Glorious Appearing: The End of Days Read online

  Chang was, in fact, monitoring the world. He had seemed to catch his second wind. He knew he should be in bed, but who could sleep at a time like this? He sat at his computer, staring at the reports coming in from all over the world about people, especially Jews, putting their faith in Jesus Christ as their Messiah. Tens of thousands every few minutes were totaling in the millions now, and Chang had the feeling it wouldn’t stop until the Glorious Appearing. There were to be signs in the heavens before that, and more were prophesied to come to Christ.

  Rayford and Chaim got the news about Buck from Sebastian a few minutes later. Rayford didn’t know what to feel. He knew Buck was fine, better than he had ever been, and that he would see him soon. But he hated the thought that the young man, the father of Rayford’s grandson and the husband of his daughter, had suffered so. Rayford had lost many friends and loved ones, none so close as his daughter and now son-in-law. But in the past he had somehow been able to come to terms with the losses, to tell himself it was the price of war, the inevitable result of what they had been called to do.

  It was not so easy now, not when it struck so close to home. He called Mac.

  The clouds parted and the moon shone brightly, all the way to the Dead Sea, directly beneath Mac.

  “I’m not gonna lie to you, Ray. Yeah, it looks like Buck came to a rough end. But he was doing what he wanted to do. He worked at it, trained for it, and if you remember the first reports we got from him, he and Tsion got done what they hoped to.”

  “How’s the resistance?”

  “’Bout finished. Unity’s got ’em pushed into the Temple Mount, and it’s clear the GC has hardly scratched the surface of their resources yet. They could take the whole city anytime they wanted.”

  “You’re heading back, I assume.”

  “Not all the way,” Mac said. “I want to see what happens on the Petra perimeter from the air. Then I want to head back up to Buseirah and see how that plays out.”

  “You know I’d give anything to be there with you.”

  “Holy mackerel! You see that, Ray?”

  “I see it. I’ll let you go. Time to watch the show.”

  A cloud had now covered the moon. It was bright and nearly full and had been highlighting the dancing clouds. Suddenly, it had seemed to disappear, as if someone had turned it out like a light. Rayford knew the moon merely reflected the sun anyway, thus it was the sun—far below the horizon now—that had lost its light. The sky was pitch.

  Rayford asked Chaim to douse all the lights.

  “We will see nothing, Captain,” Chaim said. “Nonetheless, the better to see what is coming.”

  Once the lights were off, Rayford could tell Chaim stood by the window only by the sound of his voice.

  Rayford said, “Have you ever seen blackness so thick?”

  “I have seen many wonders in the last seven years,” Chaim said. “This is like seeing nothing. But the mere anticipation it engenders causes a buzz from the top of my head to the soles of my shoes.”

  Lightning ripped through the sky, and Rayford was stunned to see the clouds briefly again. “I think I saw a shooting star,” he said. “I love those.”

  “That was more than a shooting star,” Chaim said, “which, as you know, is not really a star anyway. What you saw was truly a falling star, maybe a meteor. Soon stars and meteors will fall, but you will only hear them. Isaiah foretold that the stars of heaven and their constellations would not give their light. The sun will be darkened and the moon will not shine.

  “God is saying, ‘I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

  “‘I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of His fierce anger.

  “‘Everyone will flee to his own land. Everyone who is found will be thrust through, and everyone who is captured will fall by the sword.’”

  Rayford shook his head. “There’s another difference between us, Chaim. I’ve never been able to memorize like that.”

  “What else have I to do, Rayford? As I say, I was thrust into this position, and the teacher became the student. My former protégé, Dr. Ben-Judah, would not hear of my giving short shrift to the Scriptures. He discipled me, pushed me, grounded me in them. Most of all, God gave me a love for His Word. Now there is nothing I would rather do than study it every spare moment and commit as much of it as possible to memory.”

  Enoch’s people leaped to their feet and cried out when the early afternoon sun disappeared from the suburban Chicago sky. Though he knew it was coming, Enoch himself was spooked when the light of day turned into the darkest night and the temperature immediately dropped.

  He heard a roaring, whistling sound and thought of the cliché that people always used when recounting a tornado: “It sounded like a freight train.” Well, this sounded like a plane about to crash. They were close enough to the airport that it could have been, but Enoch did not recall hearing a jet.

  Something was coming, and it was getting closer.

  “Don’t be afraid!” Enoch called out, but he couldn’t hide the fear in his own voice. “This was prophesied. We just talked about it. It’s all part of God’s plan.”

  But when whatever was falling finally crashed into the main road on the other side of the mall, there was no stopping the gathering from bolting to take a look. Enoch jogged along behind them, grateful for the light-sensitive streetlights that began popping on all over. A meteor about three feet in diameter had bored a ten-foot-wide hole twenty feet deep in the road.

