by Ted Dekker
And most importantly, it’s the truth that, when seen through spiritual eyes, a healed heart and transformed life are far more spectacular than a straightened hand or restored sight. These were the themes of the New Testament church, and they must be the themes that guide our lives today. As dedicated believers, we are on a grand adventure that bristles with power and excitement. But I have been saddened again and again at the lack of enthusiasm and zeal among many who claim to be His followers. A lack of first love among His body—the Church.
The Bible explains that in the last days people will hold to a form of godliness while denying its power (2 Timothy 3:5). Sadly, many believers do not know the reality of living a supernatural life through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.
The story you have read is spectacular in parts, but in reality the events in this story are no more spectacular than events which occur repeatedly throughout the Old and New Testaments. If they seem more dramatic, it is because we have used a contemporary story to bring them into your world. But if you think about each occurrence of the miraculous, they are no more than what we see in Scripture. The power of the Holy Spirit characterized the New Testament church no less than it did the lives of the prophets of old. The Lord enabled them to do many miraculous signs and wonders (Acts 14:3), many were healed (Acts 5:16), others were raised from the dead (Acts 9:41), and most importantly the good news of Christ began to spread throughout the world.
Jesus said, except you become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Children are generally trusting and dependable and believe what they are told. At Campus Crusade for Christ we have noticed that the response in many parts of the world to the Jesus Film is phenomenal. Audiences who see the film say that if Jesus can heal the blind, He can heal them too. And so He does. In fact, we have reported situations where people have actually been raised from the dead, and their communities revolutionized by the message that resulted.
But in the Western world, we are more prone to rationalize and analyze until the true meaning of the gospel is dissipated and often rendered powerless. We become like the churches in Ephesus and Laodicea: we have left our first love and are neither hot nor cold. We find it difficult to believe that Jesus would do today what He did centuries ago, while many of our fellow believers across the seas do believe, and they rejoice in the fruits of their belief.
Without the Holy Spirit, our own strivings are fruitless. It is “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord (Zechariah 4:6). The last instruction Jesus gave to His disciples on the Mount of Olives was to wait in Jerusalem until they were renewed with power from on high. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Everything in the Christian life involves the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came to glorify Christ, to lead us into all truth, to convict us of sin, and to draw us to the Savior (John 16). We must be born of the Spirit (John 3). Only through the enabling of the Spirit can a person understand the Word of God and live under its power. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).
No book written by man can begin to capture every aspect of the remarkable truths about the Holy Spirit, but I trust this novel has challenged you to reconsider your understanding of God’s power. I pray that unity and harmony and love will flow from the discussions inspired by these pages. May we come together as the bride of Christ and worship at His feet together. No matter what your view on how God works in the affairs of men and nations, we certainly can agree that He is awesome and worthy of the grandest telling of His power.
But most of all I pray that every individual who reads this story will be so gripped with the reality of the Holy Spirit’s presence that they will personally experience His supernatural love and power.
Lord, may Your light shine brightly on this world of darkness.
BILL BRIGHT
A Man Called Blessed
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The novel you are about to read is a message spun from my heart and that of my coauthor, Ted Dekker.
The story and the writing are primarily Ted’s. He is a marvelous wordsmith. What a pleasure it has been to work with a man whom I consider to be perhaps the best storyteller on the market today for the simple reason that his stories are not only thrilling reads, but they speak volumes. If you read only a few novels this year, I strongly recommend they be novels written by Ted Dekker. You will be both thrilled and deeply enriched by reading Ted’s books.
DR. BILL BRIGHT
PROLOGUE
David Ben Solomon, leader of the Temple Mount Advocates, stood among the smoldering bodies, glued to the ground. Or maybe he wasn’t standing. Maybe he was lying there on the asphalt, among the scattered dead. But he was breathing, wasn’t he? Breathing heavy. So no, he wasn’t dead.
The bus had been ripped into three large chunks by the Hamas bomb, each lay toppled, burning in flames. Sirens wailed and people were running around, yelling, frantic. But none of these details made any impression on David.
The bodies were all he saw.
The bodies and the number 9 on the section of bus that lay on its back, billowing oily smoke.
Most of the bodies were blackened; many were broken; a few still moved.
David shoved a numb leg forward. His breath came in ragged gasps, drowning out the wails around him.
Hush, hush. It will be okay. There’s been a mix-up.
But there was no mix-up, was there? This hadn’t been just any bus working its way through busy Jerusalem streets on a Tuesday morning. This was bus number 9. And today David had kissed his wife, Hannah, and hugged his five-year-old daughter, Ruthie, and put them on bus number 9. It was Ruthie’s first day of kindergarten, and Hannah had made a great fuss over the event. They’d climbed aboard the bus beaming and waving. The last thing David remembered seeing was the pink backpack little Ruthie herself had picked out a month earlier in anticipation of this day.
Someone was screaming behind him, screaming his name. “Papaaa!”
David staggered forward, tearing his eyes from the bubbling black paint that made the 9. My God! Oh, my dear God, please! The bodies were everywhere and he stumbled over them like a man possessed now, pulling them to see their faces. His hands shook and a soft whimper followed him—his own.
