The Cities And The Byways

Bob Neumann

This is a composite retelling of numerous short visions within the theme and focusing on those within the aspect of THE WALKING DEAD. They have occurred since July 1st which was Tammuz 17. Or the beginning of the “fast of Tammuz”. Read Jeremiah 6-7-8 to understand what it means and remember that on that day the Walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Babylonians and later by the Romans. While these visions are complete in themselves, the fact that they are the opposite side of the image of THE BRIDE I cannot attempt to make any clearer. But I will try.

For days I have had short episodes within the Valley of Vision. Each time I am with a group of 10 “soldiers” walking along dusty gravel and tarmac roads similar to the rural roads of much of the united states. We sure were not walking along the Pennsylvania turnpike or route 66. Unlike the trench where we were freezing, hungry, tired and thirsty.....it was hot, dry, dusty.....and tired and hungry and thirsty....

Sort of more like NAM than Korea.....but no jungles or rice paddies.

I have to mention these things for my own frame of reference and understanding. Too much of these visions are images and pattern I am adjusting to without a personal frame of reference. I have never done in the physical realm what I am seeing and participating in within the VALLEY of VISION. So my affinity is loose to begin with. So if any of the images suddenly take shape to you from the realm of your personal experience, remember I warned you........

THE CITIES

Like I said above we were walking along this dusty road. there were 10 of us walking in staggered file looking to either side. with us and dressed in olive drab was THE KING HIMSELF. Quiet and assured HE walked up and down our line of march affirming HIS PRESENCE. It was twilight, sunset was minutes away when we followed a curve and came to a clearing. Here there were rows of streets with cookie-cutter houses in nice neat rows. Occasional children were out in the yards and streets. As they saw us they followed us to the center of the little town/city where a fine brick church stood with steeple rising above the houses.

As we came to the church steps a round, short man in a cheap, wrinkled suit ran up and stood on the steps barring our passage into the church. All my impressions of this person were fast, strong, and negative. So when he opened his mouth I wasn’t overly surprised at what he said. Or his accusations.

“Where do you think you are going?”, shouted Mr. cheap suit.

The man at the front of our line looked up at our challenger and simply stated, “We are Soldier’s of THE KING and we are here on THE KING’S BUSINESS.”

“You’re the KING’S Soldiers!”, mocked Mr. cheap suit. “All I see is a gang of filthy ruffians here on pretenses. We know your kind and the things you do. If you are who you say you are where are your horses and banners! All we see is a bunch of riffraff who can be up to no good!”

By this time we were surrounded by people and our accuser was obviously playing to his crowd. In response our point man had turned aside and looked back to the KING who was now surrounded by a group of children and dogs who were clamoring for attention. As HE KNELT DOWN ON ONE KNEE TO MINISTER TO THE CHILDREN. I could hear the deep slow rumble of laughter from the point man as he ignored the man in the cheap suit. Which made him furious and his face showed his anger as it reddened. With a shaky hand and quivering voice he shouted at THE KING: “Don’t you dare touch those children!”

As he bellowed his command he ran down the steps toward where THE KING OF KINGS was touching and blessing the “littlest ones”. His only problem was he had to get by me. All I did was do I slight pivot and swing my rifle from port arms to face off my hip. This simple move brought our suddenly silent and quickly growing pale friend in the cheap suit to a screeching halt. I do not know what changed his demeanor. His finding himself at eye level with a very large rifle muzzle....or the fact that to have his nose at mid level to my chest would place me well over 7 foot tall. Of course that couldn’t be until I looked at all the troopers in formation. We all were a foot or two taller than the people of this ‘city’.

When THE KING finished with the children HE simply stood and walked over to our very angry and frightened antagonist. I watched the little man puff himself up and prepare to speak. On the other hand MY KING was very relaxed and allowed the accuser the first word. At the time I thought it ludicrous that HE would allow him to speak at all.

“How dare you come here and disrupt our community!”, he seethed. “By what right do you have to come and threaten us! When the King hears of this..........” and he got cut off in mid threat....

Reverend ******”, began THE KING quietly began. I could see the use of Mr. cheap suit’s name and title began the deflation of our “religious man of title”.

