by John Hagee
Then the One who sat on the throne said, “Write this down, for these words are true and faithful. He who overcomes will inherit all this.”
John had entered eternity, and time had no significance. His entire being was consumed with the revelation, and the final words of Jesus reverberated in his spirit: “Surely I am coming quickly.”
Even so, come, Lord Jesus! The words sang repeatedly in John’s mind as the overwhelming brilliance gradually faded. Slowly, John’s eyes became accustomed to the normal illumination of faint sunlight streaming into the cave, and he saw Rebecca sitting a few feet away from him, her arms wrapped around her knees. She was studying his face intently. “Are you all right?” she asked, her voice steady and sure.
John opened his mouth but couldn’t quite speak, so he settled for a nod. It occurred to him that he should have been amazed and overjoyed to hear Rebecca asking that question. But after what he had just witnessed, John was not at all surprised that she seemed to be speaking and acting normally while he was the one who was suddenly speechless.
“You’ve been sitting there for the longest time,” Rebecca said. “Your eyes were open, but you couldn’t see or hear me. I started to get worried, and I was going to shake you and try to wake you up— except you weren’t really asleep . . .” She wrinkled her forehead as she struggled to express what had happened. “And then I felt a calming presence, almost like a hand on my shoulder. Then all my fear just disappeared. All my fear,” she repeated, and John understood that she meant more than the concern she had felt when he hadn’t responded to her; Rebecca had been freed from the terror that had gripped her since the night she had been attacked.
“V-v-vision,” John finally stuttered. “I had a vision.”
Rebecca’s eyes grew wide. “A vision? What did you—”
“Parchment,” John interrupted. “I have to find parchment so I can write it down. It’s a message for the church . . .” He looked around frantically, the recognition slamming into him that he was in a cave— as a prisoner—and that he had no writing materials of any kind.
But this is why it happened, he realized. God sent me to Patmos so I could receive this revelation.
“Marcellus will have parchment.” Rebecca started to rise. “I could go ask him—”
“No, I’ll go!”
“But I’m feeling much better,” she protested. “I could make the trip down the mountain easier than you.”
“Rebecca, promise me you won’t set foot outside this cave!” John’s voice was unusually stern, and she looked upset at his command. “You’re supposed to be dead, remember?”
“Not really.” She shook her head. “I vaguely recall you and Marcellus talking about it, but nothing about the last few days is very clear.”
John quickly related how Marcellus had helped them get from the hospital back to the cave and the plan he had come up with for hiding her.
“So if I’m supposed to be dead, then I won’t have to report for work in the quarry,” she said with a long sigh of relief. “That’s the only good news I’ve had since we arrived.”
“The other good news is that I have an answer to your question— at least a partial answer. God does have a purpose for us here, Rebecca. I’m not sure why you had to be a part of it, but I know God allowed me to be a prisoner so He could speak to the church through me one more time.”
“You mean the vision.”
“Yes. I’m supposed to write it down, along with the messages to seven churches in Asia—some of them are the churches Jacob and I recently visited.”
“Because you felt something terrible was about to happen. And it did.”
He nodded. “But far more terrible things are in store, and that is why God gave me such an important revelation. To warn His people, and yet to encourage them.”
John stood and began to pace as he thought out loud. “Consider this. Damian meant to kill me, or at least hurt me badly, yet God meant it for good. The injuries Damian inflicted are what caused Marcellus to put me on medical leave. As a result, I was here, in this cave, on the Lord’s Day, ready to receive the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
His eyes gleamed with a fervent zeal for the commission he’d been given. “And because I don’t have to report for work, I will have all the time I need—and the solitude—to write down the vision.”
“I could help,” Rebecca said eagerly as she jumped to her feet. “I don’t have to report for work, either. And I’m well educated, you know—I can write clearly. You could dictate to me, and spare these dear old fingers.” She picked up one of John’s thin hands and kissed it. “Perhaps that’s why I’m here,” she said softly. “To help you.”
