The True Tribulation

     It’s been said that the early Church wasn’t concerned about the rapture. Really? Then why did Paul feel it was so necessary to write two letters about it? And why did Peter caution believers about scoffers in the end-times? Knowing that his time was short, Peter wanted to make sure the Church remembered the one thing they should not forget about our Lord’s coming. That is, God’s prophetic timetable of seven 1,000-year great Days (2 Peter 3:3-13).
    His biggest concern was not the tribulation. How could this be? Because Peter and the rest of the disciples came to understand that the tribulation would be a long event. It started pretty much after Jesus’ resurrection. That’s why John referred to himself as “our brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:9, emphasis added).
      So how did we get so many views about the timing of Christ’s return when Jesus gave us the before and after set-up we highlighted in the previous blog? Muddied linguistics. In recent centuries, the term tribulation started to be redefined. As we said earlier, it started with a misinterpretation of two verses in Daniel 9.
       Like a snowball rolling down a mountainside, it picked up more momentum simply by being repeated over and over. The snowball was set in motion because the Church forgot the one thing Peter told us to not forget and never fail to consider—the great Week as the prophetic basis of Christ’s return.
       The extended nature of the tribulation that Jesus taught was lost in an avalanche of tribulation terms that cannot be found anywhere in Scripture (e.g. pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, and mid-wrath). That should have been our first clue that mankind had added to God’s Word, despite the direct warning in Rev. 22:18-19 not to do so.
       The Holy Spirit must have known this would happen because He gave us four replays of the same event—the signs Jesus taught so that we could see the Day approaching AND the chronos timing of His return. They are recorded in Matthew 24, Luke 21, Mark 13, and Rev. 6. The sequence of events is the same. Yet the Spirit directed the writers to use slightly different terms for the same event that would make sense to the specific audience they were addressing.
       The same extended event was called the tribulation, the great tribulation, the beginning of sorrows, birth pains, and the seals. When Peter addressed the scoffers, he didn’t apologize for the delay. He didn’t say that he thought it was still going to happen but he wasn’t really sure when. No, he linked it to God’s prophetic timetable.
         Jesus told us He would return on the last Day. He said it four times in John 6:39, 40, 44, 54. When we forget or purposely ignore the great Week, then we strip Jesus’ words of any meaning. It becomes an ambiguous any day sometime in the future. We are left in confusion because we have no shared meaning.
        Think about it. How can is be the last 24-hour day if the sun is still there and the earth still exists? They have to be there to fit all the other events described in the various tribulation views. Without shared meaning, we have no way to move in union with God’s plan. Our light is dimmed. The world laughs in derision because we can’t event agree among ourselves.
         When we stick to the written Word of God, what Jesus taught in the Olivet Discourse, and the Spirit’s inspired terms, we have both the scriptural kairos signs and the chronos times to ensure that we have the full, complete view of that Day. We lose nothing of the hope of our calling. And, more importantly, we don’t negate Jesus’ promise that His Body is not appointed unto the wrath of that Day (1 Thess. 5:9).
         Using the scriptural terms, the rapture comes after the extended time of the tribulation—the nearly 2,000 years of the Church Age (Days 5 & 6 in God’s great Week when counting from Adam). Yet it comes before the snare of that Day which is God’s wrath and vengeance against evil that is unleashed through the trumpet/bowl judgments.
         Jesus told us the final sign before His coming—total darkness over the entire earth at one time. Then the whole earth would see Him coming in the clouds to gather His Church on the last Day, the Day of the Lord. It is the 7th Day when counting from Adam, and the 3rd Day when counting from Christ. It is the Day of Christ. In effect, it is when the post-trib and the pre-wrath views become one view, as recorded in God’s Word. It doesn’t get any clearer than that!