THE TERRIBLE TRIBULATION

Dr. W. A. Criswell

Matthew 24:21-31

3-11-84    10:50 a.m.

This is the First Baptist Church in Dallas, and I am the pastor bringing the message entitled The Great, The Terrible Tribulation. 

Turn in your Bible to Matthew 24, and we shall begin at verse 21. Matthew 24, verse 21.  The first gospel, the twenty-fourth chapter, is the Lord’s apocalyptic address to His disciples. Matthew 24, beginning at verse 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.”  Verse 22: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.”  Verse 29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light.”  

In another place, the Lord said the sun will be black like sackcloth of ashes and the moon will be red like blood [Acts 2:20; Revelation 6:12].  I think that is a picture of the repercussion in the heavens from the horrible conflicts, the battle of Armageddon, in the earth.  The smoke of the conflict will blot out the sun, and the flaming fires of the war will make the moon look like red blood.  That’s what He says here.  The sun shall be darkened, the moon not give her light, blotted out by the terrible conflagration.

Now the apostle Paul divides all mankind into these three groups.  In 1 Corinthians 10, verse 32, Paul says all humanity is either Jew, or Gentile, or church.  He divides us into Jews, or into Gentiles, or into the church made up of Jews and Gentiles alike.  Now we are going to study the terrible Tribulation as these three groups enter into that awesome period that lies before us, and we shall follow it in the order that the Apostle Paul has stated.  First the Jew, second the Gentile, and then the church as each one enters into the Great Tribulation.

First the Jew. In Matthew 24:34, the Lord said, “Verily, I say unto you, This genea shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled,” speaking of the Jew.  That word, he genea, in 1 Peter 2:9, another form of the word, genos, is translated, “Ye are a chosen generation, a holy nation, a peculiar people.”  Genea, genos—it refers to a race, to descent, to offspring, to people, to family, to stock, to nations, to kind, to species.  Our Lord says in this apocalyptic discourse in Matthew 24 that that Jew will be here until He comes again [Matthew 24:34].

This is another sign of the truth of the prophecy of the Word of God.  I often say, and you have heard me repeat it, “Did you ever see anybody who ever heard of anybody who ever saw anybody who ever heard of anybody who ever saw anybody who ever heard of anybody who saw a Hittite, or a Jebusite, or an Amorite, or a Moabite, or any other of those ‘-ites’?”  You never did.  They have been obliterated from history and from the face of the earth for maybe thousands of years.  But Jesus said, “The Jew will be here until I come back.”

The survival of the Jewish nation is one of the miracles of history.  In Jeremiah 31, beginning at verse 35: “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night.” Verse 36: “If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then shall the seed of Israel also cease from being a nation before Me.”  God says as long as that sun shines up there in the heavens and as long as that moon shines in the night, just so long will Israel be “a nation before Me.”

 It will be the pressure and the duress of the persecution of the Jew that will send them back to Palestine—to his homeland.  That’s what is happening today, and they will be re-gathered the second time in Israel.

In 1892 there were 24,000 Jews in Palestine out of a population of 624,000.  In 1890, there were 47,000 Jews.  In 1914, there were 85,000 Jews.  In 1927, there were 150,000 Jews; in 1931, 175,000 Jews; in 1936, 404,000 Jews; in 1941, 505,000 Jews; in 1945, 600,000 Jews.  In 1948, when the nation was born, there were 650,000 Jews.  And today, they are reaching toward three million.  This, Jesus says, is the sign of the budding of the fig tree.  And when you see it, you know that the end is near.  The greatest agony, however much the Jewish people have suffered in these generations past, the greatest agony of Israel is yet to come.

This persecution in the time period in the Bible is represented to us as the seventieth week of Daniel.  In Daniel 9:24-27 is one of the tremendous keys to the prophecies of God to be found in the Word of the Lord.  And Daniel 9:24 reads, “Seventy weeks of years are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city.”  This is all the time there is: seventy weeks of years, 490 years until the end, until the time of the dissolution of history and the beginning of eternity.

These 70 weeks of years, these 490 years, are divided into three parts.  One seven weeks, that is 49 years, to rebuild Jerusalem from the permissive commandment of the Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, which was issued in Nehemiah the second chapter in the date of 445 BC [Nehemiah 2:1-8].  The second 62 further weeks, 434 years, brings us, according to the prophecy, to the time when Messiah is cut off.  That is when Jesus was slain.  And that brings us to 32 AD.  Then there is one week remaining.  There are seven years remaining, and that is set apart by itself in the prophecy.  The first seven weeks and the 62 weeks are together, continuous.  But the last week, the seventieth week, is set apart by itself [Daniel 9:24-27].

