"Soul Harvest": A Review

by Travis L. Quertermous

INTRODUCTION

This is the fourth installment in our review of the wildly popular "Left Behind" series of religious novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. As we have stressed throughout this series of reviews, the "Left Behind" series is really a thinly-disguised attempt to promote the heresy called dispensational premillennialism, even though these books are promoted as fictional. In this they have been very successful. Every novel in the series has shot to the top of the bestseller's list with the series itself selling over 18,000,000 copies. Brethren, this doctrine will cause people to be lost! Millions are being endangered. Thus, this series of reviews.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

Book four in the "Left Behind" series is entitled Soul Harvest. At the end of book three, the Lord opened the sixth seal of Revelation 6:12-17 and a global earthquake devastated the planet killing a fourth of the population. This is "the wrath of the Lamb" being poured out on an evil, rebellious world. The Antichrist, Nicolae Carpathia, survives, as do most of the Tribulation Force which has banded together to resist his evil schemes. This includes heroes Rayford Steele, his son-in-law, Cameron "Buck" Williams, and their "pastor," Rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah. Buck's wife, Chloe, also survives even though she was seriously injured. Lost in the earthquake, however, was Rayford's wife, Amanda. Most of Soul Harvest is taken up with Rayford's and Buck's searches for their wives. It appears that Carpathia's second-in-command, Leon Fortunato was lost in the earthquake, but he reappears alive and well. Fortunato claims that Carpathia raised him from the dead and many people begin to worship Nicolae as a god as a result. Toward the end of the book, God begins the seven trumpet judgments described in Revelation 8-9. The first three strike the earth in succession as a fiery hailstorm, a meteor and a mountain of wormwood from outer space. These catastrophies devastate the planet, destroying a third of the plantlife, a third of ocean-life and ships, and poisoning much of the remaining water (Rev. 8:1-11). All of this causes millions more to die.

The novel takes its name, however, from the dispensational understanding of Revelation 7 which describes the 144,000 servants of God (vv. 1-8) and the great multitude "who come out of the great tribulation" (vv. 9-17). Dispensationalists believe that the 144,000 believers mentioned here is an actual number of Jews converted in large part by the two witnesses of God in Revelation 11:3-14. In the "Left Behind" novels, Jenkins and LaHaye named these two prophets Eli and Moishe. These 144,000 Jewish evangelists then convert the great multitude of Revelation 7:9-17. This is the great "soul harvest" reflected in the book's title.

A RESPONSE

It is just here that the absurdity of premillennialism and its approach to Revelation is seen most clearly. Dispensationalists insist on taking the number 144,000 literally, but they do not take their description literally. Such inconsistency is glaring. Note the following:

(1) According to Revelation 7:4, all 144,000 are "of the children of Israel." Revelation 14:4-5 further

describes all of the 144,000 as virgin males who never lie and are without fault. Taken literally, that

would mean if you are a married Gentile man or a woman, you are out of luck! Yet Jenkins and

LaHaye describe Tsion Ben-Judah as one of the 144,000 even though he is a married man (thus not a

virgin) and several times resorted to lying and situational ethics while escaping Israel with Buck in

book three.

(2) All of the 144,000 are said by the apostle John to have the Father's name on their foreheads (Rev. 7:3;

14:1). But Jenkins and LaHaye substitute the cross for this and do not limit it to their 144,000 Jewish

evangelists. In Soul Harvest, every "Christian" (Jew and Gentile alike) has a cross supernaturally

branded onto their brow by God which is visible only to other believers. Why take the brand literally,

but not its description?

(3) Despite their castigation of everyone who does not take Revelation "literally," Jenkins and LaHaye do

not take the sequence of events in Revelation literally. For example, John introduces the 144,000

saints in Revelation 7 and does not mention the two witnesses until chapter eleven. But the authors of

Soul Harvest reverse the Scriptural order and have the two witnesses preaching and converting the

144,000!

(4) Nowhere in Revelation 7:9-17 is the great multitude said to be the converts of the 144,000 as

dispensationalists assume. They are in heaven, not on the earth. They come out of the great

tribulation (Rev. 7:14) which for them is in the past and not the end of time, again, contrary to

premillennial doctrine. Truly, "the legs of the lame are not equal" (Prov. 26:7)! Every false doctrine is

plagued with such inconsistency and contradictions.

(5) As for the first four trumpet judgments in Revelation 8, these likely symbolize the natural disasters

which God used to punish Rome. They are a reminder that sin affects not only man, but his

environment as well (Rom. 8:20-22). Brethren, it must be remembered that Revelation is apocalytic

literature which describes the church's conflict with Rome in very graphic symbolism (Rev. 1:1-2).

So who are the 144,000? My judgment is that they represent the whole church, the Israel of God under the New Covenant (Gal. 6:16). That the literal twelve tribes of Israel are not under consideration is plain from the listing in Revelation 7:4-8. John lists the tribe of Joseph in Revelation 7:8, but there never was such a tribe historically. Furthermore, he leaves out the tribes of Dan and Ephraim. Plainly, this is spiritual Israel, the church of Christ, under consideration (cf. Matt. 19:28; Lk. 22:30; Rom. 2:29; James 1:1). How is the number 144,000 arrived at? 12,000 Israelites are chosen from each of the twelve tribes which equals 144,000 when multiplied out. In Revelation, the number 12 represents the people of God and the number 1000 represents completion. Thus, the number 144,000 simply represents all of the saved. Their qualifications and brand symbolize the church's purity and dedication to Christ (cf. 2 Tim. 2:19). This conclusion is reinforced when one compares descriptions of the church in the rest of the New Testament with that of the 144,000. The church is said to be a chaste virgin (2 Cor. 11:2) without spot or blemish (Eph. 5:27). We are sheep following the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10:27), redeemed among men (Eph. 1:7), the firstfruits of God's creatures (James 1:18), who have laid aside all deceit (1 Pet. 2:1). That is exactly how John describes the 144,000 in Revelation 14:1-5. This leads to the conclusion that they are one and the same group.

CONCLUSION

Brethren, the fact that the "Left Behind" series presents premillennialism as fiction makes it all the more deceptive and dangerous because we might be tempted to dismiss it as harmless entertainment. But make no mistake about it, Jenkins and LaHaye and many other premillennialists see them as evangelistic tools to popularize dispensationalism. If you read and understand them as fiction, then they are good for a chuckle and an interesting page-turner. But because most of the folks who read them have no real understanding of what the Bible teaches about the second coming of Christ and because the evangelical world is so dominated by dispensationalism, the danger these bestselling novels represent far outweighs their entertainment value. Book five in the "Left Behind" series is Apollyon; look for our review of it in a future issue.