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Chapter 23

The Christ Clone Trilogy 03 - Acts Of God

James Beau Seigneur

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Decker continued to chuckle, both at Tom's unorthodox method of explanation and because despite its unorthodoxy it was obviously effective. He was beginning to understand.

"As Scott said," Tom continued, "God is not bound by time. He exists outside of time. When you died, you exited time, jumping immediately from the point of your death to the point of your resurrection. I did the same after I was shot. I got here just a few days ago."

"And everyone else?" Decker asked.

"Those who accepted God's forgiveness and served him and died before the Rapture — what the world called the 'Disaster' — went immediately from their deaths to their resurrection at the Rapture. Those like Joshua and liana, and Elizabeth, Hope and Louisa, who served God and were alive at the time of the Rapture, did not die but were instantly changed. They simply sloughed off their old bodies, and were given new ones just as though they had been resurrected from the dead. Those who died after the Rapture, and who trusted God and did not take the mark or worship Christopher or his image, are like you and me, going from death immediately to their resurrection in the Kingdom. Most have already been resurrected, but there are still several million who were executed after you on Christopher's guillotines who are being resurrected even now, in the same order in which they died. Those who served God and did not take the mark and managed to survive until the Kingdom were also changed like those at the Rapture, for as the Bible says, 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.'"

"And those who took the mark?"

"They made their choice. No one was forced to take the mark. In fact, the mark had to be voluntary because Satan could not take anyone against their will. Along with the rest of the people throughout history who have refused God's forgiveness, they will be resurrected at the end of the thousand years of the Millennial Kingdom and will be judged by God for the evil they did."

Decker sighed at the loss. His great-great-grandmother read his feelings. "Decker," she said, with melodic Scottish inflection, "God was not willing that any should perish but that all would come to repentance."

"Hmm," Decker responded, which meant only that he was willing to let the subject pass.

"If anyone is not here it's because they've chosen not to be here," another woman said. Decker could not see who had spoken at first but the others moved aside to allow her to be heard. It was Martha Goodman, 'Aunt Martha,' as Christopher had called her. "They'd never be happy here anyway," she said. "A wheel can only have one center if it's going to work. The universe can only have one God and the position is already filled. You take my husband, Harry, for example. He'd be miserable here (though he won't like the other place any better, I'm sure). He'd never be willing to accept living by someone else's rules. He never could live by God's rules in life — even though every one of the rules can be summed up in the simple phrase 'love God, and love your neighbor as yourself

"Now, mind you, I'm not talking about being able to follow the rules — even such simple rules. If we could have followed them on our own, then we wouldn't have needed God's forgiveness. I'm just talking about being willing to accept that God has the right to make the rules, and acknowledging that the rules he has made are good. If a person cannot accept that, then they would never be happy here." Her voice showed no sign of anger at her husband, just resigned recognition. "Harry was simply unwilling to let God be God," she concluded, "even if it meant he'd spend eternity in hell."

Decker sighed again, this time in sympathy and understanding, for Martha Goodman and for all the others whose loved ones had refused forgiveness.

"Is the whole world like this?" Decker asked changing the subject as he again surveyed the beauty of his surroundings.

"Almost but not all," Joel Felsberg, Rhoda Donafin's brother, answered. "There are some places like Babylon that were left desolate as a reminder of the evil that grew there." Though Joel had never met Decker before, he certainly knew of him as Christopher's confidant. He was also aware of the close relationship that had existed between Decker and Joel's brother-in-law, Tom Donafin. And Joel had heard his friend Scott Rosen speak of Decker on numerous occasions, and knew that Rosen had once interrupted a critical conversation between Decker and his wife in a hospital in Tel Aviv. Joel had even gone with Scott to Jerusalem when he had first considered trying to talk to Decker.144

"Will it be like this forever?" Decker asked.

"Not forever, Decker," Joshua Rosen answered, "but for a thousand years. After that will be the judgement Tom talked about. Then God will create a new heaven and a new earth. We don't know very much about the details, but we do know it will be even better than this world."

"What part of the world are we in, exactly?"

"Israel," Scott Rosen answered. "From the Euphrates to the Suez, just as God promised to Abraham."

Decker raised his eyebrows in surprise. This didn't look at all like the Israel he remembered. Things really had changed. "And that mountain?" he asked.

"That is Zion, the highest mountain in the world; and on top of it is a plateau measuring fifty miles square, on which sits Jerusalem and a new Temple, built according to the plan given to the prophet Ezekiel."

"A new Temple? What happened to the old one?"

"It was destroyed by Christopher's armies," Scott Rosen answered.

"And the Ark of the Covenant?"

"There is none. There's no need for one. The Ark was the vessel for the physical evidence of God's covenant with his people. Now the evidence of God's covenant is within us and all around us."

Decker nodded. He had more questions but his more immediate interest was in being with his wife and daughters. Surprisingly it was Scott Rosen, the once-blustering egocentric, who was first to discern this. "There's something else you might be interested in," Scott said. "There is a river which flows out of the Temple across the plateau and then divides, with half of the river running into the Mediterranean and the other half into the Dead Sea. I think you'll be amazed at the changes there. As for the rest of us, I'm sure there are a lot of other resurrections we'd like to see. Perhaps Elizabeth and the girls would like to show you the river."

Decker looked at Elizabeth, Hope, and Louisa, who smiled and nodded. "You'll love it, Dad," Louisa said.

Decker smiled in return, and when he looked up an instant later he was alone with his family. "What happened?! Where'd they go?!" Decker shouted in surprise.

"They had places to go," Elizabeth said. "Shall we go see the river?"

Decker's eyebrows raised and stayed there as his eyes shifted from side to side marveling at everyone's sudden exit. "I don't suppose you intend to walk there."

