Judgment: Wrath of the Lamb

Chronicles of the Apocalypse
Book Four

By Brian Godawa

Judgment: Wrath of the Lamb

Chronicles of the Apocalypse • Book Four
2nd Edition b

Copyright © 2018, 2021 Brian Godawa

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

Warrior Poet Publishing
www.warriorpoetpublishing.com

ISBN: 9798710885765 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-942858-42-3 (paperback)

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001.

Prologue 

Year of the Four Emperors
AD 68 – 69

June, AD 68. Roman General Vespasian has subjugated Judea and its surrounding territories. He prepares to launch a final attack against Jerusalem.

In Rome, Nero Caesar loses control and commits suicide, ending the ancient Julio-Claudian line of Caesars and plunging the empire into chaos. The sixth head of the Beast is mortally wounded. Roman Governor Galba seizes the throne.

Vespasian halts the Judean war and sends Titus to affirm allegiance to the new emperor. But Galba is toppled, and Titus returns to Judea with news of civil and political unrest.

Galba’s reign of six months is overthrown by Otho, whose reign of three months is overthrown by General Vitellius. Many fear this is the end of the empire, the death of the Beast.

But a prophecy well-known in the eastern provinces had predicted that the future ruler of the world would go forth from Judea, currently occupied by Vespasian.

July AD 69. Vespasian is declared emperor by his troops. He reluctantly accepts and leaves for Egypt to secure Rome’s food source before claiming the throne. The Beast is healed of its mortal wound.

Vespasian leaves Titus in command of Judea with four Roman legions and ten client kings of the nations. These are the ten horns of the Beast. Titus is given the title of Caesar and leads the Imperial forces as that Beast of Rome in the holy land.

Jerusalem remains divided three ways in civil war. Simon bar Giora maintains military control of the city with personal plans of revenge against John of Gischala, who retains control of the outer temple complex.

The fanatic Eleazar holds the inner temple hostage with his Zealot forces.

Winter delays the wolves of war. A pall of silence hangs over Judea.

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw an angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the Land [of Israel], and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. 

Apocalypse 8:1-4

Chapter 1

Mount Hermon
December, AD 69

Apollyon, the Angel of the Abyss, sat brooding on his throne of stone in the cavernous mount of assembly in the heart of Hermon. 

Seventy gods of the nations, called Watchers, and their divine allies surrounded him, awaiting his decision as he thought through his strategy for their next move. Winter would soon be over, and the armies of Rome, led by Flavius Titus, would finally be able to besiege Jerusalem. 

The end of days was at hand.

Apollyon’s four strongest angels had been hostages to Yahweh and were recently freed by the enemy at the River Euphrates. The four principalities stood before him now. He looked thoughtfully at each of them: Ares, the Greek god of war; Ba’al, the Canaanite storm god; Ahura Mazda, Persian high god; and Hubal, Nabatean chief of the Arabian deities. All of them were muscular, brutish, and ruthless, exactly what he needed in the patron gods of the Roman legions in order to achieve his purposes. Azazel, patron genius of Titus, stood at Apollyon’s right side. Marduk, mighty Babylonian brawler, stood at his left.

Apollyon was the most powerful of all the Watcher gods. He had once been the satan of Yahweh’s divine council, a prosecuting adversary. He was a master of the law, Torah. But he impressed himself with the clever irony of taking the visual form of an emaciated, greasy-haired, androgynous cadaver. An incarnation of death and the denial of God’s created order.

Apollyon had used that lawful order to his benefit. He had sued Yahweh in his heavenly court, thereby effecting the release of the four principalities and winning the right to punish the Jews based on Torah.

Serves him right, thought the Watcher. The tyrannical patron of Israel had written into the covenant curses for disobedience and was now having to suck it up and enforce those sanctions by punishing his own people seven-fold for their sins: plagues, war, and Apollyon’s favorite curse of all—desolation of his house, the holy temple in Jerusalem. It was the earthly incarnation of the covenant, and its desolation was proclaimed by the Nazarene Messiah as well. So now Yahweh had to follow through and allow Apollyon’s Gentile armies to fulfill that desolation and trample the Holy Place.

