Survivors

by Dave Mckay

  But dissatisfaction with the new world order was not the main reason why people were choosing to become followers of Jesus. People joining the Tribulation Force were primarily moved by the testimony of those who went before them... a testimony that shone forth even at their executions. Surely there was something beyond this life, and these followers of Jesus had found it!

  The Two Witnesses, far from being spooked by Dangchao and Pius' show of strength and by their cruel efforts to locate them, had actually announced simultaneous press conferences, one in Sydney and one in London.

  The frenzied response from the media showed how little control Dangchao had over the Press as well. Troops were sent to break up both conferences and to arrest or kill Rayford and Chaim; but in both cases, it was the troops who were destroyed, as the Two Witnesses simply spoke a word and soldiers fell to the ground, their insides eaten out by maggots.

  When it came time for Chaim and Rayford to leave their respective press conferences, they spoke once more and everyone present became temporarily blind. In the ensuing confusion, the Two Witnesses merely walked away, unnoticed.

  The press conferences themselves were an overwhelming success for the Christian cause. The Two Witnesses exuded such an air of calm and confidence throughout their respective interviews that the whole world could not help but be impressed. What they said, from opposite ends of the world, was almost the same. They explained in clear simple language that all God wanted was for people to give him the honour that he deserved as their Creator. They said that Dangchao and Pius, and others like them, were only God's puppets, placed on earth to test the faith of each individual. And they finished with a heartfelt plea for people to turn from their service to the Antichrist and his Mark and to put their faith totally in God and in his Son, Jesus, before the next curse fell on each of them personally. They did not specify what form the curse would take.

  "You will be wishing that you could die to escape it," Rayford promised. "I would not want to wish it on anyone. But it is going to happen. Believe me. You have a very short time to repent. Please, for your own good, turn now. Even cutting your hand off would be nothing by comparison to what awaits you if you don't turn now."

  The press conference, which included live broadcasts all over the world, resulted in the biggest influx into the Tribulation Force that the Christians had so far experienced. There were too many for the Twelve Tribes to handle on their own; so, some of the people who had already undergone amputations themselves were being called in to assist with operations.

  It did not take long for the rest of the world to become aware of the increased support for the Christian cause.

  Dangchao, who had been fuming ever since the press conferences, was out of his mind.

  "Puppets, are we?" he shouted, a few weeks after Rayford and Chaim were first reported to have called him that. He threw yet another newspaper down after reading the hated word.

  "Puppets? How dare they!" He thrust his hands into the air and his head back in frustration as he shouted. The media had taken up that one word and woven it into just about every report that came out about the Twelve Tribes after that.

  Dangchao went on a rampage through his palatial drawing room, kicking furniture and knocking things over. He smashed a heavy vase into a large mirror. Pius looked on almost indifferently now. He was growing accustomed to Dangchao's rages, and he had even had a few himself.

  "I'll show them who the puppets are, and who pulls the strings! I'll show them!" Dangchao shouted.

  "Apollyon! Get up here! Apollyon!"

  "Yes, Master!" And suddenly at Dangchao's right hand stood a creature that could only be a fierce and powerful demon. Its face was uglier than anything that Pius had ever seen before... apart from Dangchao's other face. Pius shrunk back into a dark corner, hoping that the creature would not take notice of him.

  "Apollyon, bring up your troops!"

  "You mean bring them up here?" Apollyon asked in disbelief.

  "Yes, bring them up here!" Dangchao shouted. And his face assumed the grotesque form that Pius so feared. "I want the world to know how much power I have. I want them to taste what I can do to them. And I want to teach those Christians a lesson."

  "But they'll hurt our people too, Master," Apollyon said. "Do we really want to do that now? Before time?"

  "I know what I'm doing!" Dangchao shouted. "If I can't send them to hell, I can at least bring hell to them!" He was overcome with amusement at his own turn of phrase, breaking into one of his fits of demonic laughter. "They're taking people away from me. But I can have the satisfaction of tormenting them now... before they die!" And the laughter resumed once more.

  Pius was not so sure about the wisdom of tormenting their own people, but if Dangchao's plan would bring some suffering to the "aliens"… (Pius' name for the Two Witnesses; he never used the term "Christian" when referring to the believers, because it reminded him of what he had once claimed to be.) If Dangchao's plan would bring suffering to the Twelve Tribes, then it was worth a lot of "collateral damage", as Dangchao liked to call it.

  "Now, Apollyon! Do it now!" Dangchao bellowed, and his demon face lit up as he prepared to watch what followed.

  The floor of the room split down the middle, tearing the carpet and splintering the floorboards. Smoke came out… dense, black smoke; and it filled the room, filled the palace, poured out into the street, and eventually filled nearly all of Jerusalem. People could barely breathe.

  And then, out of the smoke, there came the sound of troops, a kind of rhythmic beating of hooves, and the metallic bumping and scraping of armour. It sounded distant and faint at first, but then it grew in intensity. People at the limits of the smoke were the first to see what the sound was coming from, and they instinctively turned to run.

