The Rapture: In The Twinkling Of An Eye (25 page)

Because the printing press had not yet been invented, every word had to be handwritten. More than six hundred years later, over one hundred and fifty handwritten copies still existed.

Wycliffe also trained and sent out “Bible-Men,” students who had been ordained but without a bishop’s license. He instructed them to not settle in any particular area, to avoid worldly pursuits, and to study and preach the Bible. They wore long reddish gowns and carried staffs, but they were barefoot. They carried at least a portion of Wycliffe’s translation and preached wherever they could find an audience.

Wycliffe had been widely thought the best preacher of his day. He centered his sermons around the meaning of the Bible passage and then the application of the text to the lives of the hearers.

Jesus presented him the crowns of Glory and Rejoicing.

Not sure he’d follow through with anything overt, Captain Rayford Steele felt an irresistible urge to see Hattie Durham right then. He unstrapped himself and squeezed his first officer’s shoulder on the way out of the cockpit. “We’re still on auto, Christopher,” he said as the younger man roused and straightened his headphones. “I’m gonna make the sunup stroll.”Christopher squinted and licked his lips. “Doesn’t look like sunup to me, Cap.”

“Probably another hour or two. I’ll see if anybody’s stirring anyway.”

“Roger. If they are, tell “Em Chris says, “Hey.””

Raymie Steele found it interesting that God seemed to have a theme going that was giving him a crash course in church history. The next supplicant was a contemporary of Wycliffe who was also instrumental in translating the Scriptures. As a young man, John Hus had worked in churches in Prague and become known as a humble servant and a devoted student. He was eventually ordained to the priesthood and assigned as the preacher in the new Bethlehem Chapel in Prague.

Hus was impacted by the writings of Wycliffe and helped translate and circulate much of Wycliffe’s work. At first Hus did not face opposition for his views but was actually a favorite of his archbishop. Eventually, however, the archbishop was ordered to speak out against what were considered the heresies of Wycliffe and to forbid any further criticism of the clergy.

Later the church ordered that all Wycliffe writings be surrendered for correction. Hus obeyed and publicly declared that he condemned whatever errors existed, but he was eventually called to account by the archbishop for what were termed his “Wycliffite tendencies” and was reported to Rome.

Wycliffe’s writings were withdrawn from circulation and burned, and when Hus protested, he was excommunicated, along with his sympathizers. When he continued supporting the work of Wycliffe, he was summoned to appear before the pope. Hus further protested practices of the church and the pope, resulting in a papal edict that he be imprisoned and that the Bethlehem Chapel be destroyed. The order was not obeyed by the king of Prague, and at the end of 1412, Hus wrote a treatise about the errors of the church and later posted it on the walls of the Bethlehem Chapel.

From these works of protest the church extracted propositions it considered heretical, and the Council of Constance was assembled. Hus was urged by the king to appear there and defend his doctrine. At Constance he was condemned and burned at the stake.

Jesus presented Hus the crowns of Glory and Life.

Hattie Durham was in shape. She worked out nearly every day. Why, then, was her heart pounding and her lungs overtaxed from the short flight of stairs to first class? She knew.

As she moved through the cabin she found a good-looking, blond man sleeping, his laptop open, his reading lamp on. She reached across a heavyset, snoring man who smelled of too many drinks and switched off the light. As she backed away she noticed that the dapper old man on the aisle just ahead of those two was gone. His clothes were on the seat. To Hattie’s great relief, the man’s wife still dozed.

Relief? That was a laugh. Hattie was starring in the horror film of a lifetime.

A young woman on the other side of the aisle frantically patted the empty seats beside her, calling out, “Bill! Where are the kids?” She spotted Hattie. “Ma’am?”

Hattie held up a hand. “I’ll be right with you.” And she sprinted toward the cockpit.

Next on God’s list of those honored for the ministry of His Word was a twentieth-century saint who had made the Scriptures even more understandable to the masses by crafting them to be understood by his children. His laborious private effort was eventually recognized by Christian leaders, and the explosion of his paraphrase, The Living Bible, resulted in worldwide publishing ministries.

