ETERNAL REDEMPTIONBy: N.G.    The sound of a high pitched, blood curdling scream awakens me from unconsciousness. Panting heavily, I open my eyes but I cannot see. There is nothing but encroaching darkness surrounding me. I put my hands on the smooth floor supporting me and push off to stand up.    Frantically waving my arms out in front of me to guide me through this nightmare, I feel nothing at all. Being overstricken with fear and terrified that I have lost my vision, I force myself to take a step forward. With my arms out in front of me, I take another small step. Still nothing.    “Hello?” I whisper, afraid to take another step. “Hello!?!” I cry out much louder this time, but to no avail. Darkness and eerily silence fill the void around me.    CRACK!! The smooth floor rumbles and quakes below my feet, throwing off my balance and causing me to stumble forward. With my arms outstretched to catch my fall, I finally feel something with my hands.  A thick, metallic cylinder-like poll. Another few inches to my left is the exact same object. And in the exact same distance is another poll, upon another, evenly spaced out, surrounding me.     The sound of a heavy tarp being pulled away all around me stops me from searching with my hands in this blackness. Still without sight, I can now feel the scorching putrid air blowing all around me. Sweat starts to drip down my temples and my breathing becomes more labored in this excruciating humidity.    A silent burst of blinding light goes off directly above me, and my first instinct is to squint and cover my eyes with my hands. A few seconds pass by and I remove my hands from my face slowly, allowing my eyes to readjust to the light that I have been so anxiously waiting for.    The light above only shines a few feet around me in all directions, giving me a silhouette of my location in this eternal darkness. Terror consumes me as I immediately understand what the metallic poles around me are. I step forward and grab the poles with a death grip and try to shake or move them with all my might, but to no avail. I’m trapped, stuck in some sort of prison or cage. All alone.    A reddish orange flickering light catches my attention from the corner of my eye below. I look down at my feet at the fragile glass floor holding me up in this cell. The see through floor has a few spider web cracks and splinters scattered throughout, with the word LIFE engraved in a blood red stain in the glass.My terror heightens to a new level as I stare through the glass floor to what awaits me deep below the surface. Miles and miles directly underneath me is the raging fiery inferno as far as the eye can see. Every few seconds a burst of flame explodes up upon the jagged rocks protruding out of the flowing lake of fire, like angry waves of a vicious storm at sea.“Hello?!?! Help me! Help me!” I scream out in terrifying agony while unsuccessfully trying to frantically pull my prison bars apart. An eerie snickering laughter coming from the floating darkness somewhere outside the cell startles me silent.“Wh..Who i… is that?” I stutter as I step back, distancing myself as much as possible from the invisible threat hovering in the air outside the cage. Another sinister laugh reverberates through the air, this time coming from a different direction.Suddenly the glass floor violently quakes again with more cracks spreading throughout the floor and the prison cell bars slowly creep inward an inch or two, narrowing my already confined space even smaller. I begin to wonder how much longer this fragile floor will hold me up from free falling to my burning demise.“We are legion… for we are many.” An unearthly voice from the darkness finally answers me once the shaking has stopped. “Why am I here? How did I end up in this place? You are many… many what?” I ask the phantom forces timidly.The fiendish voices begin to bombard me from all around me in a battery of ghoulish tones. “Greed. Envy. Wrath. Lust. Anger. Fornication. Vanity. Lies. Violence. Gluttony. Causing sorrow and despair.”“Pride.” Says the original voice of sin that first answered me as a scaly, reptilian hand shoves an hourglass through the cell for me to see, clutched in its razor sharp clawed hand. The sand in the hourglass drips down to the bottom slowly at first, but it soon begins to pick up more momentum and falls faster like a rushing avalanche down a mountainside.