Isreal does not go through the Great Tribulation, the church does

The Great Tribulation is also known in scripture as "the time of Jacob's trouble" although the term only once appears in scripture by that name. Jeremiah.30. 7.10

 Tribulation means trouble.

Because it is called so people have always leaped the conclusion that Israel is to pass through very grim times ahead before they are to be brought to the light.

Here is what scripture says Jeremiah.30.3-10

For lo the days will come saith the Lord that I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel and Judah saith the Lord and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers and they shall possess it.

And these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and Judah

For thus saith the Lord, we have heard a voice of trembling, of fear and not of peace.

Ask ye now and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?

Alas for that day is great so that none is like it, it is even the time of Jacob's trouble

but

he shall be saved out of it

for it shall come to pass in that day saith the Lord of hosts that I will BREAK THE YOKE OFF THY NECK and will BURST THY BONDS and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him. But they shall serve the Lord their God and David their King whom I will raise up unto them.

Therefore FEAR NOT o My servant Jacob saith the Lord, NEITHER BE DISMAYED o Israel for lo I will save thee from afar and thy seed from the land of their captivity. And Jacob shall return and SHALL BE IN REST and shall be QUIET and NONE SHALL MAKE HIM AFRAID.

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Look carefully at what the Lord says, it is not the man who travails in childbirth, Israel is God's firstborn son, but it is the woman, the church.

Why then is it called "the time of Jacob's trouble?" because it is trouble coming upon the nations because of Israel, God has got a quarrel with the nations for the way they have treated His firstborn son during the long years of their diaspora.

And the church is among the nations. 

Jesus was post-trib

In Matthew 24. we read

vs.21.
For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

vs.29
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
vs.30
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, then shall the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
vs31
And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

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Friends there are not multiple comings of Christ in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory, angels and trumps and gatherings together of the elect, there is only one such coming. It is the same one spoken of by Paul in 2.Thessalonians 2 and fits his description perfectly.

It happens Jesus said "after the tribulation of those days"

People try to draw their eschatology from out of the book of Revelations, the problem is no two Christians can agree exactly what Revelations is saying. It is much more sensible to draw eschatology from plain and open scriptures first and then make Revelations to agree with the plain and open scriptures, and it does.

And 2.Thessalonians.2. simply could not be plainer, there had been much confusion which Paul was anxious to clear up.

"Concerning our gathering to meet the Lord in the clouds......

.....that day shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition"

Antichrist must come first

vs.4
who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped

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Friends he is not just going to shake his fist, he is going to persecute. This is the great persecution which Jesus spoke about. Tribulation is persecution. He is going to do his darnedest to destroy ALL religion before he sits in the temple of God declaring that he himself is God.

But his sitting in the temple and his declaring that he is himself God is not the beginning of his career but the end for it is then that the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout.

So first is Antichrist and his awful persecution in the tribulation then is Christ the Lord and our gathering to meet Him in the clouds of heaven.

Let no-one deceive you dear brethren....prepare yourselves for this, for the western church is not prepared.

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