Story Behold Wrath - The Revelation Series, Book 1 (a long-awaited SHIFT sequel)

Giskard

Giskard

Only human
19 a​

Andy was laying into the engine of the International, changing the plug cables while the rest were commiserating over recent events as Andy and Sandy shared what happened with the proprietor of the junk yard.

“Wow, that’s very humbling,” Nathan said.

Gary had a Bible open and said, “Here it is. This is what I was looking for. It’s in Matthew 18, the Parable of the Lost Sheep:

‘11 For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. 12 “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? 13 And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.’​

“That’s what your experience reminded me of. The lengths Christ will go through to save his sheep. What’s his name?”

Sandy said, “I didn’t even ask.” She felt bad about that. She is more of a faces person, but she should have asked his name.

“Dale,” Andy answered from under the hood. “I think while you were most considerately running out to the van to get him some food we made introductions. Sorry I didn’t introduce when you came back. I guess I got sidetracked when you came back with your arms full, feeling guilty because I didn’t think of that.” He slid out and wiped his hands on a rag and closed the hood. Sandy turned the key and it started right up.

“Now,” Andy said. “Awhile back someone said we need to get moving and fast. What’s up?”

Gary nodded. “I’m just looking ahead in Revelation 9 and a couple of things concern me.” He thought a second and said, “That sounds like a big ‘duh’ because we’re in the Tribulation, I know. But look, let me break this up a chunk at a time:

‘12 The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come. 13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind.’​

“So, some of these Trumpet Judgments are in the form of three different Woes. That last mess back there with Apollyon opening a pit and releasing the beasties and no one being able to die for five months was the first Woe, I guess. One down and two Woes to go.”

“Whoa,” Eva said, to a couple of snickers. “Sorry. Not funny really.”

“That’s okay. Not ‘whoa’ but ‘Woe’ as in ‘Woe is me.’

“Oh, I get it.”

Gary continued, “Now, it says in verse 14 that four angels are about to be released at the river Euphrates. That can’t be good. Those have got to be demons. Probably chief prince demons like the one that delayed the angel who was trying to deliver a message to Daniel. It was so rough that Michael the Archangel had to come help him.”

“But is says angels,” Nathan noted.

“Yeah, it says bound angels. The only bound angels you will find in the Bible are ones not compliant to God’s will, so they get bound, cast in to Tartarus, what have you. Demons are the angels that rebelled with Lucifer, or Satan, and were cast out. These are fallen angels. So these have been bound for, literally, God only knows how long, in the Euphrates. They are about to kill a full third of mankind!”

Sandy had read that and they had somewhat discussed it before. “I remember this. So the number on the ticker on the news channels has the count from what has happened so far at close to a couple billion people. Now we are down to well under six billion left in the world, so that’s like another close to two billion that are going to die.”

“By the time this Woe is over the population will be down to half,” Andy said somberly.

“So what’s the deal with the Euphrates?” Nathan wondered.

“That’s one of the key rivers of the world from the times of Genesis,” Gary said. The Garden of Eden at one time was there. In the ancient world it was a nearly insurmountable dividing line between west and east.”

“Okay,” Nathan said. “About that; I have read and seen videos with different opinions.”

“Videos?” Sandy asked. “Was there something on TV you saw, or…?”

“No, they were a couple of different videos Cassie had downloaded to her phone. I sort of tried to read and watch as much as I could. Well, watch mostly, because my eyes were tired from reading. I think she was trying to figure it out too. The Euphrates comes up again in Revelation 17, I think it is, and it talks about it drying up and the kings of the east coming over as part of the Armageddon war. Then others say they aren’t the same. Sorry, but I didn’t get to finish watching all of it.”

Andy had a Bible open and said, “Yeah it can’t be the same, just taking the passage at face value. Same location, but that doesn’t mean they have to be the same.”

“Why not?” Sandy asked.

“Well, look:

‘16 The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. 17 And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.’​

“This reads like an exact number, for one thing,” Andy noted. “Don’t you find that odd for an earthly army? And John said, ‘I heard their number.’ Also, the passage in Revelation 17 is well after this. Do they come across and leave and come back again? Then look at the colors in his vision. The colors of fire and sulfur, you’ve got fire, sulfur and smoke coming out of their mouths… What kind of army even today has that? Flamethrower helmets? That’d be a lot of lion head flamethrower helmets. That’s like 200 million troops. You might have that many troops in China, the Koreas and all, but you aren’t logistically moving that many troops across a continent ever. The amount of fuel, food needed, crossing mountain ranges and rivers… It’d take years and years!

“Besides, unlike the chapter 17 passage, this says nothing here about the kings of the east. It looks more like demonic hordes like something out of Lord of the Rings, fifty million for each of those chief demons unbound at the Euphrates.”

“Those are great points,” noted Gary. “Let me read the rest, but to Andy’s point, who here remembers something very interesting about the nature of the Ten Plagues God had Moses unleash on the Egyptians?”

Sandy couldn’t recall anything particular, other than they all stayed right there in Egypt. She and the other shrugged.

“The plagues were all of the creatures the Egyptians had as idols! Flies, frogs… All of them addressed their worship of false gods. Now let me read you this:

‘19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.​
​
20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, 21 nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”​

“So to Andy’s point, there is not going to be an army of 200 million with tails like serpents with heads that wound. And look at John’s commentary in verse 20. The rest of those who don’t repent, those not killed, they won’t end up repenting. Man, that might mean no more conversions to Christ after this! Think about that! So the survivors don’t repent of their wicked works ‘nor give up worshipping demons’ like the ones that just killed a third of them! That might be a reach and I may be over-stating it, but you gotta admit, it’s an interesting coincidence that demons they worship are the plague in this Woe.”

Andy is nodding, “That’s interesting. So Gary, that’s why you think we ought to get where we’re going post-haste. How long were we at the camp since the beasties hit? I’ve lost track. It wasn’t five months already, was it? Has it been that long?”

Sandy knew no way, but didn’t know exactly. Apparently nobody else did.

Nathan was looking at his cell. “Don’t worry. Onboard data only. I’m not online.” He was clicking around, “Okay, good thing I calendared that. It looks like close to three-and-a-half months now.”

Gary said, “Yeah, but correct me if I’m wrong, Andy. When we get to where we’re going are they watching this? Is there some level of last minute prep to be done? If 200 million of these things, I take it bigger and worse than the beasties, are going to swarm the world with fire and sulfur… We’ve already seen that even though the mark saved us from being stung the beasties can gum up the works, even to the point of sabotage. What sort of impact can we possibly not anticipate with this Woe?”

Sandy snatched Andy’s Bible from his hands real quick to read again, “Uh, guys. This doesn’t say this army is forbidden to touch those with the mark, the Seal on their foreheads like the beasties were.”

Everyone exchanged blanched looks.

Andy said, “The scriptures do say the church is not appointed unto wrath.”

“We aren’t the church, as you pointed out,” Sandy said. “Besides, this is from demonic hordes and not directly something that would be dumped on us by God. Speaking of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, even Israel was in danger of wrath from the angel of death. That’s how we got the Passover. Right?”

Sandy saw doubt and concern on Andy’s face. Pretty soon everyone was looking at Andy for answers.

He looked up at each of them. “I need to pray about this. I need to ask for answers. I’m not sure I’ll get one. The just shall live by faith and all that.”

“Easy for you to say because the 144,000 make it,” Nathan said. “I don’t mean to be mean, it’s just a fact. The rest of us probably have a greater sense of urgency about this question than you.”

Andy sighed, “I don’t mean I’m going up into the mountains for forty days for prayer and fasting. In fact, you can drive. God can hear my prayers at ninety miles per hour. Let’s go!”
 
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Giskard

Giskard

Only human
19 b​

Blazing out of Nashville on the 40, Sandy was thinking about her prior conversation with Andy. She was struck by another thought so she grabbed her Bible and consulted the index in the back. Yep. There it is, so she hit the button on the radio between the vehicles. “Andy, can you talk a minute?”

“Absolutely!”

“Okay. Check this out:

‘And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”

“Matthew 16:18, right? Okay, what do you get from that?” Andy asked.

“Well, that’s just another illustration for me as well as another for the column you might title, ‘Be Concerned’ because it’s about the church, just like your 1 Thessalonians passage that the church is not appointed unto wrath.”

“Keep going…”

“Yeah, see, the Antichrist himself is one of the Seal Judgments of the Lamb, right? So that’s wrath.”

Andy hesitated, “I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

“See, it says here in Revelation 13:7 that ‘It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.’ This is another way we know we Tribulation Saints, but not you, are different from the church,” said Sandy. “The gates of hell overcome the saints here, though the gates of hell will not overcome the church.”

“That is a good insight, Sandy. Have you been reading again?”

