OPERATION WRATH OF GOD, Chapter 3

Copyright © 2026 Robert Ensor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.First published February 2026.The author’s moral rights have been asserted.

All Bible quotations, unless otherwise stated or referenced, are taken from the online World English Bible (WEB), which is in the public domain. It is available at the following link: https://ebible.org/eng-web/index.htm. Sometimes I paraphrase the Bible and when I do so, I reference the chapter and verse. Direct quotations from the WEB are indicated by quotation marks. English language Bibles are translated from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. I am no linguist, and I don’t know any linguists, so I have had to rely on others’ translations and romanizations of the Hebrew and Greek texts. Occasionally, I have examined the original Hebrew and Greek of the Bible, zeroing in on key words where the received English translation is debatable or misses the full meaning of the original. To clarify, the WEB refers to the Antichrist, the beasts, and the False Prophet, but makes no reference to any ‘Khan’ or ‘Lavani’, which are names for the Antichrist and the False Prophet given for the purposes of this book.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or a therapist and nothing in this book should be considered medical advice. Nor should it be considered a substitute for diagnoses, prescriptions and treatments from qualified doctors. If you have symptoms, I recommend that you see a doctor to rule out anything serious and get proper care. Buy this book on amazon in paperback or ebook format: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GM8QFCCC/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0 Start here: https://www.robertensor.com/post/operation-wrath-of-god-the-rapture-the-second-coming-the-campaign-of-armageddon-and-the-kingdom-o

Chapter 3: The Strange Bedfellow

Burrows sprung up off the bench and forced himself to run down the chalky track off the Ridgeway. He swerved to avoid a badger hole. The rest is downhill and flat, he told himself. With the exception of the small hill leading up to his housing estate, which he wasn’t exactly looking forward to. Burrows pumped his thighs and sped up. Time had gotten away from him, reading the report. He had to get back quickly or he’d risk being late to work.

As he plodded along the track, John’s mind wandered to the strange story of how he, a renegade preacher, had come to work for the UK government. ‘Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows’,[i] John thought, with a smirk. And the UK’s national misery had put her into bed with a very strange fellow indeed.

It was around the time of Khan’s conquest of Israel that John was approached by a representative of Wargames, who invited him to a coffee shop and bought him a crumpet. This individual, a slim, dark man with glasses and intelligent eyes, was an ex-colonel called Martin Sykes and he was the director of the think tank. Wargames was a quango commissioned by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to assess and predict future national security threats and develop strategies to deal with them. Financially, it subsisted off funding from the government.

John had been expecting to meet Martin or someone like him ever since he had given a free copy of his book I AM COMING SOON to Royal Air Force (RAF) Wing Commander Hedgey Lanes at his local church. The Wing Commander had thought the book worth passing on to the other officers at the local RAF base and the think tank that was part of the same compound, when the peace treaty was broken by Khan, precisely as Burrows predicted.

Burrows’ book had finally got one too many predictions right and so Hedgey’s report had convinced his superiors in RAF intelligence that John was worth looking into. Commander Lanes had done his best for Burrows, maintaining that he was a genuine prophet of God, which was a possibility HM government was reluctantly forced to consider, because everything John had predicted had come to pass and the case Burrows made in I AM COMING SOON was a persuasive one, based on Scripture and its interpretation, even if the tone wasn’t dry enough for their tastes. Other religious commentators had predicted some of these events, but Burrows had provided more detail, such as identifying the countries of the beast’s alliance, and his predictions for the future were very specific.

After a preliminary surveillance of Burrows, GCHQ had found absolutely no links to terror organisations or the governments of the Olive Branch Alliance at all. Nothing. Some were disappointed by the result of this vetting, as it would make more sense of John’s advance knowledge if he were working for Khan or had access to insider intel. RAF Intelligence passed their Burrows report onto Wargames, on the understanding they would share any intel that came from him.

So Sykes approached Burrows with an offer; work for Wargames as part of the Foresight Department, to use his knowledge of the future to anticipate global geopolitical developments and national security threats and increase the government’s preparedness. His role chiefly consisted of researching and writing white papers but would also encompass consulting for DI (Defence Intelligence), who were closely linked with Wargames.

