■ Steven’s Amazing Adventures, and the Future of the World ■ (PART 41) - ◼ “Tension in the Jungle” - (A STORY about the END TIMES, with Messages from God) (PART 41)

(Go to previous part. ⬅   ➡ To be continued)

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Steven’s Amazing Adventures,

and the Future of the World

(A Story about the End Times 
with Messages from God)

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(This story chronicles the adventures of Steven O'Neill, his wife Sarah, and their friends during the End Times. Judgment has already struck the U.S., and Steve and his friends have reached the vast continent of Asia. Witness the amazing things God will reveal about the coming kingdom of the Beast (or the Antichrist), the Mark of the Beast, and the Tribulation period. This story should keep you fascinated, as a realistic account of the future unfolds in the form of a fictional story.

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But, this story is not just a story. It contains messages from God and prophecies that actually shall happen. It is written as fiction with fictional characters, but the message of the story is very real, and the cataclysmic events, touched on in this story, will actually impact this earth as God’s Holy Bible and its prophecies unfold. The world will soon enter a time much like that portrayed in this story. I encourage you to seek God about this to see what He will show you.)



Miracles will abound and awesome sights will astonish people in these last days.

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Chapter Forty-One

PART 41: ◼ “Tension in the Jungle” 

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“Tension in the Jungle”

- Vietnam -

Sheng, a former PLA soldier, had traveled with his friends through a jungle in Vietnam. They had found an entrance to an underground base, which was connected to a cavern system. But, Sheng had felt claustrophobic and was tired of being underground. He had excused himself and had hurried back through underground tunnels and up stairways until he had reached the surface of the jungle.

(Jungle. Pixabay. Free images.)

Enjoying the fresh air, he had gone on a walk through the trees down some faint trails until he had run into a group of PLA soldiers. The soldiers had quickly arrested him, seeing he was not wearing the gear a PLA soldier was supposed to wear. Sheng had discarded it shortly after trusting only in Jesus to save him.

But, since Sheng had made the mistake of going away from God’s best will, he had been captured by the PLA. We will pick up the story where Sheng is walking down a trail along with other prisoners and soldiers.

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Walking with one guard in front of him and one behind him, Sheng felt fear and depression sink into his soul. The jungle foliage and trees passing by him became monotonous and an occasional mosquito pestered him. Brushing it off was almost impossible since his hands were cuffed. They had been ascending a hill at a gentle slope for some time. Now, they had reached a fork in the trail. 

A group of imperial PLA soldiers encircled five Asian men. Two of them appeared to be from Laos and three from Vietnam, but Sheng couldn’t be perfectly sure until he heard them talk. The prisoners were wearing either khaki shorts or blue trousers. Some wore sandals and others wore tennis shoes. All wore handcuffs, but to Sheng’s surprise, many of them appeared to have peaceful expressions on their faces as if they were satisfied that God was taking care of them in spite of the shackles.

The soldiers roughly shoved Sheng toward the group of five. One of the soldiers guarding the other prisoners said, “Where’d you get your uniform from, Christian?”

The soldier had noticed how Sheng was wearing the uniform of the PLA* minus the helmet and his gear. Of his uniform, Sheng was only wearing combat trousers, a light camouflage jacket, and boots, since he had become a Christian and had thrown the equipment away.

[* PLA is an acronym for the People’s Liberation Army of China.]

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Sheng remained silent and hoped he wouldn’t draw any more attention from the guards.

“Are you a deserter from the army? You know that deserters get shot,” another soldier nearby said, chuckling cruelly as he eyed Sheng’s incomplete kit.

“I’m a Christian,” Sheng said quietly.

The soldier harassing Sheng turned his attention toward the trail as more soldiers approached, bringing a middle-aged man who wore a conical straw hat. 

A Vietnamese prisoner leaned toward Sheng and said quietly, “Are you a believer?”

“I am a follower of Jesus,” Sheng replied in a low tone.

“I am too. They are hunting us Christians down, but I believe God will deliver us. He told me so,” the man said with a thin smile.

“He did? God told me that too,” Sheng said. “But, I hope that God delivers us before too long. They tightened my cuffs really tight, and my wrists are hurting and losing some circulation.”

“Hey, you, come here,” a Chinese soldier said, while pointing a finger toward Sheng. He had a tattoo directly above his left eye. The tattoo depicted the image of a tiger with an open mouth, exposing its sharp teeth.

