Tribulation and the Elect (02/25/23-02/26/23)

There is a question that has been lingering as I went through the last section:  Is the Judgment the Tribulation or is it separate?  At this juncture, I would answer that they are separate, particularly when the Judgment is viewed primarily as the sentencing phase of the matter.  This is what we have seen transpiring before the Great Throne of the Lord on the Last Day.  But there is a leadup to that day.  Here, we have found thus far that the indicators Jesus spoke of in regard to the Last Day are such as could readily be seen to apply pretty much throughout history.  As I observed previously, the Day of the LORD is always near.

I would also note that the Apostles wrote as those and to those who were already living in the last days, and we must recognize that period of the last days as the leadup, the period preceding the final Day of the Lord, the true and final Last Day.  Given that, I have to admit a propensity for aligning with the position that the Tribulation of which Scripture speaks has been ongoing at least since the moment Christ was nailed to the cross.  Certainly, those early Christians facing the deadly persecutions of Rome would have found no difficulty in declaring them tribulation.  Those who were burned at the stake, tossed to the lions, tortured and tormented for the amusement of their unbelieving overlords no doubt recognized tribulation in their experience, and just as doubtless they equated it with the Tribulation of Scripture.

Such a perspective puts paid to one question, that of whether the elect will undergo the Tribulation, or be taken up in the Rapture prior to that time.  If the Tribulation has been going on already for some two thousand years, I dare say we’re going through.  And it seems to me that this same question and same perspective are what troubled the church in Thessalonica.  They would seem to have been of the opinion that the Rapture came first, and so, the persecutions they faced translated as evidence that they had missed the cut.  You could certainly understand how this might lead to a bit of despondency and doubt on their part.  For, here with them, if at a distance, is the very Apostle who delivered hope to them.  If they missed the call, so did he, apparently.  This is terrible news indeed, if true.  Of course, it wasn’t, and Paul moved quickly to put them straight on the matter.  Yet, here we are, thousands of years later, asking the same question.  And as things grow darker around us, it only makes the questions more urgent, and the answer more critical to receive.

Fine.  But thus far I have been talking primarily of opinion, apart from reference to Paul’s two letters to Thessalonica.  And I suppose I could argue that those letters ought to be sufficient in themselves.  But we might incline to suppose this was specific answer to a specific set of trials.  Maybe those trials, terrible though they were, aren’t included in the Tribulation.  What, then, can we discern from Scripture’s message in regard to this?

Well, the first thing I think we can readily see is that this is not something from which the people of God will be excluded.  Let’s go back to Joel, that very early prophet.  We have seen already that what he writes, he writes to those who by rights should have been counted as the people of God.  “Blow the trumpet in Zion!  Sound the alarm on My holy mountain!  The day of the LORD is coming, it is very near” (Joel 2:1).  He begins with clear indication of his recipients, not that they had any doubt he was addressing them, but that we might know.  “Hear this, O elders, and listen, all inhabitants of the land” (Joel 1:2).  And he points to their present experience.  I would venture, and if I cared to go review some background, I’m pretty sure I would find my recollection correct, that Joel writes to a northern kingdom already come under judgment, already experiencing the punishing visitation of the Lord through the nation of Assyria.  They have already suffered.  Food is low, invaders are everywhere, and death is a commonplace.  “Alas for the day!  For the day of the Lord is near, and it will come as a destruction from the Almighty” (Joel 1:15).  There’s some news you never want to hear.  And as the ostensible people of God, no doubt they thought themselves safe from ever hearing it.  But safety hadn’t led to thankfulness, rather to ungodliness.  And ungodliness had earned its due reward.

This is the standard response of man to security, sadly.  Tell him he is in no danger of reprisal, and rather than going forth rejoicing along the righteous way, he assumes security is license, and drives headlong into sin.  This is clearly nothing new.  Honestly, we see it as far back as the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, or for all that, all the way back to Eve’s first bite of the forbidden fruit.  It was clearly in evidence as Paul proclaimed the gospel.  Thus, the defense of the gospel in Romans 6.  Far be it from us to sin!  We’re dead to sin, how can we continue in it.  We have been purchased at so great a price, to be alive in Christ, and shall we indeed thumb our nose at His sacrifice?

