Much has been discussed and written about speculation leading up to this calendar date. That the Rapture must happen during this year’s Jewish Feast of Trumpets observation is the central subject of the frenzied conversation.

To be honest, I’ve not looked very deeply into the Feast of Trumpets, as to its meaning and all attendant to it. I do have a general working knowledge of that tradition and others held by the Orthodox Jewish community but have come to believe and accept that the Rapture is not linked to any Jewish day of observation, so far as its timing is concerned.

Some scholars of the Jewish holy days say the Feast of Trumpets this year was to be September 16–17, not September 23–24. But here we are, at this posting, on September 22.

I would love, despite my skepticism, for the speculation that the Rapture will happen at this time to be correct. I, like most of us who believe the pre-Trib Rapture to be the correct view from what the Apostle Paul and Jesus, Himself, have said, am always “looking up” (Luke 21:28) and “looking for the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). We are “watching” (Mark 13:37). We believe the Rapture can happen at any moment. It is imminent.

So, do I believe it can happen on September 23 or 24 of 2025? Absolutely. I believe it can happen on this much-talked-about date.

Do I believe it definitely will take place on this date? No, I do not. It could happen as I’m writing this almost a week earlier!

If the Rapture does occur on the date being speculated by many, then it will make no difference to believers who have been raptured about whether it happened on the date predicted other than that we will be celebrating eternal, joyous bliss! But if it doesn’t happen on that date, I’m concerned that the faith of some will be shaken.

This has always been the deleterious result of past date-settings regarding the Rapture. Many have gone into deep crises of faith in God’s promises over such failures.

So, with that as a preface, I’d like to examine why it is necessary for God to Rapture the saints of this Church Age—why He will be true to His Word and will do so, I believe, very soon.

The tremendous ramping-up of evil taking place today as humanity proceeds farther toward God’s judgment against sin and rebellion is most relevant to the premise implicit in the title of this commentary: “Why the Rapture Must Happen.”

When looking at the black-and-white films the Allies shot within the Nazi death camps following victory over Adolf Hitler’s Germany in World War II, it’s difficult to comprehend that level of evil. The images of walking skeletons that were the Jewish “survivors” of those camps remain etched in the memory of anyone who has seen those videos.

Upon viewing those films, one instinctively senses that there must be eternal punishment for anyone who perpetrates such absolute evil.

The same level of pictorial record doesn’t exist for the genocidal rampages inflicted on their own people by Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and the murderers of the other despotic regimes in modern times. However, eyewitness accounts and some photographic evidence make it hard to fathom that those beastly tyrants were restrained in their butchery.

The Bible nonetheless bears witness that God the Holy Spirit governs the human conscience. In biblically prophetic terms, this is most evident in Paul’s second epistle to the Thessalonians:

For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:7–8)

Paul was saying here that evil was at work in a big way even at the time he was writing the letter. Still, the Holy Spirit was then “restraining” and would continue to hold back that evil until the Holy Spirit withdraws as the Restrainer of evil. Then all hell will break loose as the Antichrist is revealed. The spirit of Antichrist is already present in the world—and was manifest even during John’s day (read 1 John 4:1–3). The mystery of iniquity about which Paul prophesied and this spirit of Antichrist are interlinked in the ancient web of lawlessness we call evil.

Jesus told what will happen once the Restrainer (the Holy Spirit) withdraws from governing the wickedness in the hearts and minds of people of the post-Rapture world:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21)

The Lord said just how bad things would become:

And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. (Matthew 24:22)

God will shorten the days of the great Tribulation, because if He were to let things go on to their conclusion, without the return of Christ, every being of flesh and blood on the planet would be destroyed. Such is the mystery of iniquity that exists today, and it will become exponentially worse once the restraint of evil is no longer in place. Then, the ultimately evolved man—as evolution would have it—will step to the forefront of fallen human history. Antichrist will inflict horrors on the people of earth in ways Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and the rest of history’s madmen could not have even imagined. His regime will be the most bloodthirsty of all time.