“Ha ha. Condescension not appreciated,” she deadpanned. “What I’m saying is, we aren’t necessarily immune or exempt or whatever from the fallout of God’s wrath, unless the Bible gives us a passage that clearly says so.”

Sandy waited for a response. Nathan next to her shook his head, his mouth a grim line. When Andy did not respond, she prodded, “Hello? You there? Over.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking. Man, it sounds true but I sure don’t like it. I mean, we are latecomers to the party. Literally. Like the five foolish virgins with no oil in their lamps that got locked out of the wedding celebration. I guess the saints have always been subject like anyone else to horrific deaths, whether natural disasters, Hitler and Stalin, Nero… Airplane and car crashes and all kinds of martyrdom. We just need to trust not one of us will die a moment sooner that God intends. He is still sovereign. He is in charge. We can’t concern ourselves with worry but live by faith and exercise reasonable prudence. Let’s just keep going and trust in Christ.”

“That is comforting, but I sure would like to be bullet proof.”

“I never had you pegged for a Supergirl fan girl.”

“Hush. It’s supposed to be a secret.” She felt her face flush. What Sandy really was, more and more each day, was a fan of Andy Williams the cop, not the singer, though the singer was okay in his day. And, well, maybe “fan” was too strong a word, but she sure was warming up to him in all sorts of impractical and ridiculous ways. He is one of the 144,000. You may as well call him a monk having sworn off relationships for life. And yet, how could she complain. God has called him to something unique. God has saved her for whatever reason of which she was unworthy. Yet somehow loved by Christ. This she ever found mysterious and lovely.

Andy began to slow and she did as well, craning her neck to see what obstruction now beset them. Maybe a bridge? No, it looked like an accident blocking the road. She sure hoped they did not have to drive back too far to get around it. They’d got through Lebanon and had one little backtrack for a fallen bridge. No biggie. That was becoming routine. This looked like they could get across the median and continue on, especially with no traffic coming the other way.

Now Andy stopped. He radioed, “Wait here” and got out with Nathan. She got a bit concerned when she saw them both check their weapons yet not holster them. Sandy wondered what was up. A couple minutes later Nathan was quick-stepping back to the van and he looked like he’d seen a ghost. He holstered his gun and paced beside the van, his hands clasped behind his head. He seemed about to faint.

Then Andy came back in a slow, purposeful walk, yet looking very troubled. He stopped on the passenger side of the van, staring, it looked like to Sandy, behind her. She glanced back and saw nothing, yet there stood Andy frozen in place. ‘What in God’s name?’ He put his head down a moment and then to Sandy it looked like he had to force is legs to move by will of thought. He walked to her door and she got out.

“Andy! What’s happened?”

She could see he’d been crying. He swallowed hard. “That. That whole they will seek death and won’t find it thing…” She could tell he had trouble finishing. Wait…

“Dear God, no,” Sandy said.

He nodded and continued crying. When he composed himself he said in a matter-of-fact voice as though On The Job, which is cop-speak. Sandy wondered what a city cop could see that was so far afield of anything he has seen that would cause him to completely break down like this? He said, “A multiple vehicle pile-up. Best we could tell is the… those damnable beasties got to them, caused a wreck. When car plowed into another, and then another… families. Sandy, families are in some of those cars.” He choked up again. He stepped off the road and lost his lunch. She grabbed a bottle of water for him and he came back.

“I’m so sorry you saw that, Andy. It must be horrible.” He was shaking his head ‘no’ as she spoke.

“Sandy, you don’t understand. They’re not dead!”

“What?” Then his words came back to her about people seeking death yet not able to find it. She glanced toward Nathan. He was leaning face first into his arms against the van.

“Oh my… Lord, how awful. How can… Alive?”

Andy leaned against her and they held each other while he sobbed. She turned her head to the back seat and thanked Jesus Eva was passed out asleep. She saw Gary. His face was stricken with horror. It must have been a mirror of her own.

She asked, “What do we do?”

“What can we do?” Andy asked.

Gary kept his voice down, with Eva asleep, but said, “We can’t just leave them out there! Not like that. Can’t we at least put them out of their misery? Or... I don’t know what. There has to be something.”

“Gary, there is a man out there with his head bottlenecked in a windshield. His neck is mostly severed. He clearly has bled out. He rolled his eyes to me and was trying to talk.”

“How is that even possible?” Sandy asked.

“We live in an extraordinary time where the miraculous frequently means horror. We’ve been watching it build and build. There is nothing ‘natural’ about any of this. This is the final day of wrath, the day of the Lord. This is the era of divine intervention where the Lamb of God is meting out judgment on the earth that continues to reject him. He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. He will judge whom He will judge. None of us turned to Christ in time enough to be saved from this.”

“Can’t we get them some blankets? Maybe some water? Something to make their final hours on earth more comfortable?”

“Seriously? You wanna try pouring water down the throat of that windshield guy? They still have weeks to go like this. Remember? Five months. You think water and blankets will do it?”

Sandy said, “Maybe we could burn them. Douse them in gas and put them down sooner. I know that’s not what you’d call humane.”

“Not to sound more negative than this already is, but two things. One, how do you know they will die and we would not simply be adding to their misery? None of them are naturally still living. Some have bled out. They should not be alive. What if all we succeed in doing during these strange days is frying their flesh?”

Sandy hadn’t thought of that. Anything was possible these days. “You said two things.”

“Yeah. Two things. What was Jesus’ rebuke to Peter when he tried to step in and prevent the arrest of Christ when he cut of Malchus’ ear? Peter was getting in the way of God’s will.”

“Get thee behind me, Satan.”

“Yeah. I don’t want any of that.”

They hung their heads. Sandy was not sure what everyone else was feeling, but she was sorrowful that such an evil world had come to this. What a shame. It was not as if this was not prophesied over two-thousand years ago. Mankind was warned, and yet everyone, even she, put herself first, just like everyone else. It was too uncomfortable to confront sin and turn to God because that might mean messing up her routine. Golly gee, that would mean maybe having to change things in her life she was loath to change.

Besides which, she had time. She could change tomorrow, should she ever decide to give God a try. Meantime, give God a try? He was her Creator and her God! He should be worshipped always! How prideful and presumptuous to make God wait on her and on her terms. She was a little lump of clay presuming to come to Almighty God on her own terms in her own sweet time. That is, after all, how she found herself here now.

Yet God, merciful and patient, reached out to her. He called her. Certainly not because she was so special. To God, she was lower than a worm; or should be. So Sandy reminder herself that these were no more deserving or so privileged to be granted eternal life and peace than a tick, just like her.

But what she wondered was, “Can we witness to them? Can they be saved?”

Andy looked at her like she just stepped off one of those UFO’s. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, look, it’s those who have rejected Christ and yet survived the second Woe who do not repent, right? Those people at the cabin got saved, some of them. Dale did.”

The others shared incredulous and bewildered looks.

“What if, just like Dale, we are here even for one of them. They aren’t dead yet!”

“Wow,” Gary said. “I don’t know.”

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do, missy,” said Andy. “I can’t believe I’m going along with this. But if you want we will go car by car and give them the gospel. I don’t know how well they hear, or if they can respond. I guess that’s God’s business. It’s gross over there. You up for it? Because I’m not sure any of us are. I’ve been a cop for many years and seen many things. This takes the cake. And the smell is pretty horrific.”

Sandy looked at them, considering. “I think we have to. I really don’t know if I can just turn a blind eye and keep going down the road.”

Gary shrugged and said, “I get that. I wonder how often people walked by me and turned a blind eye, even though I was up, healthy walking around. I was dead inside, but no one bothered to check my soul. I guess you’re right. We have to try.”

Andy threw his arms up, resigned. “Alright. It’s going to take a little time but we’ve got nothing better to do. I sure hope you’re right. Nathan still looks pretty messed up so we can send him back this way to hang with Eva. We sure don’t need her wandering in looking for us.”

It wasn’t has bad as Andy told her. It was worse. At the first car she caught a whiff of busted bowels, decay maybe, and vomit, fecal matter and urine. She had to run off and puke. Andy excused himself, ran to his van and came back with some menthol gel stuff and smeared a big lump under her nose. He gave it to Gary who did the same. “Old cop trick,” Andy said, shrugging. “Sometimes you have got to enter a home with a bad smell coming from it after a phone call…”

Sandy nodded and for the first car, they all went. There was a man behind the wheel, pretty busted up. It’s hard to tell if he or the woman could have been saved in an ambulance trip. She didn’t know why she thought so, but Sandy thought the condition of everything seemed like this pile-up had maybe only happened over the last couple days. Ambulances and not even cops were out driving among the beasties. The sting marks on their bodies were evident and multiple too. This was a living hell for them. Andy preached to them, starting off by explaining what’s going on and why they were in the condition they were in. She could see their eyes widen. The woman still had tears to cry, so they had not been there so long that she was dehydrated.

