Awaken Bible Prophecy Update 7-27-22: Tribulation Martyrs

For those of us who believe in and adhere to a pre-Tribulation Rapture, we tend to lump all the newly minted, martyred Christians during the seven years of horror on this earth into the same category, i.e. Tribulation Saints.  The reality is that there are actually three different groups of new Christ-followers who die of persecution in the Tribulation.

For those who don’t like the idea of a pre-Tribulation Rapture, and rather prefer a mid- or post-Trib translation of believers (if one at all), this fact of three distinct groups of saints is a minor inconvenience.  In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen any post-Tribbers refer to these distinctly different groupings.

Of course, the other idea I alluded to in what I just said is that folks who don’t believe in pre-Trib PREFER the idea of a later Rapture.  When you think about it, that’s pretty crazy, isn’t it?  I mean, to literally maintain a preference for the Rapture being other than pre-Trib, of course, requires the necessity for believers to endure some or all of the 7-year Tribulation.  Who would want that?

Why are people so invested in this?  And trust me, they are INVESTED in it.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t call what we declare to be truth as demonic, nor would they say that pre-Trib teachers are doing Satan’s work – both of these I’ve personally been on the receiving end of – so I know whereof I speak.

Today we’ll examine these ideas and once more see why only a pre-Tribulation Rapture position makes any sense whatsoever.

 

 

Transcript:

For those of us who believe in and adhere to a pre-Tribulation Rapture, we tend to lump all the newly minted, martyred Christians during the seven years of horror on this earth into the same category, i.e. Tribulation Saints.  The reality is that there are actually three different groups of new Christ-followers who die of persecution in the Tribulation.

 

For those who don’t like the idea of a pre-Tribulation Rapture, and rather prefer a mid- or post-Trib translation of believers (if one at all), this fact of three distinct groups of saints is a minor inconvenience.  In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen any post-Tribbers refer to these distinctly different groupings.

 

Of course, the other idea I alluded to in what I just said is that folks who don’t believe in pre-Trib PREFER the idea of a later Rapture.  When you think about it, that’s pretty crazy, isn’t it?  I mean, to literally maintain a preference for the Rapture being other than pre-Trib, of course, requires the necessity for believers to endure some or all of the 7-year Tribulation.  Who would want that?

 

Why are people so invested in this?  And trust me, they are INVESTED in it.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t call what we declare to be truth as demonic, nor would they say that pre-Trib teachers are doing Satan’s work – both of these I’ve personally been on the receiving end of – so I know whereof I speak.

 

Today we’ll examine these ideas and once more see why only a pre-Tribulation Rapture position makes any sense whatsoever.

 

First, we’ll pray and read a Scripture, then get into our topic.

 

<PRAY>

 

Scripture

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

 

 

 

Tribulation Martyrs

 

  • The first aspect of our subject today is the seeming desire of many Christians to enter and endure the Tribulation
  • Why would they have such an overwhelming desire to do this?
  • After all, anybody who reads the book of Revelation should be able to discern how awful those seven years will be
  • The only things I can think of as to why they deny this are for two reasons:
    • #1 – They’ve sat under teachers who have corrupted the Word of God
    • #2 – People don’t actually believe those seven years will be as bad as the Bible describes

 

  • Let’s look at these issues briefly

 

They’ve sat under teachers who have corrupted the Word of God

  • I think there may be at least two pieces to this
  • #1 – In the Middle Ages and into the Enlightenment period, the inerrancy of Scripture was attacked
  • First, the Catholic church began changing God’s truth for its own truth
      • Rather than the Bible being the inerrant source for truth, the church with its dogmas and rituals took precedence
      • Man’s word was seen as greater than God’s Word
  • They came to believe that Christ would only come in His 2nd Coming, seeing no separation between a pre-Trib appearance and a post-Trib one
  • In considering the Tribulation, Catholics saw no reason why Christians should be spared during that time
  • They also believed that if they were there, they could win many converts into Catholicism
  • Thus, there was no Rapture because the Catholic church didn’t see any need for it

 

  • Second, there was a concerted effort to demythologize the Bible
  • As man advanced in knowledge, he began to believe that reason and science were all that mattered
  • In this thinking the Bible became a book of superstitions and myths – completely useless to modern society
  • Theologians like Rudolph Bultmann determined that they must demythologize Scripture and remove any hint of the supernatural, whether miracles or anything else that God might do outside of the natural world
  • In this stream of thinking, John Nelson Darby became a target
  • He had a fundamental, i.e. Biblical, view of Scripture and believed that it taught a pre-Tribulation Rapture
  • The demythologizers honed in on Darby and literally made up the story that he got his pre-Trib views by having received them from a mystic by the name of Margaret McDonald
  • This wasn’t true because the pre-Trib Rapture was taught by the Apostle Paul and many of the early church fathers
  • However, truth became irrelevant
  • Because of his insistence on pre-Trib, Darby became a good scapegoat for all who hated the idea
  • This falsehood persists to this day and is endlessly repeated with no shame by any of the propagators of the lie
  • Much of the Protestant church today believes this and teaches it

 

  • #2 – The Communist infiltration of the church for the last 100 years has profoundly changed church beliefs
    • It is well worth your time to study how Communism over these 10 decades has successfully fulfilled all of its goals
    • In that regard, a man-originated, anti-God philosophy as powerful as Communism could not have flourished in a vacuum
  • Karl Marx – one of the fathers of Communist ideology was clearly a man who hated God
  • Marx wasn’t an atheist
  • He was a man who had turned his life over to Satan
  • To understand this better, a good book to read is by Richard Wurmbrand, who founded the Voice of the Martyrs
  • The book is titled Marx & Satan
  • You can find a link for it in the Sources section on my Rumble page
  • That’s one of the contradictions in Communism
  • It is a completely atheistic belief, yet is based on a foundation of anti-God theology
  • In 1958, Cleon Skousen wrote a book called The Naked Communist – linked below
  • In the book he summarized the 45 Communist Goals for taking down America
  • FYI – a much shorter book that gives a brief picture of these goals is The Naked Truth by James Bowers – also linked below
  • What you will find in these goals is that every single one of them has been achieved in our nation
  • I did an Awaken Bible Prophecy Update on this, also comparing the New World Order strategy put forth by occultist Alice Bailey with the 45 Communist goals, plus looking at them in relation to the Georgia Guidestones
  • The link to this teaching is also below under the title of Taking America Down
  • The point of all this, of course, is to educate and give you resources
  • Here’s the key takeaway from this:
  • Communist Goals #27 & #28 were and are specifically targeted against God and His church
  • They read as follows:
  • #27 – Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social religion.” Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch”
  • #28 – Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state”
  • Given this assault against revealed religion – just as the goal says – what does this mean?
  • Seminaries over the years have been infiltrated and corrupted
  • Among the teachings distorted was the Blessed Hope of the pre-Tribulation Rapture
  • Understanding and believing this doctrine would give people encouragement and solidify their faith in the God of the Bible as a loving and merciful God
  • But by convincing pastors and their congregations that they must go through literal hell on earth, is it any wonder that God doesn’t seem so appealing to many people?
  • Is it any wonder that they’ve turned away from what the Apostle Paul taught and now believe they have to gird themselves and fight in the natural?
  • If God won’t deliver them, then obviously they have to achieve their own redemption
  • What I’m saying – bottom line – is that all who buy into anything but a pre-Trib Rapture belief are being hoodwinked by Satan who has worked quite successfully in useful idiots in the natural world

 

  • Now – on to our second major point in this section, namely . . .

 

  • People don’t actually believe those seven years will be as bad as the Bible describes
  • This is a true conundrum
  • There are many good, absolutely saved Christian brothers and sisters who somehow read the book of Revelation and come away with a minimalist interpretation of the various judgments associated with God’s wrath
  • I’m sure that this thinking is associated with what I outlined a few moments ago, but it’s truly puzzling
  • To a large extent it must go to the issue of how literally people read the Bible and accept what it says on face value
  • Obviously, there is much symbolism in Scripture, but it is usually interpreted nearby for our understanding
  • For example, when Christ appears to John in Revelation 1 and speaks of the seven golden lampstands and seven stars in verses 12 & 13, the interpretation of the symbols is given in verse 20
  • The lampstands are the seven churches, and the stars are the angels of the churches
  • Once we get to the Seal, Trumpet, and Bowl Judgments, there is no symbolic interpretation given
  • As a result, we should look upon those terrible plagues as actual events that will occur
  • This is in line with what is called the Golden Rule for Interpreting Scripture, which is often shortened to say:
  • “When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense.  Therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, visual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate text…clearly indicate otherwise.”
  • Well, that’s what’s going on with many people
  • They look at these horrific judgments – don’t take them at their plain, common sense, literal word – and think they’re not so bad
  • Some people even think we’re currently in the Tribulation – that’s how badly they mangle this
  • This poor hermeneutics results in a buckle down – gird up mentality
  • We have to prep, find bolt holes to hunker down in, and make sure we’ve got our guns and ammo
  • None of these things is bad from a short-term, natural understanding of the world
  • The problem is that the 7-year Tribulation is a period of the supernatural becoming the natural
  • It is a time of demonic rage upon the earth
  • And to top it off, God will be raining down all these awful catastrophic events
  • You don’t just find a place of safety away from the city when all this goes down
  • It’ll be happening everywhere
  • Topping that off will be the hunting down of anyone who proclaims the name of Jesus Christ
  • Persecution for newly minted believers in the Lord Jesus will be off the charts
  • That brings us to the major discussion for today – all that we’ve talked about so far just sets the stage for identifying the Tribulation Martyrs

