Glorious Appearing: Part I

I picked up Glorious Appearing from the library yesterday and i'm already 200 pages into the book. Glorious Appearing is the latest book in the Left Behind series. After 11 books leading up to this point, we know that Jesus will be returning in this volume. He has to. The title is "Glorious Appearing" after all. The return of Jesus has been called The Glorious Appearing all through the series, and we know how it will all end. Jesus will return and establish the Millenium Kingdom on Earth.

But how did this all start? The first volume, Left Behind started with the mysterious disappearance of millions upon millions of people throughout the world. It couldn't be explained, except by the Rapture (the event where God takes true believers to heaven before he begins the Tribulation in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ. LaHaye and Jenkins accept a Pre-Tribulation Rapture. Others believe in a Post-Tribulation Rapture, where the Rapture will only happen after the seven year Tribulation). The authors, over the course of 12 books, takes us on a journey through the book of Revelation and they take a literal approach to the events described in the last book of the Bible.

By the time we get to Glorious Appearing, I'm ready for Jesus to come back. Seriously. There is a cliffhanger at the end of Armageddon where we don't know which one of the two main characters have died, but other than finding out which one lived (i guessed wrong, it turns out), I wanted the return of Jesus. It just took a while to get to that point. I suppose after waiting 11 novels (and 2000 years), i should have a little bit more patience, but i didn't. I have wondered since the beginning of the series exactly how this could be described. Think about it. How do you describe the return of Christ to this world? If you believe the Bible, this is the event that all of history and creation has been leading towards.

I'm not much past Christ's return (which i expected to happen at the end of the book), but it is shaping up to be fairly interesting. The first half of the book was fast paced, as usual, but i was ready for the EVENT.

I imagine i'll finish the book today or tomorrow, and will be back with my final impressions on tuesday.