The Rapture: Evil Advances / Before They Were Left Behind Page 20

  Strange though. Maybe it was the darkness. It seemed at least one seat in each row was empty. Several seemed to have two or more. Yet Hattie had seen only one woman in the aisle several minutes before. And she had not seen that woman return.

  With every lav now vacant, Hattie’s eyes had to be playing tricks on her. Surely she was simply missing these people in the shadows, under blankets and pillows. But as her eyes widened—partly in alarm, she knew—it was as if her night vision improved. About a third of the seats she studied looked empty.

  This was a full flight. Hattie scowled in concentration. Focus. There had to be an explanation. It had to be her. She was missing something. Or was she still sitting, taking a break, dozing, dreaming this? That had happened before. Once, thoroughly sleep deprived, she had drowsed in a jump seat, only to dream that the craft had landed, but everyone was asleep and she couldn’t wake them to disembark.

  Hattie took a deep breath. She was awake. She knew it. And this would all make sense in a moment when it would somehow come together in her mind. But she couldn’t help leaning past a sleeping man in an aisle seat and feeling the two seats beyond him. Both were empty. All she felt were blankets and what seemed like clothes. On the second seat she felt earrings. What was going on?

  Six straight aisle seats on both sides had heads silhouetted in the dim light, but the next three, on both sides, were empty. The first one she checked revealed a man who had slid down beyond her view. But the others were vacant, blankets and clothes and jewelry lying there.

  Hattie couldn’t breathe. Where were these people? She hurried up the aisle, no longer caring about the weight of her footfall.

  A woman turned to see her coming and whispered, “Is anything wrong?”

  Hattie mustered her cheerful voice. “No, ma’am. Everything’s fine.” But she couldn’t slow herself. Several more seats were empty before she reached the bank of lavs, and all of them still showed “Vacant” on the doors. She knocked and opened each, hoping they were full of people answering nature’s call who had somehow suffered from mass forgetfulness, leaving the doors unlocked. But no. All were empty.

  Hattie rushed forward, only to trip on a pile of . . . what? She bent to examine it and picked it up to clear the aisle. It was a woman’s complete outfit, including hosiery, undergarments, and accessories. Hattie felt a sob rising in her throat. She must not cry out. This was where the woman she had seen had seemed to disappear.

  Right out of her clothes?

  And then it hit Hattie. At least a couple dozen children had boarded this flight. She now saw none. She pushed toward the galley to dump the pile of clothes.

  There she met another flight attendant, who said, “Miss Durham, what’s up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Call buttons began to ding. Reading lamps came on. People called out, “Hey! What? Ma’am? Sir?”

  Hattie toyed with illuminating the cabin lights, but if that revealed her worst fears that a hundred or more passengers had disappeared out of their clothes, she could incite a riot.

  “Have you seen Tony?” an attendant said. “He was back there, and now I don’t see him. Something’s going on and we need him. We need everybody. Hattie, where are all these people?”

  Hattie held a finger to her mouth and trotted toward the stairs at the front of the plane. She was going to see if this craziness extended to first class, and then she was heading for the cockpit.

  Irene had heard of an organization called Wycliffe Bible Translators, but she knew little about it and nothing about whomever it had been named for. That was soon remedied as John Wycliffe, a fourteenth-century saint, reached the fire judgment and his story was impressed upon the minds of everyone in the house of God.

  Wycliffe had been a scholar who apparently had almost as much to do with the reformation of the church as had the more famous Martin Luther of the following century. Like Luther, Wycliffe came to believe that the essence of the gospel was that Christ’s own righteousness is imputed to those who believe, and on that ground alone they are accepted by God.

  Wycliffe faced persecution and opposition from religious leaders of his day, but he persevered and eventually led the way in translating the Scriptures into the language of the people, a revolutionary concept at that time. He also expounded upon his theological ideas and sent out preachers to do the same.