He too suffered for his work, virtually losing his voice for the second half of his life. Ken Taylor was presented with crowns rewarding his enduring trials, feeding the flock, and winning souls.

His appearance before the flame and the throne began what seemed to Irene an endless parade of more contemporary Christian heroes, missionaries, pastors, evangelists, personal witnesses, and martyrs. Learning all their stories and—amazingly—now being able to remember every detail of thousands of the same was such a rich experience that Irene only occasionally reverted to her curiosity about how much time this might be taking in Earth minutes. It seemed she had been here a year already, but still she felt no hunger, no fatigue, no flagging of attention. And if what God had told her before remained operative, all this was happening in mere Earth moments.

As Captain Rayford Steele opened the cockpit door, Hattie Durham nearly bowled him over.

“No need to knock,” he said. “I’m coming.”

The senior flight attendant pulled him into the galley, but there was no passion in her touch. Her fingers felt like talons on his forearm, and her body shuddered in the darkness.

“Hattie—”

She pressed him back against the cooking compartments, her face close to his. Had she not been clearly terrified, he might have enjoyed this and returned her embrace.

Her knees buckled as she tried to speak, and her voice came in a whiny squeal. “People are missing,” she managed to whisper, burying her head in his chest.

He took her shoulders and tried to push her back, but she fought to stay close. “What do you mean?”

She was sobbing now, her body out of control. “A whole bunch of people, just gone!”

“Hattie, this is a big plane. They’ve wandered off to the lavs or—”

She pulled his head down so she could speak directly into his ear. Despite her weeping, she was plainly fighting to make herself understood. “I’ve been everywhere. I’m telling you, dozens of people are missing.”

“Hattie, it’s still dark. We’ll find—”

“I’m not crazy! See for yourself! All over the plane, people have disappeared.”

“It’s a joke. They’re hiding, trying to—”

“Ray! Their shoes, their socks, their clothes—everything was left behind. These people are gone!”

Hattie slipped from his grasp and knelt whimpering in the corner. Rayford wanted to comfort her, to enlist her help, or to get Chris to go with him through the plane. More than anything he wanted to believe the woman was crazy. She knew better than to put him on. It was obvious she really believed people had disappeared.

Irene had heard of Campus Crusade for Christ, but as a fairly new believer, she knew nothing of its history or its founder. Thus she was amazed as Bill Bright’s story was revealed and his works were burnished to a huge pile of gold and silver and precious gems.

Dr. Bright had founded and spent more than fifty years leading an organization that became the world’s largest Christian ministry. He was so motivated by Christ’s command to spread the gospel throughout the world that in 1956 he wrote a booklet titled The Four Spiritual Laws, which was eventually printed in two hundred languages and became the most widely disseminated religious booklet in history. Bright also commissioned the
JESUS
film, a documentary on the life of Christ, which was translated into more than nine hundred languages and seen by more than 5.4 billion people in 228 countries and became the most widely viewed film in history.

Bill Bright began his ministry in college by sharing Christ with fellow students at
UCLA
, which developed into a full-time calling and spawned the eventual worldwide ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. What began as a campus effort grew to deal with almost every segment of society, including inner cities, governments, prisons, families, the military, executives, musicians, athletes, and others.

Irene and Raymie rose with the rest as Jesus pronounced Bill Bright’s well-done and embraced him, crafting for him from the residue of the flame the Crown of Rejoicing, the soul-winner’s crown.

The loudest cheers came from the hundreds of millions who were in heaven due to the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.

Rayford Steele stepped into first class, where an elderly woman sat stunned in the predawn haze, her husband’s sweater and trousers in her hands. “What in the world?” she said. “Harold?”

Rayford wanted to be strong, to have answers, to be an example to his crew, to Hattie. But when he reached the lower level he knew the rest of the flight would be chaotic. He was as scared as anyone on board. As he scanned the seats, he nearly panicked. He backed into a secluded spot behind the bulkhead and slapped himself hard on the cheek.

