Acts of God

by James Beauseigneur

  He was just about to go on with his story when the sound of the woman's voice and her accent abruptly caused him to realize that she had not been speaking English. She and everyone else, including Decker, had been speaking in the universal language.

  "Go on," said the woman. "You'll get used to it." Somehow she knew what Decker had just realized about the language.

  "I understood that like the thief on the cross, all I had to do was ask and, despite all I had done, God loved me enough to forgive me..."

  "So you asked?" Joshua Rosen urged.

  Decker nodded. "I asked."

  "Of course he asked," liana said. "He's here, isn't he?"

  Decker continued. "The next thing I remember, I was dreaming — I guess it was a dream — about something that happened to me when I was a kid. I was running and had fallen into a sinkhole and was holding on to an exposed tree root to keep from falling farther in. My mother was there and she was trying to pull me out but I couldn't let go of the root. Then I heard Nathan yell, 'Pull his hair.'" Decker looked over at his brother who was nodding to indicate he remembered the incident from their childhood. Decker looked at his mother who also indicated she recalled the event. "You let go of me with one hand and grabbed my hair. The sudden pain was so intense it caused me to release the root so you could pull me out. In my dream, after I was out of the hole, somehow I found myself here."

  For a brief moment everyone seemed puzzled and then Joshua Rosen said, "What you remember is a dream which began as you slipped into unconsciousness before you actually died. A little of that dream came with you and was played out in your mind at your resurrection."

  It might just have been a guess, but somehow it seemed obvious to Decker that Rosen's explanation was correct. It appeared that everyone else around him agreed.

  "But what happened to me? How long ago did I die?"

  "About four months," Tom Donafin answered.

  Decker was surprised and let the answer settle in for a moment before continuing. "But iv seems like it all happened just a moment ago."

  "It did," Tom confirmed.

  "But you said I was dead for four months," Decker said, speaking to the whole group, for it seemed they were all in agreement on the matter. "How can they both be true?"

  "God is not bound by time," Scott Rosen answered, "and when you died, neither were you."

  "So," Decker said, trying to understand the point, "what you're saying is that between my death and resurrection it was like I was asleep; I just wasn't aware of the passage of time?"

  "Well, no, not exactly," Rosen insisted. "From our perspective it would appear that you were asleep in death during those four months. But from your perspective and God's perspective, no time passed at all."

  Decker shrugged. "I don't see what the difference is. If I died four months ago, that means that for four months I was dead, whether I noticed it or not."

  "Decker," Tom Donafm interjected, "do you remember that old movie The Time Machine with Rod Taylor?"

  Decker listened to Tom's question but then burst out laughing. It was good to know that some things had not changed. After all these years, and even after dying and being resurrected in this paradise, Tom was still using movies to help explain his thoughts. Decker's laughter was infectious and the others laughed as well. Finally, Decker managed to answer. "Yes," he said. "I remember, Tom. Go ahead."

  'smiling but in full blush, Tom continued. "From his time machine Rod Taylor watched what was going on around him in fast motion because he traveled through time. Well, it's not like that when you die. Of course, I mean in the past. In our new bodies we are not bound by aging or sickness or death. But, anyway, what happened to you is more like the movie Back to the Future. When Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled forward in the DeLorean, they traveled instantly, jumping across time, from one point to another without experiencing any passage of time themselves."

  Decker continued to chuckle, both at Tom's unorthodox method of explanation and because despite its unorthodoxy it was obviously effective. He was beginning to understand.

  "As Scott said," Tom continued, "God is not bound by time. He exists outside of time. When you died, you exited time, jumping immediately from the point of your death to the point of your resurrection. I did the same after I was shot. I got here just a few days ago."

  "And everyone else?" Decker asked.

  "Those who accepted God's forgiveness and served him and died before the Rapture — what the world called the 'Disaster' — went immediately from their deaths to their resurrection at the Rapture. Those like Joshua and liana, and Elizabeth, Hope and Louisa, who served God and were alive at the time of the Rapture, did not die but were instantly changed. They simply sloughed off their old bodies, and were given new ones just as though they had been resurrected from the dead. Those who died after the Rapture, and who trusted God and did not take the mark or worship Christopher or his image, are like you and me, going from death immediately to their resurrection in the Kingdom. Most have already been resurrected, but there are still several million who were executed after you on Christopher's guillotines who are being resurrected even now, in the same order in which they died. Those who served God and did not take the mark and managed to survive until the Kingdom were also changed like those at the Rapture, for as the Bible says, 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.'"

  "And those who took the mark?"

  "They made their choice. No one was forced to take the mark. In fact, the mark had to be voluntary because Satan could not take anyone against their will. Along with the rest of the people throughout history who have refused God's forgiveness, they will be resurrected at the end of the thousand years of the Millennial Kingdom and will be judged by God for the evil they did."

  Decker sighed at the loss. His great-great-grandmother read his feelings. "Decker," she said, with melodic Scottish inflection, "God was not willing that any should perish but that all would come to repentance."

  "Hmm," Decker responded, which meant only that he was willing to let the subject pass.