“Let me out! Please! Please release me from this!” I cry out as the glass floor begins to rumble and splinter again, this time causing a gigantic crack through the word LIFE at the bottom. The voices remain quiet except for a few giggles upon this tragedy.I tear at my crimson red prisoner suit and begin to rip pieces of fabric off in an overwhelming attempt of despair and anguish, all the while crying out “Please help me! God, help me!!”The sand in the hourglass trickles down slowly, drip by drip. Only a small amount remains at the top of the hourglass, and I come to understand that once the sand stops flowing, my time, as well as my life, has run out.Out in the darkness I notice a glowing light radiating and blinking in the distance, and it seems to be coming closer and closer. The ghastly voices start shrieking and squawking at each other as the light makes its way towards my direction. The reptilian hand withdraws its arm from inside the cage and drops the hourglass onto its side, stopping the draining of sand from finishing its gravitational pull to be completely finished.As the radiating white light becomes closer and closer to me, I can make out its shape. Floating in the darkness is a glowing shape of a person, except this is no ordinary person. This is much larger than a human, and behind it are mighty wings that make them guide graciously through the air.  This beautiful deity has flown valiantly up to my prison cage and stopped, staring intently at me through the bars.“Help me out of here! Please! Release me!” I cry out to this Heavenly angelic being. The angel continues to float along the hovering prison, but remains silent, staring at me. After a minute or two of silence, the angel finally opens its mouth and reverberates words of truth to my most inner soul.“Let him who have ears hear!” It pauses for a moment and then continues, “For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”The angel continues on, “For the wages of sin is death”, it pauses looking at me intently. “But the free gift of God is eternal life through…”I cut the angel off with a scream of my own, “Please don’t let me die! Help me from this place! Save me from the fires below! You can! You can save me…”“SILENCE!” the angel beckons, pulling out a glowing sword from behind its wings and points the sword toward the cage. Even the unholy sinful voices surrounding me seems to go completely silent also. All you can hear is the crashing of the fiery waves against the rocks below in the lake of fire.“Tomorrow is not a guarantee for anyone. I cannot save you, but I know the One who can.” The angel places the sword back in its sheath upon its shoulders and continues on, “For He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Him.” I remain silent, fixated upon the messenger angel before me.“I will show you truth, I will show you salvation. And then you will understand. Now close your eyes.”The darkness and silence immediately returns as I force my eyes shut upon the angel’s command.What feels like eternity passing by I can finally hear the faint sounds of muffled voices echoing all around me. The voices and sounds begin to become clearer as my senses begin to equilibrate my surroundings.  Hearing the rush of the voices cheering around me, I open my eyes to my new environment.The hot rising sun shines down upon a stone courtyard lined with a cheering, angry mob. The people are all lined up along the perimeter of the courtyard, kept in place by Roman sentry soldiers.  The mob continues to scream, holler, and cheer at the brutal carnage in the center.In the center of the courtyard is a single Man, all bloody and beaten. Near him is a roman soldier who continues to mercilessly snap a whip at the Man’s flayed open back. He tries to stand up but is continually knocked back down by the cracking and snapping of the whip, tearing into His flesh and spilling His blood upon the ground.    The crowd cheers for more as the solider stops for a moment, pausing to allow a few more soldiers approach the beaten, scarred Man. One of them forcefully jams a crown made of jagged, razor sharp thorns upon His head. The crown pokes and tears into His head, spilling even more of His precious blood.    “Why are they doing this to Him? Who is He?” I asked my messenger angel as I look on in horror.    “He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The angel answers back.    The weakened, scourged Man barely has any strength left to prop Himself up, but He turns His head in my direction and locks eyes with me as the lashes reign down upon His back. As flesh is torn open again and again, His body quivers under the intense pain but His gaze remains fixated upon me. His face shows agony and pain, but His eyes seem to look deep into my heart, into my soul. I can feel His true, genuine love for me and the words ‘For you’ reverberate through my entire body.    For some reason I do not yet quite completely understand, this Man is taking a beating and sacrificing Himself in my place. I do not know Him, but He does not deserve this.    As I watch the slaughter continue, I cannot keep still and watch this Man take such a ferocious beating without trying to intervene. “Stop!” I yell out as I take a step out amongst from the crowd, but I cannot move any further. There is some incredible force holding me frozen in place, and the more I struggle against it, the more force it applies. I look over at the angel, and he has his palm outstretched towards me, applying this tremendous, heavenly force from above.