But here, Joel addresses his countrymen in his generation, pointing out to them what has been happening all around them, yet they’ve been too busy bemoaning the situation to recognize the reason for it.  “Has not food been cut off before your eyes?  Have not gladness and joy been taken from the house of our God?” (Joel 1:16).  And do you not stop to wonder at it, to ask what it all means and what we ought to do in light of such events?  I have to say, reading that and looking about our own present state of affairs, it’s difficult to avoid asking much the same question of myself.  Look at what’s happening!  I can’t advise wallowing in the news, particularly as it tends to be presented with a focus on alarm, and also with a much tainted perspective that defies us to discern the truth of things.  But one doesn’t really need the newscasts to perceive that things are off.  If anything, they are likely preventing us from recognizing the real facts on the ground.  But yes, food is cut off.  And yes, I suspect you, much like me and many others I have seen of late, are finding little enough of gladness and joy in the house of God.  It’s time to ask what’s up.  It’s time – it’s always time – to seek the Lord while He may be found.

Listen.  Hosea, poor Hosea, lived not only as a prophet, but as a prophecy in his own person.  He was given to love a prostitute, and even take her as his wife, and she being who she was, proved unfaithful.  I mean, hear his instructions from the Lord.  “Go love a woman loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, for just so the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods” (Hos 3).  And he did as he was told.  Okay, this alone is pretty stunning, isn’t it?  God not only permitting an act of adultery, but commanding it of His servant?  Shocking!  But leave that aside.  Let us hear the message, and hear the prophet’s pursuit of his role.  He tells this woman, “You shall stay with me for many days, but you shall not play the harlot, nor have any man.  And I shall behave likewise toward you.”  Okay, so no sin was actually committed, only an association with one of questionable morals.  But it was to a purpose.  It was the delivering of a message to God’s people.  “For the sons of Israel will remain many days without prince or king, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or idol.”  Observe well.  They will have neither the real stuff of faith, nor their powerless knockoffs.  No sacrifice suggests no reception of offerings at the altar.  No pillars, though, points to their harlotries, their idolatry.  No ephod, where God would judge the case of His people, which might well be taken as a disowning.  But also, no idols.  Even your false means of guidance and happiness are taken from you.  You would not have Me exclusively, and now, you are left with nothing.

Yet, God’s people are not left without hope.  God’s people are never without hope.  “Afterward the sons of Israel will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king.  They will come trembling to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days.”  There is purpose in this, and the purpose, as concerns God’s people, is repentance and forgiveness.  The purpose is restoration, and a just occasion for God to display His goodness, even towards these who have been rebels against His just rule for so long a time; even towards the likes of us.

As I am focused on the elect in this section, and how the Tribulation applies for them, let me turn more towards the outcome than the process.  Jeremiah has very hard things to say to Moab, and he builds an inexorable case, speaking from the Lord Who judges (Jer 48).  The news for them is not good, not good at all.  “Moab has been put to shame.  It has been shattered.”  How they laughed at Israel.  How they denigrated that people and mocked them in their time of judgment.  Oh, they were so proud, so sure of their superiority.  And yet, here is Jeremiah, seeing the outcome of this enemy of the state of Israel and saying, “I shall wail for Moab, for all Moab.  More than I wept for Jazer, I shall weep for you.”  But the news doesn’t stop.  “Moab will be destroyed from being a people because he has become arrogant toward the LORD.”  And to be clear, they really should know better.  But I come here for the last verse, because it is a stunning shift, a shocking turnaround.  “Yet I will restore the fortunes of Moab in the latter days.”  Even here, we see the magnanimity of our Lord.  At least I think that’s what we are seeing.  Even here, with a people destroyed from even being a people, there is restoration made not only possible, but certain.  “Yet I will.”  That’s not a conditional offer.  There’s no precursor requirement stated:  If you do thus, then I will relent of My plans.  No.  The destruction is set.  It is coming.  But so, too, is restoration.

