9. (a) Why do we have reason to believe that the foretold “great tribulation” is near? (b) Although “great tribulation” came upon Jerusalem in 70 C.E., why must the major fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy about “great tribulation” yet be future?

⁹ Even aside from what the Creator’s inspired Book, the Bible, has to say, we have reason to believe that this system of things is in its “time of the end.” Its last days have about run out. Its full end can be expected to arrive with a time of trouble, a “great tribulation,” surpassing the flood of Noah’s day in its spectacularness and destructiveness. That reference of Jesus to Noah’s day was part of his final prophecy given in the year 33 C.E. It extended his predictions beyond the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 C.E., yes, all the way down into our day. The destruction of that holy city was the climax of a “great tribulation” for the Jews in the Roman province of Judea in the Middle East. Evidently, though, Jesus must have had more in mind than Jerusalem’s destruction back there, when he said: “For then there will be great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning until now [the year 33 C.E.], no, nor will occur again.

Matt. 24:21,