People have been quitting their jobs and selling up their stuff out of a belief that the world might end tomorrow.
It’s not quite clear why exactly selling your car might help if the apocalypse is nigh, but each to their own.
It hasn’t stopped people panicking about the latest existential threat to life as we know it.
Why are people convinced that the end of the world is coming?
Of course, we’ve been around the block a few times with threats of impending doom for humanity.
It’s been predicted by - deep breath - Isaac Newton, Nostradamus, a supercomputer, a mysterious Russian ‘prophet’ called Baba Vanga, and multiple other sources.
In fact, in terms of probability, one day someone will be right.
This time, the chilling prediction has come from a man in South Africa.
Joshua Mhlakela, a religious leader, has appeared on a YouTube channel - bringing threats to civilization truly into the 21st century - to claim that God will be coming down to ‘rescue Christians out of the world’ on September 23 and 24.
That’s tomorrow and Wednesday, so not long to wait now.
Coincidentally - or not, as the case may be - the dates fall on the Jewish feast of Rosh Hashanah, or the Feast of the Trumpets.
It’s a holy day that marks the start of the Jewish year, and - for some Christians - a sign of the rapture, or the return of Christ.
Whether that is true or not remains to be seen…
In his interview, the pastor said that this rapture will come with ‘such power’ that the earth itself will ‘shake’.
He told Innocent and Millicent Cent, the CENTTWINZ TV hosts: “The rapture is upon us, whether you are ready or not,
“I saw Jesus sitting on his throne, and I could hear him very loud and clear saying, ‘I am coming soon.’”
On social media, Mhlakela’s words have caused a bit of a stir.
“I ask God all the time to please take my dogs when we’re raptured,” one comment said.
According to one comedian - so likely a joke - people were making significant life changes ahead of the impending rapture.
“They are selling their cars, clothes, some people are making post-rapture kits for the people who are left behind,” Kevin Fredericks said.
He also cast further scorn onto the rumors of rapture, adding: “What time zone is it happening in? Because the whole thing about the rapture that I was taught was that no man knows the date or the hour…
“There are 24 time zones on Earth, 38 if you include the ones that have half-hour times. No man knows how you all know.”
People have actually been selling their stuff
However, some people claim to have actually been reacting to the news by flogging their stuff.
Tilahun Desalegn was so convinced that he claimed on TikTok that he’d sold his five-year-old car ahead of ‘catching a flight to heaven’ over the next couple of days.
“She’s got to go. I won’t need her beyond September. I’m going home, to where my father in heaven is,” he said.
In a video, Desalegn said: “If the 23 and 24 September comes and goes by and I’m still here, on the 25 of September if I’m still here, I will upload an apology video [for] everyone that I convinced there was going to be a rapture and left them disappointed.
“I will acknowledge I was very likely deceived and that I was not hearing from God.”
We’ll have to wait and see what happens over the coming days.
Someone is going to have their pride hurt, at the very least.