by Brian Godawa
Zeus belched.
Belial turned his head at the putrid stench. “Keep your mouth shut, you stupid boar. This is not Olympus and your childish Greek parties. Pick up this mess. I want all the human body parts out of here and the blood scrubbed off those rocks. Have you no sense of the sacred?”
“So-rry, your majesty” said Zeus in a sing-song voice with a sarcastic salute. He pulled a poor young male from his impaling on a stalagmite and tossed the corpse into the black flaming waters of the Abyss. He clapped his hands loudly. “You heard the Prince of Rome. Let us clean up this mess!”
Some were already moving about. Others pulled themselves up off the vomit-filled floor. Anubis slipped on a pile of excrement and blood and fell on his rear end. He started laughing and cackling like a jackal. Others around him, joined in.
Suddenly the sound of pounding echoed throughout the hall.
Belial looked over at the large gate into their cavern. It hadn’t been used in centuries.
More pounding again.
Anubis stopped howling. Everyone else stopped what they were doing.
More pounding.
But it wasn’t someone pounding on the door. It sounded like someone was pounding around the door.
Watchers picked themselves up off the floor, looking for their weapons. Many of the gods had misplaced them in the celebration.
More pounding. Belial knew what it was now. Someone was hammering the hinges of the gate.
“Watcher gods, prepare yourself for battle!”
Lift up your heads, O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Now someone pounded on the gate. It shook with defiance.
Belial stood in confusion, his mind racing with the possibilities of who it could be. Of what it could be.
The gates broke open with a crash.
Who is this King of glory?
Yahweh, strong and mighty,
Yahweh, mighty in battle!
Belial’s eagle eyes could see a human, and a giant each take a door off its hinges and lift them up with superhuman strength. He recognized the human. But it couldn’t be. He was dead.
“Samson?”
Marduk recognized the giant with the other door, and exclaimed, “Eleazar?”
The two muscleman threw the doors inward, crushing several gods that had tried to meet the visitors with weapons.
Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Belial’s throat dropped to his stomach. Behind the strongmen was an army of warriors, led by someone wielding the infamous Rahab whip sword. Someone he recognized from any distance because he had come to know him intimately.
“Jesus Christ,” he croaked.
Who is this King of glory?
Yahweh of hosts,
he is the King of glory!
The army of God poured into the breach and spread out, seeking their enemies with bow and arrow, battle ax, sword and javelin. It was almost too easy. Drunk and confused deities stumbled over themselves, others hid in fear, searching for their weapons.
Not all were completely overtaken.
Horus was the first to face Jesus sober. He stepped in front of the Nazarene. The falcon-headed sky deity yelled, “Son of God! You darkened Ra! But you will not bind the sky!” He was referring to the judgment of Yahweh on Egypt’s deities in the days of Moses. The ninth plague was the darkening of the sun. Yahweh had punched out Ra’s lights, and Horus had taken his status of power in the pantheon. But Horus was also the god of hunting and master with a spear.
Before he could engage with Jesus, Demas jumped in with his own shield and spear. Benaiah of Kabzeel joined him. In the days of King David, Benaiah had killed an infamous Egyptian Rephaim named Runihura with the giant’s own staff. Horus was not going to get through this one unbound.
Jesus moved on, his eyes set on Belial and his throne across the burning black lake.
Belial sat anxiously considering his options. He was not much of a fighter. He was more of a legal attacker as the Accuser of Yahweh’s heavenly court.
Jesus’ path was blocked. He became surrounded by a trio of supreme Hindu deities, Shiva, Vishnu and Shakti. Shiva the Destroyer had a third eye on his forehead, a snake wrapped around his neck and he wielded a trident-like weapon. Vishnu was blue with four arms, and he carried a mace in his left hand and a discus in his right that contained serrated edges. Shakti, the mother goddess of power, had talons on her fingers that were as dangerous as ten daggers.
Jesus said, “I have had enough of this false trinity,” and unfurled Rahab. He swung his blade in a circle to keep them at bay. But he was surrounded, and it was all he could do to keep the trident, mace and claws from piercing, crushing or cutting him.
Rahab snapped back and lashed out in defense. But Jesus finally got some room to breathe when arrows began to prick each of the three enemy gods. It was Jonathan the Hawk and his trusty aim from a rocky ledge above. Arrows would not stop the gods, but they would slow them down.
Methuselah and Edna faced down Odin, the bearded Norse god, with his mighty spear Gungnir. Too bad for Odin, Methuselah’s specialty was the javelin.
Caleb and Joshua found themselves against the Toltec feathered serpentine god, Quetzalcoatl.
David took up combat with the Great Spirit of distant western lands, Gitchi Manitou, with Ittai at his back battling Zeus’ lightning bolts with his double bladed battle ax.
Lamech and Noah fought the Persian deity Ahura Mazda, who had large wings and held a wheel blade between both hands. But the two humans moved aside and Ahura Mazda saw the giant Eleazar step up with shield and battle axe. Eleazar said, “You shouldn’t have held me captive in Parthia, fool. A resurrected saint is not so easy to defeat.” The god was thrown off by the surprise. It allowed his opponents, led by Eleazar, the advantage they needed to overcome him in short order.
