Overview of the Tribulation

Welcome back, beautiful family! I am so glad you’re here!

Picking up where we left yesterday, we dug in a little to the Rapture. I mentioned that the Rapture was going to happen before the Tribulation period starts. That we are not appointed to wrath and that the Holy Spirit is restraining the Antichrist (Man of Lawlessness) will be revealed. So what is the Tribulation?

The Tribulation is going to be a 7 year period of the single most horrific time on earth: If that time weren’t shortened, nobody would be rescued. But those days will be cut short because of the elect. – Matthew 24:22

A couple of things to note right here. First, the Church is not “the elect” mentioned above. There are going to be a huge spiritual awakening during the Tribulation period. Second, this 7 year period is the time of Jacob’s (Israel) Trouble:

Alas! That day is so great there is none like it; it is the time of distress for Jacob; yet he shall be saved out of it. – Jeremiah 30:7

This period of time has nothing to do with the Christian believer. Let me explain. God chose His people through Abraham, who proved to be a faithful believer in Yahweh. Through Abraham’s grandson (Isaac’s son), Jacob, who God changed his name to Israel, a great nation arose. God’s chosen people.

Jesus was born a Jew Himself. He came to be the Savior of Israel in addition to the whole world, but Israel overall rejected Him. They refused to see Jesus as the Messiah that the Scriptures had promised. As a whole, they were only on the lookout for an earthly king. It is important to say that there are two seemingly opposing Messiahs promised in the Old Testament. One is the Jesus that fulfilled all the prophecies of the suffering messiah, who would come to save our souls. The other one is victorious king who will restore perfection and rule over the world. This is what Jesus will fulfill in His Second Coming. It is two opposite personalities of the same individual. Not two messiahs, only one. This duality is what is described by the Lion and the Lamb. Jesus is both. He is the humble servant savior of the world because He laid down His glory to be born as a child. He lived a perfect, sinless life, and then He suffered a sinner’s death on the cross in payment for all who accept His gift of salvation’s sin debt. When He comes back, we are going to see the other side that was promised in the Old Testament prophecies.

When Israel, as a whole (there were many Jews who did become believers, and there still are many who are today – Messianic Jews) rejected Jesus. They did not believe He is the Messiah. They are still on the lookout for their Messiah because they do not realize He has already lived and He is coming back. Now God made many covenants (promises) to the nation of Israel. God cannot go back on His promises. He doesn’t “change His mind” and decides that He is not going to help His chosen people. Israel, the Jewish nation, is still God’s chosen people and He will still fulfill all the promises He has for them. Once the Age of Grace / Church Age is over with the Rapture, God will return His focus to Israel and their redemption.

The Tribulation has very specific parts. The Bible lays out that it is a 7 year period broken into two 3.5 year (1260 day each) periods which will start after the Antichrist (Man of Lawlessness) being revealed after the Rapture, remember:

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one restraining him will do so until he is out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed. – 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8a

Due to this rejection, God is going to punish Israel (and the remaining unbelieving world) because of their rejection. Jesus’s blood is not covering them because they decided not to accept the salvation Jesus provides us. Just like Israel was disciplined by God throughout history for their unbelief, it is going to happen again. But in the end, God is going to save Israel. There will be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, revivals in history during the Tribulation. There is redemption still available during the Tribulation for anyone who misses the Rapture. However, it is not going to be the same as we experience ourselves now during the “Church Age” or “Age of Grace”. The commitment of people during the Tribulation to Jesus will quite literally cost most of them their lives. There will be a small remnant of believers that come to know Christ during the Tribulation who will make it through this 7 year period. They are going to be the ones that repopulate the world during Jesus’s 1,000 year reign at the end of the Tribulation.

The “restraining one” is the Holy Spirit who indwells believers during the Age of Grace / Church Age. While the Holy Spirit is in us, the Church is also restraining. Once we are out of here in the Rapture, so will the Holy Spirit and the Antichrist will be revealed.

The Antichrist is going to burst onto the world stage, seemingly to have all the right answers to the chaos which will ensue following the Rapture.

Once the Antichrist reveals a strengthened peace treaty between Israel and the rest of the world, the official clock for the Tribulation starts:

He will make a firm covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and offering. The abomination of desolation will be on a wing of the temple until the decreed destruction is poured out. – Daniel 9:27

Once the Antichrist causes the temple sacrifice to be stopped, at the midpoint of the Tribulation (3.5 years from the signing of the peace treaty), then the real wrath of God will commence. None of the Tribulation will be good, but the final 3.5 years will be downright horrible.

After the 7 years ends, Jesus returns and we will see the start of the millennial reign of Christ.

So we’ll wrap this up for today. I wanted to mention that roughly 1/3 of the Bible is prophecy. God wants us to know this or He would not have had it included in the Scriptures. While it can be scary, and even hard to understand, I think there is extensive comfort in knowing what is to come to pass beforehand. Especially prior to the Rapture. Everything in our world points to Jesus coming back for us and it is imminent. That means it can literally happen at any time. I pray that you have chosen to accept the gift of salvation our Lord Jesus paid so very much for you. It was something that we could never do on our own. He loves us so much that He did not want existence without us. But God cannot be in the presence of sin. It creates a huge gap between us and God. Jesus filled that gap with His sacrifice on the cross for your sins and mine. I pray that you have accepted Jesus as your true Messiah. Time is not guaranteed. Our next breath is not. At some point the Rapture is going to happen and once it does there are no do-overs. There won’t be a second Rapture. Thankfully there will still be salvation possible, but it is so much easier to do it now.

Until next time, beloved.