“When you finally start moving up into the air, I recommend that you don’t hold onto anything. I definitely don’t recommend looking down. . . . Just keep calm, take a deep breath, slowly release it, and keep your face looking upward.” This is how one person advised her fellow Christians to experience the rapture when it came two days ago.

Except it didn’t.

Or if it did, you and I (and everyone else, so far as I can tell) were left behind. This despite the fact that so many expected the rapture to come on September 23 that the New York Times, Newsweek, and numerous other outlets covered the story.

The date appears to have originated with a person named Joshua Mhlakela in South Africa. He said in a YouTube video that he is not a pastor, though news reports widely described him as such. In his video, he reported that Jesus came to him in a dream in 2018 and told him, “On the 23^rd and the 24^th of September 2025, I will come to take my church.”

His prediction aligned with this year’s observance of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Evangelical TikTok users picked up Mhlakela’s assertion, some pointing to signs in Revelation 12 and various astrological alignments involving the constellations Virgo and Leo to claim that his prophecy was being fulfilled.

On social media, some said they had given away their belongings and quit their jobs. Others satirically celebrated the coming lower rents or asked believers to hand over their money or keys to their homes.

The latter response points to my point today.

“An hour you do not expect”

The “rapture” is a belief held by some that Jesus will take believers out of the world prior to a period of “great tribulation” on Earth. The word does not appear in the Bible, which is not definitive (the word Trinity is not in Scripture, either), but the idea is based on passages such as 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 and 1 Corinthians 15:51–52. Some interpret Jesus’ invitation to John, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this” (Revelation 4:1), to refer to this event.

This is a complex subject, one I have discussed in detail in books and articles over the years. (You can go here and here for examples.) My purpose today is not to explore eschatology (the doctrine of last things) but to focus on the cultural implications of the current story.

Jesus clearly said about his return, “Concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). In fact, those who claim to be able to predict the date must be wrong by definition, for our Lord added, “the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (v. 44). “You do not expect” could be translated from the Greek, “all of you without exceptions are not expecting it when it occurs.”

Nonetheless, some across history have been undeterred in claiming to know more than Jesus said he knew about the timing of his return. Such predictions have been more frequent since 1948, the year Israel became a nation again, since many interpretive schemes consider this event to be pivotal to end times sequencing.

However, one predated it by more than a century: the “Great Disappointment” occurred when a Baptist preacher named William Miller predicted that Christ would return on October 22, 1844. Tens of thousands of his followers (known as Millerites) sold their possessions in preparation; when nothing happened, widespread disillusionment followed.

The better-known these failed predictions, the more ridicule they generated for the predictors—and the larger Christian community.

Billy Graham’s greatest fear

Such ridicule is unfortunately understandable. When so-called financial experts make stock market predictions that turn out to be inaccurate, we question their competence for their next prediction. When meteorologists get the weather wrong, we look askance at meteorology itself.

This tendency is especially unsurprising with regard to evangelical Christianity. Already widely considered outdated, irrelevant, and even dangerous, our truth claims are dismissed as esoteric and speculative, especially when they have to do with “unscientific” issues such as the end times.

All this to say, if there is any subject Christians should be especially careful to avoid in our post-Christian culture, it is end times speculation. Not only because Jesus promised we would be wrong, but because our wrong predictions will add fodder for those already predisposed to reject our Lord.

Billy Graham once described to the interviewer David Frost his greatest fear: “That I’ll do something or say something that will bring some disrepute to the gospel of Christ before I go.” He added, “I want the Lord to remove me before I say something or do something that would embarrass God.”

If we want to impact our culture for Christ, we must make Dr. Graham’s greatest fear ours as well.

Visiting Armageddon

Ironically, a way to live that draws people to Christ is to focus on the end times, but not in the way we’ve been discussing.

I was privileged to lead more than thirty study tours to Israel over the years. Each time, we made our way to the heights of Megiddo, an ancient fortress overlooking the vast valley below. In Hebrew, this area is known as Har Megiddo (the “mount of Megiddo”). Transliterated into English, it becomes “Armageddon.”

The site is mentioned just once in Scripture: at the end of history, the enemies of the Lord are described as assembling “at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon” (Revelation 16:16). Each time I led a tour here, we discussed this verse and the various end-times scenarios that center around it.

Then I told the group, “The only fact about the future about which I am absolutely certain is this: We are one day closer to eternity than ever before.”

Jesus could return today. Or you could step through death into his presence today (John 14:3). What it takes to be ready is also what it takes to live in ways that most glorify our Lord and attract others to him.

If you knew that day were tomorrow, what would you change today?

Quote for the day:

“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” —Theophrastus (372–287 BC)

Our latest website resources:

• Three people killed at ICE facility in Dallas: The logic behind illogical violence
• Jimmy Kimmel, free speech debate, Erika Kirk forgives, rapture thoughts, Tylenol update & a huge sports weekend
• What Jimmy Kimmel said about Erika Kirk
• How to discern God’s will, manifesting vs. biblical faith, the reality of hell, and God’s unconditional love
• Is YoungHoon Kim the “world’s smartest man” and a Christian? An encouragement to walk in the truth regardless of the cost

Denison Forum

I watched President Donald Trump’s hour-long speech at the United Nations yesterday. Since the UN was founded eighty years ago, every US president has addressed the General Assembly.

