by Miller, Tim
“Look Charlie, I know it’s a lot to take in. But just face it. The stuff in that book, its only part truth. Fact is, what goes on in the spirit realm is nothing like you could imagine. The Bible doesn’t even come close to explaining it.”
“You’re a liar!”
“Really? So who are you going to help? God, who has clearly rejected you? Look at how many times his man the Bishop has come after you last few days. You’ve seen how he really operates. You want to serve that for eternity?”
He had a point, but I just wanted to get out of there. I wanted to run and give all of this up. I could go be a teacher or something, something with nothing to do with religion and just pretend I never knew any of this. Finally, I did turn and ran as fast as I could. I hoped I’d imagined everything. As I ran I heard an explosion behind me. Turning to look, I saw he was gone. I was sure he’d be back, though. I stopped at the corner to catch my breath. I needed to call Stanton. We had to pay the Bishop a visit, I had a feeling he would meet with us this time. We had a lot to discuss.
Chapter 38
I stopped at a gas station and bought a pre-paid cell phone and then called Stanton. He arrived about twenty minutes later to pick me up. I filled him in on the events at the church. He took less convincing this time than he did earlier, but I still wasn’t sure how much of this he believed.
“So we’re going back to the Bishop’s place after what happened last time?” He asked.
“Yes, I know. Things have changed though. He’ll see us this time.”
“Great. Do I want him to see us?”
“Yes, it’ll be fine. Besides, if he refuses this time, we’ll just ram the car through the front gate.”
Stanton glared at me.
“What the hell kind of preacher are you? You do freaky things to people, the devil supposedly visits you. The Bishop is supposedly Jesus now, but you want to go try and kill him.”
“Yes I know. A lot doesn’t make sense to me either. Something big is going down though either way. A lot of lives are at stake and we have a chance to be in the middle of it and do something.”
“Not sure I want to be in the middle of this.”
“Like it or not, you are.”
“Beautiful.”
He shook his head as we were silent the rest of the way. When we reached the Bishop’s mansion, Stanton pulled right up to the front gate which swung open this time. There was new guy in a suit standing inside as we pulled through. Stanton stopped as the guy knelt down by the window.
“The Bishop is expecting you.”
We pulled up to the front of the mansion and stepped out of the car. Another nameless goon in a suit came out to escort us inside. We walked down a long hallway that was covered with paintings and old furniture. The place reminded me of a museum, I was afraid to touch anything. We reached a large set of wooden double doors, the man pushed them open and we stepped into a large office. It looked like a judge’s chambers with a large oak desk, a big leather executive chair, and bookshelves lining the walls. In front of the desk were four high backed chairs.
It was no surprise a lot of the books were religious texts. Though I was surprised to see copies of the Koran, the Talmud and books on Buddhism; there were several Christian writings as well. Many of the books looked extremely old. A door behind me open and closed, I spun around to see the Bishop standing by the desk.
“Well, hello gentlemen. Good to see you Pastor Charlie. Who is your little friend?” He said as he pulled the chair up behind him. “Please have a seat.” He gestured to the high backed chairs. We both sat and he looked at us with the same smile on his face as if nothing had changed at all in the last twenty four hours.
“So,” he began. “You’ve had quite a night tonight haven’t you? And I hear you had a special visitor.” He was referring to my visit from Lucifer.
“Yes, I guess you could say that.” I said. “So is what Lucifer said true?”
“Which part?”
“All of it. About my heritage and about who you really are.”
“I’m afraid so my friend. You are indeed a descendent of fallen angels. As repulsive as that may sound, it’s true. And on the last thing, yes, I am the Christ.”
I couldn’t believe he was actually saying it.
“You don’t believe me do you?” He said as he held up his hands, showing two large bloodied holes in his hands. “Do you need to put your fingers through my wounds, Doubting Thomas?”
He lowered his hands, and then held them up again, this time the holes were gone.
“Okay, so what is this all about?” I asked.
“You don’t seem impressed. You are in the presence of the Lord.”
“Guess it hasn’t sunk in yet.”
“Perhaps. What is this about? Well I think that is simple. I have returned for the separating of the sheep and the goats. The sheep will be with me in eternity, the goats will be led to slaughter.”
“So you’re going to just kill everyone that doesn’t follow you?”
“That’s kind of what the book says isn’t it? You’ve been preaching this your whole life. Don’t get all skittish now just because time has run out. Unfortunately for most of you, there are far more goats than sheep, including many goats who think they are sheep.”
“You mean Christians.”
“Exactly. You all ramble on and on about faith. Yet your own faith is empty, all of you.” He stood and turned his back to us, looking out the large window behind the desk. “You go to your fancy churches, say your prayers, sing your songs, put a dollar in the offering plate. Then you drive home and tell the guy who cut you off on the freeway to fuck off.”
Stanton and I looked at each other, stunned by the Bishop or Christ swearing. The Bishop continued. “In the meantime, people are starving, dying or killing each other.” He cast me a glance as he said the last part. “While children are starving, women are suffering.” He turned to face me. “Charlie, do you remember a young girl in your church who got pregnant last year? Her name was Amber. She was nineteen.”