But his victory came at great cost to the Prince of the Power of the Air. A cost that made him boil with anger as he looked out upon his seventy principalities and powers, considering his next move. The great Despot in the Sky had placed a contingency upon the release of the demonic hostages. Apollyon first had to return the two hundred ancient ones that he had released from the Abyss. He had stolen the key to the Abyss from the Foundation Stone in the holy temple and had freed those bound Watchers from their imprisonment in Tartarus to help him accomplish his goal.

The two hundred were the original Sons of God who had rebelled against Yahweh and had come to earth on this cosmic mountain of Hermon. They had taught mankind forbidden knowledge and had violated the earthly-heavenly divide by mating with human women. Their progeny were the Nephilim, the Seed of the Serpent who would wage a war against the messianic Seed of the Woman, Eve. But those two hundred original rebels had been judged at the Flood and bound in Tartarus.

When Apollyon had freed them, he’d also freed an army of two hundred million demons. He’d been forced to return the ancient ones to Tartarus, but not the demons. And those demons were under his control, ready to do his bidding. They filled the land like a plague of locusts, and the Angel of the Abyss was about to call upon them.

But something bothered him like a splinter in his talons. Whenever Yahweh had judged Israel for her unfaithfulness in the past, he’d always protected a remnant for himself. That Remnant was the congregation of true believers. And he would use them like a small speck of leaven in a lump of dough to maintain his kingdom though all seemed lost.

When the antediluvian world was filled with violence, God had spared eight in the ark. When Elijah thought he was alone in contesting with Ba’al, God had spared seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to the Canaanite god. And while Yahweh destroyed the first temple by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, he had protected Daniel and others in the furnace of fire that was the Babylonian exile.

So where was this Remnant now? Yahweh had supernaturally obscured Apollyon’s ability to find them. The Christians had left Jerusalem after Cestius Gallus first surrounded the city two years ago. They had done so in obedience to the Nazarene’s warning to flee to the mountains. But where did they go? The highlands of Judea and Samaria or the mountains across the Jordan? Apollyon wanted more than just desolation of the holy house. He wanted to kill the Remnant, the spiritual woman who had given birth to the Messiah and his Gospel. Apollyon the dragon wanted to eat them in a victory feast before Yahweh’s face. 

But he had to find them first. And there was no one more familiar with the land of Israel than the Canaanite deities most beloved by the great harlot of apostate Israel.

Apollyon spoke up. “Molech and Asherah, scour the mountains on both sides of the Jordan and find me the Christians. Meet the rest of us at Caesarea Maritima. We will lead the Beast to war.”

The dragon who had been thrown down to the earth pursued the woman [Remnant Israel] who had given birth to the male child [Messiah]. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time [3-1/2 years].

Apocalypse 12:13–14

Chapter 2

Alexandria, Egypt

Flavius Vespasian fought sleepiness as he waited for an answer from the god. This always happened whenever he engaged in religious ritual. He figured it was the boredom of unbelief. He only did what was required or what maintained proper public service. But he personally had a hard time believing in mysticism over good, hard earthly power and strength. He was a pragmatic man.

Of course, religion had its practical uses as well. The support of the priestly class assured the support of the masses who followed them with unthinking devotion.

Still, a small part of him wondered if there was something to the spiritual world. He had heard many testimonies of such things. He had even experienced some unexplainable oddities himself. Were all the stories of supernatural omens surrounding his own ascendancy to the throne mere self-delusion of believers, or was there something to them? 

The Alexandrians had told him that when he arrived in their Egyptian city, the Nile had overflown, a sure omen. While Vespasian was eating on his country estate, an ox had approached him, knelt down, and placed its head beneath his feet. The general had thought nothing of it. He knew animals sometimes did strange things. But while he was still eating, a dog had come over and dropped a human hand beneath his table. A human hand! Vespasian had never found out where the animal had found the thing.

