Brandon is a bright spot. Each time Emma runs to Micah’s apartment, she leaves him with Rick and Brandon upstairs. Like Matt, Rick wants little to do with Micah, feeling that he’s someone else’s responsibility. But Brandon feels as Emma does; the child needs to be protected, even if that means from his own father.
This time when Emma looks inside Micah’s apartment, she can tell the people within have changed positions, yet everyone is still in a drug-induced daze and incoherent. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to be with your dad right now,” she tells Micah upon her return. “I think you need to sleep here again. Are you okay with that?” He is. At least he feels safe with her.
Emma sleeps on the sofa, and Micah stretches out on the floor, just within her reach. During Sunday’s early-morning hours she awakens with a start; she has slept only one or two hours each day since everyone disappeared. She is weary and still unable to take in much food. She thinks of her sister and tries texting her again. Emma has not been able to talk to her since their last contact, and all she can do is wonder if Sarah is okay. She then reaches for Mrs. Ramos’s Bible, using candles and a flashlight to help her see. She flips open the book and looks down at Ephesians 1. She begins to read and finds herself going back over each sentence a couple of times, trying to understand the words. She reads verses 18-20 again.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms…
Each time she reads these verses she stops at the words “when he raised Christ from the dead.” All her life, she had known that Jesus was born in a manger, died on a cross, and was resurrected three days later. That seemed like common knowledge among most people she knew. Before, when she was a child and at church with her parents, or even when she would go back and visit and sit next to her mom during a church service, the birth, life, and resurrection of Jesus seemed like a great story to tell, but now it doesn’t feel like a mere story; it’s beginning to feel real.
Emma looks down at Micah and can hear her heart throbbing in her ears. God raised Christ from the dead. He was dead in a tomb with a rock rolled in front of it for three days, but then God raised him from the dead. Her mind races back to all the images on TV of open graves around the world.
“God raised them from the dead,” she says aloud. She reads the rest of that sentence: and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. “God raised them from the dead and now they’re in the heavenly realms.” Tears begin to fall as she thinks about an empty grave in Indiana. “God raised Dad from the dead and now he’s in the heavenly realms, and Mom is there with him.” She looks up toward the ceiling. “I miss you both so much.”
She looks down again at the chapter and reads verse 17: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.”
“This is what I want,” she says. “Please, God. Give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I can know you better.”
She looks again at the words “when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,” reading one chapter after another as Micah snores through the night.
Carrying the Bible Kennisha gave him, Elliott walks through the streets, which are worsening by the hour as they become the stomping grounds for thieves, pillagers, and thugs who are banding together in rings to protect themselves, while others are still scrambling for a place to live following the attack. It’s Sunday morning, and he walks a few blocks to a church in his neighborhood. He has often passed Solid Ground Chapel, but has never paid attention to the service schedule, the people who come and go there, or even what the building looks like. The structure looks like it possibly started off as a warehouse back in the early 1950s but has changed businesses many times since, and once it became a church has gone from one denomination to another throughout the years.
He’s never been inside a church and feels a rush of adrenaline as to what it must be like. He sees 100 or so people standing outside and assumes the service hasn’t begun. He’s anxious to hear what the pastor or anyone has to say and glances at his watch, realizing the service should have started. When he steps inside, he sees that the vestibule is swollen with people. He makes his way through the middle of them and stands in the back of the sanctuary, pressing in beside others who are lining the walls.
At normal capacity the church looks like it could hold 600 or so, but today the seats are bulging and the stage is overflowing with what he estimates could be 1,500 people, including some who have been living in the basement of the church since the attack. Everyone is waiting for the pastor to come out and explain what has happened to the world. A man holding a guitar and another man behind a keyboard are the only musicians on stage. They look as bewildered and frightened as everyone else.
After several minutes of awkward silence, a man from the seats speaks up. “Where’s the pastor?”
“I’ve come here every day looking for him and he hasn’t been here,” a woman behind him says.
A moment of nervous quiet passes before the crowd’s mood changes from solemnity to fear. “Where is he?” someone yells. “Where is everybody?”
They are becoming anxious and upset as Elliott, emboldened with the same courage he felt on the street, steps to the front. He opens his mouth and realizes again that the words he’s about to speak aren’t coming from him, but from the Spirit of God himself. “They’re no longer here,” he says as he looks out at young, weathered, dark, light, and worried faces.
CHAPTER 27
Queens, NY
Emma and Micah listen to the young man at the front of the church as a woman next to her speaks up.
“Where are they?” she asks.
“They’re in heaven.” The sound of laughter and scoffing are heard throughout the church, but the young man ignores the mockery. “The apostle Paul said that Jesus would descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call of God, and that the dead in Christ would rise first.”
Emma’s palms begin to sweat as she remembers the words she read earlier this morning from Ephesians: “when he raised Christ from the dead.”