"Well, we could, but it's quite a long way. We could run or we could fly. Or we could just be there."

"What do you mean?"

"C'mon, Dad," Hope chimed in as she took hold of his hand. "Just think about where you want to go ... and here we are."

Decker sensed no movement but in that instant their surroundings changed. He now found himself near the base of the mountain that a moment before had been a hundred miles distant. A great cataract of roaring water sparkled like diamonds as it fell more than eight thousand feet down the mountain's steep rock face and emptied into an immense glassy clear pool. The spray from the falls rose nearly half as high as the ledge from which the water fell and, carried by a gust of wind, settled drops of cool mist upon Decker's face. It felt wonderful and the taste as he licked the mist from his lips was fresh and clean and more satisfying than anything he had ever tasted. Hope's eagerness to come here with her father had apparently caught Elizabeth and Louisa off guard for they were not with them, but arrived a second later.

Decker took a deep breath and swallowed hard. "So this must be the river," he managed, not wanting to spoil his family's fun by his apprehension: this form of travel would take a little getting used to.

From the pool at the bottom of the falls flowed the river they had told him about. On its banks grew fruit trees of every kind he had ever seen and many he had not. The air was filled with the sweet smell from the many varieties of tree that were in flower. Others were laden with fruit ripe for harvest.

"The trees bear year-round," said Elizabeth who watched as her husband surveyed his surroundings.

"The, uh . . . way we got here from where we were, can we go anywhere like that?"

"Anywhere we want. Anywhere on earth; anywhere in the universe for that matter. Even heaven. We can even go back in time, but only to watch. Is there somewhere else you'd like to go?" she asked, eager to please her husband.

"Uh, no," he answered quickly, concerned that he might again find himself unintentionally somewhere else. "Maybe later. This is fine for right now."

"So what exactly is it we do here?" Decker asked.

"Pretty much anything we want as long as we abide by the two commandments: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Of course, you'll find that it's a lot easier to follow those rules here. Satan has been locked up until the end of the thousand years, so temptation has been greatly reduced. Of course, humans are capable of quite a bit of evil on their own and so there is still the need for a government, with Jesus as the head. Later, after all the others have been resurrected, we will all gather and he will place us at different levels in the government under him based on how we lived our lives before the Kingdom." Decker was certain that in such a government he would have no position at all, but it didn't matter. "After that there will be a huge banquet, called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, to celebrate the founding of the Kingdom and God's love for us."

"But after that," Decker probed, "what will we do on a daily basis?"

"Decker," Elizabeth said shaking her head to emphasize that there were no limits other than the ones she had already mentioned, "anything you want. You can do anything from farming to exploring the universe. You can learn to play a musical instrument, a hundred musical instruments. You can write that novel you always used to talk about. And whatever you decide to do, you will succeed. As long as you're willing to put in the effort, there is no failure here."

Decker looked over to where Hope and Louisa sat playing with a litter of month-old lion cubs as the mother lion looked on. The sight, which once would have been so startling, felt entirely natural to Decker as he grew more accustomed to his circumstances and surroundings. "Hope and Louisa," he said, thoughtfully, "they're the same age as when they died."

"We didn't die, Decker," Elizabeth insisted. "We were raptured."

Decker nodded, acknowledging his brief lapse. "Will they stay the same age?"

"No, now that we're back on earth, they'll grow naturally."

"'Back on earth?' Where have you been since the Rapture?"

"We were all taken into heaven for a time. In heaven there is no aging. Now that we're back on earth, the girls will grow naturally. They'll never grow old, but they will reach maturity. They'll marry, have kids of their own. You'll have grandchildren. In fact you'll have great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, and you'll live to bounce them all on your knee, never aging but staying young and in perfect health, just as you are today."

"No sickness, no physical defects, no poverty, success dependent only on our effort. Strange, but it sounds very much like what Christopher promised," Decker said.

Elizabeth nodded.

"How was it that Christopher was able to give people the things he did — health, youth, psychic abilities?" Decker asked.

"Youth and health did not come from what Christopher gave, but rather from what he ceased to take. By reducing the parasitic power of evil over the physical bodies of those who took the communion and the mark, he allowed their bodies to return to a state closer to what existed in the Garden of Eden where there was no disease or death."

"So taking the communion really didn't do anything?" Decker asked.

"No," Elizabeth confirmed. "As for the psychic abilities, those were the deceptions of the fallen angels." to stop the plagues?"

"Many of the things Milner did, like calling down lightning in Jerusalem, were the result of real powers he had that came from Christopher and ultimately from Satan. But stopping the plagues wasn't Milner's doing. Christopher and Milner simply waited for each plague to run its course and then showed up to take the credit as the plague was lifted.

Decker pondered the response for a moment and then moved on to another thought.

"There is something else that is very, very different about this place," Decker said. "I noticed it from the first moment, though I still can't begin to explain it. It's as though my whole life up until the time I arrived here was a dream — clearly and perfectly remembered — but a dream nonetheless. I might even believe it had all been a dream except that dreaming presupposes having laid down to sleep the night before," Decker shook his head," and I can remember no such lying down. In truth, I cannot recall ever being truly awake before, not as I am now. It's not just that now my old life seems like it was a dream, but rather, looking back at it, I realize that even then I sensed the dreamlike quality of it, but I was unable to break free or even to fully comprehend it." Even after having said this, Decker felt compelled to ask, "Was it a dream?" "No," Elizabeth answered, smiling. "And there's more," he continued. "It's as though, well it may sound a little crazy, it's as though the physical limits of my body no longer confine me, no longer limit me, and everything around me, the grass, the trees, the earth itself, even the air have become a part of me and I a part of them." Decker shook his head. Even in the universal language it was a struggle to find the right words to adequately express himself. "It's a little like going up in an airplane, and you don't really notice the air pressure changing until your ears 'pop,' and then suddenly you can hear better. Well, it's like my whole life was under that pressure and now finally my ears have popped. I can hear and taste and see and feel and smell and sense like I never even imagined possible before." Decker paused. "And it's you as well. I feel now so much a part of you, and you a part of me that I know I could never have felt before. I feel for you a love so strong that even all my years of missing you cannot compare to one moment of the love I have for you now."