Burrows had asked Jesus about this job offer, as he was concerned that working for the government would lead to ethical conflicts. Jesus said it was okay, his work would save lives, and even if his advice led to the deaths of the beast’s followers, they were scheduled for destruction anyway upon his return.

In a white paper entitled, ‘Get Ready’, John outlined the biggest threats facing the country and his proposed strategy for the UK’s armed forces. Burrows warned of an imminent series of catastrophes, some of which will affect the UK. On the basis of Bible prophecy, he proceeded to predict a rain of hail, fire and blood (Revelation 8:7), an asteroid impact, a third of the Mediterranean turning to blood (Revelation 8:8–9), a third of the rivers and springs turning bitter either in the Middle East (Revelation 8:10), Israel, or globally, and a rampaging demonic army (Revelation 9), all within months of the report’s publication, with further catastrophes to come years later. In a nutshell, John argued that the UK military should stop playing global sheriff’s deputy while there were profound problems at home that needed their urgent help. He recommended a shift of focus towards domestic emergency preparedness and maintaining the basic functions of a state, though conventional military training and overseas deployments would continue in rotation with the new domestic duties. These were to include: assisting Border Force with border security, supporting ambulances, rescue choppers and the groaning NHS (National Health Service) with army transport vehicles, medical officers, medics and air force helicopters, reinforcing the police with military police to maintain law and order in crime-ridden cities (subject to ordinary police regulations), and using the Royal Engineers to expand and repair vital infrastructure and build emergency structures like flood defences and bunkers, to be supplied by the Logistics Corps, all of which would require considerable investment and expansion of the armed forces. Military Cyber and Specialist Operations Command had a good laugh when they read it. They weren’t laughing for long.

There was a growing number of Khan acolytes in the UK, from a range of backgrounds including Middle Eastern immigrants, and middle-class White Brits. The UK chapter of Lavani’s ‘religious’ organisation, the misleadingly named Messiah’s Sheep, was headed by former radical Muslims who were denounced as infidel by many Muslims because they had departed from the Koran on several key points by worshipping a man. The Khanites were fast becoming the UK’s number one terrorist threat. Part of Burrows’ job was to try and anticipate where the Khanites (or ‘beasters’, as they were known among their Christian opponents) would strike and use his hotline to God and Defence Intelligence to stop the attacks.

Acting on a revelation from God, Burrows alerted DI to an imminent assassination attempt on a senior Whitehall mandarin. He provided details, including the names and locations of the plotters. Due to the UK’s surveillance laws and extensive communications dragnet, it was relatively straightforward to locate the suspects. Subsequent investigation from the DI and GCHQ revealed that Burrows’ intel was on point. The culprits were identified and apprehended in time. The grateful mandarin made it plain that she owed Burrows a favour. John had asked that he and his family be given on-request access to the bunker at his local RAF base in Scrumpton. Strings were pulled on his behalf, and the request was granted by the bemused base commander, Group Captain Leighton Bedfellow MBE.

John and his family got to the bunker in time, just before the massive earthquake (Revelation 6:12) and concomitant floods rocked the planet. Then fire and hail mixed with blood were cast down to earth (Revelation 8:7) and the ‘great burning mountain’ (Revelation 8:8) – an asteroid – crashed into the sea. At the bunker, there was accommodation and ample supplies ready for Burrows and his family, as well as the senior base staff and essential personnel. The bunker was old and rundown, but it was their ark.

Then the mysterious pains started to afflict most of humanity. Burrows and his family left the bunker; he knew they had nothing to fear from the invisible demonic ‘locusts’ (Revelation 9). But 148 days later, Burrows insisted that he and his family be given bunker access again.

Shortly afterwards, demonic horsemen swept the earth, killing one third of humanity (Revelation 9:13–17). Burrows had warned of this marauding supernatural army, but many in the government had scoffed at the idea. When something like that actually happens, however, it is liable to change one’s perspective.

The supernatural attack soon passed, after just three days and three nights, but it took months for the world to adjust to the sudden loss of manpower. It seemed that good Christians were left unharmed, but most of those killed by the horsemen were not Christians: in fact, many were known sinners or Khan supporters.

The official line from HM government was that they didn’t know what had killed 1/3 of humanity (Revelation 9:15), although it was obviously some kind of supernatural force, and this shocking event forced many in UK defence circles and the intelligence community to be more open minded about Bible prophecy, the demonic, and God. Suddenly, the few hardy souls operating at the confluence of UK national security and prophecy were in steep demand, and Burrows was one of them. A sign of the apocalypse, you might say.