What the invader’s strategy had achieved was to focus the gods’ attention on the attack from the gate. That way, they would not be ready for what happened next.
Behind the gods, seven beings exploded from the black waters of the Abyss. The archangels led by Mikael. Had they come with the humans, their supernatural presence would have been detected by the gods, and their surprise ruined. But because they traveled the secret depths of the Abyss from Panias all the way to Hermon, they had gone undetected.
They attacked the gods from behind, binding the easy prey of the drunk and the wounded while the human gibborim wore down the other Watchers.
Jesus dodged the trident of Shiva, but saw in the corner of his eye, Vishnu rearing back to throw his bladed discus. Jesus spun just as the discus flew where his head had been. It lodged in the rock behind him. He whipped Rahab around Shiva’s trident, just as an arrow from Jonathan hit Shiva’s third eye. Jesus yanked the weapon from Shiva’s hand and snapped it behind him, to catch the claws of Shakti about to rip him open. The bite of Rahab was much mightier than her talons. The blade cut her hand clean off. She shrieked, holding her bloody stump.
Shiva tried pulling the arrow out of his blinded eye.
Jesus saw his moment and whipped Rahab around above his head. It drove like a windmill blade around him, and connected with all three of the gods’ necks one after the other. Their severed heads fell to the ground in silent agony. Though the Watchers could not die, they could be incapacitated until their body parts could be reconnected for regeneration.
The archangels had them all bound before they could do so.
Belial stood from his throne as Jesus approached the other end of the black, viscous lake. He smirked, knowing that Jesus would have to run around the large body of darkness or swim through it to get to him.
Jesus did neither. He merely rolled up his sword, stepped out onto the lake and walked over the flaming black liquid without sinking or being singed.
“That’s not fair,” mutte
red Belial.
He stepped backward fearfully, and stumbled, falling back into the chair.
Jesus crossed the lake and made his way up to the throne. He stepped up to Belial with a stoic look and said nothing.
Belial wondered why Jesus did nothing. Then he realized it. “I have diplomatic immunity. I cannot touch you, but you cannot touch me.” He grinned malevolently.
But then his eyes burned with a blinding brightness. He went dizzy.
• • • • •
When Belial opened his eyes, he saw that he and Jesus were no longer in the assembly of Mount Hermon. They were in the court of Yahweh’s divine council in the heavenlies.
But something was very different. For all the millennia, the Accuser had pranced and bellowed from before the bar, as he prosecuted his enemies in the dock. Once, he had even put God in the dock, in an attempt to prosecute the Creator for covenantal unfaithfulness to Adam and Eve.
That was ballsy, he thought to himself.
But now, for the first time ever, the Accuser was in the dock, and Jesus stood before him at the bar. Belial panicked.
The sound of voices like many waters shook him out of his stupor.
“Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Elohim Almighty. Who was and is and is to come!”
The trisagion of praise had come from the seraphim above the chariot throne of Yahweh Elohim, before which the Accuser now sat.
Their humanoid yet serpentine bodies had six wings. With two they flew, two covered their feet in holiness, and two covered their faces. Belial knew these beings well because he had once been one. A long time ago.
The Cherubim below the judgment seat were sphinx-like, with four faces and four wings, sparkling of burnished bronze. The faces were those of human, lion, ox and eagle. And beside each one was a wheel within a wheel of gleaming beryl that moved with the living creatures.
Around the throne were ten thousand times ten thousands of his holy ones, the Sons of God, who shone with the brightness of burnished bronze and flashes of lightning.
Silence enveloped the entire throne room. Normally, in a covenantal lawsuit, the Accuser would bring his prosecution before the court of the Most High. A defense would be offered, and Yahweh Elohim would render judgment of justification for one side or the other. Members of the divine council would then carry out any orders of the court.
But Belial knew in his soul that would not be happening this day. There would be no trial for him. This entire episode of crucifying Messiah was his trial, and he had failed to see it. This would be a summary judgment by the Judge of all the earth.
He heard a voice from nowhere and yet from everywhere call out, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the Accuser of our brethren will be thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.”
Belial’s fear turned to slow burning rage. How dare he appoint me as prosecutor for all these ages, and now turn around and punish me for it.
The voice continued, “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”
That was it, thought Belial. What I thought of as a groveling defeat of Messiah’s death had been a crowning act of atonement. His resurrection became his justification of kingship. He tricked me, that heavenly coward. He didn’t have the guts to battle me directly.
The voice drowned out Belial’s thoughts. “Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
Belial now realized he was not being thrown into Tartarus with the others. He was being spared, hampered though he was by the binding that grew over him. Well, if he still had the power of Rome, then he would use it. He thought of Yahweh, You may have won this battle over Messiah and his mother, Israel. But I will make war on the rest of her seed. This Serpent will become a seven-headed dragon, a new Leviathan, whose head you will no longer be able to crush. Then what will you —.
