The Left Behind Complete Set, Series 1-12

by Tim LaHaye

Rayford wondered if he was dreaming. He was certain he had killed his own son-in-law.

We should have been so lucky

Rayford could not speak. He and Ken had clicked so quickly that he had made an instant friend. Because of their hours together in the air, he’d spent more time with him than anyone but Buck. And being closer to Ken’s age, he felt a true kinship. He knew violence and death were the price of this period of history, but how he hated the shock and grief of the losses. If he began thinking of all the tragedy he had suffered—from missing out on the Rapture with his wife and son, to the loss of Bruce, Loretta, Donny and his wife, Amanda . . . and there were more—he would go mad. Ken was in a better place, he told himself, and it sounded as hollow as any platitude. Yet he had to believe it was true. The loss was all his. Ken was finally free.

Okay, so Ken’s death in this book indicates to me that Rayford won’t die in this entry. That seems like a lot more plot development than the authors would be comfortable doing.

Buck’s facial lacerations were deep but below the cheekbones, so there was little bleeding. His right thumb felt as if it had been pulled back to his wrist. He could not stop the bleeding from his left ear where the bullet that had killed Ken had sliced it nearly in half. He quickly took off his shirt and undershirt, using the latter to wipe his face and sop his ear. He put his shirt back on, hoping he wouldn’t appear so monsterlike that he would scare off anyone who might help him.

Nothing that would cause Buck to spend a book bedridden, unfortunately. And all his injuries are action hero injuries that shouldn’t impede his mobility for too long.

His ankles and knees were tender, as was his right elbow.

Not the knees!

He’s got a number for a Lukas Miklos, nickname Laslos.”

Buck couldn’t remember the name of Jacov’s mother-in-law.

“You an Aussie?” “How’d you guess? Where to, mate?”

“Now you’re not going to tell me this is Dr. Ben-Judah?” “It is, sir.” “Oh, oh!” Miklos said, slipping off the chair and onto his knees on the tile floor. He took Ben-Judah’s hands in his and kissed them while his wife clasped her hands before her face and rocked, her eyes closed.

Get him a turban and a neck scarf, and I’ll pay you later.”

I’m very uncomfortable with the direction Buck’s disguise is headed in. He better not attempt an accent.

At three o’clock in the morning, as close as they could get to the Temple Mount, Buck paid the Aussie handsomely. “For the ride,” he said. “For the Bible. And for the clothes.”

“Where is the king of the world?” Eli demanded.

Neither witness opened his mouth, but Buck heard them both in unison. It was as if the message was for him alone. He wondered whether anyone else heard it.

It was as though two redundant sentences were written in a row.

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” They knew about Ken? Were they consoling Buck?

How is Buck surprised at this point that the literal prophets Elijah and Moses have divine knowledge?

And just as suddenly the two spoke in unison again, softer, without moving their lips, as if just to Buck.

A GC bullhorn warned him to retreat. “And to the two who are under arrest. You have sixty seconds to surrender peacefully. We have strategically placed concussion bombs, mines, and mortars with kill power in a two-hundred-yard radius. Evacuate now or stay at your own peril!

The GC man slipped and fell, then fell again as he scrambled to get away.

From a branch high above him came two loud, echoing reports from a rifle. The sniper was less than fifty feet from Eli and Moishe, and what happened to the bullets Buck could not say. A burst of flame shot from Moishe’s mouth straight to the soldier, who somehow kept a grip on his weapon until his flaming body slammed to the stony ground. Then the rifle bounced twenty feet away. He burned quickly into a pile of ashes as if in a kiln, and his rifle melted and burned too.

Where’s Indy to let Buck know not to open his eyes?

Hail fell as if a cosmic truck had unloaded tons of golf ball–size spheres of ice all in one dump.

What kind of simile was that?!

Two helicopters aimed gigantic searchlights on the Temple Mount as the temperature rose, Buck guessed, into the nineties. The shin-deep hail turned to water in an instant, and the sound of it running away was like a babbling brook. Within minutes the mud turned to dust as if it were the middle of the day and the sun had baked it.

“Dear Jesus Christ, protect that boy. Amen.”

When the teacher calls on you to pray before lunch, and you’re really hungry

Buck, thrilled but also grieving and exhausted,

Honestly, same right now

Buck whipped off his disguise, then realized his face had to look horrible. Red, blotched, swollen, stitched, he looked like a monster.

Well, at least Chloe isn’t the only one who gets the “monster” descriptor

The whites of his eyes were full of blood. His face was a patchwork of colors, none close to his complexion.

He wasn’t hurt, but the racket woke Chaim. As Buck answered his phone, he heard Chaim crying over the intercom: “Jonas! Jonas! Intruders!” By the time it was sorted out, he and Chloe were up-to-date, Chaim had heard the whole story, and the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon.

Skips scene of comic misunderstanding and explanation, and I’m fine with that

The reports claimed Rosenzweig had hosted Ben-Judah, murder suspect Cameron Williams, and Williams’s wife and had agreed to lock them under house arrest for the GC.

