Tribulation, You're In It

[HKHaugan]

Tribulation; You’re In It.

 “If only I hadn’t put my hand on the hot pot handle, ouch, it really does smart.” I think we’ve all done that at one time or another. How about these: “I don’t understand why that happened, I didn’t plan for it to happen. I was playing ball and whatever spurred me to jump in that direction, I don’t know, but my ankle snapped, and this is why the cast.” “I got blamed for something I didn’t do.” “They had it in for me and I don’t get it.” “It was an accident and not my fault.” “The flood wiped out my house.” “The spring broke and put this gash on my arm.” “The water pipe under the foundation cracked and it cost a fortune to fix.” “My father and mother died, and I feel all alone.” These are some of the difficult things that occur in our lives. There are others like incurable and curable disease, economic upheaval, loss of employment, social disruption, prejudice, injustice and interpersonal conflict both avoidable and unavoidable. Add your own categories and personal experience. Then sum it all up. What we have is what the Bible calls tribulation (Gk. thlipsis). That Greek word also means distress, trouble, affliction, oppression and pressure.

 The Lord Jesus sums it up in John 16:33 when He finishes His last teaching to the disciples. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble (NIV), (tribulation, KJV). But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

But there is a final tribulation as the Lord taught in Matt.24:29-30:

“Immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’^[a] “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth^[b] will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.^[c]

Footnotes: a. Matthew 24:29 Isaiah 13:10; 34:4 b. Matthew 24:30 Or the tribes of the land c. Matthew 24:30 See Daniel 7:13-14.

 That tribulation is a bewailing, mourning as He said. It will be the awareness of the complete Holiness of God as opposed to people’s self-centered secular ‘world.’ ‘The Light of the World,’ the Lord Jesus, will reveal how dark it has been, how limited its value and how empty its promises. If we can see that now, the more we have to look forward to as we build our relationship with the Lord.

 What we need to see in all this is how personal tribulation really is. The Lord centered that word right where you and I are, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John 16:33).” If we are conscious of the spiritual drift of this passage, then we will see that it is directed at each of us personally.

Three things support this.

First, Jesus was teaching to His disciples personally during the Last Supper.

Second, Jesus is in His own human body about to undergo the ultimate tribulation for all of us, death on the Cross.

Third, this ‘world’, the fallen invisible sin atmosphere in which we walk each day, is prompted by the devil, its prince (Jn.12:31, 14:30). He is the ‘tribulator.’ The ‘world’ is His domain (Eph.2:2). Both the tribulator and the world are what He defeated and overcame through the Cross and Resurrection.

When Jesus begins that passage with “these things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.” He is giving His disciples a heart lesson, a direct heart appeal, to make sure they will look forward to the gift of the Spirit that is to come and then to see each day as a ‘looking forward’ day.

 There will be a judgment day when everything in this world will end (2Pet.3:10). But that is not to be the center of our concentration. Rather it is a reality that lies in the future. The Lord is always talking in the present tense about our relationship with Him when He says “…take heart. I have overcome the world.” That’s our present world. The one in which we live moment by moment.

 Further, Paul says this, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2Cor.5:18-20).”

 Note that Paul is giving us a positive spin on the mission of personal reconciliation to which we have been called. He must have known Jesus words, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that all who believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life (Jn.3:16).” The ‘world’ here is our personal world, the human society in which we live our daily relational experience. God doesn’t hate the world. He entered it to restore it to Himself. But the ‘world’ that does not return to Him will end because the Kingdom of God will replace it.

 Pray for the strength and the wisdom to do what it takes to make Jesus known right where we are. Again, the Greek word thlipsis means not only tribulation. It means distress, affliction, trouble, oppression and pressure (hard pressed). All of them we feel everyday in one way or another. Paul has these encouraging words, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you (2Cor.4:7-12).”