Edition 258. May 6^th 2015

The characteristics of the tribulation:

The characteristics of the tribulation:

Introduction:

The tribulation period will be the worst time ever, but with a very powerful, strong and positive outcome. Don’t focus just on the tribulation, but the end result of purity and holiness.

Those born of the Spirit of God now will not go through the tribulation, but because it is a major part of the end-time picture and a huge part of the scriptures we must look into it. If you know your Bible, you will know that a large part of the church as revealed in the messages to the seven churches in the book of Revelation does go into the tribulation.

The tribulation culminates in the greatest failure in world history and the greatest victory ever. It is the culmination of all of Satan’s attempts to derail the plans of God, judged, and cast into hell. It is the final victory of God’s great, wonderful, marvellous plans.

The tribulation will be a time of personal torment, stress and suffering to the point of desired suicide by masses. At the same time we see masses saved and set free during the time period.

There are many characteristics of the tribulation period that we will see emerging and growing now before the tribulation begins. The majority will occur exclusively in the seven-year period, but many of them have forerunners now.

In this edition, I will deal with some of the characteristics that have forerunners and then look at the overall nature and characteristic of the entire period.

What is the tribulation?

Briefly, it is referred to as the time of “Jacob’s trouble”, the “seventieth week” of years as recorded in Daniel. It is the tribulation and great tribulation referred to in the Revelation.

It is the culmination and completion of the Old Covenant, which was put on hold for the Church dispensation or age. It is a time period in which God primarily deals with “Jacob” being Israel and the Jewish people. It is a very specific time of exactly seven years made up of Hebrew years containing 360 days each.

It is a time period of distinction, in which the judgement of God upon the world system comes to a climax. It is a unique time in which the wrath of God, the wrath of Satan, the wrath of man and the wrath of nature all explode onto the world scene for this climactic conclusion of the world system under Satan. It sees the return of our Lord and casting into hell of all the unsaved on the earth.

The end of the tribulation sees the end of the Adamic curse upon nature as it is freed into glorious liberty, just like it was before the fall.

The tribulation period sees multitudes saved, becoming “tribulation saints”. It is the doorway to the millennial reign of Messiah.

Judgement is not the end purpose. It is the means to an end. If you have a very dirty shirt, you can’t clean it without it going into the water. The water isn’t the end of the process, the clean shirt is.

God is holy and everything about Him is holy and right. His soon coming Millennium – that follows the tribulation, will be completely holy. The heavens and in fact the whole universe will be holy, pure and full of the glory of God forever.

The further away you go from God and His ways (even as a Christian), the more you will be filled with impure, unholy, evil. It is these who are the chief complainants against the judgements of God in the tribulation.

The danger of the tribulation:

What has happened over time is that the church has hidden its light and become self-obsessed. The church has not spoken out against the sin and evil of the world, and the result is that the devil has gradually removed the values and virtues and absolutes of the Bible from society and inserted his own.

Biblical principles have been removed from more and more aspects of life with the resultant extreme change in value systems. Sin and evil advance and are progressive because they have a advancing, progressive god. The world has become corrupted in the extreme! It is beyond repair.

The world is beyond repentance. It can only be destroyed and re-created. This happened once before at the flood of Noah.

Don’t underestimate the powers of the tribulation! Here is the sad, tragic situation revealed in these two verses below:

Revelation 13:8 “All who dwell on the earth will worship him (antichrist), whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

Note that it is only the tribulation saints, those born again in the tribulation that will not be sucked in to Satan’s world.

Revelation 17:13 “These (nations) are of one mind and they will give their power and authority to the beast. They will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them for He is Lord of lords and King of kings...”

The main, overriding characteristic is love.

This is what the word “tribulation” means:

Tribulation: Strongs H6862 “Tsar” meaning: Narrow, distress, hard, tight, oppressed. The Greek New Covenant version is G2347 “Thlipsis” meaning: A pressing, pressure, distress, affliction, persecution, aguish.

Do you know what a “tribulum” is? It is a farming implement used for thrashing and crushing wheat. It is the same root word for tribulation!

Just looking at these word meanings alone – it’s not a pretty picture is it?

It will be the worst, most intense time of death and destruction the world has ever seen, so why then do I say that the main characteristic of the time is love?

If you have a three year old kid and he is playing with a razor blade, is it love to take it away? Of course it is.