I suppose it is possible that what God is speaking of through Jeremiah in this instance is not a matter of forgiveness, but perhaps a raising up once more of a tool of judgment in His hands.  But I don’t think so.  After all, Moab had her place in the lineage of our Savior.  And shall he not save?  We who are of the Gentiles, grafted into the people of God and made sons of Abraham by faith, have great cause to see this good news for Moab and rejoice.  For it is good news to us, as well, that we, having repented of former things and sought the forgiveness so graciously offered by the One True God, have real hope of real restoration.  Whatever may come as just punishment in the course of our days, or even what seems to us unjust, at least as concerns the reasons of those who perpetrate it against us, yet we have this promise.  It is the same promise given the sons of Abraham who are not only sons by faith, but also by flesh.  “For I, the LORD, do not change.  Therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed” (Mal 3:6).  That is a message we do well to take to heart.  And it is a message which I think we find reinforced as we shift attention towards the New Testament. 

Hear it.  “Consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces with none to deliver you.”  And don’t dare suppose this is a message solely for one historical point.  No!  The call to consider carries forward to us, as well as the promise of it.  “He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me.  To him who orders his way rightly, I shall show the salvation of God” (Ps 50:22-23).  Don’t forget Him, thank Him!  Don’t rale against the injustice of your circumstance.  For one, I assure you, it is entirely just.  Were you to be set among the perishing, yet it would be entirely just.  The obviously just is not in the punishment, but in the shocking development that there is salvation on offer.  To us!  To Moab!  To all who will lay hold of this free gift God has set before you.  What is required?  Only believe.  And I think we would have to accept that belief demonstrates in a reversal of sinful habits.  Oh, we are trapped in fallen flesh, and will continue to know failure in this regard.  And yet.  And yet, there is that trendline in the direction of righteousness.  There is thanksgiving, even in the hard times.  There is trust in God, even when circumstances could give us cause to wonder.  There is recognition that whatever the short term, God does not change, nor does His word prove false.  Ever.  And for those of us who have heard His call, there is, as I have quoted so often in recent months, this great assurance.   “I have redeemed you.  I have called you by name.  You are Mine!” (Isa 43:1).  Come what may, “I AM the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isa 43:3).  Oh!  I could go on in that marvelous word, but this is enough for my purpose.  You are Mine.  Said and done.  What must come for our discipline changes nothing.  If indeed we are His, then we shall stand even through the Tribulation, for He has made us to stand!  If ever you have difficulty finding cause for thanksgiving, just think upon that reality.  There is cause enough for a lifetime of thanksgiving and more.

What, then, do we hear of this trying time?  Well, we know that it comes upon all mankind without exception.  And that being the case, it assuredly comes upon us as well.  We know it is an outpouring of God’s wrath against sin.  And again, that being the case, it assuredly comes upon us as well.  But we know hope in spite of this, in the midst of this.  We know, because this is the case, that we have great cause to hold fast to our Lord and Savior.  And we know, much to our relief, that He holds fast to us.

We can turn back to the greeting given the church in Thessalonica in Paul’s letter.  He observes the witness borne to their faith.  “They speak of the reception they had with you, and how you have turned to God from idols so as to serve the true and living God.  And you wait for His Son from heaven, whom God raised from the dead:  Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath” (1Th 1:9-10).  Is he saying we get a pass on this after all?  Perhaps pulled clear at the last second or something?  Oh, but we should love to hear such news, and some have surely looked to this passage as evidence of just such a thing.  See?  He says Christ delivers us from this.  We must recognize that the Rapture precedes this Tribulation.  But be careful.  That from translates ek, which has at root the idea of the point from which motion proceeds.  From is a reasonable translation, but so is out of.  Even if we leave it as from, there remains that matter of a point of origin.  We can be delivered from except we have been in, can we?  It’s a fine point, I realize, and yes, I can think of cases where being delivered from danger has meant not actually having to face that danger, not having to go through it.

