Why The Tribulation?
Humans have experienced great suffering over the course of history, but nothing can compare with what will happen during the Tribulation. This future seven year period will bring great judgments during which most of the people on the earth will die, probably over 90% of them. That is many billions of people dead in just seven years. Mountains will be flattened as earthquakes change the surface of the earth. Every living thing in all the oceans will die. Nearly all food will be destroyed, and most of the world's drinking water will be poisoned. There will be horrible plagues. Demons will take physical form and attack and kill humans. There will be nuclear warfare. At the end of the seven years of the Tribulation when the earth is in near ruin the Second Advent of Jesus Christ will occur, and He will end the Tribulation at Armageddon. Then He will institute the Millennial Kingdom, heal the earth, and reign on this same earth for a thousand years under perfect environment and perfect peace. The details of what will happen during the Tribulation are too complex to be covered here, but they are covered in my book "The Future Times" which is available free online if more information is desired. Here we will focus on why all of this will happen, and why God allows such horrible human suffering on such a massive scale.
The Tribulation fits into the Ages which God has ordained. As previously noted, the Ages divide human history into periods of time which are used to prove various aspects of God's grace to man, and also prove to Satan why he must spend eternity in the Lake of Fire. God has divided human history into the following Ages:
1) Age of the Patriarchs: from Adam until Moses (i.e., Israel established as a nation)
2) Age of Israel Part I: from Moses to the Cross, then an interruption inserts the Church Age
3) Age of the Church: from the Cross until the Rapture (Resurrection of the Church)
4) Age of Israel Part II: resumes and finishes Age of Israel during the seven year Tribulation
5) Millennium: the 1000 year reign of Christ completes human history.
We see the Tribulation is part of the Age of Israel which is split into two separate parts, with the Church Age inserted between those two parts. The Tribulation will resume and finish the seven years God owes to Israel as part of the Age of Israel as prophesied in Daniel 9, since that Age was interrupted seven years short of completion of the "seventy sevens" when the Church Age was instituted shortly after the cross on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-3). It is important to understand that the Tribulation is part of the Age of Israel since this explains many things about events which will occur during that period of time. The Church is taken out by the Rapture (resurrection) of the Church before the Tribulation begins. Therefore this is reason #1 why there will be a Tribulation, namely that it fulfills the prophecy of Daniel 9 concerning the "seventy sevens" and finishes the Jewish Age, since the prophecy requires seven more years to complete that Age.
The Tribulation is Satan's last gasp, his final chance during the course of his long appeal trial to prove he should not be put into the Lake of Fire forever, as God has already decreed. These will be his last seven years of freedom, after which he will be put in chains for 1000 years during the Millennium and then put into the Lake of Fire forever. We have previously noted how Satan's strategy unfolds in stages and focuses on different issues during different periods of time called Ages in the Bible. His primary focus and most ambitious plans were aimed at the promised Messiah Jesus Christ, as Satan first tried to prevent His arrival, then tried to kill Him or stop Him from providing salvation during His First Advent. Once those had failed, Satan's focus changed to proving God to be a liar by trying to prevent Biblical prophecies from being fulfilled as God has promised. Satan reasons that if any prophesy of the Bible is not fulfilled, then God has lied, and God would be as imperfect as Satan. So this is reason #2 regarding why the Tribulation occurs, namely that Satan is in his last gasp effort to stay out of the Lake of Fire, and he uses this period to make his final argument.