“Yes,” I said. “I remember. She wasn’t married or anything. Some people gave her a hard time. One of my associate pastors prayed with her a few times but then she stopped coming to church.”
“Yes, that’s right. She stopped going because one of the ladies in your church called her a whore, called her baby a bastard, and said there was no place in God’s house for a slut like her. Did you know that?”
I sank down a bit in my chair.
“No. No I didn’t.”
“Do you know where Amber is now?”
I shook my head.
“She’s dead. She killed herself a few months after her baby was born. She left the baby at an emergency room, went home and swallowed enough pills to OD a horse.”
“My God,” I said.
“Yes, your God indeed.”
“So if you’re the Christ, why didn’t you stop her? You obviously know her whole situation. Why didn’t you save her?”
“I tried, Charlie. I put you and your church right in her path!” His voice got louder as he moved toward me. “Yet you were so tied up with programs, goofy sermons and then let’s not forget your own little hobby, you failed the one simple thing I told all of you to do. Love each other.”
Even Stanton looked like he might cry. At this point I knew how the Pharisees must have felt when Jesus chastised them. I felt about two inches tall, as if I had missed the point entirely. I was a Pharisee, we all were. A wave of sadness swelled up inside me. I’d never felt true sadness before. I’d always been so empty, simply existing from day to day. Up until that moment, I was nothing more than a vehicle carrying out a series of tasks and behaviors. This time, I felt sadness, true sadness. As bad as it felt, it almost felt good just to feel something. My throated tightened up and it became hard to swallow. I felt tears fill my eyes as I looked up at the Bishop.
He put his hand on my shoulder as his eyes met mine.
“It’s okay,” he said.
As he placed his hand on my shoulder, I felt warmth like I’d never felt before. It wasn’t heat, but internal warmth. I’d never felt real love before, but this must be what it felt like. I’m not referring to romantic love, but compassionate love people normally feel for their friends or family. It’s not that no one ever loved me. I could just never feel it. The Bible tells us “God is love.” That moment gave me an idea of what that meant.
“My Lord,” I cried. “Please forgive me of my sins.”
I knelt down before him, looking down at the floor. He stood before me as if considering it. After a few minutes he took his hand off my shoulder and stepped away.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” he said. “For you, I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
Chapter 39
I looked up at the Bishop feeling as if I’d just been punched in the stomach.
“What do you mean not that simple?” I asked. Stanton sat in his chair watching all this as if he were watching TV.
“When I was on earth the first time, it was to save mankind. I came as the Lamb, to be sacrificed. You are not a man, at least not completely. Now, I have come back as the Lion of Judah, to bring judgment to mankind. Once again, I guess you’d technically be excluded from that, but there are other arrangements.”
“I know I’m not fully human. What does that have to do with anything? It’s not like I can help it.”
“It has everything to do with it. There was a reason I had your kind eradicated thousands of years ago. At least I tried too anyway. A few of you squeaked by, though, and here you are. I’ve thought of wiping you out several times, but you were doing such a good job of doing my work for me, I just let you go. Well, until recently, when you’ve been all up in my business. Now you’re just a nuisance.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. For one, here was Jesus himself being a much bigger smart ass than I could have imagined. I guess being the Son of God he can do that. This whole experience seemed like a weird dream.
“I can’t help who my ancestors were,” I said.
“No my friend, you can’t.” The Bishop sat back down behind his desk. “But look at you. You’re a mess. You slice people to pieces, and pour them down the drain. Granted, most of them were rotten to the core, and they’d never turn to me for anything. Now, you do that thing with turning people to zombies. Very creepy stuff, but I know you can’t help yourself. It’s in your DNA, literally.”
Hearing him talk about me as if I were some kind of concept or experiment made me want to throw up. Stanton looked like he was trying to decide whether to shoot just me, or both of us.
“What is he talking about? Cutting people to pieces?”
“I’ll explain later,” I turned to the Bishop. “So that’s it then? You’re just going to destroy the world?”
“You make it sound so harsh. You all knew this day was coming. It’s just that most of you Christian folks thought you’d be raptured into big, pretty mansions in the sky while the rest of the world suffered horrible atrocities. Then you all come back from the sky with me and some army of flaming horses to destroy the sinners.” He waved his hand and laughed. “I went through everything I did on the cross years ago, yet all of you thought you’d be exempt from the slightest bit of discomfort? Please. It’s pathetic. You folks act like you’re being persecuted if someone looks at you wrong. All of you have missed the point completely.”
“That’s not true! My church is full of good people who are full of love. They love you, they love each other.”
“Oh, stop it. They love their cable TV and foamy lattes. Anything that disrupts that is a waste of their time. At least you have some ambition. That’s why I tried to get you to help me. I could never let you into God’s kingdom, no way. But, I suppose I could have made things a little better for you. Either way, I’m going to keep you around a little longer. Let you watch the show.”
