The cross seemed to fill the heavens; it began to tilt earthward until its foot hung above far away Jerusalem and its top touched the very threshold of heaven. As we watched we saw heaven opened and through the opened portal came One sitting upon a white horse. For the moment the glory, the beauty and the shining white light of Him proved too much for our eyes. Through the tears the burning brightness had brought to our eyes we seemed to see the understanding smile of this One, then it was as if a cooling, healing hand had anointed our eyes so we had new clarity of sight and could look upon His face.
The flame of His eyes was like fire! And the brightness of His countenance was like the molten white-hot fining furnaces. On His head a golden crown, not unlike the crown of thorns, gleamed now with the red of rubies and garnets instead of the drops of blood. Flashing colors of many jewels proclaimed it to be the crown of a King indeed! Very still He sat upon the white horse while the earth turned eyes toward Him.
We heard great stir and movement which meant that the whole city was spilling out to welcome their King. Breathlessly we waited. Down that golden roadway the white horse came steadily, and behind came the armies of heaven riding upon other white horses and wearing white raiment that glistened.
As the leader white horse neared the earth to become lost to our view in the distance over Jerusalem way, suddenly the sky became a great screen upon whose surface the whole world beheld the glories and power of its King. We could see now the end of the roadway resting on a mount close beside the hill where a great golden image stood defiantly. Gnarled and ancient trees whose weight of olives had hung above the Saviour’s head centuries ago as He knelt in prayer, suddenly lifted their gray arms and new fruit and blossoms sprang from their branches for the new light gave to them a new season.
Spellbound we watched, our eyes focused on the horse that led the countless thousands that kept coming. Now and then, however, as if drawn by a magnet, we permitted our eyes to speed along the glowing faces of that heavenly, moving company. Suddenly Paul’s arm tightened.
“Dal!” His lips whispered the name low and affectionately, and, following the direction of his gaze I, too, saw our friend.
Now and then there was a murmur, less a whisper than a thought, as someone was recognized and joy spilled over. Row upon row of Christ’s followers stretched endlessly. The white horse that led came to the end of the road where the new trees opened an avenue across the top of the hill. Regally tossing his mane, he halted. A certain sadness seemed to cross the one face we had hungered so to see. H looked outward then down and so enrapt had we been that we had failed to see the dark army that rolled in murky wave upon murky wave out of the valley of Megiddo until it lapped at the very foot of the Mount of Olives. Another horseman sat his horse stiffly and from the insolent darkness of his haughty face his eyes burned with ageless hate, hate that had hurled defiance in God’s face and now was about to receive the answer.
Horrified I watched the rising, twisting mists steaming from his impatience. Like giant snakes coiling and writhing, they flexed and unflexed, appearing eager to reach the prey and come down to them. Tentacles edged with green flames whipped into being countless orange and yellow fires. The fires spread, they leaped from dark wave to dark wave as the armies of nations pressed forward behind their Prince, and the Beast, whose image turned and turned, calling them to battle. A black crown sat upon the brow of the golden image—it grew and swirled as countless horrid birds sought for places.
“Vultures!” a tense voice whispered, for by this time others had joined us. “Vultures come to feast!”
I shuddered, but the defiant army had set up their own winepress, there was no sign of repentance, only hate, relentless, consuming, and a great and terrible conceit—this in spite of desolation all about them giving vivid testimony of the strength and power God held in His hands and had unleashed in part but yesterday in the hail, the thunder, and the lightning which had taken their toll.
The Prince waved back his army. He would take God alone! The dark sea rolled back upon itself—now a white horse and a black one stood etched in the center of a watching world. With lips curled back the Beast snarled his rage and plunged forward as the King alighted and His feet left the golden pathway to come to rest upon the Mount of Olives. Quietly He had stepped, yet we felt the weight of His foot on our mountain height more than a hundred miles away. It shook the foundations of the earth. The Mount bowed before His majesty, splitting in two.
The smell of sulphur and brimstone, of molten metal and burning gases rose and spread about the Prince and the Beast, roaring in helpless fury. A tall gilded image shivered and screamed mechanically as it toppled, then fell into the pit forging the chains that caught and carried the Prince and the Beast down, down, down into seething, endless torment. Their cries came back to us—not consumed and destroyed nor released from the damning pain and punishment by the searing fires, but set afire to go on burning, burning, burning throughout eternity! God alone could stand in the midst of a burning bush and not feel its heat nor be consumed by its fire because it was His bush, and His power and glory furnished it the heat and its brightness.
