Tag: Tyrant: Rise of the Beast

Book Plunge: Remnant: Rescue of the Elect

What do I think of Book Two In Brian Godawa’s Chronicles of the Apocalypse Series? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Remnant is the second in the series continuing on the story of Tyrant: Rise of the Beast. The book works to explain the orthodox Preterist viewpoint in a novel form. This time, much of the intrigue is centered on Jerusalem and what is happening there as the main character try to get the Christians in Jerusalem to flee.

While there are characters that are certainly historically real, like Agrippa and Josephus, there are many who are fictional, which works just fine. There are also plenty of footnotes that show the historical sources for what is claimed. Again, this one also has the Watchers, demonic beings that act as the gods of the other countries, fighting against the angelic beings, although there really isn’t much of anything along the lines of Frank Peretti with his books of spiritual warfare.

Book one does need to be read first or else one won’t really understand what is going on. This book has the drama going on of trying to get Christians in Jerusalem to escape and uses that to also explain Johannine authorship of the book of Revelation and questions about the temple. The Essenes also make an appearance here.

There is drama as well between the characters, such as the arc of a love triangle taking place. As can be expected, there is much that cannot be said here due to the problem of spoilers. Still, much of what happened did relate especially to the way that I see many guys approaching romance and since this is the case of men that are single, I can certainly say it brought back my own thinking of what it was like.

There is some looking at what is going on in Rome. Nero has returned of course, but also there is a greater focus on Vespasian and Titus and then Domitian makes his appearance. Much is still left undone at the end of this book, which makes sense since there is another one coming.

As for the Watchers like I mentioned, you will see Allah show up this time which I’m sure would be odd to a Muslim audience, though I cannot anticipate them reading this. It’s still interesting to see a future religion showing up. Obviously, Allah will have to be active at the end of the series to some extent.

Still, while this was a good series, I didn’t find myself as intrigued as I was with the first book. I’m not really sure why. I wonder if it could be there didn’t seem to be as much of a clear villain here as Nero wasn’t as active as he was in the first one and no one else really seemed to be a main villain for this book, though Florus comes close. Apollyon also wasn’t as conniving it seemed in this one as he was in the first.

Still, it’s good to see the Preterist viewpoint being presented in this way. We need Christian writers who can write stories and stories that also don’t force the Gospel down one’s throat. Godawa also uses this volume to wrestle with questions of war and pacifism which are good for discussion. Hopefully we’ll see more Christians with vivid imaginations doing the same.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 5/27/2017: Brian Godawa

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Nero. No matter what your stance on end times is, the name evokes strong thoughts right away. We can easily think of Christians being lit on fire to light up the ceremonies that Nero was hosting. If we try to think of a Roman emperor that could be seen as the embodiment of evil, Nero would be right up there on the list.

That’s why many of the orthodox Preterist persuasion also see him as the beast described in Revelation, and even if one is a futurist, they should have no problem granting that Nero was certainly a beast at least. What would it have been like to have been living in the time of Nero? What if you were a Christian in Rome? What if you were a Jew? What if you were a soldier in the military? What about the great fire? What was also going on at the time in Jerusalem while Nero was having his rule?

My guest this week has written a fictional story set in the time of Nero and focusing on what happened in Rome and in Jerusalem. The writing is lively and engaging. The story will open your eyes to what was going on at the time and includes numerous historical figures as well. The book is called Tyrant: Rise of the Beast and the author is Brian Godawa. So who is he?

Brian Godawa is an award-winning Hollywood screenwriter (To End All Wars), a controversial movie and culture blogger (www.Godawa.com), an internationally known teacher on faith, worldviews and storytelling (Hollywood Worldviews), an Amazon best-selling author of Biblical fiction (Chronicles of the Nephilim), and provocative theology (God Against the gods). His obsession with God, movies and worldviews, results in theological storytelling that blows your mind while inspiring your soul. And he’s not exaggerating.

So we’ll be talking about life in first century Rome in the time of Nero and what life would have been like in Jerusalem. What did it mean to be a Christian? How much danger was someone really in? Perhaps, as a result, many of us will take our Christianity a lot more seriously here.

We’ll also be discussing the writing process. How does one go about writing a book with historical figures in it? Especially when you have actual figures from the Bible in them, how does one walk that line? There is a desire to remain fully faithful to the text of course, but at the same time one does have to take liberties as well since these events aren’t included in the text.

I hope you’ll be listening to the next episode and really considering what it would have been like to be a Christian in the time of Nero. Many of us don’t really realize what was going on at the time, but there was a time when being a Christian was a dangerous practice. It started around the time of the resurrection. Please also go on ITunes and leave a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters