The Eye of Heaven

Elias stopped himself from hitting the snooze button with effort. As is so often the case, the annoying buzz of the alarm interrupted his dreams. He lay there for a few minutes, trying to wake up and contemplating the events that had occurred during his slumber.

The unusual stone he had found at the construction site yesterday had obviously triggered this dream. He had dreamt that the stone had come from God and was known as The Eye of Heaven. By looking at something through the stone, it could be seen in the spiritual realm as well as the physical. He was just lifting the stone to his eye when the alarm had intrusively interrupted Elias’s dream.

He resignedly sighed and went about his usual morning routine in preparation for another long and tiring day doing the same physically draining and mentally unfulfilling job.

The stone was lying where he had left it the evening before, on the small walnut table just inside the front door, along with all the other usual contents of his pockets.

Elias grabbed his wallet, car keys, and the stone from the pile of receipts and coins and headed out the front door.

In the early morning sunshine, he studied the stone carefully. Yes, it was just as it was in his dream. Smoother and flatter, with an irregular, oblong shape, longer than the palm of his hand. It was milky white with two clear, somewhat circular shapes on each end. Elias smiled, noting that its vague resemblance to eyeglasses must have been what had triggered his dream.

The best part about the stone, however, was the fact that when you looked at it, you could see all colors of the rainbow dancing across the surface, like oil on moving water. Except when you looked directly at a spot on the stone, it was milky white and the colors danced off peripherally, always just out of visual reach.

That’s really what made Elias pick out the stone from the pile of dirt and rubble they had excavated while digging what would eventually be the basement of some rich person’s new house.

Following these thoughts, Elias glanced at the house next to his. Unlike his small, white bungalow in need of a good painting and some minor repairs, Phil’s house was beautiful. It was large, but not too large. The lawn was well-manicured and neatly landscaped, the windows had shutters, and the exterior was a deep red brick. Just what Elias considered his ideal house. The inside was just as nice as the outside too. Phil’s wife, Cheryl, saw to that.

Elias sighed once again and got into his twelve-year-old sky blue compact car that was starting to show some signs of rust and wear. He glanced at his watch. Phil would be coming out any minute in his suit and tie; beautiful, blond Cheryl kissing him at the door and handing him his briefcase.

Phil would spend the day in a nice, clean office. Elias would spend the day exposed to the weather at a dirty construction site. Phil would come home with energy to mow the yard or work in the garden or wash his new luxury sedan. Elias would come home with barely enough energy to take a bath and feed himself.

Elias suppressed the anger that threatened when he felt the injustice of their situations. Phil, who had lied and cheated and hurt other people to get where he was, and Elias, who worked hard and prayed regularly and tithed when he could. Elias who went to church every Sunday, and Phil who went to the track every Tuesday.

Phil’s front door opened and they appeared then, Cheryl and Phil. Elias raised the stone to his face, wishing he could see them as heaven did, wishing Phil would trip and fall or spill his coffee on himself or something, anything.

Elias peered through the clear, circular shapes at each end of the stone as Phil walked to his shiny black auto parked in front of his custom mailbox encased in the brick pillar. As his eyes focused, Elias uttered a guttural exclamation and dropped the stone from his hand as if it were charged with electricity.

After a moment, he regained his composure and retrieved the stone with a shaky hand. He told himself what he had seen had been impossible and that he was still under the effects of his dream. He raised the stone and once again peered through it. He stared at Phil as if in shock, a look of horror contorting his face behind the stone.

So the dream had been true, then. This stone was the Eye of Heaven.

Through the stone, Phil had very little resemblance to his physical self. His skin was blackened, as if it were gangrenous, and falling away. His clothes were tattered, and his distorted, bloated face looked as though it was covered with soot.

All around him little beings clothed in death and rotting flesh danced and taunted. Elias could see Phil respond to each one as they called to him, one after another. Phil would respond and a maniacal cackle would burst from them as they delighted in controlling Phil. Farther away, in a circle around the demonic beings and Phil, were tall beings glowing with life, standing erect and dressed for battle like soldiers. They were calling Phil, too, but he didn’t respond to them at all. They pleaded for him to listen to them and a voice from heaven pleaded for him to be spared yet a while longer.

Elias understood at once that these soldiers were angels of the most high God, and that the voice was Jesus pleading for God not to destroy Phil yet, that he still might listen. But Elias also understood that Phil would have to rebuke the demons himself and allow the angels to approach him--that Phil was in complete control of the situation surrounding him.

Elias moved his gaze to Cheryl, who still stood in the doorway. He gasped aloud as Cheryl’s desirable physical appearance transformed through the stone to one of a hideous, necrotic, filthy woman. She, too, was surrounded by the dancing evil beings, jerking from one to the other as they called her, almost as if she had strings tied to her limbs and head and they were controlling her every move.

Elias noted the house that he had spent years envying and coveting was in no better condition than its inhabitants. It, too, was in an advanced state of decay when seen through the stone. Demons danced on the roof, on the lawn, and even could be seen coming and going through the doors and windows, all the while calling Phil or Cheryl and laughing maniacally. And still, in a circle around them all, Phil, Cheryl, and the house itself, were the heavenly soldiers calling and a voice from heaven pleading for God to let them live just a little longer.