These oddities were not without confirmation. Many years ago, he’d had a dream of a large cypress tree being uprooted and then the next day standing upright again. Vespasian had thought this represented the fall of Tiberius and rise of Caligula. But an oracle had told the general it was his own imperial future. He’d dismissed such an idea at the time. But then he’d had another strange dream predicting that if Nero lost a tooth, Vespasian would become emperor. The next day, Nero had indeed lost a tooth. While Vespasian kept his dream to himself, Nero did not. He had told Vespasian of his own dream of driving Jupiter’s chariot to Vespasian’s house. To protect himself from Nero’s paranoia, Vespasian had laughed it off with a joke and never revealed his secret to the emperor.

But that was not all. When Galba had claimed the throne of Rome, reports were that a statue of the deified Julius turned toward the East of its own accord. The East, where Vespasian was in his Judean campaign.

Even his Jewish “court prophet” Josephus had proclaimed that Vespasian would be the Messiah, come from the East as prophesied in the Jews’ own scriptures. 

The general had brushed off such ramblings as self-interested flattery. But so many apparent omens were aligning to persuade him that he was wrong. Maybe the gods were choosing him precisely because he didn’t want it. A bid for impartial justice.

Then last July, after the quick succession of short-lived emperors threatened to collapse the empire, his own soldiers and the military had forced Vespasian at the point of a blade to accept their proclamation of him as emperor. He reluctantly saw the practicality of his military experience in bringing order to the chaos that was collapsing Rome.

Vespasian was currently waiting to receive official approval from the Roman senate to accept his bid for the throne. He had actually disdained such imperial ambitions for years because of his lack of desire for such aristocratic indulgence. He preferred to live out the rest of his life in leisure, drinking wine, eating pig, and making love to his mistress, not political posturing or saving the asses of the entitled ingrates of nobility. He knew he was a boor and was proud of it. 

Vespasian glanced around the empty sanctuary of the Serapeum, a temple to Serapis, the hybrid Greco-Egyptian god of the underworld. The architecture was a mixture of Greek and Egyptian styles, functioning much like the deity as a diplomatic unity between the two worlds. He stood in a semi-circular Holy Place with Corinthian-style columns and a square stone altar on the proscenium platform up front with Vespasian’s goat sacrifice lying dead upon it. The atrium square outside was lined with red stone obelisks, common in Egyptian occultism. 

Vespasian rubbed his eyes and scratched his balding head. Architecture bored him as well. He felt his hefty stomach grumble with hunger. The thought of savoring good meat and wine awakened him more. Then his thoughts drifted to his mistress, Caenis, and he began to fantasize other sensual delights.

A movement to his left drew his attention. A priest approached him from the darkness. These temples all seemed to relish darkness in their sanctuaries. It helped manipulate the emotions. 

The priest was carrying sacred cakes, garlands, and a bough. When he arrived to hand them to Vespasian as an offering, the legate was shocked to see who it was.

“Basilides?” he said with incredulity. Basilides was the oracle on Mount Carmel in Palestine hundreds of miles away. Vespasian had visited the oracle when he first mustered his forces on the coast of that infernal land.

“Basilides? How on earth did you get here?”

But the oracle would not speak. He simply dissolved back into the darkness. Which was another apparent “miracle” because Basilides had grown old with rheumatism and was unable to walk.

Before he was able to gain his wits, Vespasian noticed someone in the shadows before the altar.

Some thing in the shadows. 

It looked like the creature was sucking the blood from the neck of the sacrifice. The thing stopped and looked at Vespasian. Its glowing lapis lazuli eyes sent a chill down the Roman general’s spine. 

The creature stood up. It was large, about eight feet tall. And muscular. As a light from a slit window fell across it, Vespasian realized the creature was Serapis, the underworld god. Though the god wore an Egyptian robe and ornaments, he looked Greek with a head of curly hair and Herculean facial structure.

Vespasian found himself out of breath. He bowed to one knee, groaning with his old age, and whispered, “My Lord Serapis. What is your will?”

The deity remained silent for a moment before speaking. “A new god rules. A new dynasty heals Rome.” Then he dissolved back into the shadows before Vespasian could question him.

