Harold Camping
Harold Camping Reuters

Those who subscribe to the words of Harold Camping -- the end of the world prophet -- may want to live large in the next 48 hours.

Camping said the end of the world is probably coming on Oct. 21 -- in just two days.

The 90-year-old Camping, who had predicted that Judgment Day would come on May 21, said in an announcement on his Family Radio Network Web site that he stands by his present prediction that the end of the world will come on Friday.

Camping gained national attention earlier this year when he predicted massive earthquakes and God's judgment on May 21. He said that event would be followed by months of torment on Earth for all of those left behind.

By making calculations based on numerical codes from the Bible, Camping has computed the date for the end of the world in its totality as Oct. 21.

Shortly after his May 21 prediction seemingly failed to materialize, Camping suffered a stroke. However, he has continued to spread claims that the end of the world is near and that his May 21 prediction wasn't really wrong. Camping said after the May 21 nonevent that the earthquakes he predicted actually occurred -- it's just that he now says, instead of shaking the Earth, God shook mankind with fear.

All of mankind was shaken with fear. Indeed the Earth (or mankind) did quake in a way it had never before been shaken. God had come spiritually to bring judgment upon the whole world, Camping writes on his Web site.

Based in Oakland, Calif., Camping also notes that since Judgment Day has passed, God is no longer saving souls. He -- not God but Camping -- suggests it's too late to do anything now, but wait for the end of the world, though he says some, without their knowledge, may have become saved before May 21.

What really happened this past May 21? Camping writes. What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God's salvation program would be finished on that day. For the next five months, except for the elect (the true believers), the whole world is under God's final judgment. To accomplish this goal God withheld from the true believers the way in which two phrases were to be understood. Had He not done so, the world would never have been shaken in fear as it was.

And now, Camping said, the end is near for the world.

Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011, on the last day of the present five months period, Camping writes. On that day the true believers (the elect) will be raptured. We must remember that only God knows who His elect are that He saved prior to May 21.