Man of God

 

“This…this is not salvation.” Pastor Bakora said.

“It is salvation.” The Man said with a wry smile.

“No. It’s damnation. You are damning me to your evil ways. I won’t let you, in Jesus’s name. Only God gets to decide my fate.”

“Well, then, good sir, if God truly cared for you, why would those men out there easily gain access to your compound? Shouldn’t it be surrounded by the blood of Jesus to keep evil out?”

“This is a test. Yes, this is a test, a test of my faith from the Most High. Like he tested Job and Jesus in the desert.” Pastor Bakora said, cackling as he sank to his knees and raised his eyes to the sky, his face contrite, his eyes animated in the exuberance of someone who had seen his salvation. “I am ready, Father! To sit by your right-hand side!” He shouted to the heavens.

The guest chuckled as he watched Pastor Bakora in amusement.

“You overestimate yourself, my good friend,” The Man said. “Because the 411, as you humans call it these days, in this part of our world, is that you are a man of no faith. You neither have the belief nor the anointing you claim.”

“No. That’s not true!” Pastor Bakora fired back, his face twisting in agony as veins ran down his temple as he tried desperately to fight for his belief, his faith. He had dedicated his life to Jesus since he was a teenager. And here was this loser telling him that he had never had enough faith to move mountains. Who was he and what gave him the right to speak to a man of God like that?

“Who are you to speak to a man of God like that?” Pastor Bakora fired back.

The guest chuckled and Bakora felt a cold wind blow past him. He began experiencing what he could on describe as nightmarish visions as the face of the man started contorting into various faces of people long dead. He jumped back and screamed.

“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!” He cried as he rushed to the door and swung it open. Three other men stood outside, shadows in the dark. A dreary wind was blowing. The three men were advancing towards his house, slowly, but deliberately. Each of their steps made the sky tremble and split the earth beneath them. Pastor Bakora screamed and slammed the door shut. He was trapped! He leaned against it, his eyes wide in horror as he turned his frightened eyes to The Man who still seated, watching him with mild bemusement.

Pastor Bakora closed his eyes and began praying. This was nothing but a nightmare. Nothing, but a bad dream. He was sleeping in his bed and all he had to do was try to force himself awake. He slapped himself a few times, called on the Lord’s name and started punching himself.

“Wake up! Wake up!” He shouted to himself.

When he opened his eyes, he was staring into those piercing eyes of The Man. He was still leaning against the door, and outside, the thunder still cracked and the earth still shook.

“W…w…who are you?” Pastor Bakora cried, holding his hands over his face so that he wouldn’t stare at those entrancing piercing eyes any longer because they were making him experience a sense of dread like never before, that kind of existential dread that comes when staring into the eyes of death.

“Take a guess.” The man said, taking pleasure in tormenting him.

“T…t…the Devil,” Pastor Bakora stuttered, still hiding his eyes.

The Man chuckled and shook his head.

“No. I am not the Devil, so you can rest easy,” The Man laughed. “I am neither a devil nor a saint, neither the darkness nor the light, neither evil nor good. I am eternity itself, you see. I am that which no living being has ever escaped and that which no future being will ever escape. I am the unpreventable reality, a being of many languages. I am the bringer of grief and sorrow to most, a savior to a few others. That which has life ultimately becomes me. I - am Death.”

Pastor Bakora let out a short scream. This man was man. He scampered past The Man and the corridor opened up in front of him like a road to salvation. He rushed down the corridor into the kitchen, where the backdoor was. He pulled it open and there, staring back at him with countless eyes, was an endless void of darkness. Trapped.

He almost screamed. He almost cried out to the Lord. But he didn’t. Instead, he broke down and started crying. He closed the door and sank to the floor in despair. Death was already in the room with him, standing over him and looking down at him with those intense, penetrating eyes.

“S…so, you are here to take me. To take my life?” He stammered.