Andy went into how they could silently pray and ask Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins. They just need to turn their hearts to him and believe. Andy told them about the cross and the resurrection, all of it. He told them about how very, very soon he is returning to establish a kingdom with his saints, resurrected and believing survivors from this time of great tribulation. The woman continued to cry and closed her eyes, but Sandy did not know if she was praying. The man was upset and tried to stir. He grunted some but that was all he could manage. The bid them farewell, assuring them if they could offer comfort or anything else they would. Gary found a sweater and a jacket in the back seat. He draped their shoulders and told them he hoped to seen them again in glorified bodies.

It was terrible. It would be more than Sandy could bear except she knew these were forced to bear beyond worse. They split up and went to all the cars. It really didn’t take too long and they did what they could. In a truck they found some moving type blankets and laid them over the shoulders of the victims. It was more useless than kissing a gunshot wound like it’s a boo-boo. It seemed silly, but the gesture seemed significant to those who could respond.

They would not that day learn whether their efforts were effective. They consoled themselves that such is the realm and work of the Holy Spirit. Yet, Sandy reminded herself, if even one was able to receive the message, if even one among the conflagration responded to a call, it was all worth the while.

They drove across the median, cleared the wreckage, then crossed back over. The trip to Cookeville seemed the longest leg of the entire trip for Sandy. Eva woke up and wondered why everyone is so quiet. All Sandy could manage was an apology and, “I’ll tell you later.” She did not think she had ever in her life been more emotionally wrung out. She was not sure about Andy and Nathan, but she and Gary kept breaking out in silent, wracking sobs.

They knew they were mere months from the middle of the tribulation week and the start of The Great Tribulation. Sandy had a pit of dread in her gut the size of a cantaloupe for what was to follow. All they had gone through so far had been the easy part. It had been building and increasing, but compared with what was coming, it was Tribulation Lite. At that particular moment, hurling down the 40 at over a hundred miles per hour, she would have been okay with a sudden end. Not suicide and certainly quick enough to not recognize pain, but she was just tired and did not think she could make it for over three and a half more years. She cried again. She just wanted to be home. She missed Cassie. She missed the Johnsons. She still felt a stab of sorrow over her beloved Danny even if she was attracted to another man who could not reciprocate.

What a world! What a life! If only she had turned to Christ sooner, she could have avoided all this. But then, she looked at Gary and back at Eva. She thought of Andy and Nathan and all those she had witnessed who came to Christ. She thought about Christ coming back soon in glory and wondered at how he will restore all and she got gooseflesh. It took the edge off the horrors she experienced. She felt a peace overcome her and realized it must be the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. She prayed for the rest of the team, one by one, for peace.
 
Texican

Texican

Live Free & Die Free.... God Freedom Country....
G,

Poignant.

One wonders what it will be like during the time of the Tribulation. It will be beyond our beliefs.

If you have not asked for and accepted salvation, do so for it is free and will set you free.

Pray often to our loving God which I need to do more often.

God bless.

Texican....
 
Giskard

Giskard

Only human
Texican said:
G,

Poignant.

One wonders what it will be like during the time of the Tribulation. It will be beyond our beliefs.

If you have not asked for and accepted salvation, do so for it is free and will set you free.

Pray often to our loving God which I need to do more often.

God bless.

Texican....
Click to expand...

Amen. A most difficult chapter. Especially to climb into those characters and wear their skins enough to comprehend the enormity of it all.

Maybe one, like the story, even one will read, pray and repent. Someone who has strayed like the lost sheep.
 
Giskard

Giskard

Only human
20 a​

Hope.

Everyone needs to know hope. Not the modern wish-upon-a-star understanding of hope. Sandy could recall one of those rare occasions Cassie was able to talk her into church. The pastor had preached a sermon on Titus 2:13:

“waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,”​

Not because he was preaching topically with seven sermons of hope or anything. It was just that he was preaching from the Paul’s letter to Titus and that was where he had landed on that Sunday. He explained that the original word for “hope” in the text would be better understood to us modern English speaking people as “expectation” and not “wow, I sure hope this happens.” So our “blessed hope” was indeed a more powerful and sure expectation. The appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ is a sure thing that we look forward to.

Those words had been lost on her. She did not hear. She had not that hope at the time in her heart. Now she did! It was such a duality, this conflict of emotions, seeing the evil of the world and its end and the people in the path of both the damage of evil and the scalpel to excise the cancer. The blood and the beauty.

The pastor went on to another verse on the same subject of Christ’s return in 1 John 3:

“2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”​

She got stuck at that third verse in her mind for the remainder of the sermon. Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. She had figured she was a good person so she must do just fine purifying herself. Even as she had thought this thought, recollections of not so pure things one by one flooded her memory. She had missed, for the most part, the portions about how the purification process is not perfection but an attempt to do so to please Christ, not to get saved. This letter was not written to unsaved people looking to find out how to gain salvation and please God. No, it was about what your true love for God, if you truly are His and love Him, looks like. It looks like you doing your best to live in a way that is pleasing to Him, because He is coming again and that is your hope, your expectation.

Sandy again thanked God for His enduring, never-ending mercy and His patience with her. She was thrilled with the prospect, that hope, that expectation and this time, they could actually go to a calendar and mark it within a couple days exactly when that would happen. Events were offered, she knew, in even greater detail in the middle of Revelation exactly what things would happen that would tell them in years, in months, in days, how much time remained.

It made her smile. It felt good to have something to smile about.

Gary looked at her as if she were crazy, saying, “Are you okay?”

She chuckled and assured him, “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just recalling what keeps me going, that blessed hope.” She went on to explain. He seemed to understand anyway. She noticed he had his Bible open and asked him what he was reading.

“Oh, just you know, after that business back there I guess I need some hope too that something positive is in store for us. I think you put your finger on it though. However horrible for however long, the ending will be, literally, glorious. I was rereading those versus about the Satanic army of two-hundred million about to beset the earth, but I also was reading ahead…”

“Wait. Sorry to interrupt, but if you have something you found encouraging, maybe the others should hear this too.”

He nodded and hit the button that opened the channel to Andy and Nathan. They sounded like they needed something positive after all this; so first, Sandy shared her memory of that sermon that Gary thought might dovetail into what he was reading after this next event with demonic hordes.

“So jumping ahead to the very next chapter it looks like God decided John needed a break too. If some of this is difficult for us to witness, imagine being John two-thousand years ago trying to make sense of what he was seeing. So that brings us into Revelation 10, another of those parenthetical chapters that steps us for a moment out of the chronology of real-time events. God sidelines John for a bit in another vision. In this one, John finds himself at the beach. I don’t think he had any time to sip Mai-tai’s, but hey, it’s the beach. So anyway, sorry about that, he is at the beach and beginning verse one:

“’Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. 2 He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, 3 and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded.’​

“So much for John’s peaceful sunbathing. It doesn’t say who this might angel is, and I won’t speculate. The loud voice like a lion roaring that made all the thunder could have been the Lion of Judah himself, Jesus Christ. Probably, since this has been his show ever since the beginning of the book, which is after all about the revealing, Revelation, of Jesus Christ.”

Andy piped in, “Seems to make sense.”

Nathan added, “I remember once being at the zoo as a kid. Families had to have been about three-deep at the lion habitat. It was magnificent. It was a huge habitat arranged to look like the African wild with all the rocks and trees. There must’ve been a half dozen lionesses in there. Suddenly, from under the shade of a tree in the corner, stood this great big magnificent male lion. He stood and began to stretch. Everyone gasped, he was so magnificent. Then he began a series of short roars and one big one.

“It was indescribable. Children huddled into their parents. The parents flinched, some of them holding their ears. Some kids began crying. I didn’t. I stood amazed. Oh, I get that whole thunders analogy John makes here, oh yes I do.”

“I wish I saw that,” Eva said.

“Me too!” said Sandy.

Andy urged, “Please continue.”

“Okay, so John is at the beach, angelic spectacle, loud thunderous voice says seven things from Heaven. Then:

‘4 And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.”’​

“Talk about anti-climactic,” Gary said.

“What a jip!” Nathan added.

“I know, right?” Gary agreed. “Whatever John heard and was about to explain right here in this chapter, God put the kibosh on him writing it down and we don’t get to find out. But here is something interesting because, Sandy, I think you expressed the same conflicts all of us have been feeling. So in this vision, John gets this:

‘5 And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven 6 and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay, 7 but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.’​

“So this confirms for us that after this Trumpet we are about to endure next, events will begin to happen in rapid succession and that the Lion and Lamb of God is done with this foolishness and is about to lay down the final hurt on this evil. No more delay. So the Seventh Trumpet will sound and kick off the more serious and deadly Bowl Judgments, as we know. Just as God had announced before John in the Old Testament to the prophets and to the apostles like John here.