Now, there are seven things that are described concerning that seventieth, last week of Daniel that reaches to the end of the world.  When that comes to pass, when the seventieth week comes to pass, when the last seven years come to pass, it’s the end of the world; it’s the end of history.  Now in Daniel 9:24, there are seven things that are said to come to pass in that seventieth week.

Number one, transgression will be ended.

Number two, sin will be no more.

Number three, reconciliation will be made for iniquity.

Number four, everlasting righteousness will be brought in.

Number five, the vision given to Daniel will be brought to reality.

Number six, the prophecies concerning Israel will be fulfilled.

And number seven, the most Holy Messiah King will be anointed in the most holy of holies in the Millennial kingdom.

Now of those seven things, not one of them has come to pass yet.  They are still future.  All of it is there in the Book of the Revelation, in the seventieth week.  And this last concluding week of history is set apart by itself, and it concerns Israel, and it is written in the revelation of the unsealed book.  And this is the time when the Jew, when Israel, enters into the days that Jeremiah 30 and verse 7 describes as the day of Jacob’s trouble.  Now this is the Jew that enters into the Tribulation.

We turn now to the Gentiles, to the nations of the world, to us.  There are three characteristics of the Tribulation that deeply affect the great Gentile population of the world.  There are three characteristics of the Tribulation that characterize us who are Gentiles.

Number one: all the earth, all of us, will be affected by the judgments of Almighty God.  There is no nation, there is no people, there is no tribe, there is no language, there is no group that will escape.  The Great Tribulation affects the entire habitation of the earth.  It affects all mankind.  It affects all the people.

Number two: the helplessness and the hopelessness of the world, of all men, is indescribably abysmal and oppressive.  The nations of the world become less and less able to cope with the tragic problems that confront them.  It is in that time that worldwide persecution of the Jew will drive them back to Palestine; and it is in that time that the despair of men before the problems of the world–war, economic injustice and distress, violence and terrorism—drive them.  It’s because of their hopelessness to solve their problems that the nations of the world are driven to the acceptance of the one leader who says, “I can bring you peace and prosperity and safety.”

And that is the ultimate world dictator, called in the Revelation the “Beast” and elsewhere the “Antichrist.” [Revelation 13:11-18; 1 John 2:18]. And when he comes on the world scene, he makes a covenant with the oppressed Jews. Daniel 9:27:  And he promises them, these persecuted people, he promises them peace and rest and hope.  “You follow me, and I’ll bring prosperity and safety to your nation.”

  There are three things that support that world dictator according to the Bible.  Number one: the world system of religion will support him, Revelation 13:11-15, Revelation 17:1-18.  You’d say, “Well, how could such a thing as that be?”  Just read German history and see how Hitler destroyed the ecclesiastics there who opposed him; and all of the religious systems that would uphold him were furthered and favored.  The world system of religion will support this coming world dictator.

Number two:  economic coercion will uphold him.  You can’t buy, you can’t sell without his mark [Revelation 13:16-18].  I remember in Istanbul, Turkey, visiting with Dr. Black, the president of Robert College, the great Presbyterian school in Istanbul.  He had married a Bulgarian, and he was in Bulgaria when the Communists took it over.  And he said to me, “The most powerful weapon in the world.”  And I thought,” What could it be? An atomic bomb?  What could it be? Artillery, the marching army?“ I was dumbfounded.  He said, “The most powerful weapon of coercion in the world is a ration card.”  A ration card. You can’t eat, your family can’t live, and you can’t work without it.  That is exactly what is happening here.  The economic coercion upholds the power of the world dictator.  Without his mark, you can’t buy, you can’t sell, you can’t live.

Number three:  Satan supports him.  He is Satan’s final masterpiece.  There have been many despotic rulers in the world—Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler—but all of them together will not be like the thrust and the march and the power of this final dictator.  Now, the awesome persecution of those who refuse to bow before that Antichrist, as the Bible referred to him, is almost unbelievable.  It’s the terrible Tribulation.  The Jewish remnant that refuses to bow; the saints who have accepted Christ during the Tribulation refuse to bow; the elect of God refuse to bow, and in Revelation 7:14 it is called he thlípsis he megalē, “the tribulation the great.” 

The third characteristic of the Gentiles, as we enter the Great Tribulation:  it is the greatest revival the world will ever know.  Revival is always possible. Always! There’s not a church so dead but that could have a great revival, and may have.  There’s not an era so dark but that there may come into it the light of the knowledge of the presence of God.  Revival is always possible.  God’s people are ever to be filled with hope and optimism.  Our faces are to be lifted up; our redemption draweth nigh.  We can’t lose.  God is with us.  Now we have spoken of the Jew. We’ve spoken of the Gentile.

