LXVIII

GOD IS OUR REFUGE AND STRENGTH, A VERY PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE

PSALM 46:1

BROCK STORM (DESTINY KNIGHT-STORM’S HUSBAND)

“You have to see this chick. She’s right up your alley,” A fellow bouncer and friend, Brett Hill, told me when I came in for my shift at the strip club I worked at fifteen years ago.

Typical of most human beings, Brett only partially understood what I was about. He thought I had a thing for the cute, innocent, young girls, rather than the hot, experienced girls that danced exotically at the club we did security for. I’m not gonna deny I noticed their physical appeal. But that’s not why I followed Brett to the main stage. He was a buddy, and I simply didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

However, my interest in the cute innocent ones was mostly brotherly. I hated noticing how insecure, even scared, they were masked in strange stew of  sensual, seductive female bravado. It ate at me knowing they, more often than not, came from broken homes. Many of them had suffered various kinds of abuse or were just plain desperate. It sickened me watching girls going off to do a “private dance” for the first time. They were so naive. I’m surprised I lasted almost a year at that wretched, paradoxically labeled  ‘gentleman’s club.’   

After following Brett to the wings of the main stage, I laid my eyes on Destiny Knight for the first time. I could see pretty much all of her. Her routine was almost over, and all she was wearing were Mary Jane shoes and white knee high socks. Her honey blonde hair was tied up in two braids that hung on the sides of her head. She was the cutest, most innocent seeming girl I had seen to date.

Although she had been making a valiant attempt at a seductive smile, her large blue eyes flitted about nervously. When she came off the stage on a set of stairs by where Brett and I were standing, a man’s hand reached to grope her. My hand instinctively knocked it away.

“Hands to yourself,” I barked.

Destiny mouthed thank you, and I nodded once. I rarely talked to the girls, and that’s probably one of the reasons Brett didn’t know my interest in the inexperienced ones was more than carnal.

“Pay for a private dance if you want to touch,” Brett instructed.

I cringed inwardly and noticed Destiny’s eyes looked alarmed. Over the next few weeks, I began to experience something I had never experienced with any of the other strippers before. It went beyond feeling sorrow or pity. When it came to Destiny, I got downright jealous. I wondered how many other clubs she worked. I wondered how much she let guys get away with during ‘private dances,’ aka ‘lap dances.’ I wondered if she had a boyfriend. If yes, was he a creep?

I kept my eye on Destiny as much as I could. But it was my, okay, I’ll say it, obsession with her that likely saved her life. I had noticed that a certain guy had taken a strong interest in her. I didn’t know his name at the time, but I did know he was some type of gangster. Not only had he taken an interest in Destiny, but he had also seemingly struck up something with another stripper who went by the name Jezebel Black.

Jezebel was the opposite of Destiny. Her persona was dark, witchy, and I noticed occult symbolism on her jewelry. On one particular night, I noticed her talking covertly with the gangster. Then I noticed the gangster leave. Then I noticed Jezebel getting chummy with Destiny. When I watched them leave together, I knew something was up and I knew it wasn’t good.

Due to my interest in Destiny, I knew where she lived. Jezebel and Destiny walked to Destiny’s apartment. I know this because I followed them. Destiny lived on the third floor. I wasted several precious minutes contemplating what to do. Not being completely sure that something untoward was happening, I couldn’t exactly knock on her door. What would I say? For all I knew, Destiny agreed to prostitute herself for the gangster.

I decided to climb the fire escape in the back and do a little window peeping. What I discovered sent adrenaline racing through me. The gangster had Destiny on the floor, cutting and ripping her clothes off with a knife as big as, if not bigger, than Crocodile Dundee’s. Destiny was panicked and crying. I tried the window, and fortunately it was unlocked. Jezebel Black was nowhere to be seen.

I quickly, yet covertly, made my way to the active crime scene. The gangster was seconds away from consummating his rape when I gave him a hard round house kick to the side of his head. It knocked him out cold, and he toppled to the floor like a side of beef falling from a hook.

Destiny looked at me with terror stricken eyes. As soon as recognition kicked in, she flung herself at me. Her arms went around my neck, and she squeezed as though we were on a thousand foot precipice. She was shaking uncontrollably, and I hesitantly wrapped my arms around her naked flesh an. “I got you,” I said softly.

She squeezed a little harder if possible, and barely audibly whispered, “Thank you.”

I related this story to the writer Johnathan Embers for his e-book ‘Knight-Storm.’ But that would come after Destiny’s and my life came full circle one fateful day at Cotton Creek Cove fellowship ten years later.

I had been attending C.C.C. for quite some time before Destiny showed up. I had been living in Florida when I happened to read a fascinating book by Pastor Samson, aka Captain Kirk. I decided to stop by and visit his church in Iowa on a trip back to Minnesota. I became so enthralled with the pastor, the people, and the rural setting that I pretty much never left the area.

