With a rod of iron a par.., p.42
With a Rod of Iron: A Parable, page 42
“But if they don’t build—”
“They’re building. The weather’s supposed to be good next week; they should get a lot done.”
“The Beaumonts have been living with the Smith’s for nearly a month now.”
“So? We’ll all be living together soon enough. And as more houses sell, we’ll have to keep on doubling up. Maybe even have to triple up. You act like you’re surprised.”
“I’m not surprised; I just thought things would move faster.” She shrugged, frowning at the unfinished structure. “How can we be sure we have as much time as we think we do? Remember the Bible said that the days of the Tribulation would be shortened.”
Cassandra nodded. “But what does that mean?”
“Well, Pastor says it means that the time will be shorter than we expect it will be.”
“When did he say that?”
“I talked to him yesterday. I came to the church to help with the potluck tonight, and he was in his office.”
“That’s right! That’s tonight—”
Susan Beaumont came rushing up suddenly. “Did you hear the news?” she asked.
“News?”
“While I was cleaning up the nursery down in the basement I turned on the television.” she looked apologetic. “Anyway, you’d never believe what I heard.”
“What?”
“You’ve heard about these translocator things the wicked have been building?”
Cassandra nodded.
“They claim they’ve made contact with an alien species.”
“Aliens?” Cassandra gawked. Heads turned in their direction.
“It’s true! That’s what they’re claiming,” Susan was firm.
“But there’s no such thing as aliens!” exclaimed Cassandra.
“That’s what I thought, but they showed pictures and everything—they’re trying to talk to them.”
“That’s crazy—” began Cassandra again.
“Demons!” The single word came from the Pastor; he had approached unnoticed from behind.
“What?” Cassandra and Susan both whirled. Other members of the congregation had gathered around them, too.
“Demons. Isn’t it obvious? We know from the book of Revelation that there has to be a lot of demon activity—that’s how the Beast and False Prophet do all their lying wonders. So now the demons are showing themselves. That’s what science fiction has done for us all these years, you know—Star Trek and Star Wars and all those other evil shows—they’ve prepared the human race to accept the existence of aliens; now the demons can present themselves as benign E.T.’s. No one will question and no one will think anything is wrong.”
“Except us!” interjected Susan, quickly. “No wonder those aliens were so ugly. I knew they had to be evil.”
The Pastor grinned. “That’s right. But no one else will recognize the truth about the demons.”
Cassandra’s blood went icy. “So now they can come and go as they please; they won’t be hiding themselves anymore. They can operate in the open!”
“How come they’re having so much trouble communicating with them?” asked Susan.
“Appearances. They have to pretend like they’re really aliens, like they’ve never seen us before. People would be suspicious if they could speak English or something.”
“Why?” The word was out of Cassandra’s mouth before she could stop it. She felt her face turn red. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to ask that.”
“That’s okay; these are extreme times. It’s easy to slip.” The Pastor smiled charitably on her, and she felt a small breeze of relief. Susan and Jocasta kept their faces placid.
* * *
The thought of driving into town was less than a happy one. But the refrigerator was getting bare. There wasn’t much that one could make for dinner with two cubes of cheddar cheese, some hamburger buns, and some milk that was on the verge of going bad. Cassandra had used the last of the ground beef last night for burgers.
So there was no more putting it off.
The grocery store lot was packed, forcing her to park out in the hinterland. Brian and Chiffon grumbled: “Do we have to come into the store.”
“It’s not safe to leave you out here,” she said. Probably true, but more, she simply didn’t want to go by herself.
Near the front door, she caught sight of one of the translocators that Pastor had denounced. Before she could slip past, it briefly opened, disgorging a neighbor that she hadn’t talked to since the Antichrist came.
“Cassandra, long time no see!”
Was it possible for human beings to greet one another without resorting to clichés?
“Hi Janet. It has been a long time.” She faked a warm smile and cheerful demeanor. “You own one of those things?”
“Well, you can’t really own them—but yeah, we got one.”
“Expensive, aren’t they?”
Janet shrugged. “Not much more than a telephone. But it’s worth it. You can go just about anywhere with them now. I know, when they were new, you were so limited—but more and more folks are leasing them every day.”
“It hasn’t seemed to make much of a dent in the parking lot.”
Janet shrugged. “Not so many folks around here have one yet; but it’ll come. Wait and see. You only have to use one once or twice to get hooked. There’s no better way to travel—nothing like it. And they’re perfectly safe.”
“Except for the demons.” Cassandra only half-regretted the words.
“Demons? What demons? The demons have all been locked away in the pit, along with the Devil himself for the next thousand years.”
“Then what were those things they found?”
“Things?” Realization dawned. “Oh—you mean the people from that other world!”
“That’s what they’d like us to believe.”
Janet tilted her head. “You’re one of those people from Parkersville Bible Church, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“I’ve heard about you guys. You really don’t believe in Jesus? You think he’s the Antichrist?”
“He is!”
“What makes you think that?” Janet’s puzzlement was genuine.