“Close your eyes”, the angel beckons to me, “for there is more to the story of forgiveness and redemption.”As I shut my eyes and hold them tightly closed, I can feel the rush of wind batter at me from all sides as I’m tossed around like a boat shipwrecked at sea. This turbulence only lasts a few seconds and then it dissipates as quickly as it began.    After waiting a few moments in time with eyes clenched shut, I feel a hand tap my shoulder twice, as assuring me it’s now ok to open my eyes to the scene in front of me. I look out across the top of the hill we are on and my body shivers from the horrors on this hilltop.    I turn my head and with fear and trepidation, I look up to the angel standing next to me, and he nods his head to me, assuring me this must be. “Come.” The angel says as he places his hand out for me to hold onto.    We slowly rise up to the top of the hill step by precious step, and I freeze in place, this time by my own accord. I do not want to witness the death up here. On the apex of the hill is two large, wooden crosses standing upright, with two people hanging outstretched upon the beams, awaiting for death.    Looking at the ground front and center I witness a bunch of commotion. A larger wooden cross lays on the ground at the bases of the other two, and there are several roman soldiers surrounding the cross with hammers and large nails or spikes in their hands. They eagerly shuffle back and forth along the sides of the cross, trying and vexing for a chance to drive forth and inflict pain and damage upon the One who is sprawled out upon the Cross.    I step forward and gaze upon the One who is about to suffer a brutal death of being crucified upon the cross, and it is the same Man with the crown of thorns upon His head that was savagely beaten in the courtyard!    “NOOO!” I scream frantically and sprint ahead towards the soliders. Swinging my fist as forcefully as I can, I attempt to send a straight right into the closest soldier’s jaw, but my fist passes right through the figure as if he were a ghost and I tumble forward to the ground. Beginning to pick myself up, I see a massive line of people instantly formed at the base of the cross. The line of people stretches on for miles and miles, as far as my eyes can see.    “You cannot stop this. You can only watch. This is His will…” the angel proclaims to me as I stand there sullen and defeated.  I take a few steps backwards toward the angel, never taking my eyes off of the murder before me.    The first person in line walks closer to the cross, and passes right through the solider just as I did a moment earlier. They reach down and pick up a hammer and a nail lying on the ground next to the Man outstretched upon the cross. The person places the nail’s edge onto the palm of the Man’s hand and raises his other arm high into the air. They drive that hammer down with a speed and strength I have never seen before, a force so strong it drives the thick nail right through the Man’s flesh and pinning Him down onto the wooden cross.    As soon as that person drove the nail into His flesh, they faded away and disappeared. And the next person in line walked up and repeated the same painstaking, nail driving, sin induced action. And on and on the malice and wickedness continued, the miles of people from all walks of life continued on driving the same nail into His hands and feet over and over.    No one was innocent. No one was immune to causing the death of this honorable Man.    Even myself.    I stood frozen in time, tears gushing down my cheeks uncontrollably like waterfalls. I tried to scream but no sound came out. I am paralyzed with grief and sorrow.  I wept bitterly when I saw myself in that line, bending down and driving that hammer and nail deep into His hand.    Remorse plucks at the strings of my heart, and I just keep mouthing the words “I’m sorry” repeatedly over and over. My actions, along with everyone else’s, are responsible for this death and suffering.    As soon as the words left my palate, the line of people dissipated away and all that was left was the Roman soldiers who began hoisting the Man on the Cross into an upright position.  He is to remain there, hanging outstretched and suffer on the cross until He takes His last breath.    “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” proclaims the angel next to me. “…And the wages of sin is death.” He pauses and looks to me to see if I understand his message. I nod my head slowly in agreement. The angel pulls me close next to him and puts his arm around me.    “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.”    