MATTHEW 24
Tribulation Warnings

The world has experienced tribulation from the time of Adam until now but never to the magnitude of what will be experienced during the end-times. Tribulation is not judgment from God, but rather the calamitous effects of the workings of evil. The Tribulation could be called the wrath of god (with a little “g”) since Satan is the god of this earth and the time of Great Tribulation comes from him. Revelation 12:12 informs us that the devil is cast out of heaven and down to earth having great wrath because he knows his time is short. We see in Revelation that he is cast to the earth before the Wrath of God begins and that he is the one who causes the Tribulation. Events such as the great flood are not a proper comparison because that was a judgment from God,while tribulation is the persecution and troubling that comes from Satan and those who practice his ways. In John 16:33 Jesus said, “In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”He didn’t say He would keep us from tribulation or deliver us out of the world so we could avoid tribulation altogether. He assures us that He will be there to help us in the midst of tribulation with the victory He obtained at the cross. He gave us the Holy Spirit as our comforter, helper, teacher and victor so that with Him we can always come out a winner, in spite of all the troubles we must endure.

Matthew 24:15

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoso readeth, let him understand:

The Church has not been raptured yet. Jesus is talking to the real Church about seeing the abomination of desolation; He’s not talking to a left-behind band of tagalongs. In verses 22-27 of this chapter Jesus instructs the elect, which again is the real Church, concerning His return. The Church is not raptured until verse 30. Everything from verse 15 to that point is talking about the Tribulation.Verses 29-31 signal the end of the Tribulation and the beginning of the Day of the Lord when true believers are taken from the earth so the Wrath of God can be poured out on those who have been judged to be unrighteous and unrepentant.

Daniel 9:27 mentions the abomination of desolation, which refers to the Antichrist, the statue that is made in his honor, or the combination of the two, and then both of them being destroyed after Daniel’s final seven-year period in the consummation. Consummation simply means an end, a conclusion, an outcome carried to the utmost extent or degree, and it is referring to the Wrath of God. (Isaiah 10:22,23 and 28:22 also mention the final consumption or destruction.) In just one verse, Daniel lays out the same series of events that Jesus laid out in Matthew 24. The Antichrist rises to prominence after the gospel has been preached to all the world. The seven-year peace accord he engineers is the first sign that the end-times have begun. He will not step into the temple of God until the midpoint of the seven-year peace plan, and that is when the Tribulation begins. This means that the Church would have to magically disappear three-andone- half years before the Tribulation begins and a full seven years before the Wrath of God begins, if Matthew 24:13 is referring to Christians evading the Antichrist and the events leading up to God’s wrath at the end of the world. The final words of this verse speak of the wrath of God, which has already been predetermined and will be poured out on the desolate ones who follow after sin and the Antichrist after the seven-year period is completed and the Church is gone.

Daniel 9:27

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

In 2 Thessalonians we see that the Antichrist seats himself in the temple of God and proclaims himself to be God. In verse 3, God is alerting us through Paul to “let no man deceive you by any means.” Deceive us concerning what? Deceive us concerning that day when Jesus comes to gather us unto Himself. That day absolutely will not come until after the Antichrist is revealed before our very eyes and seats himself in the temple of God. Many people believe that the Antichrist will not come until after the Church is gone and that we are the ones who are restraining him by our presence and great power. That’s nonsense. God is the one who is restraining him until it is time for him to be revealed at his appointed time in the endtimes. We will be here, we will see him and we will recognize him for who he is.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-4

1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him,

2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, (that day mentioned in Verses 1 & 2 when Jesus comes to gather us to Himself) except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

The main subject of this chapter in Thessalonians is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for the Church at the Rapture. The description of the man of sin in this passage is not the main subject, but rather relates back to the subject of Jesus returning for His Church. Verse 6 also refers back to the Rapture in Verse 1, and it is speaking of Jesus and not the Antichrist. Paul is saying, “Now you know what is restraining Jesus from being revealed in His time because I just told you in the first three verses.” Jesus will not appear until after the man of sin is revealed and the falling away of the Church occurs.We know that the preaching of the gospel has to be accomplished in all the world before any of the rest of these things take place. Then the Church of Jesus Christ and the Antichrist will face off for the final seven years before the Rapture, the final three-and-one-half years being the Great Tribulation when sinner and saint alike will have to make their final decision on who they will fear and who they will serve, God or Satan. All of mankind will have to make a choice between saving their skin or saving their souls in the persecution of the Tribulation, and then comes the Rapture for those who call upon the name of Lord in faith, and His wrath for those who reject Him.