By now, a small crowd had gathered around them. Cassandra felt their eyes on her; she recognized most of the faces.
But they all were strangers. She didn’t know any of them, anymore. They had stopped being her friends a long time ago, ever since she found the place in the Bible that said something like, “You can’t be friends of the world and be my friend, too.” Something like that.
“I’ve really got to do some grocery shopping,” protested Cassandra, wondering how she could get herself out of this.
“Maybe you could talk to me later?” Even as Cassandra pushed past her former companions, Janet kept at her heels; she pulled out a grocery cart and rolled along behind her. Brian and Chiffon looked like they were on the verge of tears. Janet rambled on: “I’ve heard stories, and I saw that special on television that talked about you guys—I even remember seeing you on it. You looked good, you know? But...I know how they cut and twist things on television; they can make you say or do whatever they want. I’d like to know the truth, you know? I believe it’s Jesus who’s come back, but...maybe there’s something to what you’re saying, you know? You and I go back a long way, and I never took you for being...well...easily tricked. I always thought you had a good head on your shoulders, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” Cassandra felt herself relaxing.
“So, after we get done here, would you like to go over to Benny’s? I’ll buy you a cup of coffee—and something for the kids—they’ve got video games.”
“Uh—sure.” said Cassandra. She felt like kicking herself for agreeing, but it had been such a long time since she’d seen Janet—and maybe she really was open to the truth.
Janet smiled, a mixture of relief and expectancy crowding her face.
* * *
Benny’s was a hole in the wall coffee shop tucked into a corner of the Market Center, a mini-mall on the corner of Fiftieth and Willow. The decor was country, heavy on the dark brown wood. Candles sat in big red glass droplets in the center of each table, but lamps overhead made the flames feeble, both unnoticeable and unnecessary.
“You can watch, but I don’t want you playing!” she ordered strictly, acceding to the suggestion that the children depart for the game room.
“If you need quarters—” began Janet.
“I don’t want my children playing those...machines.” She almost commented “demon-controlled,” but thought better of it. Now, perhaps, was not the time to be talking about the demons that sucked out the souls of children when they played the games. She had no fears for her own offspring. They knew what the machines really were. Their reluctance to go with Janet’s brats was evidence of that.
But go they went, and finally Janet and Cassandra were alone, cups of steaming brew sitting in front of them.
“So tell me, how’s it going for you?” asked Janet.
“Fine.”
“Really—how are you doing?”
“Fine I said.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want? You expect me to unburden myself, drag out deep, dark hidden pains and wave them in your face shouting, look, look, look!?”
Janet’s eyebrows went up. “I see you haven’t lost any of your sarcasm.”
Cassandra shrugged.
“What’s the scoop then? What’s really going down at Parkersville Bible Church?”
“We’re getting ready for the Tribulation.”
“What?”
“We’re in the Tribulation now, but it’s the ‘good’ half, if you can call anything about it good.” She paused. “For the first three and a half years of the Tribulation, there will be relative peace and prosperity, or at least that’s what the Antichrist will try to make you think. But after those three and a half years are up, it’s going to hit the fan. God’s going to begin dumping wrath on the world, and everyone will be suffering for the next three and a half years, before the real Jesus comes back and consigns the Antichrist to Hell forever.”
“So you really do believe Jesus is the Antichrist.”
Cassandra nodded. “I don’t believe the impostor in Jerusalem is Jesus.”
“But how can you doubt it? Look at all that he’s done!”
“The Bible warned that the Antichrist would come with lying wonders and signs, so good that they would almost fool Christians—so you can’t believe these wonders. How do you know any of these things are real, anyhow? World peace? That’s what he claims, but what’s he hiding? What conflicts are raging that he doesn’t let get shown on television? And what about all the natural disasters?”
“But there aren’t any anymore. The storms are well behaved—you don’t even have lightning hitting buildings, anymore. There’s still lightning—it’s part of the balance of nature, you know; we’d be in trouble without it, I understand. But no hurricanes devastate the coasts, no tornadoes rip through mobile home parks, and no earthquakes rock California.”
“How do you know? Just because you never see it on the news? Who do you think’s controlling the news? If you’d watch HTV you’d learn that things aren’t quite the way they appear to be.”
“But what about everyone getting young? What about the end of all sickness? Doesn’t that mean something?”
“It means that God’s infinitely wise and merciful. But I refuse to concede any sort of miracle to that charlatan in Jerusalem. Oh, sure, he’ll claim credit for the good stuff, but he had nothing to do with it. It was really the gracious work of God.”
She pulled a small Bible out of her purse and opened it to the prophet Hosea and began reading out loud:
“For their mother hath played the harlot; she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink...
“For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.” Cassandra closed the Bible with a snap and returned it to her purse.
Janet shrugged. “So you’re saying it’s the same thing with all the guns and bombs—you know, that they don’t work anymore because of God, not because of Jesus.”
Cassandra sighed deeply. “Assuming the reports are true. How do you know if they are? Have you tried shooting a gun since the Antichrist came? Can you even get a gun anymore?”
