The end was coming and Jesus knew it and He tried to prepare His Disciples and His followers for the inevitable … not only His horrible death on the cross and what will happen to them once He was gone … but He was also preparing them … and us … for the inevitable.
“Beware that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. Then they will hand you over to be tortured and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another, and hate one another. … And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come. So when you see the desolating sacrilege standing in the holy place, as was spoken by the prophet Daniel …, then those in Judea must flee to the mountains; the one on the housetop must not go down to take what is in the house; the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath. For at that time there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘There He is!’ – do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Take note, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look! He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look! He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. … Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; and the stars will fall from Heaven, and the powers of Heaven will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in Heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven’ with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of Heaven to the other. … But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:4-27, 29-31, 36).
“But about that day and hour no one knows” (Matthew 24:36). It’s not a question of “if,” my friends, but a question of “when,” amen? And to illustrate the need to be prepared, Jesus tells His Disciple and followers the parable of the 10 bridesmaids:
“Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:1-13).
Again, my brothers and sisters, it’s not a question of “if” but “when.” And everything that I’ve just read bears out what the Apostle John saw in his vision while being held as a prisoner on the Island of Patmos. His “revelation” can be summed up in three parts. In Revelation 1:1-20, John says that he heard the blast of a trumpet while he was worshipping … Remember what Jesus told His Disciples: “And He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call” (Matthew 24:31) … and when John turns towards the sound of the trumpet, he sees a vision of Jesus in all His glory. Jesus tells John to write down what he hears and what he will see.
Revelation 2 and 3 are made up of Jesus’ seven letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor. These letters were written to real churches that existed at the time and described their spiritual health, followed by commendations, reprimands, warnings, and rebukes.
And then we have chapters 4 through 22 … where John sees and hears everything taking place that Jesus described when He was trying to warn His Disciples that day outside the Temple in Matthew 24 and 25. John sees what is called the “Tribulation” … the pouring out of God’s wrath upon the earth. He watches as Jesus opens the seven seals on the scroll, which summons the four horsemen of the Apocalypse representing conquest, war, famine, and pestilence. The opening of the seventh seal summons the angels who will sound the trumpets, which will bring about the judgment written in the sealed scroll. When the last angel finished pouring out the seventh bowl of God’s wrath, he declares: “It is done!” (Revelation 16:17).
What follows is a cosmic battle between Heaven and Earth, between Jesus and Satan in which Jesus wins, reuniting Heaven and earth and ushering in the thousand-year reign of Jesus. What I have very briefly described is the Tribulation and the Millennium.
If you remember … and I’m sure that you do … last week we spoke about the Rapture and the importance of being ready. Five of the bridesmaid brought extra oil and were prepared … the other five were not prepared and missed out on the wedding banquet. Every time that we say the Apostles’ Creed, we are reminded of this fact: “We believe in God the Father Almighty … And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord: who … sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” We are reminded of it every time we proclaim the “Mystery of Faith” during Communion … say it with me: “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ WILL come again” (United Methodist Hymnal, p. 14; emphasis mine) … like a thief in the night (Revelation 16:15) … in a flash … in the “twinkle of an eye” (1st Corinthians 15:52). “For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth,” says Jesus. “Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 31:35-36).
Here’s a glimpse of what John saw in his vision:
“Great wars will ravage the world as nations rise up, lusting for conquest. All peace will end, and rampant slaughter will bloody the earth. Hail and fire will burn up the earth’s grass and destroy a third of all trees. Intense famine will dry up food supplies. Rivers and seas will become too polluted to sustain life. Many rivers will dry up entirely. The sun will scorch the earth and its inhabitants like fire. A quarter of the world’s population will die from war, starvation, and beastly predators. Giant earthquakes, accompanied by thunder and lightning, will destroy cities. Mountains will crash into the seas, killing a third of the fish. Tidal waves from the cataclysm will sink a third of all the world’s ships. A massive meteor shower will strike the earth. Ashes and smoke rising from its devastation will hide the sun and moon. Swarms of demonic insects will darken the sun and inflict painful stings. Rampant, epidemic plagues will kill one-third of all mankind. Everyone, from national leaders to servants and slaves, will flee the cities to hide in caves and under rocks (Revelation 6:2-17; 8:8-13; 9:1-20; 16:1-21). To make matters even worse, a maniacal despot known as the Antichrist will rise to power. He will be multiple times more demonic than Antiochus IV, Nero, Stalin, and Hitler combined. He will demand total allegiance to his satanically inspired program, and those who resist will be barred from buying or selling food or any other product. His lust for power will not cease until the entire civilized world chokes in his tyrannical grasp (Revelation 13:1-18; Jeremiah, D. Is This the End? Nashville, W Publishing; 2016; pp. 273-274).
It’s not a question of “if,” my friends, but a question of “when” … and that question has been a central question for Christ’s followers since He ascended into Heaven. The question is: Will He come before the Tribulation? … During the Tribulation? Or after the Tribulation? Many Christians and many Bible scholars are divided on this question because you can find scriptural support of any one of those positions. There are those who believe that the rapture will happen after the 7 years of the Tribulation. There are those who believe that Jesus will come and take us up to be Him 3 ½ years … or midway through … the Tribulation. And there are those who believe that Jesus will come for us before the Tribulation and spare us from all the horrors that will be poured out upon the earth.