Just like these phantom daemons to speak in riddles and mysteries without explaining them! The ambiguity and uncertain nature of religion annoyed Vespasian. Why could they not just speak plainly? Why must everything be shrouded in mysterious and confusing words? What new god was Serapis talking about? Egyptian? Roman? The sheer number of gods was ludicrous. 

He was interrupted by Roman governor Tiberius Julius Alexander entering the room, followed by a group of six priests of Serapis in long-flowing red robes. 

Tiberius, a formal military general, bowed and handed Vespasian a senatorial dispatch from Rome. 

Vespasian read it. It was short, to the point. And life-changing.

“Well,” said Vespasian. “It appears the senate has formally recognized me as emperor.”

Tiberius and the priests immediately bowed their heads and went down on one knee. With hand out and palm down, Tiberius said, “Hail Caesar, Lord and Savior.”

The priests whispered prayers that sounded like gibberish to Vespasian.

Only then did it strike the general: the cakes brought by Basilides along with the royal bough and garlands—those were a herald of kingship.

The words of Serapis, “A new god rules,” must mean that Vespasian was the new god, since Caesar was a god. And his family would be the “dynasty that heals Rome.”

Perhaps this religious stuff wasn’t so mysterious after all. Perhaps there was something to it.

“Caesar,” said Tiberius, “we must present you to the people of Alexandria.”

Semyaza and Serapis followed their priests as they led the fat, bald vulgarian king and his toady governor out of the temple into the streets. Serapis had allowed Semyaza’s human liege the opportunity to see him for that brief moment at the altar. But now the two gods moved in the unseen realm, invisible to and unheard by the human throngs that filled Alexandria’s busy streets.

The Herculean Serapis announced to Semyaza, “I cannot stay. Apollyon wants me to return for my legion in Palestine.”

Semyaza didn’t bother to respond. He was too angry with his misfortune of being stuck in Alexandria with his oaf of a ruler while Azazel got to plunder the holy land.

Serapis left him and continued to follow Vespasian’s escort to their destination in the middle of the city. Semyaza heard trumpets of announcement throughout the city calling the populace to a gathering.

Semyaza had been released from the Abyss with his co-general Azazel. The two of them had been allowed to become the geniuses, or patron deities, of the Flavian father and son. Because of their special appointments, they’d avoided confinement in Tartarus with the others.

At first Semyaza had been satisfied with his guardianship, thinking that Vespasian would be the next Caesar, which would make Semyaza more powerful than Azazel, genius of Titus. But when it became apparent that Vespasian would have to leave Palestine and focus his efforts on taking the throne, Semyaza had realized that Azazel had the much greater assignment. For Titus would be the anointed prince to bring desolation on the wing of abominations to Israel. Titus would receive the greater glory and greater legacy than his father. Azazel would once again best Semyaza in his achievements.

And the fact that father and son were now split up, along with their geniuses, meant that Semyaza and Azazel could not be together to achieve the coup they had planned to spring upon Apollyon during Armageddon. Semyaza had not yet figured out a way to ditch his human and make his way secretly to Jerusalem in time for the end of days.

Semyaza followed Vespasian’s entourage into the hippodrome at the center of the city. It was filled with Egyptian citizens awaiting the grand announcement. Semyaza noticed how surprised Vespasian was at the reception. The dull-minded fool. The Roman general knew how to fight a war, but he had no awareness of the civilian world around him.

The Watcher followed the entourage up to a stage in the middle of the stadium, grumbling at the exaltation he was supposed to give the obese old fart of a Caesar.

Vespasian looked out onto the crowds amassed in the hippodrome for his announcement. He was stunned by it all. They had cheered him when he arrived, and he began to feel the excitement of being worshipped.

A priest of Serapis leaned near him and said, “My Lord, we are bringing you some people with infirmities. Just follow along and extend your hand to heal them.”

Vespasian looked at the priest, shocked. “What do you mean? I am no miracle worker.”

“Today you are, my Lord. It is part of your confirmation. Trust me. Play the part, and they will be healed.”

Vespasian sighed. “All right. Get on with it.”

He looked out onto the masses, their gullible excitement pathetic to him. But he knew his responsibility for political pandering was only beginning. It made his stomach turn.

