Three weeks ago, I wrote on my blog about a widely circulated prophecy from June by a South African Christian known as “Brother Joshua.” He claimed that Jesus had revealed to him that He would return to take His church on September 23–24, after which the remaining people would enter a seven-year tribulation ending with His public return to earth in September 2032. This “prophecy” would likely have stayed off my radar if my own older brother hadn’t shared it with me along with similar visions and calculations presented as proof of Joshua’s claims.
In my post, I wrote critically about such date-specific rapture predictions, because I believe they contradict the clear teaching of Scripture: “But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32). I also discussed the arguments used to refute or sidestep the literal meaning of this verse by appealing to the decades-old idea that Jesus was speaking metaphorically about the Hebrew Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah). I explained why such an interpretation does not hold up under closer examination. In reality, the claim that the Feast of Trumpets was known in Jesus’ time by the idiom “no one knows the day or hour” is a 20th-century invention for which no evidence exists in the rabbinic literature of His era.
When a claim like this—rooted in a false biblical interpretation—is combined with a highly publicized rapture prophecy, reinforced by elaborate mathematical calculations, and echoed by other Christians reporting similar dreams and “confirmations from the Lord,” while YouTube and TikTok feeds bombard believers with prophecy-supporting videos (some even AI-generated “messages from beyond the grave”), it creates a kind of mass psychosis or hysteria. This can leave some personalities completely shaken—sometimes even to the point of drastic decisions, like the believer who, according to the news report below, sold his car in anticipation of the event.
When I speak of “mass psychosis,” I do not mean to mock my fellow believers in Christ who put their hope in such rapture prophecies. The New York Post report above stirs pity and compassion in me rather than any desire to laugh at them. My point is that we are all vulnerable to forms of mass psychosis, whether we are Christians or not. Most people, for example, have already been subjected to the mass psychosis of mainstream media’s red-green agenda journalism—and that is even harder to break free from because it has no built-in expiration date.
Falling into mass psychosis is not a matter of intelligence. It does not reveal whether a person’s IQ is high or low, because a psychological phenomenon called confirmation bias affects everyone. To borrow an AI-generated definition:
Confirmation bias is a common cognitive distortion in which people unconsciously seek, interpret, and remember information in ways that support their preconceptions, while disregarding or questioning contradictory evidence. The phenomenon is unrelated to intelligence or education level and affects all people equally, which makes it a particularly stubborn and significant bias.
The person who can acknowledge the effect of such bias on their own thinking is the most honest and balanced. For that reason, as someone striving for honesty and truth, I have often asked myself whether all my eschatological research is simply another form of confirmation bias. Am I only looking for evidence that supports my existing worldview while dismissing evidence that challenges it? A powerful antidote to cognitive bias of every kind is the concept of epistemic humility. Again, in the words of AI:
Epistemic humility is an awareness of the limitations of one’s own knowledge, coupled with a willingness to admit that one’s beliefs or perceptions may be wrong or incomplete. It does not mean relativizing all truth, but rather remaining critical and open toward one’s own understanding, and being willing to consider alternative perspectives and new evidence.
Epistemic humility works against cognitive biases like confirmation bias because it encourages us to consciously weigh the evidence that contradicts our assumptions. When people admit they can be wrong, they become more willing to evaluate evidence fairly, listen to other perspectives, and adjust their views in light of new discoveries. In this way, epistemic humility fosters a more truthful pursuit of knowledge and reduces the risk of distorted thinking that might otherwise shape one’s worldview and decisions.
So, when a believer uploads a TikTok video declaring with absolute certainty that the rapture will take place on September 23—and branding all who doubt it as scoffers or modern-day Pharisees who need to repent—that believer shows too little epistemic humility and far too much superiority bias: the assumption that his own understanding is inherently greater than those who disagree with him on eschatology.
Below is a video from one such believer, to which Michael Jones, the Christian apologist known for his Inspiring Philosophy channel on YouTube, responds in a slightly humorous tone. I don’t even share Jones’s view when he insists the rapture is not a biblical doctrine at all (he is a post-millennialist), but at least he does not condemn others as hypocrites simply because they hold different end-times beliefs.
