Until Kingdom Come is now available on Kindle and paperback! That being said: THANK YOU.
For reading. For following along. For asking big questions and (hopefully) deepening your faith through the journey this series presents.
My task isn’t to tell you what is going to happen in the End Times, when, or how it’s all going to go down. Nobody knows that, not even Jesus Himself. Nobody knows all the details, though man has certainly tried very hard to nail those details down with eschatological study.
My job, in writing this series, was to say, “What if?” What if someone comes to faith through the hardship of the Tribulation? What is the world like? What could happen?
I have seen headlines boasting the beginning stages of “ridiculous sci-fi” elements I dreamed up six months prior. The bioscanners and chips to lock down cars? In early stages. U.S. Congress is considering mandating them someday. Artificial wombs? In trial periods now. AI? Well, you and I both know how that’s exploded recently. None of these things were barely on the horizon when I started writing. And now…they’re here. I’m not saying they’re part of the Anti-Christ’s schemes, but it’s terrifying when the dystopian becomes reality.
No matter what you believe, the End will come. I don’t ask that you follow the same eschatological beliefs as me, because it's all just an educated guess. I do ask, however, that you deepen your faith in God so that when the time comes, you are prepared—no matter if you believe the Disappearing happens pre-, mid- or post-Tribulation. Faith in God is what sustains us in the day-to-day, and in the bigger crises too. It's the most important part of the End Times, and the only way anyone will hope to live. And if the End doesn't happen in our lifetime? Well, you still need that same faith in God, that same enduring hope, that same eternal security. That same faith to uphold you in your darkest moments.
I have always wanted to write a dystopian, ever since reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. And then I felt God prompting me to write an End Times series. I avoided Revelation like the plague because, well, it’s really flipping weird. So I wrestled with it for years and asked God to find someone else to do it, because I sure couldn’t. I didn’t want to put in the time to study it. To unscramble the mess of symbolism and truth and in-betweens that the Apostle John wrote. But I couldn't shake the idea. And then in early 2021, my church’s new pastor looked at me and said, “I’m going to do a whole sermon series on the book of Revelation.”
To which I almost fell out of my chair. “That would be amazing!” was my reply, and I don’t think he quite believed me. (Because I didn’t tell him what one of his new congregants was stewing up.) (And who even gets that excited about Revelation?) The first Sunday, of what would become a nine-month deep-dive into the book of Revelation, I sat in the pew and prayed for understanding. That if God called me to write this series, He’d help me do it.
Two scenes popped into my head. And the rest came too, with time, study, reading books upon books and blog posts from all sorts of different eschatological positions, poring over sermon notes, and praying.
Tikvah is close to my heart because, at the same time when I began writing this series, I struggled deeply with how churchgoers act sometimes. The entitlement, bitterness, and unforgiveness that runs rampant and turns people away from the faith that asks us to forgive and humble ourselves. She was my voice to vent out frustrations and hurts, and see how they could be resolved in the fictional world. (It happens pretty much the same way you resolve them in the real world, by the way.) The rest just found its way into a massive series totalling well over 200,000 words, with more to come as I flesh out side characters, dive deeper into the MCs, and some other ideas I have (like the Millennial Reign). Those will come with time. For now, thank you for joining me on this crazy ride, and I hope Until Kingdom Come does it justice.
You can snag a copy HERE.
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