Peace Apostolic Ministries | What Is The Great Tribulation?

01 Jun What Is The Great Tribulation?

Posted at 14:38h in Bible, Endtimes, Prophecy by David Alley 0 Comments

The phrase ‘the great tribulation’ is quite intriguing.

It sounds so terrible, so nasty that you would do anything within your power to avoid being caught up in that. Reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition, or torture at Guantanamo bay, except way worse, more systematised and deliberate.

It is from Revelation 7 that we find this phrase, although many versions of the Bible do not call it “the” great tribulation as though it is a specific event, but rather just ‘great tribulation’ to describe a difficult time. Revelation 7:9-14 (ESV) shows it like this:

9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” 13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

The great tribulation is described as being a thing which was experienced by a huge number of people. It describes people from every tribe, people and language and they are so numerous as to be uncountable.

There is a semi-popular end-times theory that says the great tribulation is a 3.5 year period of terrible anguish, but God rescues the Christians from that so that they don’t go through it. Then the rest of the world suffers this “great tribulation.” However in Revelation we see that it is the Christians who have come through the great tribulation and there are so many that it represents all the faithful believers of all time, not just a handful who managed to get saved in one 3.5 year period.

What then is the Great Tribulation?

Simply this, it is the period of time from when humanity fell into sin, plunging all of creation into pain, chaos and frustration. And the period continues until the final redemption of humanity. That whole period of time is from God’s point of view a period of huge trial, huge trouble, or to use this language, great tribulation. It was so bad that it required Christ to go to the cross on our behalf. Because of Christ, the world is redeemed and the end of this pain and suffering will come to an end.

It is out of this huge period of difficulty that every believer, every saint, every Christian has come, from every tribe, nation, language and background. They have come through washed in white, and paint the picture we read of in Revelation 7, a truly wonderful and magnificent scene.