As I said, you can find support for all three of these beliefs or points of view but I personally believe that Jesus will come and will spare us all the horror and suffering that He described to His Disciples and what John saw in his vision on the Island of Patmos … and I’ll tell you why. [Point to Communion table.] Because of this table and what it represents.
Jesus Himself promised to keep us “from the trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10). In his book, The End, author and Bible scholar Mark Hitchcock explains that the “Lord promises to keep His people not just from the testing but from ‘the hour of testing.’ God’s people are exempt not just from the trials during the Tribulation but from the very Tribulation itself. We are removed from the whole period of time,” Hitchcock concludes, and “not just the trials of it” (Hitchcock, M. The End: A Complete Overview of Bible Prophecy and the End of Days. Wheaton, ILL: Tyndale House; 2012; p. 158).
Remember what Peter said in today’s scripture reading. “For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment” … Whew! Let that sink in for a moment … “if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, … and if He did not spare the ancient world, even though He saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes He condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly; and if He rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless … then the LORD knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment” (2nd Peter 2:4-9).
Peter outlines a pretty clear pattern in which God rescues the righteous before punishing the wicked until the day of judgment when God, like the farmer in one of Jesus’ parables, will separate the wheat from the chaff, the weeds from the wheat (Matthew 3:12; Matthew 13:24-30).
Why are we to be spared from the horrors and trauma of the Tribulation? The answer is found in the bread and wine on this table. When God sacrificed His Son, Jesus, on the cruel cross, Jesus paid the full penalty for our sin. As Paul points out:
“All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places … For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:3-6, 8-9).
Follow me on this. “The overall purpose of the Tribulation,” says Dr. David Jeremiah, “will be to execute God’s wrath upon those who oppose Him --- first upon the Jews who have rebelled … and then upon the rebellious Gentiles” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 276). According to author and Bible scholar Mark Hitchcock: “What is it about the Tribulation that necessitates our absence from this time? The Tribulation is the product of God’s wrath upon wickedness” (Hitchcock, Ibid., p. 155). Think about this. If Christ died on the cross for our sins … if Christ’s sacrifice paid the full penalty for our sins and we have nothing left to pay … if we have been cleansed by the blood of Christ … then we no longer live under the threat of God’s wrath, amen? Why must we suffer the same fate, the same agony as the wicked? “By turning to God, we render ourselves exempt from the whole purpose of those horrific seven years. Our rebellion has been forgiven and we have no need to be purged of it or punished for it” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 285).
Did the cross save us or not? Did Jesus’ sacrifice save us from the wrath of God or not? Does His blood save us from condemnation or not … save us from the judgment of God or not? Author J.F. Strombeck asks:
“One is forced to ask, how could the Lamb of God die and rise again to save the Church from wrath and then allow her to pass through the wrath that He shall pour upon those who reject Him? Such an inconsistency might be possible in the thinking of men, but not in the acts of the Son of God” (Strombeck, J.F. First the Rapture: The Church’s Blessed Hope. Grand Rapids: Kregel; 1992; p. 133).
The Tribulation, says another author, “is for those who are in darkness, not for those in the light” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 287) or, as Paul puts it: “God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation from our sin through our LORD Jesus Christ” (1st Thessalonians 5:9). Our salvation from sin exempts us from the Tribulation. As author and pastor Dr. John F. Walvoord explains: “Paul is expressly saying that our appointment is to be caught up to be with Christ; the appointment of the world is for the Day of the Lord, the day of wrath. One cannot keep both of these appointments,” Dr. Walvoord concludes (Walvoord, J.F. The Thessalonian Epistles. Grand Rapids: Zondervan; 1974; p. 54).
This is why I believe that we will not have to go through the Tribulation or even half of it. Even though God protected Noah or Lot from His judgement, they still had to see many of the people that they know and love suffer. Tribulation will be so horrible that we will be spared from going through it and watching as our loved ones or even the world go through it. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to go through it … even if I knew that I was going to survive … and I certainly wouldn’t want to watch anyone else suffer the kinds of things that Jesus said would happen or that John saw in his vision, amen? “Therefore, in His mercy and love, He will remove us from the scene entirely when the Tribulation comes” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 280). “The whole Tribulation period,” says Hitchcock, “is the outpouring of God’s wrath; this requires that Christ’s bride be exempt from this entire time of trouble, not just some part of it” (Hitchcock, Ibid., p. 154).
As I have been pointing out these past couple of months, we still have to suffer because we are still on this earth. “Here on earth,” says Jesus, “you will have many trails and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). May Jesus’ words to His Disciples comfort us as they were meant to comfort them:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going” (John 14:1-4).
Remember, my brothers and sisters, the question is not “if” but … “when”?
[Go into Communion.]
