Glorious Appearing: The End Of Days (8 page)

“I expect a show like I have never witnessed, but I will be safe as He has promised. Will you be safe? Are you ready? Are you prepared? Do not put it off another second.

“What is the sign of the Son of Man? Again, I do not know, but I know who the Son of Man is: Jesus, the Messiah. His sign could take any form. Might it be a mighty dove, as descended upon Him when John baptized Him? Might it be the form of a lion, as He has also been called the Lion of Judah? Might His sign be a lamb, as He is also the Lamb of God? The cross upon which He died? The open tomb, in which He conquered death? We do not know, but I will be watching. Won’t you?

“Who are these tribes of the earth who will mourn when they see Him coming? Those who are not ready.

Those who have lingered in their rebellion, their disbelief, their sloth.

“Zechariah, the great Jewish prophet of old, foretold this thousands of years ago. He wrote, quoting Messiah: ‘I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. ‘

“Imagine that, people! Historians tell us Zechariah wrote that prophecy well more than four hundred years before the birth of Christ, and yet he quotes the Lord referring to Himself as ‘Me whom they pierced. ‘

“Zechariah goes on: ‘In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem…. And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves… all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.

“In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. And it shall come to pass in all the land… that two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, but one-third shall be left in it.

“I will bring the one-third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, “This is My people”; and each one will say, “The Lord is my God. ”’

“Can there be any doubt, friends, that He is who the Bible says He is? If you can still reject Him after seeing the sun snuffed out, the heavens shaken, and His sign appear, surely you are past hope, past saving. Do not wait. Be part of that one-third whom the Lord God has promised to bring through the fire.

“One of our first-century Jews, Peter, said, ‘It shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ I cannot choose more appropriate words than his when I speak to fellow Jews, saying, ‘Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.

“‘For David says concerning Him: “I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.”

“Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. ‘

“Beloved,” Chaim raced on, “the Bible tells us that when they heard this, they were ‘cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”’

“Do you find yourself asking the same today? I say to you as Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. ‘

“Oh, children of Israel around the globe, I am being signaled that our enemy is close to wresting back control of this network. Should I be cut off, trust me, you already know enough to put your faith in Christ as the Messiah.

“Not knowing when this signal shall fade, let me close by reading to you one of the most loved and powerful prophecies concerning Messiah that was ever written. And should my voice be silenced, you may find it and read it for yourself in Isaiah 53. And remember, this was written more than seven hundred years before the birth of Christ!

“‘Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

” ‘Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

“He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.

“‘Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.’”

During the broadcast, Chang had superimposed on the screen a Web site where those who were making decisions to receive Christ could let Dr. Rosenzweig know at Petra. Even before the GC reclaimed control of the television network, the Web site was being overrun with such messages. Millions around the world, most of them Jews, were acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah and putting their faith in Him for their salvation.

Mac was always moved by Scripture, and all the more so now to see Nicolae Carpathia, Antichrist himself, and his False Prophet, Leon Fortunato, squirm so.

“I wonder,” Nicolae said, “how many died in Al Hillah before we succeeded in pushing the pirates off the gangplank. Who was the next one standing, now in charge?

“Well, let me tell you something. These people can say what they want, preach what they want, believe what they want. But if they have not taken my mark, not sworn their allegiance to the living god of this world, they shall surely die. This man appeals to the Jews, the dogs of society, the ones I have declared my enemies from the first. Meanwhile I have cut them down like a rotted harvest all over the world.

“And while my assassin sits temporarily free, hiding like a coward behind stone walls, my armies are decimating his wretched brothers and sisters in their so-called Holy City. After we have stormed Petra and laid waste to our enemies there, we shall return to complete the taking of Jerusalem. The resistance thinks they own the surface above where we even now reside, but their options are gone. They have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

“Let their Savior appear! I welcome Him. I will cut Him down like a dog and ascend to my rightful throne.”

Mac’s thighs ached and quivered with fatigue. The wall behind him had lost its coolness, and he couldn’t figure it. Had his body heat finally tempered the subterranean effect? No, something was happening. The temperature was rising. How could that be? What would cause it?

Even Carpathia, immune to hunger and fatigue and thirst since his resurrection, if the reports could be believed, noticed. He tugged at his collar. “What has happened to the air-conditioning?”

“None is needed, Excellency, ” Leon said. “We are forty feet below the sur—”

“I know where we are! I want to know why the temperature has risen. Do you not feel it?”