Lawlessness is everywhere we look. Whether considering the Middle East and the unspeakable evil of satanic forces like Hamas, the absolute wickedness of mutilating children fostered by the trans movement, or America and the devil-inspired anti-Semitism of youth groups indoctrinated by US universities, the “mystery of iniquity” is swelling like a great caldera that is about to explode across the world.

Evidence of the growing global lawlessness is compiled hourly through reports like the following:

As recent as 2019, The Economist’s Safe City Index placed Amsterdam at the top in Europe and fourth worldwide, behind only Tokyo, Singapore, and Osaka, but a new debate hosted by local broadcaster AT5 has revealed that seven in ten panel members avoid certain parts of the city because they now feel unsafe.

That figure rises to 85 percent among women, while half of the women surveyed reported experiencing some form of harassment, with some subjected to intimidation, being followed, or assault.

The issue has gained urgency after several high-profile crimes, including the murders of two 17-year-olds, Rivaldo, shot dead on a soccer field, and Lisa, who was brutally murdered by a 22-year-old asylum seeker as she cycled home. Multiple sexual assaults have also rocked the city in recent weeks, and police were on high alert after recording three explosions in five days last week.

Headlines at the time read: explosions-rock-amsterdam-as-dutch-capital-continues-to-reel-from-recent-teen-girl-allegedly-murdered-by-asylum-seeker. (“Amsterdam used to be the safest city in Europe; now a majority of its citizens are afraid to go out at night,” Rapture Ready News, September 12, 2025)

The youth, guilty of most of such lawlessness in inner cities across the world, have been taught by cultural inculcation that they have been held down by the affluent, so their actions are justified. The inference is that it is no more than simply Robin Hood robbing the evil sheriff of Nottingham.

Can there be much doubt that if they commit such bold acts now, then when the Holy Spirit is no longer restraining such evil thinking and actions, even America will quickly become a hellish existence in which anything goes?

It is almost as if the US federal governmental powers-that-be have taken Paul’s 2 Thessalonians 2:7–8 passage to heart. It seems they anticipate a time when draconian measures will be necessary to restrain the evil that is coming. Antichrist’s restraint will be even more draconian, but his own evil will far surpass all other iniquity of history, the Bible says.

Judgment of such rebelliousness awaits implementation by the God who must bring back the righteousness lost in Eden. Our Holy Heavenly Father is the only One who can cleanse humanity of this satanic infection called sin.

Only those who are born again through belief in the Lord Jesus Christ–God’s Son who has taken away the sins of the world—are not subject to God’s judgment of those left behind at the Rapture.

This is the purpose of the Rapture: to rescue all who are in God’s family through belief in Jesus. We are “not appointed to wrath,” which the world of left-behind rebels is about to experience during the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10).

God must remove all who are righteous and all those who have died while in Christ’s saving grace before His judgment and wrath must begin cleansing this fallen world. He will then, again, begin dealing with His chosen nation, Israel, to bring a remnant to accept their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus will return to the planet’s surface, destroy all enemies of God, and set up His Millennial Kingdom.

Ultimately, God will purge all sin, bringing humankind and all of creation back to the perfection that was lost when iniquity was found in Lucifer, and when sin and death entered through Adam’s disobedience.

It will all begin with the Rapture of the Church, which has been being constructed by the Lord Jesus since His death, burial and Resurrection, and His sending the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

This is why the Rapture must happen. Here is how to be sure you go to the Lord Jesus and be rescued from the coming judgment and wrath:

That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)

A woman from the Netherlands who years ago was a frequent visitor to www.raptureready.com once proposed we address a troubling thought she lived with as a Christian. It is a paradox I believe many Christians who look for Christ to come for believers in the Rapture have considered, at least to some extent.

