Do we as present-day believers get to escape all of the dangerous times of death and destruction of the Tribulation? In a precise, accurate, Biblical, and theological way the true answer is: YES. Christ’s church is not destined or appointed to go through that wrath (I Thessalonians 5:9).
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However, if we go through just the normal struggles that many face today, and most have always faced—it may seem like the Tribulation to those of us in the English-speaking world. In historic perspective, we Americans are living in a bubble, and I believe the bubble—is already starting to pop.
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Are we to prepare for the demonic invasion of Satan’s rampage through the earth in the Tribulation? No, but are you prepared this evening for what most believers alive on earth today, and throughout the past six thousand years, have faced? Probably not!
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For all of the history of the Earth, for MOST believers, life for God has been reduced to three words: frequent hostile persecution, constant inescapable affliction, and earnest supplication for the protection of loved ones.
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Every day there are more voices around Christ’s Throne in Heaven, more saints who kneel raising the fragrant worship of praise to God, and more redeemed lives who bless the Name of their Redeemer. Because:
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Worshippers Increase Daily In Heaven
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One of the avenues of enlarging the worshippers of Heaven is through the martyrdom of saints. More believers have died for their faith in the last hundred years than have died for Christ in the other 1,900 years since the Cross. That is what Jesus said it would be like in Matthew 24:7-9.
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For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows. 9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.
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Remember that many of Christ’s saints are suffering and dying around the world today. Persecutions are as old as God’s people. Saints were persecuted in the Old Testament as were believers in the New Testament. Even a casual reading of the book of Acts will find no less than 47 different events that involved harm, mistreatment, and persecution of those early believers.