Some priests led two men out onto the stage and up to Vespasian. The first one had a crippled hand, bent up into an excruciating crooked position.

Vespasian heard the crowd cheer. He asked the priest, “Do they know this man?”

“Oh, yes, my lord,” the priest responded. “Both of these men are well known for years as beggars in the city.”

That meant their disabilities were not faked. Unless they had pretended for years? Vespasian shuddered. What had he gotten himself into?

The priest made the crippled man kneel down and place his hand at Vespasian’s foot.

“Step on the hand, my lord.”

The general hesitated. Wouldn’t such an action crush the already crippled hand? Seeing Vespasian’s reluctance, the priest reassured, “Just gently, my lord.” 

Vespasian shrugged and stepped lightly on the man’s hand. When he pulled back his foot, the man’s hand was normal!

Vespasian was shocked. What was this? The man at his feet couldn’t possibly have faked the contortion in which those bones had been. 

The priest presented the man’s hand to the crowd, and they burst out in massive cheering. That was when Vespasian remembered the dog that had brought a human hand to his table. Was this the meaning of that bizarre omen?

Another priest led a second man up to Vespasian. This man’s eyes were clouded over with blindness. The blind man’s face grinned in excited anticipation. He muttered, “My Lord, Caesar.”

The priest said to Vespasian, “My Lord, if you spit into your hands and moisten this blind man’s eyes, he will be healed.”

This was getting ridiculous! Where would the priest get such a preposterous idea? Spittle on the eyes? It reeked of theater. 

But, of course, theater was what was needed to move the masses. Spitting into his hands, Vespasian wiped the spittle onto the blind man’s eyes. The man opened his eyes. The cloudiness was gone. 

“I can see! I can see!” the man yelled loud enough for the crowds to hear him. The crowd burst out into an even stronger applause.

Vespasian couldn’t believe his eyes. He had seen the man was truly blind. And now he was truly seeing. Vespasian looked at his own hands with shock. Am I a god? 

The ovation of praise lowered just enough for the priest to stand forward, gesture to Vespasian, and announce loudly, “Behold, the son of Amun-Ra!”

Vespasian would not have thought the crowd could be more out of control. But now they rose to even greater heights of adulation. He’d experienced the feeling of power when destroying an enemy in battle, but this was a different kind of power. It was like nothing Vespasian had ever felt before.

He felt like a god.

Titus was right! After all this time I fought against him, he was right. I will create a new dynasty of Caesars. The Flavians will rule the world. A family of gods.

The cheering crowd drowned his own thoughts in a whirlpool of worship.

Semyaza sighed with disgust. These humans were such puppets. The cripple and the blind fool had been bound by demons. Semyaza had merely put the demons to sleep for a while, which made it look as though the two men had been healed. But the demons would return once the citizenry had moved back into their normal lives. By then it wouldn’t matter anymore because the public had such a short memory. They were the easiest thing to manipulate with lies.

Now, thought the Watcher, If I can only find some excuse to get out of here and return to Palestine.

Chapter 3

Pella
April, AD 70

Cassandra held her year-old infant Samuel in her arms as she watched her ten-year-old adopted son Noah, sparring swords with Michael, the captain of the Kharabu warriors, in the valley just outside the city. The young boy had become quite the swordsman thanks to the help of Michael, who was training the city’s males in self-defense. The Roman war with the Jews had not yet found them in their refuge, safely tucked away in the Transjordan mountains. 

But the war was not over yet.

The Kharabu were an elite fighting force of forty men, mostly ex-legionaries-cum-Christians, who watched over Pella like sentinels. They had been trained in an ancient form of battle allegedly used by the Cherubim to guard Eden. The Pellans joked about the Kharabu being guardian angels because when they fought, they seemed to glide and float like dancers rather than brute soldiers. And they were virtually unbeatable.

But Cassandra no longer joked with the rest. She had seen what others had not, and she now strongly suspected that the seven captains of the Kharabu were in fact angels.