The writer those years ago sent an article about the growing Islamic population in Europe and the threat Islam represents not only to Israel, but to the rest of the world that is not Islamic. She recognized that Israel being at the center of world controversy indicates the lateness of the hour, prophetically speaking. She put it this way in her email:

Every time I see these articles, I am on one hand horrified at the treatment of the Jewish people but on the other hand full of anticipation as I know that with each event that pushes the Jewish people back to their homeland of Israel, the closer the Rapture is for Christians. I do feel badly that I am excited for the Rapture though as I know what that means for those that will be left behind… Should we be as excited as I am to know that we can (I believe “will”) be raptured any second? I know this gives me an urgency to share the gospel with friends and neighbors, but I still always feel guilty for the anticipation and excitement I get when I see the current events played out daily.

This dichotomy within the believer’s thinking is, I believe, not unusual for those who truly look for Christ’s any-moment call as prophesied by Paul the apostle:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17)

Christians who believe the pre-Tribulation Rapture is truth from God’s Word yearn—without need to apologize—for the blessed hope that is found in Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13). At the same time, they know that when that call from their Lord comes, those left behind will soon endure a time of horror, about which the Lord Himself said:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21)

Those left behind will, the Christian knows, include perhaps close friends and beloved family members. So, the paradox of wanting the Rapture to take place, and at the same time dreading it for those who will stay on this planet to endure God’s judgment and wrath is, to some, troubling.

The article this writer sent with her email those years ago encapsulates just a small part of the building evil the Lord of Heaven will judge with His righteous wrath. The matters the article involved point to the satanic rage represented within Islam, the number-one Israel-hating entity on the planet. Hatred for Israel, and the desire of the international community to force the Jewish state to divide the tiny portion of its God-given land to come up with a formula for peace with its Islamic neighbors, will lead to Armageddon, God’s Word says:

For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3:2)

The article the emailer sent contained a speech by Geert Wilders, a Dutch member of Parliament for the Netherlands. He synopsized with stunning description how Israel’s Islamic enemy was systematically infecting Europe, thus threatening world stability—or what little of it that remains.

Wilders, who was chairman of the Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, spoke at the Four Seasons, New York, introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem. He announced that Europe was in dire straits as it was undergoing Islamization. America and the world, he warned, faced the same fate as Europe if the threat wasn’t confronted and defeated everywhere it exists.

Wilders said that entire city sections throughout Europe were taken over by Islamics one street at a time. Local governments and police forces were often so intimidated that they dared not go into those areas to govern. Women, treated no better than slaves, according to the speaker, were covered from head to toe in tent-like attire, sharia law took precedence, and women in sections of the cities not part of the Islamic communities more and more were hearing hate-filled shouts of “Whore!” from those of the Islamic populations. (http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wilders.asp)

That news report was from a decade and a half ago. Today the Wilders prediction is manifest in hourly news reports while American cities and states such as Texas are experiencing what can only be described in my view as an Islamic invasion.

In 1991, the Muslim Brotherhood issued a confidential memorandum that outlined the strategy for the group in North America. It details a plan for the “Enablement of Islam in North America,” understood as “establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims’ causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic State wherever it is.”…

The aim of Islamists is not integration into our society, nor to isolate themselves within their own enclaves, but rather to energetically integrate America into Islamist culture. Far from a Muslim “Benedict Option,” the Islamist strategy is political and confrontational…

Islamists oppose the American sense of nationhood and form of government and seek to replace constitutional and national governments with the global Islamic state…

The digital age means the annihilation of distance. Thanks to the internet, Islam’s reach and networks have globalized. Immigrants talk regularly with relatives on the other side of the world and establish international revenue streams. This new technology presents Islamists with an opportunity they never enjoyed a hundred years ago. Those advocating for stricter Islamic practices can use the power of digital connections to reach and reeducate Muslims around the world. Videos from conflicts in far-off places can be broadcast instantly to millions of Muslims in the West, encouraging them to see themselves as participants in the same struggle. The 1991 memorandum indicates how Islamists exploit this situation by encouraging Muslims to think of themselves not as members of a Western polity but as internationally interconnected engineers who are building one global Islamic state. Islamists will not permit Muslims to blend into America’s purported melting pot. (“The Islamist Threat to American Communities,” Nathan Pinkoski, May 7, 2025)

Israel and its being targeted for extinction by Islam, which has infected so much of the American radical leftist anti-Semite insanity with hatred, is the sure sign that the Tribulation is in view. The Rapture of the Church is, therefore, an event that must be very near to occurring indeed. That being the obvious case, what should be the Christian’s foremost priority? The answer is that it should not be considered a paradox for the believer, but an exhortation, a call to duty.

