THE
TIMES OF TRIBULATION & GOD’S WRATH.
Christians
& Jewish People during this Special time.
You
can read about the ‘False-Messiah’
with the Scriptural details of
Who he is, and his time
of Authority in another article.
These pages are about the effects
on the World &
Believers in God & His Son, Yeshua/ Jesus
Messiah and Saviour.
Introduction
to this topic.
Of
all the ‘End Time’ topics, ‘the time of
Tribulation’ seems to be the most prominent, and perhaps the
most divisive. Here, again, we state that we see the question of
beliefs about this subject, quite separate from the most
important question of all.
The
most important Biblical belief that any human being must face, is
whether we
a)
Accept that each of us are sinners in God’s sight.
b)
But that through the amazing and costly death of His only and unique
Son.
Yeshua/ Jesus/ Isa, who was ‘the Face of God’ on
Earth, and accepting His sacrifice,
c)
We can be sure to be with God forever, if we come in repentance
and total trust!
However, as we have said, elsewhere, we
believe that God has put a lot of information in the Bible, for us
to be informed, guided and comforted by as we search for
Truth.
Therefore, we hope as you look at the different articles on
this Web-site, you will receive some blessings. We need to ‘watch’
and be prepared for these things!
A.
WHAT ‘THE TIME OF TRIBULATION ’
IS. (ALSO CALLED ‘DAYS
OF DISTRESS’.)
Jesus
spoke clearly about it.
In
both Matthew 24, and Mark 13, Yeshua/ Jesus says, “There
will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world –
until ‘now’ and never to be equaled again.” Then
in Revelation there are references to those “who have come
out of” [or from], “the great tribulation.”
It is an actual, literal period of time of terrible trouble
on this Earth, before the Return of Yeshua/ Jesus the Messiah. [In
our articles about ‘Comparing
Pre- & Post – Tribulation Beliefs’ and
also ‘Second
Coming Beliefs’, we have outlined the different
points of view about WHO will be on Earth, during this period of
time.]
It
is a period of time, under the cruel and evil rulership of ‘A
TRIAD OF EVIL’
This
is described clearly in the article about ‘The False-Messiah’
who is also called ‘the Anti-christ’.
a)
Satan, the Dragon, the Accuser, is the main instigator as he seeks to
make everyone worship himself as god.
b)
The False-messiah is his visible, human agent as a final world
Dictator.
c) They are supported and
served by the third one, who is called ‘The False
Prophet’.
Each of them work closely together, and have one
goal, to take the worship and rulership of this world’s
people’s from the True God, and His Human but Divine Son, by
the ministry of the Holy Spirit, for themselves. But it will
only result in the bitter fruit of wickedness, in cruelty, suffering,
destruction of the ecology of the Earth and death in horrible ways.
Again we emphasise it is based on a form of religious worship. This
is largely organised and directed by the ‘False Prophet’.
B.
THE FALSE PROPHET IS THE SECOND ‘BEAST’
IN THE ‘TRIAD OF EVIL’.
His
description.
There
is a clear description of this ‘beast coming out of the
Earth’ from verse 11 of Revelation chapter 13, and chapter
16 gives a fearfully lurid description of this personality and those
who support him.
“Then I saw another Beast coming up out
of the Earth. It had two horns like a those of a lamb”, [that
is a mature year old ram], “but it spoke like a Dragon. It
exercises all the authority of the First Beast”, [the
False-messiah], in its presence; and it makes the Earth and its
inhabitants worship the first Beast, the one whose fatal wound had
been healed.” [Again, useful thoughts can be gained by
looking at the notes in the NIV Study Bible, or other commentaries.
We offer a summary of concepts here.]
He
appears to be a Prophet spokesman, with great delegated power from
the Antichrist, the supreme leader who demands to be worshipped.
Exactly what is meant by
the phrase, “coming out of the Earth” (or ‘land’)
is open to numerous opinions. Yet in today’s world, one
unifying theme (even in children’s comic stories) is the great
quest to ‘save’ the Earth from pollution and nature from
destruction, and woe-betide the political party which disregards the
so-called ‘green’ lobby, even when in some cases their
interests are greater than human needs. The Great Almighty Creator
has been replaced by ‘Mother Earth’ or ‘the gods’,
so we see new forms of Humanism emerging constantly.
We
know the roots were in the experience in the Garden of Eden when the
Serpent asked, “…did God really say, ‘you must
not eat from any tree in the Garden?’“
This
resulted in God’s condemnation, “Cursed are you above
all the livestock and all the wild animals, you will crawl on your
belly and you will eat dust [Earth dirt] all the days of your
life.” (Genesis 3:14.) This may not be the actual meaning,
but it is a fitting analogy. (Certainly, there is no evidence ‘from
the land’ means from Israel, as some people suggest.)
His
actual description is meaningful.
“He
had two horns like a lamb” [actually a mature ram] “but
he spoke like a Dragon.” We have commented on the ‘mouth’
of the Antichrist, and in their heinous way, each of the Triad of
Evil seek to parallel God the Father, Jesus the Word, and the power
of the Holy Spirit who so wonderfully have communicated with mankind,
ever since Creation. But this representative of deceit has no
words of comfort at all!
The
False Prophet sets up a world focus for the worship of the
Dragon.
Very cleverly and cruelly, and
because these Leaders come into power at a time of economic chaos,
they link the worship system to the economic system of rigid control.
But first the False Prophet finds ways to win
the ‘right’ to control, by a series of seemingly
spectacular ‘signs’. “He performed great and
miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from Heaven to Earth
in full view of men. Because of the ‘signs’ he was given
power to do on behalf of the first BEAST, he deceived the
inhabitants of the Earth. He ordered them to set up an image of the
first Beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given
power to give breath to the image of the first Beast so that it
could speak…”
There are mysteries here, since
we live in a world now, that can create the most amazing light shows,
with spectacular ‘fire-works’. So there must be a special
dimension to this display of Satanic power.
Also in this day of
computerised robots and figures of all kinds, a ‘speaking
image, or statue’ would not be so surprising, were it not for
the use the false Prophet makes of it. [See our later notes.]
C.
THE RELIGIOUS FEDERATION THAT IS RULING,
IS LIKE A ‘WOMAN’.
[There
are inter-twined ‘videos’ of the Beast and his religious,
evil monitory systems.]
A further parody in the whole evil
programme is using the false religious system or ‘kingdom’
which is the very opposite of the Kingdom of Heaven which is portrayed as
magnificent Woman in chapter 12. All God’s Believing
People – “the Godly Line”.
The vivid
description is in Revelation 17. “One of the seven angels …
said to me, ‘come I will show you the punishment of the great
Prostitute, who sits on the many waters. With her the kings of the
Earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the Earth were
intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.’ Then the angel
carried me away into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a
scarlet Beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven
heads and ten horns. (This is the False-messiah and his
‘kingdom’). “The woman was dressed in purple and
scarlet and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She
held a golden cup in her hand filled with abominable things and the
filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead:
‘MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE
ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH’. I saw that she was drunk with the
blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to
Jesus.” What a sad picture!
Satan knows that the
Church is God’s precious, blood bought inheritance, in which He
delights. (Not the visible, outward religious ‘churchianity’
we see.) The Ephesians were reminded in 3:25 that, “Messiah
loved the Church and gave himself for it” - the real,
praying, cross-carrying Followers of Yeshua; His very Body, His
Bride. But numbers, power, evidence of demonic authority, are what
the Beast from the land, the false Prophet, needs and wants to
enhance his position in the world. So he has not so much a
church as a world-wide, all-inclusive religious, homogeneous,
super-tolerant body, described in Revelation 17:1-7 as “the
great Prostitute who sits on many waters”.
Verse 15
explains that, “the waters you saw, where the Prostitute
sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages”. At
this point I differ with many books and commentators who have
explained this as one very powerful, religious, extravagantly
rich denomination of Christendom. Certainly it will include and
probably be greatly influenced by this church and its well-recognised
leader. However, it seems it will be far wider and all-inclusive, and
is foreshadowed in the modern concept of ‘inter-faith’.