Decker continued his explanation, describing a beauty, an awakeness, an awareness so acute that it is impossible to describe it in words used on this side of the event. But well it is, for were it to be described here, all who read it and are bound for it would die from longing. And yet I will here attempt in these earthly words to express what I can of it, and do so without fear of causing any harm but that sweet stab of pain and longing which C.S. Lewis described as 'Joy,' which was so cheaply forsaken for the satisfaction of Eve's desire to know good and evil and Adam's desire for his wife.

C.S. Lewis is said to have called it 'real life,' something which has not yet begun for anyone now 'living' as we know it. The gurus and eastern mystics call it 'unity consciousness.' It is a clearheadedness, a 'higher level of consciousness' — though that terminology is so often misused — that makes what is called 'normal life' and 'normal experience' seem like nothing more than a drunken stupor. It is a consciousness that the gurus and yogis have only dreamed of, though they and we instinctively know is there, but which always — save for fleeting moments, and then only in clouded pastel hues — exists just beyond our human reach. It is, as best it can be described here, truly being a part of nature, in 'tune' with all creation, synchronized with the mind of God. And it is only for the lack of this faculty that things imaginary such as novels can seem to take on life. For who, having experienced a single moment of real life could ever have conceived to question one's own existence or could have been forced to rely on the logic of 'I think, therefore I am' to be certain of it.

"Real life has just begun, Decker," said Elizabeth, who was familiar both with C.S. Lewis' writings and, in this Kingdom, with Lewis personally. "The rest seems like a dream, an illusion, a nightmare. Most of the things that Christopher promised were merely the things mankind gave away when he fell in Eden," she continued. "In a real sense, Adam and Eve did die on that day they ate the fruit; and all of us with them. It is only in our new lives that we can begin to see just how real that death was."

Decker nodded his understanding and complete agreement. "When will I be able to see Jesus again?" he asked. "There is so much I want to tell him; so much I want to ask him."

"Decker, just a few minutes ago he told you that he is always with you," Elizabeth answered. "He meant it. He is with you even now. You can tell him whatever is on your mind. Ask him anything and he will answer. Before the words have fully formed in your mind, he will answer."

"That must be how Joshua Rosen knew about my dream, and what Scott meant when he said that the Ark of the Covenant was no longer necessary because the evidence of God's covenant is within us and all around us."

"Ask him yourself," Elizabeth urged.

Decker considered the suggestion for a second and then began to compose the question. No sooner had he done so than the answer became clear, and he also understood that the rock upon which he had sat after his resurrection but which he did not recall seeing a moment before, had been provided in response to his wife's unspoken prayer.

Decker sighed and bit his lip as he looked into the loving eyes of his wife, overcome with all that he had been given. To him it seemed that it had been less than an hour since he stood in Christopher's office, faced with the fact that his life was a waste and his sins were comparable to those of Hitler and Stalin. God's forgiveness overwhelmed him. Decker took his wife in his arms and held her. Neither spoke for several minutes but both of them understood.

"Scott said the river flows into the Dead Sea," Decker said finally.

"Yes, but you'd hardly call it 'dead' anymore," Elizabeth answered. "Because of the river, the sea has been made alive. It's teeming with fish and water fowl. Would you like to go there to see it?"

"I'd like that," he said, "but let's just walk for a while."

Elizabeth smiled and the two headed off in the direction of the sea. As they walked together beside the gently flowing river, the sounds of songbirds filled the softly floral-scented air. Without speaking, Elizabeth reached down and slipped her small hand into his. Decker closed his fingers around her hand and held it tenderly as he took a deep breath and drank in all that was around him.

Once again, Decker had managed to be in the right place at the right time. He was home.

Table Of Contents

Chapter 23

Table Of Contents

The Christ Clone Trilogy 03 - Acts Of God

James Beau Seigneur

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Right Place at the Right Time

"Pull his hair!" the voice called again.

This time Decker recognized it as the voice of his older brother, Nathan. The sound was coming from behind him and Decker strained to look back at him. There was no time to understand what his brother had meant. Seven-year-old Decker Hawthorne felt his mother's grip on his arm loosen.

As the fingers of her left hand slipped from his arm, the muddy slope slid upward against his chest and stomach and he slipped down into the gaping sinkhole. But the fall was short; she had only let go of him with one hand; her other hand still held firmly to his arm, pulling upward, as his hands remained locked around the root he had clung to for over an hour. His eyes closed briefly. Then suddenly, without explanation or warning, Decker felt as though his head would split in two. He screamed in agony as a pain like scalding water poured over his scalp. The pain seemed unimaginable to a boy not yet eight years old.

Decker's mother understood what Nathan meant. She had let go of her younger son's arm with one hand and had taken hold of his hair. As she pulled up she heard her son's cry of anguish but she did not let go. She pulled him toward her, letting most of the weight of his body hang from his hair. It took only a second before it had the desired effect. With every fiber of his being distracted by the pain, Decker's fingers released their hold on the root and his mother was able to finally pull him free. Decker felt the mud against his cheek and felt his body move again. He was being pulled upward. Holding tightly to his right arm, his mother quickly released her hold on his hair and, with hundreds of uprooted hairs clinging to her damp, muddy fingers, took hold of his other arm.

