The Book of Jacob

Today’s the day I changed. Standing in the desert with blood on my hands and evil on all sides, I changed, but it was too late to save my soul. My name is Jacob Cooper, and it’s my belief that God’s purpose for me on earth was to be a cautionary tale for all that followed. I believe it’s too late for me, but it’s my hope that those that follow will benefit from my m

The day my wife, Joy, and I were reborn as Christians was one of the happiest of my life. Both of us thought of ourselves as God’s warrior on earth. They fought every day against the mongrel races and the sick sexual perverts that gave the country we loved a bad name. They boasted how they used their faith as a weapon to avenge God.

 I was so sure of the path that God wanted us to follow that it never even occurred to me that I was being led astray.

It all started one morning when I was reading aloud from the Bible while Joy cooked breakfast. We were interrupted by a rapid knocking at the front door. I opened the door, and our friend Nancy ran in, all excited.

“The rapture happened,” She blurted out, trying to catch her breath.

“What are you talking about?” Joy asked.

“The rapture. It happened last night. Haven’t you been looking at the news?”

I went over and turned the news. And was shocked to see that they reported that the rapture had happened in the middle of the night.

“If you are just joining us early this morning, a large number of people disappeared,” the man on the news said, showing photos from security cameras where people just vanished. “We have reported that a man dressed in white robes calling himself Arch Angel Michael appeared yesterday on the temple mount and announced that it would happen. However, the event was dismissed as a stunt.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Joy said.

“I’ve already checked, and the gay family on the corner are gone.”

“Burring in hell were they out to be,” I said with a smile.

“Along with the colored family in the house next to me,” Nancy added.

“Glory to God,” I said. “You should get Andy, and let’s celebrate,” I said to Nancy.

“Andy is in hell,” Nancy admitted. “That may shock you, but he was always telling me that Jesus didn’t like my tough love. He said it was just hatred wrapped in fake love, and that’s not what Jesus or God wanted. I would’ve loved to see the look on his face when he arrived in hell.”

“I’m sorry, Nancy,” Joy said.

“It is what it is. It’s not like I didn’t try and tell Andy that God loved us more than the mongrels, and we were the ones to be saved, but you can lead a horse to water,” Nancy said, shaking her head.

The news guy reported that a large number of communities like Jews and gays were gone.

“Why aren’t we in heaven?” Joy asked.

“Maybe this is heaven,” Joy said.

“I think this is just a waiting place, and someone will come and take us the rest of the way,” I said.

I hoped I was right, and for the next couple of days, we prayed morning, noon, and night but nothing happened. On the third day, the news stopped broadcasting. Nothing but static on every channel.  

“You’re talking crazy,” I told Joy when she suggested that we had been left behind.

“I thought we would go to heaven while the others would stay on earth with the devil and fight to defeat him,” Joy said.

“We are just in a holding area. To make sure we are worthy to enter God’s kingdom,” minister Harding said when he came by to check in on us.

The next day Joy was worried when Nancy didn’t show up for their morning prayer and went down to her house to check on her.

“The house looked like a fight had happened with lots of stuff broken, and I found blood in the backyard. It looked like Nancy was hurt, and then whoever did it dragged her off,” Joy said, shaken by what she found.  

“It’s Andy that did it to her. He has marked her for his evil ways, and they found out and took her to hell,” I said.

“It also looks like Ruth Olsen was taken. She was a good person. Why take here?” Joy asked.

“Gluttony. God hats, fatties. I know she prayed for years for God to help her, but I think she has been one of the forsaken for a long time,” I said, sure in my faith.

The truth was that it had me worried also, and I felt so uneasy that I went to the church to discuss this with minister Harding.

I arrived at the church and found it thrashed, and it looked like someone had tried to set it on fire, but it didn’t catch. I entered the church and saw Harding crucified on the cross upside down. I turned to leave and ran right into Rachelle Myers and her eight-year-old son Dominic.

I disliked Rachelle and her son. About a year ago, I saw her laughing as her son made a homeless guy dance for the money he was going to give him.

“We are teaching our son that everyone must work for what God provides,” Rachelle said.

“Who did this,” I demanded, pointing to minister Harding.

“We did,” Rachelle said as several other members of the congregation came out of hiding. “The Lord, our God, came to me in a vision and told me to do this.”