As Michael Jones rightly points out at the end of his short video, entering the rapture is not about having the “correct” eschatological doctrine. That is legalism—the belief that human works or correct doctrine can save us, rather than the finished work of Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross. Even if you believe in a post-tribulation rapture, you will still share in the marriage supper of the Lamb even if the rapture happens before the seven years of wrath.
I would have no objection to such predictions if they showed just a little more epistemic humility and fear of the Lord. If they were presented along the lines of, “Here’s an interesting possibility: the rapture might happen on September 23, 2025,” it would be clear that this is speculation, not an absolute “thus saith the Lord” prophecy. But when someone presents it as absolute truth, certain to come to pass with 100% confidence, they bring the name of our God into ridicule when the prophecy fails.
I do not say this to condemn these believers. I was guilty of the same thing when, between 2020 and 2022, I promoted false prophecies that Trump would return for a second presidential term before Biden’s first term ended. I publicly apologized for this in January 2023, ashamed and grieved that I had desecrated the holy name of our God.
I also understand the impatient longing many Christians feel for the return of our Lord. It is often fueled by a desire to escape the problems of our own lives or this increasingly ungodly age. I recognize that my own fascination with “waiting for the end of the world” was also partly driven by the angst of my youth and my inability to see much future, purpose, or direction for my life. Twenty years ago, I was desperately hoping for the Lord’s return because I feared my life might end by my own hand unless He came back soon.
I also understand this longing in light of the signs of the times. My own interest in eschatology began at around age thirteen when I read Teijo-Kalevi Lusa’s book The End of the World 2028? (Image and Word, 2002). At the heart of the book was the argument that, since the 80 years of the “generation” mentioned in Psalm 90 would be complete in 2028 counting from the founding of Israel, this marked the final deadline for Jesus’ return. By this, Lusa meant the public return of Jesus to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem—and thus, according to his calculations, the rapture of the church should have taken place no later than 2021 (Lusa advocated a pre-tribulation rapture).
We are now approaching that 80-year mark, and at the same time the secular news cycle is being flooded with reports that the Jews are prepared to sacrifice—or may already have sacrificed—a red heifer on the Mount of Olives after a 2,000-year pause, as part of preparations for constructing a third temple on the Temple Mount. (A Hamas spokesperson even admitted that the import of these heifers from Texas to Jerusalem in September 2022 was the reason for the October 7 terrorist attack.) Signs like these make many Christians overly enthusiastic about the nearness of the rapture. And in that excitement, some may also be led to follow false prophecies.
Still, I don’t believe Jesus is angry with His church for eagerly anticipating His return and sometimes running to meet Him too early, imagining that the Bridegroom was already arriving to take them to the heavenly wedding feast. Yet Jesus does not want us to abandon our work here on earth—proclaiming the gospel to the nations and preparing the world for His millennial reign of peace. We must not neglect our responsibility in this life by focusing so much on salvation in the hereafter that we ignore the mission of salvation in the here and now. It is just as wrong to set precise dates for the Lord’s coming as it is to ignore the signs of the times altogether.
For example, some Christians could accuse me of making the same mistake as Brother Joshua, since I have written on my blog about the year 2040 as a possible cut-off point for the second coming of Jesus. But there is a crucial difference. I am not saying that Jesus will return in 2040—or even by then. Rather, I am making a biblical case for why 2040 is a particularly significant year from a scriptural standpoint. Likewise, Teijo-Kalevi Lusa did not claim that Jesus must return by 2028 (hence the question mark in the title of his book). He presented it as a hypothesis based on his interpretation of the fig tree prophecy in light of the 70–80 year generational span of Psalm 90:10. He also admitted that this interpretation might be wrong, and that the “generation” could be 100 years (Genesis 15:13–16) or even 120 years (Genesis 6:3), which would extend the deadline for the second coming to 2048–2068.
