Chapter 26

The next morning, the crew were all dressed up in their “Sunday best,” but only for their mission, their assignment. They were present for the purpose of disrupting a church service, so every member of age tagged along, leaving Jeremy to supervise the children. They needed every soul available at their command, after all. Jeremy was under strict orders to keep the brood quiet and hidden from danger, too. They didn’t want any kids taken as hostages, after all.

Brother Ahasuerus Walton’s Church of the Triumphant Savior was quite visible and audible from all other directions, being the only legal church in the entire county. Even now, his goons were busy disrupting illegal church services, mostly in houses due to the closing of all places of worship not affiliated with the CTS. “Triumphants” or “Tris” now ran every agency in the county, so it wasn’t as if an official complaint to the police would make a difference. Walton doubled as Chairman of the County Commission, so he would likely learn who complained, anyway.

“And now, lovely brothers and sisters, the man of the hour, the man chosen by Almighty God to be His hand and mighty right arm, the one true Prophet of the Lord of Hosts, the deputy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Second Forerunner for the Second Advent of the Messiah, a lineal descendant of Christ Jesus Himself, of the seed of Jesse and the House of David, the one and only Reverend Ahasuerus Uzziah Walton, Pastor, President, and Prophet of the Church of the Triumphant Savior!” a burly deacon who looked to be overly fond of church socials and potlucks, thundered from the pulpit.

There he stood in a packed concert hall converted lately to serve as the new auditorium and sanctuary of the church. There, a thin, raspy-sounding man with long sideburns and a badly receding hairline stood to replace him at the pulpit in a blindingly white suit and tie. He now looked out at the congregants and slammed his fist down on the lectern like so much thunder.

“Lovely brothers and sisters in Christ, the time isn’t coming ... the time is here! The Church of our Lord and Savior, our Risen Messiah, shall prevail upon this Earth and the Gates of Hell shall not stand against it! Know this now, that the prophecy has come true, that the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. This is not merely the beginning of the end. It is the end itself! This IS the END OF DAYS, the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, whereof the Prophet Joel spoke.

“And indeed, just as prophesied by our Lord Himself during His earthly ministry, behold, many false Christs and false Prophets have come out into this world. Lo, behold, to the East, wherein new Popes claim the mantle left behind by their predecessors! Behold, to the West, where a Man of Sin stands in a city in Oregon and proclaims his land to be a ‘haven’ for sinners upon this Earth. This Son of Perdition, this so-called Prophet and Lawgiver, is quite possibly the very servant of the Devil Himself. There is not one Antichrist, not one Beast, but many.

“Marvel not that I say to you that there is not one Antichrist, but many, for so our Lord foretold in His First Advent and as he walked with the Apostles. By their fruits, you shall know them, for indeed, they are apostates and heathens, and their ladies are Jezebels whose blood the very dogs shall lick when they perish from this world! The two Popes are Catholics, of course, of the apostate church in Rome, the church of Lucifer himself, Babylon the Great, the Harlot, the Great Whore, Mother of Abominations.

“But the man in the west, Mark Schumacher, now he is a Jew. Is that an accident, that a sinful, godless, Christ-forsaking Jew now purports that he, not Christ Jesus, is the true Messiah? He calls evil ‘good’ and good ‘evil,’ so woe unto him! He knows just enough of the Torah, Tanakh, and Talmud to be dangerous, to call into question the very prophecies of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We cannot trust such a man, a Judas, a son of perdition! The seed of Satan, this man is! The Beast of Revelation!

“We don’t know what the Mark of the Beast will resemble, but isn’t it telling that this man’s Christian name, if we can call it that, since he’s a Godforsaken Israelite, is Mark! How fitting, is it not, that the Man of Sin who seeks to mark us has that in his name as a warning to us all? What does this mean for us all? That we must repent of our wickedness and vanities and turn to God!

“I am not the new Messiah, there is only one Messiah, and that is Christ Jesus, the stone that the builders rejected, but I am the new forerunner, the new John the Baptist! I baptize you unto salvation and preservation from the Great Wrath of the Lamb. Salvation is not merely faith, for as the Epistle of James teaches us, faith without works is dead. Salvation is through confession and repentance as well, the visible manifestation of which is baptism! That is why John called for the Jews to be baptized before the First Advent of our Lord!

“Let us build our new shining city on a hill, a last city of refuge for the remnant of Zion, so that we might stand against the Evil Ones, the sons of Belial in the East and West alike! To do that, we must all repent and purge the evildoer from our ranks, as Phinehas the priest did with the Israelite man and the Midianite harlot! As Moses did with the worshipers of the golden calf at Sinai! As Elijah did with the priests and prophets of Baal at Carmel!

“Now, as we contemplate our future conflicts and battles, let us sing us unto the Lord, as His servant David the son of Jesse did. Let us all sing together the hymn, ‘Brethren, We have met to worship.’ Let us listen to the lyrics as we sing them and dwell on the need to save those lost to the wickedness of the false Christs, who must be turned from their unrighteous path before it is too late.”

At that, the songleader, a red-faced man with a very slight pot belly and a bad toupee, began leading the aforementioned hymn.

When the verse reached the words, “death is coming, hell is moving, can you bear to see them go? See our mothers and our fathers and our children sinking down,” Charles decided that he had heard enough. He stood up and approached the lectern and altar, making the crowd at first think that he was a penitent, so all hushed. That was just the opening that he needed.

“Lies, I tell you, lies! What this man has declared unto you, such are naught but lies spoken in our ears! I have spoken with angels and they have proclaimed me a true Prophet, and if this be not so, may God strike me dead! But if it be so, may God strike this pastor of yours dead instead, may he smite the wicked liar, the vicious ‘Brother Ahasuerus’ dead where he stands. For it is he that is a false Prophet, not I! I do not call myself ‘Messiah,’ and I do not know if such a thing even exists, but I know that I am a messenger of God, a seer, a Prophet of Heaven!” Charles pronounced his own warning to the pastor, who angrily turned to confront him.

“How dare you ... how dare you call me a liar in my own church! You charlatan, you fraud! You ... warlock!” Brother Ahasuerus screamed in his outrage, just seconds before Lavelle appeared in front of the entire congregation.

“Behold, an angel of God!” Charles pointed to Lavelle and his flapping wings, flaming sword, and robe of white.