By our anonymous Gonzo journalist who has his own issues.
The banner looked like it had been painted in blood. “RAPTURE DAY – SEPTEMBER 23, 2025.” It stretched across the front of a sagging striped tent in a gravel lot off the highway, the kind of place where county fairs once promised Ferris wheels and cotton candy. Now it promised eternity. Cars packed the lot, trunks stuffed with coolers, blankets, and bug-out bags. Families streamed in like pilgrims, eyes wide, voices hushed, hearts pounding.
Inside, the air was already thick. Sawdust clung to the tongue. Lights buzzed overhead, too hot, frying the crowd under their glow. Charts covered the canvas walls — blood moons, beasts with horns, arrows twisting into spirals. If you didn’t know better you’d think you’d stumbled into the basement of a conspiracy theorist instead of a revival. The barkers stood on stage, red-faced, veins bulging, microphones squealing. “This is the night,” they shouted. “The trumpet is cocked, the King descends, the end has come!”
The crowd wailed back, hands lifted, tears streaming. Some collapsed to their knees, others clutched children, others scribbled frantic notes in journals. And then Abner Holt stood up.
No stage, no microphone. Just a man in the aisle, sleeves rolled up, hair wild, Bible in one hand raised high. His voice cracked through the tent like a thunderclap. “You fools!” he shouted. “You think the Rapture is your great escape? You think the trumpet is a school bell to end the test early? You think heaven is a bankruptcy court to wipe out your debts before the creditors arrive? Wake up! The Word says ‘But of that day and hour knoweth no one, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only’ (Matthew 24:36). Nobody knows. Not these barkers, not the man on stage, not you. Only the Father.”
The barkers turned redder, screaming louder to drown him out, pounding pulpits with fists, waving charts like battle flags. But Abner didn’t flinch. He strode into the aisle, Bible flashing like a weapon, voice booming. “You came here hoping for escape. Escape from bills. Escape from exams. Escape from jobs you hate. Escape from the family you won’t forgive. Escape from the mess you made. But the trumpet isn’t an escape hatch. The trumpet is judgment. The trumpet is reward. And you had better be found faithful when it sounds.”
Some cheered. Some hissed. A boy tugged at his mother’s sleeve. “Is he right?” She shook her head, but her eyes were wet.
The countdown clock blazed red at the front of the tent. Five minutes. The crowd roared louder, hands clawing the air, voices breaking with hysteria. A young man in camouflage waved a Bible in one hand and a survival knife in the other. A woman pressed her dog to her chest as though it might be raptured too. Students in hoodies muttered, “Please, Lord, don’t let there be calculus tomorrow.” Workers in dusty boots whispered, “End it tonight, before I clock in again.” Abner’s eyes swept over them all.
“Listen to me!” he roared. “The Word says ‘Occupy till I come’ (Luke 19:13). That means stay at your post. Do your work. Study for your test. Pay what you owe. Fix what you’ve broken. The Lord does not want servants hiding in tents, waiting for a clock to save them. He wants servants awake at their duty when He arrives.”
Three minutes. Two. The frenzy boiled. People collapsed onto the sawdust floor. Others danced and wept. The barkers screamed into microphones, their voices distorted, their faces twisted in the hot light. The charts seemed to writhe, beasts crawling out of the ink, arrows bending like serpents. My vision spun. For a moment it seemed the roof itself might tear open. Angels — or something like them — swept across the ceiling, wings like knives, eyes burning like suns. The crowd shrieked, ready to rise.
And Abner’s voice cut across like steel: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matthew 24:24).
One minute. The crowd roared as one body, swaying, screaming, groaning. A boy cried out, “Is it time?” His mother clutched him, trembling. A man shouted, “Take me, Lord, before the mortgage is due!” Another muttered, “Spare me that final exam.” And Abner bellowed: “The trumpet is not a snow day. It is not a pink slip. It is not a calculator wiping your balance sheet. The trumpet is the King returning to settle accounts. And ‘Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing’ (Matthew 24:46). Doing the work. Not dodging it.”
Then zero.
The silence hit like a hammer. The lights buzzed overhead. A baby cried. A cough broke the stillness. Outside, crickets sang. But no trumpet. No sky split. The barkers froze, sweat dripping. They shuffled papers, stammered into microphones. “Perhaps a miscalculation. Perhaps the Hebrew calendar. Perhaps Jerusalem time.” Excuses dribbled out like oil on water. The crowd sagged, muttered, stumbled toward the exits. One man groaned, “I sold my car for this.” A woman whispered, “I thought we’d be gone.”
That is the whiplash. From hysteria to despair in a single heartbeat. Souls bruised, faith cracked.
Abner lowered his Bible to his chest. His voice was steadier now, quieter, but it rang through the silence. “Do you see? Another false alarm. Another circus trick. They will set another date. They will sell another ticket. And some of you will come back, because you want escape more than truth. But the Word has not changed. ‘Watch ye therefore, and pray always’ (Luke 21:36). Watch. Pray. Live faithful. Not to dodge your exams. Not to erase your debt. Not to run from your duty. Watch so you are ready to meet the King with clean hands and a faithful heart.”
The people shuffled into the night, shoulders sagging. The barkers huddled at the front, whispering about recalculations. The tent groaned under its own silence. And Abner Holt stood in the sawdust, Bible raised toward the rafters, voice echoing in the emptiness.
“The circus will end. The King will come. And woe to the one who is not ready when the true midnight cry tears the sky open.”
The Gospel According to Abner Holt
You could follow Abner from town to town if you had the stomach for it. He was always there, somewhere near the back, sleeves rolled up, Bible ready. Every time the tents went up and the barkers promised the day and the hour, Abner would rise like a storm.
He had heard every fantasy, every excuse. The student praying for the trumpet before finals week. The worker hoping for rapture before the next shift. The debtor wishing heaven would erase the ledger. The husband praying for escape before confessing his failure. And Abner would roar the same words every time. “God is not mocked: for whatsoever a person soweth, that shall they also reap” (Galatians 6:7).
They wanted escape. He preached endurance. They wanted shortcuts. He preached faithfulness. They wanted loopholes. He preached the cross.
Because the truth is harder than the circus sells. Forgiveness is real, yes. “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us… nailing it to his cross” (Colossians 2:14). Christ does wipe the record clean. But He does not do it through countdown clocks and carnival tents. He does it through blood, through repentance, through lives surrendered.
Abner knew the circus would not stop. It was too profitable. Barkers would always find another date, always sell another ticket, always whip the crowd into hysteria. And the people, sincere and hungry, would always come. Some with fear, some with hope, some with desperation. And every time, the clock would strike, the silence would fall, and the crowd would leave dazed.
But the Word never changed. And Abner never stopped waving it like a torch in the sawdust.
“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come” (Matthew 24:42).
“Be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44).
“Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing” (Matthew 24:46).
That was his sermon. Over and over. In every tent. In every town. Until the real midnight cry came.