It will include all religions such as Buddhism,
Hinduism, Shinto, indigenous ethnic, or tribal religions (such as the
Maoritanga and Iwi teaching of Maori in New Zealand, or Native
American, Voodoo of the Caribbean, or Africa) and many other cultural
forms of Animism. Also a watered down form of Islam, and certainly
Communism, will all be gathered up in a blended form of the
New Age and Humanism that worships the Antichrist and his
representatives. There is a present day world-wide respected guru of
these concepts of peace and tolerance. He is even called ‘his
holiness’ and has been travelling to every country, and has met
with all the great leaders, religious and otherwise.
The
way true Christian Followers of Yeshua/ Jesus will be seen.
Already,
the attitude of much of the world to real Christians is to portray
them as non-conformist troublemakers. So when it seems the world is
on the verge of an exciting period of ‘peace and prosperity’
because of the giving of all governmental control into the hand of
apparently benign world Rulers, such as the Antichrist and his
prophetic spokesman, along with the awe being generated at the
miraculous aspects; anyone not agreeing, will be seen as
‘troublesome’.
True Christians will be seen at
best as ‘insane’ and at worst as worthy of elimination.
However, note; the period being introduced at that time and
rightly called the ‘Time of Tribulation’ will quickly
degenerate into a terrible time of trouble for almost everyone in the
whole world, not just believers in Jesus. [We will explain more,
later!] We can add with conviction, that we believe the ‘Time
of God’s judgmental anger’ is a separate period of
time as indicated by the pouring out of the ‘Bowls of Wrath’
when all true Believers will be sovereignly protected! [We
will explain later.]
D. THE
COLLECTIVE ACTIONS OF THE TRIAD OF EVIL.
These are well
known, and clearly described in Revelation 13, but we summarise them
again for you.
Points
to note are:
>
The whole ‘structure’ will
be based on Worship of the Dragon and the Beast (v. 4).
>
The authority given them will be world wide, but based on
individual responses. (7b).
>
It will be totally against God and His
People (v. 6-10).
>
It will be introduced and reinforced by
apparent miraculous signs (v. 12-15).
Compare with 2
Thessalonians 2:9; “The coming [i.e., Parousia] of the
Lawless One will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in
all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders and in every
sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish
because they refuse to love the Truth and so be saved.”
>
It will be accepted by all who are not Believers in Jesus.
“For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so
they will believe the Lie and so that all will be condemned who have
not believed the Truth, but have delighted in wickedness.”
(2 Thessalonians 2:11-12.)
>
It will be focused on worship of a great Image or Statue. (Rev
13:14-15.)
The prophet “ordered them to set up an Image
in honour of the Beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He
was given power to give breath to the image of the first Beast, so
that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the
Beast to be killed.” In our modern world of
scientific wonders, we do not wonder at the ability of the Prophet to
create the speaking image, but at the reaction of people to it! Yet
such are the facts. A powerful, blaspheming, controlling, cruel image
- yet worshipped! Such is the collective ‘wisdom’ of
anti-God people. Sin is stupid, at any time, and always cruel. But
fear of death by its decree will be real.
E.
MEANING OF THE ‘VIDEO’ WE HAVE JUST
SEEN OF ‘BABYLON THE GREAT’.
Reading
the chapters of Revelation 13, then 17 and 18 could be described as
looking at, on one side, a voluptuous woman in a stained glass
window, as a colourful, symbolic portrayal of a great, gaudy,
worldwide religious system. However, go ‘round the other
side’ as it were, and the grotesque, black portrayal is of a
world economic system geared only for selfish luxury at any
cost, and especially as described in chapter 18, willing to trade in
any commodity, even “bodies and souls of men,”
[people], verse 13.
There simply is not room here to
print all the Scriptures in these chapters, and you are urged to read
and pray over them yourself. Any thinking person in this world,
especially a Believer in King Jesus, knows that money, or as Jesus
called it, the god of ‘mammon’ is behind every form of
evil. Drugs (including the evil of alcohol) are responsible for so
much suffering, and linked so often with crime of all kinds. Murder,
robbery, adultery and prostitution, abortion, wars, unemployment,
instability in every aspect of government, and injustice everywhere
can be traced to misuse of wealth which God supplied so generously to
the inhabitants of Planet Earth. Even when the cause of sorrow is
from famine, plague or disaster, so often the underlying cause is
unwillingness to prevent these for ‘lack of money’ - so
millions die. Tied in with it all is sexual sin and perversion,
homosexuality and pornography, which has infected the whole human
race, and is getting worse.
