The first, he saw, was Mount Katmai in Alaska; then, Mount Pribilof in the Aleutians; as well as Mount Kiska and Mount Okmok. Soon, they were followed by Mount On-Take in Japan; Mount Canlaon in the Philippines; Mount Semeru, Mount Slamet, and Mount Raung on the island of Java in Indonesia; then, back again to Mount Lascar in Chile, Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador, Mount

Ruiz in Colombia, and Mount Arenal in Costa Rica. And, once again, around the Ring of Fire toward the west, a new series of violent explosions began to rend the planet.

“Earth trembled. It seemed to wobble in its orbit as though it had gone out of control. The ground throughout the earth shook. The noise seemed unbearable to those alive to hear it. Shock wave after shock wave circled the globe. Sheer terror gripped those in Europe and America. After what had already happened, one reporter asked, was it possible that the earth would actually break apart and everything living would die?

“The sun, the moon, and the stars have been extinguished,” he poured out on the paper before him, “by a thick mantle of volcanic ash. The temperatures will quickly begin to drop slowly all over the world. Though we may not feel the worst of it for some time yet, the global winter has begun. In time, it will change the balance of nature on earth.”

The writers of the Holy Bible referred to the grace of God as extending to thousands of generations. Those same writers again and again told of a time coming in history that would be filled with gloom, suffering, and darkness. It was to be such a short time that they referred to it as the day of God’s wrath.

John Edwards realized that up to the time of the meteor, no one had fully comprehended how horrible the day of God’s judgment could be. Even writers inspired by God Himself could only intimate what would happen. He had not understood until now. But now every living person would know. For nineteen hundred and seventy years, God had demonstrated His grace. During five years of intense effort, His people had gone to every nation, urging people to receive His offer of salvation.

He had set a “day of wrath” and that day was ended, John Edwards now realized. It began on Thursday night. It ended three days later on Sunday morning. Almost two thousand years earlier, God’s Son, Jesus Christ, was arrested on a Thursday night, crucified on a Friday, and lay dead through Saturday to early Sunday morning. Could it be that the weekend of the wrath of God toward earth had followed the pattern of the weekend that brought redemption?