A soldier nearby grabbed Sheng and pushed him forward toward the man with the tiger tattoo.

“Were you a soldier in the PLA?” the man said eyeing Sheng’s PLA camouflage combat jacket and trousers.

“Yes,” Sheng admitted somberly. He wanted to avoid getting slapped for neglecting to respond.

“So, you deserted your unit, didn’t you?” the man with the tiger tattoo said.

“All the soldiers in my squad were destroyed when we were searching for Christians in Yunnan Province,” Sheng said, trying to keep himself from the urge to make a break for it.

“How were they destroyed? Did you kill them?” the soldier asked coldly.

“They were destroyed by God. Only I escaped,” Sheng said as kept his eyes on the soldier’s combat jacket to avoid looking at his face, lest he should get reprimanded for staring his captor in the eyes.

“How did they get destroyed? Did lighting strike them dead?” the man with the tiger tattoo said, scoffing.

“Beams of fire came from the sky and passed through the trees, and incinerated my squad leader, my team leader, and all those in the squad. Only I escaped that destruction,” Sheng said.

“You expect me to believe this?” the soldier said, smirking.

Nearby, a couple soldiers chuckled, and shook their heads. Some of the prisoners were looking Sheng’s way and listening in on the conversation or interrogation.

Suddenly, without warning, the tattooed soldier punched Sheng in the side of the head and yelled at him, “Tell me the truth, or you will die right here and now!”

He raised his Type 95 machine gun toward Sheng and pointed it at his heart.

“Tell me the truth, and I will let you live,” the tattooed soldier said with bitterness in his voice and extreme hatred in his eyes. “Lie to me one more time, and I will shoot you in the foot.” Then, the soldier drew a knife from a sheath attached to his belt. It appeared to be a tactical knife with a very sharp blade, which flashed in the sunlight.

“Tell me two more lies after that,” the soldier said, “and I will cut you open with my knife. Then, I will shoot you in the heart.”

The prisoners behind Sheng stiffened and began uttering silent prayers for Sheng. Back in the underground base, Hu and his friends were interceding in prayer for Sheng.

Silence followed the soldier’s cruel words. In the silence, Sheng prayed a short prayer, “Dear God, please deliver me. I am yours. Jesus, save me!”

“Speak!” the soldier barked. 

Then, he aimed his gun at Sheng’s left combat boot and prepared to pull his trigger. If the soldier were to fire his weapon, a burst of machine gun bullets would disable Sheng, and a miracle would be required to heal his foot.

Just as the soldier moved his finger toward the trigger, Sheng spoke with a supernatural boldness he didn’t know he had, “I am a servant of the living God, and I am a son of God.* And, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to set your gun down and step back. In Jesus Christ’s name, stand back.”

[* See Galatians 4:6-7 and Romans 8:14-17.]

A thought came to Sheng saying, ‘Are you crazy? That man is going to kill you.’ But, Sheng ignored it and gave it to God. He remembered hearing how Jesus had told his 70 disciples in Luke 10:18-20 that Jesus had given them power over all the power of the enemy, and nothing would by any means hurt them. That scripture, along with the power of the Holy Spirit, gave him courage in the face of great danger.

(Jungle path. Pixabay. Free images.)

The soldier was taken aback. He had never heard a prisoner utter such words, but something had just happened to his mind and had affected his logic and thought processes in a way he could not explain. He slowly began to lower his gun toward the ground as if the desire to kill or harm Sheng was gone from his mind. Finally, he gently set it onto the dirt path. Soldiers nearby did nothing but just watched, stupefied.

Unknown and unseen by the humans, angelic warriors, who were 20 to 25 feet in height from head to foot, dwelling in a supernatural realm, observed as grey, cat-sized demons, shaped like insects, placed their mandibles (insect jaws) into the soldiers’ heads, through their helmets.

“Remove these handcuffs from me, in Jesus Christ’s name,” Sheng said boldly.

Smaller angels, with drawn swords, stood close to the human soldiers. The angelic warriors were dressed in gold-like armor and long white robes. Corinthian-like helmets covered their heads.

Slowly, the tattooed soldier slid a hand into a trouser pocket, but he didn’t bring any keys out. Instead, he drew out his empty hand and glared at Sheng. “Who gave you the authority to command me what to do?” he said angrily as he senses seemed to return to him.

The supernatural beings existed in a spiritual realm that consisted of matter and energy, which had properties different from the matter and energy of our terrestrial dimensions. They could operate silently and invisibly to humans in a parallel universe, which somehow meshed with the terrestrial realm.