The US and UK did not have boots on the ground with conventional forces in the Middle East, and had so far refrained from air strikes because of Khan’s nuclear capability and loose cannon reputation. The irony of two countries who had invaded Iraq over a false nuclear threat but were unwilling to intervene now that same nation actually had nukes, was not lost on the Israeli remnant and the Jewish diaspora. The US and UK did however have intelligence assets in the region, and they had dispatched some Tier 1 operators to work with the Jewish resistance and Shin Bet stay behind networks. Burrows had helped MI6 to plan some of those operations. The clandestine, classified nature of his work, combined with its religious dimension, meant that Burrows remained an obscure figure in the darkened corridors of Whitehall. They weren’t proud of him, but they needed him, and he got results.

The Reverend Peter Trowbridge was a mild mannered, venerable looking silver-haired chap that one would expect to find pottering about with the begonias in his garden, shivering in the pews of an Anglican Church or organising a village fete somewhere in the home counties. But when he took to the pulpit at Saint Thomas’ Evangelical Church in Quedgeley, or was put in front of a camera, his true nature as a political firebrand was revealed. He would whip the crowd into a frenzy with his impassioned rhetoric. Old women threw their knickers onstage. One time Peter shouted so loud at a rally, that he accidentally lost his dentures. Trowbridge had almost single-handedly brought about a patriotic revival in the UK and was elected by a landslide when he promised to cut regulations, end illegal immigration and political correctness, update the country’s creaking infrastructure, strengthen the police and the military, annihilate terrorism, and improve Britain’s emergency preparedness after she had been caught napping several times. One campaign poster saw Trowbridge wearing a top hat, chomping a cigar and holding a Tommy Gun against the backdrop of a Union Jack, like a latter-day Winston Churchill. The public lapped it up.

Trowbridge skim read Burrows’ white paper and asked him to consult the emergency planning staff of HM Government, the unwieldy sounding National Security Council Ministerial SubComittee on Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingencies, mercifully abbreviated as NSM. A few of John’s emergency preparedness measures were implemented, but the SubComittee kept coming up with reasons why they couldn’t do more, which generally boiled down to red tape and a lack of funds.

Burrows had met Trowbridge, twice, as part of his work with the NSM. He was distinctly underwhelmed. Put bluntly, the man was a codger. Trowbridge fell asleep in one of the meetings and had to be woken up by his Chief of Staff, Dame Mildred Dewberry, who badgered Peter incessantly to get through his ‘boxes’, when all he really wanted to do was put his feet up and watch the cricket. Still, at least the old chap’s Christian faith meant he took Bible prophecy seriously.

The UK was currently in a state best described by Trowbridge as ‘a bit more troubled than we were during the Troubles’ due to frequent terror attacks and riots instigated by Khan’s followers on UK soil, and the UK government’s sometimes heavy-handed response. John thought the Prime Minister’s statement was true enough, although the levels of violence and division were more intense than that experienced by civilians on the mainland during those years. In terms of violence, the whole UK now was more like Northern Ireland during the 1980’s. Indeed, the country was in a state similar to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank before the tribulation, while Israel itself had long since fallen off the deep end into a nightmare scenario straight from the darkest visions of the prophets.

But Khan and his so-called Olive Branch movement were not like the IRA, Hamas, the IDF, or the British Army. They were a different beast altogether; a unique historical phenomenon. They were characterised by absolute monolithic unity among their own ranks, and their unswerving obedience to their leader’s every whim. For example, Khan had once said that it was better that his followers should put their eyes out than watch western television. As a result, 150,000 people across the world deliberately blinded themselves. Beasters believed that Khan’s martyrs would be rewarded in paradise. This kamikaze spirit made them deadly terrorists. Their favoured method was driving cars into crowds at top speed. During the Antichrist’s period of persecution, John’s brother James was assassinated by Khan’s UK followers: an ex-security guard stabbed him to death and beheaded him in his cathedral, as if he were a latter-day Thomas à Becket. James had publicly called out Khan as a fraud, and his fame had drawn the attentions of the assassin, whereas John was protected by his obscurity (and by God). John named his second son James after his late brother.

