A Christian pastor whose failed Rapture prediction sparked widespread panic is now making another claim that the end-times event is approaching.
Pastor Joshua Mhlakela, a South African preacher, says he has worked out the precise timing of the biblical event in which believers are taken into the clouds to meet Jesus Christ. He claims it will occur between October 12 and 13.
The Rapture is part of a Christian belief system known as eschatology, the study of end-times events. Some believers associate it with the Second Coming of Jesus and Judgment Day for those who do not believe.
In interviews and videos posted online, Mhlakela has said that both God and Jesus appeared to him in visions. According to the pastor, those visions disclosed when the Rapture would happen and described the consequences for life on Earth.
“God told me because there’s no other date coming out, 12 to 13 October, which is the true feast of trumpets, which is when I will be meeting my savior face to face in the rapture,” Mhlakela declared.
His claims have attracted intense skepticism and criticism, particularly after he incorrectly identified several possible Rapture dates in 2025.
Social media erupted when Mhlakela claimed the event would take place on September 23, 2025. Some followers who watched his online predictions reportedly sold their homes and cars or left their jobs in preparation.
“There’s no other final. I mean, there’s no other rapture date. This is the final date for me,” Mhlakela said in an interview on September 17.
Pastor Joshua Mhlakela (pictured) has repeatedly made false predictions about the biblical Rapture. He now says the event will begin on October 12, 2026.
The Rapture is viewed by some Christians as a rescue in which believers are taken from Earth to escape a coming period of extreme suffering known as the Tribulation (Stock Image).
Mhlakela has insisted that his earlier predictions were not mistakes. Instead, he says God postponed the final judgment to give people more time to repent.
He argued that the delay was consistent with Scripture, which says the days of the Tribulation will be shortened for the sake of the “elect”—those chosen by God before Jesus returns.
According to this belief, the Rapture will act as a rescue, with believers taken instantly from Earth to Heaven before a period of severe suffering called the Tribulation begins.
Biblical passages are interpreted by some Christians as describing the Tribulation as seven years of turmoil and disaster, during which evil dominates Earth before Jesus returns to establish a peaceful kingdom.
Mhlakela says his first visions of Jesus occurred in 2018. At the time, he warned that the Rapture would take place on September 23, 2025, during the Jewish Feast of Trumpets, also known as Rosh Hashanah.
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Some Christians connect the annual festival with the prophecy that Jesus will return “with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God.”
Mhlakela now says the Feast of Trumpets date had been miscalculated by one month, placing his predicted Rapture roughly 30 days after the annual observance of Rosh Hashanah.
“Many are saying Feast of Trumpets is September when you Google [it’s] September 11. [This] is not Feast of Trumpets. The true Feast of Trumpets is actually in October,” Mhlakela said in an interview with CettwinzTV.
Many Christians have rejected claims that the date of the Rapture has been revealed, arguing that setting a date conflicts with Jesus’ teachings (Stock Image).
The pastor said his revised prediction was based on further visions of Jesus, which he believes directed him toward the later dates.
According to Mhlakela, a vision involving two full moons convinced him the calendar itself was off by about a month because the current celebration of Passover was taking place under the astrological sign of Pisces.
He tied that gap to the Exodus story of Israel’s departure from Egypt, saying the ‘true’ Passover must fall when the sun is in Aries, just as it is said to have taken place during the biblical Exodus.
The pastor 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.
Moreover, Mhlakela’s end times predictions continue to receive pushback from many Christians who believe setting a definitive date for the Second Coming of Jesus goes against the teachings of the Bible.
Vladimir Savchuk, a pastor, author, and YouTube preacher, said last September: ‘If someone sets the date, they are directly contradicting Jesus’s word.’
He further debunked the Rapture claims by noting that Scripture says the son of perdition must be revealed first, referring to a figure often interpreted as the Antichrist.
‘2 Thessalonians 2:3, it says clearly that Jesus is not returning until the Antichrist is revealed, and that has not happened yet,’ Savchuk explained.
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