F.
SO WE SEE THE EVIL TRIAD’S CONTROL OF THE
WORLD ECONOMY.
This is so
well known of, that it hardly needs emphasising, but it is such a big
part of the prophetic Scriptures this study would not be complete if
it did not refer to it. The Scripture is Revelation 13:16. In
addition to the prophet – “causing all who refused to
worship the image to be killed” he has a marketing control
system unrivalled, (though similar to others) since time began, and
only possible on this scale, in our lifetime, with the advent of
computers and microchips and integrated money systems.
It says,
“he also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor,
free and slave to receive a mark [Gk: charagma = imprinted mark] on
his right hand or his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell
unless he had the mark, which is the name of the Beast, or the number
of his name. This calls for wisdom…”
Usually
this last sentence is attached to the following words, regarding
insight, calculating his number, and possibly its meaning. We concur
that ‘666’ does at least signify the lack of perfection
(in man) since seven is seen to be God’s divine number. But for
us, the wisdom needs to be more in the area of understanding that
there will be no way around the consequences of refusing to accept
this mark. Ask anyone who lived under vicious Communist
regimes, especially when they were being set up, what the
consequences were for non-conformists. So any thought of bartering,
or depending on the goodness of non-believers, is totally false.
Surely this is partly what Jesus meant when He said, “You
will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends,
and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because
of Me.” (Luke 21:16-17.) The evidence is that Gentile
Christians will suffer at this time.
G.
CHRISTIANS WILL BE PRESENT IN THE WORLD
THROUGH ‘THE TIME OF TRIBULATION’.
Confirmed
by careful study of the Word of God & the teaching of the Early
Church. We believe
there will be no ‘pre-tribulation rapture’ of
Christians before the time of Tribulation. There are several reasons,
but here are three:
1.
We do not believe that there will be two resurrection days for
Believers, which a ‘pre-tribulation’ theory promotes.
Jesus said in Matthew 24: 29 & 30, “Immediately after
the distress of those days… they will see the Son of Man
Coming… angels… will gather His Elect.” (‘Elect’
means Believers, or ‘saints’.*)
2.
We do not believe that God will have one part of His Body, (the
Church) in Heaven, and another part, the Jews who believe in Yeshua,
on Earth. The New Testament emphasises, in places like Romans 11, and
Ephesians 2: 11 – verse 21, “In [Yeshua} the whole
building is joined together… and are being built
together to become a dwelling in which God lives.”
3.
The use of the word *‘saints’ suggests, ‘all
Believers’. In Daniel and Revelation when speaking of these
times. See Revelation 13:7, 14: 12, 15:2, 16:15, 17:6,18:
24.
However
there are several rays of HOPE – so be encouraged!
By
this time you will realise that a pre-tribulation escape from
suffering is not part of the teaching we promote. However, “the
Lord knows how to rescue godly [people] from trials,”
(2 Peter 2:9,) Peter wrote to his friends who were suffering under
false teachers, who were introducing ‘destructive heresies’
that caused distress to them. And it will be no different for us.
There are several aspects of encouragement we can share. Only the
Holy Spirit can make them that to you, depending on your needs and
level of commitment to ‘The Slain Lamb’. He longs for our
total commitment.
1.
God is promoting older Saints to Glory now.
There are many wonderful men and women of God, who have borne the
heat and burden of the work, in ministry here and overseas, or in
support roles, whom are being ‘taken home’ now. Consider
Isaiah 57:1,2: “The righteous are taken away to be
spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they
find rest as they lie in death.” As Paul said, “to
depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.”
(Philippians 1:23.)
2.
The whole world will suffer
during the Time of Tribulation.