“I CAME HERE TO TAKE YOU PEOPLE TO A PLACE OF SAFETY”, explained the KING. “YOUR LAND IS IN DANGER AND YOUR PEOPLE ARE AT RISK. I HAVE PREPARED A PLACE FOR ALL OF YOU AND HAVE COME TO TAKE YOU WITH ME”.

I watched the “rev” eyeball THE KING with a less than reverend-like glare in his eyes. with a slow and measured cadence to his voice he began his reply in† a whisper. “You came to take us to safety? We are the children of the King! What right do you have to do anything to us?”

“IT IS FOR YOUR SAFETY.”, replied THE KING quietly repeating HIMSELF.

“NO!”, shouted the man, “We are safe here. Nothing can happen to us because we are the church. We were promised nothing bad can happen to us. We will not listen to your lies. You came to bring us to harm. Our King will not allow any of us to be harmed.” With that he crossed his arms across his chest and glared defiantly at all who stood with THE KING.

(Looking back at this I feel a mixture of sadness and anger. Yet at the time it seemed so ridiculous. This highly enraged “clergyman” verbally assaulting THE LORD OF HOSTS. What puzzled me the most is HIS RESPONSE)

And KING JESUS replied, “AS YOU SO WILL”, as HE TURNED AND WALKED AWAY. We all followed, and I was stunned. It didn’t make sense. As we reached the opposite side of the clearing where we entered I caught up with HIM and kept pace as we quick marched along the road. Every few steps I would look at HIM and wondered what was going on. Each time I wanted to ask HIM I decided to wait. I hope I was practicing discretion. After a while HE slowed the pace and I think all in the squad took a sigh of relief.

Without any warning HE looked at me and asked, “ANYTHING BOTHERING YOU?” I do not like loaded questions. So I asked a question back, “am I in trouble?”.

“CAN YOU DEFEND YOUR INTERPOSING YOURSELF BETWEEN MYSELF AND REVEREND *********?”.

It seemed a straight forward issue. So I mentioned about preventing the children from coming to HIM. With that HE SMILED. “THEN I’LL TELL YOU JUST WHAT HAPPENED BACK THERE. I KNOW MINE......AND MINE KNOW ME.”

“So the guy in the cheap suit isn’t one of your’s?” I asked, and nodding my head began to ponder about it all. “What about the children?”, I asked. With that HE STOPPED and TURNED TO ME AND ASKED; “DO YOU TRUST ME, DOG?”

I replied, “YES, LORD!” and HE SMILED AND SAID..... “SO DO THEY.”

It wasn’t much longer that the road came to a four way stop sign. There we stopped and HE separated us into two groups. The first led by the point man took the left turn. I and four of the squad took the right turn. THE KING WENT ALONE....STRAIGHT AHEAD. We were told to continue and to get the cities and towns to move their people out of the approaching danger and to safety immediately. Shortly we came to another clearing and started to pass block after block of upscale homes. All were very affluent to say the least. As before in the center of town we came to a church. Let me rephrase that … a big church ... and had a welcoming committee waiting at the steps.

As briefed I approached and a woman came forward. Call her a mature lady, well turned out. Nothing overstated, but not a hair out of place. She had a smile that reminded me of a lawyer turning politician. Obviously she had authority here, so I stated my orders.

Her response was so well done I wondered if it was scripted....

“We are honored that THE KING was concerned for our well being. While we are aware of some probable difficulties in the near future, we do not share HIS opinion. WE HAVE DECIDED (her inflection change requires capitalization) that we will stay for now. If there is any deterioration in the present status we will inform you when you may return. You may leave now”.

So we did, as soon as we cleared the “church area” we began to double time it out of the city. Seemed like we all wanted to distance ourselves from it. As we came to our usual pace outside of the city one of the four stated... “now we know the answer to the question of where is “MYSTERY BABYLON?”. Suddenly it struck me that I had been taking these visions for granted. I asked “are any of you guys having a vision right now?”. All four looked at me and laughed. The one now walking point turned around and said. “If this where my vision and you were in it we’d be on horseback.” With that he turned around and we were silent again.

It took awhile but we came to a real rural looking area where the houses were old and drab. It was a small town and old. When we came to the center of town the ‘church’ had been abandoned. The windows were broken and we could see the roof had caved in. We looked around and wondered where everyone was. Eventually some people slowly wandered over and when I explained we were there to help them to leave. They laughed and wandered back to where they came from. Again we double timed out of there.

