Acts 3:23

TRIBULATION

23. “And it shall come to pass that whosoever may not hear that prophet will be cut off from the people.” “May hear” in this verse is in the subjunctive mood, revealing contingency, which is peculiar to man alone, as there are no contingencies with God. While we all fully recognize human free agency, yet the present dispensation, like all of her predecessors, is fast hardening into infidelity, grieving the Holy Spirit away, passing the dead line and ripening for destruction. God knows every person who will hear His Son when He comes in His glorious kingdom. He equally well knows every one who will reject Him. During the great tribulation, when the Ancient of Days shall descend on the throne of His righteous retributive judgments (Daniel 7:9), He will hackle out of the world everything that will not do for the coming kingdom; so that when the Son rides down on the throne of His millennial glory, He will find none but the elect, i. e., saved and savable people, on the earth. The first work of the transfigured saints will be the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom to all the survivors of the tribulation on the whole face of the earth (Acts 15:17). Then shall be verified that notable prophecy, “A nation shall be born in a day.” This verse is clear and unequivocal that the non-elect, i. e., the people who have crossed the dead-line and are unsavable, shall all be cut off during the tribulation.