“’ 8 Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” 9 So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.” 10 And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.’​

“So the little scroll, I am guessing, is the scroll, or a portion of the same scroll, the scroll with the Seals the Lamb opened in chapter six. It’s the Title Deed to creation that the Lamb of God is worthy to open because he is the Creator of all things. This final bit is Jesus reclaiming creation with finality, and John is instructed to eat it. Suck it up, but it will be bitter-sweet. Is this not exactly the same as we are finding this? It is sweet as honey to the mouth. To talk of it, to taste the promise, the hope of his return and kingdom and glory is so, so sweet. But getting there leaves bitterness in our bellies.”

Sandy let out a breath, not realizing she had been holding one. She heard sighs from others as well. “Wow. That’s just… Wow,” was all she could say.

“That’s really good,” Andy said. “I think we can all appreciate that.”

“Yeah, except for that whole ‘don’t write that down’ part,” Nathan complained.

“Okay, so, there is just one more little verse we must read:

‘11 And I was told, “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”’​

“So, like John here,” Gary said, “we have more of the prophecy before us about many peoples and nations, languages and world leaders. In other words, the angel told John, ‘Okay, buddy, are you ready? Because you’re not done yet.’ And neither are we.”

Again, one of those protracted, contemplative periods followed. The channel was still open. They remained speechless and probably prayerful. It must be so for Andy began to pray:

“Father in Heaven, you are awesome God. You have made all things and are reclaiming what is rightly Yours. All belong to you and we are ever thankful You, O Lord, have called us to what has happened to us and around us for Your glory. Help us Lord to have the wisdom and understanding to continue and appreciate the glory that is somehow even in Your wrath, for it is the wrath of righteous judgment on an unbelieving world that has mocked and used Your Name in vain. Jesus’ Name has been little more than a swear word.

“Lord, forgive us when we stumble or doubt and give us strength that we never had to call upon before. Even so, Lord, we find our strength in You. Lord, in the Sixth Trumpet, those unbelievers that remain, will not repent. I guess that means our words will fall on deaf ears. O God, we will continue to go forth and find the places and saints you wish us to find and we will praise Your holy Name for as long as we have breath, for it is in Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen”

They all agreed, “Amen.”

A sound of surprise in his voice, Nathan said, “What. Hey, guys, I’m fooling with Cassie’s phone, again, all offline and no chip. But… I just found a folder here. Sweet Jesus! Are you ready, because I know you’ve all been missing good radio.”

He must have found a hidden music folder, for sweet piano came through the radio. It wasn’t stereo coming through that microphone, but for the beauty of it, Sandy may as well have been sitting in the middle of an orchestra. And a man’s sweet voice began to sing, a choir joining:

Do you feel the world is broken? We do​
Do you feel the shadows deepen? We do​
But do you know that all, the dark won't stop​
The light from getting through? We do​
Do you wish that you could see it, all made new? We do​
​
Is all creation groaning? It is​
Is a new creation coming? It is​
Is the glory of the Lord to be​
The light within our midst? It is​
Is it good that we remind ourselves of this? It is​
​
Is anyone worthy?, is anyone whole?​
Is anyone able to break, the seal and open the scroll?​
The Lion of Judah, who conquered the grave​
He is David's root and the Lamb​
Who died to ransom the slave​
​
Is He worthy?, is He worthy?​
Of all blessing and honor and glory?​
Is He worthy of this?, He is​
​
Does the Father truly love us? He does​
Does the Spirit move among us? He does​
And does Jesus our Messiah​
Hold forever those He loves? He does​
Does our God intend to dwell again with us? He does​
​
From ev'ry people and tribe, ev'ry nation and tongue​
He has made us a kingdom and priests to God​
To reign with the Son​
​
Is He worthy?, is He worthy?​
Of all blessing and honor and glory?​
Is He worthy?, is He worthy?​
Is He worthy of this? He is, He is​
​
Is He worthy, is He worthy of this?, He is​
He is, He worthy, is He worthy, He is​

[1] Words and Music by Andrew Peterson and Ben Shive © ©2018 Capitol CMG Genesis (ASCAP) / Vamos Publishing (ASCAP) / Adm. at CapitolCMGPublishing.com / Jakedog Music (ASCAP) (adm. by MusicServices.org) / Junkbox Music (ASCAP)
This hymn is found on YouTube as “Is He Worthy (Live at Sing! 2019) – Andrew Peterson
 
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Giskard

Giskard

Only human
20 b​

The music and lyrics wrecked Sandy. The couple times she’d tried to find meaningful music or just memories on the radio had left her disappointed and empty. The music had been of a type sterile and wholly without real art, musicianship or depth. She figured about all that was currently in production was the sort of artificial computer generated Pablum crafted by algorithm rather than heart.

All Cassie had on her phone, at least in the folder Nathan found so far, were apparently her favorite praise listening music. Sandy could only guess why, and she guessed that with the nature of her hobbies, studies, database efforts to catalog and chronicle all things concerning the end of days, that these tunes would provide comfort for saints in the future. She was not wrong.

Sandy could not keep her mind from wandering back to the victims in that pile-up and question whether they’d handled it the right way. Also, she wondered at the number of cars in the pile up. She did note the center median had been tracked over well right where they crossed and then back over. The best she could figure, the beasties must’ve created panic and a mass exodus for all who had cars. So far as she knew they all tried to get out of town where they were found.

There had been no pile-ups or wrecked cars that they passed on the way in to Nashville. Either cars that way made it through or the beasties had come from that direction and what few cars there were had been herded in their current direction until the beasties caught up with them. She’d never know this side of Paradise. She just prayed a couple of those souls, all of them really, had been saved.

The Sixth Trumpet they assumed would not be blown until the five months mentioned earlier of Revelation 9 passed, or so they hoped, for if the events overlapped… Sandy shuddered at the thought of encountering the horde. She prayed as she drove and asked the Lord for whatever insight she might be missing about the horde. Two-hundred million commanded by four chief demons. Four was a biblical number, often an idiom for universality. The Four Corners of the earth, even though Isaiah wrote concerning the circle, or ‘sphere’ of the earth, so the Bible did not teach the world was flat or a cube.

“Andy, you read me?”

“I read you.”

“What was that passage Isaiah something about the circle of the earth?”

“That was in chapter 40, verse 22, as I recall. Why, what’s up?”

“Nothing much. Just considering the four demons at the Euphrates and the nature of the number four, like the four corners of the earth. North, East, West, South, like ‘news.’”

Andy said, “There are an awful lot of ‘fours’ in the Bible.”

“Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

“Four sons of Shimei,” Andy said.

“Who’s that? I mean, people can have four kids, chairs and tables have four legs and rooms have four corners, but those seem mundane,” Sandy said. “I’m really wondering about significant…wrong word…extraordinary fours.”

“Four corners of the world are mundane.”

“Really, Andy? Are you in a mood? Because that is not literal so in that way it is not mundane. Work with me here.”

“Sorry.”

“Forgiven,” she said.

“There are four quarters of heaven, meaning the sky, but I think that’s like the earth.”

“Agreed,” she said. “Wait. Four living creatures. That’s like what John saw in Revelation 4, right?”

“Yes, of course. Ezekiel saw them or something very much like them as well. Cherubim.”

Sandy said, “So cherubs aren’t cute little pudgy baby angels?”

Andy laughed, “Only on Hallmark cards. The real ones would make for pretty horrific looking valentines.”

“That’s for sure.”

“Daniel saw four great beasts coming out of the sea, but that was a vision later explained to Daniel as representing kingdoms through history. Similar in Revelation except the reverse order. As I understand, Daniel looking forward, John looking back. But they were not literally beasts.”

“Well that’s pretty cool anyway,” Sandy observed.

“Zechariah records in chapter six about four spirits of heaven driving four chariots.”

“You really do remember everything now, don’t you?”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah, but in a good way,” Sandy grinned. “I’m betting some day we will all be able to do that.”

“I’m sure of it. Look, I’m thinking you might be trying to over-think things. The number is literal and John said he heard that number of two-hundred million. Therefore, these four angels command them. Also, it makes sense they would quarter up the earth to attack.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Another thought occurred to Sandy and she said, “What if, because the just shall live by faith, we are worrying about nothing and as believers we can rebuke the horde and they have to obey and leave us alone? You know, like when you’re casting out a demon.”

Andy replied over the radio, “It’s an interesting thought. On the face of it, it sounds good! Let me ask you this. If these lion head fire breathing horde can spit fire, how far? What if they don’t hear you rebuking them? What if you are beset by several at a time? Yeah, I get trust God for this stuff, I really do. But as someone recently observed,” he cleared his throat, “That’s easy for me because as one of the 144,000, I’m good and safe. If you are wrong, how easy do you think it would be for me to live with myself if something happened to one or more of you?”

