The Tribulation of 2020

There is a mistake we make with the Book of Revelation. The mistake is that we read the book and try to figure out what it means without responding to what it says.

This may happen in different ways.

Revelation is a complicated book. We will read it and have questions. There are fantastic symbols and cataclysmic judgments. What does this mean? What does that mean? And so we search for answers. But it is a mistake for us to have answers to our questions without having any response to what the text says.

Another mistake we make with Revelation is with our tendency to try to fit our reading of the book into a tidy theological framework. We tend to turn the book into coffee talk. And so we have preterists, futurists, and historicists all reading the book with amills, post-mills, and pre-mills. We are debating our way through Revelation while sipping lattes with the dispensationalists and the covenant theologians, along with liberals, conservatives, and moderates. In the end we go away highly caffeinated, convinced that our interpretation is infallible but yet having no response to the message of Scripture.

We also make a mistake by trying to schedule Revelation. We read it as if it is an encrypted message from God that we are to uncode. We begin seeking signs and wanting to know when these things will take place. We spend hours drawing and studying elaborate charts. We watch the news trying to get a clue as to when the tribulation may begin. But it is a mistake if we have elaborate charts and an exhaustive list of signs but we do not respond to what the Scripture says.

So allow me to go ahead and set aside what I forsee to be today’s distracting questioning, theological framing, and scheduling. From my experience, in reading Revelation 6 and 7, people will want to know things like whether or not I think the church will go through the tribulation. When is the tribulation? Is there a tribulation? Who are the tribulation saints? And so on and so forth.

But let me lay all of that aside all of these distractions by asking a more sobering question.

Why are we so concerned with what will happen to us in the tribulation when there are so many of us whose faith is failing in 2020?

I am far less concerned with our view of the tribulation than I am about our response to Revelation 6 and 7 TODAY. The Son of God and the Holy Spirit didn’t give us this revelation so that we would chart it or debate it in a coffee shop. He revealed this to us so that we would respond to what the Bible says.

The plain message of Revelation 6 and 7 is stated in Revelation 7:10.

and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Rev. 7:10

The plain message is that the only chance any of us have to make it through AROUND, OVER, OR THROUGH (whatever your view) THE TRIBULATION, or any tribulation, or even 2020 is for us to repent of sin and turn to Jesus for salvation. Salvation belongs to the lamb! And that message calls not for a chart, or a latte, but for a response!

This message emerges in answer to three questions scattered throughout the passage. The three questions are “how long” (Rev. 6:10), “who can stand” (Rev. 6:17), and “who are these” (Rev. 7:13)?

So let’s work our way toward the first question.

How long?

This question is asked as Jesus opens a scroll with seven seals. Last week we watched as the victorious lamb of God emerged worthy to take the scroll. The scroll is the sovereign will of God. It is the completion of our redemption and the eradication of evil.

As Jesus opens the first four seals four horsemen come onto the scene. Together they create a toxic soup of tension and crisis.

The white horse and rider bring tensions between nations, international conflict, and war.

The red horse and rider remove peace from the earth. This brings about civil conflict, social tension, and violence between people.

The black horse and rider bring economic inequality, inflation, and a loss of economic priority as the prices of the essential items people need to live (food) become more difficult to afford while the items people need to stay drunk and distracted (alcohol, oil) stay readily available.

The pale horse and rider bring rampant death through all of the above but add to the mix disease, famine, and attacks by wild animals.

If you read through that list you realize that the vision is intimidating, but it is not unfamiliar. All of those perils sound like last week. Let’s just survey the headlines from the past 7 days in our nation.

The dow is down but COVID cases are up. California is on fire and the midwest is freezing. There was a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico while in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia there were riots, protests, and looters.

And let’s not forget, there’s an election on Tuesday! Next week could be far worse than this week. If you read the headlines you can hear the galloping of horses.

While all of that is in play, he opens the fifth seal. Instead of another rider and horse, we get victims. Under the altar of God we see martyrs. These are people who were killed because they obeyed the Word of God and were witnesses for Jesus. They died because they did what God called them to do.

And there is something of martyrdom that is unsettling. It seems to be a paradox that the power of God is expressed in letting us die. Sure, the world is evil, but isn’t God good . . . and almighty? And our unsettledness with this suffering is felt as those who were slaughtered for their faith ask a question. “How long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

“O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

If you thought the question was unsettling, get ready for the answer.

Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. Revelation 6:11

It will go on longer and there will be more people devoted to God who die.

How do these messages of four riders and the martyrs fit together?

The answer is that as the world becomes more unsettled more of God’s people will suffer.

This pandemic has been unsettling in a lot of ways. But I think one thing it has served to do, at least for me, is that the pathway toward the persecution of the church in America has become crystal clear.

This crisis has turned into something more than a pandemic. It has become divisive and political. It hasn’t been just about finding a cure, but it has questioned the extent of our religious freedoms. It has not only infected people’s bodies, but it has affected our economy.

You can hear the hoofbeats of horses in this pandemic.

I believe we are in the early stages of our culture, positioning itself to pressure the church in America. This pressure will most likely lead to oppression and persecution.

How does this happen? It will happen when the church is marginalized as an extremist group and we lose religious liberty in this nation. In our “culture gone crazy” I see eight movements and ideologies coming together to bring us to this outcome. I realize this is a LOADED list, but all I have time to do this morning is share it. Perhaps I will explain it in more detail on my website (www.thecaffeinatedchristian.com) or at another time.

The movement toward socialism.

The highjacking of the civil rights movement by the LBGTQ community.