Verse 7 refers back to the man of sin in verses 3 and 4. It informs us that “he who letteth,” or more accurately “he who restrains” will restrain until he is taken out of the way. The same Greek word translated as “letteth” here is translated in other places as “seize,” “held,” “keep,” “possessed,” “withhold,” “retain” and “hold fast,” along with other uses. In context, the old English word means that the Antichrist is being restrained from being revealed. It is not talking about the Church restraining the Antichrist because it has not been raptured at this point; otherwise, Jesus and Paul would have no business talking to us about seeing the man of sin when he is revealed if we are not going to be here.When the Church is raptured, it is not taken out of the way for the man of sin to finally be revealed, but rather taken out of the way so that God’s wrath can begin to fall on the man of sin and all other sinners after causing great tribulation on the earth. The Book of Revelation tells us that the beast—which is how the Antichrist is frequently referred to in the Bible—is being restrained in the bottomless pit until his time at the end of the world has arrived. Just like Jesus, he is alive as a spirit being, and just like Jesus he is just waiting to be released to come and get us at his appointed time. The only difference is that Jesus wants to get us to take us away to safety and the Antichrist just wants to get at us to destroy us. Obedience is the only thing that prevents Jesus from coming to take His Church away. If the man of sin were not being restrained by force, he would be here right now causing an unparalleled amount of deception, terror and destruction all over the earth. An angel stands guard over the bottomless pit, and that is who restrains or “letteth,” “until he be taken out of the way.”

2 Thessalonians 2:5-10

5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

6 And now ye know what withholdeth that He (Jesus) might be revealed in his time.

7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he (the angel of the bottomless pit) who now letteth (restrains) will let (restrain), until he be taken out of the way.

8 And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming:

9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

The Antichrist is not consumed by the spirit of the Lord’s mouth or the brightness of His coming when Jesus comes to rapture the Church. The Antichrist will not be consumed until Jesus returns a second time at the Battle of Armageddon. Several years of wrath will occur between the time Jesus appears in cool, white clouds to gather His people unto Himself and when He returns a second time on His white horse to do battle and bring an end to the Wrath of God and the rule of Satan on the earth.

Second Thessalonians 2:3 states that there will “come a falling away first, and that man of sin [will] be revealed” before the return of Jesus for the Church. It is not clear, however, whether Paul is saying that the falling away will occur first—before the Antichrist arrives— or if both of these things occur first at about the same time and, perhaps, in conjunction with one another. However, they both must occur before Jesus comes for us. There may possibly be a falling away of believers before the Antichrist arrives, but that seems unlikely since the final push to get the gospel to all the earth will be taking place just before the Antichrist is revealed. That, coupled with the fact that God speaks in numerous places about His glory and His Word filling the whole earth, suggests that the falling away is a direct result of the calamitous atmosphere that Satan and the Antichrist will be fostering across the face of the earth after the gospel has been preached. There will be a falling away of believers associated with the arrival of the Antichrist as many will have the faith scared out of them. On the other hand, there will be many who will finally turn to the Lord because they will be faced with the reality that they have nowhere else to turn. They will know by the gospel that Jesus will be returning soon, and if they don’t act quickly, they are going to be left to suffer wrath with those who are causing great tribulation.