There is nothing anyone can do to hurry or delay the coming of Christ for His saints in the Rapture. The timing of that great event is out of our hands. Therefore, longing for the blessed hope (Titus 2:13) to rescue us from the terrible time to come (Revelation 3:10) doesn’t conflict with our concern and compassion for those who will be left behind if they don’t come to Christ for salvation. It is time for those who name the name of Christ to recognize the lateness of the prophetic hour; witness to those around us of the truth that Jesus Christ is the one and only Way to salvation; and live in such a way that we can earn our Lord’s commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Deniers and mockers who come against the pre-Trib Rapture as biblical Truth haven’t seemed to be as vociferous lately as in the relatively recent past. Or perhaps it’s just that I’ve tuned out such invective. That’s more likely the case as I’ve been intensely attuned to the stage being set for the Tribulation.

But it is also perhaps the case that the deniers and mockers of the pre-Trib Rapture are themselves now seeing so much of the same stage-setting as myself that they are certain they’re right. They don’t think it’s worth their while to rail against an event they consider now relegated to insignificance because of the torrent of Tribulation-like developments.

And indeed these developments constitute strong evidence that Daniel’s seventieth week looms ominously.

I’ve written that the pre-Trib deniers and mockers don’t believe in the coming Rapture of all believers from the planet, but that Satan harbors no such denial in his iniquitous mind. He knows the Rapture is on the verge of happening. He just doesn’t know when, thus has been furiously getting his minions and all they will need to carry out his world-rending wickedness prepared for that unknown moment God has set for Christ to call the Church.

The devil has prepared the minds of fallen humanity for things to come in ways the diligent student of Bible prophecy from the pre-Trib view can discern.

For examples:

In the area of society and culture, the corruption in America and the world cannot be missed.

Practitioners of homosexuality, although a very small percentage of the populations of the U.S. and the world, now command entire governments. The heterosexuals of the nation and world must accept the Sodom-like coarsening of the cultures—and to resist brings the censure of all, including non-homosexuals. And laws have been constructed to provide punitive actions against anti-gay activism equal to those imposed upon those who violate civil rights laws.

The Luciferian imprint can be discerned in the area of religion as the devil prepares the left-behind populations of the earth for the false religious system that will be headed by his False Prophet.

The Catholic pope declares at every opportunity, for instance, that there are many ways to God and Heaven. Therefore, he, in effect, is calling the Lord Jesus Christ a liar, because Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father except by me” (John 14:6).

Satan has governments in ferment and turmoil and the populations boiling with ethnic hatreds. And the globalist cabal of Ephesians 6:12 is becoming fully staffed and is in the process of implementing their plans for Antichrist to rule once believers disappear from the planet.

The evil one has been at work, in my view, preparing answers to the billions who will be asking what just happened when millions suddenly vanish from around them. The disappearances, including every child from conception to the age of accountability, will cause untold chaos. The world will suffer a nervous breakdown. But Satan’s man, Antichrist, will have answers to bring the peace they seek.

I write, of course, of the UFO (UAP) sightings that have become ubiquitous in these times so near the end of this Age of Grace.

I believe, as written a number of times, that all of these sightings and related phenomena are part of Satan’s stage-setting for when the Rapture occurs. “We’ve been visited by space brothers”—or something similar—will likely be the mantra to explain where the people have gone.

