Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle Of The Ages (29 page)

Ashtaroth, Baal, and Cankerworm disappeared amid a huge bolt of lightning that struck the middle of the con-ference table and temporarily blacked out the TV monitor in Petra. As the picture returned, a huge peal of thunder made Chang rip off his headphones.

Nicolae and Leon returned to stand behind their chairs, as did the rest of the potentates and Viv and Suhail. As they stood there calmly, Nicolae said, “Farewell, one and all. I will see you in six months in the Plain of Megiddo on that great day when victory shall be in sight.”

Buck sat stunned but quickly came to his senses. “Somebody read that passage Tsion mentioned!”

“I’ve got it right here,” Chaim said. “Revelation 16:13 and 14 say, `And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.”’

“Read the next two verses too, Chaim,” Tsion said.

“The first quotes Jesus himself,” Chaim continued. ””`Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.” And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon.”’

RAYFORD
TOLD
Buck and George to scout out a new meeting room, somewhere in Petra that would not draw curiosity seekers. “It needs to hold maybe twenty, at most,” he told them, though he knew it was unlikely to see half that.

He met with Tsion in the tiny living room in Tsion’s quarters. “I need you to teach my top guys,” he said. “They all know by now what went on in Baghdad, and everybody has questions about what it all means and what our roles should be. Nobody wants to just sit here in safety while the rest of the world goes to hell.”

“I can identify with that, Rayford, and I will gladly do it. I have just this morning turned over all administrative and teaching duties of the Remnant here to Chaim.”

Rayford shot him a double take. “You did
what?”

“I do not want to stay here either.”

“What are you saying?”

“If I am to teach your top little military band, I want to be part of it. I want to be taught to fight, to use a weapon, to defend myself, to keep my comrades and my fellow Jews alive.”

Rayford stood and walked to the unscreened window that looked out on endless skies. “I’m dumbfounded,” he said.

“Do not think I have not consulted the Lord on this.”

“It’s not enough you’re a rabbi, a teacher, a preacher? Now you want to be a soldier?”

“Rayford, listen to me. I identify with my Lord, my Messiah. I cannot sit here when Antichrist and his world-wide forces are closing in on Jerusalem. I will not stand by as innocent Jews are killed. The Bible teaches that a third of the remaining Jews will turn to Messiah before the end. That means many, many more than there are now, and they need to be reached. I want to preach in Jerusalem, Rayford. That is what I am trying to tell you.”

“You’ll get yourself killed.”

“I would rather wake up in heaven a few days early and join the army coming the other way with Messiah, knowing I died with my boots on, than sit here in Petra watching it on television.”

“I don’t know if I can allow it.”

“If the Lord allows it, I do not see that you have a choice. Oh, Rayford, sit down. I do not want to go foolishly, to go unprepared. I am just into my fifties now, not an old man. Not young, I know, but I am in shape. If Mac McCullum can do these kinds of things at his age, surely I can too. I know my hands are soft like those of a scholar, but how long can it take to develop calluses and learn to handle a weapon?”

“You’re serious.”

“I will not be dissuaded. I am more than willing to teach your team what I know about what is going on. But my price is to also become a student of your Mr. Sebastian.”

Rayford sat and shook his head. “You may not be an old coot, but you’re stubborn.”

“Is that not part of the makeup of the warrior?”

“Oh, you’re a warrior now.”

“I hope to be.”

“Have you consulted the elders?”

“Did I inform them? Yes. Were they happy? No. Will they pray about it? Yes. Do I care what they come back with? Only if it is a yes.”

Buck couldn’t believe it. “But I have to admire his spunk. I’ll never forget the night he and I first talked to the two witnesses at the Wailing Wall. That was before I even knew Dr. Ben-Judah was a believer. I was pretty new at this stuff myself, but I recognized John 3 and the night-time conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. It was moving.”

“I’d never forgive myself if I let him go and something happened to him,” Rayford said.

“He’s a tough guy. He stood up to Carpathia on international television, telling what he thought about Jesus being the Messiah. And after his family was massacred, I know he’d rather have been carrying an Uzi than a Bible. He could be a valuable addition to this team. And the only one who can preach and teach. I’d vote for him.”

“I’m not taking any vote.”

“You just got one. Anybody voting against?” “I might,” Rayford said.

“You’re more of a coward than he is.”

Mac got a kick out of the whole thing. He was all for Tsion learning to be a soldier and coming with them to Jerusalem. He sat under Tsion’s teaching in the private chamber every week for the next several months and learned more about the very last days than he thought there was to imagine. He saw the fire in the rabbi’s eyes and knew, Rayford’s misgivings aside, that Tsion was going.

Tsion began one evening’s lesson by reading Jude 1:14-15: “`Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophe-sied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judg-ment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”’

“Did you catch that, people? The word he repeats so many times? It sinks in, doesn’t it, when a prophet of God refers to the ungodly four times in one sentence? These enemies of ours are the enemies of God. They are out to steal and kill and destroy anything that is of God. But Jesus himself says in John 10:10 and 11, `I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.’ Oh, to be a shepherd called to give your life for your flock!

“Many of you have asked where I get the idea that one-third of God’s chosen people will turn to him before the end. Turn in your Bibles to Zechariah 13. That is the second-to-last book in your Old Testament. In verses 8 and 9 the prophet is talking about the Remnant of Israel: “`And it shall come to pass in all the land,” says the Lord, “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.””

