The Great Ribulation

Xii THE QREAT TRIBULMION
OZLT Comprehensive Responsibil@
I realize that this will disappoint many Christians.
If the great tribulation is over, then the Rapture
is not scheduled to take place prior to this tribulation.
The rapture of the saints –the resurrection of
dead saints and the instant transformation of those
still alive on earth (I Corinthians 15:52) — gets delayed
until the final act of history, when Satan rebels
and Christ comes back to judge the world (Revelation
20:7-10). This means that until then, Christians
will remain on earth as God’s delegated agents of
judgment in history, preaching the gospel, applying
God’s law to every area of life, and progressively
subduing the earth to the glory of God (Genesis 1:26-
28). This means that there will be no earth~ escape for
church members>om the progressive~ heavy responsibilities
of exercising dominion.
Sadly, there are millions of Christians today who
have adopted a philosophy of the future that teaches
that most people will die and go to hell– and then be
tossed into the lake of fire for all eternity (Revelation
20:14)–and nothing the church can do will be able
to overcome their resistance to the gospel. The Holy
Spirit will simply never change the hearts of a majority
of mankind. They will inevitably perish. With
over 5 billion people alive today, and with billions
more to be born in the next 40 years, this is a pessimistic
doctrine of the fi.wure. Yet today’s Chrktians
prefer to believe in this horrible scenario than to believe
in the growth of the church and the triumph of
the gospel, for such a triumph would place tremendous
responsibility on those who call themselves
Christians. They really would rather see billions of