Kingdom Come - The Final Victory by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

aren’t they? Jesus lives beyond the Scriptures. He’s the Living Word. Surely they can’t claim not to believe in a God who has again limited Himself to human form and lives and reigns among us.”
    “Dad says they seem for real. Yes, it may be for attention, and perhaps they know better and are planning to change their minds and their courses in time to avoid death at one hundred. I’m surprised the Lord doesn’t squash them like bugs.”
    “His mercy is everlasting,” Bahira said quietly. “I know that sounds like a cliché, but He promised longevity, and Jehovah will not judge them as accursed until they reach that age. What did your dad say? Did he see them? hear them?”
    “Oh yes. He says they have left the homes of their parents—who grieve them noisily and cry out in pain for others to pray for their children—and have begun enterprises that must be a stench in the Lord’s nostrils. Brothels, nightclubs, black markets.”
    “But what have the judges done about such things?”
    “Penalties have been handed down. Both France and Turkey have had to reestablish law enforcement agencies and even jails and prisons. But all this has seemed to accomplish is to make these infidels more attractive to other young people. Even with the evil one neutralized for now, the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.”
    “I worry about the next generation. The world is no longer pristine as it was when the Millennium began. And people are still born into sin. How long will it be before the awfulness of the earth returns, the way our parents knew it, and we have murder and other crimes?”
    Raymie shook his head. “I just don’t get it. I suppose because you and I have glorified bodies and minds, it’s hard for us to empathize with people who want to go their own way. To me this
is
heaven, with Jesus here. What worries me is that by merely giving themselves—their movement—a name, they become organized and somehow legitimatized. The Other Light could become something that young people idealize or even idolize and want to join. You didn’t get the impression Cendrillon was a member, did you?”
    “No, but how would I know? To my knowledge she had not yet visited France or Turkey, even though she is French. She did tell me that her cousins had told her of another pocket of TOL in Amman.”
    “That’s news to me.”
    “Again, Raymie, I hoped she was teasing, but I soon realized she was not. She pleaded with me to go with her to check it out. It would be our secret, and her cousins wouldn’t tell. We wouldn’t have to do anything, she said. Just watch and imagine, pretend our parents weren’t followers of Christ. I reminded her, ‘Cendrillon, I was raptured. I came from heaven. I am more than a follower of Christ. I have been redeemed and sealed. I don’t even have the desire to dabble in this.’
    “That’s when she turned on me, Raymie. She accused me of being superior, holier-than-thou. I actually apologized. I certainly didn’t want to lord anything over her. I hadn’t been bragging, just explaining why the temporary pleasures of sin had no hold on me. She said, ‘They don’t have a hold on me either. I just want to see what I’m missing.’ Well, I guess she knows now.”
    “Excuse me,” Raymie said, turning away to get a message from his father. When he turned back, he told Bahira of the plan for the three men to visit Cendrillon’s parents. “Should I tell my father what you told me?”
    Bahira nodded. “Never fear the truth. The Jospins may not want to hear it, but they must be told. Her funeral can be a warning that saves countless lives.”
    As they walked back to their dwellings, Raymie said, “I don’t envy the men this task. How would you like to have to tell parents such truth about their child?”

SIX

    RAYFORD HOPED never again to have to face an ordeal like talking with Cendrillon Jospin’s parents. It might have been easier if they
had
become