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Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Michelangelo, The Last Judgement, ca. 1536–41 — Source.
The world was supposed to end yesterday, and didn’t. A viral TikTok anxiety trend (aka #rapturetok), this latest Rapture non-starter was predicted by Joshua Mhlakela of South Africa, who, in 2018, met Jesus Christ in a dream. The son of God reportedly said to him “On the 23rd and the 24th of September 2025, I will come to take my church.” For Mhlakela, Christ’s return would have had great implications for international football. As *The New York Times* reports, “‘He was telling me that by June 2026, the world is gearing up toward the World Cup,’ he said, but because chaos would descend after the Rapture, ‘there will be no World Cup in 2026.’” In the aftermath of our failed redemption, TikTokers have outpoured a range of emotions, from disappointment to anger, with some users having supposedly sold their homes and cars to prepare for the end. TikToker Melissa Johnstone took to the platform to express her confusion: “Did they take my neighbors and not me? Nothing has happened.”
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Lithograph of William Miller, ca. 1840s — Source.
Like Johnstone, the Millerite Henry Emmons was also confused in the autumn of 1844. “I waited all Tuesday and dear Jesus did not come;—I waited all the forenoon of Wednesday, and was well in body as I ever was, but after 12 o’clock I began to feel fainted . . . I lay prostrate for 2 days without any pain—sick with disappointment.” He was not alone in his let-down. The Great Disappointment, as it is now known, stemmed from the failed prediction of Baptist preacher William Miller, founder of a Christian sect that believed the Second Great Awakening was upon us. After years of study, which involved complex calculations based on Daniel 8:14, Miller predicted that on October 22, 1844, the current world would end. October 23 proved a day of religious disenchantment for many in the Millerite community, with others dispersing back into their former churches or going on to join the Shakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Seventh-day Adventists.
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