  And here came another.

  People screamed and scattered, but Enoch held his ground. “I believe we’re protected!” he said. “None of the judgments from heaven harmed God’s people! We bear His mark, His seal! He will protect us!”

  But his body of believers had taken flight. Enoch smiled. He would chide them tomorrow when all were unscathed. How strange it seemed to be walking around in midnight darkness early in the afternoon. The next meteorite, which Enoch guessed was twice the size of the first, obliterated one of the former anchor stores in the deserted mall. It caused such an explosion he had to cover his ears. While he truly believed he would not be hurt, he found himself ducking and expecting debris to crack him on the head.

  Enoch ran back to where he had met with the people, but he was alone now. He sat on a concrete bench and watched the show. Mostly he listened. Had he been a caveman, he would have believed the sky was falling, that the stars would all eventually hit the earth.

  If anything, the rate of incoming reports of Jewish people turning to the Messiah increased dramatically over the next half hour. Chang beckoned Naomi to his side and sat with his arm around her waist as she stood. They couldn’t decide what was more entertaining—the myriad camera feeds from all over the dark world, or the racing meter giving evidence of the fulfilling of the prophecy that a third of the Jewish remnant would come to believe in Jesus as their Messiah by the time of the end.

  Chang could only think back to the horrific scenes he had monitored when Carpathia was at the height of his murderous fury against the Jews. He had had them rounded up, put in death camps, starved, tortured, beaten, humiliated with psychological warfare—you name it. That any survived was a miracle. That many became believers was something else.

  “This is sure different from the last time Jesus came,” Naomi said. “Besides that we weren’t ready, it happened in the twinkling of an eye. Apparently God’s going to play this one out for all it’s worth.”

  Mac had the strangest sensation. He had been trained to fly by instruments, of course, but still he found it disconcerting to see nothing above. And the only light on the ground was man-produced. Gradually he picked up boat lights, lights on other planes, headlights of cars and trucks and military vehicles. He heard the scream of falling meteorites over the usually deafening thwock-thwock-thwock of the blades and even hear
d the explosions when they blasted the earth. That was new. Mac had never been able to hear anything inside the chopper cockpit, especially with his earphones on.

  Now, even above the cacophony of GC aviators demanding to know what was going on, the earth resounded with the wrath of God, with the literal falling of the heavens. A meteor at least ten feet in diameter fell within a hundred feet of Mac’s helicopter. His lights picked it up, and he followed it until it hit a building, sending a shower of fire and sparks into the air. He had no idea what the building might have been, but it gave him pause. Was he protected from these free-falling monsters of stone or metal? Even a small one would demolish a chopper, and now they began to fall all around him. People on the ground, particularly Unity Army troops, had to be terrified. Mac wondered how many wished they could change their marks of loyalty now.

  He was fairly certain he would be protected, as believers had been since the judgments began seven years before. But fairly certain wasn’t enough for him to follow through with his plan. Mac made for Petra, knowing that airspace was secure. He could have been killed there many times over, but he had been miraculously spared every time.

  Rayford was having the time of his life. The news about Buck had set him back, of course, and despite what he knew about the future, it gave him that ache in the pit of his stomach, as had his loss of Chloe. But to lie in his bed watching the heavens shake as they had been prophesied to do thousands of years before . . .

  And to have his old friend, Chaim Rosenzweig, the one God had chosen to be a modern-day Moses, standing there quoting those prophecies from memory, well, it almost made him forget his grief and his wounds.

  “‘I saw another angel coming down from heaven,’” Chaim said, “‘having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.”’

  “That is what has Carpathia so enraged today, Rayford. It was one thing to lose his beloved city and to see the rest of the kings of the earth and the merchant moguls weeping crocodile tears over her. But to have it rubbed in like this, to have an angel pronounce it, to know that it was the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy by his archenemy . . . no wonder he is on the rampage now. He has a plan, a scheme he thinks is foolproof, even though he is no fool and has read the Book. But he will fail, and we will witness it.”

  “I so wish I could be out there right now,” Rayford said. “Why did this have to happen today, of all days?”

  He could not see Chaim, but he heard the smile in his voice. “The leader of the Tribulation Force is not going to start questioning God now, is he? You of all people. You have been delivered by His hand as many times as I have. You walked through the fire just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when the GC launched their bombs on Petra, and you are going to whine about having to play inside on a rainy day?”

  Rayford had to laugh.

  “Listen to this from the prophet Joel,” Chaim said. “‘I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.’”