Decker tried to help lift himself by digging his fingers into the slope but had no control of his blood-starved arms and hands. Nathan moved around behind his mother and took hold of her feet to keep her from sliding in as she lifted Decker out. When she had finally pulled Decker to her, she rolled to her right side to try to pull him from the hole, but that was as far as she could lift him. Decker tried to help, but he could not get a foothold on the muddy slope, and because he had no control of his arms, he was not able to pull himself up. For a moment they just held that position before Nathan realized what the problem was.

"Help me!" his mother cried.

Nathan moved up beside her and grabbed one of Decker's lifeless hands. Nathan was sixteen and it had always seemed to Decker that he was remarkably strong. That strength proved useful now as, with a loud grunt and a single heave, he pulled his younger brother from the sinkhole.

Nathan dragged Decker from the side of the hole and tried to stand him on his feet but the legs of the exhausted boy could not hold the weight.

Quickly, Decker's mother crawled away from the hole to join them. Still on her knees, she held Decker to her and finally let herself cry. Decker felt her shake from the fear she had held inside while she had tried so long to pull him free. Decker cried with her, his arms hanging limp and lifeless beside him.

Behind his mother, Decker saw the glow of the sun setting in the west. The shadows in the pit had made it seem much later than it was and Decker felt an added warmth in knowing the day had not ended without him. As his mother held him and he watched the sunset over her shoulder, blurred by his tears, he could feel the tingle of blood returning to his arms and hands. The feeling itself was odd, but it seemed that something even odder was happening. The sun appeared not to be setting, but rising. Could he have been in the pit the whole night? Was this the sunrise? No, he knew that was west by the position of a large oak tree where he had built a tree house. Then, as he watched, the sun grew in size until it seemed to fill the sky. The brightness should have been blinding but Decker could not look away. There was no pain in looking at it, only warmth. Decker closed his eyes briefly, not because of the light but rather to reorient himself. When he opened his eyes again he had the strange sensation that he was somewhere else. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that there were people around him.

There was his brother Nathan, but he was older. And standing near him was Scott Rosen, his forehead marked with the sign of the Koum Damah Tatare. Next to Rosen were his parents, Joshua and liana. A few feet away stood Tom and Rhoda Donafin and their children, Tom, Jr., Rachael, and Decker Donafin. As his eyes cleared he could see there was a very large crowd, perhaps a thousand or more people, around him. There were some that he knew well and others he had seen only once or twice before. With remarkable clarity, Decker remembered every face and what involvement each one had had in his life. It was as though somehow he had total and complete access to the memories of every event in his life. Then he saw someone that he did not recognize: a boy about four years old standing with a woman. He had seen the woman before; twice, but only briefly. Decker remembered. It was in Turin. She was the woman from the restaurant whose son had been ill.

As unexpected as all of this was, Decker then saw something that made no sense at all. Standing there among the others was his mother! But it was his mother's arms he felt around him, wasn't it?

Decker's senses seemed to be reemerging one by one and he became aware that the people around him were cheering. Decker Donafm was laughing and clapping, and others were dancing as if in celebration. Decker realized that he was back in his own body, fully grown, but he felt youthful and strong.

Finally he looked down to see who was holding him and to his utter disbelief and rapture saw his beloved Elizabeth looking up at him, tears of joy in her eyes. Beside him were their daughters, Hope and Louisa, with their arms around both of their parents. They appeared just as they had the day before they died.

Only now did the meaning hit him. He had made it. He hadn't gone to hell. Decker held his family to him and wept openly with joy. His family cried with him, as did many of those around him.

Decker was drawn again to look into the light, but the light was no longer in the distance. Instead, it was right before him, and the light was a man. He was standing there with his arms open wide to Decker. In his life before, Decker would have curiously studied the strange similarities and yet stark differences between this man and the pretender, Christopher. But that was before. Now Decker simply understood, and dropped from Elizabeth's hold and fell flat on the ground at his still-scarred feet.

No sooner had he done so, than the man reached down to lift him up. Decker was afraid, but he did not feel that he could resist him; he didn't truly want to. But how could he look his rescuer in the eye? His suddenly perfect memory now seemed more a curse than a blessing as he recalled every dark detail of his life. How could he let one so loving look at his life of self-love and the guilt that he knew would be written on his face? Tears of loss and shame rolled down his cheeks.

Then suddenly Decker became aware of the cool, sweet, freshness of the air around him. As the man lifted him to his feet, Decker felt fearfully drawn to his eyes. Slowly he raised his head and looked at him through his tears. In the eyes, where Decker had expected to find anger, there was only understanding. Where he had expected to find wrath, he found only forgiveness. From the one who should have condemned, there was only love. In that moment Decker felt all of the fear, guilt, and pain of seventy-six years melt away, replaced by warmth and a glow of peace.

Decker was drawn to look deeper and as he did, he realized that the love of the man was the source of the light around them.

"Well done," Jesus said.

Decker buried his face in Jesus' shoulder and wept. "I'm so sorry," he said.

"I know, Decker. I know," Jesus said as he wept with him. "All is forgiven," he said, stroking Decker's hair, still holding him in his arms.

Decker felt strength and comfort and healing surround him and fill him as it flowed from his savior. Soon his tears stopped and instead of the sting of guilt, he felt the tender warmth of a child in his father's arms. A few moments more and it seemed to Decker that he could stand again.

"I must leave for now, Decker," Jesus said. *

"But I have so many things to ask you," Decker appealed, shocked at his own boldness.

Jesus smiled and nodded. "We will have time to talk later," he said. "Right now there are many others waiting for their resurrection. And your friends and family are here. But do not be concerned, I am always with you."

Then he was gone. For a long moment Decker did not move. It seemed incredible but he had momentarily forgotten that there was anyone else there.

