"Assassins": A Review

by Travis L. Quertermous

INTRODUCTION

This is the sixth installment of our series of reviews of the wildly-popular "Left Behind" series of religious novels. The authors are Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, two prolific evangelical authors. The purpose of these novels, even though they are marketed as fiction, is to popularize the false doctrine called dispensational premillennialism. In this they have been enormously successful--the "Left Behind" series has sold over 18,000,000 books. The eighth book in the series was released in November 2000 and quickly became a number-one bestseller. These novels are popularizing the dispensational heresy as nothing else has done in our generation. Souls are being endangered and thus these reviews are a necessity.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

Book six of the "Left Behind" series is entitled Assassins. It is by far the darkest and most violent of the series thus far. As the Tribulation continues to rage, God unleashes the sixth trumpet judgment on the earth (Rev. 9:13-21). 200,000,000 spectral horsemen thunder across the planet slaying a third of the remaining unbelievers with fire, smoke, and brimstone. They are visible only to the believers; the rest of the world chalks the disasters up to unknown plagues. In the midst of all this suffering, the Tribulation Force continues to preach "the truth," prepare "the saints" for the last half of the Tribulation (called the Great Tribulation), and resist the schemes of the Antichrist, Nicolae Carpathia. Three more of their members are murdered by Carpathia's forces.

But the focus of Assassins (as the title implies) are four assassinations the book of Revelation is supposed to predict. All four occur in Jerusalem during a week-long festival Carpathia throws to renew world-wide confidence in his leadership. The first murder is that of Pontifex Maximus Peter II. He is the head of Enigma Babylon One World Faith and is supposed to be the great harlot of Revelation 17:1-6. Peter II had been plotting Carpathia's overthrow, but Antichrist gets him first. He is killed by Carpathia's ten sub-kings who carry out his wishes. This allegedly fulfills Revelation 17:15-17.

The next two to die are the prophets Eli and Moishe (cf. Rev. 11:1-6). Carpathia personally guns them down before the eyes of the world to the cheering approval of a loyal crowd of supporters. But they only stay dead for three-and-a-half days when God publicly resurrects them and takes them to heaven whereupon an earthquake devastates Jerusalem as punishment. These events supposedly fulfill Revelation 11:7-14.

The last assassination is that of the Antichrist himself. He is murdered on the last day of the gala while giving the closing speech. This was supposedly prophesied in Revelation 13:3, 12-14. These verses also predict the Antichrist's resurrection according to dispensationalism. This miraculous feat will be performed by Satan himself in the next book. (Carpathia is revealed in this book to be a Satanist; this is the explanation given for his supernatural abilities.) The authors leave the assassin's identity a mystery as the novel closes.

A RESPONSE

There are a number of points we need to make in reviewing and refuting the aspects of dispensationalism highlighted in Assassins. Due to space limitations, we must be brief though. We will number our responses for clarity.

(1) The sixth trumpet judgment involving the 200,000,000 demonic horsemen is most likely a prophecy of

the many foreign invasions that was a major factor in Rome's downfall. Remember that Revelation is

an apocalyptic drama describing the early church's conflict with the Roman Empire. The apostle John

said that these horsemen would come from beyond the Euphrates (Rev. 9:14). Beyond the Euphrates

lived the fierce Parthians, one enemy the Romans were never able to conquer. Invasions by these

fierce warriors plus barbarian tribes like the Huns, Vandals, Goths, and Visigoths devastated Rome.

The cavalry charges of these savages simply overwhelmed the Roman legions who relied primarily on

infantry. None of this was by accident; it was orchestrated by the providential hand of Almighty God.

Oddly, Jenkins and LaHaye once again depart from their absurdly wooden "literal" approach to

Revelation in depicting these events. For some reason, they add details that John never mentions,

namely, the horsemen are visible only to believers, are ghostly in nature and fly. They had no

problem literally portraying the demonic locusts of Revelation 9:1-12 in the last novel, but now they

depart from that when depicting the 200,000,000 horsemen mentioned in the very same chapter of

Scripture. Why take the horsemen less "literally" than the locusts? Don't they take this part of Bible

prophecy seriously? That is what they repeatedly accuse non-premillennialists of doing.