  Irene had always taken for granted that she was able to read the Bible in English, but until Wycliffe’s translation, Jerome’s Latin Vulgate had been the only Scripture available. Also, anyone other than clergy had been prohibited from reading the Bible. Wycliffe’s work was so controversial that years later the church actually prohibited the translation of the Bible.

  But Wycliffe believed it was crucial that Christians be able to read God’s Word in their own language. He believed the Scriptures were inspired of God and should be accepted without reserve.

  Because the printing press had not yet been invented, every word had to be handwritten. More than six hundred years later, over one hundred and fifty handwritten copies still existed.

  Wycliffe also trained and sent out “Bible-Men,” students who had been ordained but without a bishop’s license. He instructed them to not settle in any particular area, to avoid worldly pursuits, and to study and preach the Bible. They wore long reddish gowns and carried staffs, but they were barefoot. They carried at least a portion of Wycliffe’s translation and preached wherever they could find an audience.

  Wycliffe had been widely thought the best preacher of his day. He centered his sermons around the meaning of the Bible passage and then the application of the text to the lives of the hearers.

  Jesus presented him the crowns of Glory and Rejoicing.

  TWENTY-SIX

  NOT SURE he’d follow through with anything overt, Captain Rayford Steele felt an irresistible urge to see Hattie Durham right then. He unstrapped himself and squeezed his first officer’s shoulder on the way out of the cockpit. “We’re still on auto, Christopher,” he said as the younger man roused and straightened his headphones. “I’m gonna make the sunup stroll.”

  Christopher squinted and licked his lips. “Doesn’t look like sunup to me, Cap.”

  “Probably another hour or two. I’ll see if anybody’s stirring anyway.”

  “Roger. If they are, tell ’em Chris says, ‘Hey.’ ”

  Raymie Steele found it interesting that God seemed to have a theme going that was giving him a crash course in church history. The next supplicant was a contemporary of Wycliffe who was also instrumental in translating the Scriptures. As a young man, John Hus had worked in churches in Prague and become known as a humble servant and a devoted student. He was eventually ordained to the priesthood and assigned as the preacher in the new Bethlehem Chapel in Prague.

  Hus was impacted by the writings of Wycliffe and helped translate and circulate much of Wycliffe’s work. At first Hus did not face opposition for his views but was actually a favorite of his archbishop. Eventually, however, the archbishop was ordered to speak out against what were considered the heresies of Wycliffe and to forbid any further criticism of the clergy.

  Later the church ordered that all Wycliffe writings be surrendered for correction. Hus obeyed and publicly declared that he condemned whatever errors existed, but he was eventually called to account by the archbishop for what were termed his “Wycliffite tendencies” and was reported to Rome.

  Wycliffe’s writings were withdrawn from circulation and burned, and when Hus protested, he was excommunicated, along with his sympathizers. When he continued supporting the work of Wycliffe, he was summoned to appear before the pope. Hus further protested practices of the church and the pope, resulting in a papal edict that he be imprisoned and that the Bethlehem Chapel be destroyed. The order was not obeyed by the king of Prague, and at the end of 1412, Hus wrote a treatise about the errors of the church and later posted it on the walls of the Bethlehem Chapel.

  From these works of protest the church extracted propos
itions it considered heretical, and the Council of Constance was assembled. Hus was urged by the king to appear there and defend his doctrine. At Constance he was condemned and burned at the stake.

  Jesus presented Hus the crowns of Glory and Life.

  Hattie Durham was in shape. She worked out nearly every day. Why, then, was her heart pounding and her lungs overtaxed from the short flight of stairs to first class? She knew.

  As she moved through the cabin she found a good-looking, blond man sleeping, his laptop open, his reading lamp on. She reached across a heavyset, snoring man who smelled of too many drinks and switched off the light. As she backed away she noticed that the dapper old man on the aisle just ahead of those two was gone. His clothes were on the seat. To Hattie’s great relief, the man’s wife still dozed.

