The Left Behind Complete Set, Series 1-12

by Tim LaHaye

There is to be a great soul harvest, maybe a billion or more people, coming to Christ.”

Left Behind: Book 4, coming soon to Christian bookstores near you!

“I think we need a shelter.” “A shelter?” Chloe said. “Underground,” Bruce said. “During the period of peace we can build it without suspicion. When the judgments come, we wouldn’t be able to get away with anything like that.” “What are you talking about?” Buck asked. “I’m talking about getting an earthmover in here and digging out a place we can escape to. War is coming—famine, plagues, and death.”

Surely that will make people take us seriously. I guess this is one of the more reasonable actions for people to take in an apocalypse story.

Buck was impressed that Bruce had a plan, a real plan. Bruce said he would order a huge water tank and have it delivered. It would sit at the edge of the parking lot for weeks, and people would assume it was just some sort of a storage tank. Then he would have an excavator dig out a crater big enough to house it. Meanwhile, the four of them would stud up walls, run power and water lines into the hole, and generally get it prepared as a hideout. At some point Bruce would have the water tank taken away. People who saw that would assume it was the wrong size or defective. People who didn’t see it taken away would assume it had been installed in the ground.

How is this shelter getting financed?

wasn’t getting interested in a woman right now a little trivial, considering all Bruce had just talked about? Buck had already fallen in love with God. That had to be his passion until Christ returned again.

The old “It’s not you, it’s God” excuse

Most considered the scheduled move of the U.N. to the ruins of Babylon, south of Baghdad, a good thing.

Umm, okay

“Well, it wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to ask him out by myself.”

Why not, Chloe?

I want to memorize Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation for starters.”

With the announcement that Buck was waiting, Bruce immediately swung open his door and embraced him. That was something new for Buck, too, all this hugging, especially among men.

“But, Bruce, if I hadn’t introduced them, he wouldn’t have asked to see her again.” Bruce sat back and folded his arms. “You want to rescue her from Carpathia, is that it?” “Of course.”

Reminder: Buck has known Hattie and Cathpathia for two weeks

She’s gone from being a flight attendant to being the personal assistant to the most powerful man in the world.” “Personal assistant and who knows what else.” Bruce nodded. “Probably so. I don’t imagine he chose her for her clerical skills.

Our heroes, everybody

my former senior pastor, Vern Billings,

Still makes me laugh

Rayford spent the morning on the phone finalizing arrangements for his recertification on the Boeing 777. Monday morning he was to fly as a passenger from O’Hare to Dallas, where he would practice takeoffs and landings on military runways a few miles from the Dallas–Fort Worth airport.

Oh good, I was starting to miss all the exciting travel logistics that took up a third of the first book.

“No, the truth is I think this worked out for the best. I wanted to talk to him last night, but you were probably right. I would have seemed too eager, too forward. And he said I should call him back at my convenience. Well, first thing in the morning wouldn’t be that convenient. In fact, I’ll see him in church tomorrow, right?” Rayford shook his head. “Now you’re going to play games with him? You were worried about obsessing over him like a schoolgirl, and now you’re acting like one.” Chloe looked hurt. “Oh, thanks, Dad. Just remember, letting him wait was your idea.” “That was just overnight. Don’t involve me in this if it’s going to get silly.”

And the award for most realistic father-daughter conversation goes to…

“Do you trust this Steve Plank?”

Well, tell me I’m in denial, but that’s hogwash.

A lot of Catholics were confused, because while many remained, some had disappeared—including the new pope, who had been installed just a few months before the vanishings. He had stirred up controversy in the church with a new doctrine that seemed to coincide more with the “heresy” of Martin Luther than with the historic orthodoxy they were used to.

I don’t take the Apocrypha literally, but there are dire predictions of what might be yet to come.”

Can't tell if LaHaye thinks "Apocrypha" all have to do with the end times...

Buck had half expected to hear from Chloe. He thought he had left it with Rayford that she would call at her convenience. Maybe she was the type who didn’t call men, even when she had missed their call. On the other hand, she was not quite twenty-one yet, and he admitted he had no idea about the customs and mores of her generation. Maybe she saw him as a big brother or even a father figure and was repulsed by the idea that he might be interested in her. That didn’t jibe with her look and her body language from the night before, but he hadn’t been encouraging then, either.

