CXVIII

GOD HAS NOT GIVEN US A SPIRIT OF FEAR, BUT OF POWER AND LOVE AND OF A SOUND MIND

2 TIMOTHY 1:7

DESTINY KNIGHT-STORM

From our living room, Brock and I kept glancing at FBI agent Nora Medora and his cousin’s wife Zella LaStella, talking at our kitchen table. It occurred to me that both women had recently confided a secret to me. I was left with a sense of unease. Not that I was harboring their secrets, but concern for the two women and what their secrets meant.

Nora, who also happened to be my husband’s ex, had disclosed that she recently came very close to ending her own life. On the same day she entrusted me with this information, my husband’s and Nora’s old friend Benito “Tito” Bonnano showed up at our house. His presence seemed to work like an anti-depressant on Nora. The three old friends talked, laughed, and reminisced. Then Nora and Tito spontaneously decided to vacation in Florida together.

Yesterday, former model and fortune teller, Zella LaStella-Sallie, acknowledged previously having an association with the most evil person I have ever personally known, Jezebel Black. Although this news was unsettling, by the grace of God, I did not hold it against her. No, I sympathized with her shame, and now feared that Jezebel was somehow out to get her.

I had first became acquainted with Jezebel more than fifteen years ago when we were both exotic dancers in the Twin Cities. Brock was a bouncer at one of the clubs we both frequented. Jezebel had helped a small time mob boss get into my apartment, where he attempted to rape, and possibly murder me. Thankfully, Brock somehow had become privy to their scheme and saved me.

Brock and I had gone our separate ways after that. He moved to Florida after being hired by a high end security firm. I moved to California to become a model and actress in adult entertainment. Then a decade later, Brock and I crossed paths in a small church in Iowa. Coincidence? I don’t think so. God works in marvelous and mysterious ways!

(Brock’s and my romance is chronicled in the e-book ‘Knight Storm’ by Johnathan Embers.)

Right about the time Brock and I became reacquainted, the mob boss got out of prison, and he and Jezebel sought revenge. It was also around this time that Jezebel laid plans to sacrifice her young, virgin sister in a satanic, pagan ritual. Nora Medora had caught wind of Jezebel’s intentions and solicited the help of Brock and me.

Nora wiggled her finger at Brock and me in a nonverbal communication for us to join her and Zella at the kitchen table.

“Okay, so,” Nora began, and then looked around. “Where’s Seven, he should be here?”

“I’m here,” came Seven’s voice from just outside the kitchen. “I was putting the baby to sleep.”

“What, did you play him excerpts from your podcast?” Brock joked.

“Of course not,” Seven replied. “I wanted him to sleep, not be riveted with interesting content from my show.”

“Where are the girls?” Nora asked, inquiring about Oralee, Marcella, and Sevenia.

“They’re up in one of the bedrooms playing dominos,” I replied.

“That’s good,” Nora said. “No need to spook them, after all, we are dealing with at least one psychopath, probably two or more. Which could work in our favor.”

“Why would more psychopaths work in our favor?” Seven asked with a frown.

“It’s similar to the old adage,” Nora said with a little smirk. “Can three people keep a secret? Yes, if two are dead.”

“In other words, it will be harder for multiple people to continue covering their tracks,” Brock said.

“Bingo,” Nora said. “Plus, Zella has helped me develop a lead.”

“Is that right?” Seven asked, glancing at his wife. Zella looked away from him and began to fiddle nervously with a rubber band.

“Brock and Destiny, you know I was undercover in Jezebel’s cult,” Nora said. Brock and I acknowledged that we did, and she continued. “And Zella here has admitted dabbling with Jezebel’s cult herself.”

“She what!” Seven barked as he looked at his wife in stunned disbelief.

Zella’s lips pursed and her eyes remained downcast as she watched the rubber band whirl around her fingers.

“You didn’t tell him last night?” I asked Zella quietly.

“I wanted to,” she said. “But the time never seemed right for one reason or another.”

“You dabbled with satanism?” Seven asked incredulously.

“No, I did not,” Zella said defiantly. “I thought Jezebel was into magic and witchcraft, which I know is bad enough. But as soon as I perceived she was into devil worship, I did a complete about face.”

“You were into witchcraft?” Seven frowned. “Like casting spells on people?”

“Babe, you knew I worked as a psychic before my conversion,” Zella said gently. “Do you really think I was consulting the Bible back then? And no, I didn’t intend to cast spells on people.”

“Tell them the other part of the lead,” Nora petitioned Zella.

Zella glanced nervously at me, then Brock, and then back to her husband. “Babe, do you remember when you saved me from that knife wielding lunatic two years ago?”

“Let’s see,” Seven said with a frown, scratched his head, and then widened his eyes. “Oh, you mean when I was almost stabbed to death? Yes, I do believe I recall that.”

“Do you have to joke about everything?” Zella asked with a sad, rather than angry expression.

“I don’t have to, I guess, but jesting just comes to me and I let it flow.”

“Well, hold it in once in a while,” Zella replied, more angry than sad this time.