“Okay, I see.”

“I’d say, if we get backed into a corner before we can hole-up, we will rebuke them with a bull horn if we have to and pray it works. Or, maybe God will just protect us all anyway.”

“Do you have a bullhorn?” Sandy asked.

“A technicality.”

She laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“Hey, how about we play some more of that music?”

“Sounds wonderful,” Sandy agreed.

On some level the music was calming. The praise music induced a sort of relaxation and the lyrics were gentle reminders that her sovereign God had matters well in hand and that everything was not falling apart. Everything was falling together. As she glanced out her window in Knoxville she shook her head without being aware of it because the officially East Tennessee city had the reputation of being a gem. No longer. She was a shambles. For many months now their little group had been driving, scrounging supplies, picking their way across ruined highways, around collapsed bridges, burned cities, teetering buildings, smoking ruins. What a shame. Such a loss. A sorrow clutched at her heart for all the world she had not seen in her short life. So many great sights and sounds she never saw except in movies.

They’d had of necessity skirted much of Knoxville to the north. Too many bridges were out and the natives were restless. Even a moderate to conservative city such as this had fallen to the desperate in the face of disastrous sickness, famine, weakened supply line of goods and groceries. At one point as they traversed a relative high point they could see a line of desert camo military vehicles scooting across the highway at a high rate of speed. Where once she might have found comfort in such a sight as the enforcers of freedom, she now experienced trepidation. No longer could they afford to think of themselves as free and protected citizens.

They connected via the 640 to the 11W, preferring to avoid the many road blocks that more and more dotted the major highways. One thing was becoming abundantly clear; the number of official vehicles on the road was increasing at an alarming rate. Repairs were being made with rapid progress, which meant more and more people were added to the number of enforcers, as Sandy came to think of those who knowingly or not did the bidding of Antichrist.

Perhaps forty-five minutes or so on, Andy made a turn off the highway and on to a secondary road, and then a tertiary road. The drove for some time on a riverfront and then cautiously crossed a bridge over the river. They turned on an unmarked road and moved on that one for fifteen minutes before pulling onto a narrower path. It could hardly be called a driveway, let alone a road. At two different points she thought she might lose a mirror on trees that encroached their path.

When they reached a literal wide spot in the road, Andy stopped and they all got out. Sandy excused herself for a quick private trip into the woods after the bouncy final minutes of driving. When she got back to the group, Nathan was coming from the woods in another direction. Eva was handing out bottled water. Andy consulted a map while the others explored the woods around them, sniffed the relatively clean air and snacked.

Gary said, “I thought I’d never smell clean air again.”

“There’s smoke,” Eva said.

“Yeah, but it’s wood. Like a campfire. It’s not that toxic, plastic-y kind of toxic smelling stuff we’ve had for weeks now.”

He was right. Sandy could almost bring herself to imagine they were parked in a cozy campsite. Except for that weird buzzing sound. What was that? She looked up and saw a small drone. She looked worriedly at Andy, since this was his rodeo and hoped he knew what was up. He gave them a knowing nod. The drone lowered and turned, giving them a good once-over. Andy waved and the drone ascended, jogged north, and then veered east. The woods were quiet once again.

“Sooo, I take it you were expecting that,” Nathan told Andy.

“Yes. I mean, no, but something like it maybe.”

“Just please tell me there will be showers where we’re going,” Sandy said.

“I didn’t ask, but I’d imagine.”

When Sandy glanced toward Eva, she saw tears standing in her eyes, so she went to her.

Eva said, “I was supposed to go camping with my mom and dad.” Sandy hugged her.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie.” They’d come a long way. Well over two-thousand miles. Their journey took much longer than even the laziest of drives. Their weeks had meandered into weeks, had tumbled into months and crash landed into over three years. Oddly enough, it sure felt as though their journey had lasted maybe a year or so. Sandy missed people, missed privacy, missed boredom and missed cleanliness. She missed her cozy bed and a normal pillow, a private bathroom and plumbing. Most of all, yes, she missed the Johnsons, especially Cassie. ‘CJ’ had been her charge for so many years that Sandy had come to think of her as her own daughter. She held young Eva, fully appreciating her sense of loss.

“I missed my birthday,” Eva said.

Sandy looked at her, “When was your birthday?”

“Like two weeks ago. I didn’t even know until I saw the date on a newspaper Gary picked up a couple days ago.”

“Yeah. I’ve missed a couple myself. But I tell you what. I promise, when we get to where Andy’s friend is holed up, we’re going to look for a mix or even whole ingredients and I am going to cook us a cake or cupcakes or whatever I can, and we are going to celebrate.”

“I like cake, but I really, really love brownies,” Eva brightened.

“Oh, honey, that sounds so good. We’ll find something, one way or another.”

Eva smiled and hugged Sandy.

All heads turned at the sound of a big engine, like a truck. The engine grew louder before crashing through some saplings to their left and came to a stop maybe a foot from Andy, who never moved or flinched. The door opened and a man with a long beard bounded out and tackled Andy. Cause for concern but for the laughter. This definitely marked a turn in Sandy’s mind for the remainder of their time on earth as she knew it. She knew she should trust anyone who Andy trusted, especially given his current status, but trust comes harder and harder these days.

Now what?
 
Giskard

Giskard

Only human
21 a​

While Andy and the bearded fellow got up and brushed leaves away, a short, plump woman with black hair stepped out from the passenger side, joined by a young girl, nearly the image of the woman, but rail thin. She looked roughly Eva’s age.

“Oh my goodness,” Andy exclaimed. “Is that Rosa? You’re so big!”

The woman raised a finger to Andy and corrected, “Just so you know, she is going by ‘Rose’ these days.”

“Oh, sorry Rose. Kimberly, you are a sight for sore eyes. I’m sorry, I’m being rude. Everybody, this is the lovely Kimberly Columbus. The gentleman who looks like he is auditioning for ZZ Top is my childhood friend Allen. This is their lovely Rose and I’m guessing she is also getting too old for me to politely ask her age.”

“I’m thirteen now, Uncle Andy.”

“It has been too long. Let me introduce you to my friends.”

Andy took some time introducing everyone and briefly how everyone met. Sandy could see the fondness he and Allen shared in their smiles to one another. As Andy again shared a little about growing up together, his eyes began to tear while considering his old friends and new. He shared much regret at what they must endure because they had not oil in their lamps, the Holy Spirit, as unbelievers when the bride of Christ was called home.

Sandy and friends shuffled awkwardly while Andy and the Columbus family stood sniffling in a four-way hug and expressed their shared sorrow, and yet joy at having turned to Christ, although at the end of the day.

“Okay,” Allen said, breaking up the clutch, all business now. “Your vehicles should be just fine on our little road to our hideaway. We don’t want to leave them here for prying eyes. After we’ve all returned we will make sure someone comes back and erases tracks. We have been busy while our Lord has been dragging you across the country. There is much to discuss.”

“Later, Allen. Later,” Kim said. “Let them get cleaned up. There are showers and home cooked meals to be had and cozy beds for naps, if needed. We’ve waited this long and a few hours to settle in will better prepare us all for what is ahead.”

“As always, Kim, you are the wisest among us,” Andy smiled.

Sandy, Nathan and Eva were chattering with excitement as the two vehicles in front of them slipped into a bush-shrouded cave before them. Nathan remarked how it was like the Bat Cave and Eva dutifully commented on his nerdiness while Sandy laughed, but she had to agree. She hoped the automobile fumes would not soon become an issue. Then a quick jog to the left and a huge cavern opened before them with illuminated stalactites overhead. Sandy pulled her International nose first against a cave wall with the other vehicles and couldn’t jump out soon enough, a thrill coursing through her veins.

The whole crew chattered again, pointing and admiring the expanse.

“Nice place you have here, guys,” Andy said.

“I’ll have to tell you how we came by it. Caves dot Tennessee all over, but mostly closer to, say, Nashville. Not as many are known out this way, but there are a few.”

“But, Allen, lighting the stalactites is a great touch,” Sandy said. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Kim’s idea,” Allen said. “She and Rose found the place too spooky and creepy before. It kind of was. The lights are LED, so they don’t require hardly any power at all. Over there are actual rooms, kind of like a house within the cave, just for perspective. She’s a lot bigger than it looks. From here it might look like office partitions, but that is eight foot high sheet rock framed in with a somewhat flat roof, just to keep stray dust, drips and drops and draftiness away.”

“Allen, you’ve outdone yourself,” Andy remarked.

“You’ll see some other structures here and there. We keep certain item types separated. Plus, if you wander off in that direction, you may get lost, but there actually is a walk-in entrance to the cave complex as well. It’s not too far off from a small-ish lake. The path has some rises and drops, but the lake is lower than we are. I say lake, but it’s a really big pond maybe. She’s stocked and fed by a small creek that has a smaller creek on the downhill.”

