The much Hyped ‘Rapture’ is a Hoax, it Was never Intended to be a Foreseeable Event

Many Ugandans above the age of 40 will recall a carnage at a church in Kanungu on March 17, 2000, where close to 600 adults and children were burnt to ashes. The dead were said to be members of the movement for the restoration of the 10 commandments of God, a “Religious movement” allegedly led by a one Joseph Kibwetere and his accomplices.

They were a bunch of “foolish” individuals who were hoodwinked into believing there was a looming rapture- end of the world. In preparation, they sold all their belonging and gave the proceeds to their church leaders. Sadly, the “rapture” never happened but the followers died painfully and never got a chance to see Jesus or ascend to heaven alive.

Almost 25 years after Kibwetere, cult leaders calling themselves Prophets are busy telling some gullible individuals of an eminent rapture in September, 2025. They bench mark them preaching on fear to convince and confuse their followers into believing the current happenings are a pointer that Jesus is about to come back to fulfil his biblical promise; the rapture.

 While from work on 20th September walking along Mawanda road in Kamwokya I met young school girl a student of Kololo clad in her green top T shirt uniform and she told me about the rapture. The student told me that  rapture is about to occur any time from 25th September 2025 and preached me to organize myself to go to heaven or if not to face fire on earth. She took a lot time engaging about about the rapture until i decided to pick a boda boda to connect on Northern bypass who also kept on telling me about the coming rapture by 25th September 2025. Infect the boda boda told me about the Red Moon that appeared recently as a sign of the rapture and to many believers Jesus is yet to come and take his people.

 Back to a biblical eschatology, a Rapture is a belief that all dead Christian believers will be resurrected and, along with living Christians, will be or into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air before the final Judgment in heaven. Am sure every Christian looks forward to that day when they will have a one on one with their heavenly father.

This rapture theory is based on passages like 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, which describe the dead in Christ rising first, followed by the living being caught up together to meet the Lord. By close of business last month, the so-called “mighty men of God” were preaching the rapture basing on a coincidence of the much-hyped September 2025 equinox. It is embarrassing that most of the people who are anticipating the “rapture” between the 20th to 25 of September, 2025 are Christians armed with bibles values. Was the biblical rapture intended to be a foreseeable event for humans to predict easily? of course not. I think there is a price to pay when we blindly follow religious leaders without questioning.

Like psychologists say, human beings are victims of their conscience, buried in superstition and are not grounded in their beliefs. This means anything beyond their understanding can be given any meaning as a result of being irrational, illogical, and sceptical. It is apparent that we do not know what we want in life and therefore very gullible and can go by the wind.

It is true that several predictions for September this year were made in the past by the likes of Baba Vanga, a blind Bulgarian mystic lady who warned of a major geopolitical shift in 2025 with a great power collapsing and borders being re-drawn. She also predicted strange whether patterns that would result into floods to ravage the universe as well as a mysterious cosmic event which would change the earth forever.

On November 18th, 1978, another religious tragedy in Jonestown in America shocked the world when more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple died after drinking poison at the urging of their leader Jim Jones. They were lured into the forest hoping some spectacular religious event akin a rapture was about to unfold. They never saw the rapture.

To which, many Christians adore is emphatic on timing of the Rapture and says that the event was never intended to be foreseeable in terms of hour, date, month or year. Instead, the Bible seems to suggest that believers should be watchful and ready for it at any moment. While some predict the Rapture, these claims are speculative, and the Bible offers no definitive timeline.

The core concept of the Rapture is that Jesus will return to take true believers to be with Him, an event different from His visible Second Coming at the end of a period of tribulation. The Bible does not mention any specific biblical event happening on September 23-24 as these dates are not supported by Scripture.

These date-setting predictions often arise from interpretations of biblical feasts and prophecies, like the Jewish feast of trumpet that are then wrongly linked to the rapture and the return of Christ. However, Jesus himself stated that no one knows the day or the hour of his return, and the Bible warns against such predictions as being the handmaid of false teachers.

Haggai 2:18-20 calls for careful consideration of the day the Lord’s temple was founded, a significant moment marking a shift from a time of no fruit to one of future blessing. Starting from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, God promises to bless the people, ensuring their crops will flourish and their efforts will be fruitful, even though they are still in the midst of a poor harvest. 

Matthew 24:42-44 urges believers to be watchful and ready for the return of the Son of Man because his coming will be unexpected, like a thief in the night. The bible emphasizes this need for constant vigilance and spiritual preparedness, stating that people do not know when their Lord will arrive. Therefore, believers must be ready at all times for the Son of Man to come at any unexpected hour.  Our forefathers waited for this promise in vain.

In Acts 1:6-7, Jesus' disciples ask if He will restore the kingdom to Israel, but Jesus replies that the exact timing and seasons are not for them to know, as those are set by God the Father’s authority. This exchange occurs just before Jesus’ Ascension, during which He instructs them that they will receive the Holy Spirit and become witnesses to Him, with the scope of their mission extending “to the ends of the earth”.

Matthew 24:36–44 emphasizes that no one knows the exact day or hour of the Son of Man’s return, only the Father does. The passage uses the example of the days of Noah, when people were unaware until the flood came, to illustrate how unaware people will be until the Son of Man’s coming. Therefore, Jesus commands believers to stay awake and be ready, comparing the situation to a homeowner who would stay alert if they knew when a thief was coming.

The terms Tribulation and “Rapture” are related concepts in some Christian end-times theology, referring to a period of immense suffering and a future event where believers are taken to heaven, respectively, though their timing relative to each other is a subject of debate.

The “Tribulation” is a prophesied seven-year period of chaos, evil, and the rule of the Antichrist, while the “Rapture” is the event where believers are removed from the earth. The main difference in perspective is whether the Rapture precedes the Tribulation (Pretribulation), occurs after it (Posttribulationism), or is an entirely different concept. It appears the two events if at all are different and shall occur at different time if we are to believe what is written in the bible. On my own accord, I am 100% sure there won’t be a rapture.

What we can’t rule out for sure what will happen soon is a worldly affair with no bearing on the much rapture by a section of Christians. Natural and man-made calamities will strike the world’s super powers, many of these countries and their leaders like Trump and Putin could be humbled by karma. Isreal could raise again or be brought down.

The Red Moon Appearance

The most recent “red moon” appeared during the total lunar eclipse on September 7-8, 2025, which was visible in Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe and Australia. Before this, a total lunar eclipse known as a blood moon was seen on March 13-14, 2025, and another occurred on November 8, 2022.  

When is the next Red or blood moon  (lunar eclipse)?

The next lunar eclipse will be a total lunar eclipse on March 3, 2026.

It will be visible from start to finish across Western North America and Eastern Australia and New Zealand as well as Northern Japan. Glimpses of some phases will also be possible across North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, East Asia and the Pacific.

Wadada Rogers is a commentator on political, legal and social issues. wadroger@yahoo.ca