 

 

Tribulation Martyrs Identified

 

  • I mentioned many minutes ago that there are actually three different groups of Tribulation Martyrs
  • None of the people in these groups are those who currently believe through faith in Jesus and have declared that He is God – there is no other
  • Those of us who have chosen now to follow the Lord are redeemed by the blood of Christ
  • We have become God’s children and the beloved Bride of Christ
  • Anyone with an ounce of understanding of God’s character and His amazing love for us who have freely called upon Jesus for deliverance should know that there is no need for us to go through the Tribulation
  • Jesus paid the price for us
  • We are no longer subject to God’s wrath – listen:

 

  • Revelation 3:10

Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.

 

  • Romans 5:8-10

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

 

  • Thus, He has no need to punish us or to do anything more to convince us to follow Him
  • In contrast are those who have rejected Him and chosen to follow another god – whoever or whatever that may be
  • These people are giving their believing loyalty to someone or something else
  • These are unbelievers
  • They are comprised of Jews in Israel and Gentiles elsewhere around the world
  • It is these people in this unbelieving world that God must punish along with providing one final opportunity to turn to Him in faith through His amazing grace
  • Anyone looking for a Great Awakening will find it on the other side of the pre-Tribulation Rapture
  • This is the reason we see the passages in Revelation speaking of the many believers before the throne of God
  • They have come to faith in the Tribulation – against all odds because of the intense persecution – and for that crucial decision have paid for it with their lives
  • We who believe today in the Western world – in America – may experience persecution to some degree like our brothers and sisters in the 10/40 Window do – but it will not be like that which occurs during The Tribulation
  • Not even close
  • The tribulation we go through before being Raptured is not The Tribulation
  • For that we can be very thankful
  • Okay, so what are the three groups of Tribulation Martyrs?
  • Bill Salus in his book The Next Prophecies – linked below – has an entire chapter that discusses this more fully
  • The three groups as Salus defines them from how they’re described in Revelation are:
    • #1 – Fifth Seal Saints
    • #2 – Fellow Servants
    • #3 – Brethren of the Fellow Servants
  • Let’s look at them more closely

 

#1 – Fifth Seal Saints

  • This is the group most people are familiar with
  • The first four Seals of Judgment have opened with the riders on the different horses bringing false peace and hope in the form of the Antichrist, then war and famine, followed by Death and Hades
  • These Seals – opened by Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God – are clearly an integral part of God’s wrath upon the earth
  • Again – this is wrath not destined for current believers in Christ
  • After all this chaos and enough horrific destruction to convince most people on earth that they’re in big trouble during this period we see in Revelation 6:9 those who have been martyred for becoming believers in Jesus during this time:

 

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

 

  • The question we have to ask is: What caused this group to stand firm in Christ and be martyred for that faith?
  • Bill Salus is strongly of the opinion – and I, along with others, agree with this assessment – that these newly minted believers have been killed by the Harlot church
  • Rather than an Islamic slaughter during this initial period of the Tribulation, there is a good probability that it is an ecumenical Catholic genocide
  • I won’t get into it here as I’ve discussed it elsewhere, but it’s very likely that through the combination of a Psalm 83 War followed by Ezekiel’s War that Islam will become a non-entity, having no power and few believers after Allah is shown to be feckless and powerless
  • However, as we see even today, the Vatican is consolidating power and embracing all the religions of the world
  • Not only that, but the Vatican is strongly motivated to embrace alien brothers who come in UFOs after the Rapture
  • They want to evangelize demons – can you imagine?
  • The Catholic church is poised to become a composite religion, i.e. the Harlot, which is the end game of the One World Religion
  • This amalgamation of religious beliefs will welcome everyone and anything other than true Christianity
  • For resisting this hybrid theology, those left behind who become new believers during this time will be hunted down and killed if they don’t recant
  • And yes, this will happen under the auspices and direction of the Vatican
  • There is an office in the Vatican called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that has continued to operate since the Inquisition
  • Dicastery has the meaning of law-court
  • This law-court has been and continues to be in existence to defend the Catholic church from heresy
  • Put it together: if the Catholic church remains during the Tribulation as I mentioned earlier, since it doesn’t believe in the Rapture, nor does it believe in faith through grace alone – those in charge will believe they are divinely appointed to protect the faith
  • What will be the biggest problem?
  • Those who resist this syncretistic religion
  • Thus, the Catholic church will send out their minions and enlist many believers among the lay people to round up the Christians
  • How will they recognize them?
  • I think that both supernatural boldness will be upon them plus, they will perform miracles, as they preach the Gospel in their new-found zeal for the Lord
  • They won’t be hard to find, and they’ll be rounded up by the hundreds and thousands to be put to death