I can think of cases in my own life where one could view it in such light.  The Lord delivered me from some peril, be it the physical danger of a car crash, or the greater peril to soul that presents in more addictive forms of drug abuse.  I could look at those and recognize that thanks be to this deliverance, I did not go through those trials, not in the sense of undergoing the painful results that threatened.  Yet, from a different angle, I recognize that no, I did go through those trials, but I was carried clear by One greater than my own meager arts.  And from the angle we have been presented thus far, it seems clear enough that whatever deliverance is on offer for us, it will come as being carried clear, carried through, rather than as being taken out beforehand.  I cannot escape such conclusion.

Let’s hear, for example, from Paul again.  He writes to his young, trusted colaborer Timothy.  Timothy is serving as pastor to the church in Ephesus, and that church is planted in a difficult place.  It was a city steeped in mysticism and magic arts, as we learn, and it was a city in which this new Christian faith was facing serious pressure from unbelievers.  Paul had faced it when he was there.  I don’t suppose things had changed.  Add that it was, as were so many of these early church locations, a port city, with all the worldly influences such a place would present.  It was a hard city.  And Timothy, no doubt, knew times of concern; concern for his own capacity to serve well, and concern for the well-being of those he served.  Paul has written to give strength to his aide.  And what has he to say?

The last days will be difficult times.  (2Th 3:1-9).  Well, thanks, Paul.  That’s encouraging.  And he details the hardness of those who reject God.  Men will be self-lovers, money-grubbing, boastful, arrogant, reviling God and parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unreconcilable.  They will be conceited lovers of pleasure, with no love for God.  And yet, he says, they hold to ‘a form of godliness, though they have denied its power’.  Now, there’s a scary diagnosis.  As we go through the list, we’re pretty sure Paul is talking about folks outside the church, maybe those who worship Athena, or those heathens coming through the port.  But that last!  Suddenly, it sounds like this diagnosis is in the house.  These are folks in the pews.  These are folks who have every appearance, at least on the surface, of being our brothers and sisters.  And yet, underneath that façade is this hideous mess.  And Paul’s advice?  “Avoid such men as these.”

And lest you think I am misreading his target, let us continue.  They go amongst our households, speaking to weak women weighed down with sins.  They are led by their impulses, ‘always learning and never able to come to the truth’.  Ugh!  Have we not known such times in our own lives?  Times when we had read this Word, heard it preached, sat in Sunday School and been taught of it, and yet emerged no nearer the truth?  I know there was a period in my younger days when I wanted some spiritual, supernatural experience to participate in, but wanted nothing to do with this Christianity business; certainly didn’t intend to be found in a church somewhere.  There were, after all, these other, cooler concepts on offer.  Now, did I go about trying to lead loose women astray?  Did I seek to lure them from the church?  I don’t think so.  But that may very well have been due to lack of opportunity more than lack of interest.

But God.  Came the time when He spoke, and He not only spoke, but He laid out evidence before me, evidence that left no room for denial.  He worked on me in spite of me, and now?  Now I find the riches of His truth.  Do I still have my blind spots?  Almost certainly.  Do I still have much to learn?  Absolutely.  But I have Him, because He has chosen to have me.

Paul continues.  These poseurs are like Jannes and Jambres who opposed Moses, and in so doing, opposed the truth.  They are depraved.  And as regards faith, they are rejected.  Ouch!  We don’t like to hear such things.  The door is closed.  They are cut off.  There is no offer of forgiveness here.  Judgment has been rendered.

And then comes the note of true encouragement for our young pastor.  “But they will not make further progress.  Their folly will be obvious to all.”  God has not lost control of the situation.  He has not abandoned His church.  This is a trial, to be sure, and difficult.  Your charges are being troubled by this, and some may even be wandering off after such charlatans.  But remain calm.  By all means, as opportunity affords, go after them, shepherd, and bring them away from such wolves.  But do so knowing that God is here.  And God does not lose sheep.  They will make no further progress.  They will cause a disturbance, be an annoyance, but they will not prove a deadly peril.  God has set boundaries on their efforts, and where He has set boundaries, none may cross.