  Relief? That was a laugh. Hattie was starring in the horror film of a lifetime.

  A young woman on the other side of the aisle frantically patted the empty seats beside her, calling out, “Bill! Where are the kids?” She spotted Hattie. “Ma’am?”

  Hattie held up a hand. “I’ll be right with you.” And she sprinted toward the cockpit.

  Next on God’s list of those honored for the ministry of His Word was a twentieth-century saint who had made the Scriptures even more understandable to the masses by crafting them to be understood by his children. His laborious private effort was eventually recognized by Christian leaders, and the explosion of his paraphrase, The Living Bible, resulted in worldwide publishing ministries.

  He too suffered for his work, virtually losing his voice for the second half of his life. Ken Taylor was presented with crowns rewarding his enduring trials, feeding the flock, and winning souls.

  His appearance before the flame and the throne began what seemed to Irene an endless parade of more contemporary Christian heroes, missionaries, pastors, evangelists, personal witnesses, and martyrs. Learning all their stories and—amazingly—now being able to remember every detail of thousands of the same was such a rich experience that Irene only occasionally reverted to her curiosity about how much time this might be taking in Earth minutes. It seemed she had been here a year already, but still she felt no hunger, no fatigue, no flagging of attention. And if what God had told her before remained operative, all this was happening in mere Earth moments.

  As Captain Rayford Steele opened the cockpit door, Hattie Durham nearly bowled him over.

  “No need to knock,” he said. “I’m coming.”

  The senior flight attendant pulled him into the galley, but there was no passion in her touch. Her fingers felt like talons on his forearm, and her body shuddered in the darkness.

  “Hattie—”

  She pressed him back against the cooking compartments, her face close to his. Had she not been clearly terrified, he might have enjoyed this and returned her embrace.

  Her knees buckled as she tried to speak, and her voice came in a whiny squeal. “People are missing,” she managed to whisper, burying her head in his chest.

  He took her shoulders and tried to push her back, but she fought to stay close. “What do you m—?”

  She was sobbing now, her body out of control. “A whole bunch of people, just gone!”

  “Hattie, this is a big plane. They’ve wandered off to the lavs or—”

  She pulled his head down so she could speak directly into his ear. Despite her weeping, she was plainly fighting to make herself understood. “I’ve been everywhere. I’m telling you, dozens of people are missing.”

  “Hattie, it’s still dark. We’ll find—”

  “I’m not crazy! See for yourself! All over the plane, people have disappeared.”

  “It’s a joke. They’re hiding, trying to—”

  “Ray! Their shoes, their socks, their clothes—everything was left behind. These people are gone!”

  Hattie slipped from his grasp and knelt whimpering in the corner. Rayford wanted to comfort her, to enlist her help, or to get Chris to go with him through the plane. More than anything he wanted to believe the woman was crazy. She knew better than to put him on. It was obvious she really believed people had disappeared.

  Irene had heard of Campus Crusade for Christ, but as a fairly new believer, she knew nothing of its history or its founder. Thus she was amazed as Bill Bright’s story was revealed and his works were burnished to a huge pile of gold and silver and precious gems.

  Dr. Bright had founded and spent more than fifty years leading an organization that became the world’s largest Christian ministry. He was so motivated by Christ’s command to spread the gospel throughout the world that in 1956 he wrote a booklet titled The Four Spiritual Laws, which was eventually printed in two hundred languages and became the most widely disseminated religious booklet in history. Bright also commissioned the JESUS film, a documentary on the life of Christ, which was translated into more than nine hundred languages and seen by more than 5.4 billion people in 228 countries and became the most widely viewed film in history.

  Bill Bright began his ministry in college by sharing Christ with fellow students at UCLA, which developed into a full-time calling and spawned the eventual worldwide ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. What began as a campus effort grew to deal with almost every segment of society, including inner cities, governments, prisons, families, the military, executives, musicians, athletes, and others.