"Sit down, Decker," Elizabeth said from behind him.

Decker looked back and Elizabeth was standing next to an outcropping of rock which seemed a perfect height for sitting. He did not recall seeing it there a few moments before but assumed it had been hidden by the press of people. As he sat, Hope, Louisa, and Elizabeth gathered closely around him but left his view unobstructed so others could greet and speak with him.

Decker suddenly realized that the number of those around him had dropped from more than a thousand to perhaps less than a hundred. "What happened to the others?" he asked Elizabeth, assuming she would understand his reference.

"They have gone on to be at some of the other resurrections. You'll have plenty of opportunity to see them later."

Decker looked around him at the incredible beauty. All around were lush plants and flowers and trees. Birds of great variety flew overhead or rested on tree limbs. Nearby a creek gurgled, filling the air with the soft sound of flowing water. In the distance perhaps a hundred miles off, green rolling hills gave way to an immense mountain, higher than any he had ever seen before. From the temperature he guessed it to be late spring. The air was so pure and fresh it was almost sweet in his lungs.

"Is this heaven?" Decker asked.

"No," his brother Nathan laughed. "This is earth. Though it's not at all the same as you remember it. Things have changed quite a bit."

"But I thought that when you died ..."

"... you went to heaven?" liana Rosen said, finishing Decker's sentence.

Decker nodded.

"This is what is known as the Millennial Kingdom," Joshua Rosen said. "In the book of Revelation it says that with his blood Messiah purchased us from every tribe and language and people and nation, and that we will reign with him on the earth for 1000 years. Well that's where we are."

"But what about heaven?"

"Oh, well you can certainly go there. In fact you can go anywhere you want, any place, any time, anywhere in the universe, and to dimensions you've never even dreamed of. But this is home. The earth has been restored to the way it was in the time of the Garden of Eden."

This was not at all what Decker had expected. The images which had been painted in his imagination of sitting around on a cloud and playing a harp had never been very appealing, and he found this much more to his liking — though he would not have complained otherwise, greatly preferring harps and clouds to the flames of hell.

"The last thing I remember was ..." Decker paused as he reached up to touch his neck. He did not expect to find anything, but his fingers quickly came to rest on the scar of his decapitation. Immediately he reached up with his other hand to confirm his finding: the scar ran all the way around his neck. His eyes filled with wonder: not that the recollection of his death was correct, but that he bore the scar. It seemed terribly incongruous to him that having been restored to youthful form, he would yet retain the scar of his beheading. "I don't understand," he said.

"It's sort of a badge of honor," Tom Donafin answered. "All who were executed by Christopher bear it. It marks you as one who gave his life rather than bowing to Christopher. All martyrs bear some mark of their martyrdom ..." Decker raised his eyebrows, surprised that, considering the circumstances of his life and death, he should be counted worthy of that distinction. ". . . though not to the point of being disfigured," Tom concluded.

All at once Decker realized that Tom's appearance had changed significantly from what he remembered. He was not just young again; his head was no longer disfigured from the accident he had been in as a child. "Tom, your head," Decker said as he jumped to his feet.

"Oh, yes," Tom commented. "Do you like it?" he asked in jest.

"You look great!"

"Thanks. But continue your story," Tom insisted.

Decker thought back to where he had left off. "After Christopher cut off my head," he continued, as he sat back down on the rock, "I remember discovering that there were a few seconds of consciousness before I actually died. My awareness was fading when, clear as day, I heard a voice. I didn't know where it was coming from, but I was certain it was talking to me. It sounded like Christopher, but at the same time it was very different from Christopher's voice. I know now it was Jesus. He said, 'Come.' That's all. Just, 'Come.'" Decker looked up at Scott Rosen, "Then suddenly I remembered what you told me about the thief on the cross."

"I'll have to introduce you to him later," Rosen interjected.

Decker was a little caught off guard by the fact he would have such an opportunity, but did not let it distract him from his account. "In that instant I knew that it was not too late for me. I remember thinking how ironic it was that after seventy-six years, there I was, decapitated and an instant from death, and I finally understood why I had been born."

"God is never too early or too late, Decker, but always right on time." The speaker was a beautiful brown-haired woman with a melodic Scottish accent whom Decker had never met, but who he somehow knew was his great-great-grandmother.

He was just about to go on with his story when the sound of the woman's voice and her accent abruptly caused him to realize that she had not been speaking English. She and everyone else, including Decker, had been speaking in the universal language.

"Go on," said the woman. "You'll get used to it." Somehow she knew what Decker had just realized about the language.

"I understood that like the thief on the cross, all I had to do was ask and, despite all I had done, God loved me enough to forgive me..."

"So you asked?" Joshua Rosen urged.

Decker nodded. "I asked."

"Of course he asked," liana said. "He's here, isn't he?"

Decker continued. "The next thing I remember, I was dreaming — I guess it was a dream — about something that happened to me when I was a kid. I was running and had fallen into a sinkhole and was holding on to an exposed tree root to keep from falling farther in. My mother was there and she was trying to pull me out but I couldn't let go of the root. Then I heard Nathan yell, 'Pull his hair.'" Decker looked over at his brother who was nodding to indicate he remembered the incident from their childhood. Decker looked at his mother who also indicated she recalled the event. "You let go of me with one hand and grabbed my hair. The sudden pain was so intense it caused me to release the root so you could pull me out. In my dream, after I was out of the hole, somehow I found myself here."

For a brief moment everyone seemed puzzled and then Joshua Rosen said, "What you remember is a dream which began as you slipped into unconsciousness before you actually died. A little of that dream came with you and was played out in your mind at your resurrection."

It might just have been a guess, but somehow it seemed obvious to Decker that Rosen's explanation was correct. It appeared that everyone else around him agreed.

