Kingdom Come - The Final Victory (9 page)

Rayford asked carefully whether they would allow Cameron to make clear at the funeral that there was a way for all Cendrillon’s friends and acquaintances to avoid her fate. The Jospins nodded miserably. “We will have relatives here,” her mother said, “our siblings and Cendrillon’s cousins. I would have assumed they were all believers, but I’m not sure of anything anymore. Oh, it’s all such a hardship on our family. They were here not so long ago. Maybe six weeks. We had an early birthday party for Cendrillon.”

Raymie sat with his nephew, Kenny, and Bahira and Zaki at the funeral a few days later. It was held in one of the recreation centers on Chloe and Cameron’s property and drew thousands, mostly children who knew Cendrillon from
COT
.

Strange, Raymie thought, but this would spur the return of an entire industry. As children began reaching the age of one hundred all over the world, many would die. Cendrillon’s body had had to be kept in a wine cellar at her parents’ home until the service. And because cemeteries were nonexistent, she would also be buried on their land.

Zaki, Bahira’s younger brother and always more serious than most, seemed unusually quiet and focused. He was apparently studying many in the crowd. Having been raptured along with his mother and sister, he always seemed happy, if not enthusiastically joyous.

Cendrillon’s extended family filed into the front rows just before the service began, and her father was the first to take the podium. “We praise Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,” he began, laboring. “But this is neither the memorial of a life nor the celebration of a home going, for as you all know, there is only one place for the dead now, and it is not heaven. Cendrillon’s mother and I covet your prayers for our healing. We loved our daughter as much as parents could love a child, and we are in pain—deep, inexplicable pain. We have asked her friend and ministry supervisor, Cameron Williams, to say a few words.”

Cameron felt the presence of the grieving Lord with him and believed He gave him utterance. All he could do was present the unvarnished truth: that Cendrillon had seemed a wonderful person and had accomplished many good deeds. “But the sad fact is that either she never saw her personal need for a Savior, or she chose to ignore that need.”

While the Jospins had okayed this, it was apparent the extended family was caught off guard. Cameron caught the glares of some and the seeming distraction of others. “You may think this is hardly the time and place for a message like this, but Cendrillon’s parents agree that there may be no more appropriate venue. I have a challenge and a warning to everyone who has not yet reached the age of one hundred and who has not received Christ as Savior. The one common denominator throughout all ages, from the creation of Adam to the present kingdom, is that all have a choice to make about God: will you or will you not accept what the Scriptures call ‘so great a salvation’? Those who choose Him will enjoy His entire thousand-year reign and enter the heaven He has prepared for His own. Those who do not will be judged, die in their sins, and spend eternity in the lake of fire.

“This is without question the most important decision you will ever make. I ask you directly: have you personally received Jesus the Christ and acknowledged Him as your only Lord and Savior? If you have not, I urge you to do so right now by telling God, ‘Thank You for sending Your Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for my sins. I confess I am a sinner and ask Your forgiveness. I receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior and surrender my life and future to Him.’

“Now let me close by saying, your choice in this matter is easier than it has ever been. There may have been times in eras past when it took a great deal of faith to believe that Jesus was the sinless Son of God. But after all that has transpired, all the prophecy that has been fulfilled, all the attention-getting events that have occurred—including the Rapture of the church, the twenty-one judgments from heaven over the following seven years, and now this, the millennial kingdom with Jesus Himself presiding as King—you would be lying to say that the Christ is anything or anyone else than who He says He is. If you have hardened your heart against Him, it is not because you don’t believe. It is not because you don’t know. It is because you choose to go your own way rather than His, to indulge in a life centered on your own pleasures and wishes rather than dedicated to the One you know is creator of the universe.

“Should you leave here today without acknowledging Jesus, do not say you haven’t been warned that you will not survive your hundredth birthday and that you will suffer needlessly for eternity.”