A similar encouragement is given the church in Philadelphia, as John serves as secretary to his Lord, taking letters for the churches.  Jesus dictates His message to that church (Rev 3:7-13).  He who is holy and true, having the key of David, opening such that none will shut, and shutting such that none will open, has this to say to you:  I know your deeds.  I have opened a door before you which none can shut because though you have little power, yet you have kept My word and not denied My name.  And I will cause these lying claimants to Jewishness, the synagogue of Satan really, to come and bow down at your feet, knowing that I have loved you.  You have persevered.  “You have kept My word, so I will keep you from the hour of testing which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.”  And there’s our friend ek again, now in conjunction with tereso, to guard from loss or injury, to preserve.  The note of perseverance, ‘“the word of My perseverance,’ suggests that perhaps we are better to hear Him promising to preserve in this instance, rather than any idea of avoiding altogether.  That hour, after all, is coming upon the whole world, to test the whole world.  And so, He has this instruction for those who are persevering:  Hold fast!  Let no one take your crown.  And this comes with promise attached.  “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore.  I will write the name of My God upon him, the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.”

Okay, well consider.  There can be no overcoming if we are kept from facing anything.  There is no persevering where troubles are simply swept away before us.  There is no challenge to keeping His word when His word is not challenged.  So, yes, I think we can look at this and continue to recognize that we shall indeed be going through, rather than being taken from.  But behold the result!  Comes a time when we shall be in the temple never more to go out from it.  We have known long years of being in some sense separated from our Lord.  To be sure, He is always with us.  Yet it feels like He is at some distance, even though we know Him indwelling.  We often fail to discern that sense of immediacy.  We are sojourners in foreign lands.  This is our experience of the world, for we are in it, but not of it, as He has told us.  But comes a day we are indeed bound for glory.  We shall indeed be brought home, snatched up to the heavens and coming down, presumably, together with that new Jerusalem.  This is not, so far as I can see, a returning to do battle with enemy forces.  This is a setting down on conquered lands, into a kingdom fully and finally established.  And we go forth no more from there.  Never again shall we experience even the feeling of separation from our God.  No longer will we face times when He seems distant.  This is joyous good news, is it not?  The trials have come to an end.  The battle is won.  What is now on offer is an eternal stretch of true peace.  Here, then, is entrance into that rest which God has promised.

“Come to me, you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).  It’s an old promise.  One given to those who have labored for our Lord.  Moses heard it as he faced the difficult years of leading a rambunctious Israel through the years of their wandering.  “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Ex 33:14).   That, I dare say, should be heard in what Matthew has recorded for us.  There is a claim being made in that promise.  Two claims, really.  The first, is a claim to Godhead.  “I will give you rest.”  There is only One who can make such a promise to any real purpose.  The second, left unsaid, is as Moses heard.  “I will go with you.”  The promise comes once more, this time to David, and through him to the whole of God’s people.  “I will appoint a place for my people and plant them.  They will live in their own place, never to be disturbed again.  The wicked will not afflict them as before, ever since I appointed judges over My people.  And I will give you rest from all your enemies.  I will make a house for you.  I will establish this kingdom” (2Sa 7:10-12).  It’s clear enough that this promise wasn’t fulfilled in the earthly course of David’s reign, nor in Israel as a nation.  Still, to this day, it goes unsatisfied in that setting.  It seems quite the opposite, that they never know rest.  But this points beyond.  This points to the kingdom that God is establishing, a kingdom that far and away exceeds the boundaries of political Israel.  And it shall last far longer; forever, actually.

With that in view, let’s turn to one more passage on this subject.  We come to the letter to the Hebrews, with its powerful contrast of the Old Covenant and the New.  The author has made a compelling case, and hopefully many of those to whom this letter was first addressed heard it to good effect.  It is certainly urged upon them.  Now, I don’t know as this was designed as any sort of tool for evangelism.  I rather think that like the other epistles, it was designed more to correct and to strengthen those who had already come to faith.  It is as such that it has so great a value to God’s church down through the ages. 