The beasters were given a powerful ‘delusion’ (2 Thessalonians 2:11) – that some sadistic lowlife was their God and saviour – because they had rejected the real saviour (2 Thessalonians 2:10). In John 5:43, Jesus said: ‘I have come in my Father’s name, and you don’t receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.’

The UK government had flirted with conscription but restricted it to hiring extra volunteers for the police and armed forces and made it easier to mobilise the Territorial Army (TA), because so many British civilians were simply physically and/or mentally unfit to fight. The nationalist government under Trowbridge possessed emergency powers to stop and search, all police were now armed and there were military checkpoints in cities, train stations and on major roads. State surveillance reached new levels of invasiveness.

Burrows crossed the road on his housing estate and opened the front door to his three-bedroom detached house. His wife was preparing dinner in the kitchen. Blonde, six feet tall, and beautiful, with a slim yet curvaceous physique, Penny turned to John with a harried look on her face. She was preparing breakfast for the family. Matthew was crawling around the kitchen floor with a full diaper, Peter was climbing on the kitchen top, and James was licking a spoon covered with chocolate spread. John had named his sons after his fellow disciples as a joke, but after years of boys being boys, the joke was wearing thin.

‘Can you turn the TV on for the boys? I’m a bit busy here,’ Penny said. She was straining to keep her voice level.

John sighed and did as she asked. He was getting better at biting his tongue, which he had discovered to be a key skill for a father.

He reminded himself that Penny was literally a godsend. After the intense spiritual warfare Burrows had been subjected to whilst writing his book I AM COMING SOON, which was ultimately ended thanks to Jesus’ protection, John felt the same way that many soldiers feel when they return from war: like he was ready to settle down. Staring into the abyss of the future and the tribulations that awaited the world, having witnessed all the darkness, the persecutions and the wrath in advance, and having had the demons of hell breathing down his neck, John came to feel like love would be a welcome counterbalance, something to look forward to during the tribulation years.

When Burrows had asked for help from God while writing I AM COMING SOON, God had granted his prayer in an unanticipated way, by arranging his encounter with Penelope Silvaplana, who had helped him professionally and personally in innumerable ways.

Penny’s father was from Lavaux in Switzerland, but the family moved to the UK when she was five, so she spoke English like a native. Burrows had always thought of her as a girl next door type – perhaps because she was Burrows’ neighbour when they were both growing up. They were quite friendly, but Burrows went to university before things progressed any further.

Years later, Penny saw Burrows’ speech in the Vatican and emailed him about it, wanting to discuss what exactly he meant. It turned out that she still lived in their old village and had recently become interested in spirituality. They had met over coffee and stayed talking for three hours, until the coffee shop shut. Then the conversation continued on the swings in the local park. Though she was not at that point a Christian, Penny was curious. John taught her about God, and proved his points, and she lapped it up. There was none of the time wasting and gaslighting that had turned Burrows off dating in his youth. Not with Penny. She drank the living water like a woman dying of thirst. The veil that covered almost everyone else on earth, that prevented them from seeing who John really was, had been totally lifted from her as an act of mercy from God himself. On their fourth date, after reading his book, she even said to him, point blank, ‘you are John the Apostle returned’.

John and Penny fell in love very quickly. Unlike other women John had dated long ago, Penny was actually interested in him and his message, instead of ignoring him because he didn’t have a high-income job, a dog, nice clothes, good shoes, and the kind of bland, inoffensive personality that goes down well in modern Britain. On the contrary, Penny had found the majority of her exes, and there were quite a few, to be unreliable and boring. The better-looking ones and the higher earners had mostly cheated on her. The confident ones she had known were simply glib, all style and no substance. John was the opposite. And his world of unorthodox history, miracles, prophecy and esoteric knowledge was much more interesting to her than blokes who talked about quotidian things like golf, football, car gadgets, garden hoses and plasterboard.