The scream from the sidewalk had taken on a guttural tone. “Papaaaaaa . . .”
David leapt around the bodies, frantic. I beg you, dear God. I beg—
He was in midstride when the pink backpack materialized under his right leg. Three facts crashed in on his mind, like bricks tossed from heaven. The first was that he was straddling little Ruthie. The second was that Ruthie had been burned to death. The third was that Ruthie was still in her mother’s arms. And Hannah wasn’t in one piece.
Something snapped in David’s mind then. No man could see what he was seeing and remain whole. Air would never enter his lungs easily again; his heart would never beat with the same rhythm it had. Nothing would ever be the same.
“Papaaa . . .”
The two bodies lay still, dead and unfeeling, and he stared at them in utter horror. He clamped his eyes shut, dropped trembling arms to his side, and lifted his chin to the sky. His breathing settled to long pulls. His muscles quivered from head to toe.
Dear God, what have you done?
“Papaaa . . .”
David’s hands knotted to fists and he began to sob, open mouthed.
“Papaaaa . . .”
The call cut through his mind for the first time, a bloodcurdling scream. Papa. Papa.
“Papaaaaaa!”
Rebecca! Oh, dear God, Rebecca!
David caught his breath and jerked his head to the sound. She stood on the sidewalk, face wrinkled with terror, arms spread to fists, screaming at him.
“Papaaaaaa!”
Her name was Rebecca and she was ten years old and she was his older daughter. For an endless moment he just stared at her. Rebecca’s face was stained with soot, mixed with tears. She was staring at his legs, screaming. No, not at his legs . . .
David Ben Solomon tore his feet from the concrete and ran for his daughter. He leapt over the bodies, desperate now. This young girl who stood melting on the sidewalk was his child. His only child, now. He wasn’t sure what he was doing—he only knew that he had to hold her and take her away from this.
“Rebecca . . .”
David cleared the last of the carnage and swept his daughter from her feet. They latched onto each other in a fierce embrace. Rebecca wrapped her legs around his belly and buried her face in his neck, sobbing bitterly.
David began to walk, holding her as if he were holding his own heart. He stumbled into a run.
He wanted to tell her it would be all right. That he loved her. That everything would be the same. But he couldn’t speak past the fire in his throat. And the truth was that nothing would ever be the same.
Nothing. Ever.
1
Fifteen Years Later
David Ben Solomon turned from the window overlooking the Old City’s night skyline and faced the old man.
“So you have a tale that will change the life of every Jew. Every Jew has a tale that will change the life of every Jew. In the end they never do.” He paused, studying the man. “We don’t have all night. Get on with it.”
The hunched Falasha Jew bit off a reply in his foreign tongue, Amharic, and then sat unsteadily on the chair, favoring his shiny brass cane for support. A large white candle at his elbow cast amber hues on the mud walls, but he could see neither the light nor the five faces watching him from its shadows.
His blind eyes had frozen to slits many years ago.
Rebecca thought the Ethiopian Falasha Jew must have passed the hundred-year mark judging by the wrinkled flesh hanging off his skeleton. Solomon just stared at him. If the Falasha priest hadn’t been blind, Rebecca imagined he’d be drilling her father with an indignant stare.
The servant boy who had guided the man here spoke beside the door. “He says that he won’t speak to a man who does not show proper respect,” the boy said nervously. “He is a keeper of truth—a great elder in Ethiopia.”
In the shadows, Avraham Shlush, her father’s rugged bodyguard, stood with arms crossed, peering at the old man past a frown. Next to him Professor Zakkai stood with hands in pockets, leaning against the wall. The archaeologist had a one-track mind and, as of yet, this meeting clearly wasn’t on it.
They were here because her father, David Ben Solomon, had been told that the old Falasha priest had information critical to the Temple Mount, and any information critical to the Temple Mount was, in one way or another, lifeblood to the leader of the Temple Mount Advocates.
“Forgive me, Rabbi,” Solomon said, using the respectful title. “But I have been told many things before. I’m growing tired of stories.”
The Falasha priest didn’t move. His jaw was covered in a ragged gray beard. A tan tunic badly in need of a good scrub wrapped his frail body. The bright red beads around his neck and the shiny golden cane in his hand stood in contrast to everything else about him. But then the Falasha Jews, better known as the Black Jews of Ethiopia, had always been an enigma. A throwback to ancient Judaism. Unlike other Jews scattered to the four corners, the Falasha were the only living Jews who still practiced blood sacrifice among other ancient Jewish customs. Very few historians could agree on how Judaism first made its way into Ethiopia, but it had appeared suddenly, remarkably intact. In the remote Falasha villages of Ethiopia, Judaism had remained virtually unchanged for at least a thousand years. Perhaps two thousand or longer. Like a fly frozen in amber.
An enigma.
The old priest looked as though he had just pried himself out of that amber and made his way back to Jerusalem to find God like so many of his countrymen. Perhaps to find the Messiah.
