Before the end of days, there will be tribulation as never experienced before; that event is called the “Great Tribulation” by theologians because it shall be on a scale of great magnitude.
Life itself, for the Christian, is tribulation. The truth is not a gospel of prosperity but adversity for the Christian. Mankind was sent out of the Garden, not for “paradise,’ but to experience the elements of the world.
Great Tribulation would mean an increase over the normal. The martyrs, over the years, suffered tribulation, and the Great Tribulation surely will be on that scale. Indeed, Christ suffered Great Tribulation Himself as it could get no worse for Him.
The point is that Great Tribulation is not a one-time event at the end of time, but that the end of time ends with another Great Tribulation.
His disciples took Jesus to see Herod’s Temple, and there He recounted coming tribulations: (1) The Temple will be destroyed, (2) antichrists shall come, (3) there shall be wars, and (4) there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places… “8 All these are the beginning of sorrow… 6 for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Mat 24:8,6). The “sorrows” lead to the end… the tribulations preceding the last Great Tribulation.
There are two possibilities: either the time of sorrows
began with the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., or the Temple will be
rebuilt before the end of days. In
eschatology, there will be three Temples built in Jerusalem according to
theologians: Solomon’s original, the Second Temple after the return from the
Diaspora from Babylon, and a subsequent Temple, numbered the “Third Temple.”
The prophet, Amos, foresaw the third Temple:
14 And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. 15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God. (Amos 9:14-15)
After 70 A.D, not only was the Temple destroyed but the Jews,
as well
The total destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple was catastrophic for the Jewish people. According to the contemporary historian Josephus Flavius, hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in the siege of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the country, and many thousands more were sold into slavery.
A last brief period of Jewish sovereignty followed the revolt of Shimon Bar Kochba (132 CE), during which Jerusalem and Judea were regained. However, given the overwhelming power of the Romans, the outcome was inevitable. Three years later, in conformity with Roman custom, Jerusalem was "plowed up with a yoke of oxen," Judea was renamed Palaestina and Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina. (Israel Magazine; “End-Time Prophecy: Why is the Third Temple so Important?”)
This commentary is important, but Josephus specifically indicated that Herod’s Temple was not a repair of the Second Temple, but an entirely new Temple built on the foundation of the older one. Hence, it is not the Third Temple that fills the prophecy of the end, but a subsequent Temple.
Herod’s Temple was the Third Temple in Jewish history and the fourth if the destroyed Temple in Samaria is included. It appears that Temples matter mostly to the Jews, and the Samaritan Temple had no significance to the Jews ever and was considered an unholy temple.
Amos could not have written of the Herodian nation because after the destruction of the Herod’s Temple, the Jews were pulled out and history reveals that Israel even became another Latinized nation with Roman gods. Amos may have seen into the future another temple of stones, or a representative Temple of “Solid Rock.”
Just as the Jews still wait on a Messiah, they still await another Temple. Now, even evangelical Christians await another Temple, and it seems unlikely since the Dome of the Rock now occupies its place.
False witnesses against Jesus accused Him, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the Temple of God, and to build it in three days’” (Mat 26:61). They witnessed truthfully as He had precisely said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).
With that background, Jesus was the “Temple” that would be raised up and the one to which Amos was referring. Christians were the ones that Amos saw planted on that Land as the second “Garden of Eden” because in the beginning He had planted Adam in that Garden, and precisely in Jerusalem. The second “Garden” was not a garden of trees and vines, but a “Garden” of living souls, just as with Adam when he was planted there, according to scripture: After God had breathed life unto the soil, “God planted a Garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Gen 2:8).
As Jesus is the “last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45), He was the Living Soul that the Father planted for a new “Garden.” Jesus was the foundation, the Stone that the builders rejected (Mark 2:10), and the Vine upon it (John 15:1) that would grow a crop of Christians. Jesus was the foundation of the last Temple, whether it be the third or fourth. The Father, not needing a House as usual (Acts 7:48), then Jesus is the very “Temple” of which He spoke.
