"Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind Series 1 - Left Behind" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

whiteness of the blaze. The sky was afire. He still heard planes over the din and roar
of the fire itself, and the occasional exploding missile sent new showers of flame
into the air. He stood in stark terror and amazement as the great machines of war
plummeted to the earth all over the city, crashing and burning. But they fell between
buildings and in deserted streets and fields. Anything atomic and explosive erupted
high in the atmosphere, and Buck stood there in the heat, his face blistering and his
body pouring sweat. What in the world was happening?
Then came chunks of ice and hailstones big as golf balls, forcing Buck to cover his
head with his jacket. The earth shook and resounded, throwing him to the ground.
Facedown in the freezing shards, he felt rain wash over him. Suddenly the only
sound was the fire in the sky, and it began to fade as it drifted lower. After ten
minutes of thunderous roaring, the fire dissipated, and scattered balls of flame
flickered on the ground. The firelight disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Stillness settled over the land.
As clouds of smoke wafted away on a gentle breeze, the night sky reappeared in its
blue-blackness and stars shone peacefully as if nothing had gone awry.
Buck turned back to the building, his muddy leather jacket in his fist. The doorknob
was still hot, and inside, military leaders wept and shuddered. The radio was alive
with reports from Israeli pilots. They had not been able to get airborne in time to do
anything but watch as the entire Russian air offensive seemed to destroy itself.
Miraculously, not one casualty was reported in all of Israel. Otherwise Buck might
have believed some mysterious malfunction had caused missile and plane to destroy
each other. But witnesses reported that it had been a firestorm, along with rain and
hail and an earthquake, that consumed the entire offensive effort.
Had it been a divinely appointed meteor shower? Perhaps. But what accounted for
hundreds and thousands of chunks of burning, twisted, molten steel smashing to the
ground in Haifa, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Jericho, even Bethlehem—leveling ancient
walls but not so much as scratching one living creature? Daylight revealed the
carnage and exposed Russia's secret alliance with Middle Eastern nations, primarily
Ethiopia and Libya.
Among the ruins, the Israelis found combustible material that would serve as fuel
and preserve their natural resources for more than six years. Special task forces
competed with buzzards and vultures for the flesh of the enemy dead, trying to bury
them before their bones were picked clean and disease threatened the nation.
Buck remembered it vividly, as if it were yesterday. Had he not been there and seen
it himself, he would not have believed it. And it took more than he had in him to get
any reader of Global Weekly to buy it either.
Editors and readers had their own explanations for the phenomenon, but Buck
admitted, if only to himself, that he became a believer in God that day. Jewish
scholars pointed out passages from the Bible that talked about God destroying
Israel's enemies with a firestorm, earthquake, hail, and rain. Buck was stunned when
he read Ezekiel 38 and 39 about a great enemy from the north invading Israel with
the help of Persia, Libya, and Ethiopia. More stark was that the Scriptures foretold
of weapons of war used as fire fuel and enemy soldiers eaten by birds or buried in a
common grave.
Christian friends wanted Buck to take the next step and believe in Christ, now that
he was so clearly spiritually attuned. He wasn't prepared to go that far, but he was
certainly a different person and a different journalist from then on. To him, nothing
was beyond belief.
Not sure whether he'd follow through with anything overt, Captain Rayford Steele