“Did you get my message that Carpathia wants to talk to you? People don’t make a habit of making him wait, my friend. I’m stalling him, telling him you’re in transit, relocating, and all that. But he had sort of hoped to see you this weekend. I honestly don’t know what he wants, except that he’s still high on you. He’s not holding a grudge over your standing him up on his invitation to that meeting, if you’re worried about that.

My hope still lives on that Nicolae and Buck will become entangled in a star-crossed love affair. "Buck was a young jounalist investigating the end of the world. Nick was a rising Antichrist hoping to rule it. But everything changed when they met each other."

Chloe looked the best he had seen her since coming home from college. He wanted to tease her, to ask her if she was dressing for Buck Williams or for God, but he let it go.

Blech

After a couple of choruses, a disheveled Bruce Barnes hurried to the pulpit—not the large one on the platform, but a small lectern at floor level. He carried his Bible, two large books, and a sheaf of papers he was having trouble controlling. He smiled sheepishly.

I’m picturing Charlie on his way to tell us about Pepe Silvia

I don’t want you to worry about me. I haven’t become a wild-eyed madman, a cultist, or anything other than what I have been since I realized I had missed the Rapture.

Self-defeating self defense

Bruce told his own story yet again, how he had lived a phony life of pietism and churchianity for years, and how when God came to call, he had been found wanting and had been left behind, without his wife and precious children. Buck had heard the story more than once, yet it never failed to move him. Some sobbed aloud. Those hearing it for the first time got Bruce’s abbreviated version.

Bruce is like that guy who corners you at the office water cooler to tell you their entire life story. It’s like one of the two things he ever does. That and exposit about the stuff that’ll happen later in the series.

Buck had never seen Bruce so earnest, so inspired. As he spoke he referred to his notes, to the reference books, to the Bible. He began to perspire and often wiped sweat from his brow with his pocket handkerchief, which he took time to admit he knew was a faux pas. It seemed to Buck that the congregants, as one, merely chuckled with him as encouragement to keep on. Most were taking notes. Nearly everyone followed along in a Bible, their own or one provided in the pews.

Such stilted writing here. Bruce sounds like the best pastor ever, but this narration is so rote that he comes off as disingenuous.

the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If you have ever been exposed to such imagery and language before, you probably considered it only symbolic, as I did.

Is Bruce about to reveal that the horsemen are literally men on horses?

Would he tell this body that he believed he knew who the Antichrist was? In a way Buck hoped he would. But that might be considered slander, to publicly finger someone as the archenemy of almighty God.

I mean, it’s been done before. Didn’t people say Obama was the antichrist?

Rayford was more than fascinated. He was stunned. In many ways, Bruce was reading his mind. Not long ago he would have scoffed at such teaching, at such a literal take on so clearly a poetic and metaphoric passage. But what Bruce said made sense.

Feels like the author is trying to point at this book and say, “See, it’s not so crazy. Eh? Ehhh?” Probably waggling his eyebrows as he says it...

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not finished.” To Rayford’s surprise, people began to applaud. Bruce said, “Are you clapping because you want me to finish, or because you want me to go on all afternoon?” And the people clapped all the more.

This is an unintentionally hilarious description.

But those who had relegated this kind of teaching to the literalists, the fundamentalists, the closed-minded evangelicals, had been left behind. All of a sudden it was all right to take Scripture at its word!

This is like the academic equivalent of that fantasy in A Christmas Story where Ralphie imagines he’ll go blind from soap poisoning. It’s that impulse to rub it in one’s detractors’ faces when one is finally proven right.

Buck had spent enough time with Bruce and the Steeles, poring over the passages, to know beyond doubt that Nicolae Carpathia embodied the enemy of God. And yet he could not jump to his feet and corroborate Bruce’s message with his own account. Neither could Bruce reveal that he knew precisely who the Antichrist was, or that someone in this very church had met him.

Wow, an entire paragraph of old material that could have been scrapped

For years Buck had been an inveterate name-dropper.

With the names in this series, I don't blame you

He has a bow in his hand, a symbol of aggressive warfare, and yet there is no mention of an arrow. So how will he conquer?

This sentence would be updated to: “He has a gun in his hand, a symbol of aggressive warfare, and yet there is no mention of bullets. So how will he conquer?”

since they had come to faith in Christ that Rayford anticipated every detail. It seemed he was becoming an instant expert, and he could not recall having ever picked up on a subject so quickly.