Gary said, “You should maybe look at using that drop for a small hydro plant to power the place.”

“We actually considered that, but it would require more of a drop than we have, sadly. Besides which, we are not so sure we are staying.”

“Oh!”

Sandy was surprised to hear that. Also, she was a little disturbed. She decided to bite her tongue for the moment and wait to hear what was planned. Her initial relief and joy at having arrived at their destination just became dampened. She was relieved at the prospect of hiding out ensconced in a cozy, secure cave to wait out the Great Tribulation and now that does not seem to be the case? Why?

No, she would wait to get her answers. Meantime, she decided to take a quick stroll about the place and see what’s what. Sandy did not have any great desire to go it alone, but when she looked around, the guys, Andy, Allen, Nathan, Gary, were all in full nerd mode talking about features of the cavern. Eva and Rose were getting to know one another and she did not see Kim anywhere. She reasoned if it were her, she would be picking up last minute debris, checking rooms, the toilet seats, the refrigerator and fingerprints on the light switches.

The cavern was tall, broad and impressive. It had not been built out as if by some paranoid multi-millionaire. Where practical the floor had been scraped and paved with several basic framed-in structures constructed on top. None of these were beautiful or trimmed. She supposed if you sent robots to Mars to construct habitations within a cavern to protect them from meteors for future human occupation, they would be as rudimentary, even if the materials were different. Sawdust at the edges of several of them told Sandy that they were recent. Only the large one toward the center showed signs of age. Not decades, certainly, but within five to ten years certainly, for wood within a humid environment will discolor a bit, the drywall edges will look soft at the cardboard.

Sandy figured that this was a rainy day location and it might be a little older, but not by much. The Columbus family were preppers, maybe even a notch beyond and survivalists. Rapture was absolutely not what they expected because the best prep in the world if you saw that coming was to avoid it and repent, but that come-to-Jesus moment never happened with the Columbus family.

Sandy strolled up to the large structure and found the front French doors wide open and the most delightful aromas drifting on gossamer breezes seduced her forward beyond the threshold. There, brushing spices and sprinkling crushed garlic labored Kimberly Columbus. She was a beautiful woman, Sandy noted, slightly curvy probably from birthing a child and enhanced with a bit of gentle age.

On the other hand, for all Sandy knew, she supposed Kim may always have carried a little weight. Not everyone bows to a culture that likes to fat-shame any size one who puts on five pounds or more. Hollywood and New York established ridiculous standards that few could follow, but now both cities are burning. The value and grace of someone is found in their walk and relationship with Christ and not outward, worldly standards. Sandy found herself ashamed for even allowing those years of conditioning to impose themselves now.

Kim saw her and said, “Ah, you found me. Hungry?”

Sandy’s stomach was grumbling. “I should wait for the others.”

“Nonsense. I’m hungry now and when all those men come strolling in it will be all elbows, bravado, maybe even sports. I enjoy soft and meaningful conversation. Besides. Ladies first.”

Sandy didn’t know if this was the absolute best Tortellini or maybe she was just that hungry. It didn’t matter. She was enjoying losing herself in the moment. Kim for the most part held up both sides of the conversation. She correctly assessed it had been literal years since any of the crew had enjoyed a proper home cooked meal.

“Help yourself to more, if you like. There’s plenty. Once we begin traveling, as you know, it won’t be quite as good. It’s not like you are going to have to worry about getting fat, and even if you did put a couple pounds on, you could use it. When you are on the run with bad food, fluffy is good. Eat!”

Sandy laughed.

In the course of their visit, Sandy learned more about Allen. She and Kim shared a laugh over Sandy laughing at that officer Andy Williams’ name when telling Kim how they met. Kim shared how Allen is really her husband’s middle name because his parents had unkindly named him Christopher before giving him up to the adoption agency. Then Kim swore Sandy to secrecy, saying she probably shouldn’t have said anything.

She learned that Allen had done well for himself in business after many failures, but that one success was pretty big and still going, operating in the capable hands of talented men and women. At least up until recently, it had done well. Seeing where the U.S. was sadly headed, the trend being mostly toward corruption and decline due to the miscreants behind the scenes eating her from within like cancer, the Columbus family stocked up here and there, squirreled away good items for trade with a view toward a time when dollars weren’t worth donut holes, plus invested in collectible silver and gold.

Sandy learned as well that their intention was to follow the cues of some Christian fiction novels and books and bet on Petra as the mountains in the east outside Jerusalem as the best bet to hole up for the duration as God divinely protects a remnant there. How on earth was Allen planning to get them there, Sandy wondered? Kim did not know, but only that they were exploring options. Yikes.

Sandy shared with Kim how they used the Noodler App in conjunction with the Bible to keep track of events and timeline them somewhat, with some admittedly blurry edges. Then Kim asked what is supposed to happen next, what judgment were they in… She had little clue and had difficulty comprehending Revelation. Sandy assured her she would not have understood a third of what she knew were it not for Cassie’s notes in the Noodler App, Nathan’s ability to dig and unpack that, Gary’s years of knowledge sitting under his pastor father, and now Andy’s Witness memory that loses nothing.

Kim was utterly and completely gob-smacked at Sandy’s revelation as to Andy’s identity and role in this Tribulation Week. Andy had not disclosed it to them. Or if he had to Allen, Allen had not disclosed it to Kim. Between the two of them they figured much had not been disclosed among them with phone communications in serious and growing doubt. Not surprising as Kim also disclosed to Sandy that Allen’s successes involved government contracts of an undisclosed nature that involved innocuous service contracts, but also at least one contract of a sort that Allen was not even prepared to whisper to Kim as their heads lay upon their pillows in the dark of night.

Sandy wondered at this and what God may be doing since there are no accidents with God when the guys all showed up, raving about the smells wafting throughout the cavern. She was puzzled when she looked at Kim who smiled and pointed at a small exhaust fan in the wall above the stove. “My dinner bell,” she smiled. “Works every time.” Rose and Eva brought up the rear, heads together conspiratorially and giggling like the youngsters they were. It was so nice to see. The many months and journey after the loss of her parents and home had been rough on Eva. It was wonderful to see the little girl come out.

“Peaches,” Allen said to Kim. “We’re going to eat, but dessert is going to have to be over the conference table with all the notes we have.” When Kim returned a puzzled look, he added, “It seems we are about to endure an event of biblical proportions that we hadn’t counted on.” Looking at the spread before them he quipped, “Smells lovely! Shall we pray?”
 
Giskard

Giskard

Only human
21 b​


On the far wall the big screen TV played out scenes violence, juxtaposed with police forces taking things in hand and calming areas. A strong military presence is always presented these days, but now with smiling soldiers handing out food boxes, throwing footballs or playing catch with teens. Ridiculously enough Sandy witnessed a soldier walking an old lady across the street. Frequently during such scenes Lukas could be seen in the corner of the screen smiling during a speech, or offering a stern, fatherly speech at a scene of violence.

The news had grown predictably unreliable. Talk about Fake News, it had developed into an art form from within the bowels of Hollywood itself. Dissenting opinion no longer would be aired. Deep fakes were now de rigour within the media. There had been a tribulation saint prominent for a time in social media who shared the gospel regularly named Shannon Pete. Now Shannon Pete was a wanted man with regular replays of cell phone footage showing him gunning down a group of diners in a bar and screaming, “Burn in Hell!” Similarly damning footage aired heavily featuring “Right Wing Extremists” all over the world, whether religious, political or military. More frequently were faked (Sandy strongly suspected) sexual video clips she was grateful were blurred out.

Sandy pulled her attention back to the discussion at the table where Andy, Nathan and Gary had been getting the Columbus family up to speed on biblical events past, current and future concerning the Tribulation Week.

“So, wait,” Allen said. “Okay, so just to understand. You say we’ve hit that 5th Trumpet, and I get that. Those things were nasty, we all saw them. I gotta thank God above I did not see the horrors you witnessed; the undead out there. I can’t imagine. So that was the First Woe and two more Woes are still waiting in the wings. Excuse the pun. Right so far?”

“Correct,” Andy said.

“Now the 6th Trumpet is just about on us and it is the release of the four angels bound at the Euphrates?”

“Yes.”

“See I thought that was that business with the army of 200 million that come from China or something and invade.”

“That’s what some have written in some novels and even in some speculative end times prophecy books, but that is a mash-up of two different events. Revelation 9 says in verse 15 that they will kill a third of mankind. That would absolutely be more than who now lives remaining in the Middle East, right?”

“Uhm…”

“Go like this and nod. Plus, look at what they do, what they look like. Does that sound like any army on earth you ever saw? Then look at verse 18. They are called plagues, not men. Nowhere does it say anything about Asia. Some Bible teachers have jumbled this trumpet here in chapter nine with the Bowl Judgment way up in chapter 16, far later in the future. Take a look there:

“12 The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east.