“Perhaps you’ll be the one to carry my letters to the churches,” John suggested. “God will have to provide a way for us to get His Word off this island. I don’t know how, and I might not even live to see it, but He will make a way. I’m sure of it.”
The elderly Apostle, invigorated with fresh strength for the task ahead, lifted Rebecca’s hand into the air with his and began to offer praise to God.
O God, You have taught me from my youth;
And to this day I declare Your wondrous works.
Now also when I am old and grayheaded,
O God, do not forsake me,
Until I declare Your strength to this generation,
Your power to everyone who is to come.
25
THE SEA WAS ANGRY, and Abraham knew it even before he saw Kaeso’s worried frown. They’d been sailing for two weeks and still had not reached Sicily, the large island just off the toe of the boot-shaped mainland of Italy. By now they should have rounded the western shore of the island, at which point they would bear north-northeast toward Ostia, the closest port to Rome.
“The wind’s picked up, and it’s shifted direction again,” the captain informed him, pointing forward and upward. “A few minutes ago it was blowing from the southeast.”
Abraham lifted his head and studied the wind flag; the breeze was coming from the northeast now. A sudden gust of wind plastered Abraham’s clothes to his body and sent his hair flying wildly. The sleek bow of the Mercury no longer sliced the clear blue-green water silently and smoothly; the ship had begun to pitch and roll, and the water now reflected the murky violence of an approaching storm.
Abraham had hoped to be in Rome before the bad weather hit, although he had known that even at top speed the Mercury could not have reached its destination before entering the period known as mare clausum, the “closed sea.” From mid-November to mid-March the waters of the Mediterranean became too unpredictable for safe navigation because of frequent gale-force winds and poor visibility.
He’d taken the Mercury, built not only for personal comfort but also for speed, intending to get to Rome as quickly as possible. Also, because it was smaller and lighter than his commercial ships, the Mercury could dock at Ostia, and from Ostia they could transfer to a barge for the short sixteen-mile trip up the Tiber River to the capital city. Now, however, Abraham wished he’d chosen one of the hefty, broad-bottomed cargo ships in his fleet. That would have meant docking at one of the larger ports and then traveling to Rome by an overland route, lengthening their trip. But the broad hull and greater weight of a cargo ship would have meant more stability on rough waters.
And a raging sea was what they were facing. Not ten minutes after the wind had shifted directions, it shifted again. Now it was blowing from the northwest. Circular motion, Abraham thought. From southeast to northeast to northwest. The winds were beginning to swirl in a circular pattern, a movement that could drive timid waves into furious mountains of water.
Following Kaeso’s shouted directions from the tiller, the crew scrambled to secure the hatches. In the space of a few minutes, the velocity of the wind picked up exponentially, driving the waves higher and higher. Several sailors tried to lower the huge main sail, anchored to the thirty-six-foot-tall mast at midships, but they could not maintain their hold on the halyard
and had to abandon the effort. The storm had simply come on them too fast.
“Do you think it’s a full-blown hurricane?” Abraham leaned toward Kaeso and yelled to be heard over the whistling wind.
“No doubt about it. You shouldn’t be out here,” the captain shouted back through cupped hands. “Get inside—now!”
Without further question, Abraham gripped the handrail and walked slowly along the deck, leaning into the wind. He was not offended by the order, knowing Kaeso was motivated by concern for his safety. Soon the captain and crew would have to vacate the deck themselves and wait out the storm below.
As Abraham made his way to the deckhouse, he heard the sound every sailor learned to dread. When a gale reached hurricane force, the winds vibrated the long ropes anchoring the sails until they uttered a moaning sound, as if the ship were mourning its coming death. He glanced up at the main sail, already strained to the point of bursting, and the smaller foresail, called the artemon, which flew from a forward-leaning mast at the bow of the ship. The artemon was decorated with the traditional Roman oculus, a large painted eye. Abraham preferred to think of it as the all-seeing eye of God, and he breathed a prayer as he struggled to open the door of the deckhouse against the wind.
