This Side of the Whirlwind

Christians and the Great Consummation

One of the most pervasive questions on the lips of nearly every believer is whether or not Christians will be required to endure what most call the Great Tribulation, but what the text of this book calls the Great Consummation. There is, of course, only one correct answer to this potentially scary question, and the answer is yes. Christians will continue to live on earth during the Great Consummation, but only during the Tribulation Period and not during the Wrath of God. Those Christians who survive long enough to be raptured will have to endure the first two and a half years of the Great Consummation. While some believers robustly declare Christians will not be required to endure the Tribulation Period, citing 1 Thessalonians 5:9 for support, scripture actually specifies the Body of Christ will be raptured after the tribulation has taken place. The main misperception relates to when the Wrath of God will take place and what actually constitutes God’s Wrath. The primary mistake is derived from assuming the entire Tribulation Period is God’s Wrath and not discerning how the Tribulation Period is merely a crucial component of the Great Consummation and not the entire consummation process. This most common mistake relegates the entire seven-year period for Christ’s covenant into the Great Tribulation. As clarified earlier in This Side of the Whirlwind, the first three and a half years of the covenant took place during Christ’s ministry. According to scripture, the two and a half years of the Tribulation Period of the Great Consummation provide the separation process for true Christians, divorcing pseudo-Christians from the grace of God. This period is followed by the one remaining year established for the Wrath of God, which falls immediately after the Rapture. At that time, God’s Wrath will afflict the remainder of the world’s populations, bringing judgment on all the unsaved (1 Thessalonians 1:10 and 5:9).

Zechariah 13:7–9 is better understood when viewed through the theory of split-versing. Verse 7 applies to the ministry of Jesus Christ while verses 8 and 9 apply to the time of the Great Consummation. Based on these verses, two-thirds of the Body of Christ will die or be cut off by the time the Day of the Lord begins. Bear in mind, the Day of the Lord begins the Wrath of God after the Rapture has taken place. This, of course, leaves just one-third of the remaining saints to be gathered to Christ at the end of the Tribulation Period when the Rapture gathers all Christians living and dead. The refiner’s fire of the crucible will purge the Bride of Christ, martyring two-thirds of the saints before the end of the Tribulation Period. Just a reminder, the words “cut off” found in verse 8 represent the Hebrew word karath, defined below.

• Cut off, Karath, kaw-rath’ (H3772)—the word karath is a prime root. Though the word karath translates into the English words cut off, the Hebrew word specifically means to covenant or to cut up flesh or cut an animal into pieces in order to perform a blood sacrifice or ritual to form a covenant.

The Body of Christ must be on earth during the Tribulation Period of the Great Consummation. The primary reason the Christian presence is essential is because Christians are still forming or fulfilling the covenant and prophecies related to the covenant. By the end of the Tribulation Portion of the Latter Days, the Body of Christ will have fulfilled their prophecies and the separation process, which requires true Christians to be separated from pseudo-Christians. At that time, the Rapture will remove true Christians from the earth and relegate pseudo-Christians to the Wrath of God. Once the Tribulation Period has been fulfilled, God’s Wrath will begin. The Wrath of God must now fulfill its role over all the earth. Pseudo-Christians and unsaved sinners alike must suffer God’s Wrath in its full measure. Through this process, the unsaved will become exceedingly manic about anything religiously based, with a special hatred toward anything Judeo-Christian in origin. Through this anti-Christian, anti-Semitic high anxiety, the Beast will lead a globally foolhardy attempt at punishing God through the Israelites. Such rashness will be the impetus for Israel’s siege and eventually the Battle of Armageddon. The Two Federations (the Kingdom of the North and Kingdom of the South) will already be positioned to strike the proverbial match, which will incite current hostilities, erupting into war. These hostilities will continue throughout the world until the end of the Great Consummation and the beginning of the Battle of Armageddon. Only then will Jesus return with the Body of Christ to deliver the nation of Israel, according to Deuteronomy 4:25–31 and Romans 11:25–29.