by Tim LaHaye
This was the One who is and who was and who had finally come, "the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. This was Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. "
And with those very first words, tens of thousands of Unity Army soldiers fell dead, simply dropping where they stood, their bodies ripped open, blood pooling in great masses. "I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. "
With that Carpathia scrambled down from his perch and slid in the passenger-side window. "Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!" he shouted, but the driver must have been dead. "Leon, drive! Get this carcass out!" The driver's door opened and a body flopped out. Soon the vehicle was bouncing down the hill toward the desert.
"I am the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God. I am the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, the One who prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. "
With every word, more and more enemies of God dropped dead, torn to pieces. Horses panicked and bolted. The living screamed in terror and ran about like madmen—some escaping for a time, others falling at the words of the Lord Christ.
"I am the Lamb that was slain and yet who lives. I am the Shepherd who leads His sheep to living fountains of waters. I am the God who will wipe away every tear from your eyes. I am your Salvation and Strength. I am the Christ who has come for the accuser of the brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, the one who has been cast down. "
For miles lay the carcasses of the Unity Army. The manic, crazed survivors ran and staggered and drove over and through them, fleeing for their lives.
"I am the Word of God. I am Jesus. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star. "
It was hard to kneel and look up, but somehow Enoch found a way. And all his parishioners did the same. He couldn't articulate his feelings, even in the quietness of his own heart and mind. To see Jesus, clad in white, riding the white horse, and speaking with the authority of the ages, and knowing that He was slaying the enemy in the Holy Land at the same time... it was just too much to take in.
Enoch believed that Jesus was the lover of his soul, and seeing Him return on the clouds, knowing He was there to set up His thousand-year kingdom reign, completed Enoch somehow. The psalmist said that as a deer pants after water, so the soul pants after God. Enoch somehow knew that his panting was over. His Savior had come.
He was only vaguely aware that neighbors had burst from their homes in terror, screaming and calling to each other. The light blinded them and they ran to and fro, some jumping in cars and careening down the street. Enoch knew that the news the next day—if there would be news—would report hundreds of thousands of employees of the ruler of this world having mysteriously been slain at the time of the phenomenon in the sky.
And the ruler of this world was himself now running for his life.
The all-encompassing, pervasive light that preceded the opening of heaven had fully awakened Kenny Bruce, and Abdullah quickly turned him to face the sky. When Jesus appeared, Abdullah awkwardly knelt, careful not to drop the boy.
"Me too, Uncle Smitty, " Kenny said. And he too knelt, first intertwining his tiny fingers as if to pray, then reaching out to Jesus.
"My Lord and my God, " Abdullah said, and Kenny repeated him.
"Jesus!" Kenny cried, standing and waving. "Jesus!"
Rayford stood atop the seat of his ATV, his attention divided between the Lord on the clouds and the Unity Army breaking for cover across the sandy plains. But there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. As the words of Jesus trumpeted throughout the earth, they could not be avoided. He could not be ignored.
Something about Jesus' appearing struck Rayford so deeply that he was glad no one else was around. He would not have been able to utter a sound. There were no words for the thrill, the magnetism, the overwhelming perfection of the moment. Jesus was the culmination of his whole life, and not just since he had been regenerated. Rayford realized that Jesus was whom his soul had been seeking since he was old enough to think and reason. Jesus was the source and the point of all life.
Rayford knew that somewhere in that heavenly band of white-clad saints behind Jesus were his wife and son, and that his daughter, his second wife, and many friends and loved ones would soon be brought forth to join them. How sweet those reunions would be, and yet how the very thought of them paled next to his fulfilled devotion to Jesus.
As the Global Community minions threw miles-long clouds of dust as they scattered, Jesus continued to speak. And the enemies of God continued to die.
"I am able to save to the uttermost those who come to the Father through Me! I live to make intercession for them. I come from above and am above all. My Father has delivered all things to Me. He put all things under My feet and gave Me to be head over all things. I am the anchor of your soul, sure and steadfast. I am the Lord's Christ. "
As Rayford slowly made his way down to the desert plains, though he had to concentrate on missing craters and keeping from hitting splayed and filleted bodies of men and women and horses, Jesus still appeared before his eyes—shining, magnificent, powerful, victorious.
And that sword from His mouth, the powerful Word of God itself, continued to slice through the air, reaping the wrath of God's final judgment. The enemy had been given chance after chance, judgment after judgment to convince and persuade them. To this very minute, God had offered forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, salvation. But except for that now-tiny remnant of Israel that was seeing for the first time the One they had pierced, it was too late.
