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Summary: A TIME LIKE NO OTHER.....
Review: LEFT BEHIND: the beginning of a novel series that has literally changed the world. Full of action and emotion, LEFT BEHIND takes you into the middle of the time which is to come. Read and learn. Your entire life will be changed! I guarantee it! Grade: A+
P.S. See the hit film adaptation with Kirk Cameron and Brad Johnson after you read the book!
Rating: 
Summary: AVERAGE AVERAGE AVERAGE
Review: These books, although sending out the Word, are so average! Do the writers write to the lowest common denominator? Read the books to learn about the Bible, or just read the book of Revelation and learn it yourself. This is a book for people who are too lazy to read and study the bible themselves. Did I like it? Sure, it was OKAY, not the best. But I read it and may read it again when they get tired of reading it and decide to finish the series.
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Summary: In One Instant.....................................
Review: Imagine if in One Instant millions around the globe disapear,leaving just their clothes behind......Imagine, Complete chaos everywhere as people try to survive,and there's one question left unanswered,Why?And Where is everyone????That's exactly what Cap.Rayford Steele thought as half the people on the 747 he was piloting disapeared......That's also what jornalist Cameron Williams-otherwise known as Buck-Wonders to....Then,One Man who claims to have the answers suddenly rises to power,he has his own story,and Many believe it,but Rayford and Buck have to search fo the truth,and they're family's..........
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Summary: Such potential
Review: This book had the opportunity to be a first class horror book, because let's face it, what could be scarier than being left behind after the rapture, knowing that what you did, didn't qualify for God's chosen, after the fact? The problem is that the detail is missing. After millions of people disappear, people come up with a theory and continue on. There isn't the deep panic and mayhem that would follow. Granted in doing so, the book would have become MUCH larger and they do try to describe it, but it's just a passing note really. Another problem I had was the characters, they just didn't appeal to me. The writers tried to make them interesting, gave them back grounds, nick names, and interact, but they just seemed flat. You couldn't help but feel that these weren't people, just tools to fulfill the roll needed. Barnes doesn't seem real, he seems like someone created to push home a point. Same with Hattie, though more fleshed out, she is still just an example of an 'average person' in opinions and actions. The stars of book were also fleshed out, but not to the degree of understanding. Then again, they went through a complete change in outlook toward life, so knowing them becomes difficult. Still, it wasn't a 'bad' book, just the potential was there, and looks to me it was missed.
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Summary: Not Just for Christians
Review: ...The premise is fascinating for someone like me, who researches world religions, myths, and folklore as a hobby. In the first book of the series, "Left Behind", the Rapture foretold in the Biblical book of Revelations occurs and all true Christians, living and dead, are spirited away to heaven, leaving the rest of us behind to deal with their sudden and unexplained disappearance. For anyone, Christian or not, who doesn't understand revelations and wonders how theologians interpret its symbolism, this is an easy-to-read fictionalized account that will make it pretty clear. As a story, it has plenty of problems, but there are also several positive points that keep the reader intrigued enough to want to read more of the series. First, the problems. The authors, Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, being Christians writing to a Christian audience, are hampered by their inability to accurately portray the actions and dialogue of non-Christians without themselves saying non-Christian things. They talk around difficult subjects, where a non-Christian might be less hesitant. On the other hand, the main character, Rayford Steele, was at the beginning of the book considering an extramarital affair. Their treatment of such a subject is admirable. They present his thoughts about the matter in a realistic manner, and display a true understanding of interpersonal relationships and social dynamics that quite frankly surprised me. It has been my experience that saints forget what it was like being a sinner and lose their ability to relate to the rest of us. And yet, the dialogue often leaves a lot to be desired. In personal relationships, the conversations are rarely believable. The authors do a much better job of explaining the silences than they do of presenting the words between the silences. Sometimes I wished the characters would just shut up. Professional conversations, however, flow more naturally. The characters, when conversing in other than social circumstances, use more slang and seem more at ease with each other and with the situations. A big disappointment for me was the fact that the authors deal with the disappearances and other miracles only tangentially. They always have a character watching the ensuing chaos on the news, or seeing the results of it from afar. I was hoping for more personal and specific descriptions of what the authors felt the aftermath of such an event would be. But for the most part, there are no details, only offhand remarks about looting and accidents (caused when thousands of cars and planes suddenly had no one at the controls). Even when the results of the Rapture hit closer to home - the Steeles' home is burglarized while they are away - the characters seem distracted in their reaction. I suppose this is to be expected, as the two remaining Steeles are more worried about saving their souls than about more temporal issues. Still, it struck a decidedly unreal note with this reader. Some questions I had about the Rapture remain unanswered. For example, "Left Behind" explains that the Rapture is a second chance for its survivors to find God. Well, what about the people who are already dead? Do they get a second chance, too? If not, why the favoritism? None of us has any choice about whether we will be alive when the Rapture occurs. Also, if God wants us all to use this second chance so wisely, why does He couch the final book of the Bible in such inscrutable terms that no one can agree what it means? It goes without saying that this book only presents the views of the authors and those eschatologists they support. There are nearly as many interpretations of Revelations as there are Christians ... if not more. As a Latter Day Saint friend of mine points out, "People who don't have the entire Gospel [by this she means the Bible AND the Book of Mormon] have to make up explanations." But overall I was pleased with LaHaye and Jenkins's take on end times. They present individual prophecies and explain their interpretations of them clearly and succinctly. And when each prophecy becomes reality (in the novel), they go into a bit more detail, letting us into their imaginations to see the wonders they believe God will visit upon the earth. The book's good qualities do outweigh its mediocrities, but only barely. I wish it were possible to give a rating of 3½ rather than either 3 or 4. If the acid test of a series' first book is whether the reader wants to read the second installment, then Left Behind passes the test. I'll be reading "Tribulation Force" before too many moons pass us by.