This was no joke, no trick, no dream. Something was terribly wrong, and there was no place to run. There would be enough confusion and terror without his losing control. Nothing had prepared him for this, and he would be the one everybody would look to. But for what? What was he supposed to do?

First one, then another cried out when they realized their seatmates were missing but their clothes were still there. They cried, they screamed, they leaped from their seats.

Hattie grabbed Rayford from behind and wrapped her hands so tight around his chest that he could hardly breathe. “Rayford, what is this?”

He pulled her hands apart and turned to face her. “Hattie, listen. I don’t know any more than you do. But we’ve got to calm these people and get on the ground. I’ll make some kind of announcement, and you and your people keep everybody in their seats. Okay?”

She nodded, but she didn’t look okay at all. As he edged past her to hurry back to the cockpit, he heard her scream. So much for calming the passengers. He whirled to see her on her knees in the aisle.

Hattie lifted a blazer, shirt, and tie still intact. Trousers lay at her feet. She frantically turned the blazer to the low light and read the name tag. “Tony!” she wailed. “Tony’s gone!”

Rayford snatched the clothes from her and tossed them behind the bulkhead. He lifted Hattie by her elbows and pulled her out of sight. “Hattie, we’re hours from touchdown. We can’t have a planeload of hysterical people. I’m going to make an announcement, but you have to do your job. Can you?”

She nodded, her eyes vacant.

He forced her to look at him. “Will you?” he said.

She nodded again. “Rayford, are we going to die?”

“No,” he said. “That I’m sure of.”

But he wasn’t sure of anything. How could he know?

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He’d rather have faced an engine fire or even an uncontrolled dive. A crash into the ocean had to be better than this. How would he keep people calm in such a nightmare?

Irene was well aware that what seemed to be problems in heaven were not problems at all. Only as she tried to consider things from a human, earthly perspective was she able to wonder at the difference in her new view. For instance, the idea of sitting—while not being aware of one’s weight on a chair—in God’s house (and only the first-floor assembly hall) with some 20 billion others was so ludicrous to the other-than-glorified human mind that all she could do was shake her head.

Imagine someone inviting me to a function like this. Had she had the opportunity to attend a concert of her all-time favorite performer, the idea of a crowd of even tens of thousands would have made her rather just listen to a CD or watch a
DVD
. Of course she would have gone anywhere to see Jesus, even from a distance. But to be in a crowd so massive that you couldn’t see either end of it for days simply would have held no appeal.

Yet somehow this worked. Irene was so happy she could not stop grinning. Emotionally she was full to overflowing. While the crowd was enormous, she didn’t have the feeling of being lost among the masses or being hemmed in shoulder to shoulder as if on the midway of a county fair. Everyone was here for the same reason, and that kinship was pervasive. There were no sight-line issues, no audio problems, and the very idea that God could be limited in His ability to make everything plain and clear to everyone all at once had, needless to say, never crossed Irene’s mind.

What crossed her mind now, though, was spectacular. Nothing in her previous life compared to having this personal, one-on-one, constant interaction with God while simultaneously being able to hear and see everything-- even these life histories at the same time as the judgments and rewards.

It all seemed to be happening at once, and despite the fact that she had witnessed thousands of people meeting Jesus and being tested and blessed, Irene had no trouble remembering every detail of every one. Her earthly mind might have been forced to categorize them, compare them, list them from favorite to so-so. But somehow she found each and every story endlessly fascinating. And endless was what she longed for. If this went on for all of eternity, that would be more than all right with her. This was akin to reading a book so engrossing that you never wanted it to end.

Irene and Raymie enjoyed watching a tall, handsome woman running, leaping, dancing, and spinning toward the altar, all the while praising God and singing. A diving accident as a teenager had left her a quadriplegic, and she had spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

As the life story of Joni Eareckson Tada streaked across the theater of Irene’s new mind, she was intrigued by the initial devastation of a beautiful young athlete, artist, and horsewoman’s being so cruelly incapacitated. Her vibrant, loving family was changed forever by the tragedy. Joni herself—though a believer in Christ—had to battle the seemingly endless winter of depression as she faced a lifetime of dependence upon others for every basic need.