The end of the world on October 12–13: what a pastor from South Africa predicted

South African pastor Joshua Mlakela said that the end of the world could come as early as October 12-13. Previously, the preacher had already named specific dates for the Ascension, but his predictions did not come true.

The Daily Mail writes about this.

According to Mlakela, the biblical Ascension is to take place on October 12-13 – an event that some Christians associate with the ascension of believers to Heaven before the Great Tribulation and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The pastor claims that he received the new date after visions of God and Jesus Christ. This time, he called October 12-13 the “final date” and said that he no longer expects it to be postponed.

At the same time, this is not the first such prediction by Mlakela. In 2025, he named the date of the Ascension several times. In particular, the preacher assured that it would occur on September 23.

At the time, his statements were widely shared on social media. According to the publication, some of the pastor’s supporters believed in the prophecy so much that they sold houses and cars, and some even quit their jobs.

When the prediction did not come true, Mlakela claimed that God had supposedly postponed Judgment Day to give people more time to repent.

Now the pastor is explaining the previous error by the lunar calendar shift. He links the new date to the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah and claims that it should actually fall in October.

Mlakela also explains his conclusions by a vision of two full moons, which he believes indicated a calendar shift of about a month.

At the same time, the publication draws attention to the contradictions in the preacher’s arguments. In particular, the Bible does not contain a statement about the Sun being in the constellation Aries during the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, on which his version is partly based.

Mlakela’s prediction also contradicts the views of Christian preachers, who emphasize that it is impossible to determine the exact date of the Second Coming.