Over the years, Burrows had done a pretty good job of crushing his sexual and romantic desires and had resigned himself to the life of a solitary, celibate man of God. For a long time John had thought, as Saint Paul did, that ‘He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he who is married is concerned for the things of the world, how he may please his wife.’ (1 Corinthians 7:32–33). Marriage and children had seemed like an unnecessary, difficult and annoying waste of energies and funds that would be better expended serving God. But when he finished I AM COMING SOON, God had told Burrows: ‘you were kept isolated for the purpose of discovering knowledge and writing this book. Now it is done, your main task is complete.’ Then God had presented John with Penny and told him that he should marry her and have children with her, because as the reincarnation of John the Apostle, he was not only Christ’s Son, he was Ezekiel’s Prince of Israel, and the bloodline of the House of David was to continue through him in fulfilment of God’s promise to David that ‘your house and your kingdom will be made sure before you forever.’ (2 Samuel 7:16). So in John’s case, there was no conflict between family and God, because fathering children was actually part of his service to God.

Jesus Christ himself is the reincarnation of David, as is demonstrated by the fact that both Jesus and David are prophesied to be king of God’s kingdom in the Bible (Jeremiah 30:9; Revelation 19:16): the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel wrote that there would be ‘one shepherd’ ‘over them’ and identified that one as ‘even my servant David’ (Ezekiel 34:23).

David prophetically experienced the Crucifixion from the Messiah’s perspective in Psalm 22, accurately describing a death by crucifixion centuries before crucifixion was even invented, and he wrote as Jesus on other occasions in the psalter. For example, in Psalm 2:7–8, David wrote: ‘Yahweh said to me, “You are my son. Today I have become your father. Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance”’. This was echoed and confirmed in Luke 3:23, when God said to Jesus, ‘you are my son’.

‘For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption’ (Psalm 16:10), written by David, foretold the resurrection and glorification of himself and Jesus, as a single entity, by means of the ambiguous ‘holy one’. David’s body rotted, but Jesus’ never did.

David was anointed as king by Samuel (1 Samuel 16), making him the anointed one, and the Hebrew word Mashiach, from which we get the English word Messiah, literally means the anointed one. Christ means the same thing. When he was anointed, God’s Spirit came to David (1 Samuel 16:13). This prefigured Jesus, who was later anointed by the Spirit of God following his baptism in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. David had a mule which Solomon rode when he was anointed king (1 Kings 1:33). That is why Jesus entered Jerusalem on a mule (Matthew 21). Micah (5) prophesied that a Messianic ruler would come from Bethlehem, who would rule to the ends of the earth, and David and Jesus were both born in Bethlehem. Two such important figures coming from such a small town would be quite a coincidence, but it is not a coincidence.

When David defeated Goliath, it was with a stone hurled from his sling (1 Samuel 17:49). Jesus, the Messiah, is symbolised by the stone in Scripture (e.g. Daniel 2:32; Matthew 21:42; Psalm 118) and he was a craftsman (Mark 6:3), that is, a carpenter-stonemason, who worked with stone. David’s harp playing had a soothing, healing effect on King Saul (1 Samuel 16), which foreshadowed the healing miracles performed by Jesus. Moreover, David was the archetypal underdog, underestimated by everyone, as demonstrated by his ability to kill the giant Goliath (1 Samuel 17:50), and Jesus was the stone the builder’s rejected (Matthew 21:42), the most terribly underestimated person ever to walk the earth.

Jesse was David’s father. In Isaiah 11, the Messiah is called a branch out of Jesse’s roots, not a branch of David, who was a much more famous figure than Jesse. This is because both David and Jesus were descended from Jesse and as the Son of God, Christ is the root of everyone, including Jesse.

Then there was the Davidic Covenant, in which God promised King David that ‘Yahweh will build you a house’ (2 Samuel 7:11), that David’s ‘offspring’ would build a house for God, be God’s ‘son’ and receive the eternal throne of a kingdom (2 Samuel 7:12–16). God said to David, ‘your house and your kingdom will be made sure forever before you. Your throne will be established forever.”’ (2 Samuel 7:16). Solomon, David’s biological son and heir, built the First Temple (1 Kings 6), but the kingdom he ruled – the United Kingdom of Israel – did not last forever; on the contrary, it was split into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah after Solomon’s death, because of his idolatry (1 Kings 11:31–32; 1 Kings 12). The David’s ‘offspring’ prophecy mainly refers to Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus was a descendant of David through his mother; his stepfather Joseph was also descended from David (Matthew 1; Luke 3). Jesus was thus called ‘the Son of David’, a title of the Messiah, with son in this sense meaning descendant. An eternal throne of course entailed an eternal king, hence David had to return as Jesus, God’s Son. The angel announced to Mary that her son will be given the throne of David (Luke 1:32), because Jesus was David, who was promised an eternal kingdom (2 Samuel 7:12–16).

