The Rapture: Evil Advances / Before They Were Left Behind Page 16

  Pots boiled over and started fires that were burning homes and apartment buildings. Driverless cars careened into trucks, buses, other cars, bridges, and abutments, resulting in the mess Abdullah saw below. Doctors had disappeared during operations, instruments falling into body cavities, colleagues collapsing in horror.

  A baby had disappeared while being born. A nurse’s uniform had floated to the floor. An entire soccer team, save for one hysterical teammate, left their uniforms, shoes, and socks on the field as the ball trickled out-of-bounds. Stories like this poured in from all around the world.

  Something niggled at the back of Abdullah’s brain, but it didn’t hit him full force until panicky commentators—usually so all knowing and aloof—began speculating on the various theories. Radiation. Spontaneous combustion that somehow eluded clothing and jewelry. An entirely new form of weaponry. Or the old religious saws: the end of the world. The Rapture.

  Not many seriously considered that one, but it had to be raised because nobody had a better idea. And as it gathered steam, supporters and detractors called in with what they had heard and learned over the years from the few kooks who believed such things.

  Abdullah shuddered. Yasmine had warned him of this. She had spelled it out plainly in one of the letters that had so enraged him. And he was certain it was one he had not destroyed.

  He had wanted to shred and burn it, had meant to. He had balled it up and thrown it across the room because it also contained the step-by-step instructions for becoming a follower of Christ. But if memory served, this was one of the letters he had smoothed back out and put in his metal lockbox. Now he was desperate to check it again, because if she had been right and this was what he feared, she and the children were gone.

  TWENTY

  HAD IRENE STEELE been forced from her reverie—impossible, of course, in the very presence of God—and asked her most stark impression of heaven so far, she would have had to admit that most jarring was her new concept of time. On Earth she had been in an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly cycle sometimes carved into semesters or trimesters or even gestation periods. She was aware of interminable dark winter months, the elusive spring, and flashbulb summers she couldn’t make linger.

  But here . . . here it was so different. She simply could not put a clock on how long it had been since she had been awakened from a deep sleep and delivered to the portals of heaven. So much had happened that she could have been here an hour or a week or—who knew?—longer.

  Yet it seemed like an instant. She had been told that time would have no meaning in the light of eternity, and she had to chuckle to recall what she once thought that meant. Perhaps she would set up whatever kind of housekeeping one set up in glory, visit Jesus, talk to God, meet friends and biblical saints, see the sights, and then settle in, realizing she had a long, long time ahead of her.

  She had not, however, expected time to simply have no bearing. Irene had zero sense of the passage of time, and only in those fleeting moments when she wondered what was going on on Earth did she think about what might have happened between the shout, the trumpet sound, and right now.

  She could only imagine the chaos below. What Rayford and Chloe were thinking. Whether they were reunited. Were communication and travel impossible? How long would it take them to remember what she and Raymie had talked of, warned them about? In one sense, she thought, this should be easy for them. They had not believed, but now what could they think? Would it be obvious to anyone who had had exposure to believers that, as crazy as it had all sounded, clearly what their friends, loved ones, and acquaintances had predicted had come true?

  Everything about this place, needless to say, constituted sensory overload, and Irene realized that her mind had to be as new as her glorified body. Otherwise, how could she manage to take it all in? Things like this happening on Earth would have either driven her mad or made her pass out from their sheer implausibility. This ability to move about at the speed of thought, to understand what was going on without being told, to communicate with people and, best of all, with God instantaneously, almost without a back and forth. She wondered and knew at the same time.

  The “leaders” of this massive meeting did not step to a microphone and announce the program or introduce the participants. They spoke to the hearts and ears and minds of everyone all at once, and you simply knew. God had honored His Son, of course, and His voice was unmistakable, but it wasn’t as if anyone assembled in the house of God wondered who sat on the throne.

  Irene sat enthralled, unaware of the weight of her body on a chair, with no feeling of fatigue or ache or pain or that charming memory: time. Impatience was not an issue. Boredom she could never imagine again. Heartache and loss were strange, muted, overwhelmed in the presence of her Savior. She was still concerned about her family, but something—actually Someone—had embedded into her new mind and body a deep sense of contentment and peace that told her she had no part in that which was to come as it related to Rayford and Chloe. Still she prayed for them and somehow believed without question that God knew best and that His will would be done.