“See, that is waaay after the Antichrist gets possessed by Satan and goes into the temple and declares himself God, turns on Israel and the saints, the sun fries people, all water turns to blood… That is going to be terrible, but we aren’t there yet.”

“Gotcha. Okay. Same river, different events. Darn.”

“Yeah. So you can see the urgency here,” Gary said to Allen. “There are close to 200 million square miles on the earth’s surface, so that is one of these creatures per square mile.”

“I like those odds,” Kim noted.

“Yeah,” said Nathan, “Except that about seventy percent is water, or of course, thirty percent land.”

Allen said, “What, so, we might have three or four of those damnable things per square mile? For how long? Are we in danger?”

They all shared a somber look.

“I know this isn’t easy to hear,” Andy said. “What we have seen so far is the easy part. People call this seven year period ‘The Great Tribulation’ all the time, but Jesus marked that time off beginning in the middle when ‘The Abomination That Makes Desolate’ happens. That is also 2 Thessalonians 2 when the Antichrist goes into the holy place and he and the False Prophet erect the image of the Beast and demand worship. That is where the mark of the Beast becomes mandatory. From there things really become Hell On Earth.

“We have the final two Woes, the Bowl Judgments, Armageddon, then through all this we have the persecution of the saints at full throttle. Travel, supplies, all this will make the stories of the old Soviet Union or Communist China look like a picnic. Instead of corrupt politicians running things we will have Satan himself running a global organization. The Holy Spirit is no longer restraining evil. Evil has free reign and free run upon the earth. We may not all survive.”

Again, everyone shared concerned looks.

“Jesus said in his Olivet Discourse that unless those days were shortened that no flesh would be saved. Now, I don’t think that means the earth will start spinning faster to make the days shorter. What Jesus meant was, he himself will shorten that period, step in and say, ‘Enough!’ and come wrap matters up. By the time he comes back, existence on earth will be in its final months. Maybe even days. Armageddon will have been the war, literally, to end all wars, but for the Lion of Judah stepping down.”

“How can we ever survive? Can we survive?” Sandy wondered. “I don’t mind dying and finding myself in glory, but I don’t exactly look forward to a beheading or dying in the flames from the mouth of a demonic soldier or sting from its tail. Does that make me a coward?”

Allen said, “Even Jesus in the Garden at Gethsemane prayed to the Father that if possible, let this cup pass from him. Jesus was God, but the first time he came, he was also man. He was not weak but he was also human, as we all are. No normal and mentally healthy functioning human being looks forward to a grisly death, Sandy.”

She nodded, but she still doubted.

“And in answer to the first part of your question, we have discussed how that God will supernaturally protect a remnant at Petra. I firmly believe we understand that correctly. The plan is still to get there as soon as humanly possible, with prayer and some divine providence, we trust.”

There came a thunderous boom and nearly everyone jumped.

“What was that?” Eva said worriedly.

Allen said, “That would be Michael and Jake. I asked them to lower the door.”

“I didn’t notice a door,” Nathan said.

“Me either,” Gary said. “I guess I was too taken in by the drive into the cavern.”

“It’s hard to notice coming in out of the sun, but it’s a huge military grade door on these big hydraulic legs. Next, the guys will make sure that man-sized opening the other way is secured. I sure hope those things don’t stay out there too long. Any ideas about that?” Allen asked.

Andy said, “I can’t say, from a biblical standpoint. We can speculate that these Judgments tend to not overlap too long, so far. The Bowls may be different but again, I’m guessing at this point.”

“Well,” Kim said. “Jesus is coming and he will make all things new, the Bible says. I have to trust in that. He has his plans and God is sovereign. He is in control.”

“Amen,” Sandy said, and everyone responded the same as one.

Nathan began to stand slowly and Sandy saw his eyes transfixed. He was looking at the television, and everyone followed his gaze. The crawler at the bottom of the screen said Baghdad. People were running and shrieking in terror. An unsteady hand pointed down a road showed much dust and smoke, but that was nothing new. Sandy expected what would emerge would be armored vehicles of some kind from an invading army. Instead, the invading army that began to emerge looked to be horses. She saw the hooves. Then it occurred to her. This did not look right at all.

Though smoke filled and streams of fire belching forth, this was what they had come to call The Horde; that army of 200 million demonic creatures released from the Euphrates. Why she had not put Baghdad together with the Euphrates River she blamed her western public education. She could make out that above the legs of what she first thought were horses were absolutely not. She could catch glimpses of red and blue armor. Normally, she might have thought it pretty. She could see they did have heads much like lions, great sharp teeth and long hair, longer than a lion’s though. No, now that she looked more closely at the shaking image, these were the heads of those riding, but upon not exactly horses, though they had hooves. They were dark and shadowy. Sandy thought she might finally get to see them more clearly as they approached until a belch of fire in the direction of the person video recording abruptly ended the feed.

The news anchor was caught watching the monitor off-camera, his mouth hanging open. His hand went up to his ear as he no doubt heard instructions from a producer or the director. He looked up toward the camera but he made a cut motion at his neck and the station went to a commercial about baby diapers. An irony Sandy could appreciate.

Sandy looked around and now all eyes had turned to Andy, his brow furrowed.

Andy drew in a great breath and simply said, “Here it comes.”

End Book One​
 
Giskard

Giskard

Only human
What about a Prologue?

Reason being, it is popular to dispute with the Doctrine of the Rapture today, but the story does not really much permit discussion because, well, the entire premise is that it happened.

Prologue can be a chapter before the chapters to set up backstory a bit and address the argument. Agree or not? Is it going to be too tedious? Yet, to be thorough one could write another entire book! Maybe another Prequal one day. ;-)

Anyway, I will paste a short one in, but it may be off the mark. You tell me.

Thanks much, folks!
 
Giskard

Giskard

Only human
Prologue​

Nathan sat in the auditorium seat, fidgeting. Next to him sat Cassie Johnson, Cass, to her friends and family, but sometimes the initials served. Nathan was feeling conspicuous to those around him, not because he was a young black man sitting with a pretty white girl, no, no. That would be too simple. No, his sense of uncomfortable vulnerability weighed on him from something far more complex with eternal implications. How had he come to this? Because he’s a sucker.

Cass had been relentless in “witnessing” to Nathan almost from the start. This young church girl sank her hooks into him from the first day they’d met in a Young Republicans meeting on campus and, he being black, had felt a bit conspicuous then as well. He was… concerned… about what folk might say if they saw him walking in to such a meeting, though he agreed with the basic conservative tenets of that party. It was not a popular position for a young black in Southern California.

It was Cassie’s first time attending as well and they sort of caught each other’s eye and pegged one another as fellow awkward Newbs. Somehow, Cass managed to prick his curiosity for the spiritual with talk about end times prophecy. Well, he was curious, so here they sat in the auditorium of a nearby Junior College listening to a Prophecy Conference speaker named Darren Woods. Nathan had to admit, it got him thinking. What if this stuff were true?

The session was wrapping up and a couple people with mics were on hand to take questions and a guy raised his hand. “Yeah, so, how do we know when the end is? I mean, the Rapture because I guess we know the end because Jesus coming down will be a giveaway.” Several people laughed.

Darren said, “True that, but you’ve really hit on a great point. Jesus castigated the Pharisees for being able to predict the weather by looking at the signs, yet not know prophetic signs. Jesus commanded his disciples to ‘watch therefore.’ Watch for what? If we are watching for Jesus, what does that look like? Peter, James, John and Andrew cornered Jesus on the Mount of Olives, it says in Mark 13, to ask the same question, but it was Matthew who recorded the most thorough account of Jesus’ response. It was in Matthew 24. Before you go and try to harmonize Matthew, Mark and Luke’s accounts, know this: Luke’s account is different. How? When you go to Luke 21 you will notice Jesus is giving a public accounting while in the temple. What Mark 13 and Matthew 24 and 25 records is an account later, after the Luke account while the disciples left with Jesus and were walking up on the Mount of Olives itself. That is key.”

“I guess I’d like to know, and it’s a loaded question, how do we know there really is a Rapture? I mean, that word isn’t even in the Bible,” the guy asked.

Darren said, “To that I like to respond, the word ‘Bible’ is not in the Bible.” More chuckles. “No, I’m serious though. Many things we tag a name to are not named per se in the English Bible. The word Rapture is from the older Latin Bible. In the original Greek text the word is ‘harpadzo’ so how would you like to remember and say that each time. That word is in the original Greek in a handful of places, but most noticeably in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. ‘Rapture’ is just the Latin variant that just sort of stuck. ‘Harpadzo’ means, ‘to catch up’ or ‘to snatch away’ or ‘to take.’ It is a concept all too familiar with the Hebrews as part of the larger ancient wedding traditions.

