Tribulation Versus Wrath, Understanding The Difference Will Greatly Enhance Your Understanding Of The Book Of Revelation

It is impossible to understand the end times prophecies without first clearly distinguishing between the Tribulation and the Wrath of God and what makes them different. They are two separate and distinct time periods made up of completely different events. When you say the words “Great Tribulation,” most people subconsciously, and sometimes consciously, think of a time when the anti-Christ is causing great troubles for left behind Christians even as God is pouring out His wrath on a disobedient world. A lot of people believe this starts only after the Rapture has occurred. These beliefs are based on many years of traditional thinking and ideas that have not always been the mainstream of Christian thinking.

Both in the Bible and in general usage, the words “tribulation” and “wrath” have vastly different meanings. To understand the end times prophecies you have to be aware of those differences as you read and study. The word “tribulation” refers to the troubles, struggles, persecutions, and distresses that all human beings suffer during their lives just because we all live in a fallen and cursed world. Natural disasters, sickness, crime, wars, relationship problems, and even money problems are all examples of the types of tribulations that both sinners and saints might suffer in their lives. The big difference is that the saints have a whole list of heavenly promises to help get them through the tough times while sinners, having a right to the same promises, are either unaware of them or have rejected them.

In the Bible, tribulation refers more to the struggles and persecutions that Christians experience from those around them who either through ignorance or deliberate belligerence towards the gospel and those who obey it, mount varying degrees of attacks against them. It also refers to attacks that are launched from the invisible world of spiritual wickedness.

The Great Tribulation is nothing more than troubles, distresses, and persecutions that engulf the whole planet at the end of the world to a degree that has never been experienced before. It is not, and has nothing to do with the Wrath of God. The Great Tribulation is Satan’s last chance to purge the planet of all that is good and godly and to remake it into the image of his own darkened and perverted soul.

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. The Tribulation could be called the wrath of god (with a little “g”) since Satan is the god of this earth and he will be the initiator of all that happens during the Great Tribulation. This all happens before the Wrath of God begins. 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.

The anti-Christ will be Satan’s number one emissary of evil works during the Great Tribulation. Daniel 9:26 informs us that he will attack Jerusalem at the start of the Tribulation, and there will be desolations to the end of the war. Daniel reveals in several places that the anti-Christ will attack Jews and Christians in his limited ten nation kingdom and then reap havoc on the rest of the world, but that is only a part of the Tribulation. There will be ordinary wars, famines, pestilences, and diseases that will combine with what the anti-Christ is doing in the Middle East to bring the worldwide death toll to a full one-quarter of mankind. God brings the madness to a close at the end of the three and one-half years that He has already predetermined that He will allow for the Great Tribulation, and then He begins to pour out His own wrath on sinners.

The word “wrath” is often used to describe a very deep heart felt anger towards someone, but when we speak of the Wrath of God it is definitely an action word. For thousands of years God has been withholding His anger against those who pervert and reject His ways. At the final end, when He finally unleashes His anger against sinners, it will be after the gospel has been preached to all the world, and He has allowed everyone sufficient time to make their final decision. Then He will judge those who not only reject goodness but are the practitioners of tribulation. God’s wrath will come as an intense angry flood of vengeance and punishment on a disobedient world that wants nothing to do with Him and His goodness. God’s wrath is a punishment aimed at those who are evil and destructive, while tribulation comes from evil and is meant to hinder or destroy all that is good. There is a tremendous difference between the Great Tribulation and the Wrath of God.

God’s Wrath is supernatural in every way, and it all comes directly from Him. The Bible tells us that the power and miracles that the anti-Christ and the false prophet perform come from Satan and the miracles of demons. The Tribulation is not God’s power in operation to punish evildoers. It is evildoers being empowered by the under world.

God’s wrath is recorded primarily under the trumpets and vials in Revelation. His wrath includes rivers and waters being turned into blood, the sun becoming dark for one third of the day and scorching men at other times, 200,000,000 horsemen that rise up from the Euphrates River, stinging locust from the bottomless pit that torment mankind for five months, and several great earthquakes. Even the two witnesses and the Battle of Armageddon are a part of the Wrath of God. Much of this has been confused and most people don’t have any idea of the differences between the Tribulation and the Wrath, however, that is about to change with these lessons and books.

2 Thessalonians 1:6 is one verse that tends to throw people. “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.” This is not saying that God is going to cause the Great Tribulation. The words tribulation and trouble are just different forms of the same word. The verse is saying that God is going to recompense trouble to those who trouble His people. God’s wrath is a series of events that will definitely trouble the damned but it is only after they have troubled God’s people, and all creation for that matter.

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.

JC Alexander is a leading authority on Bible prophecy and the author of The End Times Simplified, and THE KINGDOM OF THE BEAST AND THE END OF THE WORLD.

To learn the truth about prophecy without all the hype purchase the books or go to TheEndTimesProject.com