by Tim LaHaye
They were hideous, chalky white beings that had taken on human form and wore identical black suits. They looked defeated, bent, as if crippled by their own evil. They stuck together but separated themselves from Carpathia and Fortunato, and Nicolae and Leon seemed not to want to have anything to do with each other either.
Michael led the five in front of Jesus, and Mac was struck by His countenance. He detected righteous anger, of course, but also what appeared to be disappointment, even sadness. There was no gloating.
The pathetic trio locked arms and knelt before Jesus, whimpering in annoyingly screechy tones. Carpathia turned his back on Jesus and faced the remnant, hands on his hips, defiant and bored. Leon wrung his hands and occasionally fingered his gaudy gold 216 necklace. He half faced Jesus, looking guilty and full of dread, peeking at Carpathia every now and then as if for direction.
Gabriel stepped between Jesus and the three and bent at the waist to get in their faces, and in a loud voice said, “As a fulfillment of age-old scriptural prophecy, you kneel this day before Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
“And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
“Yes!” the beings squealed, hissing. “Yes! We know! We know!” And they bowed lower, prostrating their deformed bodies.
Gabriel continued: “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him 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—like you—and that every tongue, even yours, should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
“Jesus Christ is Lord!” they rasped, and Gabriel stepped back behind Jesus. “Jesus Christ is Lord! It is true! True! We acknowledge it! We acknowledge Him!”
Jesus leaned forward and rested His elbows on His knees. The three kept their faces to the ground, not looking at Him. “‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’”
“We repent! We will turn! We will turn! We worship You, O Jesus, Son of God. You are Lord!”
“But for you it is too late,” Jesus said, and Mac was hit anew by the sorrow in His tone. “You were once angelic beings, in heaven with God. Yet you were cast down because of your own prideful decisions. Rather than resist the evil one, you chose to serve him.”
“We were wrong! Wrong! We acknowledge You as Lord!”
“Like My Father, with whom I am one, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that is justice, and that is your sentence.”
And as the three shrieked, their reptilian bodies burst from their clothes and exploded, leaving a mess of blood and scales and skin that soon burst into flames and was carried away by the wind.
Leon flopped to the ground with such force that his palms smacked loudly and his forehead bounced with a crack. He ripped off his necklace and tossed it away. As Jesus sat staring intently at him, Leon rose and tore off his robe, casting it aside and kicking off his shoes. Then he lay face-first on the ground, clad only in plain pants and shirt and socks, his great belly pressing the pavement.
“Oh, my Lord and my God!” he wailed, sobs gushing from him. “I have been so blind, so wrong, so wicked!”
“Do you know who I am?” Jesus said. “Who I truly am?”
“Yes! Yes! I have always known, Lord! Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!”
Jesus stood. “You would blaspheme by quoting my servant Simon, whom I blessed, for flesh and blood had not revealed it unto him, but My Father who is in heaven?”
“No, Lord! Your Father revealed it to me too!”
“I tell you the truth, woe to you for not making that discovery while there was yet time. Rather, you rejected Me and My Father’s plan for the world. You pitted your will against Mine and became the False Prophet, committing the greatest sin known under heaven: rejecting Me as the only Way to God the Father and spending seven years deceiving the world.”
“Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord! Don’t kill me! I beg you! Please!”
“Death is too good for you. How many souls are separated from Me forever because of you and the words that came from your mouth?”
“I’m sorry! Forgive me! I renounce all the works of Satan and Antichrist! I pledge my allegiance to You!”
“You are sentenced to eternity in the lake of fire.”
“Oh, God, no!”
Gabriel said, “Silence!”
Leon rolled and then crawled several feet away, where he lay in a fetal heap, sobbing.
Jesus sat again and Nicolae Carpathia, still facing the assembled crowd, shrugged and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. His eyebrows were raised, a smirk planted, and Mac had to wonder how this would play out. Even Carpathia was to bow and confess that Jesus was Lord, but he exuded no fear and certainly no humility.
Michael advanced to one side of him, Gabriel the other. Michael grabbed an elbow and spun him around as Gabriel shouted, “Kneel before your Lord!”
Carpathia wrenched away from Michael and again stood arms akimbo. Jesus said, “Lucifer, leave this man!”
And with that, Carpathia seemed to shrink. He looked again the way Mac had seen him below the Temple Mount in Solomon’s Stables. His leathers were now too roomy for him and hung on him like limp robes. His hands and fingers became bony. His neck seemed to swim inside a collar now much too large.