That final argument of Satan starts out one way but ends up another. He will start by trying to set up a copycat millennial kingdom where all mankind loves and worships him, but he will end up trying to kill everyone involved. Very Satan-like. Satan is not as smart or powerful as he thinks he is, and certainly not compared to God. But his final argument starts at the beginning of the Tribulation as an attempt to show that Satan can provide mankind with the good things God has promised in Bible prophecy, and sooner, and also without all the "restrictions" God imposes, such as salvation. Most people do not think Satan ever does anything except cause harm, but Satan uses all forms of false inducement of people to gain advantages, and Satan wants man to worship him, not God. Therefore Satan's strategy during the Tribulation begins with an attempt to convince as many people as possible to join with him and reject God's plan for salvation and live under a Satan-produced pseudo perfect environment, thus eliminating the need for God's Millennial Kingdom under the true Messiah Jesus Christ. He figures it adds to his argument if more people choose him than choose for God, showing he is more popular than God, which in essence is a popularity contest with God. As a part of this copycat strategy to provide a perfect environment on earth, Satan believes he would appear to treat people better than God, giving them a Satan-produced millennial kingdom apart from God so that man would reject God's true Millennial Kingdom. This emphasis on a perfect environment is a current primary focus of Satan's strategy, and will reach its peak during the Tribulation. Therefore the Tribulation starts out as an attempt by Satan to set up a false millennial kingdom, although it will not turn out well. But Satan's focus is to prove God unfair, unloving or a liar so that he just might slip out of his sentence to the Lake of Fire. Satan has memorized the Bible, and he knows how it all ends. But he wants to write a new final chapter. This then provides reason #3 regarding why the Tribulation occurs, namely that the Tribulation is Satan's attempt to set up his own pseudo millennial kingdom with perfect environment and somehow prevent the true Millennial Kingdom of Christ from being accepted by mankind. The Tribulation may start out that way, but it will not end up that way.
If Satan is going to set up a copycat millennial kingdom with a "perfect" environment then he must have a copycat messiah. That is where the Antichrist comes on the scene. It is why this man will be called the Antichrist, since he is set up by Satan instead of and in place of the true Messiah Jesus Christ. Along with that false messiah, Satan will set up a false religion which the Antichrist will lead, which will be a secular religion, meaning one without God or even a god. The seeds have already been sown for this "religion" and it is already the most widespread religion in the world today. It is one which has no deity, but has all the elements of a religious system. It is a zealous approach to life where the guiding principles focus on a misplaced and misguided attempt at betterment of the world rather than following the wishes of the only true God. To the followers of this secular religion there is no God or gods, only a focus on humanistic reforms deemed important to their "righteous cause." In this regard secular religionists seek to replace worship of God with worship of something secular. It can be the earth itself, human progress, equality of man, environmentalism, an ideal brotherhood in which all practice what is "moral and good" as they define these, or a number of other secular causes. These causes are almost always on the side of Satan’s interests because they turn the focus away from God and toward human powered distractions, so secular religion ends up supporting Satanic causes and therefore since they support Satan they are by definition opposed to God. They are on Satan’s side, since they support Satan as ruler of the world and his attempts to provide for man’s needs apart from God, even though Satan despises people and considers them expendable at any time they become inconvenient to him. But make no mistake, secular religion worships Satan himself, even though the religionists involved will deny such a claim. Such will be the case with the Antichrist and his secular religion, which will be established to bring order out of the chaos which arises after the Rapture of the Church, when no believers remain on the earth.
The Antichrist's secular religion will spread the pseudo gospel of human powered salvation by having "meaning" in life, but meaning apart from God. Since there is no way to enforce such a religion except by force, the Antichrist will undertake the most aggressive accumulation of power in modern history, taking over a large portion of the earth by force. After that he will take over Israel, since Satan seeks to eliminate it from the earth. When he has consolidated power he will make laws which oppress those who do not worship him, instituting the "mark of the beast" program whereby only those who worship him can eat or buy anything. Those who become the new believers in Jesus Christ after the Rapture will be martyred by the many thousands. Satan will gain power in the world like he has never accumulated before, and all through his proxy the Antichrist, who will be possessed by Satan himself. Therefore we see reason #4 regarding why the Tribulation occurs, namely that it will be a time of accumulation of great power by the Antichrist as Satan's proxy, resulting in Satan wielding more power than ever before over the earth.