  It was a great cloud of locusts... or at least creatures that resembled locusts. But they were a strange mutation. Their armoured bodies and metallic wings made them sound like knights on horseback when they flew in a horde as they were at the moment. On their tails were stingers like those on a scorpion.

  These locusts did not attack crops or grass or trees. Instead, they attacked people. They had tiny sharp teeth that they used to get a hold on someone before jabbing their poisonous stinger in. The pain was unbearable... worse even than the pain of childbirth. The poison paralysed their limbs as well, making it impossible for victims to do more than roll on the ground in agony for the two or three hours it took for the pain to wear off. Pain-killers were largely ineffectual, and there was no known antidote.

  Many would be stung over and over, despite every attempt to escape the horrible plague.

  The locusts kept coming out of the thick, black cloud all that day. They left Jerusalem in separate hordes, each one going in a different direction. They would each work their way around the world over the next five months, stinging all who were in their way.

  All, that is, except the members of the Twelve Tribes. Perhaps it was some residue from the tiny transponder that these creatures were attracted to. Or perhaps it was divine protection for the 144,000. In either case, it did not take long before Rayford, Chaim, and the media had recognised the irony of the trap that Dangchao had fallen into.

  Rayford and Chaim had predicted great suffering over all of the earth... suffering that would be so painful that people would wish they could die. They had pronounced the curse, but Dangchao himself had been the "puppet" through which it had become reality! His own tiny alien creatures with their metal wings, sharp teeth, and scorpion tails were the instrument through which God gave the world a taste of what hell would be like. At the same time, God had protected the people who were the target of Dangchao's hate!

  The Tribulation Force were not, as were the Twelve Tribes, totally immune to the locusts, but the pain for them seemed to be little more than a bee sting by comparison to what others felt.

  When Christians, whether from the Twelve Tribe
s or from the Tribulation Force, came upon others who had been stung, they offered comfort, prayer, and whatever practical assistance they could give. It did not take away the pain, but it became a powerful testimony, not only of God's power to protect his own, but also of the love that the Christians had, even for their enemies.

  The rest of the world... those who had not converted to faith in Jesus by this time... were, indeed, becoming more and more evil.... more and more "enemies" of God and of all who would follow Him. Every kindness from the Christians only increased their hatred.

  Although countless millions had converted to faith in Jesus by this time, the majority of the earth's population continued to support Dangchao and his policies. They believed his lies about the Two Witnesses being the cause of all of the earth's problems, and they felt and expressed nothing but hatred for God.

  The three and a half years of the Great Tribulation were only a year away from completion by the time the locust plague had ceased. Five months after they had arrived, the locusts returned to Jerusalem, each having circled the globe. It was like a rewind of their arrival. Another cloud of thick, black smoke covered the city; they flew into it; and then the cloud of smoke disappeared down through the hole in Dangchao's palace, taking the fearsome creatures with it.

  Zion Ben-Jonah Writes

  The description of the "locusts" is quite detailed in The Revelation (9:7-10). They may be mutant insects, demons (i.e. fallen angels) or even tormented souls trapped inside tiny little machines, as the description of them each having human faces suggests.

  For a world that has largely assumed that hell is a fairy tale and that the devil is a joke, this chapter may be a bit hard to swallow... possibly even infuriating.

  But consider what it would have sounded like two hundred years ago, if we had talked of cell phones and computer graphics, jets, atomic bombs, and laser images. God's technology is light years ahead of our own, and so there may yet be some big surprises for those of us living in the confines of what little Twenty-First Century science can tell us about life, the universe, and everything.

  We personally believe that God acts in accord with his own rules. But we also believe that only God has the complete rule book. And so there may be dimensions that we have not even begun to fathom yet.

  Witches, fairies, UFO sightings, and other psychic phenomena are being taken quite seriously by many these days. So why rule out the possibility of angels, devils, curses and divine protection, especially when they come from a source that is as reliable as the Bible?

  (Table of Contents)

  22. Journey to Jerusalem

  For nearly three and a half years now, death and destruction had become a way of life throughout the entire world. More lives had been lost in violent deaths during that period than in all the wars throughout history.

  In Britain, cities like Swansea and Plymouth had been virtually washed off the map by the big wave. Cities like Liverpool had also suffered great damage and loss of life. Britain had done a better job of rebuilding than other countries (mostly in Africa and South and Central America) which had also been severely damaged by the wave; but that did not say much in itself. Disposing of all the bloated bodies had become the first priority. Reconstruction was largely put on hold.

  Deserted coastal towns were popular haunts for the Tribulation Force, who found shelter and escape from public exposure by squatting in them. They were able to fish for sustenance, even if they could not find discarded food as easily as they could in the big cities.

