The English word TRIBULATION (Greek:θλίψις, Strong's Concordance #G2347) means great distress, misery, affliction and/or persecution. This word is used a number of times in the New Testament to describe a time of great trouble and suffering which is prophesied to come upon the Earth before the Second Coming of Christ. "For then there will be GREAT TRIBULATION, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be." (Matthew 24:21, NKJV) "After these things I (the apostle John) looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands . . . "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.'" (Revelation 7:9, 13-14, NKJV)
According to many prophecy teachers, this is not just referring to an indeterminate time period, but rather to a specific time period they call The Tribulation. The most common speculation, based on comparing prophetic passages in the Bible, is that it will last for seven years. Some of these teachers refer to the whole seven years as not just The Tribulation, but as The Great Tribulation. Others prefer to refer to the first half of the seven years as The Tribulation, and to the second half, when circumstances on Earth become even more horrifying and miserable, as The Great Tribulation. |
