The Great Tribulation in Revelation Explained

Prophetic Warning for Our Time

A catastrophic world shaking news event is going to explode on this world and stagger all of us next the Worldwide Church of God presents The World Tomorrow with Herbert W. Armstrong Ladies and gentlemen, Herbert W. Armstrong

Bible Prophecy & Book of Revelation

You know, it’s all foretold and predicted in a book, and it’s absolutely certain to happen. Now, that book happens to be the world’s number one seller at this time. That book is the Bible, called the Holy Bible, and about one-third of all of it is devoted to prophecy, and about 90% of all biblical prophecies are concerned with events to happen in our time in the next five, 10, or 15 years or so right now, the very days that you and I are living in, but almost nobody understands it.

Now, the one greatest prophetic book in the New Testament is the Book of Revelation. I’ve been devoting a number of programs to that, and I have already covered the first six chapters in the Book of Revelation. I don’t have time in this program to go back over all of that ground, but let me tell you, I have a booklet that I would like to send you.

There’s no charge. I’d like to give it to you gratis. It is The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last. That is a book that has been hidden. It is a book that has been closed to human understanding. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is not a concealing. Revelation doesn’t mean hiding or concealing. It means opening up, revealing.

Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last

But it is written in symbolic language, in symbols, and only Jesus Christ can understand and can reveal it to us in plain language, and He does in other parts of the Bible. And it’s very simple. It’s very easy to understand once you have the key and know where to look for Jesus Christ’s own explanation because He is the one who reveals it.

It is not the revelation of St. John the Divine, as, uh, you might find at the heading over some of the, the Bibles that you might have, uh, in the Book of Revelation. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him, but to reveal to us things that are now in our time, very shortly to come to pass.

Now, I’ll tell you at the close of the program how to get this book, The Book of Revelation. So jot it down now while I’m speaking, and I’ll give you the mailing address at the close of the program. Now, in the past broadcast on this program, I’ve covered the first six chapters.

The Day of the Lord Explained

The theme of the entire Book of Revelation is, as I’ve told you before, the Day of the Lord.

Now, very few people know what that is, the Day of the Lord. You don’t hear much preaching about it. You don’t hear anybody talk about it. It has not been given over the air or on television. You don’t read about it. Well, it is a time now coming very soon. We’re almost to that day. It is a day when the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come back to this Earth and is going to take over all the reins of government and rule over all nations of this world, all the nations on the face of the Earth.

Where Is Jesus Christ Now?

Now, where is Jesus Christ right now? You know that He died. He died for you and me. He paid the death penalty in our stead. He bled to death, and by His shed blood, we are justified of past sins and we are reconciled to God the Father, God Almighty, through the blood of Christ. But Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and then he ascended up to heaven, and where he has been sitting for nineteen hundred and fifty years and more now on his Father’s throne, the throne of God Almighty in heaven over the entire universe.

But he’s not ruling on this earth. Uh, for six thousand years, an invisible Satan, the Devil, has been ruling on this, uh, Earth. He was placed on a throne on this Earth. Now, God placed him there, but he was not Satan the Devil at the time God placed him there.

Satan Rules the Earth Today

At the time when God Almighty placed Satan, he was not even called Satan at that time.

As a matter of fact, his name was Lucifer, a super archangel. His name was Lucifer. And as we read in Ezekiel 28 and verse 15, it says of him, speaking to him here, and it is God speaking, says, “Thou wast perfect in all thy ways from the day that thou wast created, until iniquity was found in thee.” In other words, Satan the Devil was a perfect archangel called Lucifer.

And God created him as a perfect angel, a super angel, more powerful, of greater mind, of greater power, and greater ability in every way than the ordinary angel. But iniquity was found in him. He was set on a throne on this Earth, but he turned against God and against the government of God. I don’t have time in this program to go into more about that.

Christ Qualifies to Rule the Earth

But Jesus Christ came about nineteen hundred and fifty years ago as the Son of God, born of a human mother. Now, Jesus Christ was begotten in a way that no other human ever has been. He was begotten by God Almighty, was the Son of God, but he was born of a human mother, so he was God in the human flesh. He was God with us, often called Emmanuel in the Bible. But he was also human so that he could die.

