In 2025, much speculation about the rapture emerged, driven by a South African pastor named Joshua Mhlakela. In June 2025, during an interview with the YouTube channel CettwinzTV, Mhlakela claimed to have had visions of Jesus’s return on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and stated that the dates of September 23–24, 2025 were when the rapture would occur.

Mhlakela’s prophecy quickly went viral as accompanied by the hashtag #RaptureTok, with individuals making different posts discussing selling possessions, quitting their jobs, leaving notes, and theorizing on what would happen to those not “raptured,” etc.

How People Are Responding to Rapture Prediction?

• Some believers are taking this prediction seriously, and preparing themselves, spiritually and materially, for this event.
• Others are skeptical or dismissive of the predictions, pointing out the history of failed future rapture predictions.
• Many content creators are using a mix of sincere, satirical, and comedic approaches to comment on this occurrence.
• Psychologists are voicing concern over “rapture anxiety,” a type of religious distress that is caused by the perpetual speculation about end time events.

Skepticism, Biblical Warnings, and Lessons from History

Biblical View: “No One Knows the Day or the Hour”

One of the most frequently cited counterarguments is, in fact, Jesus’s own words:

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” (Matthew)

This is often used to argue that humans have no way to accurately predict the “due date.”

Will the Rapture Happen in 2025?

The short answer is no credible evidence supports this assumption, if one even believes the concept.

• Mhlakela is referring to a speculative prediction based on someone’s visions rather than verification of prophecies.
• The Bible explicitly teaches that the exact time of end things or end times is unknown.
• Aside from the historical evidence of the failed date setting, timelines simply generally fail, believers generally just recalibrate instead of pulling away or without a follow-up prognostication.

Even now, after the September 23–24, 2025, Christian commentators and fact-finding ministries have already called it yet again, predicted authoritatively, and through studying and interpreting human evidence, unlikely to happen.

Has the Rapture Been Predicted Before?

Yes, many times. In the history of the Rapture or the Second Coming, individuals and religious leaders have tried to predict the exact day that the event will occur.

For example:

• Harold Camping, a radio evangelist, predicted the Rapture would occur on September 6, 1994.
• When that date came and went with no Rapture, Camping changed the date to May 21, 2011. When nothing happened again, he changed the date to October 21, 2011.
• In 2017 numerologist David Meade predicted the Rapture would happen, as it was based on planetary alignments it would be cloudy.
• There were other anticipated years, like 2000 (in conjunction with the Y2K fears, as well as inspired by the Left Behind books) and 2012 (inspired by the Mayan calendar).

None of the predictions have happened.

What if there is no Rapture?

Typically most of the time when these dates come and go, some leaders will just adjust their dates again. In some cases, they want to act as thought it’s their visions or attempts at a new interpretation. Others, they just make excuses for the event not happening.

But some folks may have experienced psychological consequences from missing the Rapture, which we would call “rapture anxiety.” E.g., the trauma of worrying about missing the event, typically the belief itself, is it’s always there with no mental rest or experience outside the parameters of Rapture avoiding bad things.

Conclusion

The Rapture, and an apocalyptic crisis fascinate, and terrify little kids, and people for the previous centuries. Even many Christians believe that it is in the spirit of true Christianity, and no one exists than can know the day or hour of Christ’s return.

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