Joel C. Rosenberg. Dead Heat. Tyndale, 2008.

“Our foreign policy is miracles.”
            —Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel

The above quotation from an interview with the prime minister could sum up some of this book. It is a cross between political technothriller and prophetic speculation. Keep that in mind as we see history being played out.

A friend gave me two older novels by Joel Rosenberg, The Last Jihad and Dead Heat. They are, respectively, the first and last book in a five book series. So I have read those two, but not the ones in between. I am sure I missed some good storytelling, but I confess I sort of know how things turn out because I just finished Dead Heat, the final book.

Rosenberg’s books imagine the biblical end times taking place in the present. They seem a little more biblical and a little more realistic than the Left Behind series. While there are some “come to Jesus” moments, his books are mainly political thrillers.

The Last Jihad begins with an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the American president. Dead Heat begins with a successful one. This is different, though, because not just one person is targeted. Someone has launched four nuclear missiles and wiped out four American cities. Two of the cities are Washington and New York. That means much of the nation’s government and the apparatus of the United Nations are gone. The bomb that hits Los Angeles takes care of both Hollywood and the president who is there for his party convention.

There is enough background to tell readers a little about what we missed in the three books in between I have not read. Rosenberg has imagined an international scenario based on Bible prophecy. One of the middle books, I suspect it would be The Ezekiel Option, tells of a major invasion of Israel led by Russia and Iran. That is based on prophecy in Ezekiel chapters 35 through 39.

Those chapters tell us that in the last days Jews will come from all over the world to re-settle in Palestine. A number of nations will attack them, led by a leader to the “far north” and joined by Persia (today’s Iran) and other countries. The attack will be miraculously thwarted. Interpreters usually see the nation to the far north of Israel as either Russia or Turkey. They are both ambitious military powers today.

This has already happened prior to Dead Heat. In the international picture, then, Russia as we know it no longer is a world power. Who fills in the vacuum? In this case, the USE, the United States of Eurasia, a federation of Arab, Turkic, and Central Asian states stretching from Mauretania to Afghanistan. Its leader Al-Husseini rules out of a rebuilt Babylon in what had been Iraq.

So Rosenberg takes the “Mystery Babylon” of the Book of Revelation 17:5 very literally; that is, a Near Eastern power rebuilds the ancient city of Babylon and rules much of the world from there. I have read other writers who have hypothesized the same thing. I also have read writers who have suggested Rome (Revelation 17:9 describes it as having seven hills) and either New York or Los Angeles (it sounds like a seaport in Revelation 18:17-18). Anyway, that becomes another tale.

In Dead Heat, we meet again the protagonist of The Last Jihad, Jon Bennett. He is now married to Erin, the girl he had a crush on in the first book. They are working among Iraqi and Syrian refugees in Jordan. Bennett had worked for President MacPherson in the first book. MacPherson is nuked along with some forty million other Americans, and Bennett is asked to return to America to help the new president.

Needless to say, America is in a state of anarchy. Much of the rest of the world is stunned. Who did it? China? They have been talking recently about “re-uniting” with Taiwan, and with America staggering, that would be easy. North Korea? The leaders of the Hermit Kingdom are unpredictable braggarts. A new Islamic State? There are still radicals out there who might have gotten hold of Russian nukes. The USE? People in much of the Middle East seem to have an animus towards the United States.

Even some Americans do. One character explains her background:

My parents met in Berkeley in the sixties. They got married during the Vietnam War. They had me after Watergate. My father used to rail against American imperialism…And that’s how I grew up, in Haight-Ashbury, hearing about the evils of America every day, every night, in school and in the streets. And I believed it. And I wanted to do something about it. (344)

Many of us can relate. I attended a public junior high and high school in the sixties. I read The Communist Manifesto three times during those six years. We never did the American Revolution, the Constitution, or anything like that, but we knew Marx. Looking back, it was helpful when I taught in China because I did understand their ideology. The American stuff I learned on my own—not that it is hard to read or understand. The American History class I took in high school focused on Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the Great Depression.

Occasionally, people interested in Bible prophecy will wonder how the United States or the Americas fit in all the end times scenarios. Of course, when the Bible was written, the people in the Near East did not know about the Americas, so there are various speculations. Perhaps the United States no longer exists. One is likely to hear this from people who are concerned about America’s immorality: Hollywood, pornography, abortion, sexual immorality, racism, secularism, materialism. Rosenberg’s answer is nuclear. America is there, but is out of the picture because of its own problems.

Dead Heat suggests that America lost its protection when it failed to support Israel during the great northern invasion. It notes God’s promise to Abraham’s descendants: Genesis 12:2-3. We certainly see a lot of anti-Israel language in our culture today, especially from academia, the media, and some in the government. Will that become significant?

Once again, there is a fairly intricate plot. Since the Ezekiel war has come and gone, the one item that might suggest Bible end times prophecy in this novel is that Israel is planning to build a new Temple. Some see the last chapters of Ezekiel beginning with chapter 40 also being end times prophecy. There Ezekiel describes the Temple in detail. Rosenberg, like many others, believe this Third Temple will be built in the last days.

Other than that, Dead Heat mostly seems to be setting the stage for what is described in Revelation 16:12 (and perhaps related to Revelation 9:14) as the Kings of the East attack the Middle East, a military showdown between the forces in the Middle East (the USE here) and the Far East (China and North Korea). Was Rosenberg planning another novel? Put it this way, The Last Jihad ended with an excerpt from the second book in the series, The Last Days. Dead Heat ends with an excerpt from The Last Jihad, back to the first book.

Once again, Rosenberg tells a pretty good story. I could sympathize with the Coast Guard Petty Officer who witnessed one of the nuclear missiles being launched from a container ship. Because she is a lowly Coastie, and enlisted as well, no one takes her seriously. Of course, that is partly because the chain of command was obliterated a few minutes after that launch. There is a real deus ex machina at the end that from a storytelling perspective does not satisfy, such devices rarely do, but Rosenberg has a point to make and he makes it clear.

There have been fiction accounts of the end times for over a hundred years now. (Look up Sidney Watson or Ernest Angley on Amazon, and you’ll see what I mean). Rosenberg’s are among the best because they tell a good story, and they are not terribly “religious.” And each one that I have read stands on its own and does not appear derivative. For such a subject, that is a real compliment.