Slowly the scene rolled out before us. Where the fire and the little hills of Palestine had been lay a great spreading valley. Away toward Megiddo the dark army fell before the mighty army of the Lord. The great birds tossed into the sky from the falling image flew quickly to the feast laid beneath their greedy, tearing talons. Out from the moving, restless edges of the mass crept a new flood, rusty and red and deep! Then from the golden pathway crystal clear streams flowed cool and sweet, healing the land of the polluting dark-flowing stream. Along the banks trees quickly sprang up laden with fruit and green with leaves.
The white horses drew aside to let procession through. How loving were the Messiah’s eyes as He watched them coming. Softly, yet filled with majestic royalty His voice came to us across new airwaves.
“Come ye who were faithful even unto death that no mark might be found upon you! Ye have been faithful witnesses and gave not of your worship to the Beast or to his image, come and receive the crowns reserved for you and reign with Me. Death shall not touch you!”
Angels swept through the air bearing the crowns that the King, Himself might place on the bowed, humble heads of these. Time appeared to have stood still, if indeed there were time to be measured. There was no stirring of impatience—we were content to stand and worship our King. He was our all, how should we be hungry or thirsty, tired, sick, or sorrowful ever again?
The last crown given, the King turned His eyes to look beyond to seek us out. We knelt, offering Him our adoration and our beings.
“Behold, I have made my holy name known in the midst of you, my people Israel; and my name shall henceforth know no more pollution: Behold, the heathen even in the farthermost corners of the earth know that I am indeed thy Lord, the Holy One in Israel.
“Behold, it is come and it is done, this is the Day whereof I told you. Return now to your cities destroying from out of them the weapons that make them unclean. Dwell in the land and know that ye are my people and that I am your God. Till the land and I shall give the increase for, behold! the land that was desolate shall surely become as the garden of Eden, and there shall be no more famine for I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field that not even in the land of the heathen shall there be famine any more. Make beautiful your cities that have become ruins—inhabit them and bring forth to me children that the waste places be filled with flocks of men who shall know that I am the Lord. And I will feed these, my flock, and will bind up thy hurts and will give strength to thy sick and, Behold! even I will be thy Shepherd and thy God, thy Prince and thy King that thou shalt dwell in safety in the midst of the wilderness and not even the beasts shall harm thee. I have broken the bands of thy yoke and delivered thee out of the hands of thy enemies. Know that I, thy Lord, thy God, have come to take the throne of my servant, David, and that I have come to dwell in thy midst, that y
ou may serve me with singing and gladness. For I have remembered and not forgotten my convenant forever, which covenant I made with Abraham and with Isaac, and again confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, for your inheritance. So have I brought you forth with joy and with gladness that you might observe my statutes and keep my laws. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever!
“Dwell now in peaceable habitations and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places for the peace that I give unto you is not the peace the world giveth. Now ye are clean through the Word which before I spake unto you, to the end that you bowed yourselves in repentance, and cried out to me, when at last your eyes were opened to see and know me for who I am and was even from the beginning unto the cross, and now unto the throne which is mine and shall be mine forever and forever.”
Down from the mountains we came with eager hearts and singing lips. How well had the mountains sheltered us! How fruitful had been the valleys! How wonderful had been our days and nights here! But our King has called us to the shelter and the peace which are higher and mightier than any mountains! Our King has given us a new land waiting for our plow and our planting to bring forth fruits for our harvest. But were His call to come from wilderness or unsheltered places, we would follow for we have seen our King, and know in whom we have believed, and are persuaded that He was and is faithful and just to keep that which we have committed unto Him against any day, at all times, even unto eternity!
The heavy purple clusters of grapes weighed down the vines giving their reflected images to the clear waters of our pool. The smell of their rich ripeness was pleasant and sweet. The very fruits had felt the coming of their Creator and gave to His praise their most royal purple and sweetest savour. Simon and Mother paused to drink and to eat of the new fruit. Eager were our feet yet, we, too, stopped on the pool’s edge before leaving to hasten away to the Land of Promise which had this day become the Land of Fulfillment!
A small sound drew my attention to the softer shadows where moss lay like a velvet carpet under overhanging rocks and silver-leaved vines. Toni’s laughing eyes met mine above a yellow-eyed, furry kitten. Other kittens pushed and rubbed against him while the mother, a tawny lioness, whose howls of reproach had kept me so often awake in the past sat benignly making a cushion at his back. Paul felt my start of momentary fright then, with reassuring voice, he whispered softly against my ear.
“And the lion shall lie down with the lamb and the children play on the hole of the adder—at last, my Tanya, the Prince of Peace is come indeed—yonder sun has risen on a New Day—it is, indeed, the Millennial morning of a glorious New Day.”
THE END
The Lost City Page 29