“I’m sorry, Honey,” Seven said, seeming sincere as he took his wife’s hand. “I’m also well aware you lost Free in that chaos.”

Zella nodded and appeared to be holding back tears. Free was her dog, a beautiful chocolate Lab that was rescued from an abusive situation.

“Now, what about the lunatic that attacked us?” Seven urged.

“His name is Carl Rutherford,” Zella said. “He wasn’t simply a client of mine. We got to know each other when I attended some of Jezebel’s meetings. I didn’t realize he was obsessed with me when I took him on as a client.”

“When he was arrested after attacking you guys,” Nora interjected. “Typical of psychopaths, he had a room devoted to Zella.”

“Isn’t he still in prison?” Seven asked.

“Interestingly, he was released just a couple weeks before Felix and Stacey were killed,” Nora informed us. “The catch is, he has to wear a tracking device for his probation. He can’t leave the area, so he probably couldn’t have been directly involved with the killings.”

“You say probably,” Brock said.

“Well, it would be extremely difficult to find a way around a tracking device,” Nora shrugged. “But who knows.”

“What’s next?” Brock asked. “Do you have a plan?”

Nora sighed. “Until we know more, I’d like you to keep the Sallie family on high security. My next step is to locate Rutherford, and bring him in for questioning.”

The FBI agent left a half hour later. Not long after her departure, the girls came downstairs and joined us in the kitchen for supper. After our meal, Sevenia and Marcella helped me with the dishes. I perceived that something was on Sevenia’s mind.

Sure enough, when we finished, Sevenia lingered after Marcella left to join the others in the living room.

“Dee, can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course you can, Sweetie,” I replied cheerfully. “My ears are always open to you.”

I figured she wanted to talk about concerns with the case. Instead, she told me about a dream she had the previous evening. The night vision did have to do with the ordeal we found ourselves in.

“The thing is, Dee, Oralee had the same dream.”

I felt my pulse quicken. “You and Ora had the same exact dream?”

“Well, not exactly the same, but similar,” she replied uneasily. “The most interesting thing was the main character in both of our dreams.”

“Who was that?” I asked earnestly.

“The angel Melanchthon.”

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES)

(The LIFE and MINISTRY of JESUS Part XI)

The Temple: The money changing in the temple gave opportunity for fraud  and extortion, and it had grown into a disgraceful traffic, which was a source of revenue for the priests.

The dealers demanded exorbitant prices for the animals sold, and they shared their profits with the priests and rulers, who thus enriched themselves at the expense of the people.

As Jesus came into the temple, He took in the whole scene. He saw the unfair transactions. He saw the distress of the poor, who thought that without the shedding of blood there could be no forgiveness for their sins.

Among them unrecognized and unhonored, stood the One symbolized by all their service.

As Jesus beheld the scene, indignation, authority, and power are expressed in His countenance. The attention of the people is attracted to Him. The eyes of those engaged in their unholy traffic are riveted on His face. They feel this Man reads their inmost thoughts.

Looking upon Christ, they behold divinity flash through the garb of humanity. The Majesty of heaven stands as the Judge will stand at the last day. Slowly descending the steps, and raising the scourge of cords, He bids the company to depart from the temple.

With a zeal and severity He has never before manifested, he overthrows the tables. Coins fall, ringing sharply on the marble pavement. None question His authority or stop to pick up their ill gotten gain. Jesus does not smite them with the whip of cords, but in His hand that simple scourge seems as terrible as a flaming sword.

Even the disciples tremble. They are awestruck by the words and manner of Jesus, so unlike His usual demeanor.

In cleansing the temple, Jesus was announcing His mission as the Messiah, and entering upon His work.

In cleansing the temple from the world’s buyers and sellers, Jesus announced His mission to cleanse the heart from the defilement of sin. From the earthly desires, the selfish lusts, the evil habits, that corrupt the soul.

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” (1 Corinthians 3:16, 17)

Why did the priests flee from the temple? Why did they not stand their ground? After all, He who commanded them to go was a carpenter’s son, a poor Galilean, without earthly rank or power. Or so they thought.

It was because Christ discerned their thoughts that they hated Him. His public rebuke was humiliating to their pride, and they were jealous of His growing influence with the people.

Jesus had shown them a sign. In flashing light into their hearts, and in doing before them the works which the Messiah was to do, He had given convincing evidence of His character. Now when they asked for a sign, He answered them by a parable, showing that He read their malice, and saw to what lengths it would lead them. “Destroy this temple,” he said, “And in three days I will raise it up.”

In these words, His meaning was twofold. He referred not only to the destruction of the Jewish temple and worship, but to His own death, the destruction of the temple of His body. This the Jews were already plotting. As the priests and rulers returned to the temple, they had proposed to kill Jesus, and thus rid themselves of the troubler.

The entire plan of sacrificial worship was a foreshadowing of the Savior’s death to redeem the world.

When Christ was crucified, the inner veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, signifying that the great final sacrifice had been made, and that the system of sacrificial offerings was forever at an end. (The veil was also several inches thick)

While Jesus ministers in the sanctuary above, He is still by His Spirit the minister of the church on earth.

“Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)

“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)