"Sir, that is but days away."

"Do we not have the personnel?"

"We do."

"Do we not have the armaments?"

"We do. Are you lifting the embargo against showing military-style strength in the form of tanks, fighters, bombers, and other such?"

"You're catching on, Walter. I want to crush resistance in Israel before it even arises. From whom should I expect opposition?"

"The Judah-ites and-"

"You've already told me they are unlikely to show their faces. They take their potshots from behind the trees of the Internet. From whom shall I expect flesh-and-blood opposition within, say, Jerusalem itself? You know my plans."

"Not totally, sir."

"You know enough to know who will be outraged."

"The Orthodox, sir. The devout, religious Jews."

David heard chairs squeak, and it was obvious Carpathia had stood and Moon followed suit. "Now, Walter. I ask you. How dangerous to me will be the funny-looking men with their beards and their braids and their skullcaps once they have seen one hundred thousand heavily armed troops, there to protect me and those who worship me?"

"Not very, Excellency."

"Not very indeed, Walter. Good day to you."

David guessed Walter still had time to make their appointment. His goal was to schmooze Walter, flatter Mr. Wong, and somehow get rid of them so he could plot with Chang how to get out of there with the other four believers. He sat, earphones in place, ready to shut down his computer. But then he heard Carpathia humming, then singing, as if he were writing a song, trying a line, improving it, starting over. David listened, transfixed.

Finally perfecting it, to a military-sounding tune Carpathia softly sang:

Hail Carpathia, our lord and risen king; Hail Carpathia, rules o'er everything. We'll worship him until we die; He's our beloved Nicolae. Hail Carpathia, our lord and risen king.

Just before midnight in Chicago only Rayford and Tsion were awake. All were excited about the expected return of Buck and Albie and their next new member, Ming Toy. Chloe and Leah asked to be awakened as soon as the chopper arrived.

Tsion had been working all day on a new, though brief, message. "I'm about to transmit it," he told Rayford. "But I'd appreciate your looking at it. It's an interesting study, but it's not for the beginners. We have hundreds of thousands of new believers joining our ranks every day, but I have to think also about moving the more mature ones from milk to meat. Perhaps the day will come when someone like Chaim can take over the teaching of the newest."

Rayford eagerly accepted Tsion's hard copy, always feeling privileged when he was among the first to get a glance at something a billion people would benefit from.

Dear ones in Christ:

From your letters to the message board, I sense some questions about certain passages and doctrines, one of which I address today. I am most encouraged that you are reading, studying, curious, and that you so plainly want to learn and grow as believers in Messiah. If you have placed your trust in Christ alone for salvation by grace through faith, you are a true tribulation saint.

While we all rejoice in our new positions before God-we went from old to new, from death to life, from darkness to light-no doubt all are sobered by the reality that we are living on borrowed time, now more than ever.

I have gathered from many that one of your loftiest goals is to survive until the Glorious Appearing. I share that longing but wish to gently remind you that that is not our all in all. The apostle Paul said that to live is Christ but that to die is gain. While it would be thrilling beyond words to see the triumphant Lord Christ return to the earth and set up his thousand-year reign, I believe I could learn to deal with it if I were called to heaven in advance and saw it from that perspective instead.

Beloved, our top priority now is not even thwarting the evils of Antichrist, though I engage in that effort every day. I want to confound him, revile him, enrage him, frustrate him, and get in the way of his plans every way I know how. His primary goal is ascendancy for himself, worship of himself, and the death and destruction of any who might otherwise become tribulation saints.

So, as worthy and noble a goal as it is to go on the offensive against the evil one, I believe we can do that most effectively by focusing on persuading the undecided to come to faith. Knowing that every day could be our last, that we could be found out and dragged to a mark application center, there to make our decision to die for the sake of Christ, we must be more urgent about our task than ever.

Many have written in fear, confessing that they do not believe they have the courage or the character to choose death over life when threatened with the guillotine. As a fellow pilgrim in this journey of faith, let me admit that I do not understand this either. In my flesh I am weak. I want to live. I am afraid of death but even more of dying. The very thought of having my head severed from my body repulses me as much as it does anyone. In my worst nightmare I see myself standing before the GC operatives a weakling, a quivering mass who can do nothing but plead for his life. I envision myself breaking God's heart by denying my Lord. Oh, what an awful picture!

In my most hated imagination I fail at the hour of testing and accept the mark of loyalty that we all know is the cursed mark of the beast, all because I so cherish my own life.

Is that your fear today, friend? Are you all right as long as you are in hiding and somehow able to survive? But have you a foreboding about that day when you will be forced to publicly declare your faith or deny your Savior?

I have good news for you that I have already admitted is difficult to understand, even for me, who has been called to shepherd you and exposit the Word of God for you. The Bible tells us that once one is either sealed by God as a believer or accepts the mark of loyalty to Antichrist, this is a once-and-for-all choice. In other words, if you have decided for Christ and the seal of God is evident on your forehead, you cannot change your mind!

That tells me that somehow, when we face the ultimate test, God miraculously overcomes our evil, selfish flesh and gives us the grace and courage to make the right decision in spite of ourselves. My interpretation of this is that we will be unable to deny Jesus, unable to even choose the mark that would temporarily save our lives.

Isn't that a blessed thought? I could no more do this in my flesh than I could swim the Pacific. I have heard stories of believers from the past who were asked at gunpoint to denounce their faith, and yet they stood firm, dying for it. I never envisioned myself with that kind of fortitude.

Even since writing to you last, I have heard the story of one who was among the first to face this test. We have no eyewitness account, no one to tell us how the scene unfolded. Yet we know that of all the people herded through the mark application process at this specific venue (which I naturally have to keep confidential), only one man rejected the mark. Knowing the consequences, he chose to die rather than to deny Jesus Christ.

My heart is broken for his loved ones. What an awful mental image to season one's bereavement! And yet how thrilling to know that God was faithful! He was there at the darkest hour. And this beloved saint is one of the martyrs under the altar of God, his robe snow white.

As Antichrist and the false prophet spread their message of lies and hatred and false doctrine around the world, forcing millions to worship Satan himself by threatening to behead those who refuse, it would bode well for us if we would memorize a verse from John's Revelation. In chapter 20 and verse 4, he writes as part of his God-given vision:

"Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years."