Another way you could look at it is this: Human beings might just be able to survive as a race if we only had to go through the first half of the Tribulation. I say, "might", because honestly, with all the devastation both supernatural as well as that done by men that the earth itself is going to go through, it's also possible that we could do enough damage even in the first half that could cause enough chain reactions for the earth to be eventually uninhabitable. But I think it's more likely that we could survive it. But there is no way humans could survive the second half of the Tribulation. If Jesus did not return and make the earth habitable again, all life would soon die off on the earth by the end of the Tribulation. That's one reason Jesus tells us that no one would survive if the Lord doesn't shorten it. (Matthew 24:22)
The AC will get elected because the people are so afraid, so tired of being afraid and hungry and sick etc that they'll be snatching at straws, they'll be desperate for someone to help them. Of course, we know he's not going to help them, he's only going to make promises to help. The only thing he will do that will make people "think" he's just wonderful and that he CAN help, will be to sign the treaty between Israel and her neighbors. We already know he isn't going to keep that treaty though, and we know he isn't even going to totally enforce it either, even at the beginning. Like I said, that will last only long enough to get him into power.
Let's see what the Bible says will happen during that first half of the trib.
The 7 seals will come first: keep in mind that this is occurring during the FIRST 3 years of the Trib:
Revelation 6:1-17 I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.
When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.
During the first part of the Tribulation then, we have the AntiChrist coming on the scene promising peace but giving people war instead. That's another thing people are often mistaken about. They think the AC will actually bring peace during the first half, but he won't. The bible tells us that he lies to the people making them believe that he wants peace and that it's not his fault that the wars break out all over the world. These wars will affect the entire world, not just parts of it. Yes, that means even here in the US! No one and no place will be exempt.
When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”
Now, because of the wars and other problems, we now have famine all over the world. This is most likely due to the economy failing as well as crops being destroyed by the wars. The Bible says that the rich people will be OK, but the rest of the world is going to be pretty miserable and hungry. Hungry, miserable people often start riots, loot stores, and are violent. They rob others to get what they want. (now keep in mind that a huge number of the population has recently disappeared in the rapture, and many of them are in law enforcement agencies. Plus there could be a lot of chaos left from when the rapture happened that will still be a problem. So now we have a whole lot more crime, plus wars that are quite possibly nuclear, and a lot of hungry, scared, people all over the world, many of which will be the ones behind all the crime, with little to no police available to help stop it all. Does that sound peaceful to you? it sure doesn't to me!
When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
Next comes disease and more death. My guess is that due to the wars obliterating and or poisoning the crops, the animals are going to get sick, possibly rabid and begin attacking people a lot more often then ever before. Keep in mind too that evil is on the rise. More and more people will be giving up all restraint and doing anything that pleases them, meaning sin, no matter who it hurts. It will be a time of "anything goes" on the earth. At this point one fourth of the people who were left behind after the rapture will die. Let's pretend there were only 100,000 people left on the earth after the rapture. If that were true, then out of that number, 25,000 of them would die! Now that's not taking into account the number of people who had already died from wars, famine and crime! What do you think would be a good guess for that number on a world with little police force left? Let's say 5% of the population which would be another 5,000 people. So that would leave only 70,000 people left. The reason I'm using such low numbers is because we can grasp those numbers a lot easier then the actual numbers of the population. So this allows us to at least grasp the huge number of deaths that will be happening.
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.
And now we come to the martyrs being killed and a huge number of them as well. Yet more violence. As you can easily see by now, the world has become a very violent and ugly place to live in. It's nothing like what we know it as now. Well nothing like what most of us know it as. Perhaps those people who currently live in places where ISIS is terrorizing and killing so many people can imagine a whole world like that, where there is no safe place to live.