  Seemingly from nowhere, a translucent podium appeared some thirty feet to the left of the throne, emitting from its center a piercing flame so white and bright that all Irene could compare it to was the flash of burning magnesium from a high school experiment. That had required that students wear welding masks to protect their eyes, but she was able to gaze at this great light without danger and sense its powerful, incomparable heat. Something told her that in her mortal body she would not have been able to stand within twenty feet of it.

  The apostle Paul left his place before the throne and humbly addressed the masses: “We were God’s fellow workers; we were God’s field, we were God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But each was to take heed how he built on it. For no other foundation could anyone lay than that which was laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone built on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, now one’s work will become clear; now it shall be declared, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If your work built on the sure foundation endures, you will receive a reward. If your work is burned, you will suffer loss; but you yourself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

  So this was what Pastor Billings had been teaching about recently. While salvation was free and granted by grace through faith, still the works of the righteous would be tested. God looked at sinful people through His perfect Son and saw only His perfection, so their salvation was secure, regardless of how their individual works were judged. But their rewards, their various crowns for service to Christ, would be determined by whether the fire exposed precious gems and metals or resulted in ash from the wood, hay, or stubble of bad works or even good deeds done with bad motives.

  Irene knew she had precious little that could even be tested and only wished she had had more time, more knowledge, less selfishness, so that she could present many good deeds for the test. She was grateful that the destiny of her eternal soul did not rest on the work she had or hadn’t done, but in her gratitude for that gift, she wished she could somehow have done more to make obvious her devotion and thanks to God.

  Would she be embarrassed? She couldn’t imagine that, not here, not in the presence of God. Certainly she would bear shame and regret for wasted time, and she would have to rest and glory in the fact that her soul was saved no matter what. But surely the God who loved her would not expose her to ridicule in front of all the believers from time immemorial.

  Irene could only hope that she would be dealt with with some dispatch so that regardless of how she fared she would be able to enjoy seeing crowns bestowed upon the heroes of the faith she had known and read about.

  As soon as Abdullah had completed his first run and reported what he could, he took advantage of a break and landed back at the base.
He hurried to his quarters, unlocked his metal box, and tore through the letters from Yasmine, finally finding the wrinkled, faded one that spoke of this very eventuality.

  Abdullah, I believe—and I am certain you agree—that God hates divorce. It was not my intention that my new faith would result in the end of our marriage. This was your choice, but I concede that staying with you and allowing you influence over our children would have also been untenable as long as you feel the way you do about me now.

  I know this letter will anger you, and neither is that my intention. We have talked and talked about the differences between Islam and Christianity, but please indulge me and allow me to get my thoughts down in order. Hopefully God will help me make them clear.

  I do not expect that you will suddenly see the truth because of my words, but I pray that God will open your heart and will one day reveal Himself to you. As I have said over and over, the difference between what you call “our religions” is that mine is not religion. I have come to believe that religion is man’s effort to please God. I had always been bound by rules, acts of service, good deeds. I was trying as hard as I could to win the favor of Allah so that in the end I would find heaven on Earth.

  But I could never be good enough, Abdullah, and as wonderful as you were for many years, you couldn’t either. That became clear with your unreasonable reaction to my coming to faith in the one true God and Father of Jesus Christ. To you it was anathema, despite the fact that, like me, you had drifted even from the tenets of Islam.

  I believe that to you, my converting was a public humiliation. I regret that, but I could no more hide my true feelings and beliefs than I could ask you to give up flying.

  Just once more, let me clarify: Christians believe the Bible teaches that everyone is born in sin and that the penalty for sin is death. But Jesus paid the price by living a sinless life and dying as a sacrifice for all who believe. Abdullah, you must admit that you have never met a perfect person, and we each know the other is not perfect. We are sinners in need of salvation. We can’t save ourselves, can’t change ourselves. I am most encouraged by your discipline and your efforts. You are now more like the man I married, but don’t you see? You will never be good enough to qualify for heaven, because you would have to be entirely perfect.

  Someday, when you are ready—and I hope it will not be too late—just pray and tell God that you know that you are a sinner, that you are sorry and want to repent and be forgiven. Ask Him to take over your life. The day is coming, prophesied in Scripture, when Jesus will return in the clouds and snatch away all true believers in an instant. No one will see this happen except for those to whom it happens. Those left behind will simply realize that it is all true. Christians from all over the world will disappear. I hope it does not take a tragedy like that—though it will be anything but tragic for those of us who go—to get you to swallow your pride, examine yourself, and humble yourself before God. Of course, if this does happen before you come to true faith, you will know what has occurred. And you will be without excuse. I just pray that you do not lose your life in the resulting chaos before you can become a believer, not in a religion but in a person. Jesus the Christ.

