“7 The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.
8 The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. 9 A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
10 The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. 11 The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.
12 The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night.
13 Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!””
Revelation 8:7-13
What is true on the world scale - the warnings and the urgent calls of God to repentance -is just as true for the individual, as we can see very clearly from the story of Moses' encounter with Pharaoh in Egypt. The progress of a soul that has been stirred and awakened by the Spirit of God is charged with urgent crisis. The concern, the conviction, the resistance, the renewed conviction as the patient Spirit of God pleads again with the soul, the further hardening until finally the Spirit is grieved away - this is one of the most solemn and most frightening things to see in the Church of God. What drama to see a man drawn by grace, on and on, to the place of decision, where mind must be made up, where it is only a step into the kingdom of God, where a destiny is in the balance for weal or woe, and at the last, the 'upsetting' proves too much, and there is a 'recoil', and he goes back and goes away. He has come face to face with eternal reality, and it has exposed him, and he will have none of it. This is one of the great mysteries - as it is one of the greatest tragedies - in spiritual experience. It is one thing to wake up; it is quite another to get up and do the one right thing. There is often an eternity of difference between the two! 'Neither repented they....' (9:21).