“A loud command?” a man shouts from the back of the church. “A trumpet? Nobody heard anything like that!”
The crowd shouts as one in agreement as the young man raises his hands. “Jesus’s followers heard him. He said in the Bible, ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life.’ We didn’t follow Jesus. We didn’t hear his command.” People begin to murmur, but he keeps talking. “All around the city—all around this world—graves burst open when the dead in Christ heard the voice of their Savior, and then those who were alive were snatched up and met them in the air with Jesus. I was standing in a cemetery when graves exploded open and security cameras around the globe showed us how quickly people disappeared. Someone may have disappeared right in front of you.”
Many in the church are crying, while others are trying to shout Elliott down. “Who are you?” a red-faced man says, standing in the middle of the crowd.
The young man talking to them is not tall or bulky; he has a small frame, a slightly receding hairline, and wears glasses, but there’s something unusual about him when he speaks. “My name is Elliott. Until a week ago I was a religious Jew. I’m still a Jew and so is my Messiah, Jesus Christ.”
Nobody knows what to think of Elliott. They are feeling incredulous, angry, confused, or scared. The city lies in ruins and the world is so lopsided now that their nerves are stretched tight, their hearts are shattered, their strength is nearly broken, and now this man is making it worse. What he’s saying is unscripted and unre
strained.
“Christ came for his people,” Elliott says. “He took them to heaven because the time has now come for God to judge the earth for its rebellion and sins against him, but there’s still time to know Jesus. There’s still time to repent and follow him so you can live with him forever.”
The crowd gets noisy. “You need to sit down. You’re scaring the hell out of everybody!” a man shouts from the back. “Look at our city! How are we going to live? What you’re saying isn’t helping.”
Elliott nods, talking louder. “I know you’re scared. I was too. Many of you no longer have your loved ones with you. Some entire families are gone, and that’s too much to bear.”
Emma begins to cry, and she notices that many people can’t hold their tears at bay either. Losing so many loved ones has been crippling.
“Much of the city is gone,” Elliott says. “But we’re still here, and we have to help each other like never before. We have to spread the truth about Christ before he comes back again.”
“It’s not true,” someone yells from the back, and others raise their voices, shouting that Elliott is lying.
“He’s telling the truth,” a man calls out who is around forty and standing along the wall with a boy about eight or so at his side. “My dad kept telling me. Someone you know probably tried to tell you,” he says, his arm making a sweeping motion to point to everyone in the room. “I thought my dad was a crazy old man. I thought he was ignorant.” His words catch in his throat and he doesn’t say anything more.
“What are you talking about?” asks a woman who is about fifty. “If it’s true, then why didn’t the pastor ever tell us any of that?” The man shrugs, unable to answer.
“Maybe he didn’t think you would believe it. Maybe he thought that calling you a sinner was too hard for you to hear,” Elliott says. “There are kinder messages to hear. Maybe he knew you wanted to hear pleasant things and not hard truths. But the truth is, our sins separate us from God. Jesus became sin for us and hung on a cross for us.” He holds up the Bible. “It’s all right here. I’ve been reading this Bible ever since it was given to me after the attack. Jesus said he would prepare a place in his Father’s house for his own, and that he would come back and take them there. Read it in John 14. That’s what he’s done. He has come, and he has snatched his followers out of this world and taken them there. But he’ll be back! And then those who believe and follow him will live with him forever.”
“Why would anybody want to live with him?” the same angry man in the middle yells. “You’re saying he took some and not others?!” He curses at Elliott and his face darkens. “Nobody wants that kind of God!” He’s physically agitated and rallies others in the crowd, who stand and shout over one another. “That kind of God is vindictive and cruel!” The vitriol builds as the uproar grows louder, their rage directed at Elliott, but he continues to speak.
“It would be cruel if God never brought an end to murder, rape, genocide, sex trafficking, abuse, drug addiction, destruction, pain, suffering, evil of all kinds. All of that was brought into the world through our sin!” Elliott is louder now, trying to be heard above the crowd. “How is God good if there’s never an end to those things? To sin? That would be cruel! There has to be an end to evil. He’ll judge the earth of these sins against him, and Jesus will come back with all those who are in heaven with him, and this world will be made clean and new and put under his authority. No more suffering. No more pain. No more rebellion. It’s because of God’s goodness that he’s judging evil. It’s the goodness of God that leads people to repentance. While there’s still time, he calls us to repent.”
“Repent of what?” a confused young woman from the second row yells. “What have we done that all those who disappeared didn’t?”
“We were separated from God by our sins. We followed our own desires,” Elliott says.
“Shut up and sit down!” a woman screams while holding her little girl on her lap.
