With a rod of iron a par.., p.66
With a Rod of Iron: A Parable, page 66
It made her cheerful, thinking about how they would roast, screaming for mercy forever and ever, never to be freed from their suffering, never to get away, never to escape the folly of their foolish choices!
She joined her husband in racing from the house, hurrying down the street to where the weapons were stored.
The street was filled with her friends. They shouted and laughed and called out to one another. They threw their arms around each other and hugged and tears rolled down their cheeks. They were vindicated, they were right, they had always been right and now, at last, the ones who had made fun of them all these years, those wretches who had hated God and believed a lie—they’d finally see just how right the Christians were!
Chapter Thirty-two
Cassandra arrived near Jerusalem precisely at noon. The sky above was clear; there was not a cloud anywhere to be seen. Justified, she told herself. Then aloud: “Justified!”
It had been worth it. All the long struggle, all the waiting and putting up with the harsh conditions, the deprivations, the agony of being righteous all the time—it was worth it, because she had made it. She was one of the elect, and now Jesus had returned and brought them to Jerusalem to fight the final battle, the battle of Armageddon, and to bring God’s wrath upon the unregenerate spawn of Satan!
Ringing the city, the nearly uncountable throng of her fellow believers, all the faithful who had gone to New Earth, all the holy ones who had exiled themselves from the rule of the Beast, all those who had worked hard at keeping the evil out of their lives, stood as one; they were armed with bows and arrows, swords and spears, the only weapons that still existed in the universe, since God had stopped the power of guns and bombs.
Pressed side to side and front to back, she looked up at the blue sky again; there came Jesus on his white horse, with the mighty Host of Heaven behind him.
“Yes,” she murmured, and a shout rose from the lips of the assembled millions.
“Now!” the voice boomed from the sky, and at the command, the crowd surged. She wondered where her husband was, where her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, without end, might be. She recognized no one around her, but the look of triumph and joy on the faces was enough for her. She lifted her sword high, swinging it wildly, looking for the wicked.
“It is finished!”
Cassandra stopped, stunned into torpor by the harsh sentence.
She looked up again, vainly trying to pinpoint its origin. At first, she imagined it had come from the lips of her Savior, but peering into the sky, she saw the rider on the white horse had stopped, too—together with the armies of heaven behind him.
She watched in utter disbelief as her Savior crumpled and drooped, falling through the air like a withered leaf.
Incomprehensibly, her King of Kings and his assembled army vanished in incandescent puffs, leaving behind nothing but blue sky.
“Jesus?...” she murmured, appalled.
A wall of flame erupted from the edges of Jerusalem; it spread outward like a sheet, engulfing her friends, her family, her loved ones assembled against the Holy City. For one last, brief instant Cassandra saw the flash, and then...
* * *
Loran, with the rest of the redeemed waited calmly upon the vast plaza that surrounded the throne of the Lamb. The soft murmur of millions of voices reached her ears, and she joined the rumble, speaking softly with her companion, Darlene, who had brought her here.
A rumble echoed through the sky, silencing all conversation. Looking up, Loran saw a figure appear on a white horse and behind him, an endless assemblage, like a series of mirror images reflected back and forth; row upon row of horses and horsemen. Below, on the hills and valleys surrounding the Holy City, endless throngs of people had appeared as if from nowhere, marching like a hoard of locust across the land.
Loran started to ask a question, when suddenly the familiar voice of Jesus rang out: “It is finished!”
There was a clap, like thunder, and the figures in the sky vanished in incandescent puffs, while a wave of flame engulfed the army that had spread itself across the land.
Within a matter of seconds, everything was quiet again. The green hills covered with low trees swayed softly in the breeze, while the sweet melody of birds twittered.
Then a voice that seemed to come from nowhere as much as from everywhere intoned the words:
“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns, forever and ever.”
Overhead, filling the sky, a new object appeared: a city of light, glowing like a thousand suns, descending toward the ground.
“The New Jerusalem,” announced Darlene. “Old things are passed away, behold, all things become new. This is the beginning of the eternal kingdom, the end forever of the old world and the old universe, which have fled away with no place found for them.”
“I thought...” began Loran.
Darlene grinned: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”
Loran said nothing.
