Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [181]
When it did arrive, he found himself uncharacteristically polite to the officers again and again noticed their surprise. He ate everything, as he had the night before, and while he would never be able to say it was good, for some reason Brady found the fare less repulsive than before.
He replaced his tray in the meal slot and hurried back to his reading. He read faster and faster, poring over texts that were quickly becoming familiar favorites.
When Brady came again to Romans 10:8-11, it seemed everything around him faded. Nothing existed but the text as he slowed to a crawl and memorized, burning every word onto his brain.
In fact, it says, “The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.” And that message is the very message about faith that we preach:
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.
As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”
Brady had no idea if some special feeling was supposed to come over him or what was to happen, but as he read and reread the part that promised “by believing in your heart” that God raised Jesus from the dead “you are made right with God,” he realized simply that he did—he did believe in his heart.
How much faith was required to believe the rest of it—that he was now right with God? As Chaplain Carey had said, some things were God’s responsibility. All Brady could do was believe. But he didn’t feel right with God. Would that feeling ever come?
He didn’t expect to be happy, to be joyful, to smile, to jump and shout and sing. Brady felt that even if he could get his mind around the idea that he had been “made right” with God, that would never take away the ultimate ugliness of the sin he had committed. He might even be able to accept that God would never again remember it, but he could not believe that he himself would ever forget.
Nor should he. Even if he was right with God and would escape eternal spiritual punishment, Brady knew full well that he had not settled his score for murder—at least in this life. He was grateful, of course, that his soul might be saved, but there was still this human price, and he was willing to pay it.
He could do nothing more than believe; the rest of this being made right with God was God’s work. But the verses went on to say that “it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.”
Confessing what? He was no intellectual, but this seemed clear. He had to tell somebody that Jesus was Lord and that God had raised Him from the dead.
Brady leaped to his feet and began to pace. It was true and he believed it; now who could he tell? He was tempted to just shout it out, but what would it mean to all the other cons on the Row? It would become nothing but ammunition for them. “Officer?” he called out.
From the intercom came the voice of a supervisor in the observatory. “What’s your problem, Darby?”
“No problem, sir. Is Officer Harrington around?”
Suddenly the place was alive, and Brady quickly realized why. Nobody on death row had ever heard him speak above a whisper.
“Lover boy has woke up!”
“You like Harrington, do you, sweetheart?”
“Forget about your Heiress already?”
With all the racket, the observing officer sent someone from the booth directly to Brady’s cell. “What do you need?”
“I want to see the chaplain right away.”
“You know the procedure.”
“Yeah, but it’s sort of an emergency, and I was hoping maybe Officer Harrington could get word to him.”
“What’re you, about to kill yourself or