by Tim LaHaye
"Maybe after my shift."
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"Trust me, Liem--do it now!"
Liem hung up and told his boss that something big was on the news.
"Unless it has something to do with missing bodies, we don't have time for that, Liem. We're in big trouble."
The door burst open at the end of the corridor. "You guys hear what's going on? Get up here!"
Liem and his boss ran up the stairs and joined a scrum of fellow workers crowded around a TV. News footage showed a funeral parlor with coffins empty, save for the clothes and artificial body parts of the deceased. Panic broke out and people rioted. A fresh story, fed from a network TV station in California, showed an anchorman disappear from his clothes on camera as the nine o'clock news began. His coanchor frantically pulled the clothes from the man's chair, screaming.
Liem, unable to get his mind around any of this, staggered out into the noonday sun and was struck to see the traffic hopelessly gridlocked. From his first moment in Jakarta years ago, he had heard the cacophony of car horns as he heard them now. And while the traffic had always been insane, it somehow kept moving. Even when cars brushed against each other in the roundabouts, people had kept their heads and managed to pick their way through.
But now no one was moving. Liem walked into the street and joined others who peered speechlessly into driverless cars--cars with engines running, radios on, even air-conditioning humming. But in each no one sat behind the wheel. Shoes and socks lay on the floor. Pants
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on the seat. Shirts on the back of the seat. Eyeglasses, hearing aids, jewelry--all still there.
From one of the radios Liem heard a horror-stricken reporter say that this sudden disappearance had struck all over the globe at the same time and that experts were already predicting the toll would rise to more than a billion. Other major cities where this phenomenon had occurred in broad daylight, including some during the afternoon rush hour, saw traffic disasters just like this one.
Liem slapped himself to be certain he was not dreaming. This was a living nightmare.
In cities where the disappearances had happened in the middle of the night, those left behind were awakened by frantic phone calls from loved ones in other time zones. Soon the modes of communication were hopelessly jammed as the biggest news story in history swept the globe.
For an instant, Irene Steele had lain terrified, but before she could move even an inch she heard a loud trumpet blast and felt transported out of her bed, passing through the ceiling, the attic, the roof, and into the dark night sky. Strangely, though she had left her jewelry and nightgown, she did not feel naked, nor was she cold. Not for a
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second did she believe this was a dream or anything other than real. She was more in the moment than she had ever been in her life.
And there was Raymie, right next to her, as they soared.
"Is this it, Mom? Is this it? Somebody shouted my name!"
She could see clearly, even in the dark, and as they rose Irene saw millions rising with them from horizon to horizon. Oh, praise God! She would soon see Jesus!
But for now she was fixated on Raymie. She had known it was her son; she had recognized his face and his voice, though it had changed, and he was a full-grown man, over six feet tall with a clear face and chiseled features. She too had changed. Her face felt smoother, her skin taut. And while she still bore nicks and scars from various minor injuries over the years-- even Jesus' scars would still be visible, she knew--her body and tone reminded her of several years before, when she had been in her early thirties.
When she and Raymie reached the clouds, they slowed and were suspended there. Irene could not keep from grinning. She had always been afraid of heights, but here she was, higher than she'd ever been outside a plane, and she feared nothing. She wondered aloud where Jackie was, and suddenly, there she was, with Dooley and their grown-up child. They embraced and stared and shook their heads.
"It was you, you know," Irene said. "You really led me to Christ."
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"Me too," Dooley said. "I wonder if Pastor Billings--"
And there he was with them, embracing everyone, rejoicing. "I always wondered what this would feel like," he said, looking half his age.
"Thank you for your faithful preaching and teaching," Irene said.
It was then that she realized that there was no barrier between thought and action. "Raymie, it seems everything we think about happens instantly. I mentioned Jackie and here she is. Dooley mentioned the pastor, and here he is. It's as if time has stood still and all of this is happening simultaneously."
"I want to see Grandma and Grandpa," Raymie said, and they appeared, youthful, lucid, no trace of the Alzheimer's that had claimed them both.
"Irene," Rayford's father said, "you led us to Jesus. We are eternally grateful."
"Yes," her mother-in-law said, "and we must pray for Rayford, who is not here, is he?"
Irene shook her head, and the four of them huddled to pray. "I don't know what comes next, Lord," Irene said, "but I know Rayford must endure difficult days. Give him strength to resist the evil one, and bring him to Yourself, God."
All around them Irene could hear cheers and squeals of delight as more reunions took place. People of all races and creeds celebrated. Irene knew they had to be speaking in their own languages, yet she understood every word.
A Chinese woman announced for all to hear, pointing
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at another woman, "My daughter was in a wheelchair twenty years! Look at her now!"
From somewhere else, a father introduced a handsome, smiling young man. "This boy was born with Down Syndrome."