I was beyond surprised when I discovered Destiny’s aunt had been attending C.C.C. for decades. I never told her that I was acquainted with her niece. That is, until Destiny herself showed up there. My first thought was that just maybe Destiny was somehow my destiny. But I immediately snuffed out the thought.

At that time, I had been involved with a woman who didn’t share my spiritual inclinations. Yet we had been together, more or less, for a half decade, and then some. She even moved from Miami to the frozen lands of the Midwest. My relationship with her was both exciting and a thorn in my side. Our intimate life was the main obstacle keeping me from committing to Christ at the time. That and a very violent past that loomed in my conscience.

What was strange about seeing Destiny at church was her appearance. Her persona in adult entertainment had been the good girl next door going bad. She had played a schoolgirl, a cheerleader, a librarian, a secretary, a nun, an Amish girl, and a braided beauty right off the Swiss Alps. Her look that day at C.C.C. was something between Swiss Alps and Amish. Plus she had a Bible she was diligently searching.

Please understand, I was usually not a consumer of porn, even before I was a Christian. However I did follow Destiny’s career. Closely. Not long after the rape incident, she gave up live performance for film. The way she looked that Sabbath morning confused me. Even as I watched her thumb through a Bible, I half expected her to start getting naughty with another attractive woman.

Destiny was so surprised when I approached her after services, I at first thought I had done a bad thing. But then her face lit up, and we hit it off, becoming instant friends. Not long after she showed up, the man that had attacked her a decade earlier was released from prison and looking for revenge.

Did I mention my girlfriend at the time was a detective with the Iowa Bureau of Investigation? Anyway, when Destiny received a pretty serious death threat, she stayed with me at my modest home in the country. My girlfriend roomed with her as her protector. A major upheaval of my life ensued as we kept Destiny safe from those that sought to harm her. Since Johnathan Embers detailed that story in the e-book ‘Knight Storm’, I’ll now skip to the present.

After finding out her mostly estranged father was dying, Destiny was quiet on our drive home. I left her alone with her thoughts until she was ready to talk. When we arrived home, I put two cups of water in a kettle and turned on the stove. I pulled a box of Traditional Medicinals herbal tea from the cabinet and made us both a ‘Cup of Calm.’ I went to the sofa where she sat with a leg tucked underneath her. She smiled sadly and thanked me.

“Well,” she said after around five minutes of silence.

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you gonna tell me about the scar by your lip?”

“Sure,” I said with a shrug. “I was just waiting for you to go first.”

“If you don’t want to tell me about it, that’s okay. I’ll still tell you about my dad and me. Actually, given the current situation, I feel I NEED to tell you about my dad and me.”

“I don’t mind telling you,” I replied, shrugging again.

“Then how come you never have?”

“You’ve never asked.”

“I asked you once, and you said some other time.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, you told me how you received your other scars though.”

“Received?” I questioned, and then chuckled.

“You know what I mean,” she laughed half heartedly as she threw a pillow at me. “Why the reluctance with your lip scar?”

“You know, I really didn’t realize I was withholding from you,” I said, turning serious. “All of my other scars had come in the heat of battle. This one by my lip was acquired when I was held hostage.”

“Held hostage!”

“Yeah,” I replied, wincing. “You could actually say the scar by my mouth was due to Seven’s big mouth.”

“Huh?” Destiny responded with a deep frown.

“It started with one of the many times Seven’s obnoxiousness got us in trouble,” I explained. “He mouthed off to a few gang bangers that were struttin’ their stuff. I took care of it, and in the process broke their leader’s nose. But a week later I had let my guard down and they kidnapped me at gun point. They took me to some crack house and tied me up. They pulled my pants down and were gonna have one of their STD riddled prostitutes  violate me. They paraded her in front of me naked. The guy whose nose I broke said to me, ‘Now doesn’t that bring a smile to your face?’ Then he began to carve a smile onto my face.”

“Wow,” Destiny replied, wide-eyed. “How come he didn’t do the other side?”

“He was about to when his knees buckled!”

“His knees buckled?”

“Seven had snuck in and hit him behind the knees with a baseball bat.”

“Wow! Really? How’d he get past the other guys?”

“Six had a gun trained on them.”

“Didn’t they have guns too?”

“They had let their guard down in the excitement of me being tied up and tortured. So Six got the drop on them.”

“So they never gave you trouble again?”

“Well, we, mostly me, convinced them that it would be in their best interest to leave us alone going forward. I guess you could say my humiliation put me in a rather vengeful mood. Plus, after that experience, I learned my lesson and developed eyes on the back of my head.”

“I’m sure they deserved what you did to them,” she chuckled without humor. “But I don’t think I want to know.”

“Good, I don’t want to tell.”

“Vengeance is mine says the Lord?”

“Something like that,” I said, smiling and touching the scar on her own cheek. A scar she acquired a couple years ago trying to protect pregnant Amy from a violent attack.

She looked at me for a long time and then sighed heavily.

“Dee, you don’t have to tell me,” I told her.

