and did not really mean what He said. Is it possible that Jesus intended to convey the message, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only — and anyone smart enough to figure out the secret clues My Father has hidden”? I don’t believe so. God does not play games.

Throughout the New Testament, the Lord’s coming is compared to that of “a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10). Thieves do not typically call their victims ahead of time and say, “I’m going to rob your house, but I’m not going to tell you when. But here’s an arcane mathematical riddle. If you can figure it out, you’ll know when I’m coming.” Jesus stated specifically the reason that He would do no such thing: “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” (Matthew 24:43; Luke 12:39). There will be no advance warning of the end of the world — God wants it that way.