God’s promise to David that ‘Yahweh will build you a house’ (2 Samuel 7:11) in the context of temple construction, means that Jesus (Yahweh) will build David a temple, which only makes sense if David is Christ, who will build himself a temple – as he said in John 2:19 – and govern from his throne in that temple.

Where did Burrows fit into that?

The World English Bible translates Psalm 22:20 as: ‘Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog.’ But if we go back to the original Hebrew, we discover that ‘precious life’ is a translation of the Hebrew word yechidati, which means ‘only one’ or ‘unique one’.[ii] Yechidah can mean only child and is used as such in The Book of Judges 11:34. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Tanakh) translates it as monogenēs, which means ‘one of a kind, one and only’ and can also signify an only child. The ‘only-begotten’ and ‘only one’ in this context is taken by Christians as an allusion to Christ, the Son of God, but in Psalm 22 it is actually the crucified figure (Jesus) who is asking God to deliver his only begotten: Jesus’ only child.

Who was this only begotten? John the Evangelist, who was there at the cross, alongside Mary Magdalene and The Virgin Mary (John 19:26). In Psalm 22:20, Jesus prayed to the Father that his only child be spared the martyrdom he was suffering. The prayer was granted: John was the only apostle not to be martyred. He was also the only apostle allowed to witness the Crucifixion because he was Christ’s biological son. This explains why when Jesus was dying on the cross, and he saw the ‘disciple whom he loved’ (John 19:26), generally understood to be John, the Lord said to his mother ‘Woman, behold your son!’ (John 19:26) and to the disciple ‘behold, your mother!’ (John 19: 27).

In ancient Judea, descendants, not only biological sons, were referred to as ‘sons’ of their ancestor, and their ancestors were frequently called ‘fathers’ (1 Kings 2:10), hence the Messiah was widely understood to be ‘the Son of David’, though he was many generations removed from King David. Therefore, John was Mary’s grandson, and she his grandmother.

Some people don’t believe that the disciple Jesus loved was John the Apostle, but the beloved disciple who was described as being present at the Crucifixion is identified in the text as he who wrote the Gospel of John (21:20–24). In the earliest ancient manuscripts, John’s gospel is not attributed to anyone else. The Church fathers Polycrates, Eusebius and Augustine also believed that John was the beloved disciple, and they were centuries closer to the events than the naysayers are now, with access to oral traditions from the early Christian community. And the beloved disciple’s presence at the Last Supper (John 13:23) means he must have been an apostle.

John’s status as Jesus’ son helps us to understand why John was called the disciple Jesus loved in the Gospel of John, and why John rested against Jesus during the Last Supper (John 13:23). It also explains why Jesus called John and James ‘Sons of Thunder’ (Mark 3:17); in addition to the fact he literally called John ‘son’, the true significance of which has escaped many, Yahweh is associated with thunder in the Bible (Psalm 29:3; Psalm 18; Exodus 19), and Jesus is Yahweh. The fiery tempers of John and James being used as justification for the nickname Boanerges shrouded a deeper truth.

John’s true parentage was concealed to protect him; even at that time, Jesus was regarded by some as the King of the Jews, the rightful heir to David, and after Jesus’ death and ascension, John may have been construed as the legitimate heir to the throne (although there is no such thing as a successor to Jesus, because he is immortal). This would have painted a huge target on his back with the Roman authorities, an even bigger target than he had as one of the leaders of the fledgling Jesus movement, and Jesus wanted John to live.

Psalm 22 ends with a prophecy that God will rule the world (22:28), clearly establishing the Messianic context of this Crucifixion prophecy.

Then there is Psalm 72:1, which reads: ‘God, give the king your justice, your righteousness to the royal son.’ People have interpreted the king and his son as being King David and his son Solomon, since the psalm has been attributed to David, king of the United Kingdom of Israel, and to Solomon. But the context, established by subsequent verses, such as ‘in his days, the righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more’ (Psalm 72:7), is undeniably that of the millennial kingdom. The descriptions are too paradisaical to fit David’s Israel or any historical monarchy, and they cannot be about the new earth, because there will be no moon in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:23), which will come after the millennium.

