BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 19

INGA LIKAS (AKA INGA COGNITO)

THEN I, JOHN, SAW THE HOLY CITY, NEW JERUSALEM, COMING DOWN OUT OF HEAVEN FROM GOD (Revelation 21:2)

            Sevenia Sallie and I were both pumped with positive adrenaline. Yet as we anticipated a supernatural encounter, possibly even meeting an angelic being, we had butterflies flittering in our midsections. The young woman I walked along beside voiced my own concern. “Inga, I feel unworthy for what we may encounter.”

            The positive adrenaline flipped to a negative panic attack. The flitter of happy butterflies turned to a flutter of angry bats. I stopped dead in my tracks. Sevenia Sallie, who as a teenager was known as the girl prophetess felt unworthy? How much more a woman who had thus far spent most of her adult life as a homeless vagabond feel? A woman who several months ago had been arrested for shoplifting.

            Sevenia took two more steps without me by her side. Then she turned and took a step back toward me. Her Emerald eyes were wide and expressive. “Inga, what’s wrong?”

            “If you feel unworthy, then I have no business proceeding to our destination. You better go without me.”

            “Inga, remember what Captain Kirk told us? If we follow the Holy Spirit’s lead, we will be blessed. If not, well?”

            “You know my background Sevenia. I was thief, a liar, a…”

            “Did you hear what you said?” she interrupted with a gentle smile. “You was. Hand me your Bible.”

            She put out an open palm. I pulled the small New Testament from the pocket of my blue flannel shirt. I meekly asked, “What for?”

            She opened it to first Corinthians chapter six and read some verses describing different manners of sin. Then her almond shaped green eyes looked into my round arctic blues as she read verse eleven. “Such WERE some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

            This is why fellowship is so important. The Bible instructs us to exhort one another daily. (Hebrews 3:13) Sevenia’s encouragement chased away the devil’s discouragement. Like the song, I turned my eyes upon Jesus and looked full in His wonderful face. I felt the comfort of the Comforter ooze into me. The precious gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus also called the Helper in John chapter fourteen.

            “Thanks for that,” I told Sevenia.

            “Just doing what you’ve been doing for countless others,” she said with a grin. I had thought the song ‘Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,’ but now Sevenia began to sing it. I joined her and when our choir of two finished, we hugged. Then we proceeded to the two hundred year old oak tree behind the big, faded red barn.

            Brock Storm had tied a bench swing to a thick limb that jutted out horizontally from the large tree. The limb was about as large as a full grown tree itself. Sevenia and I watched the beautiful multicolored sunset as we sat side by side. As talented as many artists are, nothing can match the living art from God’s orderly Creation.

            This was a special sunset, set apart from the previous six that week. For this sunset signified the beginning of the Sabbath, representing the rest God Himself took after Creation. (Genesis 2:2, 3) Then He commanded us to do the same every week in Exodus 20:8-11 and  Deuteronomy 5:12-15.

            Sevenia led us in a prayer, thanking our Lord for the Sabbath as the big orange ball slipped beneath the horizon that Friday evening. For we believed the Biblical Sabbath was from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. (See Genesis 1:19, 23, 31)

            Many had called us legalists, especially those who were angriest as the seven last plagues fell. But were we who kept the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus legalists? (Revelation 14:12). I should say not! Were we saved because we kept the law? No, we kept the law BECAUSE we were saved. We didn’t keep the law TO be saved.  

            It’s called righteousness by faith. In other words, we are saved by grace through faith, it is a gift from God, and not by our works (Ephesians 2:8, 9). However, in Romans 6:1 the Apostle Paul asks if we continue to sin because we are saved by grace. In verse two he answers his own question. Certainly not!

            So why do we who are saved keep the commandments, the one part of the Bible God wrote Himself with His own finger? Jesus put it as simply as He possibly could in John 14:15. “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” And when you spend time with Jesus, examine and contemplate His life through study and prayer, you tend to fall in love with Him.

            The interesting thing is the only one of the ten commandments that mainstream Christianity seemed to have a problem with is the fourth. Maybe that’s why God allowed it to be the test of love and loyalty. He says in Jeremiah 17:10 that He searches the heart and tests the mind.

            The other interesting thing to consider is why exactly did Satan seek to change this aspect of the law of God. Quite simply because it was the one commandment that recognizes God as Creator. Isaiah chapter fourteen tells of the fall of Lucifer, who would become Satan. He declared in verse fourteen that he wanted to be like the Most High.

            So the seal of God or the mark of the beast came down to the Sabbath of the Bible verses the sabbath made popular by the Roman Empire, Sunday. Mankind, through religious and political leaders, would attempt to change the Bible Sabbath, that element of time, which is also part of the law (Daniel 7:25).

            Because of this, Sunday would become what most of the world would embrace as the sabbath, centuries after the Bible predicted that it would think to do this in the book of Daniel. But just because mankind declared it changed, does that make it so? God says of Himself that He does not change. (Malachi 3:6)

            If you followed the world, or the majority, you received the mark of the beast. The mark in one’s hand or forehead that allowed you to buy and sell. Was this referring to a computer chip? It played a part, but it wasn’t what the scriptures were actually warning of. The mark represents what we think, forehead, and what we do, hand.

