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Matthew 24:21-22
We have not reached this point in the fulfillment of these prophecies, but the evidence from our culture shows that we are on their cusp. Enough is happening for us to know that we are beyond this tribulation's preliminary stages. The times are becoming increasingly dangerous, and not just to one's physical life. The English word translated as "tribulation" comes from the Greek thlipsis. It means "a pressing pressure." We might compare it simply to "stress," but what it really describes is a stressful stress. In other words, it is not ordinary but something exceeding the ordinary. It is a stress more intense than run-of-the-mill everyday stress. In this context, even the ordinary, everyday stress is very intense, even to where life itself may hang in the balance. Because Jesus also mentions enduring in context with a spiritual love (Matthew 24:12-13), we must also consider spiritual stress due to distraction, luring one away from the Kingdom of God and God's purpose, and to strong challenges to break from the love of God as part of the tribulation. This is already occurring through the easy availability of entertainment. Now it comes right into our homes by way of television and the Internet, besides the glittering, eye-catching, desire-producing inducements to shop for goods so readily available. These things can easily lure us into time-wasting, spiritual lethargy. All of this is taking place within a framework of constant, wearying news events of fearful violence, terrible accidents, political corruption, natural disasters, disease, and economic problems that may eventually affect every one of us. Constant bad news, with little hope of relief, is an intense, wearying stress. Much of the stress of these times is being generated by information overload. Life has always been difficult for most people who have ever lived, but nobody in all of history has had to live virtually an entire lifetime under the constant intense pressures of the end time. We are living in a period unique in the history of man, according to Jeremiah 30:7, ramping up to "the time of Jacob's trouble"—a time so intensely stressful that the world has never seen its like. Jesus compared the time of the end to the time of Noah, but even here, the intense pressures will be greater than they were during Noah's day. Noah's time is just the best example of what it will be like, but Jacob's Trouble will be even worse.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Does Doctrine Really Matter? (Part Four)
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