If you listen to conservative media—which I do, by the way, and appreciate much of it—we are entering a “golden age.” Those who understand the concept of the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ realize that it is the true golden age. But, that is not what the news analysts are referring to!
Their perspective is that the dumpster fire of the previous administration, who thought about evil continually, is in the rearview mirror. Righteous people didn’t think they could be shocked and re-shocked with the debauchery of the left, but each day’s rundown of offenses were worse than the previous. When you have a Romans 1 mentality, you just think evil continually.
“The Tribulation is for Israel and judgment on the unbelieving world for their sin.”
From around 33 AD to 70 AD, God dealt with both the Church and Israel, and then the temple came down, as Christ said it would. From 70 AD until 1948 AD Israel was not a nation, even though Jewish people always inhabited the land of Israel. Yet, the “times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) during which Gentiles exercise control of the land, including Jerusalem, continues to this day.
But the temple will be rebuilt. The daily sacrifices will be restored. And then, in the middle of Daniel’s 70th week, they will end again because of the abomination of desolation. At that time the antichrist will be revealed as he becomes empowered by Satan, who is cast out of Heaven by Michael. The Great Tribulation begins at that time. (See Daniel 12:1-2.)
But there is a difficulty with the common interpretation of the identity of those who are persecuted for Christ during Daniel’s 70th week. These are commonly called “tribulation saints”, which they are, but that term is made up. The pre-trib timeline is problematic for several reasons.
What is God’s specific purpose for Israel in the final week of Daniel’s 70-week vision?
Daniel 9:24 NKJV
Seventy weeks are determined
For your people and for your holy city,
To finish the transgression,
To make an end of sins,
To make reconciliation for iniquity,
To bring in everlasting righteousness,
To seal up vision and prophecy,
And to anoint the Most Holy.
Daniel received this revelation when he learned why Israel was in exile and how long it would last, and he prayed for Israel to be forgiven and healed while he confessed their sins. God revealed to him a timeline to carry out what Paul described as “all Israel [being] saved”. He explained the role of the Church (especially the Gentile Church) this way:
Romans 11:15-16, & 25-27 NKJV
I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!...
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”
But at what point in Daniel’s 70th week is Israel saved as a nation? At what point do they come to believe on Christ? It cannot be at the begining. Jesus said they would follow the Antichrist.
John 5:43 NKJV
I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.
But the Antichrist will turn on Israel at the abomination of desolation, according to Daniel 11:29-39.
The moment in which the scales fall from the eyes of Israel will be at the second coming when they see Jesus in His glory. Compare these passages:
Zechariah 12:10 NKJV
And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.
Revelation 1:7 NKJV
Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.
The second coming is comprised of multiple events, just like the first coming. The first is the rapture, and the last is Christ returning to the earth and setting up His kingdom. If Israel were to be converted by a pre-trib (i.e. before Daniel’s 70th week) rapture, then what Christ said about them following the Antichrist would not happen. But if the conversion does not take place until the very end, then Israel does not fulfill her mission as a light to the world.
However, if Israel comes to national repentance at a pre-wrath rapture AFTER the Great Tribulation, then the sealing of the twelve tribes in Revelation 7 makes perfect sense. It also makes sense for the Church to remain in the world until then, resisting the Antichrist and the Devil who empowers him, fulfilling the Great Commission empowered by the Holy Spirit.
“Tribulation saints”, as they are called, are described in several places (but without that title).
Mathew 24:9-10 NKJV
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
Revelation 6:9-11 NKJV
When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.
Revelation 12:11 NKJV
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
Revelation 20:4 NKJV
And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
Every person I’ve ever spoken to who holds the pre-trib rapture view considers the “Restrainer” in 2 Thessalonians 2 to be the Holy Spirit. And yet these tribulation saints must endure to the end during the greatest time of trouble in human history, the greatest persecution of God’s people ever, and preach the Gospel to the whole world (the Church’s Great Commission, by the way), but they must do so without the empowering of the Holy Spirit?
Mathew 24:14 NKJV
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
Mark 16:15 NKJV
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Acts 1:8 NKJV
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
In no way can the “tribulation saints” being persecuted for the word of God and the name of Christ be considered God’s wrath. God’s wrath is being treasured up for the wicked even now and has been already, but it will not be poured out on the earth until after the Great Tribulation, including the seal judgments.
ALL of the things described in the Olivet Discourse (as signs of Christ’s return) and the seal judgments of Revelation HAVE ALREADY happened to a lesser extent during the Church age. And none of them were the wrath of God. And the Church never experienced the wrath of God. But NONE of the trumpet judgments or bowl judgments have EVER been experienced by the Church because they are the outpouring of God’s wrath.
It is impossible to force a pre-trib rapture into the Olivet Discourse when it is read plainly. The signs Christ gave to tell us His coming is imminent match the seal judgments of Revelation. But how would this be a coming at the end of Daniel’s 70th week when Christ did not mention anything like the trumpet judgments and bowl judgments but rather identified the heavenly sign of a simultaneous solar and lunar eclipse?
That sign marks the end of the Great Tribulation. But Joel says it must come before the Day of the Lord. First Thessalonians 5 shows that the Day of the Lord is the Second Coming.
Go back and look at the four passages describing this sign I posted here:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4308315/posts?page=20#20
This sign clearly delineates between the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord. Both are part of Daniel’s 70th week, and they come in that order. The rapture comes after the sign in the heavens, AFTER the Great Tribulation, but preceding (or as the first event of) the Day of the Lord.
God will save, rescue, and preserve His people, the Church in, during, and through the Great Tribulation as she triumphs over the Antichrist.
Romans 8:35-39 NKJV
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
John 16:33 NKJV
These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
John 17:14-15 NKJV
I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.
Luke 21:36 NKJV
Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.
