02 Thunder of Heaven: A Joshua Jordan Novel (38 page)

The two nurses reached to the switches controlling the ventilator and the oxygen. That would be turned off first. They would keep the lines for the sedative open until the end, to control “involuntary movements” that might appear distressing to Winnie. But Winnie wasn’t watching the nurses. She had her eyes riveted on something else. On her husband. She would watch him until the end.

The nurse reached for the control panel.

“Wait a minute!”

The nurses jumped a little at Winnie’s shout. She scurried up to her husband’s side. “His eyes,” she called out pointing to his face. Virgil Corland’s eyes, which had seemed so fixed and unmoving for months, were now roving from one point to another and seemed to be taking in the room. Then Corland blinked and muttered something unintelligible. Winnie kneeled next to him, her face awash with tears that were rolling down her cheeks. “What did you say, darling? Talk to me …”

The doctor tried to urge her away from her husband, explaining that this was not at all unusual and talking obtusely about something called “locked-in syndrome.” But all of that was about to become irrelevant. Because the immobile patient in the bed suddenly had a voice.

Virgil Corland spoke three garbled words. “Had a dream …”

Winnie was dumbfounded. She burst into tears and cradled his head. “Tell me, dear, what dream, sweetheart?”

Virgil Corland tried to enunciate. His lips were dry. He tried again. Finally some words came out. Four of them. They were faint, raspy,
and parched, as if they had just arrived from some dry and desolate place. Yet at the same time they seemed to possess the power of a prophet’s cry in the wilderness.

“The King is coming …”

From Tim LaHaye, creator and coauthor of the world-renowned Left Behind Series—the most successful adult fiction series ever written—and Craig Parshall comes this epic story ripped from the headlines of world events and filtered through Scriptural prophecy. Set in the very near future,
Thunder of Heaven
chronicles the earth-shattering events leading up to the Apocalypse foretold in Revelation.

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Tim LaHaye’s books always entertain, educate, and thrill, but
Thunder of Heaven
takes it to a new level. I never thought the End of Days would cost me so much sleep!

Glenn Beck
number one
New York Times
bestselling author

Tim LaHaye writes about the prophetic future with such accuracy and passion that once you get started reading what he has written, you do not put the book away until it is finished! In our generation, he has led the way back to a proper appreciation of the prophetic writings of Scripture. Everywhere I go, I meet someone who has read one of Tim’s books and been blessed by it. This book will continue that tradition!

Dr. David Jeremiah
senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church
founder and CEO of Turning Point

Dr. Tim LaHaye writes about the future with the kind of gripping detail that others would use to describe the past. I’ve been reading Tim LaHaye’s books for over thirty years, but
Thunder of Heaven
may be his best yet!”

Mike Huckabee
former Arkansas governor

Other Books by Tim LaHaye

The End Series

Edge of Apocalypse (with Craig Parshall)

Thunder of Heaven (with Craig Parshall)

Revelation Unveiled

Finding the Will of God in a Crazy, Mixed-Up World

How to Win Over Depression

Anger Is a Choice (with Bob Phillips)

The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love
(Tim and Beverly LaHaye)

The Act of Marriage after 40: Making Love for Life
(Tim and Beverly LaHaye with Mike Yorkey)

1. When Joshua finally makes his life-changing decision about God, his physical surroundings help him realize something important about the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. What was it that Joshua came to understand? How did his miserable surroundings help him to realize that?

2. Deborah had to make a tough decision about her relationship with Ethan March. Did Deborah make the right decision, and why or why not?

3. Abigail had to struggle with the fact that, despite her best intentions to save New York, the New Jersey tragedy occurred anyway. Do you think she was morally responsible for that tragedy? Was the legal outcome in Abigail’s criminal case a just result?

4. Remember the scenes that show protests in the streets of Tehran, Iran, near Joshua’s jail cell? That part of this novel was written back in 2010, many months before the surprising outbreak of so many popular uprisings in numerous Middle Eastern nations in 2011. Do you see similarities? Differences?

5. President Virgil Corland, according to his Chief of Staff, Hank Strand, seemed to have been changing his attitude, his outlook, and some of his policies. What do you think was behind those changes?

6. Vice President (and later President) Jessica Tulrude was a strong advocate for the mandatory use of the BIDTag — a “biological identification tag,” to be inserted on human skin through a non-painful laser “tattoo” — the tag would contain personal data such as social security number, date and place of birth, criminal record or terrorist ties,
etc.
and could be detected from a distance by government scanners, supposedly as an antidote to terrorism. In making that argument she pointed to several terror attacks on American soil as fictionalized in our novel. What kind of attacks would it take before the majority of Americans would be willing to accept a national security device such as BIDTags? Do you see any prophetic, Biblical significance in such a personal, mandatory identification system?

7. Massive disasters occur in this novel near the borders of Israel, and as a result, that nation is miraculously rescued. How do those events relate to the Old Testament prophetic book of Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39?

8. What is the attitude of the White House in our novel regarding the nation of Israel? Is that approach similar to or different from the attitude of the American government today? How does that attitude compare to the position of the American people?

9. Russia plays an important role in the events of this novel. If you had to chose, would you view present-day Russia as mostly a friend and ally of the United States or as a potential enemy?

10. The America depicted in this futuristic novel is suffering catastrophic financial problems, and partly because of that, it has entered a new stage of global unification politically and economically with the other nations of the world. If we use a scale of 1 – 10, with 10 being a complete and total unification of the United States with the other governments of the world, what number would you assign to America on that scale today?

Prophecy Books by Tim LaHaye

Are We Living in the End Times?

Charting the End Times

Charting the End Times Study Guide

Revelation Unveiled

The Popular Bible Prophecy Commentary

The Popular Encyclopedia of Bible Prophecy The Rapture: Who Will Face the Tribulation?

Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible

Understanding Bible Prophecy for Yourself

These and other LaHaye resources are available at:
www.timlahaye.com

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