Once inside, he quickly descended the steps to the level where his stateroom was located at the very back of the stern. He steadied himself by keeping a hand on the wall as he walked. Even for a man with experienced sea legs, he found it hard to keep his balance as the bow of the ship rose and fell against the water with a violent thud.
Abraham had sailed through rough seas before, but never a hurricane. He had heard about rogue waves that seemed to come out of nowhere, forming a thirty-foot wall of water that could sink the mightiest of ships in mere seconds. The phenomenon occurred in a storm when several ordinary waves happened to synchronize their fury and force, combining into a powerful, unstable column of water. The resulting rogue wave forced the bow of a ship into a steep trough—mariners called it a “hole in the sea”—a dive so deep the bow could not recover before the next wave hit the stern and snapped it into splinters.
When Abraham reached his stateroom, he found Naomi huddled in the corner, her head on her knees. She’d never been prone to seasickness before, but then she had never sailed through a storm like this. Naomi appeared almost green as she looked up and asked, “Are we going to die?”
Abraham did not want to unduly alarm her, but he did not want to lie, either. “We’re in great danger. This ship was designed for speed, not tunneling through mountains of water.” He sat down and put his arm around his daughter. “We’re sailing into a hurricane, and only God can save us.”
Naomi shrugged off his arm and stood shakily to her feet. “Why would God save you?” she demanded angrily. “You chose Caesar over Christ, remember?”
Abraham winced at the blunt reminder. “Yes, but I repented.”
“Quite conveniently, it seems. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing again tomorrow if it meant saving your fortune. And then, I suppose, you’d just repent all over again.”
“Naomi—” Abraham stopped his protest. He was not about to debate the sincerity of his confession with his rebellious daughter.
Naomi walked across the stateroom as she continued badgering him. “You know what I think you are? You’re a Jonah. Maybe if you were thrown overboard, the sea would become calm.”
Now Abraham was the one sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. “If I’m thrown overboard, maybe God will have a giant fish ready to swallow me and spit me out on land.”
“You’re just stupid enough—or crazy enough—to believe that.”
Abraham did not respond as Naomi kept up her harangue. His daughter seemed to be raging as furiously inside as the hurricane that threatened outside. Abraham tried to tune her out for a moment, then began to listen more closely as he heard her scream, “I hate you! It’s all your fault—you should have been the one to die.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Crispin. You should have died, not him.” Naomi grabbed onto a heavy table bolted into the wall. The bow of the ship rose higher and higher, then tilted on the crest of the wave and dived. The stern cantilevered out of the water as the bow plunged and smacked the sea with a shuddering crash.
She blames me for her husband’s death, Abraham realized as the impact sent him sliding. He bumped into the built-in bed and grasped its sturdy frame. But why? Because it was one of my ships?
Naomi quit yelling but started to sob—whether in anger or terror, he wasn’t sure. Abraham was stunned by her declaration that he was to blame for Crispin’s death. He thought back to the circumstances surrounding his son-in-law’s demise and remembered a crucial fact: he was supposed to be on the ship that went down. But at the last minute Crispin, whom Abraham had taken into the shipping business, had offered to make the trip for him.
Abraham recalled it all now. Rebecca had been sick for days with a high fever, and Crispin knew how worried he was. Abraham did not want to leave on an extended business trip when his youngest daughter could be seriously ill, and he had been grateful when Crispin, who was very competent and whom Abraham trusted implicitly, had volunteered. Rebecca recovered in a few days, but Crispin was lost at sea.
Weeks later Abraham learned that the ship, with its full crew and cargo, had gone down off the coast of Rhodes. He sailed there to locate any remaining traces of the wreckage; the only evidence had been a few planks of the hull, bits and pieces of cargo, and two badly decomposed bodies that had washed ashore. Abraham would never have been able to recognize the bodies, but he identified one of them from the engraved gold wedding ring on his left hand: it was Crispin.