  With fond memories and deep affection, praying for you,

  Yasmine

  Was it possible? Could she and the children be gone? If they were, she had been right. Abdullah could not control his shuddering body. He had to know. He had to get there.

  He dashed outside and found a lone helicopter sitting on the tarmac. It’s pilot, Khalid, stood next to it. “Ya Sidi,” Abdullah said, “Might you have time to run me to my home? I must check on my family.”

  “Of course, Ya Bek. I have just refueled.”

  On the way, Abdullah asked Khalid what he had heard from his own family.

  “They are safe, praise Allah. But of course they are terrified, as we all are. No one can imagine what has happened.”

  Twenty minutes later the chopper kicked up a cloud of sand as Khalid put down in the narrow, steeply inclined space between Abdullah’s former home and the house behind it. Abdullah was immediately struck by the absence of children. His was a neighborhood full of families mostly larger than his, and by this time of the morning it was usually teeming with activity, children of all ages running around. Now all he saw were wailing adults and a few teenagers, wandering, horror etched on their faces.

  “Would you like me to go in with you, Ya Bek?”

  “No, thank you, friend. I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as Abdullah entered the back door, he was overcome by the odor of burned food. He rushed to the tiny kitchen to find a pan over an open flame, the residue of falafel and hummus blackened and smoking. Abdullah grabbed a towel and slung the red-hot pan into the sink, quickly turning off the gas. Only then did he realize he was standing on something.

  Yasmine’s thiyab was underfoot, and as Abdullah stepped back, he realized her undergarments and slippers were there too. In all their years together he had never known her to leave her clothes on the floor, even in the bedroom. Clearly she had been standing here. Yasmine had long made a practice of rising before the family and waking them with the smell of breakfast cooking.

  He moved to the tiny bedroom the children shared. There, on their mats, lay their nightclothes. Abdullah’s mind tried to play tricks on him, to tell him this was a mistake, that his family was elsewhere, that there was some explanation for the appearance that they had disappeared right out of their clothes.

  But he knew the truth. In a stupor, his hands shaking, Abdullah grabbed the children’s clothes, picked up Yasmine’s outer garments, and walked stiff legged back to the copter.

  As he climbed in, Khalid said, “What, Ya Bek? Are they all right?”

  Abdullah could not speak. He shook his head.

  “Gone?”

  Abdullah nodded, lips quivering.

  “You want to go back to the base?”

  He nodded again, and yielding to emotion so overpowering that he was incapable of keeping himself from doing something he had never before done in front of another man, Abdullah buried his face in the clothes of his beloved family and wept.

  Again Irene was fascinated that she merely knew what was going on without anyone saying so. Somehow God revealed to her—and, of course, to everyone else at the same time—that it was time for the next phase of the bema or the judgment seat of Christ. Works were to be tested by fire to see what remained and what ignited like kindling, and then the judged would receive from Jesus at least praise for trusting Him for salvation but ideally one or more of four separate crowns.

  The Crown of Life would be awarded to those who had remained faithful through trials, some even to the point of martyrdom. Irene was reminded of the admonition in the book of James: “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. . . . Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

  Pastor Billings had recently taught on the statement of Jesus Himself from John’s Revelation: “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. . . . Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name.”

  The Crown of Righteousness was reserved for those who had eagerly awaited the Lord’s return. Irene had long admired this in the apostle Paul, who, when standing in the courts of Rome, had been more concerned about the court of heaven.

  For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my
departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

  The Crown of Glory was promised to those who had shepherded God’s flock with pure motives. Irene enjoyed hearing Pastor Billings talk about the heavy weight of stewardship and accountability he felt to serve willingly rather than out of some compulsion. He often cited 1 Peter in relation to his calling:

  Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.

  The Crown of Rejoicing would go to the soul winner. Paul had written to the Thessalonians:

  For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For you are our glory and joy.

  To the Philippians he had written:

  Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved.

  In John 4, Jesus taught that those who shared His passion for the lost and were active in evangelism were gathering fruit for eternal life. “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ”