Survivors - Dave Mckay (sight word readers .TXT) 📗

more than three years. What an amazing compliment! And how foolish of him to have worried because he was not getting the recognition that he thought he had deserved!

Truly, what God had called him to do was more important than being the President of the most powerful country in the world... President Gerald Fitzhugh himself knew that. And what they were doing was important even if Reinhard was not the most widely recognised member of this new kingdom. Reinhard prayed for strength to stay faithful with even the humblest job, and he thanked God for the privilege of being able to serve in such an important movement.

 

* * *

 

In contrast, Dangchao and Pius were tortured men, spinning out of control in their obsession to maintain control of the world. Pius was almost as demonic as Dangchao now, having learned how to perform a few sensational tricks with the help of Dangchao's supernatural powers. Pius would unashamedly prostrate himself on the ground in front of the statue whenever walking through the Temple Complex now, and he had started bowing to Dangchao and using grandiose titles for him that became further evidence of his worship for this man/Beast.

The statue had survived the disasters, but both Temples had been damaged by the hail storm. A meteorite had destroyed Pius' personal residence when the first shower hit. Fortunately, he had not been there when it struck.

"We must stop them," Dangchao spluttered as he was eating lunch with his cohort. "We must find their headquarters... kill their "Two Witnesses", as they call them. If we don't, they will continue to grow. Torture will do it. Someone must know. They'll tell us where it is."

"But, Your Worship," Pius replied, "torture takes time. It will slow down the executions. And everyone is needed for rebuilding. It takes a lot of infrastructure just to ferret them out to begin with. There are interviews with informers, office staff to maintain records, arresting officers, executioners. Even the morgues are overcrowded with these latest disasters."

"Damn the disasters! Let them lie where they are! If we don't stop these Christians, everything else will be wasted. Skip the red tape too. If an informer even thinks that someone is connected with the movement, I want that person killed. I don't care whether they have a Mark or not. There must be people on the inside helping them. We must find them and make examples of them."

Dangchao continued: "The people can rebuild later. All of our energies must be put into stopping these Christians. If we don't do that, there won't be a world left to rebuild."

And so, while the world looked on in shocked disbelief, their great leader --the man they had all thought as recently as a year and a half ago was the greatest leader the world had ever known -- chose to ignore their suffering because of his own obsession with getting back at the Christians.

Dangchao had convinced himself that it was the Christians who were destroying the world, and he used his best speech writers and press secretaries to get that message across to the masses. He succeeded in whipping up such hysterical hatred for Christians, and such paranoia about their supposed conspiracy against the rest of the world, that soon neighbours were turning one another in for execution on the flimsiest of evidence. Executions increased ten-fold, but eight out of ten of the people being killed now were ones who bore the mark in their very much intact right hands!

The effect of Dangchao's rage was to encourage even more of his faithful followers to defect. If they were going to die anyway, they reasoned, it would be better to die on the side of right.

And the Two Witnesses could not resist echoing the timeless wisdom of such reasoning. "If we are all going to die anyway," they said, "then how much better to die for God than to die for a demon? This has been the common sense behind the gospel message for centuries, whether or not the world happens to be falling apart around us."

 

 

Zion Ben-Jonah Writes

The disasters that are heralded by the first four "trumpets" of the Great Tribulation (Revelation 8:6-12) are mentioned in this chapter. It is interesting that the word "chernobyl" is the Russian name for the poisonous "wormwood" plant. The passage from Revelation 8 says that the asteroid that hits the earth will be called "Wormwood".

This chapter also reveals a little more of the powers that the Two Witnesses will be able to wield. Read about them in Revelation 11:6.

The main lesson, however, is that of leadership. The beastly systems of the world all jostle for power, wealth, fame, and honour. But the humble, sacrificial death of the "Lamb" is what characterises the kingdom of heaven.

What a shame that Constantine did not have the opportunity to learn as Fitzhugh does in this chapter, what it means to be a true leader in the kingdom of heaven! Only when that happens will people understand that it would be better for the leaders of the most powerful countries and empires in history to be humble missionaries and servants in the kingdom of heaven than to supposedly "use their power" to bring favours for God and for his people.

Pius represents the tragic end that befalls those who refuse to leave their positions of power along with everything else that God calls us to forsake in order to enter his kingdom.

 

(Table of Contents)

 

 

 

21. Apollyon

The battle between Dangchao and the Christians was on in earnest, and it continued that way as the countdown toward the end of the three and a half years of Tribulation continued.

In the two years from the time that Dangchao had first caused the sacrifices to cease, and had moved into the Temple in Jerusalem, both sides had lost count of the millions who had chosen to reject the Mark, and the millions more who had been executed to appease Dangchao's rage.

Although Pius was slightly more sane than the Antichrist himself, he was also becoming addicted to the sickening pleasure that came with conducting such a worldwide inquisition. It was the thrill of pure, unadulterated power that attracted them now, except that in their case, it was very much impure and very much adulterated use of power that had made it all so evil.

But, although Dangchao and Pius were killing many more people than Rayford and Chaim were converting, the Christians were clearly winning the spiritual battle. The numbers of people asking to become a part of the Tribulation Force were growing every day in spite of the killings.

The asteroid and meteorite showers had left millions dead and widespread destruction. Neither the U.N., nor the governments of its individual member nations, seemed capable of dealing with the problems that flowed on from the disasters. The world appeared to be heading back to the Dark Ages. People everywhere were disillusioned. Dangchao was definitely slipping in the popularity stakes.

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