“Of course I do, exalted one. But there is no source of heat here. It has always remained a constant of—”

“Will you silence yourself! The temperature has risen, and even our collective body heat should not have resulted in that much difference. ”

Could it be? Mac wondered. Was there a chance this was a sign of the imminent return? Might Jesus appear even here, in the lair of His enemy? “Lord, please!”

Maybe outside the sun had darkened.

Rayford shielded his eyes and squinted into the sky. Not one cloud. The sun had finally coursed far enough to see the temperature drop, perhaps more than ten degrees, since its brutal noontime peak. Rayford gratefully accepted Abdullah’s offer of his cap, which was a little small but served its purpose.

“If we’re not going to be able to carry you to Petra, ” Leah said, “we at least need to sit you up. Can you manage it?”

“I can’t imagine,” Rayford said. “But I know you’re right. I’ll need help. ”

“You’re going to be dizzy, ” Leah said, which proved an understatement. When she and Abdullah sat him up, blood rushed so quickly from Rayford’s head that he felt he’d lost his bearings, though he was still firmly planted—albeit on his seat now—in the shallow grave of his own making.

“Whoa,” Rayford whispered.

“When you’re steady,” she said, “tell me what hurts most.”

“I can tell you that now. The ankle. Then the shin. Then the hand.”

“I’ll take them in order,” she said, “but it’s all going to be temporary and makeshift. It’s not what I would want done if I had you in a sterile environment and could do an
MRI
. ”

As Leah cleansed and anesthetized the ankle, which had a gaping gash and obvious damage inside, she said, “A surgeon will want to work on the bone before closing this up, but you don’t need sand and air in it.” She cut away dead and damaged skin that could not be salvaged and sutured it in such a way that it could easily be accessed again.

“This is going to hurt,” she said, cutting away his khaki pants below the left knee and examining his shin with both hands. “No doubt you have a fracture, but this is not an easy bone to set. I can give it a try, but only before I numb it. You up to it?”

“I have a choice?”

“No. We may have to try to put you on one of our bikes, and without this set and splinted, you’ll pass out from the pain.”

“And what about the pain from your trying to set it?”

“No promises.”

Rayford had been severely injured before, but he could not remember agony like this. Leah failed in her first attempt to set the shinbone, but she simply said, “Sorry, I can get it, ” and took another run at it. Despite a wad of gauze to chew on, Rayford screamed loud enough— he feared—to alert the Unity Army. Even once the bone was clearly in place, his leg hurt so badly that it jumped and quivered for more than ten minutes as he fought to keep from whimpering.

“I’ll let that settle down some before applying a splint,” Leah said.

“You’re so kind,” he said, and elicited a smile from her.

The splint, fortunately, was inflatable plastic and once in place provided enough stability that the pain finally started to subside. Leah busied herself cleaning and dressing the wounds on the heel of his hand, his chin, and on both arms and both knees.

“I’m going to look a sight,” he said. “Better not let Kenny see me until some of this stuff is off. ”

George Sebastian was relieved to know that Rayford had been found alive, but he had to wonder how busted up his boss must be. More pressing, he was uneasy about what the Unity Army was up to. They had closed the mile gap by half, advancing on his position so slowly that the maneuver had taken hours. And now they were stopped. If it was some sort of psychological warfare, it was working. Sebastian’s people were spooked.

It was as if this roiling armada, fronted by the hundreds of thousands of mounted horsemen, was just waiting for one word from Antichrist to either open fire or charge. Bothering Big Dog One most was that he now had to turn his head more than 120 degrees just to take in the breadth of the fighting force he faced. And regardless of how high he could place himself, he could never see its full depth. The end of this army literally blotted out the horizon.

Mac was as stunned as Leon clearly was when Carpathia said, “I need a chair. Get me a chair!”

Nicolae rarely sat anymore. He was known not to have eaten or slept in three and a half years, persuading loyalists he was the true and living God, and confirming to his enemies that he was indeed Antichrist, indwelt by Satan. His rage was legendary. But no one had seen a weakness or physical frailty in him. And now he needed a chair? Leon Fortunate leaped from his own and slid it behind the potentate, who shakily sat. Nicolae tore at his collar and unbuttoned his shirt, feebly fanning himself with his hand. “Allow me, Excellency,” Fortunate said, and he knelt and grabbed the hem of his own ostentatious robe, lifted it to his waist, and began fanning the potentate.