Chapter 78. The Tribulation of the Saints
Discerning the distinction between the wrath and tribulation concepts is another important key to sequencing end-time chronology. Tribulation was, is, and will be a burden required by the saints to endure at the hands of those who rule this world until Armageddon. God’s wrath is a specific set of judgments, in a specific time frame, reserved for those who do not choose Jesus and God. The wrath of God begins with the wrath bowls late in the last three-and-a-half years, a distinct trial and judgment that God and Jesus promise to save us from—but not from tribulation.
Wrath is more severe than tribulation and is sourced from God. The pouring-out of God’s wrath, indignation, anger, and vengeance extends out the apex of the great tribulation of the last three-and-a-half years, after the abomination, not before. The wrath of God is reserved for the last year of the final week of years, “to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.” God’s wrath bowls will be poured out on those who accept the mark of the beast and those who worship Antichrist and Satan.
Conversely, the tribulation of the saints is the persecution by the rulers of this world against those who accept Jesus as their Redeemer and God Most High, until the time of the abomination… Moreover, the book of Acts recorded “that we must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God.” Hence, we need to distinguish tribulation applications outside of end-time prophecy from tribulation events before the opening of the seal judgments in Revelation 6, as well from tribulation events in the first three-and-a-half years of the last seven, and the great tribulation of the last three-and-a-half years.
Knowing this make sense that New Testament gospel writers penned separate Greek words to distinguish tribulation the saints will go through from the wrath of God against those who reject God in the last year.
