Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 8) (33 page)

The voice drowned out Belial’s thoughts. “Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

Belial now realized he was not being thrown into Tartarus with the others. He was being spared, hampered though he was by the binding that grew over him. Well, if he still had the power of Rome, then he would use it. He thought of Yahweh,
You may have won this battle over Messiah and his mother, Israel. But I will make war on the rest of her seed. This Serpent will become a seven-headed dragon, a new Leviathan, whose head you will no longer be able to crush. Then what will you —.

Belial stopped with painful shock. His eyes burned with the brightness of the throne of God. His ears were filled with a piercing ringing. Everything went white.

• • • • •

Jesus was returned from the divine throne room to the bowels of Mount Hermon.

The battle was over. The Watcher gods were defeated and bound by the angels, laying at the lake edge of the Abyss. The wedge tactic had worked. The gods were overcome in short order by the victorious forces of Mikael and the angels. The stakes had been high and the enemy fought with desperation like the stars of heaven. But they had been so inebriated and bamboozled that they were simply not capable of standing before the army of God.

Jesus yelled to the resurrected warriors, “Each of you, grab a bound deity. We are taking these sons of Belial down to Tartarus!”

• • • • •

When the burning brightness and piercing ringing stopped, Belial opened his eyes and saw that he was returned to earth.

He was in Rome in the palace of Caesar.

He looked around.
No. This could not be true. Could it?

But it was. Yahweh had kicked him out of the divine council and took away his legal authority over the Seed of Abraham. He could no longer accuse or condemn the people of God. He could not stop their proclamation of the Kingdom of God and Messiah. He could not stop the great ingathering that had already begun. He was spiritually bound.

But Yahweh had given Belial back his earthly power.
Why?
he thought.
Is Yahweh a bullying child playing games? Does he need me like a pet of chaos in order to prove his power and control? Pathetic.

Well, if Belial couldn’t touch the people of God himself, he would simply get his earthly minions to do so. He would marshal his kingdom of iron and clay. He would kill them all.

The bound bodies of the gods sank into the depths of the Abyss on their way down to Hades. They were tied in a train of defeat by the Cherubim hair of the angels. They were accompanied by the resurrected warriors who had defeated them.

When they broke through the watery sky of Hades and landed on the ground, Demas saw that they were on the huge mountain of the north. He remembered that this was the celestial storehouse from which flowed the rivers of Hades, including the River of Fire that Jesus had parted for them to cross to the Living Waters. To the south was Mount Zion and then Sinai, to the west was the Mountain of the Dead and Abraham’s Bosom.

Jesus said to the warriors now guarding the train of captives, “We must journey to the far east, beyond the ends of the earth.”

Demas knew where they were going: Tartarus.

The archangels ran ahead of them to prepare the way.

But when the train of captives made it down the foot of the mountain, they saw their way blocked by two huge twenty foot tall fiery beings. They appeared to be humanoid, but were covered in flames of fire that never consumed the figure. Then the two were joined by six more who seemed to peer down upon the company with cold observation. Like winged fiery serpents ready to strike.

Some of the warriors drew their weapons in fear. These gargantuans had flaming swords as well that were reminiscent of the “Flame of the Whirling Sword” in Eden. This would not go well for the resurrected humans. They felt outmatched by the divine. The whirling swords seemed to move and operate as independent beings, which effectively amounted to a doubling of their forces.

Jesus gestured to his company to put away their weapons. These were guardians of the sacred mountain. They were now under his authority.

The huge heavenly beings lined up in a pathway to the east and Jesus led the train out into the vast desert region leading to the Great Sea.

By the time they made it to the far ends of the earth and were on the shore of the Great Sea, the angels met them with large rafts they had made for their journey.

They linked the rafts together, and Demas saw Jesus on the waterfront with his hands raised in prayer. He wondered if the Son of God was going to part the Abyss as he parted the River of Fire. But the water did not separate. The only movement he saw was the spiny back fins and scales of a large serpent break the surface on its way toward them from the depths. Leviathan. The sea dragon of chaos had been tamed, domesticated by the Son of God, and put to his purposes, which now involved pulling their train of rafts to the outer reaches beyond the Great Sea.

The train of warriors and captives landed beyond the waters and Leviathan left them. They entered the desert wasteland of
Tohu Wabohu
. It was a world of chaos and disorder, of darkness and silence, with no sky above and no foundations beneath.

They made their way to a single large mountain of jagged rock, that stretched upward like a grasping hand: the prison-house of the Watchers.

Despite being in the company of mighty gibborim, Demas shivered. He knew that the Guardians of Tartarus were waiting for them.

The captive train arrived at the base of the mountain. They prepared to make the trek up the steep pathway. But an earthquake interrupted their plans and threw them all into the dirt.

Then the ground around them exploded open in seven places. Rocks and dirt covered the warriors and archangels as seven fifteen-feet tall warrior beings stood before them.

The primeval saints, Noah, Methuselah, and their kin recognized them. They were the Rephaim, souls of the giant warrior kings who had been thrown down to the underworld during the Titanomachy of primordial days. They were tall, powerful, and carried strangely shaped glaive weapons, crafted in the pit of Sheol. They were long blades at the end of a lance that the Rephaim could use to strike wide and long at a distance. They could take out entire groups of warriors with one swath.

