Triumph And Tribulation

Over these next two weeks, I get the joy of talking about the tribulation with you (yes there’s irony in that phrase).

But before we get into that, I want to touch just briefly on something that we’ll be talking about in a couple of weeks when Josh returns. Not to steal from anything he’s going to talk about, but I think it’s important to at least mention it before we dive into the meat of today.

88 Reasons

In fact, I found a book (well more like a pamphlet) when preparing for today, I thought you all might like to see this:

88 Reasons Why Jesus is Coming Back in 1988.

The guy who wrote this explains right in the beginning – Jesus says, “You cannot know the day or the hour, but he never said that we couldn’t know within a 3-day window.” So, right here he gave a 3-day window in 1988 when Jesus was supposed to come back. It was a pretty big deal back then in a lot of churches, apparently, I wasn’t around then so I don’t know. But here’s what I do know:

1988 came and went.

But wait! There’s more! The next year a new book was published – I found this one too –

89 Reasons Jesus Will Come Back in 1989

He said, and I’ve highlighted it here – he explains that he miscounted the Gregorian calendar instead of the Hebrew calendar…classic.

Hate it when that happens. But it happens to the best of us.

And you know, we could make rapture jokes like there’s no tomorrow.

I’ll let that sink in for a second. If you didn’t get it, ask me after.

But, really, joking aside, it can be easy to seem kind of one sided when approaching a topic like today’s – but there is something in here that I believe is really missing from our generation, from the church today. And that’s the earnest and eager expectation of Christ’s return. And I mean really expecting it. And you know, I know that there’s a lot of disagreements out there and people’s own opinions’ and beliefs about the timing of Jesus’ return, and what phrases like “thief in the night” really mean – but those are friendly disagreements, I hope.

I have my own convictions and I’ll explain those in a minute today – as I’m sure you do – but something that I want to emphasize before we even read a single word out of the bible today is the main thing that we have in common.

And that is the need to conduct our ministries (and we all have ministries – every single one of us) with the awareness that eternity is real and the Lord is at hand.

That no matter the position we take on the timing of when x, y, or z will play out, is that we have hope that our souls will live eternally with our savior, we have hope for our bodies – as our bodies ache, wear out, as we wake up and our voice is just gone – we have this reminder in places like 1 Corinthians 15, and also in Revelation, that we’ll have physical, resurrected bodies that won’t perish or get sick. And then we have hope for our world.

This broken world that we’re in.

That in the reign and rule of Christ in and throughout eternity, all things will be made new, and our hope is not something that’s in front of us anymore, but – like I encouraged, it’s something that we’re actively participating in every second of our lives. A hope for our soul, a hope for our physical bodies, but also a hope for our planet.

So – I want to say that this is a wonderful thing to dive into, a wonderful thing to study – but also that there’s a level of mystery here that God has allowed, even as He has revealed to us in His Word, that there is something around the millennial reign of Christ. But our focus over these next two weeks, as I tell you what I believe and why, our hope – no matter our camp – should be focused and placed in the fact that our souls are secure. Our bodies will be made new. And our earth will be recreated and will be what it was meant to be.

And praise God for that.

The Biblical Foundation of the Tribulation

The Tribulation in Scripture

Now, I’m going to hit you with a theological word – so don’t check out, just hang with me. The word is eschatology. Really, it’s just a fancy word for the theology of the end times – and it might be one of the most, if not the most, neglected in today’s church, in the 2024 church. Many theologians seem to find it embarrassing: you know, it’s almost like the crass, uneducated uncle of Christian theology. He shows up at thanksgiving dinner out of nowhere, and you’re just like, “oh great, we’ve got to hear him talk for 40 minutes. I just hope he doesn’t single me out…Let’s just put him at the end of the table and make Aunt Becky listen to him.”