TITLE: Trapped Within By Charles Eldredge 12/23/09 |
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Do you ever sit back and just think about the things you have heard over and over, yet never truly paid attention to them? You know what I mean, don’t you, those little bits of information that if you had listened to and stored in the old memory banks would have made your life much easier? Well I recently had the opportunity to do so, and all I can do is kick myself for being so dumb in the first place.
A week ago, I was walking in the mall, just looking to spend a few extra dollars that had been burning a hole in my pocket when I notice a well-dressed man approaching me. As he approached, I had just enough time to tighten my grip on my packages before he reached me.
“Excuse me, sir” he said, “I was wondering if I could take a couple minutes of your time today.”
What else was going on, I thought, so I answered him. “Sure, why not?”
“I was just curious, if you died today, do you know where you would go?”
What kind of question was that? I realized that I must have gotten caught by one of those ‘religious freaks’ again, and I decided to mess with him a little. “Of course I know where I will go, first to the morgue and then into the ground. Where else would I go?”
After a short pause and a slight grin, the man began to tell me how I could know for sure where I was going when I died. He discussed receiving salvation and eternal life, which could only be received by accepting Jesus as my personal Savior. He continued to explain to me that no one can know God without first knowing his Son, since He is the way, the truth, and the light.
I let him go on for a little while and decided to bombard him with all the arguments I had heard about Christianity and its relevance. I had to admit, the guy knew his Bible, answering all my points in a very concise and final manner. I only had one more question up my sleeve, and I decided to play it.
“If God exists,” I inquired, “why doesn’t he show us any signs that he is here? Instead, it seems like we just see more and more problems around the world with no one to correct them. Does he even care what happens to us?”
“The Lord used signs several times throughout the Old Testament, but it was to ensure Israel knew who He was. In fact,” he continued, “in the New Testament signs were also used on occasion. The most important signs; however, are the ones that prophesy the second coming of the Lord.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“In the New Testament, Jesus gave a list of signs that predicted His second coming, many of which have already come to pass. Some of the things He mentioned include wars, rumors of war, people becoming lovers of themselves more than their fellow man, and children despising their parents. He said when we see these things, His return would be soon.”
“What do you mean, soon? Like when,” I pressed, “And how will we know he has come back?”
With a frown he replied “It isn’t for us to know when He will return. He said that he would come like a thief in the ni…”
In the time it took me to blink, the man was gone. I mean, like completely disappeared. There was no trace of the man even being in the mall, let alone being there talking to me. Looking around I made sure no one was staring at me, heck maybe I had been talking to myself. No one gave me a second glance, though. This was all a little much and I decided to go home.
The trip home was interesting. I must have passed at least 10 accidents of some sort. Most were marked by people standing around looking very confused, which seemed vaguely reminiscent of my confusion from the mall.
That night, the President held a special press conference that preempted all programming, even the cable channels. The topic of his agenda was to discuss the ‘mass hysteria’ that had occurred throughout the country today. According to him, many people were frantically calling local police, news stations and government officials in every state to report people just vanishing Obviously, he explained, this was impossible. More likely, people were just delusional due to something else, such as unknown bacteria that slipped by filters in the local water supply. Local governments were looking into the situation and a report would be issued in the next couple of days to explain the exact cause of the paranoia.
As far as I was concerned, his answer was the typical political smoke and mirrors that the politicians spew. I myself wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, but I highly doubted that something invaded the water supply in every state that could cause the same results. I would definitely be interested in what the party line would be.
Two
By the next morning, I knew that something truly unusual had happened. When I went out to get my newspaper, I witnessed two things: my newspaper (along with everyone else’s’) was nowhere to be found, and there were armored tanks rolling into town. That’s right, I said armored tanks…rolling into town! Now, no one was being forced into his or her homes or anything, but the military was moving in. Curious about the whole thing, I went in and turned on the local news to see what was going on. I was unsettled by what I saw, to say the least. There were images of area churches boarded up with police tape around them and military members piling the Bibles and other books from inside the churches onto ever-growing bonfires. To accompany these images, footage from security cameras showed all religious material being pulled from the shelves of the discount stores, bookstores, and specialty stores as well.
As you can guess, things just didn’t seem right to me. I logged onto the internet, pulled up a search engine and typed in ‘Bible’. I wasn’t too surprised when the search results came back ‘This page cannot be displayed’. Trying another approach, I typed in ‘Bible Prophecy’ and obtained the same results. Next I went to a news website and checked the international news, only to find that all over the globe militaries were doing the same thing as our local military –destroying any books and documents related to the Bible or Christianity.
As I sat on my couch, trying to make heads or tails of the whole situation, I remembered that the man yesterday mentioned the Book of Revelation. Maybe it would explain what was going on. I seemed to recall having a Bible floating around the house once upon a time and decided to look for it. Trudging up to the attic, I started digging through boxes hoping to find the possibly nonexistent Bible. After a couple of hours, I found it and brought it back downstairs.
Not knowing where to start, I located Revelation and decided to just start at the beginning. I read about as far as the part where the Lamb opens the seals of His book when I was startled by a huge crash. Jumping out of my skin, I noticed three soldiers in full riot gear coming through my front door.
“Drop the book and step away from it!” the lead soldier shouted. Before I could react he was upon me, I was thrown to the floor and hit in the face with the butt of his machine gun. As I struggled against the room which was rapidly fading into darkness, I heard the soldiers laugh as one muttered “Stupid believer, that’s what he gets.”
Three
As I regained consciousness, I was acutely aware of the silence surrounding me. Shaking out the cobwebs, I sat up to survey my situation. I found myself in what looked to be a jail cell, a simple bed, sink, and toilet setup that reminded me of those I had seen on the death row television specials. Why was I here? The soldier has called me a believer, but that had to be because of the Bible I was reading. And just why was the military taking over towns and breaking into houses anyway? I had no answers for these questions; in fact, I honestly had no clue about anything except the fact that I was in a cell.
After a few hours, I finally saw someone outside my cell. Getting his attention, I asked why I was confined and what I was getting charge with, if anything. He informed me that I was being charged with being a Christian and that I would stay imprisoned until ‘my God’ (as he put it with a tone of disgust in his voice) came back to free me Himself. Then he laughed and walked away from my cell. Since then, the only people I have seen are the ones dropping off my food, and none will engage in conversation.
I have spent the majority of my time thinking about what both the man in the mall and my guards told me, trying to make sense of it all. The guards think that I am a Christian, yet the person at the mall was trying to show me the way to become one. I keep thinking that if he had not vanished, I might have found out how to become saved and turn my life over to Jesus. Unfortunately, I spent my life living how I wanted and never knowing a Savior. I am just trapped within my own ignorance, regretting my decisions and trying to find a way to be forgiven.
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