Ah, the ole Dunning-Kruger effect at work

Rayford admired Bruce. The young man had instantly realized that his phony brand of Christianity had failed him at the most pivotal point in human history.

What a backhanded compliment

Let me close by telling you how you can be sure I am not the Antichrist.”

I wish all pastors ended their sermons this way

The other three horsemen are coming, and they bring war, famine, plagues, and death.

Says three horsemen, then lists four things, and now I’m just trying to map out which horseman is doing double duty.

Our only hope is in Christ, and even in him we will likely suffer. See you next week.”

Lol

As the service ended, Buck took Chloe’s arm, but she seemed less responsive than he might have hoped. She turned slowly to see what he wanted, and her expression bore no sign of that expectant look she’d had Friday night. Clearly, he had somehow wounded her. “I’m sure you’re wondering what I was calling about,” he began.

Where’s Rocky Flintstone when you need him to spice up the romanic tension?

“I just wondered if you wanted to see my new place.” He told her where it was. “Maybe you could drop over late tomorrow morning and see it, and then we could get some lunch.” “I don’t know,” Chloe said. “I don’t think I can do lunch, but if I’m over that way maybe I’ll stop by.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve upgraded from travel logistics to dating logistics. If we’re lucky, we might get a thrilling conversation about when and where to buy movie tickets.

“But what will you say?” Rayford asked. “For all we know they may already be intimate.

Must we?

As they separated and made their way out of the church, Rayford began wondering how much he should encourage the relationship between Chloe and Buck. He liked Buck a lot, what little he knew of him. He believed him, trusted him, considered him a brother. He was bright and insightful for a young guy. But the idea that his daughter might date or even fall in love with a man on speaking terms with the Antichrist . . . it was too much to fathom. He would have to be frank with them both about it, if it appeared their relationship was going anywhere.

So many “he”s and “him”s that you’d be forgiven for losing track of who is whom from sentence to sentence. How did an editor not catch this stuff?

“Anyway, I’m mad at myself. I come away from a message like that one, and all I can think about is a guy I’ve somehow let slip away. It’s not important. Who cares?”

Just talk to each other like adults, you weirdos

He couldn’t shake Bruce’s message, either. It wasn’t so much the content as Bruce’s passion. He needed to get to know Bruce better. Maybe that would be a cure for his loneliness—and Bruce’s. If Buck himself were this lonely, it had to be much worse for a man who had had a wife and children.

How does Buck have better sexual chemistry with every male character than he does with Chloe???

Who pursues a relationship during the end of the world?

Four chapters in, and I’ve heard about a dozen versions of this sentence

“What’s the scoop?” Rayford asked. Chloe imitated the recorded voice. “‘The number you have dialed has been disconnected. The new number is . . .’” “Is what?” She handed him a scrap of paper. The area code was for New York City. Rayford sighed. “Do you have Buck’s new number?” “It’s on the wall by the phone.”

This passage is the entirety of a scene. You can imagine my rage when I turned the page and saw FOUR scene breaks on a single page. That’s four POV changes between two characters in one page! The only excuse for that kind of writing is when you’re trying to pull an action scene where everything is synchronized and all the timing matters. Bruce Barnes’s church had better explode on the next page.

Buck called Bruce Barnes. “I hate to ask you this, Bruce,” he said. “But could we get together tonight?” “I’m about to take a nap,” Bruce said. “You should sleep through. We can do it another time.” “No, I’m not going to sleep through. You want the four of us to meet, or just you and me?” “Just us.” “How about I come to your place then? I’m getting tired of the office and the empty house.”

I mean, just look at this! Do I even need to say how sexual this sounds?

“You hungry?” Buck asked before Bruce had even gotten in the door that evening. “I could eat,” Bruce said. “Let’s go out,” Buck suggested. “You can see the place when we get back.” They settled into a booth in a dark corner of a noisy pizza place,

He’s a dangerous man and a murderer.

You can just say “murderer.” I can’t think of many non-dangerous murderers.

“In other words, instead of sleeping tonight?” Bruce smiled. “I don’t suppose there’s much prospect of that.” “I don’t suppose.”

Fortunately, the next morning he didn’t see Verna until after he had dropped off his key to Alice and was driving out of the lot. Verna was driving in, and she did not see him.

Thanks for that useful piece of info, Tim