Jesus informs us in the parable about the sower of the Word of God that Satan challenges every individual who ever receives this word in their heart to see whether they are going to hold on to God’s Word and stand firmly upon it, or be offended by it and let it go. In Luke 8:12 Jesus also said that the seed that had fallen by the wayside represents those who hear the Word and “then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.” In Mark 4:17 Jesus, referring to the seed sown on stony hearts, characterizes people who hear the Word and receive it immediately with gladness but have no root in themselves as enduring “but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the Word’s sake, immediately they are offended.” Satan’s demonic thugs always attempt to steal God’s Word away. After the final great outpouring of the Spirit of God, when all the world has heard the gospel, the Great Tribulation will simply be the final outpouring of the spirit of affliction and persecution against those who have heard the Word of God. Since the whole world has heard the gospel, the whole world will be on trial to see who will stand by the truth of God’s Word and who will surrender to the lies of Satan.

It must be made clear that the Bible does not say the Antichrist will take over an apostate church (those fallen away from the Christian faith) and rule as a high church official such as the pope. The Antichrist will be a warrior first, a political leader second and then a spiritual leader to some in a perverse and destructive way, but it won’t be under the guise of pretending to be a Christian. The fact that the Antichrist seats himself in the temple of God has nothing to do with Christianity or Judaism. It is just one step on a trail of lies, deception, fear and destruction that the Antichrist will take as he attempts to rule the earth with a “rod of iron” to fulfill prophecy that was meant for Jesus. Satan apparently thinks he has gained a great victory if he seats his man in the temple, and those who follow after him can quote the Bible and the Koran for support as he lives out a life that is in complete contrast and contrary to the true Christ.Many followers will worship him, but they will not make any direct claim to the Christian faith and, in fact, will oppose Christians. The followers of the Antichrist will carry guns and other weapons as they follow the Antichrist on a holy jihad against Christians and Jews. The Scriptures do not say that Christians will fall away from the faith and then the Antichrist steps in to lead them. Anybody can choose to follow after the Antichrist, but they will have to deny Christ, the Church and the truth of Holy Scriptures to do so. There is absolutely nothing to support the theories of the Antichrist ruling a worldly Christian Church.

Having said all that, there is one way the theory of the Antichrist leading an apostate church could come to pass indirectly. As we will see later, the Antichrist will rule the nations surrounding Israel where Christianity first took root. Those nations are definitely not Christian anymore. There remains a small remnant of believers in these nations, but the vast majority of the people have fallen so absolutely and completely away from the Christian faith that they are now diametrically opposed to the faith by holding to another religion, which is Antichrist at its very core. Currently Islam reigns supreme in those nations, which just happens to be a religion that is Antichrist, anti-Jew, Anti-Christian and very militant, despite the many objections to that fact, and designed to control governments. Many Muslims are also looking for a return of Jesus, but they believe He will return as a mortal man who will lead them against Jews, Christians and someone who they call antichrist. (More on this later.)

This next reference is a sneak preview of Revelation, but it helps us to understand what the Tribulation is all about. In Revelation 12 we see a future event where Michael finally receives clearance to throw Satan out of heaven for good. He is cast directly to the earth, and the time of Tribulation ensues, which is actually the wrath of Satan according to verse 12. There is a tremendously huge difference between the wrath of Satan and the Wrath of God. After Satan is cast to the earth, the Antichrist will be loosed from the belly of the earth to do his thing. They will work in tandem in the full fury and intense hatred of Satan to cause as much trouble on the earth as possible until their time runs out. They are fully aware that Jesus is about to bring an end to Satan’s reign as the god of the earth, lock him away in the pit and put Christians in charge.When Michael casts Satan out of heaven and to the earth, it is simply a short layover for Satan on his way to hell.

Revelation 12:7-12

7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

8 And prevailed not; neither was THEIR PLACE found any more in heaven.

9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

In verses 10-12, we see the final promise of salvation begins in heaven when Satan is booted out. Just like everything else related to the end-times, the final salvation promised to us by God is a process or series of events. Heaven rejoices first because the evil one has been removed. Verse 8 tells us that his place in heaven will no longer be found. However, the earth, on the other hand, is about to be plunged into its darkest hour of despair. The devil who was allowed to maintain his abode in heaven itself and cause long-distance trouble is now on the earth ready to do some on-site harassment of Jews, Christians and anybody else that even looks innocent.Verse 11 says that the saints will overcome him by the blood of the Lamb, and that they are willing to give up their lives rather than give up the word of their testimony.