"I can't wait to sing to Jesus," the boy said.
Irene saw two women embracing and weeping. "Your child?" Irene said.
One met Irene's eyes and nodded. "I had her aborted sixteen years ago. She forgives me."
"I have both arms!" a man shouted, waving.
"I'm whole!" came from somewhere else.
Had they been here for an hour or only a second? Irene couldn't tell. All she knew was that anticipation crashed over her like a waterfall. She turned to Raymie, and they said in unison, "I want to see Jesus."
And the entire throng from all over the world ascended yet again.
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Everything in Irene's past paled to insignificance as she soared into the heavens, the earth shrinking from sight. She had to wonder how the billions of people in the air would ever be able to share the attention of the One they had believed in, the One who had beckoned them home.
But then it hit her. If Jesus' shout had been heard in the same instant by true believers all over the world as their own names, it proved yet again that He was omnipotent and omnipresent, unbound by space or time. He could do anything and everything all at once.
As Irene's new, glorified body was transported through Earth's atmosphere above the clouds, she let her head fall back and spread her arms wide, closing her eyes tight. When the light of glory flooded her being, she had to peek.
High above her was Jesus, His gleaming incandescence
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brighter than a million suns. With arms outstretched He welcomed His beloved, and while Irene remained vaguely aware that she was just one of so many on this same journey, His beautiful piercing eyes seemed to bore into hers alone. She wanted to cry out, to thank Him a thousand times a thousand for forgiving her, for saving her soul, for calling her to Himself. His face shone with love and compassion and welcome, as if her arrival was His highest joy.
Irene immediately felt unworthy, and all she had wanted to express seemed to leak from her mind. She could not speak. She tried to bow, to lower herself, to hide from Jesus' perfection, which seemed to permeate her own darkness like a beacon.
But He reached for her, lifted her to Himself.
"Irene," He said as He enveloped her. "My child, My own. I praise you for b
elieving in Me, for trusting in Me, for calling upon My name to be saved. This is what you were saved for, to be with Me. And yet it is only the beginning of a journey that has no end. Come with Me to My Father's house, for as I promised, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.""
Irene was aware only of blinking, and in the next instant she had been transported into outer space and then into what Pastor Billings had called the third heaven, into the presence of a vast and beautiful crystal city so overwhelming that she could scarcely take it in. This made Soldier Field and Wrigley Field look like toys.
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From certain vantage points, even when those stadiums were full, she had been able to see almost everyone at once. With a mere turn of the head on Earth, her eyes could take in forty, fifty, sixty thousand people. But this. This was something else.
Clearly there were hundreds of millions of others, more than a billion, maybe two. Yet without rising above their heads, Irene was aware of them all. And not just aware. It was as if, without so much as moving an eye-- let alone her head--or even standing on tiptoe, she saw and recognized every one. She knew them. Their histories, their stories, were known to her. She could pause and concentrate on one or another or a thousand at a time.
There was a reason for this, she knew. Irene had never realized how limited her mind had been until now when all things became known. Every story, every person, every insight and intuition, had a purpose. And the purpose was Jesus. Everything here was for and about and because of Him. Irene's eternal life was for the purpose of worshiping Him. As people's stories were revealed to her heart and mind, Irene's entire focus was on the work Christ had done in their lives. Forgiving them. Loving them. Saving them.
No amusement-park imitation of a real experience came close to this. There were no holograms, no 3-D, no pretending. Friends and loved ones left behind would assume her dead, but Irene knew with all of her being that she had never been more alive.
Had Raymie had the same experience?
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He appeared next to her. "Jesus welcomed me personally," he said. "And this is the house of God."
Irene was agape. It seemed that if she were able to back up a million miles into space she would not be able to see the beginning and end of this masterpiece built foursquare. Her pastor had recently reminded the congregation that if God had created the entire world in seven days by merely speaking it into existence, imagine what He could do with two thousand years to fulfill Jesus' promise of going to prepare a place for them. The Scripture told that it was just under fourteen hundred square miles, the length, breadth, and height the same. If superimposed on the earth it would extend from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and from Colorado to the Atlantic Ocean. With the raptured saints and the resurrected dead, perhaps two billion people would be there, with enough room for each to inhabit a cubed space of seventy-five acres. Talk about high ceilings!
It all lay before her in incomprehensible grandeur, radiant and delicate and yet somehow, she knew, indestructible. Gold and silver and brass and platinum complemented diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls, and these were so perfectly arranged that the appearance did not offend as gaudy or extravagant. Naturally, everything looked perfect, every gate--consisting of one giant gem each and attended by angels--every wall, every pillar. And yes, its roads were as glassy as spun gold.
Irene noticed not a shadow anywhere. None. Yet there was no sun. The light of God illumined this place from within and cast no shadow in any direction. Irene had
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always wondered and, frankly, worried about what heaven would look and feel like. Would it feel alien to her? Would it appear as such a great monument to God that she would be merely a spectator, a museum patron?