When the False Prophet calls down fire from Heaven in the sight of the image of Antichrist (Revelation chapter 13), it will not be these “space brothers” as claimed, but Satan and his hordes of fallen angels when they lose the battle with Michael and his angels and are thrown out of the heavenly realm for the final time.

And in the area of technology and the amazing progress being made in development of such things as artificial intelligence (AI), the devil is indeed showing his masterful planning for when the Rapture occurs.

A specific such technology is preparing the means for Antichrist and his regime of terror to keep up with every person left behind when believers are in Heaven with their Lord.

The following somewhat gives an idea of that post-Rapture readying now in process.

Cities across the United States are installing hidden surveillance cameras that track everyone, everywhere, and nobody, not even Donald Trump, is talking about this. What are the Top 10 most surveilled cities in the U.S.? We’ve got the list!

My old colleagues at World Net Daily have an interesting story up today about the city of Norfolk, Virginia. City officials have transformed Norfolk into a virtual lock-down surveillance society with more than 172 high-resolution, internet-connected cameras monitoring practically all human movement…

Multitudes of cities of all sizes across the U.S. are jumping on the technocracy bandwagon and setting up hidden surveillance cameras on every corner. They’re on light poles, bridges and overpasses, stoplights, buildings, you name it. Some are equipped with speakers so they can also listen in on what’s being said.

They claim it’s for our “safety.”…

Some abuses have already been documented, the [Institute For Fairness] said, noting just a couple of examples:

• In Kansas, the Institute reports that officials were caught using Flock to stalk their exes, including one police chief who used Flock 228 times over four months to track his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend’s vehicles.
• In California, several police departments violated California law by sharing data from their license-plate reader database with other departments across the country. And as is the case with other databases, these can be susceptible to hacking, which can reveal private data.

[Here’s a look at] a variety of camera types that have become ubiquitous in U.S. cities of all sizes.

• Fixed CCTV cameras.
• Cameras accessed through real-time crime centers.
• Private cameras within the police force’s network.
• Cameras on public transport facilities.
• Traffic cameras.
• Streetlight cameras.

Not to mention, FedEx and Amazon are also spying on you each time they make a delivery to your home…

The top 10 most surveilled cities in the US as of October 2022

Based on the number of cameras per 1,000 people, these are the 10 most surveilled cities in the U.S.:

1. Atlanta, Georgia– 24,800 cameras for 506,811 people = 48.93 cameras per 1,000 people.
2. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania– 28,064 cameras for 1,584,064 people = 17.72 cameras per 1,000 people.
3. Denver, Colorado– 12,273 cameras for 727,211 people = 16.88 cameras per 1,000 people.
4. Washington, District of Columbia– 11,441 cameras for 705,749 people = 16.21 cameras per 1,000 people.
5. San Francisco, California– 14,266 cameras for 881,549 people = 16.18 cameras per 1,000 people.
6. Las Vegas, Nevada– 10,208 cameras for 651,319 people = 15.67 cameras per 1,000 people.
7. Detroit, Michigan– 8,836 cameras for 670,031 people = 13.19 cameras per 1,000 people.
8. Chicago, Illinois– 32,000 cameras for 2,693,976 people = 11.88 cameras per 1,000 people.
9. Portland, Oregon– 6,411 cameras for 654,741 people = 9.79 cameras per 1,000 people.
10. Fresno, California– 4,706 cameras for 531,576 people = 8.85 cameras per 1,000 people.

(“The Surveillance State Has Arrived…And It’s Being Implemented by Our Cities and Towns,” The Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft, Guest Post Leo Hohman, October 28, 2024)

All we see developing lends proof to the soon call of Christ to all believers. Satan is well aware that it’s about to happen. He knows God cannot lie. He believes in the pre-Trib Rapture.

How much more should we who name the Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ believe God when He tells us plainly that He will take us out of this soon-to-be-judged world?

Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10) 

You want to be one of those who God keeps from the terrible time of judgement that’s about to befall this God-rejecting world. Here, once again, is how to go to Christ when He calls in the Rapture:

That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)