  “I saw that,” Rayford said. “When the moon was turned to blood. That was not long before I lost Amanda.”

  “I know,” Chaim said after a pause. “We have all lost so much. And yet so much will be restored. Here is the best part, also from Joel: ‘And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls.

  “‘For behold, in those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations.’”

  All Rayford could do was grunt. Sometimes Scripture had that effect on him. There was nothing more to say. At least not by him.

  “We are those captives,” Chaim said. “My brothers and sisters, the children of Israel.”

  “Makes me wish I were,” Rayford said.

  “Oh, you are, of course, by adoption. Gentile believers are His adopted sons and daughters.”

  “But you all are His chosen people.”

  “Not that we have proved worthy. Maybe that is why we are always referred to as the children of Israel.”

  “What’s that reference to the Valley of Jehoshaphat?”

  “Oh, that is where the judgment will take place, in a valley created by the splitting of the Mount of Olives when He sets foot on it. Jesus Himself will judge all men, and prophecy states it will be right there. The Bible says more about Him than that He is just the returning King and victorious Warrior. It also calls Him the Judge. The Gospel of Mark says, ‘Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.’ And Revelation says, ‘Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.’”

  Sebastian stood next to his Hummer with Otto and Razor, straining his eyes to see what he could see. Meteors were raining upon the enemy, and the sounds of panicking soldiers and horses washed over him. Was it possible the hundreds of thousands of steeds would stampede, and what would that do to the plans the Unity Army had for Petra?

  Vehicles were smashed, exploding into flames and offering the only light to give him a clue how far back the front lines had been driven. It seemed they were still virtually atop him, but Sebastian needed to know.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Do we know the timing?” Rayford said. “I know we know what comes next, but do we know when?”

  “We never have,” Chaim said. “I was one who thought the Glorious Appearing would be exactly seven years from the signing of the covenant between Antichrist and Israel, but clearly we were wrong about that. We know that following the phenomena in the sky comes the sign of His coming, but nothing tells us whether that will be immediate. God has His own timetable.”

  “A thousand years is as a day, and all that,” Rayford said.

  “And vice versa.”

  The booming of the meteorites shook Rayford’s little shelter, and as they increased in frequency, his bed moved. He felt every injury. The anesthetic in his temple had long since worn off, and the pain pierced and throbbed. His chin bothered him too, though he had considered that the least of his wounds. Every nick and scrape and gash was sensitive, and the aching ankle, which had caused his foot to swell, made his muscles tense. He felt it in both legs, all the way to his hip.

  Rayford spread his pillow flat and laid his head back, stretching. He had no idea what was keeping him awake. On the other hand, of course he did.

  Mac overflew Buseirah, where he saw little but scattered lights on the ground, and was soon at the edge of Petra. He checked in with Chang to let him know he would be putting down. The last thing he wanted was to be mistaken for enemy aircraft and be fired upon by Big Dog One and his own people. Would God protect him even from them?

  “Hey!” Mac shouted into the phone. “What’s that? What’s Sebastian doing?”

  “Using his big torches to light up the sky,” Chang said. “He wants to know how much damage the meteorites are doing to the Unity Army.”

  “Looks like he’s more fascinated with the clouds.”

  “So am I.”

  “I hear you, Chang. Me too. If you’re in touch with Sebastian, tell him to leave those babies pointing straight up.”

  Sebastian wouldn’t have dreamed of doing anyth
ing else. The searchlights had the enemy looking up too. The clouds blanketed the entire sky, bubbling and roiling and joining one another to form a ceiling unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Far in the distance Sebastian heard the low rumble of long, echoing explosions and finally deduced it was thunder. Did that mean lightning was striking somewhere? Or was it just streaking through the heavens among the clouds?

  “Cut the lights a minute,” he radioed, eliminating the possibility that they would cost him a view of the lightning. Sure enough, above the clouds—and who knew how thick they were?—tiny pulsating bursts of light seemed to try to peek through. Suddenly the artificial light lost its allure. If a storm was coming his way, Sebastian wanted to see it in all its natural glory.

  Mac landed and hurried to Rayford’s quarters, surprised to find them dark as midnight. He considered refueling and heading out again. Regardless of Rayford’s view, if he was here after all, nothing would compare with watching from overhead when the Antichrist got his due.

  He knocked lightly. “Anybody in here?”

  “Mac!” he heard. It was Rayford, but Chaim greeted him when the door opened.

  After embraces all around in the dark and a quick retelling of both men’s day, Rayford told Mac there was another chair in the other room. Feeling about, Mac noisily banged his way back with it and sat himself in front of the window. “Nice show,” he said. “But you ought to see it from a chopper.”

  “You’re breaking my heart,” Rayford said.