“There are many stages to the wedding traditions, just as there are in the western world. We meet, we date, there is the proposal, a ring, planning, the wedding day, the honeymoon… All things according to tradition though not set in stone. In Galilee, a young couple may know each other and express interest to their fathers, or at least one will. The Father will look into it, make arrangements. There is a ceremony, raise your hand if this sounds familiar, where there is a contract, a covenant, where the joining is formalized. The bridegroom drinks wine from the cup and, if the bride agrees, she drinks too. I’m over-simplifying, but for the sake of time.

“Anyway, at this time, unlike our western traditions, the bridegroom and bride are officially married though not intimate, but they are committed. There is a gift the bridegroom gives his bride until he returns, just as Jesus gave his bride the Holy Spirit. Reread John 14 again sometime.

Also unlike western modern culture, he does not go apartment or home hunting. No, he goes and adds on to his father’s house with a room addition. It is his father who must approve of the construction and modifications and this may take about a year. At the time construction is complete, the father tells his son, ‘Go take your bride.’

“I am, again, skipping some parts, but at the time of The Taking, the bridegroom with his best man and the rest of his party leave to Take the bride. It is all in good fun and joy, frequently at midnight, for a bit more fun, and this often large processional marches through the streets, singing, shouting, blowing the shofar. The best man might yell something as he approaches the bride’s residence like, ‘Behold the Groom!’

“Now this is important. The bridegroom’s party never gets all the way to the bride’s parent’s residents. They may make it as far as the gate outside, shouting and blowing the trumpet. He meets her partway. She has made herself ready. Her bride’s maids, the virgins, are ready. They have oil in their lamps and they have them lit. The gate is opened and she goes through with her party and the two parties join and return to the father’s house for a, get this, week-long celebration. They celebrate, not for a day, not for three-and-a-half, but for seven days. So there is a week-long celebration and feasting. The door to the father’s house is locked up during that seven days. No one in or out. At the end of the week, the door is opened to the public and, though everyone knows who the bride is, she is unveiled officially before the public and there is the announcement, ‘Behold the Bride, the Wife!’ after which time comes the public Marriage Supper.

“Now does some of that sound familiar?”

Well, a bit of it did to Nathan, but then he was not all that well versed in such things from the Bible and certainly not in this light. Several people around him responded with excitement and some cried with joy.

Woods then remarked, “This is why sometimes Jesus might make a statement that to us seems enigmatic, and yet the disciples just sort of accept it without question. So when Jesus says, ‘No one knows the day or the hour, not the son or even the angels of Heaven, but the Father only,’ the disciples don’t ask, ‘What does that mean? I’m confused.’ Because they know the traditions they think, ‘Ah. This is like a wedding. Jesus keeps likening the Kingdom to a wedding and he’s doing it again.’ Make sense?”

Someone else shoots a hand up, a young lady this time. “So wait. I get that you’re saying the week-long celebration is happening in Heaven while the Tribulation is happening on earth?”

“Exactly. Again, note that as Jeremiah the prophet said of that day, it is the time of Jacob’s trouble. Now, class, who was Jacob?”

Nathan recalled and someone, actually several people shouted, “Israel!”

Woods said, “Remember, when you read 1 Thessalonians chapters four and five it is clear that Paul does not prep us for how to survive or deal with the Tribulation wrath. He says the opposite. He says about that time we need not concern ourselves. Really!? That would be an absurd statement if we are going through it. Instead he uses several statements contrasting ‘but they’ with ‘but we.’ We are children of light, they are children of darkness.

“Look at another place where this is addressed. In Revelation 3:10 we have John taking down by dictation directly from Jesus. He says, ‘Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.’ So if this trial, or tribulation, is on the whole earth and it is to test those who dwell on the earth, how can the church, the bride of Christ be there? And what does Jesus mean when he says he will ‘keep you from the hour of trial?’ We know that there are saints who come out of the Tribulation and there are many who are martyred. Follow me here; if Jesus is promising the church he will keep them from the hour of trial, how do you get martyrs?”

Another shoots his hand up, waving frantically, “But if those saints die by the forces of Antichrist, isn’t that his wrath and not God’s?”

Darren Woods said, “Two points I want to make here. One, the source of wrath or trial here is not indicated. Jesus makes no distinction. God is sovereign so, just as Satan had to ask for permission to try Job, it remains the same to this day. Two, either way, as we see in Revelation chapter six when the first Seals are opened, they are the Four Horsemen and they, including Antichrist, are released by the Lamb of God, so either way, it is the wrath of God. We see the same thing in Ezekiel 38, that Gog is led by the nose to mete out God’s wrath.

“Revelation 13 says that it is given to Antichrist, by then possessed by Satan, to persecute the saints on the earth at that time, and to overcome them in verse seven. But what did Jesus say in the gospels? Remember what he said in Matthew regarding the gates of Hell? Matthew 16:18 Jesus told Peter about the church, ‘the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.’ Yet in Revelation 13 during the tribulation, we see the gates of Hell prevail. Either God is lying, or the church is not on the earth at that time. There are saints who come to Christ during that time, saints just like the saints in the Old Testament days, but they are not the church, the bride of Christ celebrating their wedding.”

Woods flipped a few pages in his Bible and scanned some verses. “There is a famous chapter in the Bible that is noted for its defense of the resurrection. That chapter is 1 Corinthians 15. Someone please tell me what this part is about. Beginning verse fifty-one, what does this mean?

‘Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.’

“So again, when does that happen? That is a Rapture verse if ever there was one. In Luke’s version of the Olivet Discourse he records Jesus saying that day will be as in the days of Noah and of Lot. That is often overlooked but what happened with Lot? Anyone?”

“Sodom and Gomorrah,” someone shouted out.

“Exactly. Remember how that went down? The Reader’s Digest Condensed version, some of you don’t know what that is, but at any rate, the short version is that Abraham finds himself entertaining some angels in Genesis eighteen. One of them was The Angel of the Lord, or second person of the trinity before he came to us as Jesus. Now Abe is concerned for Lot and family that they will be destroyed. Abe cautiously asks, ‘Hey, if there are, say, fifty righteous, would you spare the city?’ The Lord says he will spare the city for fifty. Abraham keeps bringing the number down, all the way down, bit by bit. So the Lord said, Then he said, ‘Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?’ And the Lord said, ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.’

“Get the meaning of that? God said He would not pour out wrath on Sodom if there were only just ten righteous. Now Christians are only righteous because when the Father sees us, He sees only Christ’s righteousness. Apart from Christ, we have no righteousness. At the Rapture when all believers who carry the righteousness of Christ are gone, then there are none righteous left. Boom! Wrath!

“Okay, as you know, that’s not the end of the story. All kinds of evil is still going on, even as they are all in Sodom trying to get Lot and his family out. Next day, Lot is still hanging out but doesn’t want to go where he was told. He asks if he can go to a different town. In the next chapter in verse twenty-two we the angel says to Lot, ‘Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.’ Extraordinary! See, the Lord Himself could not do anything until this man of faith, albeit a weak one, was out of the way. Why? God is just! He will not punish the just with the unjust. The just must be removed.

“Or, as in the days of Noah, Jesus said folks will be rolling through life, business as usual, about their routines, then sudden destruction. His words, not mine. That’s another way we know Jesus was not talking about the Second Coming. I mean, we have lots of destruction according to what Jesus says right there in Matthew 24. Nothing so bad up until that time and nothing worse to follow. That’s not ‘sudden destruction.’ That is several years of horrors upon the earth. Folks will not be marrying and giving in marriage, about the daily routines by the time Jesus comes back down to the earth. It will be during Armageddon. Folks will be hiding out and cowering, at least those who are left. No, the days of Noah were men and women mocking Noah, scoffing at his family and their fantasy of a flood and an ark to get above it. Then, sudden destruction when the rains came.

“Men and women, it’s about to rain. Do not wait till you fill that first drop hit your nose. It may be too late.”

Nathan was left pondering those words. He didn’t know whether they were true or not and for sure did not want to find out the hard way that they were true. He sort of doubted it though, even if Cass and this crowd did not.
 
Giskard

Giskard

Only human
Papa said:
When is book 2 coming out? Loved the first one.
Click to expand...

Unofficially, Revelation is a book 2. The Prequel was SHIFT (see very first post).

Working on Rewrites of Revelation to submit for publication. As soon as I can put that much to rest, I will resume with the rest of the Tribulation.

Thank you!
 
P

Papa

Senior Member
Giskard said:
Unofficially, Revelation is a book 2. The Prequel was SHIFT (see very first post).

Working on Rewrites of Revelation to submit for publication. As soon as I can put that much to rest, I will resume with the rest of the Tribulation.

Thank you!
Click to expand...
Ok I missed first one.
 
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