Don’t Fear The Tribulation

 

Many Christians fear the tribulation of Revelation, the final trials, because they see how powerful the devil becomes in those days. For some this has even motivated the rapture doctrine, because they believe the wrath on the devil's system will be so terrible that God would not leave his church on the earth in the midst of it.

But, again and again in the book of Revelation, God shows that he is redeeming his people and saving them through the work of Christ throughout the tribulation. However, you interpret this, whether Amill that we are in it now, or Premill that it is 3 and 1/2 or 7 years of intense trials at the end of the age. However you interpret it, one of the points of the book of Revelation is that the power of the devil is limited. Right up until Revelation 18:4 God is still calling his people out of Babylon and towards redemption.

Even at the greatest heights of his power when the beast is ruling the world's system, whether that was about Nero, or about a future antichrist or both (I think there are many antichrists, with a final one coming), still countless people are being redeemed,

"9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God,

    and serve him day and night in his temple;

    and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;

    the sun shall not strike them,

    nor any scorching heat.

17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,

    and he will guide them to springs of living water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Rev. 7:9-17).

The point of Revelation is to show to us the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory and how evil loses. Yes, the tribulation may be terrible, it may be intense, but it will not stop God from redeeming countless people from this earth. In fact, one of the core messages of the book of Revelation is that the more intense and powerful evil gets, the more we should cling to Christ and trust in him for redemption, because in evil there is not hope and no future. The book has great application outside of just worrying about end times. It is a morale booster for those who look at it and see what Christ is doing and that no mater how powerful evil gets, it cannot overcome our Lord.

I think if you have been taught to fear the tribulation or the book of Revelation, you have been taught wrong on the issue, whatever your end time view. Because when the devil is at his most powerful, he helps achieve his own destruction and God's gospel continues to advance and bring many to faith.

Revelation should not cause us to fear the power of the devil. It should cause us to glory in the Lord Jesus, who no matter how powerful the devil gets, Jesus outshines him and achieves his purposes.