So, all the while, people feel safe because the Great Tribulation is not eminent without a rebuilt Temple, the spiritual “Temple” was built in Christ’s time in 33 A.D.
Therefore, in reference to Matthew chapter 24, the “Temple”
would not be one built by hands, but the “Temple” built by God. Hence, the “time
of sorrows,” was perhaps from the Resurrection of Jesus until the end of days,
and that would mean that Jesus was true to His declaration:
34 Think not that I am come to send peace on Earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. (Mat 10:24-36)
And that declaration is the time of sorrows that would precede the coming of the end. One of the most profound signs is with the destruction of the family unit. Right now, the family is under attack as never before, and Karl Marx even made families the target of his insane ideology!
Therefore, Christians can quit waiting on the rebuilding of the Temple because the Last Temple was constructed over 2000 years ago. That requirement has already been fulfilled.
The time of sorrows is like an ocean whose waves build up their might until there is a tsunami, ironically just as in the days of Noah when, “all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened” (Gen 7:11). The time of sorrows, then, was when those on Earth realized that the end was near, and they could enter the Ark as the door was still open but did not believe in God to deliver. The end (for them) came when God shut the door to the Ark.
Based on that Great Tribulation in the days of Noah, expect the time of sorrows to be when any are free to enter in but most of humanity will remain outside in the turbulence of tribulation.
Jesus, still speaking to His disciples said, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Mat 24:21). That period is not cast in iron because mankind may get a reprieve for Christians, to wit: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened” (Mat 24:22).
The reprieve is not a delay to increase the number who would be saved because God knows already who would be saved. The days of the Great Tribulation would be shortened to ease the Great Tribulation for Christians.
Christians must have endurance:
12 Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. (Mat 24:12-14)
Love waxing cold is apostasy. Agape love is goodwill toward God and others and having affection for God and man. Apostasy, on the other hand, is “defection” from that goodwill (Strong’s Dictionary).
Now consider another “Great Tribulation” but not as great as the last one shall be!
The love of Seth’s line waxed cold when they coupled with the line of cursed Cain (Gen 8:4). They were before, in their time of sorrows, righteous, but then came the crescendo when it rained for the first time and God spewed waters like He will do again in a Laodicean manner at the end (Rev 3:16).
With Noah, eight people, because of grace (Gen 8:6), were saved during that “Great Tribulation.” All of those Sons of God who once had affection of God had their time of sorrows when blind Lamech murdered, just as his ancestor, Cain, and the mob formed to mock Noah, not forgetting to mention all the hedonism that existed in those days in their time of sorrow.
I like to think that I am already as if saved. It makes me feel safe but when anyone feels safe is when they are the most vulnerable to adversaries. Peter wrote to the Christians who had scattered, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8).
Why would Peter worry about the elect — the Christians — if they were not in danger of the “Devil,” Satan? Because if they lost their vigilance, they would be vulnerable to the Wicked One in the same manner as Adam and Eve trusted the “Serpent.” Eve was enchanted (beguiled) by the beauty of Lucifer, the outward appearance of the “Serpent,” and then the Serpent defiled her.
Original sin was their time of sorrow, and then the end came for them when they would spiritually die. To this day, because of the blood of Adam and Eve, everyone at birth is bound to die both spiritually and physically. Only rebirth covers the tainted blood of the “Serpent” in them, but the cover can be “taken off” so to speak, when it becomes a burden rather than a Garment of God, just as Adam and Eve had theirs (Gen 3:21).
In the Books of Adam and Eve, the two had many conflicts with Satan, but so long as they kept their garments on, they would be safe. The reason that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost of Jesus is so damning, is that He is the “Comforter” that is always there but can be taken off whenever a Christian waxes cold and caring not for His “Warmer.”
Waxing cold is not an abrupt event. Waxing takes time and it is so slow that it is hardly detectable. The time of sorrows is the time it takes for those who may be waxing cold to realize that they are getting cold. It is the last warning before the “storm” of the Great Tribulation.