This, however, immediately felt like home. It was as if she had been an alien on Earth, just waiting for the day when she could return here. In spite of its immensity and splendor, a strange intimacy radiated from it, and she felt it had indeed been prepared for her.
Irene did not know how she knew that the next voice was of God Himself; she simply did.
"This is the city I have prepared for those who had the faith to believe My Word and follow My will. Behold the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where are now gathered the general assembly of the church of the firstborn and the just, whose spirits have been made perfect in the great resurrection. To this city came all the spirits of those who died in Christ and have now been resurrected. The resurrected and the living saints shall dwell here until the earth is made new, when this city shall descend to abide there forever."
This, Pastor Billings had taught, was the new Jerusalem that would descend onto the new earth after the seven-year tribulation and Jesus' glorious appearing. So Irene would live here until Jesus' second coming upon the earth and then would remain in this relocated city for eternity. She wondered how long the next seven years would seem from this perspective.
And God said, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and I will dwell with them, and they shall be My
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people. I will be with you and be your God. And I will wipe away every tear from your eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."
Irene had read those words and heard them read, but what an unspeakable thrill to hear them from the very mouth of God. Their truth resounded and engulfed her. No more tears, death, sorrow, or pain. The former things had passed.
In the next instant, along with everyone else, she was inside the ground floor of the cubic city where a crystalline sea led to a gleaming throne. There sat Jesus, majestic, triumphant, and again, somehow making Irene feel as if she were the only other person in the room. Her eyes riveted to the eternal embodiment of unconditional love and sacrifice, she could assume only that everyone in the vast multitude somehow had the same supernaturally unobstructed view and that Jesus was interacting with them personally as He was with her.
Irene felt no farther from Jesus as she saw Him from what on Earth would have been hundreds of feet away than when He had pressed her against His chest. How was this possible? She would have to stop asking herself such questions. She was not aware of flying or walking or even moving, and yet she had traversed thousands of miles from her home in just moments. As she merely thought about things or conjured questions, her new body darted here and there, and everything was answered and understood.
The entire first floor of the colossal house of God had
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been fashioned into a great hall, a vast beautiful gathering place where the Spirit of God dwelt and the Son of God presided. Irene was not aware of turning her head or even her eyes, yet she was aware of everything around her. Inexpressible splendor filled her senses, and while she knew she was in a place that had foundations, whose builder and maker was God, she was unaware of a floor or ceiling, and the walls seemed transparent, though the open gates were made of precious stones and attended by angels.
She again tried to imagine this scene on Earth, as if she had gone to a great venue to see someone perform or speak. Monitors would have been set up to allow everyone to see what was really happening onstage. But here she sat, unaware of the weight of her body, in the middle of this enormous throng, yet she saw Jesus as clearly as if she were sitting at His feet. As He appeared to take in the crowd with His eyes, still it seemed His attention was solely and fully on her, and she could hear His thoughts.
"I am so glad you are here, Irene. I chose you before the foundation of the world. I came to Earth for you, lived and died for you, forgave your sins, and claimed you as My own. Welcome to the house of God."
Around His throne four creatures hovered, with eyes all around their heads. The first was like a lion, the second was like a calf, the third had a face like a man's, and the fourth was like an eagle. Each of the four had six wings and seemed to never alight. They called out,
"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!"
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As the creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to Jesus, twenty-four men in a semicircle before Him fell and worshiped Him and cast crowns before the throne, saying, "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created."
Thousands upon thousands of angels appeared and surrounded the throne, joining the men and the living creatures in praising Jesus and saying with loud voices, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!"
Suddenly Jesus said, "Behold, I make all things new. It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I give the fountain of the water of life freely to all who thirst."
Irene had no emotion from her past to compare with what she had felt from the time she heard her name and the sound of the trumpet of God and began to rise. It was as if every happy, fulfilling, thrilling moment of her life combined in one instant, never to abate, would only begin to hint at the feeling that permeated her entire being. She felt she would never again need sleep, would never be hungry or thirsty. All she wanted was to be in the presence of her Savior and to worship Him with her whole self.
But were the stories of delicious foods in heaven merely apocryphal? Because Irene didn't need food, did that mean she would not want it? With that mere thought came a cornucopia of delights that dwarfed
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anything she had ever hungered for--sizzling meats, fruit, vegetables, crystal glasses full of nectar.
Irene wondered if she had time to partake, not wanting to miss a thing while concentrating on her own satisfaction. She found herself able to consume more food in a split second than she had ever eaten in one sitting. Yet there was not an iota of discomfort. Every bite and sip brought bursts of flavor unlike anything Irene had ever imagined, and the taste stayed with her as the foodstuffs disappeared.