So who is this king’s child, this royal son? Well, Jesus is the king of the millennial kingdom in Psalm 72:1 and in Revelation, and his ‘only-begotten’ son has already been identified as John the Apostle.

The text of the Davidic Covenant literally states that David’s offspring would be God’s ‘son’, and that this son would build a temple and be given an eternal kingdom. After David/Jesus, the primary figure of the Davidic Covenant, this secondarily applies to David’s biological son Solomon, who built the First Temple. Solomon was a previous incarnation of John the Apostle, the Son of Christ – which explains why in one sense, Solomon was prophesied to be God’s son: because this was to occur in a future incarnation. This same individual is Ezekiel’s (46) future prince of God’s Kingdom under King Jesus. Of course, even in this interpretation, the kingdom and authority will be Christ’s, with John in a subordinate position, as one of the saints who rule with Christ in Revelation 20:6.

Solomon and John were both fascinated with the knowledge and wisdom of God, which was reflected in their work. John’s gospel begins with: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1:10). Proverbs 8:22–23, written by Solomon, is about wisdom: ‘Yahweh possessed me in the beginning of his work, before his deeds of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth existed.’

It is written in Ezekiel (46:16) that the prince’s sons are to be given land from the prince’s portion of the millennial kingdom if he wants to give them land. The upshot of this verse is that as the prince of the Promised Land, Burrows was prophesied to have sons.

As a (real) Christian, Burrows could not indulge in premarital sex, and though he was tempted at times with Penny, she came to share his beliefs about morality, which helped.

In the end though, they couldn’t wait long, Penny was in her late thirties, and time was running out for the creation of Davidic descendants before the last trumpet. Burrows and Penny were first married privately, with John drafting the vows and officiating himself as priest. This was permitted because God had crowned him Pope in heaven and thereby appointed him Christ’s chief representative on earth, rendering an ordained priest superfluous. A more formal ceremony in Scrumpton’s Anglican church (ironically called St. John’s), to which the families were invited, came weeks later.

Penny was naturally agreeable, and John had been trained by Jesus beforehand to control his tongue and temper, which helped to cut down on the trouble and strife. There were still arguments though, usually centring around John being unwilling to do some mundane but necessary task that Penny wanted him to do, like taking out the trash, cleaning the toilets or going food shopping. Sometimes Penny would simply do it herself, or John’s mother Jennifer would step in. If there was a real impasse, John would put the matter to the Lord, to whom they were both bound as servants, and his verdict, revealed through a sign made clear to both parties, would settle it.

Penny also helped John with his ministry, as she was much more sociable than him. As a former social media marketing executive and influencer, she had far more online followers than him. She introduced her friends and subscribers to John; most of them ran for the hills, but a few stuck around and converted. A beautiful, open and friendly blonde with a ready smile was a more appealing prospect to get some people’s foot in the door than Burrows, who, though he was prepared to help his neighbour, and could deliver a confident and articulate speech, didn’t actually like most people and never had. Penny was a rare exception to that rule. They complemented each other. John had the message: Penny knew how to spread it.

Together they founded a new church: Logos Christianity. The focus was not on church services or rituals, but on the free distribution of salvific information. That information was primarily John’s books and videos, which explained the Bible and pointed to the baptism in the Holy Spirit, that can occur anywhere that God wills it. Logos Christianity was registered as a charity and took donations.

These donations did not amount to much, which meant that John had a very limited income at first. Penny wasn’t a gold-digger, but money was a necessity when almost every sex act carried the possibility of pregnancy. Thankfully, Penny had saved a good amount of money through her previous career. Her dad, a successful wine merchant, had given the expectant couple a sizeable cash gift after the wedding. This was used to buy their house. John’s job at the think tank also helped financially, when he was given the position.

