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Charlie's Newer Posts - Spirit of the Word - Covenant Eschatology - Introductory Note - New Stuff
A Tale of Two Twins
by Charles Slagle(Unsuitable for children. Reader discretion advised.)
Once upon a time there lived two golden haired lads. They were age eleven, and they were also identical twins. Josh and Jeff did look nearly identical. However, Josh was the more intelligent, handsome, and robust of the two. From earliest childhood these boys had never known anything except abuse in its cruelest and most bizarre forms. Their natural father, Foster, age forty, exhibited a split personality that was most remarkable. That is probably why the boys’ natural mother, Karen, had disappeared within a few months after her sons were born.
Foster loved little boys. He also loved “Jeeezus.” However, his greatest loves were intimidation, sex of every description, as well as torture —and guzzling booze to help his "back pain." Beating and terrifying his wives (and concubines) into submission was one of the pastimes that "born-again" Foster relished most. (However, most of these unfortunate women, oddly enough, came into his life one by one.) And Foster especially enjoyed playing with his little boys and punishing them at the same time. He felt that asserting his authority "firmly, lovingly and decisively" was the best way of "providing them security."
So by the time the boys were toddling and beginning to talk, Foster made sure his sons knew they were secure in his love. For the smallest infractions he would beat them and beat them, and their tender skin often bore the bruises and welt marks from their father’s "loving punishment" for days afterwards. Many were the nights that he sent them to bed without supper. But often, as he tucked them in, their deeply affectionate dad then would "reconcile with them" and "console them." Born again Foster went about this by caressing his sons -- but in ways that are best not put into writing.
The boys never knew any other kind of love or discipline. So by the time they were nearing puberty all of the maltreatment, though painful, had become "normal" to them. But their father did not always employ such tactics as I have already described for his purposes of nurture and discipline. At other times when Josh or Jeff got in his way, Foster became very creative. For example, if the boys didn't appear to like something that had been served at the table, he would force them to eat live bugs, spiders and toads. When he was in a kindlier mood, their father would only force them to eat huge amounts of substances they didn't like, such as peanut butter mixed with hot sauce—or sometimes, lard or mud. In Foster's more austere moods, he burned Josh and Jeff with matches and cigarettes. He did this while he lowered his voice calmly and explained what “Jeeezuz” one day plans to do with bad boys like them...
As the boys grew older, their father began to show some favoritism toward Josh, the fairer and more overtly masculine of the two. Jeff being the more slight, weak-eyed, and gentle of the twins began to catch the larger portion of Foster's fury. Josh received the "loving caresses" more frequently, while Jeff was more often reminded of what hell would be like.
But Josh loved his weaker brother, so he did all in his power to keep the score even and to divert his dad's attention away from Jeff. Josh's efforts often succeeded well enough so that he at least got forty percent of the lashes that were dealt out. Had he not done so, Jeff probably would not have lived to reach the age of eleven. Many were the times when Jeff sobbed and pled for his life as he heard his father thunder, "You little ___ queer! I know what YOU like, but g___ d___, THIS is what you're getting!!!"
By the time the boys had reached school age, Foster, on occasions, also liked to slip into his young sons’ bedroom in the wee hours and "surprise" them with—"party time!" This happened especially after he was drunk, and Foster and his (current) woman needed something "different" to satisfy them. (Most of the time Foster came and partied on his own. However, there were times when he somehow was able to bring one of his adult female friends into the action.)
As you can imagine, Josh and Jeff became strong allies, and they managed to find ways to hide out. Also, they became increasingly clever at diverting their dad's attention when they found themselves in his presence. And when they did contrive ways to find blessed solitude, like normal boys that were deeply bonded friends, they played together and daydreamed aloud about their futures.
Then it happened. It happened close to midnight. Josh and Jeff were quietly playing with a nurf football in their bedroom. The loud music and grotesque love making happening in their dad's room had become such a common occurrence that they no longer even heard it. But suddenly.......their bedroom door burst open, and Foster appeared, grinning and fondling his favorite object.
"It's time to party, guys!" he announced, "Tomorrow is your birthday so what do you say we start celebrating?"
Then, at the same moment, the clock struck 12:00, and not only was it Josh’s twelfth birthday—but in a twinkling of an eye—he also reached the "age of accountability." Jeff, however, had been born a couple of hours later than Josh, so he had at least 120 minutes more before he reached that dreadful moment—if not a few more months, since he was the less astute of the twin boys.
"PLEASE, dad!" Josh began sobbing. "Please don't do this! PLEASE.. We're your sons, dad. Can't we just be your sons?"
"Why you little m_____ _____!, who do you think you are, sermonizing to me!" roared Foster, as he picked up a baseball bat and made a lunge at his oldest son.
But Josh nimbly leapt sideways and then forward, and thus was able to trip his father and send him sprawling. Both boys were terrified to see their naked father quickly regain his footing, so they rushed to the corner of the room beside an open window.
"I'll SHOW you how to respect your father!" raged Foster, as he staggered toward them, holding the baseball bat in a striking position.
"Oh, daddy, please don't!" the twins screamed tearfully, almost in unison.
But it was too late. Terror had left both boys mindless with only their reflexes in operation. To escape the coming wrath, they both leapt out of the open window—and plunged nineteen stories downward to their instant death. These unfortunate boys had lived in a high rise, low-income apartment.
Scene change...
