No serious study of end-times prophecies and events would be complete without careful examination of the similarities and differences between the first and the next promised global judgments, namely the global flood and the great tribulation. So, let’s dig in and see what The Bible infers. This series addresses three categories: A. Pre-judgment Acts, (Part1), B. Judgment Processes (Part 2), and C. Post-judgment Life (Part 3). While some aspects of this issue have been addressed in posts throughout this blog, this series augments and summarizes what I perceive relative to the topic.
B. Judgment Processes (Numbering continues from Part 1)
6. Judgment beginning
Global flood: The Lord specifically told Noah when to enter into the ark, and He ‘shut him in’, along with his family and representatives of the animal kingdom, per Genesis 7:16.
Great tribulation: Father God will tell Jesus when to rapture the Church, writ large. When this job is done, Jesus will ‘shut the cloud’ on which we will meet, no stragglers allowed! Paul confirms a clear, direct correlation between the departure of The Holy Spirit (presumably in the rapture of the Church), and the unveiling of the anti-Christ. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12) It is not clear whether this will occur before the beginning of the predicted 7-year tribulation period, or before the beginning of the last half of the 7-year period, known as the great tribulation.
7. Salvations’ timings
Global flood: It appears Noah and his family were saved before or just as the rains and flooding started. Since the ark is a ‘spiritual type’ of the rapture, I wonder if they may have gotten wet before The Lord shut them in the ark. No people were saved after the Lord’s judgment began. (See: The Goshen Effect (Series))
Great tribulation: Revelation 7 reveals there will clearly be untold numbers of people who will be saved (counted as righteous in Christ) during the great tribulation, after the rapture of the Church. This is perhaps the most significant difference between the global flood and the great tribulation - salvations in the midst of judgment plagues! This is a significant testament of The Lord’s GREAT GRACE to mankind. Between Revelation chapters 3 and 18, there is no reference to, or mention of pre-tribulation saints, from Adam-to-the Church. However, there will be a group of specially-anointed Jewish witnesses (144,000) who will finish the job the Church could/did not finish, winning countless numbers of souls for Christ. The Lord will designate angels to facilitate the ministry of these witnesses. (See: Revelation 7 and 14) I perceive many, if not most, of those who will be saved during the great tribulation might be people who will be fake, ‘Christianesque’, Christians-in-name-only, who will have missed the rapture of the Church. (See: Audacious Christians (Series)) These folks might have just enough Bible knowledge to recognize the anti-Christ when, in the third Jewish temple, he declares himself to be God, and insists he be worshiped! If so, they will reject him, and reject his demand for them to receive his mark of the beast. Most, if not all of them will be beheaded by the anti-Christ government, per Revelation 7:9-17. Ponder this: Might this be The Lord’s way to ‘reclaim’ some of those former believers who will still be alive, who became lukewarm and 'fell away' from the faith as Paul predicted (2 Thessalonians 2.3), and who Jesus predicted He would [spiritually] ‘vomit out of His mouth’? (Revelation 3:16) If so, that sounds like GREAT GRACE to me! (See: Audacious Christians (Series))
8. Judgment earthquakes
Global flood: Earth was violently shaken to ‘break-up the fountains of the deep’. All people, possibly including those entering or already in the ark, likely felt the incredible shocks. There is no clear reference to whether the heavens were also violently shaken to ‘open the windows of heaven’ through which the rain poured out. (Genesis 7:11 and 8:2) If Earth was one land mass before the flood, might additional earthquakes and after shocks during the flood have created the seven (7) continents? If they did, such significant land movements would not have been discernible to those in the ark, floating high above all land. Also, might the number of continents, seven, potentially be significant, Biblically/spiritually??
Great tribulation: The Lord iteratively and quite emphatically promises to shake the heavens and Earth, to the point that Earth moves ‘out of her place’! (See: Isaiah 13:13, Job 9:6, Joel 3:16, Haggai 2, Matthew 24:29, Mark 13:25, Hebrews 12:26, and Revelation 6:13. Might ‘out of her place’ refer to continental shifts, or shifting Earth’s orbit?? Ezekiel 38:18-23 predict a major, global earthquake as part of The Lord’s process to end the Armageddon War at the end of the great tribulation, not long after the 1st War of Gog and Magog described in Ezekiel 38. Whether that is the earthquake to which other scriptures above refer is not clear. The epicenter of the global earthquake will be Israel. It will transform all of Israel into a plain, except Jerusalem will be raised up in preparation to serve as The Lord’s Millennial headquarters. As a result of the global earthquake, all walls might likely fall down, globally! If so, everyone will instantly become …homeless. Some scientists today guesstimate Earth was once a single landmass, and will someday return to such. If The Lord used violent earthquakes during the global flood to break-up Earth’s landmass into continents, might He effectively undo this division by reuniting the landmass for His Millennial Reign?? Might this be somehow correlated to His promise to unite our currently divided languages into one ‘pure language’ under His united, global, sovereign reign? (See: Zephaniah 3:9) Ponder this: Since national leaders today realize the many benefits of ruling over people who are in easily accessible locations (think Afghanistan for the classic opposite situation!), imagine how much more a GLOBAL SOVEREIGN might consider and desire such! That, along with having only one language spoken, would be a HUGE BONUS to any government!
9. Judgment duration
Global flood: The rain lasted 40 days/nights. Flood waters were on the Earth 150 days, indicating it took ~110 days for the waters to recede fully. Recall, the word, waters, is plural because there were two different sources of the flood waters, from above and below, per Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:2.
