“Let me get you something first,” Charley said. He pushed back from the table and left the kitchen. A minute later he returned, carrying three Bibles. He handed one to Lori, one to Carl, then opened the biggest one.

“Okay,” he said. “Have you ever looked at any of this before?”

Carl shook his head, “No. Never.”

“Well, then open the Bible to the very last book. That’s Revelation.”

He sat down in his chair again, flipped the pages of his Bible open, and waited for the others to find the place. “Got it? Now turn to chapter eight. If you look down the page you’ll see a series of verses where it tells about the seven angels ready to sound their trumpets. Do you see that?”

Carl ran his finger down the page over the first five verses. “Okay,” he said. “Here. I see it. But where does it tell about meteors?”

Charley and Dave both laughed out loud. “Man, you do get straight to the point, don’t you?” Dave said.

“Look at verses six and seven,” Charley said. “That’s where it tells about the first angel who is to bring a scorching heat wave to the earth. We’ve been feeling the effects of that already. But that just sets the stage for what’s coming next.”

“Oh, look!” Lori exclaimed. “Here’s what my aunt Josephine told me about! Carl, look at verses eight and nine.” She read the verse aloud, slowly. “‘Then the second angel sounded: and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.’”

“I see it!” Carl exclaimed. “That’s what the president was talking about on TV before he—he killed himself. He said that there was going to be a tidal wave caused by the meteor that would capsize even the biggest warships. The president didn’t talk about this specifically, but the pressure from the concussion would certainly wipe out the fish— even the big whales in a large part of the Pacific Ocean. Charley, this is incredible! Who wrote this stuff?”

Charley McAtee let go another booming laugh. “Carl, you sure give me a lot of credit for knowing all the answers. Here’s what I’ve been told. The Book of Revelation was written after the time of Christ by one of His apostles named John. John was in exile on a little rock— actually, a penal colony—off the coast of Greece called Patmos. He said that Jesus appeared to him with a message for the church and his job was to write it down faithfully. In some sort of spiritual sense, John was caught up into heaven where he saw and heard all these things dealing with the future.” As he looked around the group Charley saw that they were all hanging onto his words.

“The book he wrote,” he continued, “is what the early church called the Apocalypse. That means ‘the unveiling.’ John sent copies of this book to all seven of the early churches in what we now know as Turkey. Later, it was made part of the New Testament. Believers haven’t always understood what it means, and there has been a lot of debate over certain parts of the book. But we’re certain it is a faithful and true witness of what will happen at the end of the age.”