Pastor claims the Rapture is just hours away as he announces new date for Jesus’s return

By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

Published: 11:45 EDT, 12 October 2026 | Updated: 12:43 EDT, 12 October 2026

A pastor claims that the biblical end of days is just hours away, with millions of Christians allegedly set to vanish from Earth.

Pastor Joshua Mhlakela, a South African preacher, claimed a series of visions from Jesus has led him to the true date of the doomsday event known as the Rapture – which he calculates as being between October 12 and 13.

According to Christianity, the Rapture marks the Second Coming of Jesus and Judgment Day for non-believers.

The prophecy draws on 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, which describes the faithful dead rising and being gathered with living believers to meet Jesus in the air. No date is given, and Matthew 24:36 says no one knows the day or hour of his return.

Mhlakela, however, has repeatedly predicted the Rapture since September 2025, pushing the date back each time his prediction failed to materialize.

He recently went public with what he called his ‘final’ Rapture prediction, stating that his alleged divine encounter revealed a calendar error, pushing doomsday from September into October.

Mhlakela previously sent social media into a panic when he predicted the Rapture would take place on September 23, 2025, convincing scores of Christians who viewed his warnings online to sell their homes and cars and even quit their jobs.

Mhlakela said during a livestream early Monday morning: ‘In these last moments before we see the Rapture, even now the Lord is still willing to save a soul. Those who are willing, come now. He’s calling you.’

Pastor Joshua Mhlakela (Pictured) has falsely predicted the biblical event known as the Rapture. He recently said it will now take place between October 12 and 13, 2026

Many Christians have pushed back on claims the Rapture’s date has been revealed, saying that date-setting goes against the teachings of Jesus (Stock Image)

Monday’s nearly three-hour livestream on YouTube ended with Mhlakela making a public appeal to his audience to ‘give your life to Jesus,’ and view the Rapture as a celebration for Christians instead of the end of the world.

‘People, celebrate, because you are about to see the Lord. You are about to see the Lord. You must have faith. You must believe,’ the pastor claimed.

The Rapture has been thought of by many who study end-times events as a kind of rescue, where believers are instantly lifted off the Earth to avoid a coming period of intense suffering called the Tribulation.

Biblical texts describe the Tribulation as a seven-year period of chaos and disasters, where evil rules on Earth before Jesus returns again to set up a peaceful kingdom.

Mhlakela explained that his latest prediction settled on the Rapture taking place at some point between Monday and Tuesday because God had delayed the final judgment by one year to give humanity more time to repent.

He claimed the delay was actually fulfilling Scripture, which says the length of the Tribulation will be shortened for the sake of the ‘elect’ – meaning the people God has chosen before Jesus returns.

Those examining end-times prophecy, also called eschatology, have tied the Rapture to the Jewish Feast of Trumpets, also known as Rosh Hashanah, pointing to the prophecy in which Jesus returns ‘with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God.’

While this takes place each September, Mhlakela claimed a vision involving two full moons convinced him that our modern calendars were off by one month because the current celebration of Passover was taking place under the astrological sign of Pisces.

The Rapture is considered a kind of rescue, where believers are instantly taken away from Earth to avoid a coming period of intense suffering called the Tribulation (Stock Image)

The pastor tied that gap to the Exodus story of Israel’s departure from Egypt, saying the ‘true’ Passover must fall when the sun is in the astrological sign of Aries, just as it is said to have taken place during biblical times.

Mhlakela then applied that same one-month shift to his new Feast of Trumpets date in mid-October.

However, the Bible did not document the sun being in Aries during the Exodus. It only said Passover falls in the first month of spring, with the Aries link coming from later writers such as Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian – not from the Exodus account itself.

Nevertheless, Mhlakela’s proclamation has again set off wild speculation that the world will end for faithful Christians and plunge into the Tribulation – a time said to be ruled by the figure known as the Antichrist.

One person said in the comments during Monday’s livestream: ‘Let it be today. I am ready for you.’

‘I hope it’s soon, I want to go home [and] meet Jesus in the air, amen,’ another believer wrote.

While Mhlakela’s Rapture predictions have sparked a widespread phenomenon on social media, called RaptureTok, the backlash against him has been equally as strong.

Many Christians believe setting a definitive date for the Second Coming of Jesus goes against the teachings of the Bible, with some now calling Mhlakela a ‘false prophet.’

One critic declared during the livestream: ‘Nobody knows the day or the time!’

‘Everyone who believes there’s Rapture today needs to repent. You are lost,’ another said.

Mhlakela’s original Rapture date of September 23, 2025 was spread through an interview with CettwinzTV and viewed more than 500,000 times before the alleged biblical event.

Social media platforms were quickly flooded with Rapture-related videos from devastated believers who were so convinced Doomsday was coming they gave away their prized possessions.

Steve Kang, the Buddhist monk-turned-evangelical pastor, said: ‘The Bible says no one knows the day or the hour, only the Father. Not even Jesus knows!’

Kang, who said he once had an out-of-body experience where he went to hell and was pulled back by the voice of Jesus, added that the end of the world is only prophesied to come when the gospel is preached in all nations.

‘Every language must hear,’ Kang claimed, noting that there are still thousands of languages worldwide in which the Bible has not been translated yet.