Great tribulation: The great tribulation is predicted to last 42 incredibly agonizing months (3.5 years). There will be two different sources of the judgments, from above and below, per Revelation 6, 8, 9, and 16, Ezekiel 38, and Zechariah 14. During this time, many people will attempt, but will be denied the power to commit suicide. (Revelation 9:6)
10. Judgment impacts
Global flood: The flood totally wiped out all living things in which there was The Lord’s breath of life. (Genesis 7:21-24) (Yep, it's His breath you are breathing as you read this.) No manmade structures likely survived and every grave was likely disturbed -- human and animal bones floating everywhere. Since death and destruction were relatively quick, there may have been little time or opportunity for mass immigration in an effort to outrun the flood, or to reach higher elevations. There literally was no escape. The minerals intensity across the Earth may have been significantly depleted from lengthy waterlogging. If the water was salty, depletion would have been far worse, impacting the entire plant kingdom. Noah had the wisdom to store critical seeds, since after the flood, he became a farmer. Plants that survived the flood would produce seeds. Only the tools and technology stored in the ark would have survived, as all others would be at the bottom of the rivers and oceans. Only the human culture(s) inculcated in Noah’s family would have survived. Economic and financial systems were wiped out. What about sea life? Sea animals breathe with gills. Yet there is no account of the presence of any sea life in the ark. The fossil record is replete with fossilized sea animals, even across all the highest elevations of the Earth. If all sea life was destroyed, how might it have been rekindled? Sinfulness was removed from the Earth. Across the board, The Lord apparently reset all Earth-systems. (The Gap theory similarly posits this may have been what He did between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, following the likely destructive impacts on Earth when sin, in the form of satan and his rebellious cohort of devils and demons, slammed into a previously PERFECT Earth after they were thrown out of Heaven!)
Great tribulation: With a far greater variety of global judgments, over a much longer period, one might suspect the devastations in the great tribulation might be far worse than those in the global flood. Not so! Though the levels of upheaval and disruption in every system (physical, environmental, socio-cultural, financial, economic, governmental, political, agricultural, educational, etc.) will be UN-BEARABLE, surprisingly, much will survive!!! This triggers the question, what might be The Lord’s strategic redevelopment plan, and over what time period might it be implemented?? This question is especially pertinent since, unlike after the flood, ALL of Earth will be in a literal mess at the end of the great tribulation!!! Curiously, much of the direct, targeted destructions will be limited to a third of A, B, C …X, Y, and Z. However, the resulting, massive collateral destructions will be UN-IMAGINABLE!!! Ponder this: Jesus said we, His immortal saints, will be ‘like the angels’. (Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25 and Luke 20:36) An angel told Daniel we will ‘shine like the stars for ever and ever’. (Daniel 12:3) Revelation 12 metaphorically reports a red dragon (signifying satan) and his angels started and lost a war in Heaven, and were cast down to Earth. Ergo, could the predicted, targeted, direct great tribulation destructions possibly be part of The Lord’s ‘pay-back’ blows on satan’s earthly kingdom for the loss of a third of Heaven’s holy angels?? (See: Lost Angels Not for Like-Angels and also Why The Millennial Reign (Series), especially Part 1)
11. Judgment celebrations
When examining the history and predictions of harsh judgments, the focus tends to be only on the gruesome pangs and suffering people experienced or will experience. But there is always ‘another side of the judgment coin’! So please don’t think this is a wrong sub-topic to address in context of The Lord’s two, worst ever judgments on sinful man. I assure you, it isn’t. Given human nature and the structure of our 'socio-cultural fabric’, we have exceptionally strong, built-in proclivities to CELEBRATE. And so much of our celebrations revolve around …meals.
Global flood: While there is no Biblical record of it, I imagine Noah and his small family must have felt a sense of overwhelming sadness as they listened to the incessant banging and scratching on the bottom of the ark, desperate people begging and screaming for someway to be let inside. But as the ark began to rise on the flood waters, those sounds died out, overtaken by the sound of thrashing rains and winds. After a while, I imagine they likely felt a sense of OVERWHELMING JOY to have finally and successfully completed The Lord’s ~100-year assignment to prepare for a global flood! Ponder this: No other person since then has ever demonstrated such a keen, enduring focus on any assignment or project! Why?! After the flood, The Lord began to implement His pre-flood decision to reduce human life span to 120 years! (Genesis 6:3) So let’s imagine for a while that family’s first celebratory supper inside the ark as it began to rise on the flood waters. I imagine everyone was extremely thankful. Perhaps during their 100-year project, one or more of Noah’s sons may have seriously doubted whether he should continue to support Dad’s krazy project, or should just leave and hang out with the skeptics. Can you imagine one or more of their wives persistently nagging their husbsnd(s) about wasting so much time, energy and money on such an unbelievable project?! Imagine the amount of scorn the wives’ families must have heaped on Noah’s family, as they shunned their daughters for 'marrying into such a bunch of weirdos!' That's ...'just my imagination'. Ahhhh, but victorious success is indeed sweeeeeeet!!! Pause for a moment to imagine the scene…from your seat at their first supper table....
Great tribulation: The sheer JOY Noah and his family must have experienced as they celebrated under The Lord’s protective ark canopy can in no way approach the level of ecstatic JOY we, The Lord’s immortal saints, will have from the time we disembark from our cloud-ride to Glory!!! As the great tribulation plagues are unfolding on Earth, we will prepare for, then experience the long-awaited:
(a) Marriage Supper of The Lamb (Revelation 19:9)
(b) Our long-promised rewards, white robes, white stones, and new names ceremony. (Revelation 2:17 and 19:9); then later we'll receive
(c) Our tailored Millennial Reign team and personal assignments, with adequate time to prepare for our service in The Lord’s Millennial Kingdom upon our return to Earth.
So you see, there IS always a positive side of judgments, even as they are unfolding! And there will be so much more when they end!
Praise The Lord for revealing the insights in this unusual series.