Logos Christianity started out with a small circle of just seven people meeting in John and Penny’s living room on Sunday evenings. But when word spread about the healing miracles that were performed, it eventually grew into a congregation of thirty-three meeting in the village hall. There was a lot of dissatisfaction with the larger denominations, which were struggling to counter Khan’s global influence. The village council (including some nominal ‘Christians’) didn’t approve of John and Penny’s ideas and eventually denied them access to the village hall. Using their capital, the couple leased an office building on a Swindon retail park for services and spent a significant amount on evangelism, particularly online ads. Sometimes, the Reverend Gavin Dibley allowed them access to his evangelical church in Bicester (John was occasionally a guest preacher there). Gatherings were monthly and focussed on Bible readings and interpretations of key verses, including eschatological passages, followed by a Q&A that sometimes went on for hours, and discussions about evangelism; how to most effectively spread their unconventional but authentic variant of Christianity amidst a world that was largely uninterested in the truth. There were no hymns.

Individual members of the laity could schedule a one-on-one chat with John or Penny for healing, confession or advice, though John always encouraged his flock to cut out the middleman and appeal directly to Christ, where possible. John’s ecclesiastical philosophy was minimalist: he believed that a good priest made the congregation into their own priests, and that Christ was ‘our high priest’ (Hebrews 4:14) in heaven, providing healing, counsel, wisdom and salvation directly to all who truly wanted them with faith.

Over the years, John and Penny had three sons: Peter, James and Matthew. The boys were of good stock, tall, healthy and athletic. They weren’t geniuses, but they were intelligent, and they fitted in a lot better with their peers than Burrows did, largely because of their mother’s amiable genes, (though in the case of Matthew, it was a little early to tell, since he was only three years old). Jesus obviously wanted it that way. They were not destined to suffer as their father had suffered. It was not required of them to defy the herd, to be isolated from almost all of humanity, and to go against conventional wisdom in order to discover the great unpopular truths, because their father had handed those truths to them ready made.

Only Peter was old enough to be enrolled at school, and thus far he had upset the teachers more than he had the other kids, largely by parroting his father’s views. Because of the dire state of the UK’s education system, John had considered home-schooling Peter, but he figured there was a limited amount of damage the local primary school could do in the 15 months his son was required to attend. After that time John knew that everything would change, including the education system, and there would be many years to undo the effects of Peter’s schooling.

Whenever the boys had an infection, John was able to appeal to their grandfather in heaven, who cleared it up rapidly. Human grandparents are typically generous with their grandkids, so how much more liberal was Jesus with his? Unfortunately, Peter, Matthew and James were just too young to be saved: yielding to Christ is an act of will that cannot be undertaken without a cognisant mind capable of belief, an intention to undertake service, and at least a rudimentary understanding of Scripture – except in extraordinary circumstances like those of John the Baptist, who had the Holy Spirit in the womb (Luke 1:15).

Burrows did a lot of work from home for the think tank; occasionally, he was called in to an undisclosed location in London to help with an ‘operation.’ John couldn’t be sure exactly when Jesus will come, but he had a rough idea based on Daniel’s weeks, and the sequence of world events. Thus far, his timeline had proven to be 100% accurate. At this point, he expected the Second Coming to happen very soon.

After his post-run shower, John received an encrypted call from his boss at Wargames, Sally Hughes. ‘Call in at the parsonage. 30 minutes. Your opinion is sought.’ She hung up. The message was code for: John was needed at the operations centre on the RAF base. It was in the village, a mere 5 minutes’ drive away.

John sighed. He kissed Penny goodbye, told her to leave his dinner in the oven if he was late, and drove off in his SUV. As he was meandering down the country lanes, John saw the crude yet graceful lines of the Uffington White Horse in the distance. The horse was said to be thousands of years old. It was made of trenches filled with crushed chalk. Local legend had it that the ‘horse’ actually represented the dragon slain by Saint George on the nearby ‘Dragon Hill’. The German physicist Klaus Fuchs had given British nuclear secrets to the Russians there in the 1950’s. Looking at it, John was reminded of the Scripture, ‘behold, a white horse and he who is sat on it is called Faithful and True. In righteousness he judges and makes war.’ (Revelation 19:11). Jesus was prophesied to return on a white horse during the ‘great day of his wrath’ (Revelation 6:17). In times like these, it was hard not to see the horse as a sign.

Read the next chapter: https://www.robertensor.com/post/operation-wrath-of-god-the-rapture-the-second-coming-the-campaign-of-armageddon-and-the-kingdom-o-4 

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[i] Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. The line is spoken by Trinculo as he seeks shelter from a storm.

[ii] https://biblehub.com/lexicon/psalms/22-20.htm