“No, I need to,” she replied quietly. “But you know about the abusive background some of the girls that have come through my aunt’s and my ministry have endured. You’ll probably think I’ve made a mountain out of a mole hill in my own head.”

“You know better than that, Dee.”

“It’s funny, though,” she said and then paused.

“Funny strange or funny ha ha?”

“Definitely funny strange,” she said, smiling ruefully. “I mean, here I am trying to live a straight, primitive Bible truth life. Yet I’ve often lied to myself.”

Destiny adjusted herself in her seat. She brought her other leg up and sat cross legged. She often laughed about how flexible young Sevenia was and remembered when she was that pliable. Yet, as much as I was into fitness, I winced at the thought of sitting in the position my wife was now in.

“Where do I begin?” Destiny said with another heavy sigh.

She looked at me as if I were to provide an answer. I waited. She sighed again. Her pretty big blue eyes that were usually so filled with love, peace, and joy were now tear rimmed and filled with sorrow. I took her hand. “Remember, no matter what, Dee, I love you with all my heart and always will.”

“I love you, too,” she sobbed, and threw herself into my arms. Then in a barely audible whisper said, “Where do I begin?”

A NOTE FROM DESTINY

(Sadly, Sevenia’s lectures are over. However, Sevenia, Zella, Heather, and I are doing a table talk type Bible study. Both of the new converts, Zella and Heather, want a deeper understanding of Bible subjects and concepts. Also an understanding of the misconceptions of society and mainstream religion on Bible truths. We decided to begin with the subject of hellfire. Although a much smaller group, Sevenia will be leading out. And once again, I was asked to share my notes at the end of the weekly story. Also, with the new much smaller study format, there is more discussion, making for longer lessons and more drawn out note taking. Therefore each study topic will be in two parts. May God bless you! Sincerely, Dee.)

Nearly the entire world holds to very unbiblical views about hell. We owe it to ourselves to know what the Bible really says about the topic. What you believe about hell likely impacts what you believe about God.

How many souls are being punished in hell today? “The Lord knows how to deliver the Godly out of temptation and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the DAY OF JUDGEMENT” (2 Peter 2:9).

Answer: There is not a single soul in hellfire today. The Bible says that God reserves, or holds back punishing the wicked until judgement day.

When will the lost be cast into hellfire? “So it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire” Matthew 13:40-42). “The word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).

Answer: The lost will be cast into hellfire at the great judgement at the end of the world—not when they die. God would not punish a person until his or her case was tried and decided in court at the end of the world. Does it make sense that God would burn a murder who died 5,000 years ago. 5,000 years longer than a murderer who dies today and deserves the same punishment for the same sin? (See Genesis 18:25)

Where are the unsaved who have already died? “The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28, 29). “That the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction?…Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb” (Job 21:30, 32).

Answer: The Bible is specific. Both the unsaved and the saved who have died are in their graves “sleeping” until the resurrection day. (What happens at death will be studied in the near future).

What is the end result of sin? “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). “Sin when it is full grown, brings forth death (James 1:15). “God gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Answer: The result of sin is death, not everlasting life in hellfire. The wicked “perish,” or receive “death.” The righteous receive “everlasting life.”

What will happen to the wicked in hellfire? “The fearful, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

Answer: The wicked die the SECOND death in hellfire. If the wicked lived forever being tortured in hell, they would be immortal. But this is impossible because the Bible says God “alone has immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). When Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden, an angel was posted to guard the tree of life so that sinners would not eat of the tree and “live forever” (Genesis 3:22-24). The teaching that sinners are immortal in hell originated with Satan and is completely untrue. God prevented this when sin entered this earth by guarding tree of life.

THE BIBLE SAYS THE WICKED ARE OBLITERATED

NOT ETERNALLY TORMENTED!

The wicked…suffer “death”                        Romans:6:23

Suffer “doom” (destruction)                        Job:21:30

Will “perish”                                                    Psalm 37:20

Will “burn up”                                                Malachi 4:1

Will be “destroyed”                                       Psalm 37:38

Will “vanish away”                                        Psalm 37:20

Will be “cut off”                                                            Psalm 37:9

And will be “slain”                                         Psalm 62:3

God will “destroy” them                              Psalm 145:20

Fire will “devour” them                                Psalm 21:9

When and how will hellfire be kindled? “So it will be at the end of this age The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will…cast them into the furnace of fire” (Mathew 13:40-42). “They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them (Revelation 20:9).

How big and how hot will hellfire be? “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10).

Answer: Hellfire will be just as big as this earth because it will be the earth on fire. This fire will be so hot as to melt the earth and burn up all “the works that are in it.” The atmospheric heavens will explode and “pass away with a great noise.”

How long will the wicked suffer in the fire? “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work” (Revelation 22:12). “He will reward each according to his works” (Matthew 16:27).

Answer: The Bible does not tell us how long the wicked will be punished before receiving death in the fire. God does specifically state, however, that all will be punished according to their works. This means some will receive longer punishment than others, based upon their deeds.