Review of the book “Five Years After” by William R. Forstchen
A Prelude to the Rapture?
In 2009, William R. Forstchen wrote a fine novel called “One Second After” about an EMP attack upon the United States, presented from the perspective of a college professor living in a small town in North Carolina. It’s an excellent story of the impact such an attack would have on our modern civilization. Forstchen is well-versed in technology, history, civics, military topics, colleges, and small-town life. His characters and plot are engaging. The book should be a call to action (to protect the U.S. from this very real threat) but those who should be listening and acting have stayed in Ostrich-mode (head in sand). I recommend “One Second After;” be warned there are plenty of sad moments and dark times when everything electronic stops working and civilization falls back into the 19th century.
Forstchen continued the story with two more books. I recommend both. Besides the (mostly unheeded) warning about the risk of EMP attack, the novels look at questions of morality during times of upheaval and at the conflict between local communities and power-hungry federal bureaucrats. The books have Christian threads, but they are secular works.
I did not expect there would be a fourth book in the series (after all, the third was titled “The Final Day”). But Forstchen has continued the story with a 2023 book called “Five Years After.” The characters from the prior novels are portrayed in events that are five years after “The Final Day.” The story begins in the small North Carolina town but shifts to issues that are global in significance. The book is a real page-turner. To avoid a spoiler, I will just say the future seen in this novel is a time of much loss and suffering. Though some communities are rebuilding, there are sinister forces at play in the remnants of the federal swamp (the same folks that have lost the trust of many Americans in our time). The protagonist, John Matherson, faces a seemingly unsolvable crisis but finds a possible solution in the Bible. As the unread novel pages dwindled, I thought “It seems like he might try this….” And my speculation turned out to be right.
When I read dystopian novels like this one, I evaluate the novel against the Bible prophecies about the coming end times. There are a few Bible quotations or references in this novel. Its introduction quotes from Revelation 6:8. That Bible verse describes the early days of the Tribulation (the seal judgments) and says that one-fourth of the world population will perish from war, plague, and famine.
As evidenced by my books, I support the literal method for interpreting Bible end times prophecy, which says the Tribulation will be preceded by the Rapture. The Forstchen novels don’t mention the sudden disappearance of millions of Christians (i.e., being taken up to meet Christ in the sky before the Tribulation). Many of the characters seem to be Christians. So, I infer that these four novels must take place prior to the Rapture, notwithstanding the terrible Tribulation-like events happening in the novels.
Note the term “Tribulation-like” in the preceding sentence. Lots of terrible things occur in these novels, but they are not dissimilar to terrible things that have happened throughout history (war, famine, and plague). Such things will occur at some level in the days prior to the Tribulation, too. The opportunist Antichrist will leverage these things when he rises to power, claiming he has the power to end them.
The events of the Tribulation will make the past horrors pale by comparison. God will use the Tribulation to punish those who reject Him and to get the attention of others as He says “This is your final call, surrender to Jesus and come to Me before it is too late for you.”
Most end times novels typically start in conditions like our current world and flow from there into the Rapture and then the Tribulation. But there is no reason to expect such conditions when the Rapture occurs. It may very well occur during (or after) a time of especially great turmoil and peril (like that described in the Forstchen novels). See chapter 8 of “Lifeline, A Guide to Surviving the End Times,” which is titled “A Nuclear Prologue to the Rapture?”
It is my hope that the Rapture will be prior to the occurrence of wide-scale horrific events like those described by Forstchen, and that any such events will fall only within the Tribulation. But the risk of EMP attacks, pandemics and nuclear war are real threats to us now. Forstchen does a great job of dramatizing them. Supposing the Forstchen storyline, the novel ”Five Years After” will be followed by the Rapture. Then the seven years of the Tribulation will occur, when things will be much worse than Forstchen has described to this point. But praise God, the second coming of Jesus will end the Tribulation.
The Rapture may be a few years away and it may be during a time like that described by Forstchen. But it also could occur while you take your next breath. God the Father will decide that moment. There are no open Bible prophecies that must be fulfilled before the Rapture occurs. Come, Lord Jesus!
Mark C. Tredecim