The stateside members of the Tribulation Force followed the news carefully,

The Tribulation Force’s most consistent character trait is watching TV news

Rayford was amazed at the improvement in Hattie after such a short time. Her illness and despair and stubbornness had synthesized into a fierce hatred and determination. She grieved the loss of her child so deeply that Rayford was haunted by her stifled wails in the night.

Have you ever wished you could be the one God uses to kill Carpathia when the time comes?” “Chloe!” Rayford said, hoping his response sounded like scolding rather than a cover for the fact that he had prayed for that very privilege.

Our heroes. Maybe this will prompt some interesting character growth or introspection. But I doubt it.

With Hattie improving physically if not mentally, Dr. Floyd Charles had time to take Ken’s place as the Tribulation Force’s technical adviser. He installed scrambling software that kept their phones and computers untraceable.

Glad to see that when a character dies, they are still immediately replaced by someone who can do their job just as well.

She kept busy building a business model based on Ken Ritz’s notes. Within a month, she told Buck, she hoped to run the business by computer, networking believers around the globe. “Some will plant and reap,” she said. “Others will market and sell. It’s our only hope once the mark of the beast is required for legal trade.” She told him her first order of business was enlisting growers, producers, and suppliers. Once that was in place, she would expand the market.

In an unexpected twist, Chloe is going to run the blackmarket to fund their commune. If this book was set nowadays, she would definitely be starting her own essential oils MLM.

Tsion concluded his teaching for the day by reminding his readers that they had recently passed the twenty-four-month mark since the signing of the peace pact between the Global Community (known two years before as the United Nations) and the State of Israel. “I remind you, my dear brothers and sisters, that we are but a year and a half from what the Scriptures call the Great Tribulation.

You can feel the authors getting antsy to finally put that Christian persecution complex to good use. I wonder if we’re going to have another time skip at the end of this book, so that they can get to the even meatier part of the timeline.

The next morning at seven in Israel, Buck was watching a television news report

Of course, it being a “balanced” broadcast, Buck was not surprised to see a furious Peter Mathews spitting a reply. “Oh, the problem is mine now, is it? Has His Excellency finally ceded authority to where it belongs?

The Pope and the Antichrist are written like bitter ex-boyfriends in this scene

“God is trying to get your attention, Dr. Rosenzweig. I hope it doesn’t take something drastic.”

And suddenly it seemed someone pulled a shade down on the heavens. With the sun still riding high in the clear sky, the morning turned to twilight and the temperature plummeted. Buck knew exactly what it was, of course: the prophecy of Revelation 8:12.

Buck was overcome, realizing that the darkening would affect everything in the world. Not just brightness and temperatures, but transportation, agriculture, communications, travel—everything that had anything to do with him and his loved ones reuniting.

You didn’t consider that before?

Did he dare raise with young Ernie the subject of hidden treasure?

This is definitely one of Jenkins’ go-to phrases. “Dare he…?”

we sure hope he’s wrong.” “He won’t be,” Buck said. “Smart guys never are.

it will bollix it all up,

another Englishman Chaim moment

“Can we meet somewhere private?” Rosenzweig suggested a dank, underground eatery appropriately called The Cellar.

“We’re having power problems here already, Buck, and this connection isn’t the best.”

Did the whole world convert to solar power earlier in this series? Those fools should have invested in wind.

“Well,” he added with a twinkle, “not only did I get far more volunteers than I needed, but some very advanced computer types are offering free software downloads that automatically translate into other languages. It’s Pentecost on the Net. I’m able to type in unknown tongues!”

Oh 1990s, never grow up…

He had sacrificed as much as anyone in their little group—a wife and two children. Chloe had lost her mother and brother and now two friends. Rayford had lost two wives, his son, his pastor, and more new acquaintances than he wanted to think about. Everybody around the table, Doc Charles and Hattie included, had reason to go mad if they allowed themselves to dwell on it.

Everyone here needs therapy. And it shouldn’t be a competition for who can endure the most trauma.

He looked forward to that day when God would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there would be no more war. That was one reason he looked forward with relish to the ten o’clock news event that had been trumpeted on the GC Broadcasting Networks all day.

What a transition!

“I have no secrets, and I know you people sure don’t.”

Evangelicals famously have no dark secrets

Hattie raised her eyebrows, staring at him. “Forgive me,” he managed in a whisper, taking a sip of water and collecting himself. He continued through tears. “Somehow God has allowed me to see you through his eyes—a scared, angry, shaken young woman who has been used and abandoned by many in her life.

“What time is that news thing?” she asked. “Right now,” Chloe said, and everyone cleared his own dishes.

Buck snorted aloud when the host actually used the phrase “And last, but certainly not least.”

Jenkins, you know what they say about writers who live in cliche houses

Buck felt a sense of community with his people in the States. The idea that they were all watching the same thing made the miles shrink momentarily, and he longed to have his wife cuddling next to him.

“I am but a simple botanist who happened upon a combination that turned out to be magic water,