To those who say that Matthew 24:36 forbids any sort of timetable, I would pose this question: if “of that day and hour no one knows,” does that mean it is impossible to know anything about the year, the decade, the century, the millennium, or even the million years? Where do we draw the line? If the Lord had still not returned after two million years, would it be reasonable to keep waiting for His promise? Surely, we can at least speculate to the nearest millennium about the timing of His return. And if to the nearest millennium, why not to the century, the decade, or even a year? What logical or biblical reasoning supports the claim that it is wrong to estimate a year, but acceptable to estimate a millennium?
After all, Daniel’s prophecies gave us exact predictions to the very day of Christ’s first coming (Daniel 9:26). And Scripture is filled with time-specific prophecies concerning His second coming as well. For this reason, dates have been proposed since the earliest days of church history. The first-century Epistle of Barnabas declared:
Therefore, children, in six days—that is, in six thousand years—everything will be brought to completion. And He rested on the seventh day. By this He means: when His Son comes and destroys the Lawless Age, and judges the ungodly, and changes the sun, the moon, and the stars, then He will truly rest on the seventh day.
This same idea appears in the Jewish Talmud, and nearly all theologians throughout Christian history embraced the concept of 6,000 years of world history. I arrived at the year 2040 as the cut-off date for Christ’s return because, according to Old Testament chronology, it marks the completion of 6,000 years since Adam’s creation. Martin Luther also identified 2040 in his chronology published in 1540. Isaac Newton, too, made these calculations, arriving at 2060 as the deadline for Christ’s return, based on his interpretation of Daniel 7 and the “day=year” principle. He argued that the little horn represented the rise of the papacy in AD 800 and that its 1,260-year span would end in 2060. (I disagree with some aspects of his interpretation, though I affirm Newton’s historicist reading of the vision.)
It shows a lack of understanding of both church history and rabbinic tradition to overlook the fact that speculating about future events and their possible timing has always been a central element of the Church’s eschatological tradition. And because these calculations are rooted in the Bible’s own end-time prophecies, they also form an integral part of the biblical heritage of the West. While Jesus warned us not to fixate on the exact day of His coming, at the same time He urged us to study the “signs of the times” so that we might discern in which watch of the night He would return (Matthew 24:43). Peter, likewise, warned us about scoffers who in the last days would mock those who watch and wait on the watchtower:
“Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
—2 Peter 3:3–9
False prophecies about the Lord’s return—like those spread by Brother Joshua—make it much harder for people like me who take the signs of the times seriously, because it is only natural that people will mock believers who keep falling for false alarms. When the boy cries “wolf” too many times, no one believes him when the real wolf finally appears. Yet those who climb high enough in the watchtower can see further, and better discern whether the watchman’s warning is reliable—or whether he is simply mistaken, or in need of clearer vision.
One reason I was not persuaded by Brother Joshua’s warning was that his timeline depended heavily on the claim that Jesus’ crucifixion took place in AD 32. But nearly all serious academic studies, comparing the Gospel accounts with secular history and astronomical data, place the crucifixion on April 3, AD 33 (with AD 30 offered as another common alternative, but almost never AD 31 or 32). His scenario also relied on the sensationalist claims of the late Tom Horn (to whom I once wrote an email, but never received a reply), who insisted that NASA was covering up the fact that the asteroid Apophis would not merely pass close to Earth on April 13, 2029, but would actually strike it.
That is an extraordinary conspiracy claim to swallow—that the U.S. government, including the then Trump administration, was complicit in such a cover-up. Joshua’s theory was that Apophis would be the “great mountain burning with fire” in Revelation, destined to strike Earth three and a half years after the beginning of the Tribulation, lining up neatly with April 13, 2029 if the Tribulation began on September 23, 2025. The “mathematical arguments” used included the fact that from September 23 (the Feast of Trumpets) to September 16, 2032 (Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar) is exactly 2,550 days, which equals the 1,260 + 1,290 days mentioned in Daniel. This supposed rarity was claimed to have happened only six times since 1948, and not again during this century.