The tattooed soldier reached toward the gun he had placed on the ground, but Sheng said, “Stop, in the name of Jesus. Don’t touch that gun.”

While they were silent and invisible to the humans, the hiss of the demons and the foul stench of their breath could be heard and smelled by the angels in their supernatural realm. The angels were used to it, but humans would be nauseated by it if they could smell it.

The soldier stopped and stood back up straight with a furious expression on his face.

Suddenly, a clicking sound came from Sheng’s wrists, and the handcuffs suddenly dropped to the ground. Sheng looked at his hands with amazement. While his handcuffs were falling down, the handcuffs on the other men slipped off their wrists and fell to the ground by another miracle of God. Invisible angels had just unlocked their handcuffs.

Sound in this spiritual realm was very real and keen to the angels and demons. The constant flicking of the forked tongues of serpent-shaped demons, wrapped around the heart organ of the tattooed soldier, produced a faint sound, which the sensitive ears of angelic warriors heard clearly. An owl’s ears, which can pick up the faint sounds of mice scurrying beneath snow, would be akin to the sensitivity of angelic ears.

Soldiers near the prisoners gasped in astonishment as they saw the handcuffs fall off, but they didn’t lift their guns to fire, as one might expect. Instead, they just stood still and watched the scene unfold as the prisoners shouted for joy and clapped their freed hands together, praising God for the miracle.

Then, the man with the tiger tattoo above his left eye glared at the prisoners with venomous hatred and shouted, “Kill these fools or they’ll escape!”

One of the captured Vietnamese men nudged his way past a stunned guard and boldly said, “We Christians have authority in the name of Jesus over all the power of the devil and nothing shall by any means hurt us, as Jesus said in Luke 10:19. I command you to stand still and not lift a finger against us in the name of Jesus Christ.”

The tattooed soldier was surprised that two Christians would boldly confront him. Then, a third Christian man, who spoke with a Laotian accent, said with the boldness of a lion tamer, “God is on our side, and you communist soldiers must leave us in the name of Jesus Christ.”

All the soldiers began swallowing hard and glancing at one another as if they didn’t know what they were doing or had forgotten something. Tension filled the atmosphere, but Sheng felt supernatural calmness and peace as he waited and watched the scene unfold. After a few more seconds passed, a soldier guarding the prisoners began walking away from them down the trail. He was joined a few seconds later by another soldier. After thirty seconds had passed, ten more soldiers joined the group that was leaving the Christians behind.

Finally, the only one still standing before the Christians was the soldier with the tiger tattoo. He glared at the Christians with hate-filled eyes and said, “You are free to go, but if I ever see you again, I will kill you. Your God saved you this time. So, today, you will live, but I promise you that if you ever see my face again, you will die a terrible death.”

With those venomous words uttered, he wheeled around and marched off to catch up to his comrades.

“God is greater than all the power of man and all the power of the devil,” Sheng said calmly as he watched the soldier marching down the trail. After about twenty seconds, the man was gone from sight around a bend in the trail. Dense vegetation hid him from view.

Before long, all the Chinese soldiers were gone and heading off back toward their temporary camp a few miles away. Their actions made no logical sense, but it was only by the Spirit of God that they had chosen to leave the Christians alone. And, Sheng knew it with all his heart.

“Praise be to God Almighty, our loving Abba Father,” a Laotian man said with great joy in his face.

“Praise be to you, Abba Father. Thank you so much for delivering us,” Sheng said.

The rest of the men offered up praises to God with great joy in their voices. After a while, they turned toward one another and every man smiled with such joy and happiness Sheng hadn’t seen in years. It seemed as if the men had seen Heaven.

“We serve a great God,” a Vietnamese man said as he looked up toward the sky.

“We certainly do,” a Laotian man wearing khaki shorts said, grinning.

Sheng introduced himself to the others. “By the way, I’m Sheng from China.”

“I’m Sommat from Laos,” a Laotian man wearing khaki shorts and a collared Polo-style shirt said.

The rest of the group of six introduced themselves to each other and Sheng. Besides Sommat, Bounkong also came from Laos on a treacherous journey which brought him through jungles infested with poisonous snakes and squads of imperial PLA soldiers. Sonthi came from Thailand. And, Long, Minh, and Tien all came from various parts of Vietnam. All had taken treacherous journeys across their countries, forded swift streams, and had avoided capture until they had been apprehended by imperial PLA soldiers while less than thirty miles from their current location.