If the world has been corrupted from top to bottom and departed so far from the ways of God in every area, is it love to return it to God’s clearly revealed desire and purposes? Of course it is. Love and evil and sin don’t go together.

The tribulation is the great clean-up, the final destruction of evil and sin as God sets up a universe of purity, holiness and eternal glory.

The only way you can say that this great clean-up is not love is if you don’t believe sin is sin and evil is evil. If you believe that it’s your democratic right to live as a homosexual or in any other form of sin, of course you’re not going to like it all being judged and destroyed.

Note that the word meanings for “tribulation” above are mostly psychological. So, this time period is going to be the great working out of the final clash of modern human rights with God’s rights and ways. The resulting stress of a world facing defeat and judgement is seen in those word meanings.

Oh no! I’m not suggesting that the troubles will only be psychological – not at all. They will be hugely demonstrative and globally massive in their tumultuous physical destruction.

When absolutely everything that modern man has put his beliefs, trust and actions in comes crashing down, the world will freak out!

Here are just a few of the Bible verses showing the psychological effects and characteristics of the time:

Revelation 6:4 “Another horse, fiery red, went out and it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another, and there was given to him a great sword.”

Revelation 6:15-16 “The kings of the earth, and the great men, the rich men and the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and free man hid themselves in caves and rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.’”

Revelation 9:6 “In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die and death will flee from them.”

Revelation 9:20-21 “The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons and idols of silver and gold, brass and stone and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”

Revelation 11:18”...The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come.”

Revelation 16:9 “And men were scorched with great heat and they blasphemed the name of God, who has power over these plagues, and they did not repent.”

Now, in these verses above we see mankind trying to seek death to escape the wrath of God. We see important people like world leaders trying to hide from the judgements of God and we see the greatest tragedy of all; people refusing to repent and actually turning on God and blaming Him.

They knew these tribulation judgements were coming from God and instead of repenting they accused Him.

Let me ask you this: Do you believe that homosexuality, abortion, wild living with no restraint and all forms of perversion are basic democratic human rights? If you are part of the family of the modern world, you would say yes absolutely yes!

Here is my answer to you: You don’t know God. You have never even met Him. Your Christianity is a big lie; you are a counterfeit Christian. You are not saved. You have no respect or even understanding of the ways of God. Your Bible is your own belief system. You are living in a blind fool’s paradise.

Will you be able or equipped to deal with the powerful spiritual forces at work in the tribulation?

As you slide into the tribulation period, you will be slaughtered mentally by Satan, God, nature and man. All the garbage that you have clung to, which has become part of your very being, will be stripped away in judgement. Will you repent then?

Let me remind you that your life is not your own, you don’t own it. God created you for His purposes. You are a thief of your own life if you have given it to the ways of the world.

Here’s a powerful thought: Do you know why true born-again believers will not go through the tribulation? It’s because we are pure, holy, righteous, and sin free now! Oh yes we are! Before you get mad and think, how outrageous, let me explain to those that don’t yet understand.

This is the single biggest differentiating factor between true Christianity and all other religions. At the new birth we are made new in spirit. Our wall-to-wall human spirits are re-created supernaturally by our Lord and we are made perfect. If we are run over by a bus one day after salvation we will be saved because we are perfect.

But this purity and perfection and righteousness resides in our spirits and not in our souls. It is the soul where the gradual renewal has to take place. The biblical way is that salvation works from the inside to the outside, while all other religions work the other way and fail.

So, we are already perfect in spirit and ready for eternity and our sin which is in the realms of the body and soul are removed by the work of the cross.

It is the unbeliever who is unclean in every realm of his life and only has himself to come to his own aid. He is destined for the tribulation and its judgments.

Dirt and scum, clean and pure:

There’s something not nice about being a dirty mess (unless your name is Hagar the Horrible.)

Today the world is full of dirt and scum of all types and forms and it’s getting worse quickly.

The answer to the massive increase in the world’s crime, rioting, stealing and fall from the virtues of God can be found in one single, profound verse, and of course it’s application.

Hosea 4:2 “There is no truth, mercy or knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraint, with bloodshed after bloodshed.”

The rest of this chapter goes on to show the terrible consequences of a world without restraint. But note the reason in the first place. It is when the knowledge of God has been removed from the land.

Now, as we get to the tribulation period, the “restrainer” of evil is removed. The restrainer is the true Church indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And what is the result? It’s a world gone satanically mad! It’s a world that has become a cesspool of dirt and scum, evil idolatry and witchcraft.