And here this advice from the author.  See to it that you don’t refuse Him who is speaking! (Heb 12:25-29).  And alarm bells are already going off, aren’t they?  There’s a chance I could?  Oh no!  But I don’t think that’s the right response.  Rather, it’s a call to diligence.  “If they didn’t escape who refused to hear him who warned them on earth, no way shall we escape should we turn from Him who warns from heaven.”  Okay.  It’s hard to find a point of reference for the if clause.  Is he pointing us to Noah?  I don’t see any reference to him nearby.  Is he talking about events at the base of Mount Sinai when the law was given?  Perhaps.  Is it something far more general, concerning all who have, through the ages, sought to bring men into obedience to God’s commands?  Maybe.  But whatever that reference, the point remains unchanged.  We now have our instruction direct from heaven.  That’s not to say that each of us is hearing on our own hotline, as it were.  That’s not to say that pastors and teachers are done away.   There’s plenty who try to hold to such an idea.  They will turn, perhaps, to John’s letters.  “The anointing you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you.  His anointing teaches you, and is true.  It is no lie.  And just as He has taught you, you abide in Him” (1Jn 2:27).  And yet, what is John doing?  He is teaching.  He is functioning as a pastor over them.  Don’t overstep!  This is not permit to disregard those who would impart truth to you.  This is not a call to heed the voices in your head even as they contradict the words we have preserved to our benefit on paper, a clear and well-attested testimony of God’s truth and God’s instruction.

Let me get back to Hebrews.  The author observes how He spoke and the earth shook.  Again, one could refer that to Noah, or to Mount Sinai, I think.  Yes, I do think Mount Sinai is probably our point of reference.  And now we have this promise from this same, earth-shaking God.  “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but the heavens as well.”  And this, once more speaks to a removing of whatever can be shaken of all created things, ‘in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain’.  Here is the ultimate sifting of wheat from chaff.  And so, we are called to a life of gratitude, thanksgiving being the acceptable offering to our God; an offering of ‘“acceptable service with reverence and awe’.  We receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken!  Is that not cause for thanksgiving?  Is not the King of that kingdom worthy of awe and reverence?  And if indeed He is such a King, what service should we deny Him?  How could we even consider it?

And comes the final note of this particular advisory.  “For our God is a consuming fire.”  How do you hear this?  If you are amongst His enemies, I dare say you should hear it with utmost trepidation.  For He who shakes the heavens and the earth is far beyond any capacity you have to resist and withstand.  If He is a consuming fire, by all means you shall be consumed.  But for the believer, I am confident that this is a note of assurance.  It might turn us back to Elijah in our thoughts, to the occasion of his contest with the priests of Baal.  And that, I think, should prove a very appropriate point of comparison for this message.  Here is a contest of the gods.  You call upon yours, I will call upon mine.  Let us see who responds.  Let there be a contest, and let us observe who wins.  And those priests did all they knew to do in hopes of stirring up some sort of response from their deity, but to no avail.  Elijah, meanwhile, made the sign harder.  Oh, the contest is to see which god consumes his offering?  Fine.  I’ll not light the fire on the altar.  In fact, I’ll pour water on it, and all around it.  And yet God comes, a consuming fire, lighting those damp sticks and wholly consuming the offering.

Do you see how this plays out in this passage from Hebrews?  We make a thanks offering to God through our reverence and awe, through our acceptable service of worship to Him.  We present our bodies as living, holy sacrifices, acceptable to God, this being our spiritual service of worship (Ro 12:1).  And He has consumed that offering entirely.  He has indeed accepted our gift.  He has indeed accepted us.  We are His, and as such, we receive this kingdom which cannot be shaken, entering into our inheritance in the New Jerusalem, from whence we shall never more depart.

What have we seen, then?  We see a tribulation which in many ways is already upon us, though its effects may grow more dire before it’s through.  We may live to see it grow more dire.  It seems likely enough, doesn’t it?  Certainly, the drumbeat of daily news does nothing to lighten the prospect.  But our God reigns!  Our God has us well in hand.  He will deliver us, carry us through, see that we persevere even to the end.  We aren’t given to just sit back and wait, but we move forward with this assurance, that He will not permit any to steal our crown.  He has called us, and we are His.  That’s the end of it.