However, there is a scenario by which the event could have made history for cataclysmic reasons.

The Secret Service announced before the president’s address that the agency had disrupted a sprawling telecommunications network in the New York tri-state area. Investigators say this network could have disrupted telecom systems and threatened the UN meetings this week.

The servers were so powerful that they could have disabled cell phone towers and blocked emergency communications like EMS and police dispatch. If an attack had been staged on the president and the UN gathering, a network outage could have prevented security forces from responding.

There was a time when we would perhaps not have thought to connect the president’s UN speech and the Secret Service’s discovery. But after Charlie Kirk’s murder and two assassination attempts on the president, the second of which resulted in a conviction yesterday, this is not that time.

The good news is that the bad news of our day is fertile ground for the best news of all.

A perceptive explanation of our times

Cultural commentator Geoff Shullenberger notes that there was a time when the lone assassin dominated political violence. For example, the years between 1963 and the early 1980s witnessed the murders of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the attempted assassinations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

Then came a shift toward mass shootings. Shullenberger theorizes that this aligned with “the shifting landscape of power” from sovereign individuals to groups and movements, focusing on schools and other public venues. In addition, the fragmentation of media could have motivated shooters to commit even more spectacular crimes so as to gain the attention they craved.

However, political assassins are now back, recently attacking leaders from both political parties, but mass shootings have not lessened. Within an hour of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, for example, a shooter in Colorado injured two classmates before taking his own life.

As Shullenberger notes, the fact that both kinds of killings are now making headlines is a “particularly grim indication” of our times.

Three open doors for the gospel

However, three factors contributing to these “grim” times are each an open door to the good news of God’s grace. The gospel offers:

One: Hope that counters despair.

According to New York Times journalist Jia Lynn Yang, “The most dangerous element in our society may well be hopelessness.” Her research shows the many ways individual hopelessness spurs violent actions. However, “the God of hope” is able to “fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). When we know that the all-powerful God of the universe is our Father and loves each of us as if there were only one of us, we find hope even in the hardest places and days.

Two: Community that bridges ideology.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank reports that relationships across ideological divides are proven to counter isolation and the political polarization it produces. Early Christians could have told us so. Gathered across fifteen different languages and cultures (Acts 2:8–11), they found unity in Christ and met the needs of others so sacrificially that “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (v. 47).

Three: Courage that redeems persecution.

Theologian Bradley G. Green writes in First Things that the critical theorist Herbert Marcuse convinced generations of “progressives” that they must repress the speech and acts of those with whom they disagree. As Dr. Green notes, such “repressive tolerance” forms the backdrop for the silencing and canceling of conservative thought on university campuses and violence against conservative leaders. But as I noted yesterday, Jesus empowers his followers to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). By “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), we become the change we wish to see.

Misquoting St. Francis

A fourth factor is foundational to the other three and especially opens the door to the gospel.

The Lord described Israel to Ezekiel this way: “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house” (Ezekiel 12:2). When we rebel against God’s word and will, we lose the ability to discern God’s word and will, which heightens our need for God’s word and will.

If we break our compass, we can no longer find our way and need the compass even more. If we throw away our flashlight, we sit in the darkness and can no longer find it.

This is why our lost culture so desperately needs Christians to boldly declare the essential truths of the gospel. To be blunt: Gone is the day when most non-Christians will attend church services, and gone is the day in many denominations when, if they did, they would actually hear the gospel presented.

I have often heard St. Francis of Assisi quoted: “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” However, Francis never said these words. And he was famous for preaching the gospel in words; according to his first biographer, he sometimes preached “in up to five villages a day.”

What saved people owe lost people

Every lost person needs the salvation only Jesus can provide. As the apostles said of our Savior, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

However, a lost person cannot be saved without understanding that they are lost, but if they repent of their sins and confess them to Jesus, he will forgive them and give them eternal life as the child of God. These facts cannot be intuited from nature or “spiritual” activities. They must be understood, accepted, and acted upon.

Our lives are critical to our message, of course. We cannot expect people to believe that Jesus will change them if he does not obviously change us. But our lives are not enough. Pastor and missions leader David Platt is right:

“Every saved person this side of heaven owes the gospel to every lost person this side of hell.”

How will you discharge your debt with the lost people you know today?

Quote for the day:

“Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live.” —Leonard Ravenhill

Our latest website resources:

• How to discern God’s will, manifesting vs. biblical faith, the reality of hell, and God’s unconditional love
• Is YoungHoon Kim the “world’s smartest man” and a Christian? An encouragement to walk in the truth regardless of the cost
• Why the alleged assassin killed Charlie Kirk: Trusting God to use great evil for greater good
• Did God spare Donald Trump but not Charlie Kirk?
• Cultural shockwave of Charlie Kirk’s death, America divided, free speech debate, viral revival, Robert Redford & Larry Ellison

Denison Forum

Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to the air tonight. The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, said in a statement, “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”

The statement added, “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.” (For more on the story, see Dr. Ryan Denison’s Daily Article, “Jimmy Kimmel suspended for comments on Charlie Kirk’s killer.”)