If our Lord were not to clean up the scum and dirt, He would not be a God of love.

Is God unfair?

Many believe that God will be unfair by judging what has become normal behaviour, in the tribulation. They believe that any form of judgement or severity upon them is not fair.

Firstly how can He be unfair, when He has told you all these things beforehand? How can He be unfair when His warnings have been before your eyes all your life?

No He is not unfair He is most fair and all-worthy.

Revelation 5:9 “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honour and glory and blessing.”

Betrayal, Persecution and martyrdom:

The tribulation period will be marked by one terrible characteristic, which is betrayal even to death or martyrdom. Our Lord speaks of this as one of the signs of the coming of the end.

Matthew 10:21-22 “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death and you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

Note that it is believers, family members and those who are close to each other betraying each other.

The chief cause of Christian persecution is spiritual. It is the outworking of conflict in the spirit world. Don’t for one moment entertain the idea that it is because of this or that problem with the Christians themselves. It’s a matter of the darkness hating the light.

This will be in full swing in the tribulation, but let me ask you this, would you betray someone you don’t like - even a family member? How could you if the love of God is really working in you? I understand it because I’ve come under persecution many times for this publication.

It’s not just the betrayal though; it’s also persecution in general that will be intensifying massively in the tribulation. In fact we are already seeing it starting up now.

Again many accuse God of being unfair. They ask, “How can God allow such terrible things to happen to believers?”

The answer may surprise you!

Martyrdom happens in a flash, not like some drawn out sickness. Beheading happens in a flash. But here is the astonishing thing: God allows these things to happen, but the end result is eternal special reward that lasts forever.

Martyrdom brings special rewards as does any form of persecution for the Lord’s sake. So here is the devil and his people thinking they have won a victory by killing Christians, while in fact the truth is the opposite. They are doomed and the believer is eternally rewarded!

John 16:1-2 “These things I have spoken to you that you should not stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes the time is coming that whoever kills you will think he offers God service.”

Revelation 20:4 “I saw thrones and they that sat on them, and judgement was committed to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Yeshua and for the word of God, who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their forehead or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Messiah for a thousand years.”

Psalm 116:15 “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

1 Corinthians 15:55 “O death where is your sting?” O Hades where is your victory?”

The futility of sin and evil:

The tribulation period is the final judgement of God on a sin - and evil-filled world.

God has warned over and over again that His judgements are coming on a Messiah-rejecting world. If you respond positively to our Lord and His word, condemnatory judgement will not be coming your way. If you heed the warnings, peace is your future.

Know this: There is a consistent theme that runs throughout the scriptures and this is: God is right. His ways are blessed. The ways of self, the world and those originating in the demonic are cursed, doomed and will be judged. Simply, it’s blessing or judgement.

The spectacularly magnificent end:

Revelation 17:13 “These (nations) are of one mind and they will give their power and authority to the beast. They will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them for He is Lord of lords and King of kings...”

This deeply satisfying verse shows the results of a deceived, blinded world surrendering to the devil himself. As we’ve seen in other verses in this edition, these satanically maddened people even try to make war against our Lord. Talk about a futile exercise!

But note the obvious, inevitable, glorious conclusion: “The Lamb will overcome them!”

For believers now before the tribulation, and those who become believers in the tribulation, it’s not just a case of being on the winning side; it’s a case of being right with God, clean, pure, holy, righteous and part of His wonderful family forever.

The big take away from this edition is this: The tribulation is Satan’s last stand and God’s response. It is all manifested in the attempted attacks on God and His family by modern man and world full of demons.

Final thoughts:

There is extreme futility in every aspect of a life outside of salvation in Messiah.  A life pursuing self, lived for and ordered by self is empty and hollow, unfulfilling, isolated, alone, awaiting great terror.

Alternatively what joy to live with purpose, with fire in your heart, in great expectation, alive with abundance of knowledge, understanding and wisdom of heart, awaiting inexplicable, incomprehensible, eternal glory and wonder?

The pursuit of our great King the Messiah of majesty is a magnificent obsession, producing light, love, meaning and fiery spirit.

The true person of God is other-worldly, can’t be controlled or manipulated by man and the media, unshakeable, deeply mysterious, and filled with passion.

I took this picture in the Namib Desert of a Camel Thorn tree. I removed the colour and created a few effects and then combined the flower for the overall effect.

Shalom and grow in grace!