PERSECUTION & GREAT TRIBULATION part 3
The next great tribulation in order of timing is Heptad Great Tribulation
Dan 9:24-27
Verse 27 “Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”
Here one ‘week’ is the Hebrew word for heptad a period of seven years. This corresponds to the Seven Seal, Seven Trumpet & Seven Vial judgments of the last seven years of this dispensation. Hence I call it the Heptad Great Tribulation. This is the great tribulation that many Christians are familiar with.
Group
Heptad great tribulation will affect all the Gentile nations and peoples, Christians who missed the rapture of the church, and Jews who will be subjected to great deception during the first half of the seven-year period and suffer more than any other group in the second half.
Duration
It will begin immediately the rapture of the church takes place and end with the battle of Armageddon seven years later.
Purpose
To judge the world for rejecting the means of grace, provision made for the redemption of fallen mankind and what God lost through the Luciferian rebellion and transgression of Adam and Eve. It is also the period to destroy demagogues bent on destroying the earth with concepts that violate the natural order.
Rev 11:18 “The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth.”
Result
By reason of hardness of heart, the world population will be reduced by half during the seven-year great tribulation period.
Assuming world population at the time of church rapture is eight billion people, one quarter or two billion will be destroyed during the first half of the period with sword (war), with hunger (famine), with death (pestilence), and by the beasts of the earth (jihadists and satanic scientists).
“So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.” (Rev 6:8)
During the second half another two billion will be killed bringing the total to four billion. “So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind.” (Rev 9:15)
“By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed–by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths.” (Rev 9:18)
After church rapture people will still be saved but by a different method. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” (Rev 12:11)
A direct result of the Heptad Great Tribulation is the massive number of rapturable martyrs. “Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, ‘Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?’ And I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ So he said to me, ‘These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’” (Rev 7:13-14)
Next post – part 4