Notice in this next verse that after Michael stands up, there will be the worst time of trouble the world has ever seen, and then those in the Book of Life will be delivered. If you read verse 1 from Daniel 12 by itself, it may appear that the people are delivered when the time of trouble begins, but when you look at the whole chapter you again see the same pattern of Tribulation, Rapture and then Wrath. The time of trouble begins, and the saints are delivered at the very end of that trouble before the punishment of God begins. The reason that trouble erupts when the protector of Israel stands to his feet is because he is getting ready to throw Satan out of heaven. He is cleaning house so that when the saints arrive, there will no longer be anyone there to accuse them before God, but they must face his accusations on the earth for a little while longer.

Daniel 12:1

1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the Book.

The next few verses from the same chapter of Daniel are talking about the elect being tried and purified and coming to the end of the Tribulation which is that time of trouble. Everywhere we read in the Scriptures about the Tribulation, we see believers being purged, purified and overcoming. Sometimes the only way left to be purified is for one to lay down his life for the gospel’s sake. Daniel assures us that there is a blessing to those who are still around on the thirteen hundred and thirty-fifth day after the daily sacrifice is taken away. The Tribulation will be raging during that time, and the blessing we wait for is the appearing of Jesus in the clouds to collect His purified saints. Those who die in the Lord are no less blessed because they will pop out of their graves at the final trump and will be carried by God’s mighty angels, along with those who are alive and remain, up into the clouds to be with the Lord. The Resurrection of those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life occurs just before the Rapture so that both the dead and the living are able to leave the earth at the same time and with immortal bodies.

Daniel 12:10-12

10 Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.

12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

As Jesus continues in Matthew 24, He begins to issue warnings to His elect in Israel. That would include the 144,000 born-again Jews who are servants of Jesus Christ, and who are the firstfruits of the earth unto God. God will have a select group of 12,000 saints from each of the 12 tribes of Israel who serve Jesus as their Lord during the final days of this earth, and who also will hold a special place in God’s future kingdom. However, His warning to flee Jerusalem is to anyone who will obey His command. The 144,000 will heed His directive, but the Bible is silent concerning any others who may wish to join them. Those who remain in the city will face the wrath of the Antichrist. Luke 21:23 states, “There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.” After so much time and so many signs and warnings from God, not everyone in Israel is going to repent and turn to the living God and His covenant of peace. Jesus continues with warnings right up to verses 29 and 30 where the Great Tribulation ends with the Rapture of God’s people. Verse 22 informs us that God will keep the days of Great Tribulation short for the elect’s sake. He will not allow it to go beyond the three-and-one-half years that He has already proclaimed in various places. Why would Jesus warn His people (born-again saints of Jewish and Gentile lineage) and keep the days short for all of us if we are not going to be here during the Tribulation? The only answer is that we will be here.

One thing that must be understood is that God is issuing an alert to those in Judea, which is the countryside around Jerusalem, and to those in Jerusalem itself, to flee into the mountains and wilderness. This is not a worldwide alert for all believers to flee and hide out during the entire Tribulation period. The Antichrist will live and rule in the Middle East, and his first order of business will be to take Jerusalem and persecute those who are right under his nose. Therefore, the people of Jerusalem who do not submit to the Antichrist are in imminent danger. Anyone who does not flee will likely die. God does not tell believers around the world to go into hiding because this is going to be the last and best opportunity to witness to others about the difference between serving God and serving Satan. In relation to the time of the Antichrist, Daniel 11:32 proclaims that, “Those who know their God shall be strong and do exploits.”Hopefully, many nations will stand up against the advances of Antichrist in the last days. The Bible clearly indicates that it is a time of wars. If the whole world were submitted to the Antichrist, there would be no need for the wars that he embarks on. If the Church were gone at this time, there would be no saints for the Antichrist to war against either. God has promised that none of His people would have to go through His wrath, but this is not His wrath; it is Satan’s wrath poured out on the innocent in the form of Great Tribulation. Until that time comes, we do not know how things are going to unfold in the rest of the world outside of the Middle East because the Bible does not tell us. There may be strong persecution all around the world, but that does not necessarily mean we all go into hiding.