"Oh GOD! G-O-D, where am I?" wails a weak and hollow voice: "I'm burning alive! Please help me out of these flames! PLEASE! Oh G-O-D, please help me! Oh dear God, where is Jeff? Please help me find him and get him out of here!"
"You are in hell now, Josh." sweetly intones a resonate voice from above. “Jeff is with Me now, and he is safe. But I do love you, Josh. I hope you know that, though I regret to tell you that you will spend eternity in these flames."
"But WHY God? What did I do to deserve this?" The baffled boy sobs uncontrollably in his agony.
"Josh, you reached the age of accountability never having acknowledged Jesus Christ as Lord of your life! You failed in this despite the fact that your born again (ahem! albeit imperfect) earthly father told you about Him repeatedly. You don't remember him telling you of—Jeeezus? All you had to do was trust and love Jeeezus. Why didn't you? Furthermore, Josh, you committed SUICIDE. And that, after talking back disrespectfully to your own father! So even if you had confessed Him as Lord, killing yourself would have been proof that you had never truly done it from your heart. Sorry, Josh, I do love you with all of my heart and I will always love you, but there's absolutely nothing I can ever do to help you. Nothing at all! That's just the way the old mop flops sometimes, I suppose... But if it is of any comfort to you, in the resurrection you will have one more chance to confess Him. For it is then that every knee shall bow and every tongue will give joyful thanks for His lordship. However, regretfully, Josh, it then will STILL be too late to do you any good. But you will have a few moments to cool off a bit and to enter into some songs of worship with all of the damned and redeemed, before you are cast into the lake of fire for eternity. Isn't that at least a little consolation, my young and tender one?"
The scene before us rapidly fades. But as we depart we are haunted with unspeakable moans of anguish that again erupt from the mouth of young Josh—mingling with billions of other cries of agony that have echoed throughout hell's vaults for eons...
And now?
An angelic anthem that once sounded 20 centuries ago to herald the birth of the Savior of the world also haunts us with bitter irony...
“Peace on earth and good will toward men.”
Epilogue...
Overcome with fear and remorse, Foster "rededicates” his life to the Lord. He has been faithfully attending a local Independent Charismatic Evangelical Baptist church for the last five years. And EVERYONE speaks so well of him too! In fact, Foster is now teaching the junior boys Sunday school class. Isn't that marvelous? That is because this deeply repentant man feels that God has given him a "special burden" for boys that are the age his sons were when they died. Foster is happy to explain his cover-up of all the grizzly details of his gruesome background on the basis that in Christ, "old things are passed away, and behold all things have become new."
He has also convinced the woman he was living with at the time of his sons' deaths to become "born again", for as much as he knew of things he could tell the authorities about HER—if she thought it necessary to "drag up the past." She thought his was a good plan of action, and so she married Foster. This very practical Christian woman now heads up the ladies missionary society in her local fellowship.
So...
(1) Foster and Samantha are now on their way to heaven, since they are both once saved always saved. Moreover, they happily testify that God has cast their sins away as far as the east is from the west, never to be remembered again! (Glory!)
(2) Poor foolish Josh, of course, is still agonizing in hell wishing (as he had always wished since he could remember) that he had never been born.
(3) And Jeff is in heaven now. And would you believe with ABSOLUTELY NO RECALL of his brother who had gone to great risks to protect him during their brief sojourn on earth? This amazing memory loss that “heaven” mercifully has granted Jeff has rendered him a zombie of sorts, since so much of his earthly personality had evolved on the basis of his many shared experiences remembered with his twin brother. But is he happy? No doubt he is. I have a pet rabbit that I think is just about as happy as Jeff.
Well folks, what you have just read is the "glad tidings" of Jesus Christ that many Christians say they “believe” and are spreading around the world—and have been believing and spreading for at least fifteen centuries: Never-Failing Love Himself, values all who perform correctly in this lifetime and bestows upon them the "gift of their heavenly reward"—but, He trashes and burns forever those who do not. (And this includes young children, perhaps far younger than Jeff. For in most quarters, popular religiosity reckons that "the age of accountability" begins—SIMPLY WHEN—a child knows the difference between right and wrong.)
Finally.....
No, I have not in all details, shared a true story. I have just used a combination of three true ones that I'm aware of as a working basis for my narrative. However, this little tale of two twins is surely representative of multiplied millions of other similar stories buried in the history of human misery.
Undoubtedly, most Christians would find themselves in a violent struggle to retain their sanity if they knew of the atrocities that occur (even in “Christian” homes) within 100 square miles of them. However, through no fault their own, they simply are unaware of the agony that many children in their own communities experience.
Yet in their blissful ignorance, many Christians apparently find it easy to glibly perpetuate unbiblical traditions that dishonor and desecrate the character of the God they sincerely serve. The very worst of those traditions is one of an endless hell that supposedly awaits (and now supposedly contains!) myriad populations of people, both young and old, who reached the mythical “age of accountability” and died without having been converted. This tradition asserts that not merely those who have heard only a perverted message of Christ and rejected it will burn in “hell” forever, but the same fate will befall billions of people who have never heard of Him at all.
If the gospel of Jesus Christ involves even—a trace—of the horrors that many of my fellow Christians currently proclaim as “good news”, I'll have to say it is the most heartbreaking news ever conceived or announced in the cosmos. The universe we inhabit is a nightmare that defies the power of human words to describe. Would to God that none of us had been born!
Yours sincerely and prayerfully,
For Light Himself to come
IN POWER
to the body of Christ,Charles Slagle