"But what happened to me? How long ago did I die?"

"About four months," Tom Donafin answered.

Decker was surprised and let the answer settle in for a moment before continuing. "But iv seems like it all happened just a moment ago."

"It did," Tom confirmed.

"But you said I was dead for four months," Decker said, speaking to the whole group, for it seemed they were all in agreement on the matter. "How can they both be true?"

"God is not bound by time," Scott Rosen answered, "and when you died, neither were you."

"So," Decker said, trying to understand the point, "what you're saying is that between my death and resurrection it was like I was asleep; I just wasn't aware of the passage of time?"

"Well, no, not exactly," Rosen insisted. "From our perspective it would appear that you were asleep in death during those four months. But from your perspective and God's perspective, no time passed at all."

Decker shrugged. "I don't see what the difference is. If I died four months ago, that means that for four months I was dead, whether I noticed it or not."

"Decker," Tom Donafm interjected, "do you remember that old movie The Time Machine with Rod Taylor?"

Decker listened to Tom's question but then burst out laughing. It was good to know that some things had not changed. After all these years, and even after dying and being resurrected in this paradise, Tom was still using movies to help explain his thoughts. Decker's laughter was infectious and the others laughed as well. Finally, Decker managed to answer. "Yes," he said. "I remember, Tom. Go ahead."

'smiling but in full blush, Tom continued. "From his time machine Rod Taylor watched what was going on around him in fast motion because he traveled through time. Well, it's not like that when you die. Of course, I mean in the past. In our new bodies we are not bound by aging or sickness or death. But, anyway, what happened to you is more like the movie Back to the Future. When Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled forward in the DeLorean, they traveled instantly, jumping across time, from one point to another without experiencing any passage of time themselves."

Decker continued to chuckle, both at Tom's unorthodox method of explanation and because despite its unorthodoxy it was obviously effective. He was beginning to understand.

"As Scott said," Tom continued, "God is not bound by time. He exists outside of time. When you died, you exited time, jumping immediately from the point of your death to the point of your resurrection. I did the same after I was shot. I got here just a few days ago."

"And everyone else?" Decker asked.

"Those who accepted God's forgiveness and served him and died before the Rapture — what the world called the 'Disaster' — went immediately from their deaths to their resurrection at the Rapture. Those like Joshua and liana, and Elizabeth, Hope and Louisa, who served God and were alive at the time of the Rapture, did not die but were instantly changed. They simply sloughed off their old bodies, and were given new ones just as though they had been resurrected from the dead. Those who died after the Rapture, and who trusted God and did not take the mark or worship Christopher or his image, are like you and me, going from death immediately to their resurrection in the Kingdom. Most have already been resurrected, but there are still several million who were executed after you on Christopher's guillotines who are being resurrected even now, in the same order in which they died. Those who served God and did not take the mark and managed to survive until the Kingdom were also changed like those at the Rapture, for as the Bible says, 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.'"

"And those who took the mark?"

"They made their choice. No one was forced to take the mark. In fact, the mark had to be voluntary because Satan could not take anyone against their will. Along with the rest of the people throughout history who have refused God's forgiveness, they will be resurrected at the end of the thousand years of the Millennial Kingdom and will be judged by God for the evil they did."

Decker sighed at the loss. His great-great-grandmother read his feelings. "Decker," she said, with melodic Scottish inflection, "God was not willing that any should perish but that all would come to repentance."

"Hmm," Decker responded, which meant only that he was willing to let the subject pass.

"If anyone is not here it's because they've chosen not to be here," another woman said. Decker could not see who had spoken at first but the others moved aside to allow her to be heard. It was Martha Goodman, 'Aunt Martha,' as Christopher had called her. "They'd never be happy here anyway," she said. "A wheel can only have one center if it's going to work. The universe can only have one God and the position is already filled. You take my husband, Harry, for example. He'd be miserable here (though he won't like the other place any better, I'm sure). He'd never be willing to accept living by someone else's rules. He never could live by God's rules in life — even though every one of the rules can be summed up in the simple phrase 'love God, and love your neighbor as yourself

"Now, mind you, I'm not talking about being able to follow the rules — even such simple rules. If we could have followed them on our own, then we wouldn't have needed God's forgiveness. I'm just talking about being willing to accept that God has the right to make the rules, and acknowledging that the rules he has made are good. If a person cannot accept that, then they would never be happy here." Her voice showed no sign of anger at her husband, just resigned recognition. "Harry was simply unwilling to let God be God," she concluded, "even if it meant he'd spend eternity in hell."

Decker sighed again, this time in sympathy and understanding, for Martha Goodman and for all the others whose loved ones had refused forgiveness.

"Is the whole world like this?" Decker asked changing the subject as he again surveyed the beauty of his surroundings.

"Almost but not all," Joel Felsberg, Rhoda Donafin's brother, answered. "There are some places like Babylon that were left desolate as a reminder of the evil that grew there." Though Joel had never met Decker before, he certainly knew of him as Christopher's confidant. He was also aware of the close relationship that had existed between Decker and Joel's brother-in-law, Tom Donafin. And Joel had heard his friend Scott Rosen speak of Decker on numerous occasions, and knew that Rosen had once interrupted a critical conversation between Decker and his wife in a hospital in Tel Aviv. Joel had even gone with Scott to Jerusalem when he had first considered trying to talk to Decker.144

"Will it be like this forever?" Decker asked.

"Not forever, Decker," Joshua Rosen answered, "but for a thousand years. After that will be the judgement Tom talked about. Then God will create a new heaven and a new earth. We don't know very much about the details, but we do know it will be even better than this world."

"What part of the world are we in, exactly?"

"Israel," Scott Rosen answered. "From the Euphrates to the Suez, just as God promised to Abraham."