The Last Temple was built in three days and now all the other events have come, so now is the time for safety, “for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Rom 3:11). The end is nearer than when sinners first believed. Until then, they must endure the time of sorrows, and then the end shall come.
Just when the end comes is debatable, but many of the earlier “Great Tribulations” point toward God’s people enduring the “devil” Satan, the “devil” Pharaoh, the “devil” Nebuchadnezzar, the “devil” Herod, the “devil” Judas, the “devil” Nero and may the coming “Devil” the Antichrist.
With that said, it is safest to remain sober and vigilant even if Christians are raptured before the Great Tribulation, and there is evidence that the time of sorrows is the tribulation before the 3-1/2 years of “Great Tribulation.” The “tribulation” of the end is Great Tribulation because it is tribulation to end all tribulations (Mark 13:24).
Whether before the end or not, and I am not certain of the time, Christians should take great care not to be deceived by thoughts of safety when they are in great jeopardy.
Calvinism is the doctrine that Christians are never in jeopardy; that salvation is not a final event to be given the prize but that the “prize” is as if in hand; the prize being eternal life and salvation. Because they feel safe, are they really? God will never leave nor forsake His people, but apostasy and blasphemy means that they can freely forsake Him.
Because of the doctrine of “eternal security,” that Christians can be tested by Great Tribulation, must be discarded. That faithful Job was tested with Great Tribulation by Satan himself has no significance in Calvinism because it would be for certain that Job would endure to the end. Job nor his friends were so sure of that. Job could have defected from God, or else, why would Satan endeavor to cause that?
At one time prior to the 19th century, most Christians were post-tribulation in their doctrine. Why would they now become pre-tribulation? Perhaps to better fit their doctrine of eternal security.
Scripture calls that “preservation of the saints” as do Calvinists. Indeed, God does preserve saints, but saints are those who remain with Jesus the entire walk. Walking (or running) part way is not all the Way to the prize. It is not how far the walk but who remains walking with Jesus in the end, whether it be at death or the rapture (Mat 20:16).
The householder, in the parable of the workers, “about the eleventh hour… went out, and found others standing idle.” Their just due was what they had done to the time that they became idle. They had not finished the day and were not due the full reward. Even though some were hired late, they got the same pay as those who worked all day. By grace, the householder, symbolic of Jesus, decided who would receive a fair day’s wages and who would not. All received the same pay except those who had quit, and their pay was according to their short work time.
The symbolism therein is that Jesus defines the length of the “day” and who gets the full pay. How long someone has affection for Christ is not the issue, or even how hard they work, but whether they have fidelity to Jesus to the end!
I believe that the threat of the mark of the Beast is the final test to see who endures to the end. I hope not because that is the greatest test ever given! Am I certain that I trust Jesus enough to lose my head? That is the test. Some say it is a Jewish test alone, but scripture says that a Christian is a Jew inwardly.
With that support for post-tribulation, I admit that I am not for certain but believe that to remain sober and vigilant is imperative.
I want the rapture to be pre-tribulation! That makes life easier to live, while thinking that I am impervious to the wiles of the Devil. Am I though?
It seems that it was always God’s Plan that Christians, in
the end, would face Great Tribulation:
29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. 30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto His voice; 31 (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He sware unto them. (Deut 4:29-31)
It is written, “When thou art in tribulation… even in the latter days” indicates the Great Tribulation in the end., and it was spoken to those who find God, and it turns out discovers that Jesus is God who spoke to the Jews during His ministry.
If the apostle Paul was not spared beheading when the "Beast" (Nero )
was in power, why would anyone think that when the last Antichrist (the
Beast) is in power, that they he would escape the same test of faith?
Of course, there is much conflict in who is right or who is wrong. Christians read the truth but understand it differently. We often ask, “What would Jesus do?” Perhaps we should also ask, “What would Satan want us to think?” My bet is that he would want us to think that we are already saved even though he remains on the prowl.
(picture credit: Princeton Art Museum; "Beheading of St. Paul")
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