Survivors by Dave Mckay (the speed reading book .TXT) 📕

Rayford had been planning to talk to Irene privately about his plans, but the subject came up in the course of introducing the other Jesans.

Rayford had Chloe's qualified endorsement, but he also had the advantage of Irene's prior commitment to Christian faith. More than anything, what helped him was Irene's dramatic change on the cloverleaf in North Dakota. It had broken the spell that Vernon Billings and traditional Christianity had over her. And now her husband was offering her a new purpose for living. More than that, he was offering her something that was truly Christian. She listened intently and tried not to panic at what Rayford was suggesting.

Over the next few weeks, Irene, Chloe, and Raymie progressed from being co-operative with Rayford, to deeply respecting him, to adopting his faith for their own. There was no single moment when it happened, but the more they studied, discussed, or even thought about the teachings of Jesus, the more their faith grew. They unanimously chose to join the Jesans.

A month after Irene returned, Rayford was released from his obligation to stay with Pan-Con. A group decision was made to use the money they had been saving for an apartment to buy another van for Chloe and Raymie instead. They would use it in their new job as Jesan tract distributors.

Neville and Mary had become quite fond of Rayford and Irene, and they insisted that the couple use the second bedroom at their apartment on a permanent basis.

From that point on, life for the Jesans took a dramatic turn.

Zion Ben-Jonah Writes

Whatever else religious formulas for conversion may include, they all seem to leave out the essential ingredient, which is the teachings of Jesus. In this chapter, we have people listening to and responding to the teachings of Jesus, and the result in each case is a dramatic change in lifestyle.

Jesus said that the religious builders would leave out the Cornerstone of his teachings, and that the result would be like that of a foolish person building a house on sand. Whatever it is that they are trying to build, he said, would eventually collapse. But he said that any who would listen to his teachings and at least seek to obey him, would be like a wise person building on a rock... the storms and floods of this life and of the next would not be able to shake them.

This is the message of salvation that Jesus taught, and it is the one that we should be teaching today.

Jesus said that, if we are faithful to share his teachings with others, then anyone who accepts us and what we are saying will, in effect, be accepting him and what he taught. (Matthew 10:40) In this chapter, Chloe, Irene, and Raymie had to start by accepting what Rayford (and then Reinhard and the others) said in defence of Jesus and his teachings. As they did, they were 'born again" by the "Word of God", which is actually the Bible's name for Jesus. (See Revelation 19:13-16.)

(Table of Contents)

BOOK TWO

9. The Countdown Begins

"Another one!" Rayford exclaimed to himself as he sat at his desk late one night in January.

It had been eighteen months since the Straits had joined the Jesans. Rayford's keen interest in Bible prophecy, and his natural aptitude for teaching, had catapulted him to a leadership role in the tiny community. He wondered how he could have ever been happy as an airline pilot. Life had been so exciting since he had made the dramatic decision to let go and give everything to God.

Rayford's role in the community had triggered a commitment from Neville too, who was thrilled to be able to work full-time with Rayford on something he was good at… computers. Neville was like a young man again, and Mary, who hardly ever said a word, was happy to see the change in her husband.

The two men had been working together for more than a year, with Rayford producing articles on a wide range of topics (but especially on how each topic related to what was happening in world events at that time), and with Neville setting up a web page where people could go to access all of the material that Rayford was producing. Some days Rayford would produce four or five articles in a single day. Much of the inspiration for them came from his involvement with the rest of the Jesans, and from thoughts which they shared from their stints out on the streets.

Neville installed a guest book, a hit counter, an internal search engine, and a tracker on their home page. He also developed an automatic study course, which would test people on a list of questions from one article before directing them to the next one. Neville made sure that the page was well represented on search engines all over the world, and he collected thousands of email addresses for a worldwide newsletter which Chloe and Reinhard produced once a month. The newsletter aimed at stimulating enough curiosity to get people to visit their web site.

"Look at this," Rayford said when he had finished reading the papers he had in his hands. He spun the chair around and shoved them toward Irene. "Six letters in today's snail mail, and they all sound like genuine seekers. Wouldn't it be great to get a new member out of this?"