Decker raised his eyebrows in surprise. This didn't look at all like the Israel he remembered. Things really had changed. "And that mountain?" he asked.

"That is Zion, the highest mountain in the world; and on top of it is a plateau measuring fifty miles square, on which sits Jerusalem and a new Temple, built according to the plan given to the prophet Ezekiel."

"A new Temple? What happened to the old one?"

"It was destroyed by Christopher's armies," Scott Rosen answered.

"And the Ark of the Covenant?"

"There is none. There's no need for one. The Ark was the vessel for the physical evidence of God's covenant with his people. Now the evidence of God's covenant is within us and all around us."

Decker nodded. He had more questions but his more immediate interest was in being with his wife and daughters. Surprisingly it was Scott Rosen, the once-blustering egocentric, who was first to discern this. "There's something else you might be interested in," Scott said. "There is a river which flows out of the Temple across the plateau and then divides, with half of the river running into the Mediterranean and the other half into the Dead Sea. I think you'll be amazed at the changes there. As for the rest of us, I'm sure there are a lot of other resurrections we'd like to see. Perhaps Elizabeth and the girls would like to show you the river."

Decker looked at Elizabeth, Hope, and Louisa, who smiled and nodded. "You'll love it, Dad," Louisa said.

Decker smiled in return, and when he looked up an instant later he was alone with his family. "What happened?! Where'd they go?!" Decker shouted in surprise.

"They had places to go," Elizabeth said. "Shall we go see the river?"

Decker's eyebrows raised and stayed there as his eyes shifted from side to side marveling at everyone's sudden exit. "I don't suppose you intend to walk there."

"Well, we could, but it's quite a long way. We could run or we could fly. Or we could just be there."

"What do you mean?"

"C'mon, Dad," Hope chimed in as she took hold of his hand. "Just think about where you want to go ... and here we are."

Decker sensed no movement but in that instant their surroundings changed. He now found himself near the base of the mountain that a moment before had been a hundred miles distant. A great cataract of roaring water sparkled like diamonds as it fell more than eight thousand feet down the mountain's steep rock face and emptied into an immense glassy clear pool. The spray from the falls rose nearly half as high as the ledge from which the water fell and, carried by a gust of wind, settled drops of cool mist upon Decker's face. It felt wonderful and the taste as he licked the mist from his lips was fresh and clean and more satisfying than anything he had ever tasted. Hope's eagerness to come here with her father had apparently caught Elizabeth and Louisa off guard for they were not with them, but arrived a second later.

Decker took a deep breath and swallowed hard. "So this must be the river," he managed, not wanting to spoil his family's fun by his apprehension: this form of travel would take a little getting used to.

From the pool at the bottom of the falls flowed the river they had told him about. On its banks grew fruit trees of every kind he had ever seen and many he had not. The air was filled with the sweet smell from the many varieties of tree that were in flower. Others were laden with fruit ripe for harvest.

"The trees bear year-round," said Elizabeth who watched as her husband surveyed his surroundings.

"The, uh . . . way we got here from where we were, can we go anywhere like that?"

"Anywhere we want. Anywhere on earth; anywhere in the universe for that matter. Even heaven. We can even go back in time, but only to watch. Is there somewhere else you'd like to go?" she asked, eager to please her husband.

"Uh, no," he answered quickly, concerned that he might again find himself unintentionally somewhere else. "Maybe later. This is fine for right now."

"So what exactly is it we do here?" Decker asked.

"Pretty much anything we want as long as we abide by the two commandments: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Of course, you'll find that it's a lot easier to follow those rules here. Satan has been locked up until the end of the thousand years, so temptation has been greatly reduced. Of course, humans are capable of quite a bit of evil on their own and so there is still the need for a government, with Jesus as the head. Later, after all the others have been resurrected, we will all gather and he will place us at different levels in the government under him based on how we lived our lives before the Kingdom." Decker was certain that in such a government he would have no position at all, but it didn't matter. "After that there will be a huge banquet, called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, to celebrate the founding of the Kingdom and God's love for us."

"But after that," Decker probed, "what will we do on a daily basis?"

"Decker," Elizabeth said shaking her head to emphasize that there were no limits other than the ones she had already mentioned, "anything you want. You can do anything from farming to exploring the universe. You can learn to play a musical instrument, a hundred musical instruments. You can write that novel you always used to talk about. And whatever you decide to do, you will succeed. As long as you're willing to put in the effort, there is no failure here."

Decker looked over to where Hope and Louisa sat playing with a litter of month-old lion cubs as the mother lion looked on. The sight, which once would have been so startling, felt entirely natural to Decker as he grew more accustomed to his circumstances and surroundings. "Hope and Louisa," he said, thoughtfully, "they're the same age as when they died."

"We didn't die, Decker," Elizabeth insisted. "We were raptured."

Decker nodded, acknowledging his brief lapse. "Will they stay the same age?"

"No, now that we're back on earth, they'll grow naturally."

"'Back on earth?' Where have you been since the Rapture?"

"We were all taken into heaven for a time. In heaven there is no aging. Now that we're back on earth, the girls will grow naturally. They'll never grow old, but they will reach maturity. They'll marry, have kids of their own. You'll have grandchildren. In fact you'll have great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, and you'll live to bounce them all on your knee, never aging but staying young and in perfect health, just as you are today."

"No sickness, no physical defects, no poverty, success dependent only on our effort. Strange, but it sounds very much like what Christopher promised," Decker said.

Elizabeth nodded.

"How was it that Christopher was able to give people the things he did — health, youth, psychic abilities?" Decker asked.

"Youth and health did not come from what Christopher gave, but rather from what he ceased to take. By reducing the parasitic power of evil over the physical bodies of those who took the communion and the mark, he allowed their bodies to return to a state closer to what existed in the Garden of Eden where there was no disease or death."