  "If anyone is not here it's because they've chosen not to be here," another woman said. Decker could not see who had spoken at first but the others moved aside to allow her to be heard. It was Martha Goodman, 'Aunt Martha,' as Christopher had called her. "They'd never be happy here anyway," she said. "A wheel can only have one center if it's going to work. The universe can only have one God and the position is already filled. You take my husband, Harry, for example. He'd be miserable here (though he won't like the other place any better, I'm sure). He'd never be willing to accept living by someone else's rules. He never could live by God's rules in life — even though every one of the rules can be summed up in the simple phrase 'love God, and love your neighbor as yourself

  "Now, mind you, I'm not talking about being able to follow the rules — even such simple rules. If we could have followed them on our own, then we wouldn't have needed God's forgiveness. I'm just talking about being willing to accept that God has the right to make the rules, and acknowledging that the rules he has made are good. If a person cannot accept that, then they would never be happy here." Her voice showed no sign of anger at her husband, just resigned recognition. "Harry was simply unwilling to let God be God," she concluded, "even if it meant he'd spend eternity in hell."

  Decker sighed again, this time in sympathy and understanding, for Martha Goodman and for all the others whose loved ones had refused forgiveness.

  "Is the whole world like this?" Decker asked changing the subject as he again surveyed the beauty of his surroundings.

  "Almost but not all," Joel Felsberg, Rhoda Donafin's brother, answered. "There are some places like Babylon that were left desolate as a reminder of the evil that grew there." Though Joel had never met Decker before, he certainly knew of him as Christopher's confidant. He was also aware of the close relationship that had existed between Decker and Joel's brother-in-law, Tom Donafin. And Joel had heard his friend Scott Rosen speak of Decker on n
umerous occasions, and knew that Rosen had once interrupted a critical conversation between Decker and his wife in a hospital in Tel Aviv. Joel had even gone with Scott to Jerusalem when he had first considered trying to talk to Decker.144

  "Will it be like this forever?" Decker asked.

  "Not forever, Decker," Joshua Rosen answered, "but for a thousand years. After that will be the judgement Tom talked about. Then God will create a new heaven and a new earth. We don't know very much about the details, but we do know it will be even better than this world."

  "What part of the world are we in, exactly?"

  "Israel," Scott Rosen answered. "From the Euphrates to the Suez, just as God promised to Abraham."

  Decker raised his eyebrows in surprise. This didn't look at all like the Israel he remembered. Things really had changed. "And that mountain?" he asked.

  "That is Zion, the highest mountain in the world; and on top of it is a plateau measuring fifty miles square, on which sits Jerusalem and a new Temple, built according to the plan given to the prophet Ezekiel."

  "A new Temple? What happened to the old one?"

  "It was destroyed by Christopher's armies," Scott Rosen answered.

  "And the Ark of the Covenant?"

  "There is none. There's no need for one. The Ark was the vessel for the physical evidence of God's covenant with his people. Now the evidence of God's covenant is within us and all around us."

  Decker nodded. He had more questions but his more immediate interest was in being with his wife and daughters. Surprisingly it was Scott Rosen, the once-blustering egocentric, who was first to discern this. "There's something else you might be interested in," Scott said. "There is a river which flows out of the Temple across the plateau and then divides, with half of the river running into the Mediterranean and the other half into the Dead Sea. I think you'll be amazed at the changes there. As for the rest of us, I'm sure there are a lot of other resurrections we'd like to see. Perhaps Elizabeth and the girls would like to show you the river."

  Decker looked at Elizabeth, Hope, and Louisa, who smiled and nodded. "You'll love it, Dad," Louisa said.

  Decker smiled in return, and when he looked up an instant later he was alone with his family. "What happened?! Where'd they go?!" Decker shouted in surprise.

  "They had places to go," Elizabeth said. "Shall we go see the river?"

  Decker's eyebrows raised and stayed there as his eyes shifted from side to side marveling at everyone's sudden exit. "I don't suppose you intend to walk there."

  "Well, we could, but it's quite a long way. We could run or we could fly. Or we could just be there."

  "What do you mean?"

  "C'mon, Dad," Hope chimed in as she took hold of his hand. "Just think about where you want to go ... and here we are."

  Decker sensed no movement but in that instant their surroundings changed. He now found himself near the base of the mountain that a moment before had been a hundred miles distant. A great cataract of roaring water sparkled like diamonds as it fell more than eight thousand feet down the mountain's steep rock face and emptied into an immense glassy clear pool. The spray from the falls rose nearly half as high as the ledge from which the water fell and, carried by a gust of wind, settled drops of cool mist upon Decker's face. It felt wonderful and the taste as he licked the mist from his lips was fresh and clean and more satisfying than anything he had ever tasted. Hope's eagerness to come here with her father had apparently caught Elizabeth and Louisa off guard for they were not with them, but arrived a second later.

  Decker took a deep breath and swallowed hard. "So this must be the river," he managed, not wanting to spoil his family's fun by his apprehension: this form of travel would take a little getting used to.

  From the pool at the bottom of the falls flowed the river they had told him about. On its banks grew fruit trees of every kind he had ever seen and many he had not. The air was filled with the sweet smell from the many varieties of tree that were in flower. Others were laden with fruit ripe for harvest.

