THE COMING “GREAT TRIBULATION”

5. What is the “great tribulation,” and how do we know it will last only a short time?

⁵ God’s war of Armageddon will be the final part of a period of time called the “great tribulation.” Jesus spoke of it in this way: “Then there will be great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning until now, no, nor will occur again.” (Matt. 24:21) Considering the catastrophes that have taken place in the past, it is apparent that the coming “great tribulation” will be a time of upheaval unequaled in the entire history of the human family. But mercifully, it will be a very brief time, one that God will “cut short.”​—Matt. 24:22.

6. Why can we face the “great tribulation” with confidence?

⁶ However, while the “great tribulation” will be the worst of times, we can be comforted by the fact that it immediately precedes the best of times​—in God’s new order. Also, there is the very happy prospect that many people now living will survive that coming time of trouble! God’s Word promises that “a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues” will “come out of the great tribulation” as survivors. Even now God has wiped out every tear from their eyes. (Rev. 7:9, 14, 17) For this reason, Jesus was very optimistic of the future, although knowing that mankind yet had to face the “great tribulation.” His hope-filled words are: “As these things start to occur, raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up, because your deliverance is getting near.”​—Luke 21:28.

7. Why do others sense that a climax in human affairs is approaching?

⁷ For many decades, Jehovah’s Witnesses alone have been very active on the international scene in sounding the warning about this coming time of trouble that would climax at Armageddon. (Mark 13:10) At times, though, others sense that something cataclysmic is approaching, for they observe world conditions worsening with no hope of genuine or lasting improvement. For example, on May 4, 1980, the editor of the Miami Herald, Jim Hampton, wrote:

“Do you have, growing deep in your gut these days, the same kind of knot I have growing in mine? The awful, keep-you-awake-nights knot that tells you something is dreadfully wrong with your country, with the whole world? The knot that makes you shiver sometimes because it has just dawned on you that Armageddon isn’t just some allegory you read about in the Bible, it’s real? And that for the first time in your life the match is so close to the fuse that Armageddon is actually possible?

“I have that knot. And I’m not ashamed to admit it, because I have asked a dozen of my friends if they have it too, and not one doesn’t. . . .

“Anyone with half a logical mind can put together the cataclysmic events of the past few years and see that the world is at a historic threshold. It’s a threshold as important as the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, or the Electronic Age. It will change forever the way men live.

“But unlike those thresholds, which were essentially benevolent for civilization’s progress, this one . . . holds the potential for malevolence such as the world has never seen.”

While this editor was not viewing Armageddon entirely from the Biblical context, he was correct in saying that mankind is nearing a time of trouble “such as the world has never seen.” What mankind actually is nearing is the “great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning until now, no, nor will occur again,” as Jesus foretold.

MORE EVIDENCE

14. Why can we say we are deep into the “last days”?

¹⁴ Now, in late 1980, 66 years have passed since the crucial date of 1914. During that time, World War II also took place, killing some 55 million people, and ending with the atomic destruction of two cities, ushering in the nuclear age. Since then, conditions show that mankind is unable to solve its problems, and every part of this system of things is experiencing decay. All of this tells us that we are deep into the “last days,” and that events are moving rapidly toward the “great tribulation.”

15, 16. What do others say about conditions in our time?

¹⁵ For instance, at the end of 1979 economist Leonard Silk wrote: “This holiday season, the scarcest commodity is probably not oil but hope. For, with the turbulent decade of the 1970’s in its final days, the dangers facing the world economy​—and world peace—​are intensifying.” Columnist Max Lerner said in the spring of this year, 1980: “The world seems to have reached a stage where inflation, strikes, bankruptcy, fanaticism and terrorism come close to guaranteeing that nothing works and no one is in control. Can anyone anywhere govern?”

¹⁶ When the mayors of large cities in the United States were asked why so many of these urban centers were in such deplorable conditions, one answered: “The problems are almost insurmountable. Anyone who is not frustrated is not thinking.” Another mayor was asked if the cities were “ungovernable” now, and he commented that the facts “would lead one to at least think along these lines.” Similarly, Gus Tyler, author of the book Scarcity, said: “Mugging, burglary, assassination of police, dope peddling have brought a semianarchy to many cities.”

17. Intensive research led a group headed by a prominent political official to what conclusion recently?

¹⁷ Former chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Willy Brandt headed a group that investigated world conditions for two and a half years. This was their conclusion recently:

“At the beginning of the 1980s the world community faces much greater dangers than at any time since the Second World War. It is clear that the world economy is now functioning so badly that it damages both the immediate and longer-run interests of all nations. . . .

“The problems of poverty and hunger are becoming more serious; there are already 800 million absolute poor and their numbers are rising; shortages of grain and other foods are increasing the prospect of hunger and starvation. . . .

“Between 20 and 25 million children below the age of five die every year in developing countries . . .

“A number of poor countries are threatened with the irreversible destruction of their ecological systems while many more face growing food deficits and possibly mass starvation. In the international economy there is the possibility of . . . a collapse of credit with defaults by major debtors, or bank failures . . . [and] an intensified struggle for influence or control over resources leading to military conflicts.”

18. What other recent developments in world affairs verify that the way is being prepared for the “great tribulation”?

¹⁸ Add to this the well-documented disintegration of family life and marriage in recent years, the vast increase of crime and violence of all sorts, the enormous growth of drug abuse and alcoholism, and the upsurge of juvenile lawlessness. Is it not obvious that the very fiber of human society is breaking down, as Jesus said it would just prior to the “great tribulation”? (Matt. 24:12) In addition, consider this development, as noted in World Press Review: “The world of the Eighties is in many ways frightening, not just because of the poverty and injustice from which so many suffer . . . but because of the machinery of global destruction with which men play.” It called that machinery of destruction “horrifying,” and no wonder, for Britain’s New Scientist reports: “There are about 60,000 nuclear warheads in today’s arsenals, with an explosive power equivalent to more than 16,000 million tons of TNT (equal to 1,250,000 Hiroshima bombs).” Some of those weapons are so deadly that one bomb alone can wipe out a small country, or an entire section of a large country. Yes, for the first time in history, man is capable of annihilating most life on earth.

19. Whom should we trust to solve today’s problems?

¹⁹ Are we to think that somehow, though, world leaders, because they may be sincere, intelligent, well informed and powerful, will solve these problems? Note what former United States Secretary of the Treasury Michael Blumenthal says: “No one fully understands the present situation. That includes all government officials making policy. They are as puzzled as you are when you open the paper in the morning. The fact is that no one . . . really has been able to predict with any degree of accuracy the problems we got into.”