And he functioned in his ministry for three and a half years simply as a human being with the same powers of the Spirit of God that you and I could have. But we have to qualify with the conditions that he did. But Jesus Christ came, conquered Satan the devil. Satan met him and tried to overcome him, but he overcame Satan, and he qualified to replace Satan on the throne of the Earth.

But he didn’t take that throne. Now, I have said in a number of programs in the last several months, I have quoted you from the scriptures in the Old Testament and also in the New Testament how Jesus Christ was born to be a king, to come as a king ruling over the entire Earth and over all nations and all peoples.

You wanna hear Jesus Christ preached as a savior, and you ordinarily hear that just anybody can just say, “I receive Christ, I accept Christ,” and, uh, you’re going to go to heaven. Now, it may shock you a little bit to know that the Bible doesn’t say anything of the kind. It simply doesn’t. You better open your Bible, blow the dust off of it, and begin to look into it for yourself.

That’s what I did a great many years ago, more than 55 years ago now. I did that, and I found that what I thought the Bible said was just the opposite of what it does say, and that’s what you’ll find if you really look at it. Well, what is Jesus Christ ruling now? He qualified to rule the entire Earth, but he is not ruling the entire Earth right now.

Jesus Christ Only Rules His Church Today

He is ruling now only in the church, the Church of God, and he is ruling with the government of God in the church, and the only people subject to that rule are people who have voluntarily come in of their own accord and accepted that rulership of Jesus Christ. And there are not many who proclaim themselves to be Christians who accept that kind of leadership or rulership or that sort of government.

But Jesus Christ, at the present time is on his Father’s throne in heaven where he ascended more than 1,950 years ago, and there he sits as the high priest over the church and as the head of the church, the head of the church at this time. Now, the Book of Revelation tells us a lot about his coming to rule all of the nations of the earth, and the theme of the Book of Revelation is, as I said a while ago, the day of the Lord.

Now, very few of you have ever heard of the day of the Lord. I used to preach a great deal about it about 40-some years ago. I was really about 40 years ahead of my time, but the time is coming very near now, and it’s time that we get back to it. Now, if you’ll notice in Revelation, the first chapter, it is the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him.

He’s the only one who can open it to our understanding, and in verse 10, John is writing what he saw in vision, and he says that, “I was in the Spirit,” which means in a vision, “on the Lord’s day and I heard behind me a voice as of a trumpet.” Now, the Lord’s day is the day of the Lord. I presume you’ve heard of the Bank of Morgan in New York?

Well, it was Morgan’s bank, and Morgan’s bank was the Bank of Morgan, and the day of the Lord is the Lord’s day. It’s not Satan’s day. It’s not any other day. Now, actually, Satan has been ruling on that throne over the Earth for some 6,000 years. We think that different kings or presidents or prime ministers or in a couple of instances that I’ve known very intimately, we have had a couple of emperors, and I’ve known them both personally, but I suppose all the people think they rule.

Well, they might rule over a nation, but there is one who rules over all nations on the face of the Earth, and that is Satan the devil, invisible. You can’t see him. Most people don’t believe he exists, and he rules in a way of simply pumping into the minds of people an attitude of selfishness, of vanity, of coveting, of lust and greed, of envy and of jealousy, of competition and strife, of rebellion and resentment against authority, and especially the authority of the government of God, and that has gone through all mankind.

Satan Deceives All Nations

Now, the day of the Lord is a time prophesied in more than 20 different prophecies throughout the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament. I’ll take time to read once again just one prophecy in the Old Testament about the day of the Lord. It is a time when God is going to start calling this world and its peoples to account for the way we’ve been living, the way that has brought on this world so much unhappiness, the way that has brought so much suffering, so much poverty, so much illiteracy and lack of education and knowledge.

And even the education we have had has led to suffering and discontent and unhappiness, although we produce marvelous mechanical things, marvelous things that are materialistic, the marvels of television. The automobile. The airplane. Many things that we have, but we’re not happy. We have not known how to live, and the law of God is a law that does not tell you how to make an airplane or an automobile.