“So everything I’ve believed in the Bible is a lie?”
“Oh no, it’s true. Just remember, there is a lot in the Bible that has been translated or interpreted. Things prophesied in the Bible will happen, just not the way any of you thought they would. Especially that Tim LaHaye fellow, he’s truly off his rocker.”
Stanton stood up and tapped my shoulder.
“Well, that’s all good to know.” Stanton said. “I think we should go.”
“Oh, Detective Stanton, I never said you were going anywhere,” the Bishop said. With a wave of his hand, Stanton fell lifeless to the ground.
“Stanton!” I shouted, kneeling beside him feeling for his pulse. Nothing. “He’s dead.”
“Well, of course he is.”
“How can you just kill like that? You’re supposed to be the Christ!”
“Yes, what does the Book say? The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
“You’re sick!”
“No, I’m God. You can bring him back if you want. You know how.”
“Right. I’ll spare him that.”
“I think you missed something here. You and our pals spend your whole lives reading and studying that book, analyzing it, dissecting it. It’s got lots of good information, but it barely touches the truth of what I really am. That is simply what I chose to reveal at that time.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s just say people back in those days weren’t very hard to convince of my deity. Though you folks today aren’t much harder.”
“What?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t understand. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
“I’m not ready to…” before I could finish speaking, I was back in my apartment standing in my living room.
The whole thing was too much to believe. Stanton was dead, the Bishop was Jesus Christ, but Christ isn’t who or what any of us thought he was. He was here to end the world, and there wasn’t much I could do to stop him. What was the point? He wanted to keep me alive to watch the show as he called it. I figured he’d kill me after everything was over with, but who knew? Part of me wished he just killed me and got it over with. Whatever was about to happen, I suddenly felt exhausted. I hadn’t slept much in the last few days, if the world was going to end soon, the least I could do was to take a nap. Maybe it would all be over with when I woke up.
I walked into my bedroom, undressed and climbed into bed. I thought of the whole conversation with the Bishop, Dave and Lucifer. It was all too much. The days when I knew who was right and who was wrong seemed so long ago. Now I wasn’t even sure who was good or evil or who or what God even was. It didn’t even matter since we were all about to die. I closed my eyes before thinking too much made me crazy. Luckily sleep took me before the Bishop or death could.
Chapter 40
I woke up slowly wiping the fog of sleep from my eyes. I must have slept for at least twelve hours. As my vision cleared, I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw the man sitting in my room. It was Lucifer, sitting in a chair with his legs crossed and reading one of my theology books. I think this one was a study on Isaiah and the fall of Lucifer himself.
“My God, you scared the hell out of me.” I said. “You creatures seriously need to knock that off.”
“Sorry. I guess subtlety isn’t in our nature.” He said. I suppose I should have been more shocked at waking up to find the devil himself sitting in my bedroom, but recent events had jaded my threshold of fear.
“What do you want?” I asked. He closed the book and glanced at the cover.
“Interesting book,” he said. “I have to disagree with the author’s interpretation of Isaiah. But in fairness to him and Isaiah, neither of them has ever been to what you know as heaven. Oh well. I should thank him. Generations have feared me because of it. I was the first one to stand up to your God. I think now you might have an idea why. I mean, really. He says he gives you free will, or a choice. If you’re an angel, that means he will cast you into the abyss if you don’t follow him. If you’re a hum
an he will send you to hell, which is basically another name for the abyss—if you don’t follow him. Some choice, huh? That’s like an abusive husband telling his wife. ‘Oh no, it’s your choice to make me dinner, totally up to you. I’ll just beat you to a bloody pulp if you don’t. Your choice though.’”
“Very deep,” I said. “You should write a review and post it on Amazon.”
He laughed and tossed the book aside.
“Nice! I like you Charlie. You don’t rattle easily. We’re more alike than you may realize.”
I just rolled my eyes.
“Anyway,” he continued. “You go and see your savior after we talked?”
“I did.”
“And how’d that go?”
“Well, you were right. He said he’s here for his second coming. I was skeptical at first, but then he put his hand on me. The power I felt then, I had no doubt he is the Christ. He said he plans to wipe out mankind, except his true believers, who are far fewer in number than any of us could have ever guessed. Then he killed my friend with a wave of his hand.”
“Yeah. He can be a douche like that,” Lucifer said.
“I even tried to submit to him once I realized he was God. I bowed my head, acknowledged him. He said it wasn’t that easy for me; that I’m an abomination and he’s going to keep me alive so I can have a front row seat to the end of the world. I want to stop him, but I don’t know how. My whole life and belief system has been a lie.”
“I think you do know how to stop him, Charlie.”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t kill you because he can’t. He’s not sparing your life. He’s unable to. You’re not human, so he can’t just wave his hand and drop you to the floor. Why do you think he hasn’t killed me? We were made differently. He’s convinced you that you’re powerless. Hell, he does that to humans. The whole Bible tells humans they are powerless. He’s got everyone convinced they are useless without him.”