Belial stopped with painful shock. His eyes burned with the brightness of the throne of God. His ears were filled with a piercing ringing. Everything went white.
• • • • •
Jesus was returned from the divine throne room to the bowels of Mount Hermon.
The battle was over. The Watcher gods were defeated and bound by the angels, laying at the lake edge of the Abyss. The wedge tactic had worked. The gods were overcome in short order by the victorious forces of Mikael and the angels. The stakes had been high and the enemy fought with desperation like the stars of heaven. But they had been so inebriated and bamboozled that they were simply not capable of standing before the army of God.
Jesus yelled to the resurrected warriors, “Each of you, grab a bound deity. We are taking these sons of Belial down to Tartarus!”
• • • • •
When the burning brightness and piercing ringing stopped, Belial opened his eyes and saw that he was returned to earth.
He was in Rome in the palace of Caesar.
He looked around. No. This could not be true. Could it?
But it was. Yahweh had kicked him out of the divine council and took away his legal authority over the Seed of Abraham. He could no longer accuse or condemn the people of God. He could not stop their proclamation of the Kingdom of God and Messiah. He could not stop the great ingathering that had already begun. He was spiritually bound.
But Yahweh had given Belial back his earthly power. Why? he thought. Is Yahweh a bullying child playing games? Does he need me like a pet of chaos in order to prove his power and control? Pathetic.
Well, if Belial couldn’t touch the people of God himself, he would simply get his earthly minions to do so. He would marshal his kingdom of iron and clay. He would kill them all.
Chapter 38
The bound bodies of the gods sank into the depths of the Abyss on their way down to Hades. They were tied in a train of defeat by the Cherubim hair of the angels. They were accompanied by the resurrected warriors who had defeated them.
When they broke through the watery sky of Hades and landed on the ground, Demas saw that they were on the huge mountain of the north. He remembered that this was the celestial storehouse from which flowed the rivers of Hades, including the River of Fire that Jesus had parted for them to cross to the Living Waters. To the south was Mount Zion and then Sinai, to the west was the Mountain of the Dead and Abraham’s Bosom.
Jesus said to the warriors now guarding the train of captives, “We must journey to the far east, beyond the ends of the earth.”
Demas knew where they were going: Tartarus.
The archangels ran ahead of them to prepare the way.
But when the train of captives made it down the foot of the mountain, they saw their way blocked by two huge twenty foot tall fiery beings. They appeared to be humanoid, but were covered in flames of fire that never consumed the figure. Then the two were joined by six more who seemed to peer down upon the company with cold observation. Like winged fiery serpents ready to strike.
Some of the warriors drew their weapons in fear. These gargantuans had flaming swords as well that were reminiscent of the “Flame of the Whirling Sword” in Eden. This would not go well for the resurrected humans. They felt outmatched by the divine. The whirling swords seemed to move and operate as independent beings, which effectively amounted to a doubling of their forces.
Jesus gestured to his company to put away their weapons. These were guardians of the sacred mountain. They were now under his authority.
The huge heavenly beings lined up in a pathway to the east and Jesus led the train out into the vast desert region leading to the Great Sea.
By the time they made it to the far ends of the earth and were on the shore of the Great Sea, the angels met them with large rafts they had made for their journey.
They linked the rafts together, and Demas saw Jesus on the wat
erfront with his hands raised in prayer. He wondered if the Son of God was going to part the Abyss as he parted the River of Fire. But the water did not separate. The only movement he saw was the spiny back fins and scales of a large serpent break the surface on its way toward them from the depths. Leviathan. The sea dragon of chaos had been tamed, domesticated by the Son of God, and put to his purposes, which now involved pulling their train of rafts to the outer reaches beyond the Great Sea.
The train of warriors and captives landed beyond the waters and Leviathan left them. They entered the desert wasteland of Tohu Wabohu. It was a world of chaos and disorder, of darkness and silence, with no sky above and no foundations beneath.
They made their way to a single large mountain of jagged rock, that stretched upward like a grasping hand: the prison-house of the Watchers.
Despite being in the company of mighty gibborim, Demas shivered. He knew that the Guardians of Tartarus were waiting for them.
The captive train arrived at the base of the mountain. They prepared to make the trek up the steep pathway. But an earthquake interrupted their plans and threw them all into the dirt.
Then the ground around them exploded open in seven places. Rocks and dirt covered the warriors and archangels as seven fifteen-feet tall warrior beings stood before them.
The primeval saints, Noah, Methuselah, and their kin recognized them. They were the Rephaim, souls of the giant warrior kings who had been thrown down to the underworld during the Titanomachy of primordial days. They were tall, powerful, and carried strangely shaped glaive weapons, crafted in the pit of Sheol. They were long blades at the end of a lance that the Rephaim could use to strike wide and long at a distance. They could take out entire groups of warriors with one swath.
Six Rephaim surrounded the train on either side, and one stood at the front. Strangely, it was a blinded Rapha who relied upon sound and smell to face its quarry. It didn’t look any less intimidating.