It doesn’t tell you how to make a gadget. It doesn’t tell you how to deal with things. It tells you how to get along with your maker, God Almighty and Jesus Christ. It tells you how to get along with your neighbor and how to live with him at peace, and how if all of us would live that way, we could all live at peace and with very much more production, very much more for everybody, and we would all be much more happy.

But people just haven’t got the sense somehow to know that.

Isaiah 34: Wrath Upon All Nations

Now, back in Isaiah thirty-four, beginning with verses one and two, where it says here a prophecy, “Come near, you nations.” Now, this is to all nations. This is not just to Jews. This is to all nations. “Come near, ye nations. Hear and hearken, ye people.

Let the earth hear. Let all that is therein,” that is everybody within the world, “and all the things that come forth of it. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations and his fury upon their armies.” They shouldn’t be fighting and having wars in the first place. “His fury,” which is referring to the final last plagues of the day of the Lord, “upon all nations.

He hath utterly destroyed them. He hath delivered them to the slaughter.” And coming to verse four, “And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll and all their host shall fall down as the leaf falleth from the vine and as the falling fig from the fig tree.”

And people are going to see fearful sights up in the sky in heaven at the time of the day of the Lord, and that is speaking of the day of the Lord. Now then, let me go back and read to you a little more in the Book of Revelation, which I did cover, just perhaps two, three weeks ago, a few weeks ago I’ve covered the first six chapters in the Book of Revelation.

Now, John saw what he saw in a vision. He was taken apparently up to heaven in a vision. He wasn’t in heaven. He was on the Isle of Patmos in the Mediterranean Sea, but in the vision, he appeared to be in heaven. You might in a dream think you’re somewhere else than where you really are, and so did he.

But he was told to write what he saw, and this is what he wrote. Now what he wrote was on, whether it was papyrus or sheepskin or whatever, it was a long sheet rolled up. Not a book like we have books like a Bible or like any book that we have today, but a roll, and it was sealed with seven seals. Now, the first seal would let you open a certain part of it, but then the rest of it was still sealed, and then you had to open that seal to read the next page or two and so on.

And only Jesus Christ was able to open those seals so that it could be understood. Only Jesus Christ could reveal it. Now, he opened the first six of the seals in chapter six of the book. I’ve already covered those first six chapters. I’ve already covered that. It covers the time from 31 AD on through 70 AD and on up to our time and the time just ahead of us now.

The Sixth Seal Opens

But I would like to come now to the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation, beginning with verse 12. Now, this is when he had opened the sixth seal. “And behold, when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake. And the sun became black as the sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.

And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs.” And now, coming on down a little further, “The heavens departed as a scroll when it was rolled together, and every mountain and every island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman,” that is poor people, slaves, all kinds of people, “and every free man, and they hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains.”

That is going to happen. It’s speaking of it here as if they’d already done it. In other words, it speaks of it as past tense because it is absolutely certain to happen. It hasn’t happened yet. “And said unto the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”

That is the great day of the Lord, the day of his wrath. Now, as I said to you, we have been now for some six thousand years living in the day of Satan. Satan has deceived all nations. I read that to you before, beginning with Revelation 12 in verse nine. Satan, who is that invisible serpent, Satan the devil, who has deceived all nations.

We’ve been deceived into living a way that has produced unhappiness, that has produced suffering, produced every wail of woe that the human family has ever suffered because we have not lived as we should live. We have not lived according to the way or the law of God. That way is reduced to its most simple terminology.

I call it the way of giving, outflowing love toward others, first of all toward God and then toward neighbor. But people are living in the way of get. I want to get from you. I want to take from you. I want to compete with you. I want to beat you. I want to hurt you. I don’t like you. I just love me. That is the way the world has been living, and unfortunately, that is the way that has brought us into a lot of unhappiness.

It is not the way of happiness in any way at all. Now, the time is coming now for the day of the Lord almost immediately. Now I want to go on. We read next in chapter seven in the Book of Revelation. I have not come to that before. Let me just start out in the Book of Revelation in verse one. “And after this,” John is recording what he saw now in the vision, “I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree.”

