The Great Tribulation

"And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

"For there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until this time, nor ever shall.

"And the man of lawlessness will be revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.

"And all who dwell on earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.

"How long shall it be until the end of these wonders? It shall be for a time, times, and half a time.

"And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that maketh desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days.

"How blessed is he who keeps waiting and attains to the 1,335 days!"


The seventy weeks in Daniel’s Messianic prophecy are often interpreted as seven year cycles which were fashioned by God and recorded by Moses in the Books of Exodus and Leviticus.

Chapter 9 of the Book of Daniel tells us that after sixty-nine weeks, Messiah will be slain and the people of the prince shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Those prophecies were fulfilled in 30 AD when Christ was crucified and in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and Herod’s Temple.

Week seventy will come during the reign of the “abomination of desolation” spoken of by Daniel the prophet and re-introduced by Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew.

The “abomination that maketh desolate,” also called the antichrist or the beast, will capture the popular imagination and inspire allegiance and devotion. He will strike up a covenant with rabbinical Judaism allowing them to perform animal sacrifices and grain offerings in Jerusalem’s Third Temple. Notably, for that agreement to be realized, Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque would have to be eliminated and the Third Temple erected on Mount Moriah in their stead.

However, in the middle of the seventieth week, the beast will break the covenant and prohibit the Jews from making sacrifices and oblations to their God. It is then that he will sit in Jerusalem’s Third Temple declaring himself to be God. This will mark the beginning of the Great Tribulation, a time of unprecedented suffering, the likes of which has not occurred since the beginning of time, nor ever shall.

Daniel measures the length of the Great Tribulation as “a time, times, and half a time.” That’s the equivalent of 1260 days or 42 months according to the Book of Revelation. Hence, the Great Tribulation will span the last three and a half years of Daniel’s seventieth week or “a year, two years, and half a year” in prophetic parlance.

Many believe that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur 30 days after the Great Tribulation. Forty-five days later, Christ will establish His Millennial Kingdom. (1260 + 30 = 1290; 1290 + 45 = 1335)

Will believers suffer through the holocaust known as the Great Tribulation? Many think not. The following passages are examples of scriptural evidence supporting a rapture of the saints prior to the Great Tribulation:


“Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I will also keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth.”

“And there will be a time of distress such as has never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.”  (That is the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain; Revelation 13:8.)