At his command, fire from heaven poured down upon the city of Babylon, the capital of the Antichrist. All was obliterated. Powerful angels swooped down from the sky and seized Satan, Mark Beaulieu, and Tauriq Haddad. They also seized Beaulieu’s consort, Joyce Cumberland Wong. As they rushed them toward the eternal lake of fire that had been prepared to hold Satan and his legions, they passed a figure going the other way.

He was powerful . . . youthful . . . remarkably handsome. His entire being glowed with supernatural light. As they passed, Joyce Cumberland Wong looked at his face. “Jimmy! Jimmy, it’s you! Jimmy, please help me. Please don’t let them take me to hell! Jimmy, I love you . . . you know I’ve always loved you!”

She was pathetic. To James Wong, she looked like a frightened old hag covered with sores, but her anguish was heart-rending.

“Joyce,” James Wong said, “you never loved me. You never loved anybody but yourself. I offered you a better way, but you cursed me. You’ve made your choice, and I have no power to change it. Good-bye forever, Joyce.”

Then in a flash, he was gone. Instantly, she was in a lake of fire with the devil and the Antichrist . . . forever!

All over the world, those who had pledged allegiance to the Antichrist were instantly changed. Underneath the human facade was a spiritual being, a being that once had been made in God’s image. What now emerged was not the image of God, but the image of Satan. They were grotesque caricatures of God’s creatures. The boastful and proud were now visible as satanically inspired liars. Cowards. Irreversibly damaged. They were, as Dante had so vividly portrayed them in The Inferno, the damned. Lost forever.

They bore the mark of Satan; now they were destined to be with him forever. They screamed, fought, and struggled. But, like a person who carries the putrefying carcass of a dead rat to a garbage can, the angels carried these wretched creatures away from earth to the garbage dump of eternity. Time and again each of them had been offered a better way, but each in his or her own way had rejected it. Each had been given a free will. Each had exercised that free will to make a choice. Now, there was no second chance. Now, there would be no exit.

THE RESIDENTS OF EL REFUGIO watched the news coverage of the unfolding events with fascination and amazement. But several had questions. Some of the things they had seen that day seemed to contradict Scripture. Finally, when his curiosity got the best of him, Dave Busby asked John Edwards to explain a few things.

“Pastor Jack,” he said, “I don’t get it. Nothing happened at Megiddo. I thought the war to end all wars—or the mother of battles, or whatever—was supposed to happen at Armageddon. But they shot right by there like nobody’s business!”