Matthew 24:16-22

16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

21 For then (after we see the abommination of desolation as stated in Verse 15) shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Many people take the verses we just read to mean that the Great Tribulation is going to be less than the three-and-one-half years that God has stated over and over again in His Word it would be. God is only allowing the Antichrist three-and-one-half years of Great Tribulation, and then He is going to cut His own work short in righteousness by removing the Church from the earth and judging sinners who are participants in the Tribulation, along with all those who are complacent. The goal of Satan and the Antichrist is to rule the entire world, but since Satan knows that his days are numbered, his secondary goal is to destroy as many as he can before his own end. Given enough time and with his own end in sight, he will be able and more than willing to preside over the total destruction of all mankind if God does not intervene. God allows them only a short time period of three-and-one-half years to try and frighten people into giving up the gospel that has been preached to all the earth and submitting to terrorism instead. All of mankind will have one clear and final choice between the grace and love of God or the vicious and destructive hatred of Satan.Matthew speaks in the future tense of how those days will be shortened, while the same account in Mark 13:20 is stated in the past tense. God is telling us that the time has already been predetermined and shortened to only three-and-one-half years from whatever amount of time it would take Satan and the Antichrist to destroy all flesh.

Mark 13:20

And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom He hath chosen, He hath shortened the days.

Romans 9:28

For He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.

Many Christians seem to believe that the Rapture will occur before the Great Tribulation, and they hold out hope that they will b able to escape the horrors and hardness of those times. They labor feverishly to form their doctrine to fit that desire. Others have mistakenly lumped the Tribulation and the Wrath together as a single event or overlapping events, and because God has promised to deliver us from the wrath to come, the assumption is that we will not see the Tribulation. God’s wrath and the Tribulation are two totally and distinctly different things or events. We will see the Antichrist and the Great Tribulation, and God does allow His people to go through bad times as a purifying experience because of His compassion for all mankind. As others witness the peace and assurance we possess and our total trust in God—even to the point of death, if necessary— many will turn to Christ.Most of the horrible things we read about in the Book of Revelation from chapter 8 and beyond are judgments of wrath which we will not experience; but tribulations are something we must go through in this life with Jesus at our side and the Holy Spirit on the inside.

Below is an example of how God left Israel in bondage to the Egyptians for 400 years before delivering them and leading them back to the Promised Land. He did not leave them in Egypt because they were such rotten sinners, or to judge them; He left them there to take care of them until it was time for them to take possession of their own land. The inhabitants of the Promised Land were not ready to be judged. Verse 16 below informs us that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. God was not willing to judge any of the nations in the Promised Land until the sin of every last one had come to a place of total hardness and unrepentance. Rahab of Jericho repented immediately when the Hebrews showed up in her city to spy out the land and her family was delivered because she acted in faith instead of fear. The remainder of the city was destroyed. Israel’s stay in Egypt eventually ended up in misery. They suffered much affliction at the hands of the Egyptians, but God did not judge Pharaoh and His people without giving them ample opportunity to repent and obey Him.

After God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, they still did not enter the Promised Land for another forty years; this time it was because of their own sin and rebellion. All those who were afraid to enter the Promised Land and who doubted and complained while they were in the wilderness remained in the wilderness in graves. God purged out all those who feared everything else but Him and His mighty power and compassion. During the Tribulation, God will be doing the same type of work in His church in the midst of terrible persecution—cleansing the hearts of those who draw ever closer to Him and rejecting those who reject Him and, hopefully, bringing many “Rahabs” to a place of salvation in Christ in the process. Ephesians 5:27 reminds us that Jesus will present to Himself a Church without spot or wrinkle. He will scrub out all the spots through adversity and iron out the wrinkles by the things which we suffer. It will occur in that vast wilderness called the Great Tribulation because He is not willing that any should perish. There won’t be many weak and fainthearted ninnies going up in the Rapture, but at the same time, He has designed His Church to look out for the needs of those who are weak, as long as they continue to call upon the name of the Lord and heed His words. Jesus gives us these advance warnings so that we will not become faint in our hearts and give up, and also so we can look after our weaker brothers and sisters to make sure they make it all the way to the end.

