Tribulation Force - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Rayford Steele, Chloe Steele, Buck Williams and Bruce Barnes find themselves left behind. This group of believers, as well as others left behind but becoming believers, are otherwise known as "Tribulation Saints", to differentiate from the pre-Rapture designation of Christian. The question of what to do in response to this radical change in situation arises. They propose to fight the perceived threat that Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia poses in the form of eradicating all religion and establishing a single world religion. The dogma consists that "there is no heaven nor hell, just ." In addition, Nicolae twisted the message of world-famous rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah about Messiah, in order to point to himself as thus. Buck flies to Jerusalem to meet Ben-Judah and present him to the two witnesses (described in Revelation) stationed at the United Nations-blockaded Wailing Wall. He converts to Christianity, believing that Jesus is the one and only Messiah; thus disproving Carpathia.

During the prophesied eighteen months of peace following the covenant with Israel, Chloe and Buck are married, along with Rayford and new believer Amanda White, a friend of Rayford's first wife Irene. However, both Buck, who becomes publisher of Global Community Weekly, formerly Global Weekly, and Rayford, who is handpicked to pilot Carpathia’s jet, are in the distressing position of watching Carpathia, now Supreme Potentate of the U.N. - now reorganized into the Global Community- strengthen his grip on the world, witnessing how he orchestrates World War III to bring the former world powers under his heel and how he bamboozles Israeli botanist Chaim Rosenzweig into giving the GC his illustrious Eden formula for a GC-guaranteed peace treaty with Israel, thus initiating the Tribulation. As World War III breaks out, the Tribulation Force suffers its first casualty in the death of their pastor, Bruce Barnes, who was killed in a bombing in the now-decimated city of Chicago.