Little Red Book Ministry

The Bible is full of warnings to watch for the second coming of Christ. As Christians, our blessed hope, the event we must watch for is the prewrath rapture. This is obviously a special blessing for those found watching as attested to in Luke 12:37–38 and Revelation 1:3. There is also a “crown” associated with watching and living righteously according to 2 Timothy 4:8.

This is another event described by several intriguing phrases as follows:

That blessed hope: Titus 2:13

A purifying hope: 1 John 3:3

The appearing of Jesus Christ: 1 Peter 1:7

E. The tribulation
The tribulation is the main topic of a number of prophetic books of the Bible and an important topic in most other prophetic books. It is the primary subject of, and best described in, the book of Revelation. It is often referred to as “Daniel’s 70th week” for good reasons.

According to Daniel 9:24–27, God set aside seventy weeks to deal specifically with the Jewish people. From context as well as secular history, we can see that each week is meant to represent seven years or one week of years. This period started 69 weeks, or 483 years, before the death of Christ. It began with the decree of Artaxerxes given to Nehemiah in 445 BC to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (compare Daniel 9:25–27 with Nehemiah Chapters 1–4 and then Matthew 24:15).

An event that marks the midpoint of the week, the Abomination of Desolation described in Daniel 9:27 and Matthew 24:15 should have occurred about 3 1/2 after years Christ’s death according to the schedule, but the Jews rejected their King. Upon this rejection, God revealed His great mystery of the ages—the Church Age. The 70th week of Daniel 9:27, the seven year tribulation, was postponed until the “fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Romans 11:25).

The tribulation will be characterized by massive changes in the geological structure of the Earth. This is part of a fascinating subplot of the end times story. By the end of the tribulation, all mountains will have been knocked down, filling in the valleys. The ‘crooked places’ will be straightened and the rough places made smooth (Isaiah 40:4; Luke 3:5).