"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
"I am the Apostle and High Priest of your confession, God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory.
"I am the Son whom God has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when I had by Myself purged your sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as I have by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."
Rayford saw soldiers kill themselves at the sight of their slain comrades. Others looked like cartoon characters on speed, using any implement they could find to dig holes and bury themselves, trying to hide from the piercing light and convicting words of Christ.
Carpathia was radioing ahead to generals and commanders in the middle of his army that still extended miles from Petra to the north. "Reinforcements! Reinforcements! Spare no expense or equipment! Meet us at Buseirah!"
The royal Humvee, with the ubiquitous Leon at the wheel, far outraced Rayford's ATV until it ran into the rest of the army trying to flee on horseback and on foot. About half the original caravan trailed the Humvee, minus the munitions carriers that remained inoperative just outside Petra.
Rayford raced up behind the fleeing potentate and his panicked entourage, and turned to see what was happening with the rest of the Unity Army that had been encircling Petra. All he could see for miles were craters; overturned vehicles; clouds of dust; dead and dying soldiers and horses; personnel walking in a daze, running, staggering. And above them great clouds of ravenous birds, getting their fill of man and beast. Strangely, though, the swarming flocks that would have otherwise blocked out the sun cast no shadow on the ground. The light of Christ permeated everything.
"How we doing up there, Mac?"
"Oh, Ray! I c
an hear every word, and it's like God's in the cockpit with me, looking right into my eyes. "
"I know the feeling."
"Listen, I'm going to head to Buseirah, 'cause that's where what's left of the front lines here seem to be headed. From up here it looks like the worst of the damage and casualties is within five miles of Petra. The rest of the one-third is steering toward Buseirah, and farther north the other two-thirds is pretty much intact and trying to regroup. "
One of the women told Enoch, without taking her gaze from the sky, that it seemed "as if Jesus is lookin' right at me."
"Me too," another said, and another.
"Just fellowship with your Savior," Enoch said quietly, not wanting to speak while Jesus was speaking. It should have been no surprise, he decided, that Christ would supernaturally make personal to every believer the truth of His coming, as if He had come for each individually. Enoch had once heard an old saint say, "He loved us every one, as if there were but one of us to love. "
Jesus said, "Look unto Me, the author and finisher of your faith, who for the joy that was set before Me endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
"God now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed this the day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by Me, the Man whom He has ordained. He gave assurance of this to all by raising Me from the dead.
"I am Jesus Christ the righteous, your Advocate with the Father. And I Myself was the propitiation for your sins, and not for yours only but also for the whole world. I am the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead. I am the Word that became flesh and dwelt among you, and you beheld My glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
"I, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Myself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, I humbled Myself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
"Therefore, Enoch, God also has highly exalted Me and given Me the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Enoch's jaw dropped. Sitting there in the brilliance of God's glory, his Savior Jesus had spoken directly to him by name. "Did you hear that?" he said, and the three dozen plus kneeling around him dissolved into tears. "He used my name."
"He used my name," a young man said.
"He called me by name," a woman said.
"Me too."
"Me too."
Rayford sat in the middle of the carnage surrounding Petra, his heart bursting, the love and adoration he felt for Jesus coming right back at him from the clouds. Christ had called him by name, and as Rayford gazed at Him he had the feeling that it was true that the very hairs on his head were numbered, that Jesus knew everything there was to know about him. It was as if He had returned just for Rayford.
"Ray, this's Mac."
"Yeah, Mac."
"You're not goin' to believe this, but—"
"I know."
"You too?"
"Everybody, I think, Mac."
"Incredible."
Even knowing that the same phenomenon had happened to others, Rayford longed to hear Jesus say his name again. It came with such love, compassion, and knowledge that it was as if no one had ever uttered it before or would again.
"Rayford—" there it was again—"you know My grace, that though I was rich, yet for your sake I became poor, that you through My poverty might become rich."
"I know, Lord," Rayford said, tears streaming. "I know. "
"I have delivered you from the power of darkness and conveyed you into the kingdom of the Son of God's love, in whom you have redemption through My blood, the forgiveness of sins. I am the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
"For by Me all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Me and for Me. And I am before all things, and in Me all things consist.
"I am the head of the body, the church, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things I may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Me all the fullness should dwell, and by Me to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of My cross."
Again Rayford slid to the ground, raising his arms. "My Lord and my God, I am so unworthy. "
"And you, Rayford, who once were alienated and an enemy in your mind by wicked works, yet now I have reconciled in the body of My flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in God's sight."
"Unworthy, unworthy!" Rayford cried.
"Justified by faith," Jesus said. "Justified. "
It seemed to Abdullah that all in Petra were on their faces and yet still somehow able to see Christ. And when the Savior had called Abdullah by name, he could tell from the response around him that Jesus had called each person by their own name. Even better, Jesus had spoken to Abdullah in his native Arabic.
Kenny shouted, "He knows me!"
And Beth Ann wrapped her arms around George's neck and squealed, "He said my name!"
From that moment, Abdullah heard everyone conversing with Jesus as if He were speaking to each of them alone.
TWELVE
MAC LOOKED DOWN on Bozrah, the modern-day Jordanian city of Buseirah. It lay thirty miles southeast of the Dead Sea and about twenty miles north of Petra. He told Rayford, "It's a remote village in the mountains here, and access is gonna be difficult."
"Especially if the Lord doesn't want the Unity Army to get there safely."
"And He doesn't."
"Mac, didn't Chaim say the remnant is supposed to go with Jesus to Jerusalem?"
"I believe so."
"How're we going to get a million people sixty miles in one day? We don't have enough vehicles or planes. "
"I don't guess it's our problem, Ray."
"So the question remains."
"Look up, brother. Look up. Hey, you're not gonna try to chase Nicolae all the way to Jerusalem on that little buggy, are ya?"
"I've been reconsidering that, Mac."
"I've been in touch with Chang and Lionel. I don't want to be this far from the action myself. What say we get back to Petra and commandeer us a Hummer?"
"We'd better hurry. I don't want to miss what happens in Bozrah. "
"You're drivin', Ray. "
"No you don't. You're driving. "
"Let's get Smitty. He loves to drive. Plus I'll bet he'd love to be along. "
By the time Rayford had scooted back up to Petra, Mac had already landed the chopper and found Abdullah. The three embraced. "What do you call it again, " Abdullah said, "when someone states the obvious?"
"I call it statin' the obvious, " Mac said. "And it's usually done by a Jordanian. You about to state some-thin' obvious, Smitty?"
"I am, sir. "
"Well, let'er fly. "
"This is the greatest day of my life. How about you?"
Chaim was nearly overrun with people peppering him with questions. He wanted to give them his full attention, but how could he with his Savior in the clouds?
The people were preoccupied with Jesus too, of course, but until they could talk with Him face-to-face, they asked Chaim for answers while looking past him into the heavens.
"Why are the saints behind Him wearing white? To signify their purity?"
"I believe so, " Chaim said. "And also because they are not really going to be involved in the war at all. Jesus will do all the work, and the battles—three more following this one—will not really be battles at all, but rather one-sided slaughters. "
Rayford longed to
see Kenny, but he didn't want to upset him by then pulling away again so quickly. He also wanted to talk to Priscilla Sebastian about how she planned on keeping the kids, her daughter and his grandson, from seeing the horror outside the walls. Abdullah assured him that Kenny was fine for now— he was as enamored of Jesus as they all were—and that Priscilla indeed had a plan.
The million-strong in Petra had fallen far out of their original formation by now and were milling about, most with their necks craned toward the sky but somehow also intuitively migrating toward the exits. They knew they were to be delivered by Jesus, not just from the attack of Antichrist, but back to their homeland, their home city, the City of God, Jerusalem.
"Are we free?" someone asked Enoch.
"I think we are, " he said. "No way the Lord will allow Antichrist's forces to kill us for not having the mark of loyalty, now that He is here and is to rule the nations. Even ours. "
"How will God do that from over there?"
"I have no idea, " Enoch said. "But after today, I will simply believe it, won't you?"
"That's in the Bible, Jesus rulin' the nations?"
"It is. Revelation 12: 5 says, 'She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. ' That's Jesus. And He's here now. That rod of iron sounds like He's going to take no baloney from anybody, doesn't it?"
"I heard that. "
"Then I think we're free to live and move about without fear, " Enoch said.
"I'm gonna fear a little for a while, but that sure sounds good to me."
The only downside of having Abdullah drive the Hummer was that Rayford would have to trade off with Mac for the privilege of riding shotgun. That transported him back to college when he and his fraternity brothers would compete to call the favored seat, sometimes as much as twenty-four hours before a trip. That also reminded him how far he had been from being a believer back then. Had someone predicted where he would be thirty years later and painted this scene, Rayford would have laughed in his face.