Death chuckled and shook his head. Pastor Bakora could hear it now. his voice. It…it didn’t sound human. How could he have missed it? That voice was deep and echoey, as though he was speaking from a tunnel. It was an eerie voice that sounded like a mash of different voices all coming together and trying to sound like one.

“No,” He said, shaking his head. “In fact, I am here to give you life, my friend. I am here to give you life beyond that of a mere mortal. I am here to give you eternity.”

“W…w…why?”

“Because you deserve it,” The man said. “Worked all your life for this.”

“I worked for God.”

“No. You say you worked for God. But you worked only for yourself – using God’s name.”

“No, no, no, no,” Pastor Bakora cried, scampering away from the man and crawling under the table next to the cooking stove. He curled up under the table, sobbing, praying, cursing. The man walked up to the table, but did not bend down to speak to him. Instead he stood by it. His shoes pointed at Pastor Bakora, and no matter where he tried to hide under that table, Death’s pale shoes seemed to always follow him.

“No need to hide or run away from me,” The man said. “This is what your life was leading up to.”

“No, no, no, no,” Pastor Bakora said in between sobs. “I…I…I have always worked for God. I…I…I…I have led people to salvation. It…it…it can’t be that you are the people sent to…to collect my soul.”

The man’s feet suddenly vanished right in front of Pastor Bakora’s eyes. He appeared right next to him under the table, sending Pastor Bakora into a panic. The pastor hit his head repeatedly on the table as he fought and struggled to get out from under the table. But Death was holding him tight.

“What’s the panic, Bakora?” Death said.

“Stay away from me!” Bakora screamed, trying to wriggle free from Death’s grip.

“Do you often wonder what salvation looks like to a man like you, Pastor Bakora?” Death asked.

Pastor Bakora was not having it. He wrestled for hours, maybe even days, because time seemed to have stopped moving normally, but no matter how long and how fiercely he fought, there were no signs he was getting free from death’s grip. With strength waning from his body, he finally stopped fighting and slumped against the wall. He looked up through the spaces on the table to see some light streaming in through the window. Daylight was upon him.

“You s…say you are neither evil nor good, yet here you are, m…mocking me.” Pastor Bakora. “Isn’t that not what evil does, mock and tempt the men of faith?”

“Blame the company I keep,” Death said dispassionately. “Besides, you are not a man of the light as you claim, so there is no incentive for me to play nice. But my tone is very different when in the presence of people with the light. I certainly was a lot more affable with the people at the church; well, at least a few of them who were actually believers. Many there were just like you – wearing a cloak of faith but their hearts empty of any belief. I also mocked and taunted them as I am doing with you now.”

“S…so…so what’s going to happen to me?” A trembling Pastor Bakora asked as the walls closed in on him and threatened to bury him. It felt as though he was watching dirt get shoveled into his grave.

“Hades is coming after me. He will take you as part of his army. You will fight for them.”

“No, no, no, no. I am a man of God,” Pastor Bakora cried, not quite vehemently as before. Instead, there was resignation in his voice, the voice of a man who knew that he could no longer win this fight yet who was still trying anyway. “I cast out demons and prayed for the sick and the downtrodden, just as the Bible says, just as God wanted.”

Death chuckled, its laughter echoing into the eerie darkness around them like a forceful gale down a valley. A harsh wind blew outside as Death laughed, slamming the iron sheet against the wooden rafters. He put a hand on Pastor Bakora’s shoulder as a parent would on their erratic child they were about to discipline.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Pastor Bakora,” He said. “We all know that you were a charlatan, okay? No demons hold a grudge against you because you were of no harm to them. You lacked the faith and the anointing to cast out evil. All you did was simply play a character, a role. No being in heaven knows you like that. With Hades is where you belong; this is who you will be fighting for - for all eternity. You have no choice now. You made your choice as a mortal. Now, you must suffer the consequences. This is what salvation looks like to a man like you. Hades is coming for you. You can’t change that now.”