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Summary: Dangerous Theology...
Review: While the book could be entertaining, reading it as anything but fiction is dangerous theologically. The book is based on an extremely literal interpretation of a select few passages from the Bible, interpreted solely through the eyes of modern men, not taking into account the experiences and mindsets of the very authors of the original Biblical text the story claims to rely on. The book approaches salvation and justification from a purely works righteousness angle, relying on the ability of men to redeem themselves in the eyes of God, rather than relying on the grace of God to provide redemption to humankind. While such a point of view is valuable for study and contemplation, it belittles the role of the divine in human salvation, motivates Christians and non-Christians alike to live their lives in fear of falling from the grace of God, and by doing so one's salvation can easily become a form of idolatry not unlike old testament "golden calves." In short, this interpretation of the "endtimes" focuses not on the loving-kindness of God expressed through Jesus Christ, but instead focuses on human action as the mechanism of salvation. The creation epic in Genesis tells a pretty clear story about what happens when we try to leave salvation up to humankind. As a semi-aside, the book makes heavy use of social stereotypes to force its characters into the roles necessary to support its somewhat tenuous interpretation of Biblical endtimes prophecy. I've met alot of people with names like "Rayford" and "Buck" and "Steele" and "Williams" (names of the somewhat-good-guys in the book). I've not met alot of people with names like "Nicolae" or "Carpathia" (the book's depiction of the anti-Christ). The entertainment industry has, for years, realized that names from foreign, "threatening" societies tend to get our adrenaline pumping. The authors of this piece don't dissappoint in the area of stereotypical bad guys used to reinforce generally obvious plotlines. Exploiting such social phenomena to "get a rise" out of an audience is best left to pure entertainers, and not those that would claim to be doing life-changing work. To quote a famous figure from Hollywood, "Fear is of the darkside." These books promote fear rather than joy, bondage to sin rather than freedom from it, and wrath rather than love.
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Summary: Understanding End Times Events
Review: Left Behind, as the first book in the "Left Behind Series" introduces us to the end-times events as outlined in the Bible. While it is true that the Biblical events are subject to much interpretation and debate, I feel that this book, and the ones that follow, portray one of the many possibilities of the timing of those events in a manner that makes it easy for the average person to understand. These books portray the pre-tribulation rapture theory, and the events that follow in such a way that even a post-tribulation rapture theorist will find entertaining, and possibly provide insight into the beliefs of other theories.
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Summary: Left Behind: A Novel Of The Earth's Last Days #1
Review: I am 59 years old and a Christian. This book and the eight that followed has had more of an impact than any book that I have read other than the Bible on my life as a Christian. I realize more than ever how important it is to testify to others to give them eternal life & rescue them from Satan. The first book was so intense that I had to read a book that was light before I started on the 2nd one.
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Summary: Exorcist, Omen move over!
Review: At last biblical fiction that equals or surpasses the historical fiction writers like Doctorrow. Finally, someone has written a story based on the Bible's end times prophecies and done their research. The authors, LaHaye and Jenkins are obviously biblical experts and know their subject well. The amazing end time prophecies written over two thousand years ago contained in the Bible are taken and woven into a story that contains interesting characters that will cause the reader to emotionally invest themselves. By the end of the novel you're left wanting more and are encouraged to look at the original source material- the Bible.
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Summary: Where did they Go
Review: Book for all types of Christians! This book brings out what it says in the Bible. In Revelations, it talks about what will happen in the end times. This book makes it all so much easier to understand. Although, there are details that may not be true, such as the cloths being left, it still tells a lot of things the Bible says.
The story starts off on a plane. You are introduced to a pilot, a flight attendant, and a news reporter. The story follows the three after many people disappear. It tells what the three think happened. The reporter is writing a story about what people think happened. There is also a man that some believe to be the antichrist. He has risen in power very quickly. The reporter has also been working on a story about him. The pilot believes that God took his believers to heaven and has become a born-again Christian. The flight attendant is not sure what happened and talks to both men. What will happen between them?
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