The angel continues on as he points to the One hanging on the cross with the crown of thorns on His head. “For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.”I nod again in agreement. “What…What is His name?” I ask, mesmerized by the revelation of truth and freedom in this Man’s act of selflessness.“He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”“He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings.”“He is the grace through the redemption of His sacrifice…” the angel shouts with proclamation and authority while he drops to one knee and salutes his Lord and Creator.“…He is JESUS CHRIST!”With unbearable pain coursing through His body hanging upon the Cross, Jesus looks down at me and locks eyes with me. I can see the torture and suffering in His face, but once again, His eyes speak to me with love and kindness and mercy.‘I sacrifice myself…for you…because I love you.’My body quivers under the overwhelming blast of love that electrifies through my veins and ignites a love for Him as well. “It is Finished” I hear the words come from Jesus as His head drops and He gives up His last breath.As the tears stream down my face, the light bulb finally goes off in my head and in my heart. I kneel down in reverence and bow to Jesus as I finally understand what the angel has shown me.This Man, the Son of God, left glory in Heaven and came down here to earth as a man and lived a sinless, blameless life. He chose to shed His precious innocent blood, to make atonement for my sins, and die on the cross so I can be made right with God. All because He loves me and doesn’t want to see me perish. He gave up his life for me and for all who accept this gracious gift.Jesus is willing to take on all of my sins and give up His life for me. This has to be the greatest act of mercy, the ultimate sign of love, the ultimate sacrifice.“This is not fair...I am not worthy of this!” I yell out to the angel who is kneeling beside me. The angel looks down upon me and nods his head very slowly in agreement but offers a slight smile, as if he is finally satisfied that I have come to understand the revelation he has shown me.With His last breath, thunder rumbles throughout the sky as ominous clouds roll in and darken the day into night. Flashes of lightning illuminate the sky for a few brief seconds and the ground begins to shake violently.“Come.” The angel says calmly and takes me by the hand as the earth groans in agony. Catapulting into the air like a rocket blasting off, the angel and I soar up and through the storm clouds into the sunlight above.There is a moment or two of silence and peace with the sun’s heat radiating and glistening my skin in midair. But our momentum upward comes to halt, and the angel wraps his arms around me and pulls me in close. I am completely engulfed within the angel’s mighty arms, and we begin our descent back down into the clouds just as our expulsion was on the ascent.As we break through back down, there is no storm or darkness prevailing. It looks as if the sun is beginning to rise on the clear sky. The clouds have disappeared and all is calm.The angel’s feet touch down onto the dirt gravel gracefully and unwraps his arms to release me.  But I immediately drop to my knees and stare at the ground, saddened by the death of Jesus, and the tears flow once again.“Come and see.” The angel extends his hand once again and with hesitation, I grab his hand and he pulls me up onto my feet. I don’t want to see any more torture or death I think to myself as I try to stop the sniffles and tears from flowing.We begin to walk hand in hand up a few steps towards the monumental stone structure in front of us. As soon as we reach the platform at the end of the steps, I recognize what this structure made out of rock and stone is.  It is a tomb, but it is not sealed shut. The giant boulder that seals the tomb is rolled away from the entrance.“This is the tomb of Jesus. Go in and see.” Says the angel as he lets go of my hand and stops in his tracks. I take a look back at the angel and then at the entrance to the lightless tomb.The rising sun begins to cast its rays of light further and further, and the light radiates to the entrance of the tomb and shines forth to light up the inside. I still proceed slowly, step by step, until I reach the entrance. This gigantic boulder that seals the tomb next to me must weigh tons, and it seems almost impossible to move by a mere one man’s strength.I tip toe to the entrance, not wanting to enter, and peak inside. There is a long, rectangular table- like flat rock bed that the body would lay eternally on, but there is no body lying there!The tomb is empty!All that remains is a few white linen sheets scattered across the rock bed that would cover the body. With eyes widened and shocked to my core, I quickly turn to look back at the angel for an explanation. He just stands there with a big smile on his face looking at me.Suddenly his gaze goes from my eyes to inside the tomb and the angel waves his hand as if he was greeting someone past me. I spin around to see who he is waving to and this time, I enter inside the tomb without hesitation. Seated on the edge of the rock bed holding the linens is another glorious angel!The seated angel waves back to my messenger angel and smiles from ear to ear. He rolls up the linens into a pile and places them onto the tomb’s floor.