(2) The "assassinations" in Revelation have nothing to do with premillennialism. The great harlot who is

killed in Revelation 17 is plainly a reference to the city of Rome itself (Rev. 17:9, 18) though John

figuratively referred to her as Babylon (Rev. 17:5) to emphasize her wickedness. The fact that the

beast (the Roman emperor) turned on the harlot (Rome itself) shows that the empire's internal

divisions played a key role in its fall (Rev. 17:11-18). History shows that is exactly what happened.

(3) The two witnesses killed by the beast in Revelation 11 may symbolize the destruction of Judaism in

the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. In Revelation 11:1-2, the temple and the Jews are measured for

destruction (cf. Matt. 24:1-2). The two witnesses are surely Moses and Elijah who in turn represent

the Law and the Prophets of Old Testament Scripture or Judaism. For murdering His Son and

persecuting His church (Rev. 2:9), God used the Romans to destroy Judaism. The Jewish-Roman War

lasted the forty-two months of the two prophets's ministry in Revelation 11:2-3. The resurrection of

the two prophets likely represents the escape of the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem before the

Roman legions destroyed it (cf. Lk. 21:20-24). Others identify the two witnesses with the church

since the seven churches of Asia were symbolized as lampstands in Revelation 1:20 as are the two

prophets in Revelation 11:4. This interpretation of the vision woul relate it the church's survival of the

Roman persecution and triumph over it as it preached the gospel.

(4) As for the murder and resurrection of the beast in Revelation 13:3, this must in some way relate to the

Roman emperors since that is what represents, not the mythical Antichrist of dispensationalism. Many

interpreters believe John is making use of Roman myth concerning Nero. Under this evil Caesar in the

60's A.D., Christians in the city of Rome itself were severely persecuted and the apostles Paul and Peter

were marytred. After Nero's death, it was widely believed by the superstitious Romans that he would

be reincarnated and return to attack Rome. Since Domitian acted like the evil Nero in persecuting the

church, John used the myth of Nero's resurrection to describe Domitian. Thus, the beast (Nero Caesar)

receives a deadly wound, but is raised (figuratively) in the form of Domitian to continue his war against

the church.

(5) One other aspect of this novel we must emphasize is the situational ethics the authors continually have

their "saints" resorting to in their struggle with the Antichrist. This has been true throughout the

series, but Assassins literally reeks with it. Notice this exchange between two undercover members

Trib Force members on page 30:

"She turned back to Mac as if she had just thought of something. 'You have no trouble lying?'"

"Mac shook his head. 'To the Antichrist, you serious? My life is a lie to him. If he had a clue, I'd be

tortured. If he thought I knew where Rayford was, or Ray's daughter and son-in-law, I'd be dead.'"

"End justifies the means?," Annie said.

"Mac shrugged. "I sleep at night. That's all I can tell you."

"I'll sleep a little better myself," she said, "knowing you've got Carpathia under surveillance."

Later, Trib Force leader Rayford Steele buys a handgun on the black market with the full intention of

assassinating Carpathia, but finds he cannot at the last moment. Mac decides to crash his plane into a

mountainside to kill Carpathia knowing full-well that will mean killing himself and his co-pilot. Of

course, he never mentions any of this to his first officer, even though he is also a believer. Never mind

that murder and lying are everywhere condemned in the Bible (cf. Rev. 21:8). The Lord Himself

forbade the use of force in His cause (Matt. 26:51-54; Jn. 18:36). Scripture also condemns all those

who practice situation ethics (Jdg. 21:25; Isa. 5:20; Rom. 3:8). But none of this seems to matter to

Jenkins and LaHaye; for premillennialists, it seems the ends do justify the means. This alone is reason

enough to reject their whole unscriptural theory since it evidently cannot be harmonized with Biblical

morality.

CONCLUSION

We belive that Assassins may do more to discredit dispensationalism than any of the other books before it. How anyone can read such nonsense and believe that it in any way represents Biblical Christianity is beyond me. Book seven in the "Left Behind" series is called The Indwelling. Look for our review of it in a future issue of POWER.