  Irene and Raymie rose with the rest as Jesus pronounced Bill Bright’s well-done and embraced him, crafting for him from the residue of the flame the Crown of Rejoicing, the soul-winner’s crown.

  The loudest cheers came from the hundreds of millions who were in heaven due to the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.

  Rayford Steele stepped into first class, where an elderly woman sat stunned in the predawn haze, her husband’s sweater and trousers in her hands. “What in the world?” she said. “Harold?”

  Rayford wanted to be strong, to have answers, to be an example to his crew, to Hattie. But when he reached the lower level he knew the rest of the flight would be chaotic. He was as scared as anyone on board. As he scanned the seats, he nearly panicked. He backed into a secluded spot behind the bulkhead and slapped himself hard on the cheek.

  This was no joke, no trick, no dream. Something was terribly wrong, and there was no place to run. There would be enough confusion and terror without his losing control. Nothing had prepared him for this, and he would be the one everybody would look to. But for what? What was he supposed to do?

  First one, then another cried out when they realized their seatmates were missing but their clothes were still there. They cried, they screamed, they leaped from their seats.

  Hattie grabbed Rayford from behind and wrapped her hands so tight around his chest that he could hardly breathe. “Rayford, what is this?”

  He pulled her hands apart and turned to face her. “Hattie, listen. I don’t know any more than you do. But we’ve got to calm these people and get on the ground. I’ll make some kind of announcement, and you and your people keep everybody in their seats. Okay?”

  She nodded, but she didn’t look okay at all. As he edged past her to hurry back to the cockpit, he heard her scream. So much for calming the passengers. He whirled to see her on her knees in the aisle.

  Hattie lifted a blazer, shirt, and tie still intact. Trousers lay at her feet. She frantically turned the blazer to the low light and read the name tag. “Tony!” she wailed. “Tony’s gone!”

  Rayford snatched the clothes from her and tossed them behind the bulkhead. He lifted Hattie by her elbows and pulled her out of sight. “Hattie, we’re hours from touchdown. We can’t have a planeload of hysterical people. I’m going to make an announcement, but you have to do your job. Can you?”

  She nodded, her eyes vacant.

  He forced her to look at him. “Will you?” he said.

  She nodded again. “Rayford, are we going to die?”

  “No,” he said. “That I’m sure of.”

  But he wasn’t sure of anything. How
could he know? He’d rather have faced an engine fire or even an uncontrolled dive. A crash into the ocean had to be better than this. How would he keep people calm in such a nightmare?

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  IRENE WAS well aware that what seemed to be problems in heaven were not problems at all. Only as she tried to consider things from a human, earthly perspective was she able to wonder at the difference in her new view. For instance, the idea of sitting—while not being aware of one’s weight on a chair—in God’s house (and only the first-floor assembly hall) with some 20 billion others was so ludicrous to the other-than-glorified human mind that all she could do was shake her head.

  Imagine someone inviting me to a function like this. Had she had the opportunity to attend a concert of her all-time favorite performer, the idea of a crowd of even tens of thousands would have made her rather just listen to a CD or watch a DVD. Of course she would have gone anywhere to see Jesus, even from a distance. But to be in a crowd so massive that you couldn’t see either end of it for days simply would have held no appeal.

  Yet somehow this worked. Irene was so happy she could not stop grinning. Emotionally she was full to overflowing. While the crowd was enormous, she didn’t have the feeling of being lost among the masses or being hemmed in shoulder to shoulder as if on the midway of a county fair. Everyone was here for the same reason, and that kinship was pervasive. There were no sight-line issues, no audio problems, and the very idea that God could be limited in His ability to make everything plain and clear to everyone all at once had, needless to say, never crossed Irene’s mind.

  What crossed her mind now, though, was spectacular. Nothing in her previous life compared to having this personal, one-on-one, constant interaction with God while simultaneously being able to hear and see everything—even these life histories at the same time as the judgments and rewards.