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not been a perfect man, and he had failed the Lord more than once, but he had been forgiven his sins and had served God faithfully to the day of his death.
When beckoned to the throne for his crowns and his "well done," Peter hesitated and asked Jesus' forgiveness "for denying You thrice on Your way to the cross."
"My friend, you were forgiven the first time you repented, and it was never remembered again--except by you when you confessed it again and again. I commend you for your faithfulness in leading My early church, for your passionate preaching on what has become known as the Day of Pentecost, and for being the first to communicate My truth to the Jews in Jerusalem. And I praise you for your willingness to preach to the Gentiles, opening the door of faith and salvation to millions.
"You never again denied Me following My resurrection and return to heaven. And when you were martyred for My cause, you chose to be hung upside down, considering yourself unworthy to die in the manner in which I did. I welcome you to the eternal joy of My Father and present to you the crowns of Life, Glory, Righteousness, and Rejoicing."
Jesus placed one of the crowns on Peter's head, and Peter turned to face the masses with the other three in his hands. Raymie thought he looked embarrassed to be holding them.
Raymie and his mother leaped to their feet with the rest of the endless throng, cheering and clapping as Peter turned and praised Jesus. And as they watched, Peter removed the crown from his head and, putting it with
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his other three, knelt and placed them at the feet of his Savior.
Thus began a parade of saints doing the same, one after the other in crowds so huge one couldn't tell where they began and ended. And when the crowns piled so high that they nearly blotted out the view of Jesus, they melted away and became part of the glassy sea and the gold-paved streets.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Christopher Smith had his cell phone plastered to his ear as he helped the rest of the crew get everyone off the plane, directing them to slide down plastic chutes. A few buses arrived for the infirm, but almost all the passengers walked.
Chris was unable to reach Jane or the boys, so he called everywhere he could think of. Finally he reached his local police department and a desk sergeant so harried that Chris was surprised the man would talk to him at all.
"Your wife was involved in a TA, yes."
"ATA?"
"Traffic accident--sorry."
"And is she all right? Where is she?"
"I am not at liberty to discuss this by phone, sir."
"What are you talking about? I need to know if she's
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all right and, if not, what hospital she's in. And my sons. Had she picked them up? Were they in the car yet? We both know you know. Now tell me."
"You are to call a Mr. Ira Smith. You know him?"
" "Course I know him. He's my uncle. Why do I need to call him?"
"He can tell you what you need to know."
Chris was dialing his uncle as he and Rayford and Hattie disembarked. The driver of the last bus insisted that the crew ride with him.
Rayford refused. "I can't see passing my own passengers as they walk to the terminal. How would that look?"
Christopher said, "Suit yourself, Cap. You mind if I take him up on his offer?"
Rayford glared at him. "You're serious?"
"I don't get paid enough for this."
"Like this was the airline's fault. Chris, you don't mean it."
"The heck I don't. By the time you get up there you'll wish you'd ridden too."
"I should write you up for this."
"Millions of people disappear into thin air and I should worry about getting written up for riding instead of walking? Later, Steele."
Only two men remained. When Jesus stood and said, "John," the masses erupted. The disciple Jesus loved
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knelt at the altar, and his works also showed no waste-- no hay, wood, or stubble. He was awarded all but the martyr's crown, as he was the only one of the faithful disciples who had not been put to death for his faith.
Jesus and John embraced like the old friends they were, and Jesus said, "I commend you for never denying My name before men, for writing your Gospel and the three letters that bear your name. Also for faithfully recording My revelation, chronicling the vision I bestowed upon you. You were a witness for many years as shepherd of many flocks, primarily the church at Ephesus, where you also tutored and mentored so many of those who carried on the work after the deaths of the apostles.
"Thank you for taking care of My earthly mother. Well done, good and faithful servant. Because you have been loyal and trustworthy and dependable in so many things, I will therefore make you ruler over many cities. Welcome into the joy of the Lord forever."
"Chris, you need to get home," Uncle Ira said. "I'll be waiting for you there."
"No, you don't! Tell me right now what's happened to my family!"
"I really need to do this in person. I'm not going to try to get into everything over the phone."
"Yes, you are! Now I mean it, Ira! I'll be hours getting out of here and into the suburbs. Don't make me wait that long. They're dead, aren't they? They were all killed."
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"Not exactly."
"What does that mean? If they're there, let me talk to them!"
"If you have to know and won't take no for an answer, I'm sorry to tell you that, yes, Jane is gone."
"What happened?"
"She was on her way to pick up the boys, and a tractor trailer hit her head-on. The driver was one of those who disappeared right out of his clothes."
"No! But the boys weren't with her?"
"No, but, Chris, they're gone too."
"Oh no! No! How did they die?"
"Their wallets were found at the church in the parking lot, along with the clothes and personal effects of several dozen other kids and staff from the church. I guess they were out there waiting for their rides when this happened."
Chris was mentally reaching for anything that would keep him from going over the edge. "Then they'll find them. The boys will be back. The boys aren't dead."
"Nobody knows where these people are, Chris," Ira said. "There wasn't one person left at the church. The truth is nobody knows if we'll see these people again."
"Don't say that!"
"You wanted the truth. Now, I'm sorry, but there's both barrels. You come straight home as soon as you can now, hear? Your aunt is putting together a meal for you."
"Tell her not to bother."
"She's already bothered. We can only imagine how awful this is for you. Get here so we can take care of you."
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"Yeah," Chris said, letting his phone flap shut. Take care of him? Unless they could bring back Jane and the boys, there would be no taking care of Christopher Smith. That everybody at the church had disappeared told him everything he needed to know. God was behind this. His boys had somehow qualified, and he and Jane hadn't. In some absurd way, that made sense.
He deserved this.
But he couldn't imagine life without them. He wouldn't even consider it. Christopher Smith was not about to go home to an empty house, to be the object of concern and pity by his elderly relatives. As soon as he could find a private place and the means, he was going to make sure he didn't spend more than ten more minutes on this godforsaken planet.
"Paul."
There was a reason the apostle who had never personally met Jesus had been saved for last. He was the most well-known person in the New Testament besides Jesus Himself. And he had so profoundly articulated the faith in deep theological treatises that millions through the ages had come to understand and believe the gospel.
What a story, Raymie thought. A scholar who had been so opposed to the Christian message that he had actually killed Christians had become the writer of so much of the New Testament.
Paul seemed eager to meet Jesus, even as he
knelt
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before the flame that left a precious residue of only gems and gold and silver. And when he approached the throne, he dropped to his knees, begging forgiveness for having originally been a persecutor of the church.
"Your sins," Jesus said, lifting him and embracing him, "have been removed as far as the east is from the west. You came to believe in Me so completely that you offered every fiber of your being in service to Me. Yours was the ultimate expression of a lifetime of worship. I award you all four crowns of reward, good and faithful servant. Thank you for being the first to take My gospel to Europe, which became the gateway to the rest of the world."
Facing Jesus, with his back to the crowd, Paul was still able to be heard. "I thank You for Your sacrifice, which provided eternal life to all who believed in Your name, for Your finished work on the cross, for Your resurrection. And thank You for sending Your Holy Spirit to be our Comforter, who guided and strengthened us through all our trials and sufferings. I will praise Your name forever."
And with that, Paul too laid his crowns at the feet of Jesus.
Rayford Steele feared he had a better idea than most of what had happened. If he was right, if it was true, it explained why he was not getting an answer when he dialed home. Most shocking, as he stood in the terminal,
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was watching a TV monitor above him broadcast images of the chaos. From around the globe came wailing mothers, stoic families, reports of death and destruction. Dozens of stories included eyewitnesses who had seen loved ones and friends disappear before their eyes.
A woman in labor, about to go into the delivery room, was suddenly barren. Doctors delivered the placenta. Her husband had caught the disappearance of the fetus on tape. There was a scream, the dropping of the camera, terrified voices, running nurses, and the doctor. CNN reran the footage in superslow motion, showing the woman going from very pregnant to nearly flat stomached, as if she had instantaneously delivered.
Local television stations from around the world reported bizarre occurrences, especially in the time zones where the event had happened during the day or early evening. CNN showed via satellite the footage of a groom disappearing while slipping the ring onto his bride's finger. A funeral home in Australia reported that nearly every mourner had disappeared from one memorial service, including the corpse, while at another service at the same time, only a few disappeared and the corpse remained.
Unable to reach more than the answering machine at home, Rayford finally caught a helicopter to the landing pad at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights. He was about five miles from home, and he bet he could hitch a ride easier than finding a cab. As he trudged along, his trench coat over his arm and his bag in his hand, he had an empty, despairing feeling.
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A woman of about forty stopped for Rayford on Algonquin Road. As he got in and thanked her, he said, "Have you lost people?"
"Traid so," she said, her voice quavery. "About a dozen nieces and nephews."
As she drove, sniffling, into Mt. Prospect, Rayford felt fatigue he had never endured before. "Can I offer you anything?" he said as she pulled into his driveway.
She shook her head. "You could pray for me, if you think of it."
"I'm not much for praying," he said.
"You will be, sir. I never was before either, but I am now."
Rayford stood in the driveway and waved at the woman until she was out of sight. The yard and the walk were spotless as usual, and the huge home, his trophy house, was sepulchral. He unlocked the front door. From the closed drapes in the picture window to the bitter smell of burned coffee when he opened the door, everything pointed to what he dreaded.
Buck Williams checked the phone log in his laptop and dialed.
A teenage boy answered, "Washingtons." "Cameron Williams of Global Weekly calling for
Lucinda."
"My mom's not here. I'm the only one left. Mama,
Daddy, everybody else is gone. Disappeared."
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"Oh, man! I'm sorry, son."
"That's all right. I know where they are, and I can't even say I'm surprised."
"You know where they are?"
"If you know my mama, you know where she is too. She's in heaven."
Lucinda and Charles Washington, filled to overflowing with what they had already witnessed in the short time they'd been in glory, knew what was coming next. Seven Earth years after the signing of a covenant between the Antichrist and Israel, Jesus would return for His glorious appearing and establish a thousand-year reign of peace.
But just before that would come the marriage of the Lamb with His bride, the church.
Lucinda looked into the eyes of her husband and thought his thoughts. Time clearly meant nothing here. That wedding might seem eons away, yet it could happen within the next few moments. She couldn't wait. Best of all was that when the time came and Jesus rode His white stallion in triumph to the Battle of Armageddon, the saints in heaven would descend with Him and constitute His avenging army. She and her husband would be part of that. Imagine.
Like everyone else in the great assembly hall on the first floor of the house of God, Lucinda Washington was finding heaven way more than she had ever dreamed.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
The second coming of Jesus Christ is the most frequently mentioned subject in the Bible, other than the doctrine of salvation, what the Bible is all about. The Second Coming is clearly taught in both the Old and the New Testaments. It was promised 321 times in Scripture, predicted by Jesus Christ Himself, by all the writers of the New Testament and by many of the Old Testament prophets. It is the capstone of all Christianity, without which God's merciful plan for mankind's future cannot be understood.
The Second Coming is easily the most fascinating event predicted anywhere and is the only message that gives hope to the chaotic world in which we live. Jerry Jenkins and I have often been asked why the Left Behind books comprise the most popular fiction series ever. My answer, aside from Jerry's incredible fiction-writing gift,
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is that it is based on the Bible's forecast of the last days, starting with the Second Coming, which many find fascinating. Surveys tell us that more than 65 percent of the population of America believes Jesus Christ is coming back to this world, just as He promised. It is the last best hope of mankind, if, of course, you are ready for His return by having personally invited Christ into your life. This is the primary reason we wrote the Left Behind series. Fortunately, from the letters, e-mails, and personal contacts we receive, we know that thousands say they have come to faith through reading these books.
Satan clearly does not want anyone to understand prophecy, for there is no more spiritually motivating subject than the return of Christ. Jesus called Satan "a liar" and "a deceiver," so we can expect him to "[sow] discord in a family" and confuse those who are seeking the truth /Proverbs 6:19). Keep in mind that Jesus predicted there would be "false messiahs and false prophets" who would come on the scene in the last days (Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22). If these are really the last days, as many Bible scholars believe, we should not be surprised to find false prophets and those deliberately teaching error. For that reason it is important for the serious student of the Scripture to learn...
The Two Keys to Understanding the Second Coming
1. You must take the Bible literally, including prophecy. That does not mean we are "wooden literalists," as some detractors accuse. Every language has metaphors and
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other figures of speech usually revealed by context. We follow the time-honored principle used by many Bible scholars: "When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense, but take every word at its primary literal meaning, unless the facts of the immediate context clearly indicate otherwise." This, of course, allows for no allegorizing or spiritualizing of prophecy, which is what leads to so many divergent and confusing interpretations
of end-time events. Most amillennialists, postmillennialists, and preterists fall into this category. Whereas they may take other Scriptures literally, they tend to spiritualize or allegorize prophecy, which, in our opinion, makes it all but impossible to rightly divide the Word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). As the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus' first coming were literally fulfilled, there is every reason to believe that the New Testament prophecies of His second coming will also be literally fulfilled.
2. You must keep in mind that there are two stages to the Second Coming. By studying all 321 Second Coming passages in context, we find that they fall into one of two categories: They relate either to the rapture of the church--when Christ calls all believers to meet Him in the clouds (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) just before taking them to heaven as He promised (John 14:1-3)--or they describe the Glorious Appearing (Matthew 24:29-31; Revelation 19:11-21) just before He returns to earth and establishes His one-thousand-year kingdom. In our series we show the Rapture coming just before the Tribulation
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period, which we cover in books one through twelve, and then the Glorious Appearing, which we cover in book twelve and the final sequel.
In four of my nonfiction prophecy books--Are We Living in The End Times?, The Popular Encyclopedia of Bible Prophecy, The Rapture (not to be confused with this novel), and Charting the End Times--I list the fifteen differences between these events. In fact, after you compare them, you will realize that they cannot possibly be describing the same event. For example, the Rapture could take place at any moment without warning; the Glorious Appearing cannot take place for at least seven more years after many prophetically forecast events. The Rapture finds Christ calling believers to meet Him in the air so He can take us to His Father's house as He promised. The Glorious Appearing finds believers coming with Christ to the earth when He sets up His kingdom. This may be why the apostle Paul referred to the Rapture, our Lord's coming, as "the blessed hope," and gave us the name "Glorious Appearing" for the public coming of Christ to earth. Personally, I think Paul was distinguishing these two phases or stages of Christ's second coming.