Now I saw heaven opened, and behold,
a white horse.
And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True,
and in righteousness He judges and makes war.
His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns.
He had a name written that no one knew except Himself.
He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood,
and His name is called The Word of God.
And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean,
followed Him on white horses.
And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:
KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
~ Revelation 19:11, 13, 14, 16
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Heaven, three days later.
Michael and Gabriel were riding their sires to the front of the Lord’s army. Above the ambient canter of hoof beats I heard Mashiach-Nagid, our Messiah-King, commanding the Archangel to get ready to blow his trumpet, which would signal our march toward earth.
My training as an angel of the Lord was to culminate in this moment, being at Mashiach-Nagid’s side in His penultimate battle with Lucifer. We had been given a glimpse of the battle developing at Megiddo. They were like ants, the soldiers that numbered in the millions, who had gathered at Armageddon, peppering every inch of its capacious topography as far as the eye could see.
At the enemy command post was Antichrist himself, he whom Scripture called the Beast, who was responsible for the worst suffering mankind had ever known in the past seven years. Left to his devices, the worst peril was yet to befall humanity. For little did the humans realize that Antichrist, who was working for his father, Satan, had gathered them together to make war against Almighty God. And if the Lord did not intervene, one more time, in mankind’s affairs, none of these soldiers nor the civilian survivors of the Great Tribulation would be found alive at the end of the battle. To be sure, earth could not endure the fallout of a nuclear holocaust.
Steadying myself on my horse, I searched among the hundreds of thousands of the Lord’s saints for my brother, Ari. I spotted him beside Jeremy Reisig and his kin, Eran. Ari seemed to have intuited to my thoughts. He turned on his steed to look over his shoulder. He caught my eye and, then, nodded in my direction.
I nodded back.
How I loved Ariel, the angel, he who had never shied from a complex encounter, whose unswerving faith in the Lord and unwavering loyalty to his company had made him a darling of the elders.
But I loved Ari, my human brother, too. Sure, he had his shortcomings, like any other human being. But he had always been the perfect brother to me. He had been the firstborn of the Halflings, and I the last. He had been the leader of the Halflings, and I the littlest of us. But not one time had he ever put me down using derisive language or talked down to me with a superior air. Not once had he made me feel that my existence was of no consequence or that my opinions counted for nothing.
For six years, he had been my closest human companion, the one who would take me out for a night in the town whenever he could; or sit up to write a lay with me and help me with my Aramaic script; or tutor me in tap dancing, in sword play and in the violin; indeed, Ari was the one who made sure I didn’t get too lonely whenever the elders had been in deployment abroad. He had also been my comrade in spiritual warfare, who had selflessly kept watch over me during some of our battles together, even saving my life on several occasions.
How familiar Ariel was to me – but he was a little different now. We both were: in heaven, we had been given a glorified body, just like the resurrected saints. Never again would we grow tired, or fall ill, or suffer pain. Never again would we despair of frequently being let down by our weaknesses, shortcomings and unrealized longings. And never again would we cower with dread in the face of evil and death.
All my brothers, the ones that had been living with the aftermaths of trauma: they included Eran and Jeremy Reisig, my sibling Ari, and I . . . all of us were finally free of our lingering post-trauma effects, which the humans called PTSD. Most important of all, none of us lacked anything and wanted for nothing, for in heaven we were free to participate in the Father’s unlimited knowledge.
From before the foundations of the universe were laid, this had been the Father’s beneficent will for humanity. This had been the Lord’s boundless will for all His sons and daughters.
Yes, I loved Ariel. And I would forevermore have Ariel with me. I would never be apart from him again. Just as I would never again be apart from Michael and Gabriel, or from all of the Lord’s angels whom I dearly loved.
I was home: I had had a taste of heaven and I would never have to leave. I would forevermore be with the Lord, my God, who loved me.
I looked around me. There were the Lord’s angels, Uriel, Raphael and Remiel, making their way to the head of the pack before joining themselves with Michael and Gabriel.
There were the angels Abishael, Uzziel and Jediael as well, scattered among the saints of Almighty God. This mammoth gathering of the Lord’s elect and chosen was the most complete and astronomical to be had in any one place; the place being heaven, in which was their citizenship, as covenanted to them by the heavenly Father.
Heaven was full.
I continued to search among the familiar faces around me: there, in back, were the angels Shelumiel and Haziel; and even farther back, Shimael and Asahel. I gave them a courteous nod. They returned the gesture.
These were some of the chiefs of Mashiach-Nagid’s army: we were indeed the King’s imperial army. And Mashiach-Nagid’s colossal army and our celestial equines looked valiant, able and resolute, primed to make our triumphant march into earth with our King.
In addition to Mashiach-Nagid’s army, the saints of God – those that had been given the right of adoption to be called sons of God – were also mounted on gigantesque white horses. Numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the rest of the Bene Ha Elohim had positioned themselves behind the LORD and His faithful.
We were, as always, ready to serve the LORD and those who had the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the KING of Kings, the LORD of Lords, the WORD of GOD.
I heard the Word of God issue His command with a loud voice and the Archangel’s trumpet sounded.
†