“Where is His body?” I ask the angel frantically, trying to find out where someone has taken Him.“Do not be dismayed or worried my friend.” The angel says as he points up to the sky, “For He is risen!” he proclaims gallantly to me loud enough for all of creation to hear!The angel continued, “He is now at the right hand of God, having gone into Heaven, and all have been subjected to Him.”I look up to the bright clear sky, knowing that He is up there somewhere, and mouth ‘Thank you’ as I begin to walk back to the angel that has shown me all of this truth.“Do you now understand?” asks my messenger angel once we meet up in front of the tomb. I nod my head with a resounding yes. He asks another question, “Do you now know what you must do?”With a confident and determined Yes I answer out loud, the angel tells me “Close your eyes. It is time to go back” as he spreads his angelic wings and wraps his mighty arms around me once again.Within milliseconds I feel the ground beneath my feet cracking and shaking once again, and I open my eyes. Looking down at my feet I see the almost shattered glass floor with the scarlet colored LIFE written on it, and the infernal lake of fire below.I am back in this sin infested, claustrophobic prison cage with the fate of my eternal destination dangling above the fires that await me if I don’t believe what I was shown.  The demons outside my cage encircle and snare and hiss at me with unrelenting vile and hatred.One demon stops and lets out a sinister laugh as he sticks its hand back in the cage and picks up the hourglass and stands it back upright. The draining sand of time has continued its countdown once again.I look up and to the side of the cage and the only glow of light and goodness shining in this place is my messenger angel hovering close by.  Our eyes lock and he smiles and nods to me, as if giving me the signal that now is the time. I nod my head back to him, fold my hands into a prayer stance and kneel down onto the glass door of the prison cage.“Dear Lord” I say with a convicted but believing, triumphant tone in my voice.The demons squawk and screech in bewilderment, snarling and swiping at me with their razor sharp claws and fangs.  Some of them crash their own bodies into the cage, swaying it back and forth, trying relentlessly to stop me from my moment of salvation.My messenger angel pulsates a brighter and brighter holy light as he emerges from looking like a messenger to warrior angel. He un-sheaths his glorious illuminating sword of righteousness from his shoulder, spreads his rapturous wings and charges the demons.The everlasting cosmic battle of good versus evil, light versus darkness, truth and love versus hatred and deception rages on. The spiritual battle for my individual soul climaxes outside the cage in front of me.“Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask you for your forgiveness. I believe that You died on the cross for my sins, and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You into my heart and my life. I want to trust and follow You. You are my Lord and Savior. Amen.”The nanosecond I finished my prayer and accepted the Lord into my heart, I heard the faint, falling screams of the failed and defeated demons outside as they fell further and further down to the abyss.The once cracked and splintered glass floor instantaneously sparkled and glistened to a restored, smooth surface. The scarlet, blood stained word LIFE engraved on the floor now transformed into a pure white etching. My crimson prisoner jumpsuit slothed off of my body like dead skin, revealing a white shining holy linen to be permanently adorned in.BOOM! The colorless, radiating warm holy explosion decimated my prison bars into a nothingness and lit up the surroundings around me. The lake of fire was gone, I am eternally redeemed and set free from my sins. I am made a new creation in the Lord. All because of His grace.Looking around, I am no longer surrounded by darkness, sin and death, but my warmth and light and forgiveness.  My entire body, inside and out, is covered by the everlasting joy and love of the Holy Spirit, given to me by the Lord.I have an immediate and an all encompassing peace in my heart and soul, for I am now made right with God, because of grace through faith in the Lord Jesus. I will continue to walk with the Lord all the days of my life, for I am now a child of God’s and co-heir with Christ in His eternal kingdom