The Visitation - - Frank Peretti

I finally finished this 519 page book... took me long enough! Don't get me wrong though; it was an Awesome book! I've read several Peretti books before (5 to be exact, excluding this one), and I loved every single one; in fact, some of them were so good that I read them twice! So, before I even picked this one up, I knew it wouldn't be a let down... and, of course, Peretti proved me right.

The book takes place in the present day in the quaint little town of Antioch in Washington. In the beginning, people from around the town begin to receive messages from angels, or so it seems. Girls hear that their mourning days are over and that their hero is coming. Men hear that they had better get ready; Jesus is coming. But that's not all. People begin to see things too. On several occassions, church women see "Jesus", or "God's hand" in the clouds...One man watches real tears fall from a wooden crucifix... and the tears heal his arthritis pains!

Not long after, a man shows up who seems to know everything there is to know about everyone! He knows who needs healing where, he knows how people feel, he knows what they think... At the beginning, Peretti even had me fooled! I, like the people of Antioch, believed it was Jesus too. Fortunately, some people (even fictional characters) are much wiser than I and could see right through his lies. Travis Jordan, a middle-aged tired-out pastor of Antioch, knew immediately that something was amiss. But he didn't know how to take action and, perhaps more unfortunately, he didn't care about taking action. Mainly, this book tells the story of this man's journey to discover truth, to take action, and to finally live what he believes.

I won't go into all of the details, but you do need to know that in his younger years, Travis Jordan was a man on-fire for the Lord. 24/7 Travis served God wherever and whenever he could. If God closed a door on him, Travis waited for a window to open and he always put his trust in God. It was this strong faith that finally led him to become a pastor. When we meet Travis in the story, however, he is worn out on Christianity. Oh, he's still a Christian alright and he still loves the Lord with all of his heart, he's just tired of all the religious stuff. He was burnt out on people turning away from the faith, proving their previous faith was unreal. He was tired of the same-old routines day in and day out. That's why he finally decided to leave his church to someone fresh and new; someone who wasn't burnt out. Enter Pastor Kyle Sherman... young, fresh, energetic, passionate, and on-fire Kyle Sherman. It was these two pastors who led the opposition to the new Antioch "Messiah". They knew their Bibles well.

It wasn't long before the town "Messiah" was preaching on his own ranch, keeping people from going to the real church, taking pretty girls in for the night, and down-talking "his" previous life here on earth. Then again, at the same time he was also letting them know without a doubt that he was "the Christ". He was showing the nail marks on his wrists, pulling bread out of nowhere, giving sight to the blind and new legs to the handicapped. Besides a select few, this "messiah" had the whole town assured he was The Man.

In search for his true identity, Travis and Kyle (the two pastors) began to research this so-called "Jesus". To make this long story short, I'll just say that after much hard study, questions, thought, watching, learning, and examining, Travis and Kyle discovered that Justin Cantwell (also known as: "Town Messiah") was really just a child of the devil. He was using the devil's power to make his own miracles, to make love to every girl who fell for him, to hurt as many as he could, to make it to the top and to kill everyone who got in his way.

In the end, Justin Cantwell and all of his lies are exposed by and through God's overwhelming truth. He is betrayed by his own devil minions and finally self-destructs. Of course, the book ends on a good note when Travis Jordan's faith is re-ignited and the town of Antioch finds the true Jesus as their real Savior.

My thoughts: (The exciting stuff... right?)
This book was really an awakening for me. It scared me in a lot of ways, but perhaps that's not a bad thing. I started thinking about Travis Jordan's life; how he was burnt out on religious "stuff" to the point that he didn't even want to attend church anymore much less pastor it. What scared me was reading about the passion he had as a young adult. I saw how on-fire for the Lord he was and how he turned EVERYTHING over to God. Everyone who knew Travis as a younger man knew him as a passionate pursuer of God's truth and His love... if anyone was a fervent Christian it was Travis Jordan. But to see the way he fell, how he didn't even care about the presence of an obvious devil in his own town, how he wouldn't take action to keep his own church-people from believing lies... it was aweful! And it really makes me wonder; can/will that happen to me? What about the passionate people I know now? Will they one day fall into religious apathy as well? And what can we do to stop that? Before I read this book, I would have replied with the typical Christian answers. You know, just keep praying, always trust in the Lord, never stop reading the Bible... but after reading this, I see that doing those things isn't the trick - Because those are the exact things Travis Jordan did. I think that what Travis finally realized, and this is what I learned from the book, was that it isn't the religious stuff you do that makes you a Christian. It's the relationship you have with the Creator of this world that makes you a Christian. Your relationship with God is the single, most important part of your Christianity. To keep from falling, you must develop your relationship with God, not your relationship with religious stuff. Sure, when you have an intimate relationship with the Lord, you will do that religious stuff and you should, but that shouldn't make up your Christianhood.

Furthermore, seeing the way that the town reacted towards this new messiah and how they believed him so much that they were willing to give him anything from house to body taught me another lesson. It scares me that the town fell so quickly into Justin's trap and that they ran so quickly from what they previously embraced as the truth. It was scary to see how fast the attitudes began to change. They were all doing better things - cleaning the town, volunteering where needed... but it wasn't long before they were all doing it without love. (Think of 1 Corinthians 13) They were all placing their lives under the authority of lies and they couldn't get out of it. The lesson that came from this was really just emphasizing a lesson I learned before from Blaise Pascal who wrote, "Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it." At present, our culture is in such a place that when good things come, we run to embrace it regardless of the truth it does or doesn't contain. We have come to the point where we can't even recognize truth, just as the town of Antioch could not recognize the obvious lies. We must, therefore, find it of extreme importance to find and know the truth in ALL areas that we may further know and love our Lord Jesus Christ. We must dive into and explore ideas in every subject and we must aim for truth. For without truth, we are a broken people, a fallen culture, and a lost nation. Truth must prevail!

I apologize for my long posts. I understand that they keep my audience from reading everything I have to say... and I apologize.

Coming Soon: A Grief Observed -- C.S. Lewis