IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS CAR WILL BE UNMANNED

By Reverend Thad LeMasters

Ellen Funston was driving to the Fleming County Atheist Potluck when, suddenly, the late-summer sky seemed to explode in a shower of impossibly golden light. From her stereo speakers came a deafening chorus of angelic voices. Then automobiles up and down the road began careening out of control as all the Christian motorists ascended to Heaven, leaving behind a tangle of smoldering wreckage and mangled heathen bodies.

Miraculously, Ellen and her 1998 Chevy Cavalier also started rising skyward, and soon she was soaring through the high wispy clouds. A burst of trumpets filled her ears, and none other than the Archangel Gabriel appeared in the backseat.

Gabriel gently placed his hand on Ellen's shoulder. In a deep, mellifluous voice, he told her about General Motors quality-control specialist and born-again Christian Jeff Peabody. One day many years ago, Gabriel explained, Peabody had spent his lunch hour ministering to a certain two-door coupe as it sat on the assembly line in Ohio, ministering to it until the automobile began weeping windshield-washer fluid. It was then, Ellen learned, her future car had accepted Jesus Christ as its personal savior.

Ellen had so many questions! But before she could open her mouth, Gabriel had vanished.

Moments later, her seatbelt unbuckled itself and the driver's side door swung open. The car rocked from side to side until its astonished passenger and her green-bean casserole tumbled out into the stratosphere. And then the little Chevrolet continued its glorious journey toward an eternity of golden highways and heavenly, high-octane gasoline.

(This story was excerpted from a new collection of sermons by the Reverend Thad LeMasters, founder of The Good News Hallelujah Ministries of Panama City, Florida.)