Kingdom Come - The Final Victory (29 page)

“What recourse do I have, Dad? Is this a case I can take before the judges?”

“Only if someone charges you with a crime. Has anyone done that?”

“I wish Qasim would. He’s the one who seems to gain the most from this.”

“What is he gaining?”

“He makes me look bad. He costs me Kat.”

“Where is Ekaterina, by the way?” Chloe said.

“Where do you think? Anywhere but here. She won’t answer her phone, won’t see me. I guess I can’t blame her, but I thought we knew each other better than this.”

“Well,” Chloe said, “those things you said about her parents . . .”

“
I
didn’t say them! I love her parents. Listen, something else is going to surface, and I need your help.” Kenny told them about Nicolette and the picture. “I just know they’ll deliver it to Kat. Since I can’t get anywhere near her, could you warn her?”

“I don’t know,” Cameron said.

“Of course I will,” Chloe said. “And she’s going to want to know what to do about work. I’ll assure her that she can come and not worry about running into you.”

“And why is that? You’re finding me guilty too? firing me?”

“Call it a suspension,” Cameron said. “Just till we can figure this out.”

“What can I do, Dad, take a lie detector test? You know what this means if it’s true? I’m an infidel, an unbeliever. That means I die at one hundred and go to hell. Do you really believe that about me?”

“No,” Cameron said. “I don’t. But I don’t know what to do about your reputation now or countering all this evidence.”

They sat in silence a long time. Finally Kenny spoke. “It seems that with all the people you know, all the people you’ve worked with, we have access to spiritual power few others have. If everybody who’s worked with you and believed in you and supported you in the past would cooperate in prayer, I don’t believe Jesus would let this injustice stand. Do you?”

Cameron and Chloe looked at each other. Then Cameron addressed his son. “They would all have to know everything, Kenny. They would have to see all the evidence.”

“Dad, I’ve got nothing to hide. What have I got to lose? I believe Jesus is here and on His throne and that lies will be exposed. I’m open to anything.”

But that night Kenny couldn’t sleep. He sat at his computer and composed a message to the Millennium Force and copied it to Ekaterina.

Dear friends, you can’t know what I’m going through, but perhaps you can imagine. Think how it would be if you were in my place and wholly innocent. I am, you know. Let me get that on the record from the start. I confess I’m hurt, deeply wounded, that you assume me guilty. I suppose all I can do now is to endure a little more than two more years until I turn one hundred. And when I am still here the next day, you’ll know that I am a believer, that I belong to Christ, and that while I am not perfect—as I am a natural—I could not be guilty of this.

Kenny didn’t feel much better even after transmitting his defense, so he wrote separately to Ekaterina:

My dearest love, I can only imagine how phony and hollow that sounds coming from me now. You are convinced I am guilty, and I don’t know how to prove otherwise. Perhaps there is some deep pocket of love for me in your heart that misses what we had together and longs to believe all things, as the Bible says.

Kat, I fell in love with you almost from the beginning. I can’t even remember, nor do I wish to, life before you. I thanked God for you every day and looked forward to that great day when we would marry and be able to spend the rest of our lives together.

Do me a favor tonight, will you, and read the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. And while you are raw and aching, I know this may sound empty to you too, but I want you to know that one day in the future, when the truth comes out, I will not hold it against you that you didn’t trust me. I’d like to think that I would not have believed such charges about you, no matter how convincing, but I don’t know. Regardless, I will forgive you, so don’t let anything keep you from coming back to me. Whatever happens, you will always be my lifetime love, and there will never be another.

With my soul,

Kenny

Kenny lay wide-eyed on his back, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t know why he was so desperate to sleep with no obligations in the morning. Finally he rose and grabbed his Bible, taking it back to bed and reading what he had recommended to Ekaterina:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Kenny found himself weeping and longing for heaven, where Jesus had promised to wipe away all tears from his eyes. “Lord, I need You,” he said. “I need Your help.”

“Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

And, finally, Kenny was able to doze.

Abdullah called the Other Light headquarters in Amman before heading out the next morning.

Sarsour answered, “
TTI
.”

“
TTI
indeed,” Abdullah said. “Are your guests gone? Is the coast clear for me to return?”

“Oh, Mr. Ababneh! Yes! And you have no idea how much Mudawar wishes to see you. He is so appreciative of your acceding to his request yesterday and keeping him from an embarrassing situation. Of all the kind things you have done since you have been here, that was the kindest. Anyway, yes, please come in.”

Kenny arose not refreshed but with an interesting new outlook. It was as if the Lord had spoken to his heart even as he slept. It was the strangest feeling—something that those like him were unlikely to grasp without an ordeal such as the one he was enduring. He was getting a taste—albeit a very small and entirely less violent one—of what it must have been like for Jesus to be betrayed and abandoned by His friends. Of course, Jesus was mocked and spit upon and struck, had a crown of thorns thrust into His scalp, had His side riven by a sword, and was eventually put to death.

And He was more than innocent. He was perfect, sinless. It went without saying that Kenny could not say the same about himself, but he knew he could face the day. His soul was pierced by the loss of the love of his life, and all he could do was pray that truth and time would walk hand in hand and that eventually Ekaterina would return to him.