Genesis 15:12-16

12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

13 And He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

Luke gives us a different perspective of what is taking place in Israel during the Tribulation and why believers need to flee Jerusalem. The man of sin is anxious to get to the temple of God— the crown jewel for a lying impostor who wants to claim to be God. This is several years after the defeat of Gog. The Antichrist has taken control of the armies of the ten nations that were a part of the Gog alliance. He has whipped them into shape and into a frenzy, and now they are ready to try their luck against Israel once more. Revelation13:4 tells us that those who worship the beast do it by saying, “Who is like the beast? who is able to make war with him?” He is the ruthless and vicious ruler that this large empire of nations has been praying to lead them against the tiny little nation of Israel that they hate so passionately. He is the one that is empowered from on high to wipe out their most hated enemy. The only problem is the fact that he is empowered by the ruler of the principalities and powers of the air and not by God. He will be allowed by God to come in and destroy those Jews who still reject their Messiah, even at the end of the world. Because they reject their true God, they will either have to choose the Antichrist by receiving his mark in their flesh, be taken into slavery or die. The Antichrist and his followers are not all that fond of Jews anyway; thus, he may not extend to them the offer to take his mark and serve him. The bright side to this darkened horror is that some of them will reject the mark and receive Jesus with their dying breath.

The Antichrist will put a stop to the daily sacrifice and enter into the temple for a quick peek at his new place of self-exaltation before the Tribulation ever begins. This will occur as a result of his dealings with the reprobate Jews. Daniel 11:30 explains that he will have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant, and then in verse 31 he is shown taking away the daily sacrifice. Daniel 8:25 reveals to us that the Antichrist will “cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he will magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many.” He will use his false peace to gain access to the hearts and minds of unbelievers through flatteries and lies. Then he will gain access to Jerusalem, and finally he will gain access into the temple without ever firing a shot.Verse 20 of Luke 21 informs us that we will see Jerusalem surrounded by armies. This will probably be a part of the peace plan—one big lie about providing security for the Jews from their Arab Muslim aggressors by putting up a perimeter around the temple mount so that he can keep his people in line. The plan will be for Jews to freely and securely worship at their temple alongside the Muslims who will be free to worship at the Dome of the Rock on the same mount. While all of this is being put into place, a window of opportunity will be provided for believers to leave Jerusalem in relative security to God’s refuge in the wilderness.

The Antichrist’s first entry into the temple, when he “stands” only to look around and glory in his evil accomplishment (see Matthew 24:15), is the only sign Jesus gives to His people to leave. The Antichrist won’t seat himself and declare himself to be God on his first entry, and the statue of his likeness will not be set until much later. It won’t be long after his first trip to the temple before he will make his move to destroy the remnant of God’s chosen people in Jerusalem. However, those who are truly chosen and have chosen God through faith and the truth of His Word will flee to the mountains of Israel to escape the torment of the Antichrist as Jesus has instructed them to do. God will care for them in the wilderness as the last days of the Tribulation play out.Afterwards, they will be raptured with the rest of the Church. It’s interesting to note that the armies of the Antichrist will not go into the mountain regions where the believers will be located as the armies of Gog did. Perhaps they remember what happened to their brethren who were destroyed in the mountains of Israel and will want to avoid the same fate.

