Left Behind Series - #10 The Remnant

There was a part in this book where Chang was watching and listening in on Carpathia watching the beheading of Christ followers who had refused to take the mark of loyalty to him (the mark of the beast as foretold in Revelation 13:16-17). These people had been in hiding, but had been found by the GC. Six were killed, but thirteen were brought to the "worship and enforcement center," where they would choose whether to take the mark or die by the loyalty enforcement facilitator (basically a guillotine).

What amazed me about this story is that these believers were singing hymns as they were in line to the guillotine. I want to directly quote from the book here, because even as I read it now, I cannot find my own words to really pull out the emotions like the way it does as is.

I can only pray that if I'm ever in a situation like this, that I will have the courage to still stand up for Jesus...


Chang recoiled when he saw a guard with a huge rifle and bayonet nudging the first person in line, a woman who appeared to be in her late twenties. She was singing, her face turned toward heaven. The guard yelled at her, but she did not acknowledge. He bumped her and she stumbled, but still she sang, eyes upward.

He jabbed her in the ribs with the butt of the rifle, and she dropped to one knee, then rose and continued singing. Now he set himself to her side, planted his feet, and drove the bayonet through her arm and into her side. She cried out as the bayonet was removed, and she reached with her other hand to press it over the wound. Her singing now came in sobs as the people behind her fell to their knees.

"What is she singing?" Carpathia demanded.

The sound was enhanced, and Chang found himself breathless as he listened to the woman's pitiful, labored singing. She could no longer hold up her head, bus she stood wobbling, clearly woozy, struggling to sing, "...did e'er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown?"

...

The guillotine was readied as the woman continued to force out the lyrics, though she had long since lost the tune. As she was grabbed by guards on each side and wrestled into place, she cried out, "...demands my soul, my life, my all!"