Third: we speak of the church as we enter the Great Tribulation, this age of the church.  One: this age of the church continues until Romans 11:25, “…blindness in part is happened to Israel until the plērōma of the gentiles be come in.”  In the King James Version that word plērōma is translated “fullness.”  That’s all right if you remember that the fullness refers to the full number.  The church will continue until the plērōma, the full number, of the Gentiles be come in.

God has a book up there in heaven, and it is the Book of Life; and all who are saved are written in that book [Exodus 32:32-33; Psalm 69:28; Daniel 12:1; Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 20:15, 21:27, 22:19].  And that book was written before the foundation of the world [Revelation 13:8].  Before you were born, God knew you.  He saw your substance.  He knows all about us [Psalm 139: 13, 15-16; Jeremiah 1:5].  And He writes our name in the Book of Life [Exodus 32:32-33].  And when the last one comes down that aisle, whose name is in the Book of Life, the church will be raptured.  The church age will end.  It will continue until the plērōma of the Gentiles be come in.

Number two about this church age, this age of the church, this age of grace: this age of the preaching of the gospel is closed by the rapture.  The church is caught up and taken to heaven, taken out of the world: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

And number three: this age of the church is a parenthesis; it is an interlude.  It is a gap between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth week of Daniel.  The prophets never saw it.  God never revealed it to them.  God kept it a secret, called in the Bible a musterion, in His heart.  Now, the prophets spoke of the kingdom, they spoke of the Christ, they spoke of the Jews, they spoke of the Holy Land, they spoke of the temple, they spoke of the tribulation.  But they never ever spoke of the church.  It was a secret. It was a musterion that God kept in His heart; and the Lord revealed that secret to His holy apostles.

In Romans 11:25-26, in Romans 16:25, in Ephesians 3, verses 4 and 9, in Colossians 1:26 that secret that is called a musterion that God has revealed to His holy apostles.  The church is not a subject of prophecy but of revelation.  We are living, we, now in this church.  We are living between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth weeks of Daniel.

The church is raptured up to heaven just before the beginning of the Revelation.  You see that in type in Revelation 4:1 before the beginning of the Tribulation, and she remains there in heaven during the days of the tribulation here on earth.  She’s before the bēma reaping her rewards—the bēma, the judgment seat of Christ—and is present at the great marriage of the Lamb [2 Corinthians 5:10; Revelation 19:5-9].  And it is during the final great battle of earth’s armies that the church returns to earth with her conquering Lord that is seen at the end of the Tribulation in Revelation 19, verses 11 and 21.  In chapter 4 of the Revelation, the church is raptured up to heaven, and she is there while the terrible tribulation burns down here in this earth.  And at the end of the tribulation in chapter 19 of the Apocalypse, the church comes with her Lord at the battle of Armageddon.

And in that last great battle that closes the tribulation, Christ returns victorious with His church.  Revelation 19:11:

And I saw heaven opened.

And I saw the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against Him.

And they were taken and the beast that dictator, and the false prophet, these were cast alive into the lake of fire. 

And the remnant were slain with the sword and the fowls were filled with their flesh.

[Revelation 19:11, 19-21]

Then chapter 20 of the Revelation, our Lord enters the beautiful Millennium, and with Him is His pearl of price, His church, that He bought with His own blood.  And with Him is the treasure hid in the field, Israel taken out of the graves of the nations of the world, and the saints that have been saved in that great revival during the days of the Tribulation. These all enter into the Millennium.  And after a brief, brief, very brief confrontation with Satan, we have our new heaven and our new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.  And we have our new home, New Jerusalem, where our Savior says He’s preparing a mansion for those who love Him [John 14:1-3; Revelation 21-22]. 

When I think of these mighty events, O Lord, I am so small.  How could I fare?  And how shall it be facing these awesome prophecies of the end of the age?  Lord, Lord, what of me and what of us?

The golden sun, the silvery moon

And all the stars that shine

Were made by His omnipotent hand

And He’s a friend of mine.

When He shall come with trumpet sound

To head the conquering line

The whole wide world will bow at His feet.

And He is a friend of mine.

[author unknown]

It’s the same lowly Jesus whose heart was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, whose tender hand touched the sick and made them well, who is moved with compassion by us who are like sheep without a Shepherd.  It’ll be that same Lord Jesus who will be coming, the same dear face, the same compassionate hands, the same loving heart.  O God, could such a thing be?  It’s too good to be true.  Yet this is the Lord before whom I kneel in prayer.  This is the Lord to whom I gave my heart in faith as a child.  And this is the Lord I worship today who sometime I shall see in His glory.  

And that is our gospel message for you: to give your heart to Jesus