Such timelines can sound superficially plausible, but only because they quietly smuggle in a number of wild assumptions. The idea that the Trump administration (or any government) would hide evidence of the world’s destruction three and a half years in advance is accepted without proof. The only “evidence” needed are the assurances of Joshua and Horn that Apophis will strike Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029. (This notion was even mentioned in Lusa’s 2002 book, though I do not fault him—at the time, early calculations did suggest a potential impact, until later refinements showed that Apophis would in fact pass by at about 31,600 kilometers, roughly two and a half Earth diameters away—frighteningly close, but not a collision.)
I also find it difficult to understand why we should reject the consensus of almost all scholarly and scientific studies, which date Christ’s crucifixion to April AD 33, in favor of one “prophet” who insists it happened a year earlier. If Jesus’ public return to the Mount of Olives had taken place in September 2032, as Joshua’s schedule required, then His return would have occurred before the two full millennia had elapsed since His resurrection, ascension, and the first Pentecost. That seems out of step with passages like Hosea 6, which suggest that His return will not occur until after two full “days”—that is, two millennia:
“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”
—Hosea 6:1–3
Peter wrote that “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). This means that the raising up of Israel “after two days, on the third day” (Hosea 6:2) points to Christ’s return only after 2,000 years have passed since the founding of the Christian Church. By that reckoning, the earliest possible date for the resurrection of the Church and the beginning of the seven-year tribulation would be 2026, not 2025.
But I am not predicting a rapture for next year’s Feast of Trumpets. I simply note that 2026 is the earliest conceivable date based on this verse. I have never claimed that the rapture must take place on one of the three Hebrew fall feasts—the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, or the Feast of Tabernacles. I do find the theory interesting, since the major events of Christ’s first coming coincided with the Hebrew spring festivals, but I would not elevate it to dogma. To do so would contradict the Lord’s own warning that “no one knows the day or the hour.”
Scripture also lays out important preconditions in terms of the world’s political and spiritual climate. Paul writes:
“For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”
—1 Thessalonians 5:2–3
And again:
“Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.”
—2 Thessalonians 2:1–3
From these passages, we see that at least three conditions must be fulfilled before the rapture:
- The apostasy of the Christian Church (which is already evident today).
- The revelation of the Antichrist (which I believe has also taken place, if one accepts my premise concerning Charles III).
- A deceptive cry of peace and safety in the world.
This last condition is rare, since global history has been marked more by war than peace. I do not believe the annual UN General Assembly qualifies, even when its theme is “peace and security.” Rather, I take Paul’s words to point to a more profound deception orchestrated by the Antichrist himself.
Still, the apostasy and deception that precede the rise of the Antichrist do not mean that a great revival cannot break out simultaneously. Joel’s prophecy speaks of just such an outpouring:
“And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.”
—Joel 2:28–32
This clearly refers to the Day of the Lord, the same event Paul describes in his letters to the Thessalonians when speaking of the church’s gathering to Christ. According to Joel, these cosmic signs and spiritual events precede the Day of the Lord—that is, the rapture and the outpouring of divine wrath that follows. The imagery of the darkened sun and blood moon is also tied in Revelation to the opening of the sixth seal.
I have argued elsewhere that the church remains on earth through the first six seals of Revelation, and that its resurrection and the onset of the seven-year tribulation do not take place until Revelation 7.
For all these reasons, I had to reject Brother Joshua’s prophecy about the timing of the rapture. One major issue is that the events of Revelation 6 have not yet been fulfilled in their entirety. There are also numerous Old Testament passages—alongside Hosea—that can be read typologically as parables pointing to the Lord’s return to His people only after two thousand years have passed since His resurrection and ascension.