Meanwhile, the Lord seemed to be impressing upon Kenny to redeem the time. Nothing would be served by defending himself and moping about in misery—Jesus certainly never did either of those. Though he was not hungry, Kenny forced himself to pick fresh fruits and vegetables and to eat them with bread and wine. Normally he would have enjoyed this bounty from the Lord, and while he was grateful for it, he was eating only out of a sense of duty. He needed fuel to function correctly, and he wanted to fill his hours—until his vindication, however long that would take—with some sort of work for the kingdom.

This day that would mean planning and writing and preparing curriculum that would make him a better Bible teacher, a better leader for the young charges at
COT
that he prayed would once again someday be entrusted to him. Only the Lord would be able to keep his mind on the task and off Ekaterina and his troubles.

For the first time since he had begun his unusual assignment in Amman, Abdullah was greeted warmly not only by Sarsour but also by Mudawar. The latter actually emerged from his office with a smile and a two-handed shake for Abdullah.

“Come into my office a moment, sir,” Mudawar said. “Sit down. I must tell you, I don’t understand you. I disagree with you. You should be my enemy, and in many ways you are. But you honored me by your absence yesterday. I have to say I would not likely have afforded you the same courtesy. And I didn’t expect it from you. Indeed, you had warned me that you would do nothing of the kind. In fact, when finally, at the end of the day, I walked my guests out to their car, I expected you to be sitting in front of our door, prepared to shame me.

“Now, you must tell me. Why did you not, and where in the world were you?”

THE
UNIQUE
ministry the Lord had assigned Rayford Steele and his team in Osaze had gone more swimmingly than any project Rayford could recall, but that very fact niggled at him every spare moment. Had he erred in believing that this period, this millennial kingdom with Jesus on the throne of the world, would be a time of unmitigated peace?

Clearly things were different than they had ever been. But while it seemed that in every city and town and outpost, citizens were eager to hear from the Lord, willing to work with those He had sent, and desperate to be sure their young people made decisions for Christ, that angelic visit from Anis had both inspired and rattled Rayford.

For if the Lord Himself was in charge, why did Rayford and his little band need a rear guard? From whom were they being protected?

Everyone had been affected by the drought and famine that had resulted from Egypt’s disobedience. And so everywhere Rayford and the others traveled, things seemed to turn around immediately. The preachers preached, the builders built, the consultants consulted, and everyone on the team got the chance to lead someone to salvation virtually every day.

It soon became apparent to Rayford, however, that those with natural bodies—himself, Chaim, and Mac—had way less stamina than the glorifieds. Without consulting anyone else, Rayford began planning a long break after what he expected to be a huge meeting in Siwa the next evening. The naturals needed it, and perhaps some respite from the work would calm his troubled mind.

Successful as it was, the work was not easy, partly because Rayford and the others remained committed to living in the motor home. They could afford to stay elsewhere, but crowded as it was, it seemed the most prudent use of their resources.

As they sat debriefing after a particularly stressful but also successful day of ministry, Chaim reported that the welcoming committee in Siwa expected one of the biggest crowds of their entire effort. “Apparently there will be protestors, too,” he said. “But we’ve never worried about opposition before.”

In the middle of their confab, the awful news about Kenny arrived by fax from Israel. Rayford distributed the document to the others, then phoned Chloe for further details. He told her of the planned break and promised to be back as soon as possible.

When the others had read the document and Rayford had told them what Chloe had said, he added, “There is no question Irene and my daughter and I are biased, so I would ask that we simply accede to my grandson’s request that we covenant together in prayer and seek the Lord over this.”

And so it was that Rayford and Irene and Chaim and Tsion and Mac and the Barneses knelt and prayed. Tsion began, and then Chaim, and soon all were praying at the same time. Several minutes later they prayed in succession again, but Rayford noticed a change. Whereas they had begun haltingly, seeking God’s wisdom, asking Him to shed light on the truth, now they seemed to be praying for Kenny, for strength, for endurance. One by one, those with glorified minds and bodies—those who had been in heaven—expressed in their prayers that the charges against Kenny did not resonate with them.

Finally Mrs. Barnes closed the prayer meeting. “Lord,” she said, “I barely know this boy, but I know You and You know him, and You’ve made it clear to my spirit that he belongs to You. I pray swift justice for him and for those who seek to destroy him. In the name of Jesus . . .”

And they all chorused their amens.

For some reason, despite how long Rayford had lived in this new world, it still surprised him to emerge from the heavily curtained mobile hotel to a moon brighter than the sun had once been. But with a wide-brimmed hat and dark wraparound sunglasses, he could pretend. And an hour’s amble at midnight often cleared his head.

This night, however, after whispering his intentions to Irene, Rayford found the night wasn’t much cooler than the day had been. He rolled up his sleeves as he moseyed along, trying to pray, trying to imagine the future, and, yes—despite the interest and challenge and novelty of the Millennium, longing for heaven. Such complications as the clearly bogus charges against Kenny would not invade such a paradise.

Rayford had learned much about the Lord and about the future, yet still he did not understand God. Why was it that some days He seemed closer than even His throne in Israel, answering Rayford before his prayers were voiced, and other days—like now—He seemed distant and silent? Perhaps heaven would provide those answers.

The occasional car and light truck passed Rayford in the wee hours, one driver stopping to see if he needed a ride. While on his way back to the camper, Rayford was startled to not see it in the distance where he thought he’d left it. Shrugging and assuming he had merely misjudged the distance and that it would appear on the horizon around the next bend, he lowered his head and continued trudging.