Great Tribulation? HA! I’ve Had Christmas Dinner with Some Very Difficult People!
By Barbara Henderson
There is a time coming that Bible believers call ‘The Great Tribulation’, or the
‘Time of Jacob’s trouble’, a time of trouble such as the world has never seen.
There have been numerous books written on this time period.
Authors have tried to explain exactly what will happen during this time.
Other authors have gone into the realm of fiction in an attempt to show the awful things the world and its citizens will face during that time.
In fiction:
The heroic realize their folly in rejecting Jesus Christ when they had the chance.
They lament being ‘left behind’.
Then they commit to Jesus Christ and fight the good fight until they are martyred for their faith, or until Jesus returns.
I have read a lot of those books myself.
I don’t have a problem with them.
And I enjoyed most of them.
The thing is this:
Mankind does not have the capacity to understand or explain the utter terror of that seven years.
If you look around you, you will see millions of people who are currently delusional.
They believe things their inflated egos want to believe like:
I am a good person so I will naturally be going to heaven.
I am an enlightened person, so I will not only go to heaven, I will be a god when I get there.
God wouldn’t let anyone go to hell.
There isn’t a hell.
There isn’t even a heaven.
We are all going to the same place anyway.
If I miss heaven this time around, I will get another chance in my next life.
These delusional people currently have the Holy Spirit to speak to their hearts and conscience. The Holy Spirit tells them now:
‘These things are lies of the devil.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
God is the Authority.
God is merciful if you but ask Him.
Come to God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son.’
And when the prompting of the Holy Spirt is rejected, He tells them again that they must be saved.
Then they reject Him yet again. They see themselves as wiser than the God who created them.
You know, the ‘dead in Christ’ and ‘we that are alive and remain’ are not the only ones who are going to leave the earth when the Lord Himself descends with a trump and shout. The Holy Spirit is going to leave as well.
There will be no human being left to tell the lost person to be saved.
The Holy Spirit will be gone as well.
There will be people who ‘feel’ like they are on the right path.
The government will tell them what to do in the crisis situation.
The government and its charismatic head will call on all people to join the new world order and commit their lives to its leader.
Those who refuse to commit will find themselves persecuted even unto death.
Now where are they going to such courage?
They didn’t even have the courage to buck the world system when it was only going to get them a few stares or frowns for being different.
How could they possibly have the courage to buck the system when it will get them killed?
Something happened a while back that made me begin to consider just how incomprehensible that time of terror will be.
I read that Hamas had legalized crucifixion of those who reject Islam.
I had always had the idea that people in the tribulation would have to stand bravely at a guillotine and refuse the mark. This brave deed would be followed by having their heads chopped off very quickly. Some of the bolder martyrs might even quote from ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, and say something like, ‘It is a far better place that I go to now than I have been before – and a far better rest’ just before their heads roll.
But, the word ‘crucifixion’ put things in an entirely different light.
It brought extreme torture into the picture.
I could see the followers of Lucifer nailing one foot of the dissenter to a cross while they demanded, ‘Take the mark and live’. Then the next foot nailed to the cross. ‘Take the mark and live you fool,’ they might shout, or laugh.
Then one hand; then the other hand.
Then the cross is dropped in the pit.
Then as time slowly runs out, the one hanging on the cross is taunted with, ‘Take the mark. We’ll get you down, and you will be healed.’
And all that is only after the poor living soul has already been through trouble such as the world has never seen.
The human being living during the Biblical tribulations will face two distinct trials.
First, the one talked about most often is the persecution by the anti-christ.
He and his followers will persecute those who refuse to join the ‘save the earth’ crowd relentlessly.
They will take it as a personal insult and criticism when anyone who rejects their god and ideology.
Those who refuse to worship the new leader will find themselves without a single second of peace or real rest.
They will be mentally exhausted in about a week, but they will have seven years to endure.
Second, ‘mother nature’ will show her true colors. The environmental disasters will come, and come, and come again. A simplistic picture would be like surviving Hurricane Katrina, then a few days later the levee breaks, then a few days later there is a great earthquake and a tidal wave, then an asteroid falls in the middle of town causing fire to burn much of what is left. Food and livestock are destroyed. There is no food, no drinking water, no modern conveniences, no medicine, no hot shower or warm soak in a tub with scented bath salts. The entire world of comfort and safety is suddenly gone.
And after all that happens, more disasters happen. And then more disasters happen again.
As disasters intensify, persecution will also intensify because the citizens who have set their course with the anti-christ will blame the dissenters for the problems. The alternative would be to blame their ‘god’.
Of course, it goes without saying that within the natural disasters and political/religious revolution, there will also be a financial disaster. Goods and services will be virtually unavailable to almost everyone. Human life will be of no value at all. Every human being will see others as just someone competing with them for the food that is available. It will be ever man for himself, and that ‘love they neighbor’ stuff will be ancient history.
People will be afraid as in ‘terrified beyond reason’. That means they won’t be able to reason. They will be so afraid they will not be able to think clearly. I have heard it said that after a trauma or tragic loss, it is best for the bereaved to make no major decisions for at least one year, because it takes that long for the mind to recover enough to be able to make a sound decision. The people living in the tribulation won’t have time to recover from anything. Events will be too fast and furious. It will be one trauma after another.
Let’s do a recap.
Society/government will be in the process of becoming totalitarian. Those who oppose will be persecuted to death.
The environment will be in turmoil.
Within these sorrows there will be turmoil in:
Family for those who have any family or loves ones left.
Jobs - with everything that will be going on, there will be a financial collapse.
Society – every rule of civilized society will be thrown away.
The extreme intensity of that time of terror cannot be comprehended.
Yes, there will be some who are saved during this time.
I don’t know who they will be.
I don’t know how they will come by their knowledge of Jesus Christ, their understanding of the way of salvation, and the courage to accept Christ under such terrifying circumstances.
I do know they will be few in number. And of those saved, even fewer will survive to the end of the age.
I know that most of the people who read my articles and blog are already saved.
If you are not saved, then I pray you will go to God according to His instructions.
That is to:
Acknowledge that you are separated from God by your sin.
Your ‘sin’ means you are not perfect.
You are human, so you are not perfect.
The problem is that God Almighty IS perfect.
God WANTS to clean you up so that you can come into His perfect home without polluting it.
That is done through the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ.
Don’t ask me to explain how it works, but on the word of God Himself, I can promise you that Jesus made a way for you to enter the kingdom of heaven,
AND to escape the second death – which is separation from God for eternity in a place called hell,
AND to escape the Great Tribulation.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
And since most of my readers ARE already Christians, I am also hoping this article will give you some thoughts about the tribulation, and the horror the lost will suffer then and in eternity. I hope it will encourage you to pray for the lost, and tell them about Jesus.
The song for this article is ‘There’s a Great Day Coming’
God bless you.
Barbara Henderson
‘There’s a Great Day Coming’
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/t/g/tgreatda.htm
There’s a great day coming, a great day coming;
There’s a great day coming by and by,
When the saints and the sinners shall be parted right and left,
Are you ready for that day to come?
Refrain
Are you ready? Are you ready?
Are you ready for the judgment day?
Are you ready? Are you ready?
For the judgment day?
There’s a bright day coming, a bright day coming;
There’s a bright day coming by and by.
But its brightness shall only come to them that love the Lord.
Are you ready for that day to come?
Refrain
There’s a sad day coming, a sad day coming;
There’s a sad day coming by and by,
When the sinner shall hear his doom: “Depart, I know you not!”
Are you ready for that day to come?
Refrain