Janet was shaking her head.
“See, you don’t know. You just believe what the television tells you, so you’re happy to accept this false Christ. Look at what the Bible said: at the last time there’d be lots of people claiming to be Jesus, but it warns us not to follow them or listen to people who say, ‘he’s here, or he’s there.’ When Jesus comes back, he’ll come back on the clouds of the air and Rapture his chosen people.”
“Isn’t that what happened?”
“Satan’s a master counterfeiter. Of course he’d make his man come like he was really Jesus. But none of the people who were Raptured were real Christians. Brother Sisyphus on HTV said he’d made a survey of the so-called Raptured, and do you know what? Not a one of them ever expected a Rapture to happen, and down to the last man, every one of them had major sin in their lives; they hadn’t ever been truly born again.”
“But I’ve been born again—everyone has, now—”
“I don’t want to be harsh, but that’s a lie of the Devil.” Cassandra paused, drank some coffee. “If you were a genuine believer in God and his son Jesus Christ, you wouldn’t be sitting here trying to convince me that the son of perdition in Jerusalem is none other than Jesus.”
“But I talked to him myself. He came right to my living room and spent an hour with me, helping me see the light, until I understood what he did on the cross.”
“And what did he do on the cross.”
“He died for my sins.”
“A meaningless platitude, pure and simple. The Devil reveals himself as an angel of light. So no matter how sweet, how nice, how warm or convincing, the bottom line is, he’s a liar. The Bible calls the Devil the ‘father of lies’. So do you expect you’d easily be able to tell whether it’s the Devil you’re facing? Get real. The Devil’s pulled the wool over your eyes.”
Janet just stared, dumbfounded. “I can’t see how you can be right.”
Cassandra took a deep breath. “Look, it’s really simple. Before Jesus comes back, there has to be a period called the Tribulation. During the Tribulation, there’s got to be this person called the Antichrist or the Beast. Now, tell me: do you remember the Antichrist being around before this fake Jesus showed up?”
“Well, no—”
“And how about the Tribulation? Did the conditions in the world ever get so bad before Jesus came that people were crying for the rocks on the hills to fall down and bury them, because of the horrors coming upon the Earth?”
Janet shook her head.
“And the Rapture—did I get Raptured?”
Janet shrugged.
“No, I did not. I haven’t gone anywhere, and yet the Bible’s absolutely clear that the dead in Christ will rise first, and then those who are alive and remain will rise into the air to meet Jesus, and with Jesus is where we’ll remain forever. Has any of that happened?” She paused a moment, but before Janet could register her response, Cassandra went on. “No it has not. Therefore, since nothing like any of that has happened, doesn’t it seem reasonable to you, since Antichrist must precede the real Christ, that the person in Jerusalem is Antichrist?”
Janet looked momentarily puzzled. Then she just sighed and shook her head. “How can you be so certain events have to turn out just the way you said?”
“You got a Bible?”
“Yeah.”
“Then look it up! See if I’m not right, if that’s not the only way things can happen. The Bible’s more important than experience, and you can’t let experience affect how you understand the Bible. The Bible says only one thing and you’ve got to know what that one thing is, and then you don’t have to pay attention to experience, or history, or science or any of that stuff on the outside. All that counts is what this book says, divorced from all other considerations. What’s going on in Jerusalem contradicts what the Bible says; therefore, that man can’t be Jesus. It’s that simple.”
“You’re sure you understand the Bible correctly?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—if the Bible says the sun rose in the east, does that mean the sun goes around the earth?”
Cassandra stared, dumbfounded. “That’s crazy.”
“Of course it is. But isn’t that what the Bible says?”
“Everyone knows the Earth goes around the Sun.”
“Didn’t used to be that way.”
Cassandra felt a sudden fury. “You can’t just make the Bible say anything you feel like. That’s what you’re trying to get me to say, isn’t it—that it’s all just a matter of interpretation!”
Janet shook her head. “Of course not. I’m just asking you if you’re certain you understand what the Bible’s saying about Jesus coming back. Isn’t it just possible you’ve misunderstood something—you know, like people used to misunderstand it when it said the sun rose in the east? It’s not that the Bible’s wrong or that it can say just anything—it’s merely that people can make mistakes and misunderstand things that—at least in hindsight—seem perfectly clear.”
Cassandra shook her head violently. “No—no—no! I won’t let you confuse me like that. The Bible says that there’s an Antichrist that’ll deceive the whole world, and then, and only then, will Jesus come back—but only after lots of bad things happen, after lots of bad people die—so many bad people that their blood runs five feet deep in the valley of Megiddo.”
Cassandra’s voice was wavering and she knew she was close to tears. She sucked in a deep breath and poured some coffee into her mouth. Thankfully it was still hot; the warmth had a calming effect on her.
“Do you ever think about the stuff we used to do together?” asked Janet, changing the subject.
“Not too often,” but she couldn’t hide the smile that suddenly spread across her face; the question had reminded her of one of their good times.