Nicolae’s hair was sparse and nearly colorless, and dark veins appeared on his exposed skin. He was pale and pasty, as if his skin could be easily rubbed away. Again Mac had the feeling that this was what the body of Carpathia would have looked like, had it been moldering in the grave since his assassination three and a half years before.
Nicolae shivered and quivered despite the heat, and he slowly, clearly painfully, reached up and spread his cape around both shoulders, covering himself and seeming to hide within it as if it were a cocoon.
“Kneel!” Gabriel shouted, and he and Michael moved back behind Jesus.
Nicolae nodded weakly and deliberately lowered himself, like an old man, to one knee. It was as if the pavement was too hard for him and his other knee quickly came down, his hands splaying to the sides to keep himself from pitching to his face. There he knelt, on all fours, weak and pathetic and frail, leather cape hanging limply off bony shoulders.
Mac had to contrast the righteousness of Christ with his own humanity. Had he been in Jesus’ place now, he would have been unable to resist rejoicing in the triumph. Mac would have said, “Not such a big man now, are you? Where’s the sword? Where’s the army? Where’s the cabinet, the sub-potentates? Now you’re only the supreme impotentate, aren’t you?”
But this was not about winning. This was about justice.
Jesus said, “You became a willing tool of the devil himself.”
Nicolae did not protest, did not beg. He merely lowered his head even more and nodded.
“You were a rebel against the things of God and His kingdom. You caused more suffering than anyone in the history of the world. God bestowed upon you gifts of intelligence, beauty, wisdom, and personality, and you had the opportunity to make the most of these in the face of the most pivotal events in the annals of creation.
“Yet you used every gift for personal gain. You led millions to worship you and your father, Satan. You were the cunning destroyer of My followers and accomplished more to damn the souls of men and women than anyone else in your time.
“Ultimately your plans and your regime have failed. And now, who do you say that I am?”
The pause was interminable, the silence deadly. Finally, in a humble, weak voice, Nicolae croaked, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, who died for the sins of the wo
rld and rose again the third day as the Scriptures predicted.”
Jesus reached and gestured as He spoke, and Mac had the impression He wished that Nicolae would look at Him. But he did not. “And what does that say about you and what you made of your life?”
Carpathia sank even lower than Mac thought possible. “I confess,” he whispered, “that my life was a waste. Worthless. A mistake. I rebelled against the God of the universe, whom I now know loved me.”
Jesus shook His head and Mac saw a great sadness in His face. “You are responsible for the fate of billions. You and your False Prophet, with whom you shed the blood of the innocents—My followers, the prophets, and My servants who believed in Me—shall be cast alive into the lake of fire.”
The archangels Michael and Gabriel stepped forward, Michael to pull the False Prophet from the ground and Antichrist to a standing position. He stood before Jesus as if awaiting instructions while the wasted Nicolae Carpathia was hunched and elderly looking, hanging his head. Leon Fortunato looked a mess, hair askew, face flushed and tear-stained, hands clasped tightly in front of him.
Gabriel pronounced to the crowd, “And I saw the Beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army.
“Then the Beast was captured, and with him the False Prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.
“These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.”
Gabriel moved out of the way, and on the spot where he had stood, a hole three feet in diameter opened in the ground and a putrid, sulfuric odor burst forth, making Mac and everyone in the city hold their noses. This was followed by a whistling blue flame that erupted from the hole and rose twenty feet, which Mac could only compare to a monstrous acetylene torch. This added the smell of ether to the mix, and Mac found the front lines of the crowd backing away.
Even as far as he was from the action, Mac felt the tremendous heat emitted by the raging pillar of fire. Jesus and the five angelic beings were apparently immune to the smell and the heat, but both Carpathia and Fortunato tried to back off. Michael held tight to each, still looking to Jesus.
The Lord nodded sadly, and without hesitation, Michael briskly walked the two to the edge of the hole. Fortunato caterwauled like a baby and fought to escape, but with one mighty arm Michael pushed him into the hole. His keening intensified and then faded as he fell. Carpathia did not struggle. He merely covered his face with his forearms as he was dropped in, and then his bawling echoed throughout Jerusalem until he had fallen far enough away. The hole closed as quickly as it had opened, and the Beast and the False Prophet were no more.
CHAPTER 17
Rayford was reeling, and he could only imagine what the rest of the throng must have thought. He knew these things were supposed to happen, and he also knew what was next, but he had never imagined being an eyewitness to all of it. He believed George and Priscilla Sebastian had their ways of shielding the eyes of the children from the gruesome sights, but he also counted on the supernatural power of Jesus Himself to protect Kenny from such images.