 

 

#2 – Fellow Servants

  • We learn of this group right away in Revelation 6:11:

 

Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

 

  • If the first group – the Fifth Seal Saints – are killed as a result of the opening of the initial four Seals, when might this next group of new believers be killed?
  • Salus believes, and I think it’s pretty good bet – that they are eliminated from the earth during the remainder of the first half of the Tribulation
  • This includes the rest of the Seal Judgments along with most of the Trumpets up until the Tribulation midpoint
  • In this case, the Harlot would still be raging and murdering as many true Christians as can be found
  • The Harlot is drunk with blood and these fellow servants meet the same fate as those whom we’ve already seen at the throne of God
  • The killing keeps on coming
  • And how does it happen for both these initial groups?
  • Revelation 6:8 gives us the details when the 4th Horseman is described:

 

So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.

 

  • If Death and Hades effectively describe the means by which these two Christians groups and even non-believers on the earth are destroyed during this time, we can see that death will come in many forms, and no one is safe
  • Martyrs for Christ are made left and right during this period by the demonic fury of this One World Religion that can’t fill enough of its cup with the blood of those who oppose the falsehoods it proclaims

 

 

#3 – Brethren of the Fellow Servants

  • In Revelation 6:11, we also come across this group
  • Looking at the verse in the King James, it reads:

 

Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

 

  • Since we’ve taken care of those murdered up until the midpoint of the Tribulation, we have to account for those killed after that, in the Great Tribulation once Antichrist desecrates the temple and declares that he is god
  • Revelation 20:4 tells us exactly what occurs and why with this group of martyrs:

 

Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

 

  • Hard as it is to imagine, the persecution ramps up once Antichrist reveals himself
  • Satan possessing this man or whatever he is – some think he may be a Nephilim – is now doing everything in his power to harm God and His people
  • Whatever the methods of eliminating the Fifth Seal Saints and their Fellow Servants, Antichrist takes a page from the French Revolution and beheads his enemies, i.e. those who have placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ
  • They have taken a stand and will not pledge allegiance to Antichrist by taking his mark
  • It’s a sure sign of their rebellion against him, and it makes it easy to spot these true believers
  • What a price they pay for not trusting in Jesus now while it’s easy!
  • But they hold true and remain steadfast, knowing their reward is eternity with God – and knowing they have escaped the flames of the Lake of Fire
  • You have to admire all these who go through these torturous days
  • Our believing now is SO easy
  • What a blessing!
  • It’s why we should want to rescue as many now as we can, knowing the terrible times to come

 

  • Given what I’ve described here, does it make any sense whatsoever that we who have already given our lives to Christ should be numbered with these three different groups of Tribulation Saints
  • The reality is that someone thinking we have to endure this also must place us among one of these three groups
  • Okay, you post-Tribbers, which are we?
  • Fifth Seal Saints?
  • Fellow Servants?
  • Brethren of the Fellow Servants?
  • You see how silly it is to place us in the Tribulation?
  • The good news in all this is that the pre-Tribulation Rapture is truly our deliverance from the worst time ever to come upon the face of the earth
  • God in His mercy has indeed given us an out – a means to avoid all this that’s almost upon this world
  • Am I happy to be called an escapist – to have this route of escape?
  • You better believe it
  • Call me all the names you want
  • But when I’m out here when this happens, and you’re not, you’ll certainly wish you were

 

  • If you’re not certain that you’ll be among those whom Jesus comes back for in the clouds to snatch us from the earth before all this begins, you can be sure
  • You can know that you will indeed escape this time to come and spend eternity with the Lord
  • Here’s what God’s holy Word tells us in Romans 10:9-10:

 

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

 

  • Call out to the Lord Jesus Christ today from the bottom of your heart for deliverance and He will answer
  • He will give you the assurance that you are His and will be with Him forever

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