TRIBULATION.

TRIBULATION.

Yeshua promised that in the world His disciples would have tribulation (Jn. 16:33). It is indeed the divine order that “through many tribulations it is necessary for us to enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). The Christians in Thessalonica received the Gospel accompanied by much tribulation (I Thess. 1:6), an experience which Paul assures them is destined to be their lot. “For when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we were to suffer tribulation ; just as it has now come to pass, and as you know” (I Thess. 3:4). Indeed, Paul assured the Thessalonians that they may expect deliverance from tribulation only at the revelation of the Lord Yeshua with His mighty angels when He comes to inflict judgment upon those who have afflicted His people with tribulation (II Thess. 1:5-8). It must be pointed out to those who teach that the coming of The Messiah is to be twofold, a secret coming to rapture the Church at the beginning of the Tribulation and a public manifestation in divine judgment at the end of the Tribulation, that the promise of deliverance in this passage does not point to the Rapture of the Church, but to the day of the Lord when He is gloriously manifested in judgment. Until that day comes, tribulation may be expected.

[...] The final Tribulation will be the most fearful the world has ever seen, but the difference will be quantitative and not qualitative. God’s people have always suffered persecution, tribulation; why then should we expect God to change the divine order which has marked the entire course of redemptive history? [...] God will not deliver His people from such tribulation, but He will preserve them in it. Yeshua assured His disciples of this fact. Even though they are put to death, not a hair of their head would perish (Lk. 21:16-18). Physical death, bodily suffering is not to be feared, fearful as it is, by those who have been redeemed by the suffering and the death of The Messiah. Martyr has ever been a mark of faithfulness to Christ. Believers have been ready, often glad, to die for Christ’s sake. Why should it be any different at the end? (pp. 128-129).

Certainly we dare not propagate a teaching of safety about which the Word of God is not indisputably clear, nor should we accept the responsibility of filling the hearts of God’s people with what may be a false hope and thus leave them utterly unprepared for terrible days of persecution when and if they fall. If there is the possibility that the Church is to suffer tribulation at the hands of Antichrist, do not those who believe it have a God-given responsibility to do what they can to prepare the Church for what may be ahead, even though it is a very unwelcome message? Our responsibility is to God, not to man. (pp. 159-160)

By George E. Ladd, The Blessed Hope: (Eerdmans Publishing Co.: Grand Rapid, Michigan, 1956).