For one, all seven had the names of archangels from Scripture, like Michael and Gabriel. Such names weren’t unusual for Jewish males. But that was only one of many strange coincidences that had led Cassandra to conclude Michael and the six others were not earthly beings.

She had seen Michael brutally beaten by a group of bandits and come out without a scratch or bruise. She had seen the seven fight with effortlessness against other warriors. The skills of those seven far surpassed their other Kharabu comrades. There was something more to these captains.

She had also seen Michael engage in long conversations with Moshe and Elihu, the Two Witnesses of the Apocalypse that were specially protected by God in the midst of this time of “Jacob’s Trouble.” And she knew what the prophet Daniel had foretold regarding Michael the archangel arising to protect God’s people at the end of days.

“At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.”

Daniel 12:1

Christians had escaped Jerusalem and other surrounding cities in obedience to Jesus’s words to flee to the mountains. They had gathered in this hidden city that had been destroyed by civil war and rebuilt. They were the Remnant of 144,000 that God had sealed to protect from the judgment coming upon the Jews and their holy city.

Cassandra believed this. But it bothered her that she was safe and protected out here in the mountains while her beloved Alexander was in Jerusalem sacrificing himself for the sake of the Gospel.

“Mother, you’re not listening to me.”

The voice brought Cassandra out of her thoughts. It was her fifteen-year-old adopted daughter Rachel, sister of Noah. The brother and sister had been among hundreds of orphaned child refugees arriving at Jerusalem a couple years ago from cities destroyed by the Romans. The brother and sister had captured Alexander’s and Cassandra’s hearts, and once she and the children had arrived at Pella, Cassandra had carried out the couple’s plan to adopt the two siblings.

Adoption was a beautiful family experience that reflected God’s own heart. Unfortunately, the moment of joy had not lasted long as raising a family of three children alone seemed harder to Cassandra than helping Alexander deal with plague, sickness, and war wounds in Jerusalem. 

“What do you mean I’m not listening?” Cassandra asked. “What did you say?”

 “I asked you why I cannot go for a simple chaperoned walk with Jonathan.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times,” said Cassandra, “this is not the time to consider such things.”

“Mother, I’m fifteen years old. If I wait any longer, I’ll be an old maid. And what is wrong with Jonathan? He’s seventeen, strong, trained in battle, and respects you more than I do.”

“Watch your tongue, young lady.” Cassandra felt Samuel squirm in her arms. As she rocked him back to slumber, she eyed her adopted daughter. Rachel had matured into a beautiful young lady, a far change from when Cassandra had first met the young girl. Escaping her pillaged city, Rachel had pretended to be a boy to avoid being discovered by men and abused in the midst of war. It was a tragedy countless women had to suffer. Many could not endure it and killed themselves from the shame.

Cassandra had coaxed Rachel out of her shyness and distrust of men, but now she almost regretted it. Her daughter was clearly enamored with this young man Jonathan. And his father had already tried to speak with Cassandra about an arrangement for marriage. Cassandra had put him off under the pretense that she and Rachel’s father had to discuss it through long-distance letters. That was only half true. She was avoiding that as well.

Still, Jonathan was a good one. Cassandra had no complaints. Except one. And she voiced it to Rachel. “Rome is still at war with Judea. We are safe for now. But the final battle is coming upon Jerusalem.”

“But we’re not in Jerusalem,” Rachel argued. “We’re hidden in the mountains. And protected by the Kharabu.”

“Yes. For now. But there is more to come our way, and we must prepare to face greater danger.”

“Mother, you keep saying that, but what do you mean? How do you know more will come our way?”

Cassandra had been keeping it from Rachel and Noah. She didn’t want them overcome with fear. But the moment of frustration pulled it out of her. “Because the Apocalypse says it will.”

Rachel stopped, dumbfounded. She knew about the Apocalypse. Cassandra had told both siblings of her journey with Alexander to find the subversive letter that predicted the end of their world and the coming judgment. They had heard the letter read to the congregation by the lector. But not everything had been explained to the congregation’s children.

Still, as Rachel had pointed out, Cassandra’s adopted daughter was no longer a child but a young woman and had earned the right to hear the truth. So Cassandra answered by quoting the Apocalypse itself. “And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the land, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.”