“What reason do you think the Chinese soldiers had for leaving us behind?” Long said after they had finished the introductions.

“They might have said that we were too much trouble to bother with, or that they didn’t have enough food to feed us with, or they might have thought that we were not a threat worthy of their attention,” a Sonthi said.

“But certainly, they would know that they have orders to capture or kill Christians,” Tien said, scratching his chin.

“It must be that their minds have been placed in a state of confusion or misunderstanding,” Bounkong said.

“Would God actually give them confusion?” Minh said. “Doesn’t the Bible say that God is not the author of confusion?”

“God does not create confusion,” Sommat said, “but, God can allow the devil to do that. Remember what happened in the vision God gave the prophet Micaiah in 1 Kings chapter 22?”

“I forgot,” Minh said.

“Micaiah stood before King Ahab, a wicked man,” Sommat said. “He said in verses 19 through 23, in essence, that God had summoned evil spirits to stand before His throne, which God has the power to move outside the gates of the highest Heaven. Evil spirits can’t come into the highest Heaven.* Anyways, God spoke to the evil spirits and asked if any of them would be willing to persuade Ahab so that he would die at Ramoth-gilead. One evil spirit came forward and said that it would be a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab’s prophets. God then granted it permission to deceive the false prophets.”

[* See Revelation 21:27 and Psalm 5:4. Psalm 127:5 says that the righteous man's children "...shall speak with the enemies in the gate." God also speaks with the enemy in the gate of Heaven, not inside Heaven proper. In 2 Corinthians 12:2, there are three (3) levels of Heaven mentioned or alluded to. Satan can speak with God outside the gate of the highest Heaven. Hell is for those who rebel against God and who refuse to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord, or who don’t keep Him as such.]

The other men nodded as they began to remember the details Sommat was telling them.

“That same spirit had all the false prophets falsely say that Ahab would defeat the Syrians in battle,” Sommat continued. “But, God had mercifully shown Micaiah to warn Ahab that he would die in that battle if he were to fight it. But, Ahab didn’t listen to Micaiah. So, the wicked king died at Ramoth-gilead as he fought against the Syrians. He had been told a lie by most of the prophets that he would win that battle, and he had foolishly listened to them.”

“God had allowed that to happen because Ahab was a wicked and rebellious man, and he needed to be stopped. Ahab didn’t take into consideration the other warnings God had given him in previous years by other prophets of God. So, he perished. As we just saw, Almighty God will sometimes use the devil to accomplish God’s will.”

“That makes sense now how God must have allowed demons to deceive the people who were seeking to arrest or kill us,” Minh said. “But, I still don’t understand why the demons would want to deceive soldiers if it would benefit us Christians.”

“If the demons want to continue to operate in this world,” Sommat said, “they have to follow God’s requirements for them. I believe that God mandated that if demons want to have permission to continue to deceive the soldiers in different ways, they had to first deceive those soldiers regarding us. I believe that what I just said is mandated by God for our protection.”

“Very interesting,” Minh said. “I never thought about that before.”

“I sought God about some things and I believe He showed me that,” Sommat said.

“We all saw that tattooed soldier threatening Sheng after he had rebuked the soldier and after the handcuffs had fallen off.” Bounkong said. “Why would that soldier give orders to kill us if God was having the demons deceive the soldiers not to kill us?”

“I believe that God allowed a demon to provoke the tattooed soldier to threaten us and shout orders to kill us as a test to see if we would remain strong in our faith,” Sommat said. “And, of course, God would not let the soldiers actually kill us since we are trusting in His Word. But, I believe it was a test to try our faith.”

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps pounding the dirt came from behind the group of Asian men. They all turned to see a Chinese soldier armed with a Type 95 machine gun running their way. There would be no time to find cover if he were to stop suddenly and aim at them. Sheng was concerned that that soldier might have friends hidden in the jungle or approaching from not far behind him.

Sheng had to do something. But what? All he could think to do then was pray. And, he realized that, that was the best option.

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 (To be continued...)

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[Footnote: The Chinese are not the enemy, neither are the Russians. Both are people just like you and me. But, God will use Russia and China to judge wicked nations, which will not repent from their rebellion against Him. And, the devil will seek to stir up men to persecute the Church. But, God will deliver all who seek Him and trust in Him.]