Secular religion finds it acceptable to hate and even kill those who violate its doctrines. Without God, their religion is one of worshiping the earth as sacrosanct and therefore as a god. Harming the earth is harming its “god” and becomes worthy of death, therefore those who would harm their object of worship are heretics who must be destroyed. Salvation in this secular religion comes by making a difference, such as by saving the planet, whereby environmentalism evangelizes those who are deniers. Global climate change amounts to doing harm to their god. Questioning environmentalism, same sex issues, equality of outcomes, or any “progressive” thinking is called hate, and therefore worthy of the secular religionist's own hatred, punishment, imprisonment, and even death. Secular religion will be at a peak during the Tribulation when the Antichrist will rule much of the earth under the guise of the head of a secular religion where he is its secular savior. This man will be personally indwelt by Satan himself, something which is extremely rare since Satan normally leaves such messy details to his demons. This secular religion under the Antichrist will lure people in as it promises to save them from global unrest, bring about world peace, heal the earth by stopping global climate change, make all people equal, make no distinction among choices by sex, and provide economic benefit to those who worship this religion. This secular religion will also use copycat tricks to make the Antichrist into a substitute for the true Messiah Jesus Christ, as this man will be viewed at that time as being the secular savior of the world, and even a god, although that is an oxymoron in a secular religion. At the same time anyone who disagrees with the mandates of this secular religion under the Antichrist will be required to either renounce their Christian beliefs or face being cut off from any commerce (mark of the Beast), social estrangement, and in many cases death at either the hands of the secret police or by starvation. This secular religion will tolerate no rivals, and will torture and kill Christians by the thousands, especially those who evangelize others by spreading the message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Martyrdom among Christians will therefore reach levels never before seen in history. This is the legacy of secular religion, namely intolerance, hatred, closed-mindedness, degeneracy and mass murder. And it is also doomed to fail to accomplish its own goals since it ignores God's divine laws. Therefore we see reason #5 regarding why the Tribulation occurs, namely that it will be a time of maximum rejection of the true God and Jesus Christ in favor of Satan's Antichrist and his secular false religion, resulting in severe persecution and martyrdom of Christians on a large scale, which brings intense judgments from God. This is what brings on the most intense judgments from God, since this secular religion will seek to wipe out all true believers and the Jews as well, two things which God will not tolerate for long.
Therefore Satan will try to create a society with himself on the throne using the Antichrist and all mankind worshiping him under an idealistic brotherhood of man, where humans practice a form of self righteous morality as Satan defines the terms, although it is in fact an evil society. But it will all fall apart, and quickly. Satan cannot control the evil he sets into motion. Evil people get out of control quickly. Even the Antichrist will revolt against Satan and try to do to Satan what Satan did to God, which is to revolt. This is where Satan gets really ugly. When Satan sees his pseudo-millennial kingdom falling apart, he will change his approach to murdering people by the billions. Satan never cared about any of them anyway, and killing all people, and especially Jews, would make fulfillment of many of God's prophecies impossible. That would enable Satan to win his appeal trial by default, since God would be proven a liar. Satan learns from history as it unfolds. So when he saw God forming a group of humans called the Jews as His own people to spread the message of salvation and to keep the scriptures, Satan became intensely focused on destroying them. The history of the Jews is one of Satan bringing intense pressure on the Jews to distract them from God’s plan, and to generally seek to destroy them. The developing Scriptures, which Satan has carefully read and memorized, showed that the Messiah would come from among the Jews. This became the focus of Satan’s plan, namely to wipe out the Jews and prevent the Messiah from being born. And it is interesting to note that Satan believes the Bible. For him it is his intelligence system to try to thwart God’s plan. Satan has engaged in numerous attempts to eliminate the Jews, including Egyptian slavery, ancient regimes which conquered the Jews such as Assyria and Babylon, and numerous anti-semitic nations throughout history. All have failed. But Satan is not done with this plan. His best efforts are yet to come, and it will be during the Tribulation when anti-semitism will reach a peak never before seen in history. And during the Tribulation the Jews will lose their blindness about Jesus Christ and become believers in large numbers, making them a double target of Satan. In fact, the Tribulation is a time when the Jews will return to God through faith in Jesus Christ, setting the stage for the Millennial Kingdom to begin, which will have a regathered Israel with Jesus Christ ruling the earth from Jerusalem. This is reason #6 why there will be a Tribulation, so that God can prepare the Jews for populating the Millennial Kingdom with a large number of Jewish believers. Without the Tribulation, the Jews would have continued in their blindness toward Jesus Christ their Savior.