  The United Nations had declared England to be an "international country" shortly after the fall of America, which effectively meant that it was under strict U.N. control. U.N. troops enforced conformity with all of its official policies. And U.N. policies were always determined by General Secretary Levi Xu Dangchao.

  England had lost a further ten million people to the U.N. executions.

  All of this had the effect of numbing people to the full impact of death. For those who chose to follow Dangchao, it meant that they had hardened their hearts even to the cries of children and babies being cruelly and callously murdered. When their own loved ones were lost, they only became more angry with God.

  Numbness for the Christians meant that they lived with a constant appreciation of eternal values -- something they had not given much thought to in the days when life had been easier. Death, especially such a quick one as performed by the guillotine, was an express ticket to heaven. There was no future for them on earth, apart from getting others to join in their dramatic statement of faith in God and rejection of all that Dangchao's regime stood for.

  But it was still as though everyone -- good and bad alike -- was living in a constant state of shock.

  The saddest thing about the executions were the children. Parents would often have to hold their own babies in the neck groove at the bottom of the death machine, because the gap was too big for their tiny heads. The children, of course, had not yet received the mark. But the rules were that all orphans of the Tribulation Force were to be forcibly given the mark and then raised in government orphanages.

  The authorities really did not want the responsibility for so many babies and children, but they took an evil delight in forcing parents to make the choice themselves about whether to sacrifice their children to the authorities or to the guillotine. Most chose the guillotine.

  Older children (those over seven) were allowed to make their own choice. Most chose to go with the authorities, and that caused more anguish for the Tribulation Force than did the guillotine.

  The saints came to see the significance of a warning that Jesus had given, instructing believers to pray that they would not be pregnant or have small children in the period just before the Great Tribulation.

  Sexual activity did not cease altogether amongst the believers, but it did become much rarer than it had been before the troubles started. No one wanted to have a child in such awful times, and birth control was a luxury that few of the saints could afford. The crowded living conditions did not leave much opportunity for privacy either.

  Those facing execution had far more serious thoughts on their minds. And the Twelve Tribes had earlier adopted a policy of discouraging marriage, and banning romantic dalliances. If a couple wished to pursue a relationship, they were assigned to work duties together, always with chaperones present or nearby. If a decision was made to marry, it was made without any kissing or cuddling. A simple ceremony would be performed as soon as possible after a decision was made.

  Married couples in the Twelve Tribes were expected to put the cause above their relationship. They were often separated for long periods of time; but they only needed to remind themselves of how hard life was for the Tribulation Force to get things back into perspective.

  There were a few tribal members who fell away. But that only strengthened the resolve of those who remained.

  And there were physical casualties amongst the Twelve Tribes too. Although not a single person who had refused the Mark had been stung by the locusts, there were tribal members who had been caught during police raids, when they were visiting or assisting the Tribulation Force, and there were one or two incidents where security had been breached and a whole base had been taken into custody. Death, in such circumstances, was inevitable; but authorities were more inclined to torture those who did not have the Mark, believing that they had more information on where the leaders were located.

  Some had given in under torture, resulting in more arrests; but such defections were rare.

  New converts at the start of the final three and a half years (ones who had not taken the Mark) were enough to fill in for any losses in the Twelve Tribes' numbers, so that, with a year to go, they still numbered close to 144,000.

  But during that last year, their numbers dropped dramatically. They were all that remained of the holdouts... the only people on earth who had refused the Mark. And even they were rapidly dying out.


  "What happened to our protection?" Chloe asked in an urgent email to Rayford when Mary Teresa was shot and killed in a raid in Rome.

  "Protection is not absolute," Rayford had written to all of the tribes in response. "God still lets his rain fall on the just and on the unjust. Any army that has ever won a war has still had its casualties, and we have had them too. But look how far we have come. God is surely with us.

  "The word 'survivor' literally means 'one who lives above'. We can physically stay alive, and that would be a form of survival. But there is an even greater triumph that comes from facing the final enemy -- death -- and still coming out on top. The message of the resurrection is that death is not the end. It makes all the difference.

  "As the Apostle Paul has said, if there is no resurrection, then we are, of all people, most miserable. But because there is a resurrection, we will live on -- even after they have taken our lives. We will survive! We will live above it all!"

  Nevertheless, every surviving member of the Twelve Tribes was counting down the days over those final months.

  When there were just two weeks to go, Rayford and Chaim felt it was time to head for Jerusalem. They both knew that it would end in their deaths, and so, when they bid farewell to their respective co-workers, it was with heavy hearts.

  Irene was surprisingly peaceful about Rayford's departure. In fact, she was the one who reminded him that they had had much more time together than most of the other couples they knew. "Count the days," she said as he pulled away from their final embrace. "Count the days."

  The Two Witnesses left behind their computers -- their only communication link with the rest of the Twelve Tribes. They took a change of clothes and a few toiletries -- nothing more. Rayford was able to hitch-hike the entire way; but Chaim needed to board a plane to get out of Australia.