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

everyone? We’ll go to see about funeral arrangements and try to determine how much they knew and what they are thinking now. You know the saddest part about this, don’t you?”
    Irene nodded. “Of course, Rafe. She is only the first. Maybe some who follow will be less surprising, but as the children of the Tribulation come of age, this is only the beginning of death during the Millennium.”
----
    Raymie Steele knew that had it not been for the Rapture, he would have been long since dead. He had been twelve years old when Jesus shouted from the clouds and the trumpet sounded and he and his mother disappeared from their beds in the twinkling of an eye. He would have been nineteen at the Glorious Appearing, but his glorified body made him look more like a man in his midtwenties, and there he had stayed despite having now lived for 112 years.
    He retained a crisp memory of his childhood despite the intervening aeon. Simple, believing, trusting, naïve—that’s how he would have described his prepubescent self. He loved his family, adored his mother, and worried about and prayed for his father and sister. How he rejoiced with the angels when Rayford and Chloe Steele became believers.
    It was no stretch for Raymie to understand why one-hundred-year-olds would still be referred to as children now. People aged slowly and time seemed to pass quickly. Things he hadn’t given much thought to as a child—war, pestilence, disease, violence, crime—were virtually nonexistent, and he realized that this largely accounted for the longevity of the population. He had to chuckle.
That and the promise of
almighty God.
    How bizarre it had been to enjoy long, rambling, interesting conversations with his parents. He had gone from an obedient, sometimes challenging—especially to his irresponsible, promise-breaking father—youngster to an adult overnight, and most striking was that he suddenly enjoyed an adult’s intellect as well. It had been new to him to realize that practically every subject of discussion had intricate layers of meaning, things that had to be examined and ferreted out in order to understand.
    He enjoyed having become a favorite among the children who visited what he had come to refer to as Chloe and Cameron’s Cosmic Day Care Center. COT was a handy acronym for Children of the Tribulation, of course, but Raymie enjoyed teasing his sister about her recompense from the Lord turning into full-time babysitting.
    Plainly, it was more than that. Because these kids showed up as blank slates and the only convert prospects in the world, Raymie considered his work as important as any in the kingdom. Nothing gave him greater joy than explaining to children old enough to understand that despite being born and raised in homes of believers and in a society where every adult was a follower of Christ, still they had to come to faith in Jesus on their own and for themselves.
    In his dwelling, not far from where his parents frequently returned from their efforts in Indonesia, Raymie portrayed on his walls photos of the hundreds of children he had prayed with as they trusted Christ for salvation over the years. He thought about also pinning up his prime targets, but he needn’t be reminded of them. God kept them at the forefront of his mind daily.
    While Raymie wondered what a normal life might have been like, with dating and love and marriage and parenthood, he found it convenient to not be distracted by such things while immersed in a life of service to Christ. As he prayed for the children under his charge, the Lord gave him the assurance that his efforts would nearly always be successful.
    So now, for the first time in nearly a century, Raymie was confused. Had life been way too easy? Certainly. Was this tragedy—the death of a former colleague—a glimpse of how things would be as the kingdom became gradually infiltrated by sin?
    Raymie was sad. He was shaken. He had been duped by a girl not much younger than he. And he knew