“God told you to kill?” I asked.

“Yes. Along with my army of the Righteous.”

“Your joking?”

“If I were you, Jacob, I would be worried about my wife. After all, she tried to hide who she really is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped back.

“Oh, Jacob. Poor, poor Jacob. If I were you, I would go home and pray for your wife’s soul and pry that my army doesn’t find a reason to come for you.”

I took off running for my house, hoping and praying that Joy was okay, but I arrived and found her dead on our front lawn. She was also crucified upside down with a sign that read unworthy.

All of this was too much to take, and I quickly gathered up some things and all the emergency rations I could carry and set off for the desert area not far from my home. I needed time to think. To try and understand why God had forsaken me and to figure out my next move.

Along my journey, I was shocked to see people I knew, who I thought I knew to be good Christians, doing horrific things all in the name of God. It started me wondering if I had let the devil creep inside of me slowly. Like a frog put in a cold pot of water with the heat turned up slowly. Had I been helping evil without even noticing it because it happened gradually. I looked back on so much of the last couple of years of my life and felt that while I said I was doing it all for God, maybe, just maybe, I had been doing the devil’s work.

After all, how many wars had been fought in the name of the prince of peace. However, what if the devil was working his evil ways on me now? What if the devil was leading me further away from God each day. When the day to fight comes, how will I know who to fight with?

These thoughts plagued me as I walked, and when I could walk no further into the desert, I made camp. For the next three days, I read my Bible and prayed. On the third morning, I woke up and felt that I should not doubt the path that God put me on. While I was thinking and staring into the fire, the angel Gabriel appeared to me that night.

“Greetings. The Lord is with you always. Because of your devotion, he has chosen you to help his son Jesu who is on his way back, as foretold. Prepare to receive him and help him fight the evil.”

I was so overjoyed by the news I wept for hours. God had heard me. I was not forsaken after all. I waited in anticipation of Jesus’ return, and on the fourth night, while I sat by the fire, an Arab man walked out of the dark.

“Jacob, it is so nice to meet you,” the man said.

I wasted no time and pulled out my gun and shot the man dead. Suddenly the sky was filled with thunder and lightning and the angel Michael appeared.

“Your God demands an answer why you did that!”

“He is Arab,” I answered Michael, unsure what the issue was.

“Of course, he was Arab. Jesus was born in Nazareth. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Fake news,” I said; after all, everyone knows that Jesus is white.

Michael vanished, and a man’s laughter emerged from the dark.

“Who’s there?”

A tall man with dark hair and eyes dressed in black walked into the light, and I knew right away it was Lucifer.”

“It is me, your God,” Lucifer said

“You are not my God,” I said, standing quickly and moving back.

“Dear boy, of course, I am. You have been doing my bidding for years.”

“No, no. Lies.”

“You have been, unknowingly, spreading hatred all over. It was so easy to fool all of you. I’ve been doing it slowly for a very long time. I got you to hate most of God’s children. People of color and really anyone different. I even got you to not wear a mask and keep spreading death and disease. I even got the Bible to oppress women. After all, I got Eve to eat that apple; after that, I couldn’t have women being able to question the evil seeds I was planting.  Most of you didn’t even think twice about it.”

“You had Joy killed, didn’t you?” I asked, filled with rage and shaking.

“Yes. She was starting to question things, and I knew, in the end, she would go to the other side and take you with her, and I couldn’t have that.  After all, you might have confused to all those people you’ve killed over the years in my name,” Lucifer said, smiling like a proud parent.

Somehow, I knew deep down he was right. I had hidden the killings from Joy because I feared she wouldn’t understand what I needed to do as a man to protect my family, my faith, my country.

“I did that for God, not you!”

“Yes, you did, but the day you started to spread hate and not love is the day you became mine. That’s what’s so brilliant about my plan. I made you into a sainting worshiper, and you not only did it wilily but never even questioned it.”

I have written this down in my journal, hoping that whoever finds it will not make the same mistake I did. Because I didn’t listen to Jesus’ teachings and dwelled in ignorance, I may have doomed us all. I believed that I was transforming myself into the divine, but all I was doing was spreading hatred and evil.  Remember, the answer is love, not hate.