During the shorter but even more severe time of Judgement which
will follow as described in Revelation 16 with the outpouring of the
“bowls of wrath on the Earth”, the Believers,
who have not taken the Beast’s mark, nor worshipped him,
will not suffer. (Cp., 1 Thes 1:10.) Sadly those who have -
will suffer terribly. Revelation 16: 2.
3.
God is well able to enable His Own to go through a time of
testing!
Christians will
experience God’s help through it. This is how I view the
stories of Noah and his family in the Ark; of Daniel’s
three friends in the fiery furnace; and Elijah and the
widow of Zarephath, through the three years of severe drought
prayed for by Elijah. (James 5:17.) Another story of this time
is in 1 Kings 18: 1 -19, and it certainly tells how the king’s
godly employee, Obadiah, even managed to hide and feed 100 of
God’s prophets (Bible College students?) And remember this was
during 3 years of severe drought! When Elijah
complained that he was the only one who had stayed true to God
throughout the time of drought, God said, “Oh, but I have
7000 who have stayed true”. (See 1 Kings 19: 18.) But we do
not know how the 6900 others “whose knees have not bowed
down to Ba’al and all those whose mouths have not kissed him”
were preserved. But we can be sure, wherever there are truly godly
people willing to die for their faith, in His way and time God CAN
deliver them. In this connection, Jesus asked a very poignant,
rhetorical question in Luke 18:8 after telling the story of
the persistent widow who finally got justice: “When the Son
of Man comes, will He find faith on the Earth? I pray He will in
the readers of this article and many others! Yet to die for Him is an
honour and will be rewarded. Revelation 7:14 –17, please read
it for your encouragement!
4.
There is a set time limit for the
time of Tribulation.
This
is given in numerous places in Daniel and Revelation. 1260 days, or
42 months, or 3.5 years, can seem a very long time when one is really
suffering, yet the assurance is that God has it measured off. We
believe that during this time Believers in Israel will be sovereignly
protected. If it is true, as we have shared, that following this;
the time of Judgement is for unbelievers only, this may be what
Daniel was referring to in chapter 12:12 – “Blessed is
the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1335 days.”
Will the outpouring of the ‘Bowls’ be within 45 days
ending with the Coming of Yeshua/ Jesus at the ‘Battle of Ha
Megiddo’? It does not say.
This is 45 days more than the
1290 days. We do not feel it is necessary to understand every detail
of the references to times, but we do recognise:
>
Lunar
months differ from Roman Calendar months;
>
We can
trust God to organise it all justly and mercifully;
>
Our
part is to trust God tenaciously, without wavering!
GOD’S
ANSWER TO THE FALSE-MESSIAH IS VICTORY THROUGH HIS OWN JEWISH PEOPLE!
NOT ONLY THE TWO GODLY WITNESSES BUT ALL ISRAEL!
This
is an exciting journey of discovery you can take as together we
consider some special Scriptures. [See
article about ‘Israel’s
Glorious Future’.]
The background for this
journey of discovery is in finding that Israel will be a
special End Time Place of exception and difference from the rest of
the world at this Time of ‘Tribulation’. We believe that
Israel will be a holy nation and separate from the rest of the world.
This seems to come clearly through all the Scriptures, (some of which
have been explained in our articles about ‘The Future of the
M.E & Israel’) -about a spiritually revived Middle East,
especially Israel!
But here is one special Scripture to
indicate this from Isaiah 60: 1-3, “Arise, shine, for your
light has come, and the Glory of the LORD rises upon you! See,
darkness covers the Earth, and thick darkness is over the
peoples, but the LORD rises upon you, and His glory appears over
you!” We do not believe this is after Yeshua/ Jesus
returns, because the whole world will be beautiful then. So
Zechariah 8: 23 also has a message, as it says, “In those
days, 10 men… will take firm hold of one Jew… and say,
‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that GOD is WITH
YOU.’ “ Jewish people will return to a restored holy
Land, as believers in their own Messiah, and some Gentile Christians
could go with them.
This
has been another long study,
which we trust you will look at slowly
and prayerfully.
There is meaning and purpose on every page of
God’s Word.
He longs for us to find it and come closer to
Him because of it all.