The next city was straight out of a fifties TV program. We came to a “white clapboard “church” in the wildwood”. As we came to the front door a couple came forward to greet us. We had a large crowd around us when I explained their need to leave immediately. As soon as I finished the man raised his hands into the air and shouted “HALLELUJAH”. And all the crowd repeated the Hallelujah and began to clap their hands from the gray haired grannies to the assorted toddlers. With that thunderous response the man motioned the crowd to silence and began: “We are thankful that you trusted servants have come quickly to our aid. We know that we have a long journey ahead of us and we must quickly pack.” Then the woman spoke: “It will take some time for us to be ready, so lets start now.”

With that we moved away from the church and the man again spoke.... “it is already quite late and night will soon fall, so we will wait till morning.”

Then the woman joined in with: “and you sweet boys are probably tired and hungry, why don’t you stay a few days to rest and we’ll be all ready to leave”.

Again the man spoke: “we’ve got families that have rooms for each of you for the night and it is so late....”

“And you’ve walked so far”, cooed the woman now pulling at my arm to the many amen’s now surrounding us. And suddenly a cold chill ran up my spine as I recalled hearing those same words once before. As I stopped and looked back each of my men were surrounded and being separated from the others. So with as loud a voice as possible I replied... “I’M SORRY MA’AM, but I must obey MY KING!”

The sudden outburst surprised her as she let go my arm and I chambered a round in the Browning. And the first thing I noticed was the quiet. All five of us now stood back to back in a circle each facing outward. Now I noticed everyone in front of me was staring at me and I could feel their eyes. No more amen’s here. Only a strange hissing sound from everywhere and no where. And as one all five of us opened fire in full automatic. And we were almost too late.

Big and small they kept coming until they were all destroyed. None attempted to flee. The fight ended. I had a short sword in hand (long story from previous visions) and was bleeding from places too many to count. Two of ours were down and I was not so sure about the other three, especially myself. I retrieved the Browning as the least injured picked up the most in a fireman’s carry and we slowly walked away. Maybe dragged ourselves would be better or more honest.

THE BYWAYS

The farther we got away from there the stronger we all seemed to get. In a while our brother demanded to walk on his own. So all five of us were again on our feet. In no time we came to a city of shabby high rises. People came out of everywhere and anywhere and began following us. I was at the point of panic and preparing to fire on the crowd when a Peace fell on me and I stopped where we were. There was no “church” to be seen....just people. Suddenly an older man dressed in worn work clothes came up to me and asked “Sir, have you come with a WORD for us?”.

“Yes, sir”, I replied, “THE KING has sent us to tell you that there is danger and we were sent to take you to safety.” The older gentleman nodded his head slowly and said simply...” GOD is GOOD”. And I replied “all the time”.....and I saw that wise face smile. “AMEN, Son,” he answered, “we have to leave people. Grab the children and keep together.” And we left.

As we walked we kept a slow steady pace. I walked in the middle with the man I just called “ELDER”....because he was in the fullest meaning of the word. He kept calling me sir, and I gave up trying to get him to stop. But five was the right number....one at point, one on rear guard and each flank covered. We had gone for awhile when we came to a couple of houses clumped together. An older woman who saw us first was ringing an old fashioned dinner bell and shouting “they’re here”.

When we came to her porch our “flock” just sat down on the side of the road. The five of us stood just in front of the porch as she stopped ringing the bell. Before I could say anything the lady shushed me and said “we knew you were coming and have been praying for you. We are ready to leave once you eat and rested a little.”

With that she brought out a tray with huge glasses filled with ice and lemonade. Then followed a tray of sandwiches we tore into. I watched as families, and individuals came from all directions. Some were pulling and pushing carts. I noticed baskets and buckets being passed around the “flock” as the two groups mingled and became one. All ate and drank and thanked ABBA for HIS GOODNESS. Then we set off again and the flock began to sing “NOW THANK WE ALL OUR GOD”....I had not heard it sung in a long time. Sure sounded good.

Now we were picking up small groups and individuals at every turn and finally came to what looked a lot like GOSHEN. Here we joined up with our other five who looked worse than we did. Then came in another five, then another and another. We were counting heads and sizing each other up. All I knew was these were in the trench with me and I wondered how many were having visions.

As night finally fell THE KING joined us and said HE had some work to be done. I was the first one drafted....but that is another issue.....

Old Dog