Six Rephaim surrounded the train on either side, and one stood at the front. Strangely, it was a blinded Rapha who relied upon sound and smell to face its quarry. It didn’t look any less intimidating.

The company of saints took defensive stances in their gauntlet of underworld giants.

Methuselah and Edna stepped into the front by Jesus and the archangels. The lead Rapha had killed Edna’s family, and Methuselah had given him a permanent limp with his sword. Later in the days of Noah, Uriel had visited the guardian and taken out its eyes as a favor for Methuselah and Edna.

Methuselah said, “Let us help you with these, my Lord. We have a grudge to finish paying back.”

Before any battle could begin, the Rephaim all knelt down to one knee and bowed their heads toward Jesus.

The humans were stunned. But they quickly realized what was taking place. The Guardians of Tartarus gave obeisance to their Lord, the king of heaven and earth and under the earth.

Methuselah and Edna felt their revenge transform into redemption.

The Rephaim chanted a haunting verse with their strange ghostlike voices as the captives passed through their gauntlet on their way up the mountain.

Sheol beneath is stirred up
to meet you when you come;

it rouses the Rephaim to greet you,
all who were leaders of the earth;

it raises from their thrones
all who were kings of the nations.

All of them will answer
and say to you:

‘You too have become as weak as we!
You have become like us!’

Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
the sound of your harps;

maggots are laid as a bed beneath you,
and worms are your covers.

They reached the cave opening a thousand feet above and led the Seventy inside to the pit of Tartarus.

It was said that Tartarus was as deep below the earth as the earth was below the heavens. It was the remotest point in the cosmos from Yahweh’s heavenly throne above the waters.

It had changed somewhat since Noah had been temporarily held there in antediluvian days. The rock was still glass smooth, but the pit had been widened to accommodate the two hundred rebellious Watchers from the days of Noah. Its walls were covered with perpetual flames that did not produce light, like a chasm of fire that dissolved into the deepest darkness. No sounds could be heard from below, not merely because it was of incalculable depth, but because the acoustics of the pit were such that instead of creating an echo chamber for sound, it swallowed everything up in silence.

Now the last of those rebellious angels, the Seventy, were lined up along the rim of the chasm, still bound and in fear of their destiny.

Jesus nodded to Gabriel, who took out his trumpet and gave a long blast.

Then, the Archangels spoke, no, they sang a proclamation of Messiah’s triumph.

Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts.
Who was, and is, and is to come.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

I have set my King
on Zion, my holy mountain.”

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.

For Messiah suffered once for sins,
the righteous for the unrighteous,

that he might bring humanity to God,
being put to death in the flesh
but made alive in the spirit,

In which he now proclaims victory to the spirits in prison.

He has disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Angels, authorities and powers have been subjected to him.

The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

It was the Messianic secret, the mystery hidden for ages but now revealed. That the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Man, the Son of God, would conquer the principalities and powers in the heavenly places as the Suffering Servant. That he would dispossess them of their allotted territories and inherit all the earth as the seed of Abraham, the Seed of Eve.

I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed
.

Being made perfect through his suffering, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. As a high priest, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself
.

This was the Messianic secret which God decreed before the ages for the glory of his holy ones. None of the principalities and powers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Instead, those heavenly powers were now lined up along the precipice of their demise.

They were shoved into the pit.

They descended into the darkness and the silence to await the Great Judgment.

• • • • •

High above Hades, in the assembly hall of Mount Hermon, Jesus and seven archangels pulled themselves out of the black flaming waters of the Abyss. Uriel found the satchel of weapons he had left here during the battle of Mount Hermon. He pulled out the last weapon of the sack: the battle hammer of Ba’al.

He handed it to Jesus who took it in both hands. It was large and heavy, crafted for a god. It had been used for so much evil through history.

Now it would be used one last time for good.

He looked around the cavern at the sparkling gem laden stalagmites and stalactites. He saw the throne of the underworld across the lake, upon whose evil courtly majesty had sat Ereshkigal, Ba’al, and Belial. He peered at the flames flitting across the surface of the Abyss and the dark corners of this assembly hall of wickedness.

He said, “Good riddance,” and swung high the hammer.

It contacted with the floor of the assembly hall. A massive tremor spread from the epicenter and rattled the entire mountain around them. A crevice opened where the hammer had hit. Stalactites and rocky debris fell from overhead like dangerous missiles piercing the ground around their feet.

Yet once more, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the
Lord
of hosts
.

Jesus dropped the hammer and they ran for the exit, the secret tunnel that led out to the foothills.

The rumbling and shaking of the rock around them made it difficult to make it through the tunnel. A small cave-in almost caught Uriel at the back.

“I am all right. Keep going!”

They stumbled their way out as the inside of the mountain imploded in a cascading landslide of stone and dust.

“Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken
.

Mount Hermon rumbled as its rock and stone settled into place. The quake was felt for miles around.

The belly of wickedness had been disemboweled.

The assembly of the gods of the nations was no more.