            Thankfully Jesus called us out of the world (John 15:19). He wanted to give us the seal of God by doing so. But He doesn’t force us to follow Him. Satan does, simply by using our selfish human natures. But Christ stands at the door of the heart and knocks, politely asking for entrance. (Revelation 3:20).

            So the majority of the religious world had blamed us Sabbatarians for the seven last plagues. This was primarily due to false prophets and teachers doing miracles (Matthew 24:24). They sanctioned Sunday observance in the process. The biggest swing was when Satan himself appeared as an angel of light and deceived the vast multitudes (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). We needed to become like the noble Bereans who searched the scriptures daily (Acts 17:11).

            When Sevenia ended her prayer, we both said amen. She had a look of delightful expectancy on her face after we lifted our bowed heads. I wonder if I had the same, because when she turned her gaze upon me, the wattage of her lit up countenance only increased.

            In only a few minutes of prayer, the beauty of the setting sun had shifted colors and patterns. The sparse clouds went from an orangey lavender to a radiant hot pink. Sevenia emitted a happy sigh. “That beautiful sky sure is a welcome site.”

            “It sure is,” I replied with a strange mixture of calm excitement, wondering what we were welcoming.

            As twilight began to fade into darkness, it happened. It was as if the sun reversed itself. But it wasn’t the sun that lightened our eyesight. It was an angel, a messenger from God that took Sevenia and I off into vision. It was like the ultimate good dream. Yet we were fully awake. I think.

            Our heads tilted up, and our arms extended palms up. Our necks were powerless to move our heads down and our arms powerless to retract to our sides. But we cared not. We were completely enthralled by the vision before our minds.

            It was as if it was happening in the sky. I even wondered if our friends back at the house were seeing the same thing we were. Our guide was a bright light, the voice like a rippling stream, beautiful and melodic as it spoke. “This is a little preview of the city of God, the New Jerusalem. This is to strengthen your resolve.”

            This spectacular city, spoken of by John in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, had been moving toward us. It had stopped as soon as our guide said, ‘little preview.’ Then our guide became a little like a realtor showing us a house. But this was the heavenly city that was described in Revelation. It was three hundred and seventy five miles on each side. Plus instead of studying every room of a house, we got quick glimpses of different aspects of the city structure, both from near and afar. Zooming in and out.

            The walls were over two hundred feet high and eighteen inches thick. They were made of solid jasper. There were twelve gates made of pearl. The main street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. The aforementioned foundation had twelve layers of precious stones: jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, and amethyst. It was beautiful! How often is that said about a foundation?

            The music, oh the music bringing praise to our Savior! It was like nothing ever heard on earth! We could feel the love all around us, although the images of inhabitants were vague, maybe even veiled. Then as quickly as we were whisked away in vision, we were back on the swing on the oak behind the old barn. The last remnant of twilight was giving way to the stars. It seemed time had stood still while we made this little trip. If that’s what you call it.

            Our guide had been as it were a beam of light. But now in the coming night, he took on a shadowy human form.  We could make out no features, but his voice, before heavenly, unearthly, was now that of an older man. Not unlike our beloved Pastor, Captain Kirk.

            “I suppose you are wondering why you two were giving a glimpse of what is to soon come,” he said.

            Sevenia and I, both speechless at first with awe, simply nodded. Then she said, “You said something about strengthening our resolve.”

            “Yes, okay, I will fill you in. It is really quite simple,” he told us. “You both have proven faithful and highly favored. You both have proven to be a blessing to others, especially those who have come to the truth of late, during the loud cry.

            “But many are experiencing wavering courage since the falling of the first plague. Many do not understand how they avoided the first plague. They have very limited understanding in spiritual things. But when push came to shove with mandatory worship, they simply obeyed God rather than men. When you return to the house, you will discover the second plague had fallen. The seas have become as the blood of a dead man.”

            “Oh my,” Sevenia and I said at the same time.

            “Inga, you will need to leave the safety of this refuge for a while. Are you willing?”

            “Yes.”

            The angel laughed. “I figured as much. Your mission is relatively close, Sevenia. You will be needed here to keep believers encouraged, so you will remain close by.”

            I never felt so alive in my life. I would try to run through a wall if asked. Then his next words would humble me. But strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9).

            “You will be needed to pay a visit to one of Bryson Bronx’s nephews.”

            This was where I was humbled. At the name Bryson Bronx, the cult leader with whom I partially grew up under, I felt a wave of anxiety. I didn’t like any of Bronx’s family members, especially any of his four arrogant, entitled nephews. Was it even possible even one of them avoided the first plague? But who was I to judge? Only God knows the heart. With great apprehension I asked, “Which one?”

            I silently prayed that it wouldn’t be Jackson. It certainly couldn’t have been him. He was as dark and brooding as the other three combined, and they were all bad enough individually. But it wasn’t the Lord’s will.

            Almost apologetically he said, “Jackson Bronx.”