The Great Adventure

What I am sharing here is the new prologue for my Christian suspense series The Champion Trilogy, which came out in May.

THE DEVIL’S PLAN

It might have been the boardroom of any modern high rise, complete with a walnut table, swivel chairs, and an impressive view of the cityscape. But it wasn’t located in any city on earth, there were no doors to enter the room, and the view was of a historical event that many on earth would consider the turning point in earth’s history.

This room was located in the spiritual realm, a dimension that exists parallel to the physical plane that mortals call The Universe. And even though the one at the end of the table looked like he would be at home in front of any modern board meeting, he was not human. When one looked at the other three beings in the room, that became obvious.

“Impressive,” a woman/being said, as she stood by the large windows looking down on the spectacle before them. “No, that’s not the word. Flawless. His plan was flawless.” The four of them watched as four Roman soldiers collapsed beneath the crush of light flowing from two beings that descended from the sky. One stood surveying the scene, while the other walked quickly over to a large boulder that covered the entrance to a cave. The angel rolled away the boulder and entered the cave. A moment later, the angel reappeared. With him was a man—no, a God—who reflected the light that the other two beings put off.

“Shut it,” the Chairman at the end of the table said. “I’ve seen enough. We’ve all seen enough.” In response, the panorama disappeared and the wall became just another wall.

The woman turned away and faced the other three. “You know, it’s just not fair. He took on mortal form, He became a man, and He died as all men do. They why didn’t He stay dead?”

“Yes,” a dark, formless shape said, who sat next to the Chairman. “I’ve said from the beginning that God didn’t play fair. He let His son intervene, become a man. You would think we could pervert Him the same way we did everyone else on earth, but…”

“But we lost,” the fourth being said, who took the form of a hulking, scaled creature with green skin and red eyes on the opposite end of the table. The Chairman looked up with those words, and the demon flinched. Then the Chairman smiled slightly.

“Relax,” he said. “You’re not saying anything than what we are all thinking. I brought you three here because in all of Damnation I trust you to speak your minds.” The Chairman stared at each of the three beings in turn—the formless shape, the woman, the demon—before he spoke again.

“I realize that we have lost the war,” he said. “God has come up with a way out for man. There is nothing we can do about that. The question is, what do we do now? Do we sit on our hands and wait for Jesus to return and for it all to be over? I think not.”

He paused and waited for the others to respond. Finally, the demon spoke.

“We have an advantage that God doesn’t have. Numbers. A few believe in Him, but many millions don’t.”

“Or at least they don’t follow Him,” the woman said. “Remember the days when we had as many people worshipping us as He did?”

“So we make them worship us again,” the formless shape said. “We offer them the same thing we did the first time. I can offer them power beyond imagining. There are few men who will turn away from that kind of power.”

“And I have lust on my side,” the woman said. “Lust always works.”

“And I will feed their hatred and revenge,” the demon said.

The Chairman stared at his lieutenants thoughtfully, before finally nodding.

“Then it’s decided. In the end, we are just as mortal as man. But while God will save a few, we will corrupt and destroy the rest of them. That is the best way to hurt Him. While many worship what you represent, most will come to believe that the existence of God is a myth.”

The woman spoke up. “But if they think He is a myth, won’t they think that you don’t exist either?”

The Chairman smiled broadly this time.

“Exactly.”