I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
Finally, we know that a great earthquake will happen during the first half of the Tribulation as well, which will kill and maim a huge number of the population. Keep in mind now that none of the other things have stopped happening. There are still wars, famine, disease, crime, people being killed for their faith in Jesus, and wholesale sin going on constantly. And we haven't even gotten to any of the Trumpet judgments yet! Scholars differ in just how many of them will happen during the first half of the Tribulation, and a few think they'll all happen in the second half. So I'm not even going to count any of them, although I do believe that at least the first few of them will happen during the first half of the Tribulation. So what I'll do is simply list them for you at the end so you can check them out for yourself.
As you can see, during the first 3 and a half years, that's just 42 months, millions of people are going to die! There will be wars, not peace, famine, disease, disasters, unemployment, etc. Food will be scarce and so will money. People will be living in fear - fear that someone will rob them or kill them, or rape them or beat them. Domestic violence and crime will rise tremendously, as will riots and looting, in part because of all the stress.. This doesn't sound peaceful to me at all! The whole earth will be in utter chaos! I think I can honestly say that the only people on the earth who could be said to be "comfortable" would be those foolish souls who sell out to the Antichrist and work directly for him, staying near him all the time. While they wouldn't be immune to the judgments, they'd have more money and be part of the rich who would at least still be eating and have a decent roof over their heads, if nothing else.
Remember what happened when Rome fell? The same kind of things only in smaller measure, just like what's happening now really. What did Rome do to try to control the masses? They provided them with "entertainment". Entertainment that was full of death in the Colosseum. They made it easier for the people to get booze and drugs, and passed laws making it legal for homosexuals to marry. Homosexuality became the "in" thing after awhile. Women's lib was introduced as was abortion. Sounds a lot like us doesn't it? I've always believed that what happened to Rome was a picture of what was going to happen not just to the US, but ultimately to the world. .
Going back to the Judgements though, if you start at the beginning, each judgment adds to the next and is carried over; in other words, things get progressively worse. How can all of these things have happened and yet everyone is still "comfortable". It simply can't be! People are falling for fantasy rather then reality in this. I think the reason for that is that it's so hard for us to imagine the world being that bad. We think things are horrible now, but really, compared to the way they'll be then, they're not at all. Think for a moment about what God said about the people on earth during Noah's time. He said that every single thought and feeling they had was evil. Not "most of them", but ALL of them. Not most of the people, but "all of them" except for Noah and his family. That's how it will be after the rapture. All of their thoughts and desires will be evil, except for those of the people who are saved or are being saved. .
The first 3 and a half years won't be as bad as the last 3 and a half but that doesn't mean that people will be comfortable. One reason it will be even worse in the last half of the trib is because the people will still be dealing with the effect all of the previous judgments have had on them as well as with the next new judgments. Plus you have to take into account how things are right this minute. Even now with the problems with the economy, and with the tension in the mid east, and the current wars, and the threats of more wars, the unemployment etc. most of the people are not as "comfortable" as they were before and we know from the financial advisers and well as from the bible that these things are going to get worse, not better. Remember, that one of the things that will happen is the economy will continue to get much worse. The rich will get richer and the middle class will become the new poor (just like is already beginning to happen) and the poor will get even poorer. But even the rich won't be living in peace. They're going to need that wine and booze they can afford to buy, to calm their nerves, because they'll be in constant fear; fear for their lives and fear that their money will be stolen or lost and they'll become one of the poor.
So knowing how things are now and having read some of what is going to happen in the first half of the Trib, there is simply no way that people are going to be at peace and nice and comfy during the first half of it. It's not a pretty picture and certainly not something comfortable to think about, but if we tell people the Truth about it, perhaps then it will be enough to plant some seeds about salvation, and perhaps, if we face the truth about it, it will give us the courage to actually speak up to people who need to hear about Jesus.
Finally, here are the Trumpet judgments, some or all of which may also happen during the first half of the tribulation.
Revelation 7:1-4 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.
Revelation 8:1 When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Revelation 8:7-12 The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.
Revelation 9:1-6 The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
Revelation 9:13-19 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number. The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury
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