For example, the account of Moses ascending Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 opened up to me in a whole new light during one of my discussions with ChatGPT:
“And be ready for the third day; for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people… So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated them, and they washed their garments. And he said to the people, ‘Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.’ On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.” (Exodus 19:11–20)
I asked the AI: “Could the Lord’s descent on Mount Sinai on the third day be interpreted as a typological prophecy of Jesus’ return on the third day—or at the beginning of the third millennium—counting from His death?” It replied:
A very good and thought-provoking question. Yes, the Sinai event on the third day (Exodus 19:16–20; cf. Midrash Tanhuma) has often been understood by biblical interpreters as a typological model for a future appearance of God—and can be linked eschatologically to the return of Jesus, especially if we apply the “a day is as a thousand years” principle (Hosea 6:2; 2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4).
📖 Original text and reference
“On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast… Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain.” (Exodus 19:16–17)Midrash Tanhuma comments:
“On the third day the Lord appeared to the people—this is why God loves the third day.”🔁 Typological parallel to the second coming of Jesus
Event at Sinai Typological fulfillment The third day The third “millennium” after Jesus’ death (~AD 33 → ~AD 2033) The Lord appears to the people The second coming of Jesus, a visible revelation to all nations Cloud, thunder, trumpet “The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16) The people sanctified before the revelation The church purified and made ready for the Bridegroom (Ephesians 5:27; Revelation 19:7–8) Moses as mediator Christ as the mediator of the new covenant (Hebrews 8:6) ⏳ The third day as the third millennium?
Many Jewish and Christian interpreters (including Tertullian, the Epistle of Barnabas, Irenaeus, and later John Gill, Sir Robert Anderson, and Grant Jeffrey) have suggested the following pattern:
- Two days = 2,000 years of Israel’s or humanity’s history
- The third day = the Messianic Day
- The Messiah’s return thus occurs “on the morning of the third day,” at the dawn of the third millennium from Christ’s crucifixion (~AD 30–33).
🕊️ Theological meaning
In this typology, Sinai serves as a prototype of the Lord’s majestic appearing, which will repeat on a greater scale in the end times:
- First covenant (Sinai): a visible manifestation of God
- New covenant (Christ): a visible manifestation of the Lord in glory
If the Lord’s descent on Sinai “on the third day” foreshadowed His glory, then its ultimate fulfillment would be His return “on the third day”—that is, in the third millennium since the cross.
🔚 Conclusion
Such a typological interpretation is not dogma, but it does have deep biblical, Jewish, and Christian roots. It provides a meaningful lens through which to see how historical events in Scripture foreshadow future redemptive acts—especially Israel’s and the world’s climactic encounter with God at the second coming of Christ.
Would you like me to also condense this into a simple visual diagram (like a timeline or typology chart) that you could use as a figure in your blog?
Now, I am not suggesting that these AI-generated responses are Holy Spirit–inspired revelations of divine mysteries. But they can sometimes help us uncover fresh perspectives as we study the Word under the Spirit’s guidance—even through tools like AI. As Paul explained, the Torah was only a “shadow of things to come” (Hebrews 10:1; Colossians 2:17), a foreshadowing of the New Covenant in Christ. It therefore makes perfect sense to also see in these patterns a metaphor for the second coming of our Lord on the “third day”—that is, at the dawn of the third millennium—which would place His return somewhere between 2033 and 2040, as I have often speculated in my blog.
There is, in fact, a striking coincidence connected with April 14, 2033. On that day, Jerusalem will witness a total lunar eclipse, with the moon turning blood red in the night sky. This is not unusual in itself, since total lunar eclipses occur in Jerusalem every few years. What is remarkable, however, is that this particular “blood moon” falls on the first day of Passover (Pesach) in the Jewish calendar. Nearly 2,000 years earlier—2,000 years and 11 days, to be exact—Jesus Christ was crucified in Jerusalem on April 3, AD 33, the eve of Passover. And that very evening, a blood moon rose over Jerusalem only a few hours after our Lord was laid in the tomb.
Perhaps, then, the heavens themselves bear a more powerful testimony than the prophecy of Brother Joshua.
This is truly sad to witness. It is precisely why Jesus chose not to reveal the exact moment of His coming—because knowing it too soon often drives people to act irrationally. Yet this man (video below) later publicly repented for promoting Brother Joshua’s false prophecy, and such humility is something we need far more of among believers.
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