Rebecca blinked in the dim light. But the Messiah isn’t here, is he, Rabbi? You have come back to a bankrupt nation which refuses to make room for God, much less the Messiah.
Her father spoke again, his voice gentle now. “I beg your forgiveness, Rabbi.” He regarded the old Jew with amusement now. “Thirty years ago I would have spared no effort to hear your story. But I’ve given my life to the fruitless pursuit of rebuilding the Temple and these days I find myself wrestling more with doubt than dancing with hope. Surely you understand.”
Her father stood tall, dressed in black slacks and a white shirt. He’d always favored casual clothes, and his latest obsession in archaeology suited it well, Rebecca thought. His hair was white and his firm jaw line clean shaven.
“I don’t doubt the prophecies,” he continued. “You’ll have a hard time finding a Jew with as much passion to see the prophecies of the Temple’s rebuilding and the Messiah’s coming fulfilled. These will happen, in my lifetime if I’m so fortunate. However, I am beginning to doubt that mere talk will have much bearing on the prophecies. Stories feed the mind, but they don’t remove the Muslim soldiers who guard the Temple Mount.”
“I, too, believe in the prophecies,” the priest said in a soft, scratchy voice. He spoke perfect Hebrew now. “I, too, have decided that the Messiah will come soon. I, too, believe that he will come only when we rebuild his Temple. But unlike you, I believe my story will quicken that coming.”
The old Falasha Jew pushed himself to his feet and tapped his cane on the stone floor. “Perhaps I misjudged you.”
Her father turned his back on the priest and looked out to the Temple Mount, framed by the rock window. Three hundred meters past the Jewish Quarter, the Dome of the Rock glinted in the rising moon’s light.
“Sit, Rabbi,” he said. “For heaven’s sake sit and tell us your story.”
The priest stopped and stood still.
Rebecca saved him. “Please, Rabbi. My father means only good. We wouldn’t have invited you if we didn’t have the greatest respect for you and your story.”
The blind man turned to her. “Rebecca. The beautiful, celebrated hero. Will you kill me if I do not tell my story?” He grinned.
Professor Zakkai now wore an amused grin. Beside him, Avraham still frowned. Her father stared out the window, unmoving. The priest seated himself again. “So now you insist?”
“Yes, we insist,” Rebecca said, unable to hold her smile. “Tell us, what does an old Falasha rabbi know that could possibly speed the Messiah’s coming?”
“Do you know who I am?”
Solomon didn’t respond, so Rebecca did. “You are Raphael Hadane, a Falasha Jew from Ethiopia.”
The priest turned his head towards Solomon and then back to Rebecca, as if deciding whether he wanted to continue engaging a woman rather than the great David Ben Solomon.
“There are many kinds of Falasha Jews in Ethiopia. Some hardly know what it means to be Jewish. Do you know from where in Ethiopia I come?”
“No.”
“I am from a small island in Lake Tana. Tana Kirkos. Do you know this island?”
“It’s known for its priests. According to the Ethiopian legends in the Kebra Nagast it was the place to which the Ark of the Covenant was taken,” Rebecca said.
The priest waved a hand. “The Kebra Nagast is full of inconsistencies and silly stories. But the Falasha Jews from Tana Kirkos are not.”
Rebecca glanced at Professor Zakkai who had stepped forward. They had talked of the legend before, but its likelihood was practically zero. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claimed that the Queen of Sheba had visited King Solomon from Ethiopia and conceived a son born in Ethiopia after her departure. The son, Menelik, later returned and stole the Ark of the Covenant which he returned to his mother’s palace in Axum, northern Ethiopia. If this was the old man’s tale, her father’s skepticism would be justified. The notion that a foreigner could have stolen the Jews’ most holy relic without even a notation in
the historical biblical record was absurd.
“I know that you are looking for the Ark,” the old priest, Hadane, said.
David Ben Solomon turned from the window. “Yes, we are. It’s something we’d rather not broadcast.”
“Do you know what would happen if the Ark was discovered?”
“A war would happen,” Solomon said. Silence held them for a moment. “More importantly, Israel would be forced to rebuild the Temple to house it. Our faith would demand it.”
The old man nodded. “And that would prepare the way for the Messiah.” Their breathing sounded inordinately loud in the stillness. “I once heard you say that if Israel hadn’t given the Temple Mount back to the Muslims after the Six-Day War, the Messiah would have come in 1967. Do you still believe that?”
“Yes,” Solomon said. “I was there.”
The old man had gotten her father’s attention now. Very few knew that the Temple Mount Advocates had shifted their emphasis from protests and legal actions to an all-out effort to discover the Ark.
“It’s written in prophecy,” Solomon continued. “The Messiah will come to the Temple. So there must be a Temple for him to come to. How do you know about our efforts to find the Ark?”
“It is my business to know about the Ark,” the priest said. “It was my father’s business to know about the Ark, and his father’s.”
“We have researched the claims of Ethiopia and concluded that—”
“You have wasted your time. You have not spoken to me. And if it was not for your daughter, Rebecca, you would have lost your chance tonight. I suggest you listen, David Ben Solomon.”
