Do You Want To Know How the World Will End?
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through completely for the third time, so from that you will probably gather that I like it!! But I will try to give you an impartial review 🙂
The Left Behind Series is a fictional story of what the last days of this world will be like, from a Christian perspective and based on Biblical prophecy.
The authors believe that the Christians disappear off the face of the earth in something called the ‘Rapture’, then comes the tribulation where all kinds of bad things happen including someone rising up called the AntiChrist. Then Jesus comes back to earth at the end of the world as we know it.
It starts off with everyone getting ‘Left Behind’ as all the Christians in the world disappear, and goes from there. The books follow a few characters closely, there is romance, murder, mystery and action, but all written in a very lifelike way.
First impressions
When I first picked up a book of the series I put it down pretty quickly because I remember thinking ‘Wow, this is slow’, and ‘The authors must be trying to make money by extending it out to be really long’!
In fact the reading isn’t slow at all, it’s just that the events happen quite slowly, so they make quite a bit of the personal stories in between which I wasn’t expecting.
What I like
However the second time I started to read them I couldn’t put them down! I don’t know what changed apart from maybe me becoming less cynical and seeing their value and interest instead!
They manage to keep the excitement up all the way through, and even the third time of reading them I am not bored.
I also love the wisdom that is strewn through the book coming out in various places. For example, I love this quote in the book I’m reading right now, Desecration, where someone is worried because he accidentally tipped off the enemy about where the hiding place of the Jews was going to be: “God’s not gonna let a regular human like you mess up his plan with one mistake, is he?”
And there is some great sharing of the gospel that makes me hope that people who don’t know God will read it and be converted. In fact I just went to their website and found that people have come to know Christ through those books!
It is also a wonderful way of diving into Biblical prophecy of the end times and starting to understand what some of it may mean. Much of it is open to interpretation, but they have clearly put some hard work into figuring out how it may play out as it all comes across as very realistic.
I started reading them for the third time because my husband is now preaching through Revelation, so I thought I would get some of the prophecies in my head in a fun way before we get there!
I also like that the romantic parts talk about people’s feelings and conversations but don’t get all touchy-feely like some Christian romances.
What I don’t like
My favourite book of the series is ‘Glorious Appearing’ because it is so exciting leading up to where Jesus actually comes back to earth. But funnily enough at the same time it’s the one I skip-read the most because there are long passages of talking when they stand before Him, that are quite similar to each other and get a bit tedious.
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Glorious Appearing, Left Behind Series #12 By Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins |
The main thing that I don’t like besides that are the constant cliff hangers. The way it is written moves across the world, from one character to another character, and quite often right in the middle of some interesting action!
Sometimes I just wish that one story would finish before they move across the world to the next character, but I guess doing it that way keeps it in real time, and also makes it harder to put down.
Conclusion
Overall I love these books. I would definitely recommend them, whether you’re a Christian or not! Why not read about what the end of the world may be like in reality, more than just sci-fi!
If you want to buy them you can get them here at Amazon UK
Linking up to Spiritual Sundays and Winsome Wednesdays
I have all of these books. I read the first two while I was on a trip to visit missionaries in India. They introduced me to them. Although they are fiction, they are based on scripture and I think they have made a lot of people think about the future. Thank you for sharing this review.
Blessings,
Charlotte
Yes they have loads of scripture in them and are great food for though! Thanks for visiting 🙂
Hi,
I am following you from Winsome Wednesdays. And I read through most of them. It is probably a good thing to read them again – a little wiser, further along in my faith and in studying the Bible. The scriptures will be more meaningful.
Blessings,
Janis http://www.janiscox.com
Hi Janis, yes it is definitely more meaningful each time I read them. And I haven’t even read them that long apart! Thanks for visiting 🙂