“Now as I have told you before, calling this final conflict the Battle of Armageddon is really a misnomer, as this is just the staging area of the world’s armies. The actual conflicts will take place here at Petra, or near here, as God has proved this city is impenetrable, and at Jerusalem. To be precise, this should be called the War of the Great Day of God the Almighty.”

Buck raised his hand. “I’ve been hearing you teach this stuff for years, and I still don’t think I have the sequence down. What’s going to happen when?”

Tsion chuckled. “Scholars have debated that since time immemorial. I found that the only way I could make sense of it was to have my Bible and all my books and commentaries open at the same time and try to make a list of the various stages of the events.

“In my opinion, eight events will take place sometime after the sixth Bowl judgment, the drying up of the Euphrates River. That event, by the way, makes it possible for the kings of the East to bring their armaments of war directly into the plain of Megiddo on dry land, saving them the time of shipping them all the way around the continents. There is no biblical corroboration for this next assertion, but in my humble opinion, this is a trap set by almighty God. He’s luring these rulers and their armies right to where he wants them.

“Regardless, once the Euphrates has dried up, we see the assembling of the allies of the Antichrist. Next, I believe, comes the destruction of Babylon. Isaiah 13:6-9 says, `Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will be limp, every man’s heart will melt, and they will be afraid. Pangs and sorrows will take hold of them; they will be in pain as a woman in child-birth; they will be amazed at one another; their faces will be like flames.

“`Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it.”’

“Wow,” Buck said. “I don’t know if I want to be there to see that.”

“You’re going to be in Jerusalem by then, Buck,” Rayford said.

“Me too,” Tsion said. “Following the destruction of Babylon comes the fall of Jerusalem. That will encourage the allied troops of Antichrist, and they will surge to join their compatriots here at what the Bible calls Bozrah. Immediately following that comes what I call the national regeneration of Israel.

“In Romans 11:25-27 the apostle Paul writes, `For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.””’

“Then comes the good stuff,” George said. “At least the way I read it.”

“Exactly,” Tsion said. “The Glorious Appearing. Jesus Christ appears on a white horse with ten thousand of his saintly army, and regardless of what Antichrist thinks is going to happen, his end is near.

“Want to hear a bizarre word picture? When John talks about this in his Revelation, he says in verses 19 and 20 of the fourteenth chapter: `So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses’ bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs.’

“Think of that! When Jesus and his holy army finally slay the world allies of Antichrist, the slaughter will be so great that the flow of blood in Israel’s central valley could be as high as a horse’s bridle. How high is that? Four feet or more.”

“And how far is one thousand six hundred furlongs?”

“I am so glad you asked, George,” Tsion said, “because I happen to have studied it. It is about one hundred and eighty-four miles, the approximate distance from Armageddon to Edom.”

“But that’s only six events,” Buck said. “Are there really two more?”

“Yes. There is the end of the fighting in the Jehosha-phat Valley, which is basically the area from here to just south of Jerusalem, west of the Dead Sea. Because Petra is safe, all Antichrist’s armies can do is fight outside.

“Then, finally, comes Jesus’ victory ascent up the Mount of Olives. I want to be there for that.”

“You may be there,” Rayford said. “But whether you’ll still be alive is a different story.”

Six Years, Eleven Months, into the Tribulation

WITH
JUST
WEEKS
to go to the culmination of the final events, Rayford had finally gotten used to the idea that Tsion was going to Jerusalem.

“That I’m acceding to this doesn’t imply that I support it, does it, Tsion?”

“I know you better than that. But I may also know you better than you know yourself. After all this talk, you would be disappointed if I pulled out now.”

“Disappointed? Relieved. I somehow feel I’m going to have to answer to God for what happens to you.”

“Trust me. I will let you off the hook.”

“Let me see those hands, old man.”

“I told you,” Tsion said, extending his hands. “I am not that old.”

“Older than I am, so ancient in my book,” Rayford said. “But those are impressive calluses. And George and Razor tell me you’re actually starting to hit targets with that Uzi.”

“I do not see how anyone can miss. It shoots so many bullets in so short a time, to me it is like using a garden hose. If you miss your mark, just swing it back and forth until you hit it.”

“What do you plan to do, seriously, Doctor? Stand somewhere and preach with a weapon hanging from your shoulder?”

“If I must. Rayford, we have known each other long enough that we should be free to be frank. I feel such a compulsion to plead with my fellow countrymen to give their lives to Messiah that I do not believe it would be physically possible for me not to. I must get there, and I must preach. I do not want a disguise. I cannot imagine the GC even caring about me anymore.”

“Are you serious? The leader of the international Judah-ites-”

“That is their term for us, not ours, and certainly not mine.”

“But, Tsion, everybody knows you. If they thought my daughter was a prime catch, imagine if they got hold of you.”

Tsion shook his head. “But if God has laid this so heavily on my heart, maybe he is telling me that I will be supernaturally protected.”

“Well, is he or isn’t he?”

“All I know is that I must go.”

“I’m sending Buck with you. I promised him duty in Jerusalem. I can’t think of a role with more action than what you’re going to draw.”

“I would be honored to have him as my bodyguard. Is he the military man George is?”

“Who is? But George is otherwise engaged, you know.”