Raymie knew it only seemed unique to have a nephew well over ninety years old. As he sat admiring Cameron’s boldness and passion, he couldn’t help but put his arm around Kenny and pull him close. Kenny was the only one of the four young people who sat there without a glorified body and memories of seven years in heaven with Jesus. He had come into the Millennium as an almost-five-year-old and even now still looked like a teenager, aging ever so slowly in this idyllic utopia, but Raymie prided himself on being able to tell who had glorified bodies and who didn’t. Those who did appeared, of course, to not age an iota. The slow effects of time had an impact on the others.

“How about you, buddy?” Raymie said. “You set with Jesus for the future?”

The truth was, Kenny had been taken aback by his own father’s message. Cameron Williams had been a writer, never a preacher or even a speaker. But his decades of ministry to kids had given him an ease and a conviction that made him bold in this context.

“Are you kidding?” Kenny said, smiling. “With parents like mine, do you think I had a choice?”

“Everybody has a choice. Now I want to know.”

“I was kidding, Uncle Raymie. Come on; you know this story just like I know yours. We have something in common.”

“Our mothers led us to Christ.”

“Exactly.”

“And it’s for real with you, right? I mean, I’m not going to be sitting here stunned again in a few years with my own nephew lying in a box up there?”

“Not a chance.”

“Attaboy.”

Zaki leaned over and whispered, “Look at this.”

From all over the building, people were streaming toward Cameron, many weeping. Hundreds knelt as he led them in prayer. Kenny would not have guessed there were this many holdouts in the world, let alone right here in Israel.

“Get a load of these guys,” Zaki said, nodding toward some young men in the family section. They stood and milled about, looking bored at best, distracted at worst. “I wish I looked like Kenny. I’d infiltrate and find out where they stand. But I’ve got that GB look.”

“Glorified body?” Kenny said, smiling. “That
is
your curse. I suppose I look ancient?”

“You’ve just got some miles on you, that’s all,” Bahira said. “You’ve heard your dad’s Tribulation Force stories. Do something for the cause. Find out if those characters are the cousins who tried to influence Cendrillon. They don’t know who you are. Be circumspect. You may be an old guy, but you still look like a kid.”

Circumspect.
That was a new one for Kenny Bruce Williams. He’d never had to be anything other than transparent. Even before he had received Christ, he had not been deceptive. All his life he had been around people who knew and loved Jesus and served Him with their whole hearts. His parents had been martyred, after all, and had been in heaven with God. There was no denying their fervor or what they were about.

Kenny had been ten and living in the kingdom a few years when his mother led him to Christ and prayed with him while putting him to bed one night. “I don’t feel like a sinner,” he had told her. “I hardly remember doing anything wrong.”

“Sin isn’t necessarily just things we do,” she had said. “It’s what we are and who we are. We’re all born in sin and need forgiveness.”

It hadn’t taken much persuasion. Kenny had seen Jesus. If He wasn’t God, nobody was. To Kenny, the decision seemed easy. And while he had heard all the stories of his parents’ and his grandfather’s exploits during the Tribulation, he found living “the life,” as his parents called it, easy during the millennial kingdom. When he was younger, Kenny had actually wished there were more opposition so he’d have something exciting to do. But once he had become a believer himself, working with
COT
had been all the excitement he needed. Almost every day he had either led a child to Christ or known of someone who had.

Be circumspect. Now there was a concept. A tingle went through him as he separated himself from his uncle and his friends and began casually milling about, edging toward the young people from France who might actually be devotees of the Other Light.

As he reached the family, he noticed two young men about his age who looked a lot alike. He reached for one’s hand. “You a relative of Cendrillon’s?” he said.

The bushy-haired young man shook Kenny’s hand. “Depends,” he said. “She owe you money?”

Kenny couldn’t help but grimace. What a thing to say at time like this.

“Yeah, she was my cousin. Name’s Ignace. This is my little brother, Lothair.”

“Nice to meet you both. Sorry about your loss.”

Lothair, a redhead, was the thinner and taller of the two. He snorted. “That crackpot sure made her sound like a loser. Don’t know who he thinks he is.”

Kenny flinched and hoped it didn’t show. He had never heard people this age talk that way. Little kids, sure, roughhousing, fighting, squabbling over toys, not sharing—that was common. But for almost-adults to be so negative, to talk so mean? That was new to Kenny.

