It was just an offhand compliment, but John’s words hit Carl like a thunderbolt. Could it be that God had kept him alive to use his years of experience in advertising and promotion so he could help Pastor Jack persuade people to try God’s way instead of Satan’s way? If so, what an incredible irony! Nobody in L.A. would have picked Carl for a Bible-thumper! But in crisis times, somebody had to package the message so ordinary people could grasp it. No jumping to conclusions now, he thought. Let’s just wait and see what comes next.

“I promised I’d show you the one absolutely certain sign that would precede the end of the age,” John said. “Read a few more verses and see if you can find it.”

After a few minutes, Dave Busby stretched his long legs and spoke up. “I think I’ve got it, Pastor Jack. A lot of things are going to happen, but to me they look like the preliminaries. The main event is down in verse fourteen, where it says, ‘And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.’ This is what you’ve been talking about, isn’t it?” he asked. “For five years, the gospel of Christ’s kingdom has been preached all over the world. You said earlier that something like a billion people have responded. That was the sealing we talked about. It was the harvest by the man with the crown . . . sitting on a cloud.” Then he flashed a wide grin. “Did I get it right?”

“Right on every count, Dave,” John Edwards answered with a laugh.

Carl gave Dave a high-five. “Good job, Champ!”

“You see,” John Edwards went on, “God was not going to let the terrible judgment we’ve been seeing come upon the earth until the whole world had a chance to hear the good news of His love. There were a number of us who felt that God actually was holding back judgment from America because so many ministries in this country were leading the harvest and they needed America’s resources to do the job.

“Isn’t it ironic? The work of the evangelicals was protecting everybody by holding off God’s judgment, yet the secularists were doing all in their power to hinder the work that was, in fact, keeping them alive.”

“Anyhow,” he continued, “you asked for signs. This is the big one—the sure one. It’s flashing as brightly as a casino marquee in Las Vegas.”

“But is that all, Jack?” Carl asked, “There must be a number of other signs that told you what was coming.”