The Wrath Walker (The Wrath Series Book 1) by Matthew Newson (fun to read .txt) 📗

“You really shouldn’t believe every story you hear. That’s what made it so easy to manipulate you over the past couple of days.”

“I’ve heard you preach every Sunday for all those years I attended this church with my father. Here this whole time I thought you were one of God’s mouth pieces on the earth, but it was all lip service so you could get others to do your bidding.”

“You sure do catch on fast, Brandon.”

“I’ve heard you preach some pretty compelling sermons from the pulpit. So, tell me, how were you able to do that if God had never spoken to you?”

“Simple really. I went to Bible college and earned a degree in Biblical studies that aided me in putting together all those sermons. I had to extensively study the Word of God and write many in-depth analyses on a variety of topics to earn that degree. All that knowledge made my years of preaching possible. It was like a child’s game to me, kind of like connect the dots or a word find. I can’t tell you how many times I had to hold back the laughter when countless people came to me Sunday after Sunday, saying that was the most anointed message they had ever heard. The majority of people are so stupid. It’s no wonder the Bible refers to Jesus’ followers as sheep. I’m simply amazed that the human race made it this far.”

“Yeah, I’m constantly surprised by the things people do, and live to talk about it. So, since we are having another one of our heart-to-heart conversations, what made you go bad, Phillip? Or are you going to tell me you were always a wolf in sheep’s clothing?” I continued to discretely look about to find a way to save Lizzie and escape that den of evil.

“Bad? That’s just a matter of perspective, really. However, I wasn’t always this enlightened, and I came to this logical conclusion while on a mission trip in college.”

“You call everything you’ve done and are about to do logical?” I was still taken aback by how deceived he was.

“Yes, and hopefully you will to at the end of our conversation. I wanted to become a pastor when I was a kid after hearing all of those stories in Sunday School about God’s power and such, but all those years in church I had never once heard God speak to me. I never saw any miracles or great displays of his power like you read about in the Bible, but there I was eager to please God so that he’d let me see a miracle. Pretty stupid and juvenile, right? So, let’s skip ahead to when I was a young man in his second year of Bible college, and I was convinced that God was going to speak to me since I was no longer a child, but a young man determined to save the world for him. I was sent out with a group of my friends to witness and share the Gospel in the city where my college was.

We walked around, passed out those New Testaments pocket Bibles, talked to and prayed for everyone that would let us, but still I saw no miracles. Nothing! Then we all agreed to split up to try and cover more ground, and as I walked the city street, a psychic walked out of her shop to meet me. This woman called me by name, and she knew everything about me, from my first and last name, my parent’s names, the college I was attending, the first girl I ever kissed, and so much more. I had been warned that psychics and people like them were pure evil, but this woman was nice and spoke kindly to me. She didn’t look anything like what the church had portrayed her to be.”

“That’s the cause of all of this? Some woman told you some facts about yourself that she got from someplace else, and now you’re whatever the heck you are.”

“It’s not just that she knew some things about me—her name was Selma, by the way. She told me I had always felt like I was on an empty path to nowhere, and she stood there all day waiting for me to come by so she could tell me it was time to move on. There were spirits in the world who had major plans for me, but they were not the same ones who I have been pursuing in vain. She took me in her store, and I watched as she changed from a middle-aged woman to a young woman, then to an older woman, and finally back to her middle-aged self. She said the spirits had granted her with the ability to know everything about me, and to transform like she had, and I too could have that power. I walked out of her store that day a little shaken, as everything I had been led to believe had been directly challenged. Finally, my life had started to take on meaning.”

“You’re not expecting me to believe that and then just go along with everything you’re planning.”

“Just wait. After my meeting with Selma, I discretely began to study psychics and the world of the occult. I found it not to be this dark and scary place I had always been taught that it was, and things started making sense. I was intrigued by that world, so I secretly began to study it in depth, because I would have been kicked out of school had I been caught. In the realm of the occult there are mighty and powerful spirit beings that want to help us, but there is not the God of the Bible as we had learned about as children. The real breakthrough is when I got assigned to go on that mission trip to Africa. When we got to the village we were to be stationed at, my classmates and I were warned not to