“What have you seen pass away in the last thousand years? And what had you, as a Christian, been told not to love? Reconcile it with what John wrote in John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’”
Loran nodded, the understanding finally dawning. “Then what the Bible says about the world passing away—that was referring to...to the world of sin, of suffering—and the misery and horror of this place: dominated and organized by Satan himself, the system was corrupt and hurt people. That has all passed away.”
Darlene quoted the passage for her: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying...” And before she could repeat the words, they echoed from the city dangling like a jewel above their heads.
“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
And then Jesus, sitting on the throne, looked out at all of them, and smiling, said: “I am making everything new!”
* * *
Cassandra found herself alone in a long room ablaze with lights. She was standing, unclothed, facing a figure sitting upon a throne of gold, studded with various jewels of infinite colors. She could barely glance at the figure; her face seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, so that all she could do was stare at the floor in front of her.
“Lord,” she said softly. “Can I now enter your Kingdom?”
She felt the shake of the head, more than she saw it. And then the words in her ears were painful—but not unexpected.
“I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoer.”
“But...” she began. “I was a good woman, I did all sorts of good things, I never drank or smoked or lusted; I kept myself holy, I...I...”
“You know the scripture: ‘All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.’”
Cassandra nodded her head.
“And you know the Scripture: ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.’”
“I know that Scripture well,” began Cassandra. “I memorized a lot of the Bible—”
“Then how can you stand before me boasting of your holiness?”
“I...” she began, but could bring herself to say no more. Her legs buckled, and she dropped to her knees, sobbing.
“Who has bewitched you?” quoted the One on the throne. “Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?”
Cassandra didn’t move. She lay prostrate on her face, and couldn’t begin to budge.
“You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”
Cassandra saw it now; she saw her pride, her self-righteousness, her arrogant accretion of holiness to herself, her refusal to let God into her life, to acknowledge her own sinfulness, her own emptiness and powerlessness. She had known it all, she could quote all the verses, and in all her life, in all her days, she had never applied them even once to herself, had never really understood what it meant that Christ had died for her sins; she had never seen herself as a sinner—as needing God’s help. She had done her life by herself. And in the end, she had been deceived. She saw it now.
“You judged everyone and everything,” snapped the One who lives forever. “Hear my word, from the scripture you so freely quoted: ‘Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.’”
She bowed her head in shame.
The words at the end of John’s Revelation rang in her mind, haunting her—as she knew they would for all eternity.
“When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand of the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the Devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night, for ever and ever.”
“Who are the beast and the false prophet?...” she knew the answer, the inevitable answer.
“For you, they were Brother Sisyphus and Pastor Tantalus.”
Nevertheless, she screamed.
And somewhere, in the back of her head, she could hear laughter—the laughter from the Deceiver of her soul. Laughter that would never end.
“I am a jealous God. To follow another is to follow Antichrist. One cannot serve God and money.”
Then Jesus was quoting scripture again: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!
“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to Hell?”
Jesus, sitting on the throne in front of her intoned the last words she would ever hear from him: “If anyone’s name was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
A moment later, she looked up—and she was in torment.
THE END
About the Author
R.P. NETTELHORST is the founder and Academic Vice President of Quartz Hill School of Theology. (http://www.theology.edu) He also serves as Professor of Bible and Biblical Languages. He is a graduate of Los Angeles Baptist College, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a major in history. While a student, he spent two summers working on a kibbutz in Israel. He went on to complete his graduate work at UCLA in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, majoring in Semitic languages. Before founding Quartz Hill School of Theology, he taught at Christian Heritage College, Los Angeles Baptist College, and the Master’s College. He is the author of The Bible’s Most Fascinating People, published as an illustrated hardback by Reader’s Digest Books (and subsequently translated into 13 languages); A Year with God, published by Thomas Nelson, A Year with Jesus, published by Thomas Nelson, and The Bible: A Reader’s Guide, an illustrated hardback published by Sterling. His academic articles have appeared in Biblical Research Monthly, the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, and the Quartz Hill Journal of Theology. He writes a weekly column for Ridge Rider News, a small newspaper in northern California. He is listed in Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World.
He is a member of the Author’s Guild, Society of Biblical Literature, and American Academy of Religion. He was a volunteer with the X-Prize Foundation at the winning launches of SpaceShipOne in 2004. He is married, with three daughters. He resides in Lancaster, California.
Visit his blog at http://www.nettelhorst.com
R.P. Nettelhorst, With a Rod of Iron: A Parable