The intolerance of the liberal, progressive left. (https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/october-web-only/trump-presidential-debate-belmont-student-politics.html)

The revising of history and the interpretation of our constitution as a living document.

Increasing polarization and censorship on social media.

The exchange of absolute truth for relative truth.

America’s movement away from freedom OF religion to freedom FROM religion.

The growing narrative that the Bible is a racist, misogynistic document that arose from a religious conspiracy.

I share all of that for this purpose, to help us see that our response to Jesus is not something we need to consider in light of the tribulation however and whenever you think it might or might not happen. We need to get serious about our relationship with Christ now. The plain message from Christ is that the world is unsettled and his people will suffer. It is going to continue longer and there will be more.

In 2020 we have not been persecuted, but disrupted and the faith of many is failing. Think about it. If you’re biggest determining factor of whether or not you are going to gather with the people of God, serve the Lord and engage in the mission of Christ is whether or not you have to wear a mask, do you really think you are going to be faithful when sharing Christ is a decision between life and death? Notice, these people lost their lives for the Word of God. Some of us haven’t picked up a Bible in a year, maybe a month, or at least a week. These people lost their lives for their witness. I don’t think it behooves us to chart the tribulation when most of us don’t share the gospel in 2020. We need to respond to this message NOW.

Who Can Stand?

With the sixth seal, God gives the martyrs an initial answer. Yes. It will take time but He is going to avenge them and make a world gone wrong, right.

Cosmically and environmentally the world begins to change. By the end of the paragraph the world as we know it is unrecognizable as nature begins to fail. Rather than trying to explain what this may or may not be, don’t miss the message.

People are trying to hide because they recognize these disasters as the wrath of God upon the world. And here comes their question, “Who can stand? (Rev. 6:17)”

We could phrase this question in a couple of different ways. How can a person survive this? Is there a way a person can be saved from this? Who will make it through this? Will anyone escape this?

Their question is answered in the scene that unfolds at the beginning of Revelation 7.

The first 8 verses describe the intercession of an angel of God (Revelation 7:1-3). He holds back four other angels who are around the world bringing about these natural disasters. In the pause, 144,000 people are sealed and designated as the servants of God.

The text lists them out as 12,000 people from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.

And this is a popular point in the text where our distracting charting, questioning, and debating begins. Who are these 144,000? Are they literally Israel or are they figuratively Israel? Is the number 144,000 literal? Are these only Jews or are members of the Body of Christ, the church also included?

Those are great questions and there are commentaries written that share various opinions. But again, it is a cataclysmic mistake if we have our questions answered, or we fit it into our theological framework, or we chart it without responding to the truth of it.

Here is what we need to see. The plain message is that the only people who can stand in the wrath of God are those Jesus seals and saves. Instead of answering a question for the tribulation, let’s answer one for 2020.

Are you born again? Are you sealed by the Holy Spirit of God? The Bible says that those who repent of sin and by faith turn to Christ are sealed by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13). Are you sealed by the Holy Spirit of God? If you don’t turn to Christ today, in 2020, your life could end in an eternal tragedy. Why are we so concerned with who the 144,000 are if we are not saved and sealed now?

In Revelation 14 we see 144,000 and notice how the Scripture describes them.

It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, 5 and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless. (Revelation 14:4-5).

Why are we so concerned with who they are then when we are nothing like them now? They are moral extremists. They are radicals for Christ. They live blameless lives for Christ. Do we? Why be so concerned as to whether or not we may be one of them then if we are nothing like them now?

Who are these?

The final scene in Revelation 7 is much like the scene of worship in Revelation 4 and Revelation 5. Gathered around the throne of God is an innumerable multitude of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. But one of the elders interrupts his worship and asks John a question, “Who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come?”

John’s answer is humorous to me. I read it like it’s one of those awkward moments when someone asks you a question and you know that you should know the answer, but you don’t. And so instead of admitting your ignorance you sort of put it back on them. “Oh yeah man, everybody knows that . . .”

And so the elder identifies them.

And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 7:14

Now, here is yet another place where we would like to grab a latte and talk about this all afternoon. Does the church go through the tribulation? If people are saved during the tribulation, how and who are they? Is the tribulation period a second chance to be saved?

And yet again, I will warn you. This is a cataclysmic mistake. What we need to be talking about is not what we think it means, but we should rather respond to what it plainly says.

The plain message is that these people have been made righteous and are saved by the blood of the Lamb. Their time of tribulation has turned them to Christ. They sought His salvation and they love Him and worship Him and were willing to die for Him.

So what of us?

Barna research says that 1 in 3 people who were attending church before COVID are doing nothing now in the way of worship now and probably will not return.

If that is the case, I think it would behoove us to worry less about splitting hairs over our interpretation of Revelation and respond to the plain message of the text.

The only people who make it through any tribulation are those who truly love Jesus.

This final scene describes a people who have suffered for the name of Christ who worship him day and night around the throne . . . and we get so bored watching a service online that we can’t endure until the end. Again, why are we so concerned with who the tribulation saints are and how they got there when we are nothing like them now? These people are eternally grateful to their Savior. We refuse to go to a church that asks us to wear a mask.

Please notice that these people have responded to tribulation by purifying their lives, not by creating a prophecy chart.

Please don’t try to figure out what it means at the expense of ignoring what it says!

Conclusion:

I’m not worried about the who or when of the tribulation I’m concerned about the state of our souls in 2020.

What we have just witnessed is the power of our Savior to save the human soul and turn those people into radicals, extremists who are willing to obey the Bible and proclaim the name of Christ even if it costs them their lives.

What we need to consider in response to this revelation is one final question. Have you responded to Jesus like them?

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