And now he knew that Naomi blamed him for her loss—not only blamed him, but wished he had died in Crispin’s place. That’s why she’s so bitter, Abraham thought. She blames me for not being on that doomed ship, and she probably blames Rebecca for getting sick.
Father and daughter continued to ride out the storm in silence, clinging precariously to the securely fastened furniture in the ship’s luxurious stateroom. The violent tossing had Abraham’s seaworthy stomach in knots, and when he closed his eyes, he could picture the giant waves battering the ship.
He was not surprised when the bow lifted and seemed to hang suspended in the air indefinitely; then it plunged deeper and deeper . . . and deeper still.
A rogue wave. He imagined it would blot out the whole horizon— a massive, vertical wall of water with no curling crest, just a thin white line along the entire length. And we’ve hit it.
As the Mercury plunged into the killer wave, Abraham’s bulky body flew through the air, smashing the stateroom door, which blasted open on impact. The whirling wind snatched him from the room and flung him through the hole in the stern into the angry sea.
So this is how it will end, he thought as the churning water swallowed him.
Naomi stood on deck and watched as the badly battered Mercury limped toward the port of Ostia. The tattered remnants of its majestic sails hung pitifully from what was left of the masts, which had been snapped in half like twigs by the hurricane. The ship now inched along on manpower.
A sailing vessel, the Mercury had only a short row of oars on either side that could propel the ship forward in an emergency. The storm had been over in three hours, disappearing as suddenly as it had arisen, but it had taken more than a week to complete the voyage. The crew was utterly exhausted, and there had been times Naomi wondered if they would ever make it to Rome.
Naomi also wondered how she had survived the storm; most of it was a blur. She remembered seeing her father swept into the swirling water through the hole that had opened in the ship’s stern. She remembered being more terrified than she had ever been in her life. But she had not been aware how long the storm had lasted or how she had managed to keep from being thrown overboard with her father. Eventually Kaeso had found her, and she remembered him trying to pry her away from the heavy t
able—the only part of her father’s stateroom that had been left intact. Naomi had wrapped her arms and legs around one of the table legs and held on to it so tightly that her arms and legs were black with bruises for days afterward.
Kaeso had offered Naomi his cabin, and he moved to the crew quarters. The captain, who had worked for her father for more than twenty years, was polite but subdued. She knew he was grieving for his friend and employer, and she also knew he did not trust or respect her. Naomi couldn’t care less, as long as he understood she was in charge now.
And I am in charge, she thought happily as she glimpsed workers on the dock staring slack-jawed at the crippled ship slowly approaching. As soon as the sailors had secured the ropes and lowered the gangplank, Naomi disembarked and ordered Lepidus, one of her new slaves, to hire a carriage. “I’m not floating up that smelly river on a barge,” she muttered to his sister, Fulvia, who waited beside her on the dock.
“No, ma’am,” the young Egyptian dutifully replied. “Not a lady of your status.”
Naomi loved hearing the quick, deferential response and thanked the stars that she’d had the good sense to buy the brother-sister pair before she left Ephesus. “Load what’s left of my things on a barge,” she told Kaeso, “and have them sent to my father’s villa.”
Unsmiling, the captain nodded his acquiescence. “You can reach me through your father’s office in Rome if you need me. I’ll await your instructions on the repair of the Mercury.”
Among other things, the two of them had clashed on whether her father would want to restore the Mercury right away. They had also clashed on how to notify Abraham’s Rome office and bank about his death. Naomi had wanted to wait and tell them in person, making sure they realized that she was taking over her father’s business; that way she would have a chance to gauge people’s reactions. But Kaeso had insisted on immediately sending a message by carrier pigeon, and she had relented when he agreed to say in his note that Abraham’s oldest child would be arriving shortly in Rome to handle his affairs.