Now he’s talking about trumpet plagues that are coming. And of course, you blow on a trumpet, but he talks about the winds of the earth blowing here. Now, the second verse in chapter seven of the Book of Revelation, “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”

144,000 Sealed from Israel’s Tribes

And he says, “I heard the number of those which were sealed: and there were sealed a hundred and forty-four thousand of all the children of Israel,” or the tribes of the children of Israel. Now the tribe of Judah, there were twelve thousand, and each other tribe twelve thousand, until there were a total of a hundred and forty-four thousand.

Now, if you read that, you’ll find the tribe of Dan was left out, but the tribe of Joseph had two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, so there still were 12 tribes, nevertheless. Now, why were they held up? I just read that. “I saw another angel saying to hold up things and hold back events from happening on the earth.”

God Almighty has held back events that would have happened until we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And so the first to be sealed are 144,000 of all of the tribes of Israel. Now, a lot of the tribes of Israel are not Jews. You probably didn’t know that. The Jews come from the tribe of Judah, and Jew is merely a nickname from the tribal name Judah, although the tribes of Benjamin and Levi were with them, and they also were called Jews.

But the other tribes were never called Jews, are not called Jews anywhere in the Bible. Now, if you want to know that, you’ll have to write for our special booklet, and I’ll send it gratis. The United States, where the United States and Britain are mentioned in Bible prophecy. That is an amazing book, where we are mentioned in Bible prophecy.

I won’t mention that again, but you can write for it at the end of the program if you’d like that booklet. I’ve announced it before and hundreds of thousands of people have read it. It’s a very amazing booklet. Now we come on a little later. Verse nine, “After this, I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people.”

Now, not just from the tribes of Israel, but all nations. “Of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues,” different languages, “stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God.” Or salvation is of and from our God, as other translations would give it.

Now in verse thirteen, “And the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes?” The white robes denotes the righteousness of saints. “And whence came they?” Or from where did they come? “And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest.”

Great Tribulation & End-Time Revival

And he said unto me, They are they which came out of great tribulation.

Other translations say the great tribulation. That is a time next to happen to this world very soon now. And they have washed their robes. In other words, they have repented and accepted the shed blood of Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins, and that will happen as a result of the great tribulation and the signs in the sun and the moon and the stars that you’ll see up in the sky that God is going to send at the very beginning of the day of the Lord.

That’s going to be the greatest revival that this world has ever heard of or ever known and there will be multitudes from all nations. Many who have listened to this program and have not believed that they will believe then when they see these things happen. Now finally, I don’t have any time. I’ve run out of time.

Free Resources & Contact Information

So I want to tell you, I want you to write in for the books that I just mentioned, but also for The Plain Truth magazine. Now we’ll send you a sample copy of The Plain Truth. You can have a year’s subscription free, but you’ll have to request it if you want it. Britain’s last gasp of joy and splendor in the wedding of the Prince of Wales.

And I was over there and covered it, and I wrote that article myself. Then a new Europe between the superpowers, that is of Russia and America, a new Europe organizing and coming over there. I haven’t time to go through more. It’s just filled with articles analyzing the news of today, showing you the real meaning behind world news and showing you the way to live to happiness too.

The Plain Truth magazine, there’s no subscription price. Now we’ll send you, with the booklet I’ve mentioned, we’ll send you a sample copy of The Plain Truth, and if you wish, you can subscribe. No request for money, not unless you send it voluntarily yourself. We do not ask the public for money. And no follow-up and no subscription price.

I don’t know of any other program like that. I don’t think you do either. Now all you do is just send your name and address to me, Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, California 91123. That’s all the address you need. If you write, it’s Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, California, or go to a telephone right away, a telephone for a free call.

This call is free. The toll-free number 800, then 423-4444. You dial 1, then 800-423-4444. If the lines are busy, please call again. Now in California, Alaska, and Hawaii, you dial collect 213. We’ll pay for that call too. Collect 213 area code, then 577-5555. That’s just four fives in a row. That’s 577-5555. So until next time, this is Herbert W. Armstrong. Goodbye, friends.

For the free literature offered on this program, write Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, California 91123. In Canada, Box 44, Vancouver, BC, or in the continental United States, you may call this toll-free number, 800-423-4444. In California, Alaska, and Hawaii, call collect 213-577-5555. If the lines are busy, please try again.

The preceding program and all literature were produced by the Worldwide Church of God.