As a result there will be many martyrs among the Jewish believers who profess faith in Christ. By the the end of the Tribulation as Satan's strategy and plans fall apart and he finally loses all control, his only remaining plan becomes chaos, evil, and trying to kill all people on the earth and especially all Jews since they are part of Biblical prophecy for the Millennial Kingdom. Satan believes that given enough chaos anything might happen. When the end nears for Satan during the final stages of the Tribulation he will degenerate into what he really is, a liar, a hater, and a mass murderer. His only remaining plan will be destruction and chaos. But even his own fallen angels will instead kill Satan’s followers by the hundreds of millions. Satan will lash out in fury and revenge and be shown to be the evil fool he is. He will lose control, and his evil plans will come crashing down to earth in rubble. So this is reason #7 why there will be a Tribulation, that Satan will be highly focused on preventing Bible prophecies from being fulfilled by killing all the Jews, especially Jewish believers. God will not be pleased by this, to say the least. And with the maximum rejection of God by the general population of the world during the Tribulation, this brings on very intense judgments and Armageddon.
The Tribulation is therefore a time when Satan pulls out all the stops and lashes out in every direction hoping against hope that somehow he can avoid his certain doom. It will all fail, but not before the human race suffers in unimaginable ways, especially those who take the easy route of truth rejection and follow his evil plan. And although it may seem inconceivable, the vast majority of the human race at that time will reject the truth and follow Satan's plan of chaos, hatred, and evil as they approve of killing Christians simply for their belief in Jesus Christ, and line up in agreement with those who punish anyone who does not comply with the evil government of the Antichrist. Truth will be rejected as never before in human history. Right will be called wrong and wrong will be called right. The world will be turned upside down. And it will be enabled, encouraged, and cheered on by the overwhelming majority of people on the earth at that time. They will approve as innocent people are imprisoned and murdered by their governments. Anyone who objects to things the Bible states to be sinful will be declared an enemy of the State. In fact, any form of opposition to the evil government of the Antichrist will be the highest level crime, while ordinary crime will become rampant. Therefore we see reason #8 for the Tribulation, because there will need to be horrible judgments which ultimately end at Armageddon, because the world will be so evil, and the people so irretrievable in hardness of heart.
As a summary of the eight reasons why there will be a Tribulation:
1) The Tribulation fulfills the prophecy of Daniel 9 concerning the "seventy sevens" and finishes the Jewish Age, since the prophecy requires seven more years to complete that Age;
2) Satan is in his last gasp effort to stay out of the Lake of Fire, and he uses this period of time to make the final arguments of his appeal trial;
3) The Tribulation is Satan's attempt to set up his own pseudo millennial kingdom with perfect environment and somehow prevent the true Millennial Kingdom of Christ from being accepted by mankind;
4) It will be a time of accumulation of great power by the Antichrist as Satan's proxy, resulting in Satan wielding more power than ever before over the earth;
5) There will be maximum rejection of the true God and Jesus Christ in favor of Satan's Antichrist and his secular religion, resulting in persecution and martyrdom of Christians on a large scale, which brings intense judgments from God;
6) God will use this time to prepare the Jews for populating the Millennial Kingdom with a large number of Jewish believers. Without the Tribulation, the Jews would continue in their blindness toward Jesus Christ their Savior;
7) Satan will be highly focused on preventing Bible prophecies from being fulfilled, and will try to kill all the Jews to accomplish this goal;
8) There will need to be horrible judgments which ultimately end at Armageddon because the world will be so evil, and the people so irretrievable in hardness of heart.
Those who reject God in favor of a secular religion seek something which does not exist. They reject the truth, so they must accept the lie. And the only one at the end of that lie is Satan himself, the father of lies and head of all secular religion, which he promotes to fool humans into ignoring God in favor of joining his failed plan of evil. The Tribulation will be a time of great judgments because it is a time of great evil on the earth, and the sponsor of all evil is Satan. Satan's final argument for why he should not be put into the Lake of Fire forever will end with the earth in ruins, maximum human suffering, and billions of unbelievers dead. Not much of an argument in favor of staying out of the Lake of Fire. One would think the future would be very grim at that point, but that is not the way it will turn out. Jesus Christ will return to the earth, heal it from the devastation suffered, institute a perfect environment, and rule for 1000 years. That is the subject of next chapter.