IF THE CHURCH GOES THROUGH THE GREAT TRIBULATION . . . WHAT THEN?
T h e t i m e of the rapture is today a live question among students of prophecy. W ill the church go through the Great Tribulation? The great majority of Bible teachers say it will not. A minority say that it will. Which view is correct? W ill the church be removed from earth before the tribulation judgments fall and the Antichrist appears, or will the church see the false Christ before she sees the true Christ, and have to endure together with an unbelieving world the awful judgments and plagues of the tribulation period? We need not fall out with each other over this question. There are godly men and scholarly on both sides. Recent writers have discussed this question without acrimony. This is commendable. How else can the Holy Spirit who is love as well as light help us find the right answer? I am glad the question has been raised in recent years. It sent me to the Bible to restudy the whole question. I have read almost everything available on both sides. Far from changing my view on pretribulation rapture I now believe it more strongly than ever. As I read it, the Word of God is overwhelmingly in favor of rapture before the tribulation. W ill the church go through the Great Tribulation? I shall begin by asking if we know what the Great Tribu lation is like. Someone said to me very thoughtlessly the other day, “ It makes no difference whether we are to be in it or out of it, as long as we are saved.” Does it not? It is my considered judgment that those who lightly put the church in the Great Tribulation either do not know what it is, or do not believe what the Bible says concern ing it. Consider just a few of the many predictions made con cerning this eventful period with which this age will close. Jeremiah says, “Alas! for that dav is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7). Isaiah calls it the time of God’s “ indignation,” and declares that only those of God’s people who hide in secret chambers will escape its awful carnage (Isa. 26:20-21). Joel calls it, “ a dav of darkness . . . there hath not been ever the like” (Joel 2:2). Micah says that God, “ will execute vengeance and anger in fury upon the nations, such as they have not heard” (5:15). He further declares concerning Israel, “ According to the days of thv coming out of the land of Egypt will I show unto him marvellous things. The nations shall see, and be confounded at all their might: they shall lav their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the Lord our God” (Mic. 7:15). Here is a crystal clear statement that God will repeat the plagues of Egypt during the Great Tribulation. This harmonizes with the Book of Revelation and proves wholly beyond dispute that the judgment plagues of Revelation are literal plagues. Daniel calls it “ a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation” (Dan. 12:1). He here declares
its horrors will be without parallel in the world’s history. Christ corroborates Daniel’s testimony and stated, “ For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 24:21). Our Lord here states that the unexampled sorrow and anguish, plagues and convulsions of nature, judgments from above and beneath, shall work such destruction upon mankind, that unless God in mercy had shortened the time, the entire human race would be exterminated. Those who minimize the awfulness of the tribulation for the sake of their argument would do well to mark those words •—■“no flesh saved.” In the plainest of prose Jesus declares that nobody would be left alive upon the earth if the awful tribulation continued beyond its ap pointed time. But God’s specific commentary on the nature and details of the Great Tribulation is the Book of Revelation. Just as a major part of Nebuchadnezzar’s and Daniel’s vision, of Gentile world power is occupied with the end time — as much space being given to the few years of the Beast’s reign at the end time, as to all the centuries before it — so the last book of the Bible is a description of the Tribulation Period with which this age will end. Mark then some of the facts revealed concerning this time of divine judgment. The Devil will be on earth having great wrath know ing his days are numbered before incarceration in the abyss. Antichrist will be energized by Satan, and will be supreme on earth, having power over all people and nations, including the tribulation saints. All who will not worship the Beast will be killed. He shall “prevail against them,” he “ shall wear out the saints of the most High,” he shall “make war with the saints and overcome them” (Dan. 7:21; Rev. 13:15). It will be the time of God’s wrath upon unbelievers living on the earth. Peace will be taken from the earth so that universal war will engulf the nations. War, famine and plagues will destroy one fourth of mankind. Multitudes of saints will be martyred. Men will flee to the caves of the earth, and cry to the mountains to hide them from the awful tempest of God’s wrath. The earth will be rocked by physical convulsions including the greatest earthquake in the world’s history. The mental and physical anguish following these judgments and plagues will be such that those who are still alive will pray for death and will not be able to die. Such is the Great Tribulation, and do you wonder that I said at the beginning that those who speak lightly of these awesome events, either do not know what it is, or do not believe what the Bible says about it? Having shown part of the pictures of the Great Tribu lation, and the above is only a part of the almost inde scribable whole, may I now show what it will mean for the church if she must pass through it?
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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