How he wanted to see Irene and Raymie and Chloe and Buck, and yes, Amanda. Somehow he understood that the awkwardness of two wives meeting each other in the natural world would not be an issue in the new world. Their full focus and attention would be on Christ and what He had accomplished in all of their lives.
But that would have to come in due time. Gabriel, the pronouncing archangel, appeared ready to speak again. And as soon as he began, Rayford had the feeling that this was the plan of the Lord, to settle the minds of His people after what they had just seen.
“Jesus is the true Light,” Gabriel began, “who gives light to every man coming into the world.
“He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
“He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among you, and you beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Amen.”
“Amen!” the people shouted, and many seemed comforted.
No food, no rest, and now nowhere to sit but on the pavement—so long as one didn’t care if he missed some of the action. And of course Rayford did care. Yet once again he felt no hunger, not even the fatigue that had overcome him on his way to see Jesus. And standing was fine.
Again Jesus conferred with the heavenly beings, and Michael disappeared. Would the big event happen this soon, this close to the first judgments? Rayford couldn’t imagine, but it was certainly something he didn’t want to miss.
Gabriel spoke once more: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
“For He Himself is your peace, and He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him those both near and far have access by one Spirit to the Father.
“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
“You, then, who were raised with Christ, sought those things which were above, where Christ was, sitting at the right hand of God.
“You set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life was hidden with Christ in God. So when Christ who was your life appeared, then you also appeared with Him in glory.
“And now, dear ones, be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil still walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. You have resisted him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings were experienced by your brotherhood in the world. But now the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you suffered a while, perfected, established, strengthened, and settled you. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
“Amen!” the crowd shouted, and as they broke into spontaneous worship and singing, Gabriel concluded: “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.”
The crowd began to cheer.
“He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.”
Hands raised, they were screaming now.
“And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.”
Rayford sensed apprehension on the part of the people, because anyone who was not up to speed on what was next had begun to figure it out. And when the mighty warrior archangel Michael suddenly reappeared with a gargantuan lion—easily three times larger than any natural king of beasts—the crowd let out a collective gasp and shriek and embraced each other in fear.
But Gabriel quieted them with this assurance: “You are of God, little children. Fear not, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
The roar of the prodigious carnivore hurt Rayford’s ears and echoed off the surrounding buildings. The lion swiped at Michael and snarled, stamping and turning on its ridiculously muscled haunches. But he held it firm. As the lion set itself for another attempt to break free and devour its captor, Michael tightened his grip and twisted the tree-trunk neck further.
Suddenly the lion transformed itself into a titanic, hissing serpent, coiling it
self around the angel’s arms and legs and squeezing, its tongue darting between shows of its elongated fangs. Michael quickly wrestled it to the ground and tightly clamped its mouth shut. Whereupon the creature transformed itself yet again.
Now it grew and bulged and covered itself with slimy scales, sprouted four thick legs with horny toes, a lashing tail, a long neck, broad head and face, pointed ears, horns, and a fire-breathing mouth full of canines. This was the greatest test for Michael, who seemed to produce from thin air a heavy linked chain with which he was able to hog-tie the monster.
It rolled onto its back, snorting flames, hissing and drooling, struggling against the restraints. Its tail swept again and again at the angel, its great head shaking back and forth. Michael finally succeeded in lassoing the neck with the remains of the chain and with a powerful yank pulled the head toward the torso, rendering the dragon virtually immobile.
It lay there, snorting and writhing, and anyone watching knew what it would do if it could somehow free itself. Finally it appeared to relax, but that only preceded its final incarnation. The dragon gave way to what appeared to be one more angel, brighter than the archangels and the three angels of mercy, including Christopher, the angel with the everlasting gospel. Yet its light paled to insignificance next to that of Christ, whose glory lit the whole world.
Now the being stood docile, the chain having slid into a tall coil on the ground. It looked menacingly at Michael, who did not retreat. Gabriel spoke with a loud voice, “Lucifer, dragon, serpent, devil, Satan, you will now face the One you have opposed from time immemorial.”
“Oh no!” the being rasped. “The last time you contended with me, Michael, it was over the body of Moses, and you dared not even bring against me a reviling accusation, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’ I do not answer to you!”
“No,” Jesus said quietly, though Rayford heard Him distinctly. And with the authority of the ages He said, “But you do answer to Me. Kneel at My feet.”
“I will do no such thing!”