She stopped. She finally had Rachel’s attention. “I’ve explained to you that the dragon is the devil, the serpent, and the woman is the Remnant of true Israel that gave birth to Jesus the Messiah.”

“Yes,” said Rachel.

Cassandra continued quoting from memory. “‘But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.’ That’s three-and-a-half  years.”

As Rachel nodded her comprehension, Cassandra continued, “When Rome surrounded Jerusalem, we fled the city, just as Jesus told us to do. That was three-and-a-half  years ago.”

Cassandra glanced down at her infant son, not wishing to continue. But she did. “‘The dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.’”

Rachel was now dead silent. Only the distant sound of clacking swords could be heard in the wind. The girl watched the mock battle between Noah and Michael with an apparent new understanding. A frightful one.

“The devil is not done with us yet,” Cassandra said. “And what will you do if you start a family and your new husband is killed in the war with the dragon?”

Rachel’s expression turned from fearful to firm. “But you married father during the Great Tribulation.” She had picked up a lot of determination from her adoptive mother.

Cassandra answered, “I did so to help him in his ministry, fully expecting that we would both die.”

“But you’re both still alive.”

“Yes. And look at how difficult it is to raise a family without a father. Is that what you want—to raise a family alone?”

“Father is not dead.”

“No. But we must accept the inevitable, daughter. He has sacrificed himself for the Gospel, and we cannot be sure he will return. We know that Jerusalem will fall to the Romans, and they have not always been merciful.”

“Is that why you’re planning to leave us and go to Jerusalem? To die with him?”

Cassandra froze in shock, her eyes widening. After an awkward moment of silence, she demanded, “Where did you hear that?”

“I’m not a moron, mother. I told you, I’m fifteen. I listen. I hear your prayers when you think you are alone.”

Cassandra felt trapped by her own words. She had prayed about returning to Jerusalem. About God protecting her children and all the city’s orphans whose guardian she had become.

The Kharabu would surely protect them despite the danger.

Rachel’s eyes welled up with tears. “Do you not love us, mother?”

Cassandra stood immediately and reached out for her daughter with her free arm. “Rachel, of course I love you with all my heart.” 

Little Samuel chose that moment to begin squirming again, and Cassandra tightened her one-armed grip on him as she whispered into Rachel’s ear, “I would never leave you without protection.” 

Rachel pulled away from her. “But you would leave us?”

Cassandra’s lack of answer appeared to be all the answer Rachel needed. Spinning around, the young girl stormed downhill toward Noah and Michael, still practicing with swords.

Cassandra watched her with sadness. She could not deny her own conflicted feelings for the kingdom of God. Or that her love of family had brought upon her the very grief she’d feared when confronted with the call to sacrifice.

The apostle Paul had warned of this, and now she was experiencing it fully. She had indeed been talking to some of her most reliable friends in the city, preparing to have them watch over her children. They would also be in the protective custody of the Kharabu. But despite her certainty that Rachel, Noah, and little Samuel would be in safe hands, despite the fact that she truly did love her children more than life itself, she still felt guilty that she was willing to leave them in such a time of great peril. What kind of a mother would do such a thing? 

Perhaps a mother who felt like a failure in everything she had tried to do for God’s kingdom. Or perhaps a wife who felt that she had betrayed her marriage covenant by fleeing to safety and leaving her husband to face life-threatening danger alone. But wasn’t leaving her children alone just as bad a betrayal? It seemed no matter what she did, she was leaving loved ones in danger.

Maybe her desire to walk back into the arena of death was her attempt to share the sufferings of Christ like her mentor, the apostle Paul. 

Whatever the case, Cassandra felt terrible for not telling Alexander about her intentions to join him in Jerusalem. She knew he would not approve, so she planned to show up and deal with his disappointment at that time. It would be easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Down the hill, Rachel had stopped to watch the sparring. Samuel had gone back to sleep. Sinking back down to a crossed-legged position, Cassandra placed her son gently on her lap and pulled out a letter to read.