Elliott responds to her in kindness. “I can speak for myself and say that I didn’t believe or obey what God says is true. I didn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah, but now I do. He said he was coming back to take his followers to his Father’s house, yet very few taught about that, thinking it sounded either like a fairy tale or a horror story. But he did exactly what he said he would!” He lifts the Bible over his head. “In here he said to stay close to him, stay in his word, obey his word, but we all wanted to do things our way, not his. Now this is our time to believe and obey and follow before he comes back again at the end of the age, but the next time He won’t come back in the blink of an eye. At that time, every eye will see him!”
A woman with two teenagers speaks up. “But we still don’t have a clear answer. How do we know that you’re telling the truth?”
“He’s not telling the truth!” a man roars from the stage behind Elliott. The heated voices blur together, hurling insults and curses and trying to thunder over Elliott, but he doesn’t waver.
Elliott’s eyes are full of compassion. “How does this message benefit me? Why did any of you come here today? To hear myths? To hear something that would magically take away the terror of the last four days? Either I’m telling the truth or I’m insane. Either Jesus told the truth in this book or he was insane. Either that man’s father,” he says, pointing to the man along the wall, “was an ignorant old fool, or he was telling his son the truth. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’
“We didn’t want to believe that because we didn’t think it was fair,” he says, directing his comment to the man who brought up the issue of fairness in the first place. “There had to be more ways to heaven than just through Jesus. As for me, I reasoned that I wasn’t a murderer or a rapist and that I was a good person, but that was by my own measurement, my own rules, not God’s.” He stops to take in their faces, but many in the crowd are becoming furious and screaming over him.
“The time ahead of us is dark and dangerous, but the light of Christ still shines today as it has for over two thousand years. Peter said Christ is patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but for everyone to come to repentance. Jesus is coming again, and on that day there will be no more chances to repent. No more chances to follow him. This is your time!” Many men and women and children begin to weep, falling to their knees.
“Or what?” a man standing along the wall shouts.
Elliott looks at him. “Jesus said, ‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.’”
“Fearmongering won’t work,” the man says. “Look at these people,” he says, pointing to the ones on their knees. “They’re sniveling.”
Elliott takes a step toward the man. “These people aren’t under my conviction, but the conviction of the Holy Spirit. They feel the presence of God.”
“Nobody wants your God,” the man sneers. Others join him in screaming and jeering at Elliott. Outraged by what he’s heard, and empowered by the mutinous clamor inside the church, the man runs for Elliott, cursing as he lunges for him. His body bounces off the air and lands on the floor with a thud. Stunned, the man curses louder, lunging again, only to be held at a distance by an unseen force.
Elliott continues to speak, calling people to repentance. Emma and Micah watch in astonishment as the man flails alone before others join in to help, a mob hell-bent on inflicting physical harm to Elliott, but their blows miss him and strike each other. It is a brutal fight bordering on the absurd as time and again fists fly through the air past Elliott, cracking the jaw or eye socket of someone else. One man picks up a folding chair and strikes at Elliott, but the chair hurls back at the man, knocking him down.
For those who believe, there is a palpable presence in the room, and Emma’s eyes fill as she reaches over and takes hold of Micah’s hand.
“Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” Elliott says, makin
g his voice heard above the clamor. “Do you believe that God raised him from the dead and that he’s coming again? Tell him! Follow him! Repent while there’s still time.”
Many of the people who have been screaming choose to leave, while others, like the man who had flung the folding chair and the red-faced man in the middle of the pews, decide to stay. Emma and Micah hold hands, and Emma begins to talk aloud. “Forgive me, God,” she says. “I do believe that Jesus is your Son, and I do believe that you raised him from the dead, just as you raised my dad. I believe, God. Forgive me. Please. I believe and want you, Jesus, to be my Lord.”
Micah looks up at Emma and prays the same words, and she hugs him. She then pulls him toward the front, through the crowd of people to Elliott. She yells at him over the noise. “Could you come and talk to the people in my apartment building?”
To discover more about the biblical facts behind the story, read Where in the Word? on page 243, or continue reading the novel.
CHAPTER 28
Queens, NY
Emma runs, shouting through her apartment building as she pounds on doors. “Piya,” she says, breathless with Micah at her side. “Bring your family to my apartment in twenty minutes. It’s urgent,” she says, running to the next door. Micah helps, banging on doors up ahead and people reluctantly look out into the hallway.
“Everybody come to my apartment in twenty minutes,” Emma yells.
“What’s this about?” old man Gruebber says.
“Just come! A man will be explaining everything that’s happened!”
Emma and Micah run to the second floor, delivering the same news, and then up to the third floor, where she knocks on Rick and Brandon’s door. Brandon sees her through the peephole and opens the door. She hugs him. “Brandon! You have to come to my apartment in twenty minutes!”
The Time of Jacob's Trouble Page 12