Watch Pastor Joshua Mhlakela's Reaction To The Failed Rapture 2025 - It Was Awkward

Ria Pathak
International Business Times UK
Tue, 30 Sep 2025 20:10 UTC

© Youtube: CENTTWINZ TV

Pastor Joshua Mhlakela, based in South Africa, is at the centre of Rapture predictions.

Pop star Chappell Roan also made a reference to the 'Rapture' during her show.

On 23 September, 2025, South African pastor Joshua Mhlakela told his followers with full confidence, 'This day we will be raptured. I give you his word and I give you my word.'

He promised the faithful that Jesus would return, backed by 'a host of angels,' to take believers to heaven in what TikTok had already dubbed #RaptureTok. The date was tied to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which is sometimes symbolically connected with the End Times in certain Christian circles.

But as the hours passed and nothing happened, Mhlakela's livestream turned awkward. First came reassurances, 'God does not lie,' then nervous adjustments to the timeline, '23rd, 24th, one of these two days.'

Finally, after midnight, he signed off by asking followers to 'please keep waiting with us.' The rapture, of course, never came.

What Is RaptureTok?

If you missed it, TikTok's Christian evangelical community has spent months hyping a September 23-24 prophecy, preparing with emotional videos, heartfelt prayers, and even last-minute life decisions. Some believers sold belongings or made contingency plans for pets and family members.

Comment: The above guy later made an apology, also on TikTok, for the above apology and moved the rapture date forward to around October 7.

When the day came, though, the skies stayed clear. One North Carolina TikToker admitted, 'I haven't seen anybody floating upwards...so maybe it hasn't happened yet.'

By the next morning, the only thing rising was a flood of memes. Commenters joked about still having to pay rent and do laundry, while satirists churned out parody videos pretending to livestream from heaven.

A Familiar Story of Failed Predictions

History has no shortage of failed end-time prophecies. In 1844, Baptist preacher William Miller famously predicted Christ's return, only for the event to be met with anticlimax, earning it the nickname 'The Great Disappointment.' More recently, conspiracy theorists hyped September 23, 2017, as a rapture date based on celestial alignments.

© David Yonatan González Aburto/Pixabay

Predictions of the Rapture on 23–24 Sept 2025 echo a long list of failed end-time prophecies.

RaptureTok is the first such phenomenon to spread widely on social media, with the hashtag #rapture topping 350,000 videos. But after the deadline passed, many of the most viral creators began deleting posts or making their accounts private.

Pastor Mhlakela's Next Move

As for Pastor Mhlakela, clips of his now-deleted livestream are being archived and shared widely. His wavering sign-off, '23rd, 24th...one of these two days,' has become a symbol of the prophecy's collapse.

Viewers noted his increasingly hesitant tone as the hours ticked by. At one point, he wondered aloud, 'I don't know... I wonder how God works this out, in terms of the minute and the second.'

Some believers have doubled down, pushing the date to September 25. Others have quietly fallen silent. Meanwhile, the broader internet has already moved on, treating the whole affair as both content fodder and a cautionary tale about viral misinformation.

Pop Culture Reacts

The failed prophecy didn't just ripple through church livestreams; it spilt onto stages, too. At her Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things tour stop in Forest Hills, pop star Chappell Roan referenced the internet frenzy mid-show.

'Guys, thank God the rapture didn't happen today. Thank God I could sing my show,' she joked during her performance of Coffee. The line drew loud cheers, cementing how the prophecy had become a wider cultural talking point, not just a religious one.

Whether you laughed, sighed, or worried, Rapture 2025 will be remembered as another 'Great Disappointment' in history, but one made for the TikTok age.

Comment: Surprisingly many were taken in, as seen in the following video possibly from a Democrat leaning American Christian: MAGA Christians Furious After September 23rd Rapture Flop Leaves Them Empty Handed!

Pastor Mike Winger uploaded this critique: Now he's starting a CULT: Joshua Mhlakela the sociopathic lying prophet commenting on an interview, Unexpected Response from Mr Joshua on RAPTURE failure! Rapture is still happening |WHY I'm not Sorry, by two South African twin sisters, Their latest upload is: Rapture Predictions FAILED & Why many are left Disappointed|FINDING Healing after 23 & 24 September Uploaded to their YouTube Channel CENTTWINZ TV.

2) See also:

• US: Harold Camping Apologizes For Faulty Rapture Predictions And Retires, Report States
• Millerites' 1844 'rapture' event called the Great Disappointment
• US: Rapture teasing fueled shooter, victim's mom says
• Don't Worry, The Rapture Is Still Totally On
• New Rapture date revealed
• Flashback Rapture site sends unbelievers their last chance ... via email
• US: Rapture didn't happen Saturday, but many in Michigan believe world will end one day
• Rapture Postponed? Doomsday Saturday So Far Pretty Quiet

3) In Totalitarian leaders: Greedy, evil, fanatic - or a bit of each?, there are points that could apply for some rapture preachers too:

Spellbinders

But let's return to the early phases of pathocracy, since that is where Desmet places his focus (though without clearly differentiating this from later phases). According to Lobaczewski, this is when leadership is still occupied primarily by "spellbinders," and this is where his and Desmet's descriptions are closest. Lobaczewski, too, describes the fanatical spellbinder as being under his own spell, to the point that he cannot perceive reality accurately (PP, p. 148). But unlike Desmet, who seems to think that such individuals are as normal as anyone else (despite the fact that they are also more fanatical and their field of vision is even narrower than their followers), for Lobaczewski "a spellbinder is always a pathological [often paranoid] individual" (PP, p. 149):

Such a person is forced by some internal causes to make an early choice between two possibilities: the first is forcing other people to think and experience things in a manner similar to his own; the second is a feeling of being lonely and different, a pathological misfit in social life. Sometimes the choice is either snake-charming or suicide. (PP, p. 147)

Yes, their goal is "to realize an ideological fiction," but this is not the ultimate goal, in the psychological sense. Just as mass formation serves to calm the anxieties of the susceptible masses, spellbinders are particularly susceptible to ideology, because their own anxieties are particularly deep-rooted due to their malformed, egotistical characters:

...if we analyze the exact functions of such an ideology in the spellbinder's personality, we perceive that it is a means of self-charming, useful for repressing those tormenting self-critical associations into the subconscious. (PP, p. 147)

...ideologies do not need spellbinders. Spellbinders need ideologies in order to subject them to their own deviant goals. (PP, p. 160)

Whether it's the influence of mechanistic thinking or just (normal) society in general (or both), these individuals have extreme feelings of disconnection and not belonging. And their dream of reforming the world is personal — to create a new world where they belong — a world which the majority would find small comfort in.