The Tribulation

Jesus did not whisper this.

Matthew 24:21

Daniel saw a time of trouble such as never was. Daniel 12:1 The word The Tribulation in Christian speech gathers those texts: a concentrated, appointed distress at the end of the age.

Read it without swagger

This is not a page for winning an argument about timing. Faithful readers disagree about sequence, and they can still kneel together. What they may not do is sand the warning down until it is only a metaphor for ordinary hardship. Ordinary hardship is real. Jesus is speaking of something more.

What to do with a hard text

• Let the plain sense stand. Trouble, deception, cosmic signs, the coming of the Son. Matthew 24:30
• Keep the character of God. The Judge is the same Savior you meet at The Cross.
• Refuse panic. Panic is not a fruit of the Spirit. Watchfulness is. Matthew 24:42
• Return to the gospel. The people delivered in Daniel are those written in the book. The question is not whether you can map the week. It is whether you belong to the Lamb.

For the wider frame, see The Last Things. For the God who rules the nations, see Knowing God.

George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future