  "The trees bear year-round," said Elizabeth who watched as her husband surveyed his surroundings.

  "The, uh . . . way we got here from where we were, can we go anywhere like that?"

  "Anywhere we want. Anywhere on earth; anywhere in the universe for that matter. Even heaven. We can even go back in time, but only to watch. Is there somewhere else you'd like to go?" she asked, eager to please her husband.

  "Uh, no," he answered quickly, concerned that he might again find himself unintentionally somewhere else. "Maybe later. This is fine for right now."

  "So what exactly is it we do here?" Decker asked.

  "Pretty much anything we want as long as we abide by the two commandments: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Of course, you'll find that it's a lot easier to follow those rules here. Satan has been locked up until the end of the thousand years, so temptation has been greatly reduced. Of course, humans are capable of quite a bit of evil on their own and so there is still the need for a government, with Jesus as the head. Later, after all the others have been resurrected, we will all gather and he will place us at different levels in the government under him based on how we lived our lives before the Kingdom." Decker was certain that in such a government he would have no position at all, but it didn't matter. "After that there will be a huge banquet, called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, to celebrate the founding of the Kingdom and God's love for us."

  "But after that," Decker probed, "what will we do on a daily basis?"

  "Decker," Elizabeth said shaking her head to emphasize that there were no limits other than the ones she had already mentioned, "anything you want. You can do anything from farming to exploring the universe. You can learn to play a musical instrument, a hundred musical instruments. You can write that novel you always used to talk about. And whatever you decide to do, you will succeed. As long as you're willing to put in the effort, there is no failure here."

  Decker looked over to where Hope and Louisa sat playing with a litter of month-old lion cubs as the mother lion looked on. The sight, which once would have been so startling, felt entirely natural to Decker as he grew more accustomed to his circumstances and surroundings. "Hope and Louisa," he said, thoughtfully, "they're the same age as when they died."

  "We didn't die, Decker," Elizabeth insisted. "We were raptured."

  Decker nodded, acknowledging his brief lapse. "Will they stay the same age?"

  "No, now that we're back on earth, they'll grow naturally."

  "'Back on earth?' Where have you been since the Rapture?"

  "We were all taken into heaven for a time. In heaven there is no aging. Now that we're back on earth, the girls will grow naturally. They'll never grow old, but they will reach maturity. They'll marry, have kids of their own. You'll have grandchildren. In fact you'll have great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, and you'll live to bounce them all on your knee, never aging but staying young and in perfect health, just as you are today."

  "No sickness, no physical defects, no poverty, success dependent only on our effort. Strange, but it sounds very much like what Christopher promised," Decker said.

  Elizabeth nodded.

  "How was it that Christopher was able to give people the things he did — health, youth, psychic abilities?" Decker asked.

  "Youth and health did not come from what Christopher gave, but rather from what he ceased to take. By reducing the parasitic power of evil over the physical bodies of those who took the communion and the mark, he allowed their bodies to return to a state closer to what existed in the Garden of Eden where there was no disease or death."

  "So taking the communion really didn't do anything?" Decker asked.

  "No," Elizabeth confirmed. "As for the psychic abilities, those were the deceptions of the fallen angels." to stop the plagues?"

  "Many of the things Milner did, like calling down lightning in Jerusalem, were the result of real powers he had that came from Christopher and ultimately from
Satan. But stopping the plagues wasn't Milner's doing. Christopher and Milner simply waited for each plague to run its course and then showed up to take the credit as the plague was lifted.

  Decker pondered the response for a moment and then moved on to another thought.

  "There is something else that is very, very different about this place," Decker said. "I noticed it from the first moment, though I still can't begin to explain it. It's as though my whole life up until the time I arrived here was a dream — clearly and perfectly remembered — but a dream nonetheless. I might even believe it had all been a dream except that dreaming presupposes having laid down to sleep the night before," Decker shook his head," and I can remember no such lying down. In truth, I cannot recall ever being truly awake before, not as I am now. It's not just that now my old life seems like it was a dream, but rather, looking back at it, I realize that even then I sensed the dreamlike quality of it, but I was unable to break free or even to fully comprehend it." Even after having said this, Decker felt compelled to ask, "Was it a dream?" "No," Elizabeth answered, smiling. "And there's more," he continued. "It's as though, well it may sound a little crazy, it's as though the physical limits of my body no longer confine me, no longer limit me, and everything around me, the grass, the trees, the earth itself, even the air have become a part of me and I a part of them." Decker shook his head. Even in the universal language it was a struggle to find the right words to adequately express himself. "It's a little like going up in an airplane, and you don't really notice the air pressure changing until your ears 'pop,' and then suddenly you can hear better. Well, it's like my whole life was under that pressure and now finally my ears have popped. I can hear and taste and see and feel and smell and sense like I never even imagined possible before." Decker paused. "And it's you as well. I feel now so much a part of you, and you a part of me that I know I could never have felt before. I feel for you a love so strong that even all my years of missing you cannot compare to one moment of the love I have for you now."