1. (a) What will the coming “great tribulation” mean for all of earth’s inhabitants? (b) When is it that, as foretold in Matthew 24:30, the ‘Son of man comes on the clouds of heaven’?

THE time is coming when all of earth’s inhabitants will face an event that will mean either life or death for them. Jesus Christ foretold it when he said: “Then there will be great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning until now, no, nor will occur again.” This is the time when, as a result of feeling his destructive power, “all the tribes of the earth . . . will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,” and they will beat themselves in selfish grief over what it means to them.​—Matt. 24:21, 22, 30.

2. How do we know that there will be survivors of that “great tribulation”?

² But, while that will be true of “all the tribes” collectively, it will not be true of each individual, and it does not have to be your own experience.

The language employed in Matthew 24:21, 22 indicates that he had in mind a “great tribulation” of such dimensions that nothing in human history would ever equal it. Furthermore, in Mt 24 verse 30 he showed that, not merely the Jews, but “all the tribes of the earth” would be involved.