It was long after Cheryl had closed the door and disappeared back into the house and Phil had driven away that Elias finally moved. Through the stone, he had seen all their sin, all their secrets. Nothing had been hidden from him. He understood the immense contrast of good and evil and felt dirtier than he had ever felt in his entire life.

He also understood why they deserved death, and only through the pleadings of Jesus Christ were they spared. He pulled the stone away from his face and looked. He once again saw the beautifully manicured lawn and the well-maintained brick house he had admired for so long.

All that day, Elias secretly looked through the stone at the people he had admired and respected and envied. He looked at the people walking by the construction site as they went about their business. And all that day Elias saw that they were all in different stages of decay and surrounded by dancing demons that were the instruments of death to them.

He saw people listening to the calls of pornography, sexual perversion, gambling, greed, strife, addiction, and all manner of perverseness. All that day Elias routinely hid himself to nurse his broken heart. And as the day advanced, Elias began to wonder if there was anyone at all in whom there was life and not death.

It was just a little before 3:00 in the afternoon when Elias saw the little old lady appear. Every day at about the same time, this elderly lady with a slow, crippled gait, dressed in old clothes and carrying a plastic shopping bag, would walk past the site and then appear a few minutes later going back the way she came, all the while mumbling to herself.

The men on Elias’s crew had deemed her the "bag lady," and avoided her as much as possible, fearing she might be mentally unhinged. She appeared per her usual schedule, carrying her shopping bag and mumbling to herself a little louder than usual. Elias heard one of his coworkers whisper loudly, “Here comes the bag lady,” and the others smirked and snickered in response.

They all went silent and watched her slow progression past the construction site. Elias distanced himself slightly from the others under the pretense of checking on some measurements and disappeared behind a backhoe. He pulled the stone from his pocket and gazed through it at the elderly lady as she limped along.

Elias began to weep as he watched her through the Eye of Heaven. He immediately understood that she was on her way to a soup kitchen down the street due to poverty. He discerned that she made several trips each day to this soup kitchen on behalf of others whose health did not allow them to come themselves. He saw that she was nearly crippled with arthritis and that every step she took caused great pain throughout her joints and that the mumbling they all heard and made fun of was her praying for strength to complete the trip and bring the soup back to those who could not come themselves.

He saw the heavenly soldiers, who were not distanced from this mighty little woman but were completely surrounding her, assisting her as she made her way, and they protected her from the demons dancing about on the periphery that were calling to her to no avail. He saw through the stone the little woman herself was beautiful, glowing with life and power and spiritual strength, and he knew once again that we all have the power to choose life or death.

He saw that what the world sees as important--wealth, material things, social status--is only a distraction, a tool used by Satan to lead humanity away from what really matters.

Elias looked through the stone toward heaven and saw Him, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, sitting on His throne at the right hand of the Father in His magnificent glory, the Holy One who came into this world of sin and lived among the rotting flesh and death and demons and lowered Himself from His holy status to be one of us.

The One who let us hang Him on a cross and beat Him and humiliate Him and kill Him. The One who willingly gave up His life so that even the men pounding the nails into his flesh could be reconciled to God and be saved. One final sacrifice for all so that even those who cheered for His crucifixion could be reconciled to God and be saved. The sinless gave His life so that we, the sinful unto death, could be reconciled to God and be saved. Elias knew all this and fell on his face before God and wept aloud in shame and remorse.

That evening, Elias entered his front door, the Eye of Heaven clasped in his hand. He gathered every bit of courage he had and he raised the stone to his eyes as he looked at himself in the hall mirror. He trembled violently as he saw the flesh falling away from his own body in death and the demons of envy and greed and gossip and unrighteous judgment and selfishness and lust dancing about him in wild ecstasy. He heard the voice of Jesus pleading for his life. He saw the soldiers standing far, far behind him and calling to him and he strained his ears to hear them.

“Come closer,” he yelled. “I can’t hear you.”

He saw the confusion that began to creep across the army of demons as he continued to call the soldiers closer. Finally, he heard the voice of one of the soldiers over the loud din of the demons.

“Will you accept Him who died for you?” yelled a soldier.

“I will accept Him,” yelled back Elias.

“Will you believe that your salvation is a gift of grace and there is nothing you can do to earn it?” yelled the soldier.

“Yes,” yelled back Elias.

“Do you believe that He defeated death?” yelled another soldier.

“Yes,” yelled back Elias, weeping now.

“Do you want what the world wants?” yelled yet another.

“No,” yelled back Elias.

“Who will you listen to? Who will you believe in? Who will you follow?”

“Jesus,” yelled back Elias. The soldiers took a step closer to Elias and the demons moved about in confusion, no longer cackling.

“Who will you follow?” yelled the soldiers.

“Jesus,” replied Elias.

Again the soldiers took a step closer to Elias and the demons began to show fear. “Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” asked the nearest soldier.

“Yes!”

“Who will you follow?”

At last, Elias understood that the demons would continue to attack him as long as he was on this earth and clothed in sinful flesh. At last he understood who his enemy was. It wasn’t Phil or his boss or anybody else. He was in a spiritual war, fighting a spiritual enemy, and fighting for his very soul. So Elias laid down the stone, picked up his spiritual sword, and prepared to fight. “In the beginning,” he read aloud, charging into battle, and the angels of heaven drew close and took up their arms next to him.

Ephesians 5:10-17

1 Samuel 16:7

Psalm 34:7