JOSHUA TIME 611

WHEN CHRIST COMES - - -by Max LucadoYou are in your car driving home. Thoughts wander to the game you want to see or meal you want to eat, whensuddenly a sound unlike any you've ever heard fillsthe air.The sound is high above you.A trumpet?A choir?A choir of trumpets?You don't know, but you want to know.So you pull over, get out of your car, and look up. Asyou do, you see you aren't the only curious one. Theroadside has become a parking lot. Car doors are open,and people are staring at the sky. Shoppers are racingout of the grocery store.The Little League baseball game across the street hascome to a halt. Players and parents are searching theclouds. And what they see, and what you see, has neverbefore been seen.As if the sky were a curtain, the drapes of theatmosphere part. A brilliant light spills onto theearth. There are no shadows. None. From whence camethe light begins to tumble a river of color spikingcrystals of every hue ever seen and a million morenever seen. Riding on the flow is an endless fleet ofangels. They pass through the curtains one myriad at atime, until they occupy every square inch of the sky.North.South.East.West.Thousands of silvery wings rise and fall in unison,and over the sound of the trumpets, you can hear thecherubim and seraphim chanting, Holy, holy, holy.The final flank of angels is followed by twenty-foursilver-bearded elders and a multitude of souls whojoin the angels in worship.Presently the movement stops and the trumpets aresilent, leaving only the triumphant triplet: Holy,holy, holy. Between each word is a pause. With eachword, a profound reverence. You hear your voice joinin the chorus. You don't know why you say the words,but you know you must.Suddenly, the heavens are quiet. All is quiet.The angels turn, you turn, the entire world turns andthere He is.Jesus.Through waves of light you see the silhouetted figureof Christ the King.He is atop a great stallion, and the stallion is atopa billowing cloud.He opens his mouth, and you are surrounded by hisdeclaration:I am the Alpha and the Omega.The angels bow their heads.The elders remove their crowns.And before you is a Figure so consuming that you know,instantly you know:Nothing else matters.Forget stock markets and school reports.Sales meetings and football games.Nothing is newsworthy..All that mattered, matters no more....for Christ has come. .This morning when the Lord opened a window to Heaven, he saw me, and heasked:My child, what is your greatest wish for today?I responded:"Lord please; take care of the person who is reading this message, theirfamily and their special friends.They deserve it and I love them verymuch"The love of God is like the ocean, you can see its beginnings but Notitsend.ANGELS EXIST, but sometimes, since they don't all have wings we callthemFRIENDS, SUCH AS YOU.