A Series of Books That Will Run Until the End of Time

Since publishing their first “Left Behind” novel four years ago, Christian authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have released five sequels and a separate series for teens and sold more than 10 million books. This puts them in the same league as secular blockbuster writers Danielle Steel, Michael Crichton and John Grisham.

“Assassins,” LaHaye and Jenkins’ sixth work, came out in August and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for eight weeks. “Apollyon,” published in February as the fifth in the Left Behind series, is No. 15 on the Times hardcover list, while the inaugural “Left Behind” ranks No. 18 among paperback bestsellers.

The next installment, “The Indwelling,” is due out in May. And Illinois publisher Tyndale House, which produces a variety of Bibles and Christian books, next month will release LaHaye’s and Jenkins’ nonfiction account of the Tribulation, “Are We Living in the End Times?”

Rufus Walsh, a buyer for Spring Arbor, a major Christian book wholesaler near Nashville, said the increasing popularity of the Left Behind series is notable now that “a lot of millennium publishing has died down.”

Millions of people are intrigued by the biblical prophecy of a millennium to end all millenniums--the prediction that Jesus will return to Earth to rule for 1,000 peaceful years before the end of the world as we know it, Walsh said. And the Left Behind books are fueling that interest.

The series features a “Mission Impossible”-type cadre called the Tribulation Force, people whose wives, husbands, sons, daughters or friends have vanished into thin air, as evidenced by piles of clothing, jewelry and other personal effects. Members of the force realize that the prophesied Rapture has occurred and that they have been “left behind” because they did not accept Jesus as their savior.

After committing their lives to Christ, they try to win over other left-behinders during a seven-year period called the Tribulation. They also must fight the forces of the Antichrist and endure the horrible wars, plagues and desolation prophesied in the Book of Revelation.

Future books in the series--the 12th and final offering is scheduled for 2003--probably will continue the countdown to the battle of Armageddon, which concludes the period of Tribulation and marks the Second Coming of Jesus. But LaHaye and Jenkins are keeping mum on how their story will end and at what point in the end-times process, a Tyndale spokeswoman said.