Verses 22 and 23 declare that these are the days of vengeance on this people, and refer only to the people of Israel who have rejected their Messiah. Even before God starts to pour out His wrath on mankind, He is allowing, one last time, the stiff-necked and rebellious from among His people to fall by the sword of their enemies. This is just one last time for the Jews to be slaughtered and go into slavery for their own sinfulness and their rejection of God’s holy covenant as the whole world watches on. Not until after all of this takes place do the redeemed of the Lord see the Son of man coming. Not on His white horse with a sword, but on a cool, white cloud to deliver His people before God’s wrath begins.

Luke 21:20-28

20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.

21 Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.

22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.

24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;

26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

Verse 24 declares that the desecration of Israel and the Jews will continue until the time of the Gentiles is completed. Their time comes to an end in verse 27 after Jesus turns out all the lights in thesky and appears on a cloud to take His people home. He warns His people in Luke and in Matthew that the only place to look for Him will be overhead and in the clouds. In verse 27, we see once more that the redeemed are not the only ones who will see Jesus coming. “They” in verse 26, who are looking at the things that are coming on the earth and having heart failure, will see Him coming also. In verse 28, we are told to “look up, for our redemption draweth nigh.” The Scriptures repeatedly tell us to maintain a watchful attitude, but it is really more than just an attitude. When things seem as though they could get no worse on the earth, when we witness the full fury of the Antichrist against fellow believers and Jerusalem has fallen to the enemy, then it is time to start looking to the eastern sky at the cloud formations. One of them may have more than just a silver lining. It may be the glory of the Lord as He approaches to carry us away.

The preaching of the gospel will continue through the Tribulation period as the saints minister to each other and as they reach out to others for their salvation. There will also be an army of false christs and false prophets who see that the end really is near this time. It doesn’t take much to bring the nuts out, and they will be out in full force as the world declines into chaos. It won’t take much either for these fakes to draw away the simpleminded, faithless and fearful who are looking for that instant spiritual gratification of having their Christ on demand. The Antichrist is a false christ himself, but he is different from all the rest.Many false christs will think they really are Jesus and will convince others to follow them. They will quote and misquote the Scriptures and insist that those who follow after them live their lives exactly the way they tell them to do.

The Antichrist, on the other hand, will despise the Scriptures and everything about God. If he does quote the Scriptures, it will be only for the purpose of intentionally leading the hearers to their own destruction by twisting and distorting God’s Word in the same manner as Satan. He will claim to be God in the flesh. He may even go by the name of Christ, Jesus or Isa (as the Muslims call their version of the returning Christ). He may claim to be the fulfillment of all prophecies from all religions. But, he will despise Christians and Jews most of all. He is Satan’s alter ego version of the true Christ. He will not seek to lead the Church or Christians, but he will demand their submission or destruction as infidels and traitors against a god who is not the one true Almighty God.

Matthew 24:23-27

23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

25 Behold, I have told you before.

26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

The following verse means two things: First, Jesus is making a figurative statement similar to when we say, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” He simply means, “That’s just the way it’s going to be, and you can count on it.” Second, and more particularly, He is referring back to the false christs and false prophets who will be attempting to prey on the weak, uncommitted and confused members of the body of Christ in the same way that vultures gather to a dead carcass. For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

Matthew 24:28

For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

The Tribulation is drawing to a close at this point, and Jesus will be coming in the clouds for His saints very soon. The end of the Tribulation, the Rapture and the beginning of the Wrath of God are almost simultaneous events. The only thing separating the Tribulation from the Wrath of God is the time it takes Jesus to come back and take His Church away. Jesus does not give a detailed accounting of the Wrath of God in this conversation with His disciples because that was not what they had asked Him about. They wanted to know when this world would be brought to an end by the punishment of God, and how would they be able to know when it was drawing near. The events He has articulated to them so far are in direct response to their questions. The gospel must be preached in all the world, the Antichrist must be revealed to the Church—since it is the Church that is going to recognize the Antichrist, and the Tribulation must run its full course before the end comes. Jesus makes only an indirect mention of the Wrath of God beginning in verse 37 as He speaks of those who are taken away so that they might escape the wrath and those that are left behind to suffer vengeance. We get a pretty full rundown of the events that take place during God’s wrath in the Book of Revelation—with the rivers turning to blood, the locust with scorpion stings, 200,000,000 horsemen from the bottomless pit that kill one third of mankind and so on. The Antichrist will still be present during the wrath, but he won’t be causing tribulation any longer. He will be on the receiving end of God’s wrath along with other sinners.

Jesus has finished answering the first part of the disciples’ question: “When shall these things be?”And now He is about to answer the second part of their question: “What is the sign of your coming and the end of the world?” The Great Tribulation begins shortly after the Antichrist enters into the temple of God in verse 15. In verse 29 God brings a sudden conclusion to the Tribulation by shaking the powers of heaven and turning the lights in the sky into darkness.When the sun, the moon and the stars stop shining their lights, that is the one final sign that Jesus is about to appear and light up the skies with His own glory as He returns for His elect. All the other events of the end-times are signs that the final end is approaching, but they are not “the “sign of His coming and the end of the world.” Jesus divulges some of the activities Satan will be sponsoring in the end-times so when they do take place, we will not become discouraged or disillusioned as though the world were going to come to an end as a result of the violent actions of the Antichrist or anyone else other than God Himself. God has reserved the right to judge and to bring an end to the world with His own violent punishment. He is going to interrupt the destruction of the Antichrist, remove the Church and then punish the Antichrist along with all of those who could not find room in their hearts for the One who first created them and then sent His Son to die to free them from the grip of Satan and their own sinful and destructive ways. The sign of His coming will be the lights going dark as they pay homage to the true Light of the world “after the tribulation of those days.”

Matthew 24:29 IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TRIBULATION OF THOSE DAYS shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

Mark gives the same sign of Jesus’ coming—the skies become darkened after the Tribulation of those days, and then He appears. The clouds He arrives on are not the sign of His coming; they are a sign that He has already arrived.While everything else is engulfed in darkness, the clouds will be very noticeable because His glory will be emanating from all around them.When verse 26 declares that “they” will see Him coming, it is talking about everybody. We have already seen that that is the case, and we will see it repeatedly as we continue reading. In the description of His first appearing we never see Jesus anywhere but in the clouds. He remains in the clouds and does nothing more than send His angels to collect His people.

Mark 13:24-27

24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,

25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.

26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

27 And then shall He send his angels, and shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 1:10 that Jesus has already delivered us from the wrath to come. He did that when He died on the cross—pure and sinless in body, soul and spirit—and then was made victorious over sin and death and the iron grip of Satan by the power of God. He paid the price for our sins through His obedience as the Lamb of God. In a legal sense, we are no longer guilty for the sins we have committed because of the righteousness He has bestowed upon us. Because of that, God had to devise a plan to get us out of here before He pours His wrath upon those who slaughter the Lamb daily with their sinful disobedience. He does it by sending our Savior once again, but this time He saves us by catching us up out of here before His wrath begins, but only “after the tribulation of those days.”

1 Thessalonians 1:10

And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

God has never before judged a people until after they are so hardened by sin that they are beyond repentance. That is the grace, the mercy and the long-suffering of God. The same will be true in the end. The world will be so enslaved to sin, the only thing left for God to do will be to bring judgment, but first He must deliver His people. He will not leave any of His children behind to suffer His vengeance. He has already purged His Church by the things they suffer in the Tribulation. God never causes tribulations and trouble for His people, but He does allow Satan to try our faith and test our allegiance to Him. God is right there during every trial to help us in our time of need, but in the end, it is up to us to cling to Him and His Word or to surrender to the pressure Satan brings against us.We succeed or fail by the decisions we make deep down in our hearts. After we have all made our decisions, it is time for God to punish those who reject Him.

Think about it!

— In John 17:20 Jesus said, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” Do you suppose it is possible that when Jesus spoke to the disciples about seeing the Abomination of Desolation, the Tribulation of the latter days and His appearing in the clouds, He could have been speaking of and to those who believe through their words?

~Selah~These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. John 16:33

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