It was from Alexander. They had written each other regularly over the past year-and-a-half of separation. She cherished every single communication she received from him as sacred. This one was the latest from a month ago. She had read it a dozen times.

Alexander, to my dear beloved Cassandra,

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

I always thank God when I pray for you and when I think of your love that he has allowed me to experience for a short time on this earth. Our two years of marriage before you left for Pella was the happiest I have ever been in my life. Though we faced the dangers of plague, sickness, and war, we had done so together. And I was never more content than facing it all with you by my side. 

But God has seen fit to separate us for his purposes. If he chooses to preserve my life through this time of judgment, I will return to you with the most desperate of desire. But if he does not, please know that you have made my suffering more joyous to face.

Your love has helped me to understand the love of God in an earthly way. Your zeal for the kingdom has inspired me in times of weakness. I will die with thanks on my lips for the opportunity to have met you and to have enjoyed the privilege of loving you. For without you in my life, I may never have found my Savior.

Pray for me as I labor in the city and for the work of the Two Witnesses. And pray for the Christians who are still suffering in the mines at the hands of Jacob. 

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Send my greetings to Michael and Gabriel and the others. And give my warmest of love to our children, Rachel, Noah, and little Samuel. How I long to meet my infant son for the first time. I love you and miss you with all my heart. 

Your beloved husband and brother in Christ.

Wiping tears from her eyes, Cassandra noticed Noah and Michael were done with their practice. They headed uphill along with Rachel. By Noah’s untroubled expression, Rachel had not shared their recent discussion with her younger brother. She was acting with more maturity than Cassandra had given her credit. 

Was Cassandra making the right choices in her parenting? Was she forcing her own convictions upon her daughter? What if she was wrong?

Just then Cassandra noticed Boaz, the church elder in charge of the Pella congregation, approaching. His elderly frame of over sixty years walked with an unsteady gait.

As he reached Cassandra, he sighed. “I need to take walks to keep my health so I can live to fight this blasphemous heresy of Symeon and his Ebionites.”

Michael and her children arrived in time to catch the church elder’s words. Cassandra shared a concerned glance with the Kharabu captain as Boaz continued, “I have called a council to deal with the trouble. We can no longer allow them to teach their damnable doctrines in Pella. They are growing dangerously large and upsetting the faith of many with their false Gospel. We must stop them. And I wanted you to be at the council because of your work with the apostle Paul. We need influential voices to counter their lies.”

The Ebionites were a contingent of apparent believers who had followed Boaz and the other Christian refugees from Jerusalem to Pella. At first, they’d been a minority residual voice of the Judaizers who’d remained behind. But they had grown to well over a thousand followers. Thank God none of them were elders in the congregation, but their influence was growing.

The Ebionites took their name from the Hebrew word for “poor” and gloried in their pride of poverty as if it were a sign of superior spirituality. They were vegetarians and pacifists who argued against Pella’s preparation for self-defense. Most egregious to Cassandra was their denial of the deity of Christ. This alone made them worthy of condemnation and expulsion from the congregation.

Cassandra had despaired that such demonic influence was already plaguing the Christians of Pella. The body of Christ was trying to gather itself together after being almost wiped out by the Great Tribulation. Now they had this spreading cancer trying to wipe them out from within. Even worse, the Ebionites’ intent was to become a majority and seize control of the ekklesia, or church. 

But then again, Jude had warned the church of this very thing. He had said that in the last days there would be scoffers who followed their own ungodly passions. Such worldly people were devoid of the Spirit, perverting the grace of God into sensuality, denying their only Master and Lord Jesus Christ, and causing divisions. That was why Jude had exhorted true believers to contend earnestly for the faith.

Boaz was right. The Ebionites had to be countered. They had to be stopped. Such a battle would delay Cassandra’s intentions of getting to Jerusalem. But she owed it to Boaz and the congregation. She owed it to the people who had saved her life and given her a new home where she could raise her children in the Lord. 

Cassandra looked down at her precious little Samuel. She owed it to her son, to protect his future. She had to fight for the souls of her people. She had to continue suffering separation from and longing for her beloved.

At least for now.

She returned home to write a letter to her husband.