The controversy over Kimmel’s suspension illustrates the partisan fault lines dividing our country: According to a new poll, Democrats are far more likely to watch late-night talk shows than Republicans or Independents. This explains why late-night talk show hosts are negative toward President Trump and Republicans while sympathetic toward Democratic Party leaders—they are “playing to their audience.” However, confining themselves to only one part of the electorate also defines their audience, further reinforcing their bias and that of those who watch them.

By contrast, Johnny Carson, widely known as the “King of Late Night,” explained many years ago that he was “not there” to deal with political issues. “Once you start that, you start to get that self-important feeling” and try to sway people, he said, adding, “I don’t think you should as an entertainer.” Jay Leno made the same point recently.

However, both were reflecting times that were not nearly so bitterly and deeply divided. As Chris Matthews illustrates in his fascinating book, Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked, Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill disagreed on many issues but found ways to work together. Matthews writes: “Reagan was fond of Tip and completely believed that Tip wanted to help the little people. He just disagreed about how to do it.”

That was then, this is now. The divisiveness of our society has risen to a level that fundamentally threatens the future of our democratic experiment.

And the solution lies in the very message that many people blame for the problem.

The challenge of “affective polarization”

Cultural commentator Fareed Zakaria remembers a time when political debates involved two issues: economics (how much to tax and spend) and the Soviet threat (how best to counter it). On both issues, compromise was possible.

However, many of today’s issues are moral in nature and thus far more deeply held. While there once were pro-life Democrats and pro-choice Republicans, for example, Zakaria writes that the parties have now “sorted themselves into ideologically consistent groups,” so “the divides get weaponized” and “each party sees the other as not just misguided but evil.”

New York Times columnist Ezra Klein explains how this happened: over the past fifty years, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These “merged identities” have come to define who we are, not just what we believe. We therefore self-select into disparate cultures with little or no overlap or interchange.

The result is “affective polarization,” which is how scholars describe a society such as ours in which the two sides simply do not like members of the other party. How do we make a democratic republic work in the midst of such bitterness?

Three biblical facts

Many religious skeptics consider religion to be at the root of our divisions. They’re right that our most divisive issues are religious at their core, from abortion to same-sex marriage to euthanasia. They’re also right in noting that religious platforms are often used to advance political agendas and politicians today.

However, our faith embraces not just a worldview that critics consider divisive, but the way its followers can embrace such critics. Consider three biblical facts.

First, the Bible views all people, whatever their beliefs, as “image bearers” of the Divine (Genesis 1:27).

God loves us despite ourselves: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Now our Savior commands us to love as we are loved (John 13:34–35). As a result, Christians are compelled to seek common ground with our opponents, to wish their best even at the cost of our own, to forgive as our Father has forgiven us and to pay forward the grace we have received by faith.

Second, the God who commands us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43) also empowers us to do what he commands.

His Spirit indwelling his people manifests the “fruit” of “love” in and through all who submit to him (Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 5:18). Erika Kirk’s decision to forgive her husband’s assassin is just one example of such love at work. No other religion or worldview empowers its followers from within to be the change they wish to see. But Jesus does.

Third, our commitment to love those who do not love us points the essential way forward for our society.

Cultural commentator Paul Kingsnorth describes our cultural moment: “Cut loose in the postmodern present, with no center, no truth, and no direction, we have not become independent-minded, responsible, democratic citizens in a human republic. We have become slaves to the power of money, and worshippers of the self.” We therefore have no hope for a better future in ourselves. But we have abundant hope in the transforming grace of Christ (cf. 1 Peter 1:3; Romans 5:5).

We are back where we began

In a sense, Americans are where America started. As the famed historian Joseph Ellis explains, colonial Americans were united in their opposition to Great Britain but were otherwise thirteen very disparate and divided colonies. Consequently, George Washington observed that their hope for a collective future lay not in themselves. Rather, he declared,

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

As historians Peter A. Lillback and Jerry Newcombe compellingly demonstrate, the “religion and morality” our first president embraced and endorsed was the Christian faith.

In a consensual democracy, citizens rule each other. But we cannot rule others if we cannot rule ourselves. And as James Madison warned, “Whenever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.”

There is only one Power in the universe capable of remaking fallen people, of giving sinners a “new heart” and a “new spirit” (Ezekiel 36:26) as children of God who manifest his character to the world (John 1:12; Romans 8:29). Submitting to this Power and demonstrating this transforming love is the greatest, most essential gift we can give our divided nation.

Do you agree?

Quote for the day:

“The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world” —C. S. Lewis

Our latest website resources:

• Why the alleged assassin killed Charlie Kirk: Trusting God to use great evil for greater good
• Check your fears
• Did God spare Donald Trump but not Charlie Kirk?
• Cultural shockwave of Charlie Kirk’s death, America divided, free speech debate, viral revival, Robert Redford & Larry Ellison
• How to fight against the Age of Outrage

Denison Forum