Rayford had come to see the truth in the group's theory that God was deliberately blocking people from joining them. They had not had a new member since he had joined, and he had tried everything he could think of to locate the problem. About once a week they would get a promising letter from someone who had read one of their tracts or visited their website. But they rarely heard from these people again. Getting six serious enquiries in one day was unprecedented.

Irene skim-read the letters and then spoke. "Sounds great, doesn't it? What do you plan to do with them?"

"Neville and Mary will be away next week. I may try to get all six of them here on Monday. Then I won't have to answer the same questions over and over."

"Do you think it's wise to bring them here?" asked Irene. Group policy was not to give out Neville's address without counselling on it first.

"I have a feeling about this," Rayford said. "I think there's a connection with the Jerusalem talks."

Rayford was talking about a U.N. plan to construct a Temple in Jerusalem for the Jews. The world was gradually recovering from the destruction of America, and now there was time for people to consider other matters. Talks had been going on in Israel for the past two or three weeks. Secretary General Dangchao himself had been there for the past three days, and even the Pope was participating.

The Arabs had been adamant that there would be all-out war if anyone dared to touch the Dome of the Rock, their most sacred mosque. It had been built centuries earlier, almost on the original site of Solomon's Temple, where Jews had, for centuries, offered sacrifices to God. However, Dangchao had come up with a compromise package. It involved construction of a Jewish Temple on one side of the Dome of the Rock and a matching Christian temple on the other side. The sacred Muslim mosque itself would not be touched. The newly elected Pope Pius XIII had hinted that he was prepared to move from the Vatican to take up residence in Jerusalem, not far from the new Temple, as a symbol of Vatican commitment to this historic step toward religious unity.

Muslims were not thrilled about the offer, but there was something in Dangchao's manner that suggested he would not take "No" for an answer.

If people had thought that the Americans were biased in favour of the Jews, the Americans looked positively wishy-washy by comparison to Dangchao. U.N. troops had been increased in the holy city, and Muslims took it as a warning of what Dangchao might do if they turned down his Temple "offer".

"Talks in Jerusalem? I can't remember a time when there hasn't been some sort of talk making news in the Middle East," Irene commented.

"I know," Rayford answered. "Before I became a Jesan, I used to wonder why there was so much interest in the talks. Must've been because people in the know were looking for hints of the agreement even back then. Now, after all these years, we could be about to witness the real thing. If Dangchao pulls it off, it could confirm what I've been thinking about him."

What Rayford had been thinking was that Xu Dangchao was the prophesied Antichrist. Such a revelation was unthinkable to the general public, because all that Dangchao did seemed to be for the good of mankind. It was only because of Rayford's understanding of Bible prophecy that he felt there were sinister forces behind Dangchao's charisma. The one problem had been his name. According to Bible prophecy (Revelation 13:17-18), the numeric value of the letters in the name of the world's final ruler should add up to 666. Whatever system Rayford used (Greek, Hebrew, Latin, or even Dangchao's native Chinese), the value of the letters in his name fell short.

The only Roman numerals, for example, were X, D, and C, which equalled 610. The letters I, V, and L were needed, to make up the missing 56.* In Greek and Hebrew tallies, the figures were even farther out. Rayford did not know what to make of it. Yet there were other things that pointed to Xu Dangchao being the prophesied Antichrist.

Dangchao's success in taking control of the world through the U.N. was a hint of his special role, although, here too, Rayford had to admit that the nations of the world were not officially controlled by the United Nations yet. They still continued to operate independently of one another.

But Dangchao had built up U.N. military might to the point where U.N. troops were deployed in great numbers throughout the world. Because of their presence, the world had experienced total peace, if not total unity, during the year and a half since the collapse of America.

(*The letters I, V, X, L, C, and D (Roman numerals for 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, and 500) must all appear once (and only once), and the letter M (1,000) must not appear at all for a name to add up to 666 in Roman numerals.

Note: The names used in this book are totally fictitious. It is possible that the real Antichrist will have a name that adds up to 666 based on the numerical value of Latin, Greek and Hebrew letters)

.

If Secretary General Dangchao were to succeed in getting a Temple for the Jews, then not only would Rayford be convinced that he was the Antichrist, but he would also be able to compute the exact number of days until Jesus would return.

Rayford was up late that night studying the six letters that he had received, and thinking about the proposed meeting on Monday. He refused meals on Saturday and Sunday, spending most of his time alone