By Dennis Pollock
In a recent September, thousands of simple-minded, theologically gullible Christians decided that Jesus must come and rapture the church on September 23rd or 24th. Some of them quit their jobs and sold their houses to be unencumbered when Jesus came to take them home. One unique thing about this rapture fanaticism and date-setting was that it became a social media obsession, so much so that it was known as “Rapture-Tok,” apparently because many Rapture-waiters announced and reinforced each other’s beliefs on TikTok. Of course, September has come and gone, and now these fanatics are being forced to either go back to their bosses and beg for their old jobs, or else go out and look for new jobs. It would be interesting to hear how they describe their reasons for resigning from their previous jobs to their new prospective employers.
It apparently began when a South African man, Joshua Mhlakela, who thought of himself as a prophet, announced that Jesus had personally appeared to him seven years earlier and told him that He would return in September of 2025. Somehow, over the course of six months, his thoughts and prediction went viral and were appropriated not only by Africans, but by people all over the world. But, of course, the event never happened. It’s hard to pretend a rapture has occurred when everybody wakes up the next morning in the exact situation they were in beforehand, except perhaps without a job or a car.
One man described the day after the supposed rapture as the worst day of his life, since he had sold his truck to be rapture-ready, and then gave away all his savings to people he felt would still be around afterwards. A young lady made a video just before the anticipated event and said, “I have already transferred the deed to my house. I just need to give this car away. None of this material stuff is going to matter on Tuesday, the 23rd!”
The most pathetic video I have seen concerning this non-event shows a group of several hundred Africans that climbed to the top of a hill to await the Savior. They were shouting and praising and working themselves up to a fever pitch, expecting to be snatched into the air at any time. Eventually they were forced to make the slow, painful trek back home, a sadder and wiser congregation.
Not a New Phenomenon
Young people may not realize it, but setting specific dates for the Rapture has been going on much longer than any of us have been living. In the late 1980’s a man named Edgar Whisenant wrote a booklet titled: “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could be in 1988.” It sold several million copies. I knew a guy who bought the book, believed it, and eagerly waited for September of that year. But he was a little smarter than some of these guys today. Rather than quit his job, he took a week of vacation so he could focus on being squeaky-clean the week that Jesus would come to take him home. And when it didn’t happen, he showed up for work the following Monday without any need to explain himself.
In October 1844, as many as 100,000 Christians gathered on hillsides and in other places waiting to be taken to be with Jesus. A New York Baptist man named William Miller claimed that after deep study of the Scriptures, he was certain that Jesus would return on that day. They were breathlessly and joyously expecting the return of their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When the people from various gatherings waited through the night and experienced nothing more than sleepiness, they sadly made their way home the next morning. This non-rapture became known among Christians as “The Great Disappointment.”
The reality is this: Christian fringe groups and a few from the not-so-fringe have been making predictions about the specific date of Christ’s return for a long time, and so far, they have been proven wrong every single time. You’d think they would learn, but they don’t. They are always in the minority, and we might be tempted to say, “What’s the big deal? Life goes on, and hopefully they are a little wiser and humbler after their experience of being totally wrong.”
“You See!”
To my thinking, it’s a little bigger deal than that. It’s true that no real Christian is going to be thrown out of his or her place of abiding in Jesus, just because a few fanatics made fools of themselves. But sadly, there are those who are not believers who hear of these incidents and use them to justify steering clear of evangelical Christianity. “You see, you see, I told you they were a bunch of idiots!”
Here are a few quick points. First, most Bible-believing Christians did not fall for this nonsense, and they never will. And I’m not talking about sixty percent; it’s more like 99.8 percent. They know full well that Jesus declared: “But as for that day or hour no one knows it—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son —except the Father.” (Mark 13:32). These date-setters try to cover themselves by allowing for a two- or three-day spread, but no real Bible reader is fooled by this.
Second, there really, really, really will come a day when Christ will come and take His church from the earth. When these date-setters announce that God has shown them the exact time, and then it fails to happen, all the non-believers mock and ridicule the notion that Christians believe Jesus will come and snatch them from the earth to be with Him. But that is something every Bible-believing Christian believes. Of course, we believe Jesus will one day come and take us to be with Him – He promised it and Paul affirmed it and gave a few specifics about it. Jesus stated: “I am going away to make ready a place for you. And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too.” (John 14:2-3). And after Jesus ascended to heaven, and the disciples were looking toward the spot from which He left, angels appeared to them saying:
Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven. (Acts 1:11)
Suddenly Caught Up
Later the apostle Paul wrote:
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18)
When will this day happen? We are told we cannot know. It could be today, or it could be several hundred years from now. But we are told to always watch for Jesus. Because, in another sense, when we suddenly exit this life, whether through heart attack, cancer, a car accident, a shooting, old age, or any other way that men and women die, Jesus will have come for us. It pays to be always ready. And so, Jesus tells us, “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.” (Matthew 24:42).