"So taking the communion really didn't do anything?" Decker asked.

"No," Elizabeth confirmed. "As for the psychic abilities, those were the deceptions of the fallen angels." to stop the plagues?"

"Many of the things Milner did, like calling down lightning in Jerusalem, were the result of real powers he had that came from Christopher and ultimately from Satan. But stopping the plagues wasn't Milner's doing. Christopher and Milner simply waited for each plague to run its course and then showed up to take the credit as the plague was lifted.

Decker pondered the response for a moment and then moved on to another thought.

"There is something else that is very, very different about this place," Decker said. "I noticed it from the first moment, though I still can't begin to explain it. It's as though my whole life up until the time I arrived here was a dream — clearly and perfectly remembered — but a dream nonetheless. I might even believe it had all been a dream except that dreaming presupposes having laid down to sleep the night before," Decker shook his head," and I can remember no such lying down. In truth, I cannot recall ever being truly awake before, not as I am now. It's not just that now my old life seems like it was a dream, but rather, looking back at it, I realize that even then I sensed the dreamlike quality of it, but I was unable to break free or even to fully comprehend it." Even after having said this, Decker felt compelled to ask, "Was it a dream?" "No," Elizabeth answered, smiling. "And there's more," he continued. "It's as though, well it may sound a little crazy, it's as though the physical limits of my body no longer confine me, no longer limit me, and everything around me, the grass, the trees, the earth itself, even the air have become a part of me and I a part of them." Decker shook his head. Even in the universal language it was a struggle to find the right words to adequately express himself. "It's a little like going up in an airplane, and you don't really notice the air pressure changing until your ears 'pop,' and then suddenly you can hear better. Well, it's like my whole life was under that pressure and now finally my ears have popped. I can hear and taste and see and feel and smell and sense like I never even imagined possible before." Decker paused. "And it's you as well. I feel now so much a part of you, and you a part of me that I know I could never have felt before. I feel for you a love so strong that even all my years of missing you cannot compare to one moment of the love I have for you now."

Decker continued his explanation, describing a beauty, an awakeness, an awareness so acute that it is impossible to describe it in words used on this side of the event. But well it is, for were it to be described here, all who read it and are bound for it would die from longing. And yet I will here attempt in these earthly words to express what I can of it, and do so without fear of causing any harm but that sweet stab of pain and longing which C.S. Lewis described as 'Joy,' which was so cheaply forsaken for the satisfaction of Eve's desire to know good and evil and Adam's desire for his wife.

C.S. Lewis is said to have called it 'real life,' something which has not yet begun for anyone now 'living' as we know it. The gurus and eastern mystics call it 'unity consciousness.' It is a clearheadedness, a 'higher level of consciousness' — though that terminology is so often misused — that makes what is called 'normal life' and 'normal experience' seem like nothing more than a drunken stupor. It is a consciousness that the gurus and yogis have only dreamed of, though they and we instinctively know is there, but which always — save for fleeting moments, and then only in clouded pastel hues — exists just beyond our human reach. It is, as best it can be described here, truly being a part of nature, in 'tune' with all creation, synchronized with the mind of God. And it is only for the lack of this faculty that things imaginary such as novels can seem to take on life. For who, having experienced a single moment of real life could ever have conceived to question one's own existence or could have been forced to rely on the logic of 'I think, therefore I am' to be certain of it.

"Real life has just begun, Decker," said Elizabeth, who was familiar both with C.S. Lewis' writings and, in this Kingdom, with Lewis personally. "The rest seems like a dream, an illusion, a nightmare. Most of the things that Christopher promised were merely the things mankind gave away when he fell in Eden," she continued. "In a real sense, Adam and Eve did die on that day they ate the fruit; and all of us with them. It is only in our new lives that we can begin to see just how real that death was."

Decker nodded his understanding and complete agreement. "When will I be able to see Jesus again?" he asked. "There is so much I want to tell him; so much I want to ask him."

"Decker, just a few minutes ago he told you that he is always with you," Elizabeth answered. "He meant it. He is with you even now. You can tell him whatever is on your mind. Ask him anything and he will answer. Before the words have fully formed in your mind, he will answer."

"That must be how Joshua Rosen knew about my dream, and what Scott meant when he said that the Ark of the Covenant was no longer necessary because the evidence of God's covenant is within us and all around us."

"Ask him yourself," Elizabeth urged.

Decker considered the suggestion for a second and then began to compose the question. No sooner had he done so than the answer became clear, and he also understood that the rock upon which he had sat after his resurrection but which he did not recall seeing a moment before, had been provided in response to his wife's unspoken prayer.

Decker sighed and bit his lip as he looked into the loving eyes of his wife, overcome with all that he had been given. To him it seemed that it had been less than an hour since he stood in Christopher's office, faced with the fact that his life was a waste and his sins were comparable to those of Hitler and Stalin. God's forgiveness overwhelmed him. Decker took his wife in his arms and held her. Neither spoke for several minutes but both of them understood.

"Scott said the river flows into the Dead Sea," Decker said finally.

"Yes, but you'd hardly call it 'dead' anymore," Elizabeth answered. "Because of the river, the sea has been made alive. It's teeming with fish and water fowl. Would you like to go there to see it?"

"I'd like that," he said, "but let's just walk for a while."

Elizabeth smiled and the two headed off in the direction of the sea. As they walked together beside the gently flowing river, the sounds of songbirds filled the softly floral-scented air. Without speaking, Elizabeth reached down and slipped her small hand into his. Decker closed his fingers around her hand and held it tenderly as he took a deep breath and drank in all that was around him.

Once again, Decker had managed to be in the right place at the right time. He was home.

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