“Kingdom Come”: Left Behind Review, Part 4–Prudes, Faulty Theology, Brainwashing, and Learning to Love the Judgment
On page 128, Qasim flirts with and asks out young and beautiful Ekaterina. It’s ONE date, hasn’t even happened yet. Still, young Kenny
wanted to blurt out that he cared for her and would rather date her himself, but it was too late. He had missed his window of opportunity. He would look jealous and desperate. Would he have to compete with Qasim to see her at all now?
Come on, Kenny, where’s your sense of competition? She’s asked out on one date and you just give her up to Qasim without even a fight?
You act like she’s engaged! It’s called DATING. You do it before you get engaged. And you can date lots of people at the same time if you want.
None of the guys asking out a girl are called “jealous” or “desperate” just because she went out with somebody else last week.
On page 133, Abdullah introduces his wife Yasmine to his old fellow Tribulation Forcer Gustaf (Zeke). Before the Rapture, Yasmine converted from Islam and tried to convince Abdullah to become a Christian, but he refused:
The big man [Zeke] greeted Yasmine with a bear hug. “I heard all about you, ma’am,” he said. “I sure did. Tell you what–I’da been your husband, you’d have changed my mind.”
As soon as he said it he appeared to realize how it sounded, blushed, and apologized. “I just meant…you know….never mind.”
What, you can’t make jokes in the Millennium? What’s he apologizing for?
Then on page 134, he says to her, “Now Yasmine here–you don’t mind if I use your first name, do you, ma’am?” Um, why on earth would she mind?
People are just so–odd here, uptight. Perfectly normal actions and words are treated like blunders or like they must be okayed first, such as Ekaterina calling her boss Kenny by his first name on page 94. Even Ekaterina resisted flirting with Qasim on page 128, for no reason I could see.
On page 144, Rayford wants to know if God wants him and Tsion to go see Noah speak to the kids at COT the next day. (What, aren’t you allowed to make decisions for yourself anymore?) But God’s not saying, so Tsion says,
How about we put out a fleece? See if Mac can get us there by the crack of dawn and back as soon as it’s over, and if he can, we’ll take that as divine permission.
Oh, geez, not a fleece! I have had bad experiences with fleeces, the Evangelical version of divination, and just as reliable. See here, here, here and here.
On page 153, I’m a bit disappointed because–if Buck were still called Buck like in every other Left Behind book–this would be another “Buck was struck.” But no, it’s “Cameron was struck.”
This is bad in writing: Don’t confuse the reader by changing the name your character has used for all this time. Except for the Bible and Russian novels, this is an amateurish fail.
Interesting note from Noah on page 156:
Why did we live so long back then? For the same reason you will live long [ie, about 1000 years]. The world actually exists now, as it did then, under a canopy of water that blocks the most harmful effects of the sun. When that condition no longer existed, life spans were greatly reduced, as history shows.
Hmmm….I wonder what scientists would think of this theory…..Let’s see….I’m not sure if a credible scientific website would even bother with this. But I found a scientific rebuttal on a website about creationism:
Neither the Bible nor science support the idea that a water canopy ever existed above the earth. The Bible teaches that the “expanse” of Genesis 1:6-8 cannot be a canopy, since it encompasses both the atmosphere and interstellar space.
The Bible also indicates that the “floodgates of heaven” are nothing more than a reference to clouds and rain (as found in passages after the Genesis flood). Scientifically, any kind of water canopy produces so much heat that it would cook everything on the planet.
See that site for more information. Another one is here.
Page 159 has yet more padding. Oftentimes it’s the Bible clipped-and-pasted. This time, it’s the story of Noah, recited again as children cheer at appropriate spots, to remind us that we haven’t just tripped into a book of Genesis.
Yeah, yeah, we know the story, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of this book. The one good spot of all this padding: It gives me a chance to skim without missing anything.
On page 189, Chloe asks Ekaterina, Kenny and Bahira (young people), “[The Tribulation Force] had one goal, one mission, and that was to thwart Antichrist as best we could by what?”
Their response is the best part: “They all looked blank.”
Obviously nobody knows. We readers sure don’t!
The answer finally comes out: “By adding as many people to the family of God as you could.”
Wait, that was it? Well, other than wiretapping the Antichrist’s office and plane, which never seemed to be used for much of anything. You have the ultimate good-vs-evil, and you can’t even muster up a decent Underground Resistance movement.
On page 198, Kenny says that Raymie and another Raptured person could have ended up married if they were “naturals” (ie, were not Raptured/glorified and could still have families). Kenny says that because they’re “not wired that way anymore,”
That allows us to spend a lot of time together, really as brother and sister, worshiping, praying, studying, planning. I can’t tell you how rewarding it is.
Eh, that’s only because you don’t know what you’re missing. 😉 But Kenny does say, “And I can’t tell you how much fun it is to have someone like that in my life, plus adding the romance to it.”
On page 215, Bu–er, Cameron says a mouthful:
Cameron whispered to [Joshua and Caleb], “I will, of course, accede to your wishes, but before you begin, the children would like to recite to you in unison what they memorized from the Scriptures yesterday. Would that be permissible?”
Did you swallow a dictionary, Buck? Come on, nobody actually talks like that in non-professional real life unless they want to impress people with their booklearnin’. Are you a sycophant, Buck?
Even worse is finding out what the children memorized from the Scriptures:
The Lord’s anger was aroused on that day, and He swore an oath, saying,
“Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt, from 20 years old and above, shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed Me, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.”
You had children memorize a verse about Old Testament wrath? Is this meant to scare them into righteousness?
And then, of course, there’s more cut and pasting from the Bible, as we read the story of Joshua and Caleb yet again. Pretty much nothing new happens except for the kids cheering now and then.
On page 223, Joshua and Caleb mention the harlot Rahab from the story. Yet none of the kids asks, “What’s a harlot?”
Yeah, riiiight… LOL Heck, when my parents watched Blazing Saddles when I was a kid, my little voice piped up with, “What’s a whore?” (My dad’s response: “Look it up in the dictionary.” Which I did.)
On page 305, Rayford says, “There is no question Irene and my daughter and I are biased, so I would ask that we simply accede to my grandson’s request that we covenant together in prayer and seek the Lord over this.”
What are you saying, again? What’s wrong with plain English? Nobody talks like that in normal conversation!
At the end of all things, we finally get to the last judgment, of the lost. It is explained on page 350 that these are “all the men and women in history who died outside of Christ.” Then we read,
Rayford had the feeling that the many verdicts he had just heard would have horrified him in the old days.
And yet now, hearing the offenses of those who had rejected and rejected and rejected the One who was “not willing that any should perish” and seeing Jesus’ own tears as He pronounced the sentences, Rayford understood as never before that Jesus sent no one to hell. They chose their own paths.
Er…It’s made clear that these are people who died without being Christians. But there are a myriad of reasons why people don’t choose to be Christians.
It’s not all about wanting to do your own thing and stick your tongue out at God. Many don’t believe there is a God. Or they were raised in a family/country where Christianity is generally considered blasphemy, or simply not taught.
Christians sin just as much as non-Christians, and deserve Hell as well, but it’s made clear in this passage that the “transaction” (ie, saying the sinner’s prayer) decides whether you’re “saved” or “lost.”
But no human can be more merciful than God. By saying people automatically go to Hell just because of their religion, you tread in dangerous waters, crossing over into God’s territory: the final Judgment.
Here’s another review of this book.
FINALLY! I am DONE with this series!
[2/6/14-3/5/14]