The Great Tribulation: What Is It?

Introduction: Understanding Tribulation

When the word “tribulation” is used to refer to distress through oppression of one’s physical, mental, social and economic state. This is something for us to consider: tribulation attacks the physical, mental, social, and economic status of a person. This is how the enemy attacks the church.

Now, we must understand from where this concept of tribulation comes. For, this concept was not introduced by or during the time of Jesus. Rather, it was introduced by Moses.

Deuteronomy 4:25–30 CSB

25 “When you have children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, and if you act corruptly, make an idol in the form of anything, and do what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, angering him, 26 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that you will quickly perish from the land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not live long there, but you will certainly be destroyed. 27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be reduced to a few survivors among the nations where the Lord your God will drive you. 28 There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see, hear, eat, or smell. 29 But from there, you will search for the Lord your God, and you will find him when you seek him with all your heart and all your soul. 30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, in the future you will return to the Lord your God and obey him.

From this Scripture, we find tribulation is the consequence of Israel’s disobedience.