Matthew 24:21-22

Matthew 24:21: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”

Notice the staggering scope of this statement! This time of trouble will be the worst time of trouble there has ever been in the entire history of the world. It is worse than World War I, World War II, and any other war that has ever been fought. It is even worse than the Flood, which wiped out all of mankind except for the 8 people on the Ark. (How can it possibly be worse than that? Think of it this way: the Tribulation will kill more than half of the world’s population, which at today’s numbers would be more than 3 billion people. If there were only 100 million alive when the Flood happened then one could see how the Tribulation could be worse, in terms of the sheer number of people who will die.)

A number of people say that the Tribulation isn’t really going to be that bad, and will just be like all of the other persecutions that have happened during history. It’s nothing special, and those who talk about the Rapture are just cowardly American Christians who are afraid of being persecuted. It rather astonishes me that there are those who reject the doctrine of the Rapture on the basis that it is “unspiritual” to want to avoid being persecuted! A “real” Christian wouldn’t even want to run. They would stand their ground and take their lumps, so to speak (unlike the apostle Paul, who fled from city to city to avoid being killed; does that mean he was cowardly?). In other words, talk of the Rapture is equated with cowardice and treason.

I think that argument is preposterous. The Bible teaches the Rapture in a great many places, and it tells us to be looking forward to it, to be comforted by it, and to be thankful for it. To reject all of that and say “Well, you’re just a coward if you believe that stuff” is terrible. The Bible teaches the Rapture; therefore, we should believe in it. This is not complicated.

So, not only do people reject what the Bible has to say about the Rapture, but they also dismiss what the Bible has to say about the Tribulation. They say that it’s not really going to be all that bad. They say that times are tough all over the world, and this is just more of the same. Christians have always been persecuted; Christians always will be persecuted; and this is just more of the same.

That is really a demonstration of appalling ignorance, and a complete rejection of what Jesus said in this verse. During this 7 year period we do not have the mere persecution of the Church. No, what we have is a holy and angry God pouring out His wrath upon the world. The entire world has not faced the wrath of God since the time of the Flood, and this time it will be much worse than it was before. The Tribulation is not just another case of nation-states hunting down and killing Christians; it is a time when God Himself pours out His wrath upon this world and kills people by the billions – and then unleashes armies of demons to torment and kill even more people! Things will be so bad that every last person on Earth will cry out in terror, and will seek to be buried alive rather than have to face the wrath of the Lamb. They will be unable to stand before His gaze. “For the great day of His wrath is come, and who is able to stand?”

The Tribulation is not just more of the same horrors that we’ve always seen; it is a whole new thing, unlike anything that has ever happened before. (We know this because that is what Jesus just said in this verse.) It is the worst and darkest time in all of human history. A sinful world will fall into the hands of an angry God, and when God is done the planet will be destroyed and the world will become a mass graveyard. As the next verse says:

Matthew 24:22: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”

In other words, if God didn’t cut the period short, every last living thing on the planet would have died. Every. Single. Last. One.

So don’t try to claim that this is just more of the same old persecution that Christians have always seen. Jesus Himself says that it is not.