Thomas Covenant 03: Power That Preserves Read Online Free Page A

Thomas Covenant 03: Power That Preserves
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that have come together here. Look into their hearts, Lord—see the pain, and the hurt, and the loneliness, and the sorrow—yes, and the sin—and the hunger for You in their hearts. Comfort them, Lord. Help them, heal them. Teach them the peace and the miracle of prayer in Thy true name. Amen.”
    Together, the people responded, “Amen.”
    The man’s voice tugged at Covenant. He heard something in it that sounded like sincerity, like simple compassion. He could not be sure; he seemed to have learned what little he knew about sincerity in dreams. But he did not move away. Instead, while the people raised their heads from prayer, he moved cautiously forward into the light, went close enough to the tent to read a large sign posted at the side of the road. It said:
The EASTER HEALTH Crusade—
Dr. B. Sam Johnson
revivalist and healer
tonight through Sunday
only.
    On the platform, another man approached the pulpit. He wore a clerical collar, and a silver cross hung from his neck. He pushed his heavy glasses up on his nose, and beamed out over the people. “I’m pleased as punch,” he said, “to have Dr. Johnson and Matthew Logan here. They’re known everywhere in the state for their rich ministry to the spiritual needs of people like us. I don’t need to tell you how much we need reviving here—how many of us need to recover that healing faith, especially in this Easter season. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Logan are going to help us return to the matchless Grace of God.”
    The short man dressed in black stood up again and said, “Thank you, sir.” The minister hesitated, then left the pulpit as if he had been dismissed—cut off in the opening stages of a fulsome introduction—and Dr. Johnson went on smoothly: “My friends, here’s my dear brother in Christ, Matthew Logan. You’ve heard his wonderful, wonderful singing. Now he’ll read the Divine Word of God for us. Brother Logan.”
    As he stepped to the pulpit, Matthew Logan’s powerful frame towered over Dr. Johnson. Though he seemed to have no neck at all, the head resting on his broad shoulders was half a yard above his partner’s. He flipped authoritatively through a massive black Bible on the pulpit, found his place, and bowed his head to read as if in deference to the Word of God.
    He began without introduction:
    “ ‘But if you will not hearken to me, and will not do all these commandments, but break my covenant, I will do this to you: I will appoint over you sudden terror, consumption, and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it; those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like brass; and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
    “ ‘Then if you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring more plagues upon you, sevenfold as many as your sins. And I will let loose the wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, so that your ways shall become desolate. I also will walk contrary to you, and I will bring a sword upon you, and shall execute vengeance for the covenant; and if you gather within your cities I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.’ ”
    As Matthew Logan rolled out the words, Covenant felt their spell falling on him. The promise of punishment caught at his heart; it snared him as if it had been lying in ambush for his gray, gaunt soul. Stiffly, involuntarily, he moved toward the tent as the curse drew him to itself.
    “ ‘And if in spite of this you will not hearken to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and chastise you myself sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall
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