Still, he had to be guarded. “Yeah, well, I don’t know what else he could have said.”

Lothair chested his way close to Kenny. “You’re saying she
was
a loser?”

“No, I—”

“Did you even know her?”

“Yeah, sure. Not well, but she was from my area.”

“Then you know she wasn’t some big sinner. She hadn’t even been outside Israel since she was a little kid. We couldn’t even talk her into having a little fun.”

“Fun?”

“Yeah, you know. Fun. Something other than singing songs to Jesus to make sure you live past a hundred.”

“I wouldn’t mind living past a hundred,” Kenny said.

“Then you’d better get saved, don’t you think? According to this guy, that’s the only way to make it. Unless you got a pass by coming straight here from heaven. You didn’t, did you?”

“Me? Nah. Do I look like it?”

“You don’t, actually; no offense. Those glorified people all look the same, like porcelain dolls. Hey, anywhere to have fun around here?”

“Such as?”

“You know what I mean. Somewhere where people like this nursery guy won’t condemn you to hell if you do anything but worship.”

“Remember where you are, guys. There’s hardly what you’d call nightlife in Israel.”

Ignace laughed. “No dances at the temple, eh? No shows? No strong drink? Lothair here makes his own. Takes it right out of the foothills. Speeds up the fermentation process. Gives it a real kick.”

“You don’t worry about messing with God’s wine?”

“Lothair only makes it better, friend.”

Kenny was too new at this. He could think of little else to say. He admired the young men’s suits.

“Thanks. Custom-made.”

“Nice.”

But as he looked closely at the pinstripes, he noticed they were made up of a nearly microscopic pattern. Tiny letters. Row after row of
LTO
,
LTO
,
LTO
. The letters ran together, forming the distinctive pattern
LTOLTOLTOLTOLTOLTOLTOLTO
that from even two feet away just looked like normal striping.

The three were trading contact information when it struck Kenny that maybe it wasn’t
LTO
at all. Maybe it was
TOL
.

IN
MANY
ways, Rayford decided, what had become known as the Cendrillon Jospin tragedy became a catalyst for good. Good that most in the kingdom did not even know was needed. Somehow, over the first century of the Millennium, the citizenry had taken for granted that what they were experiencing was merely a picture of heaven. Every adult was part of the fold, and the precious children who weren’t soon would be, largely due to the ministry of
COT
. People had begun sending their offspring there daily.

Outside Israel, no similar ministries had sprung up—at least ones of that magnitude. So to learn that Cendrillon was only the first of many to die at age one hundred—and such deaths began the day after her funeral—spread alarm through Eden. If in the very capital of the world, where Jesus Himself ruled from the throne through David and where the greatest outreach to children was headquartered, there could be hundreds—yea, thousands—dying lost, what did that say about the rest of the world?

“It certainly adds urgency to my call of God, Tsion,” Rayford said.

“And Irene—how does she feel about all this?”

“The same. We’re ready to go. But this will hardly be anything akin to what we used to see and hear from missionaries back in the day.”

“No, I daresay it will not. I am intrigued, however, Rayford, as you do not qualify as a ‘son of Israel.’ You see, Isaiah writes of you as a stranger and the sons of Israel as priests and ministers of God.” Tsion opened his Bible. “The prophet is writing to Israel, not to Gentiles, when he says, ‘Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the foreigner shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But
you—
‘ emphasis mine—’shall be named the priests of the Lord, they shall call you the servants of our God.’ ”

“So I’m not qualified?”

“Well, I don’t know, especially if it
is
God putting this on your heart. As you know, as a Gentile you are an adopted child of God. I don’t suppose the Lord would preclude your doing missionary work, especially now. Zechariah prophesied that missionaries of the kingdom would find eager ears among the nations. He wrote: ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Peoples shall yet come, inhabitants of many cities; the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us continue to go and pray before the Lord, and seek the Lord of hosts. I myself will go also.’ Yes, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord.” Thus says the Lord of hosts: “In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’ ” ’ ”