Will Jowers

Revival: Holy Revenge Will Jowers

AN INNOCENT GIRL WAS BRUTALIZED AND KILLED, AND AN INNOCENT MAN WAS SAVAGELY EXECUTED FOR THE CRIME. ANOTHER MAN MUST RIGHT THE WRONGS-REGARDLESS OF THE COST The month of July in Tennessee brings hot, sweltering temperatures, boiling emotions, and deep religious fervor. In a Southern Baptist Church, these things often melt together during the week-long summer revival-a marathon of Hell-Fire and Damnation sermons, endless altar prayers, moving hymns, and an unrelenting call to the unsaved to submit to the Lord. It is a time when "God's grace grown dormant" is revived in the heart of the believer. As a child, Michael McKay knew just such a church. But, in his late teens, fate intervened and he was drafted into a war on the other side of the world. In Vietnam, he grew up quickly, learned the skills of a soldier, and lost touch with God. The skills he mastered included how to use a variety of weapons and how to kill-swiftly, silently, and without hesitation. Seventeen years passed since McKay became a soldier. He has a new life and a loving family far removed in time from the steaming jungle and the hellish underground battles which he detested and feared, and where he fulfilled his mission so well. He has become a different man with the past long buried and almost forgotten. McKay's only niece is thirteen years old when she attends the revival where she is "saved" and brought into full church fellowship. Her joy is short-lived. She is raped and murdered the same day-in the very church where she's just found her Lord. McKay's old Army buddy, now also settled into post-war comfort, is found at the scene. Because he's black and the inbred racism of the South is still alive, he is assumed guilty of the heinous crime and is taken away to jail, beaten and unconscious. In the South, some forms of "justice" move quickly, and within hours, the Ku Klux Klan extract revenge on the falsely accused. McKay returns home to bury his niece and look for justice. He finds himself unwanted and alone-badly outnumbered by forces that do not want the truth to be found. But this is the time of Revival, and sometimes it is not God's grace that gets reborn. Sometimes it is something very different indeed-the rebirth of an avenger, Michael McKay