Here’s a story that deserves considerably more attention than another poll showing Christianity declining. Christian Post
Biltmore Church baptized 458 people at an outdoor baptism gathering in Fletcher, North Carolina, setting a record in the congregation’s 137-year history.
The September 13 gathering included families being baptized together and people traveling from outside North Carolina. Church leaders say participants were individually contacted beforehand to confirm that baptism represented a personal decision to follow Christ, and follow-up discipleship is underway.
We’ve spent years hearing that faith is waning and young folks are more and more disillusioned with churchianity. Partly true, church attendance has been declining, and nihilism/atheism is unfortunately still a popular worldview for a lot of people.
But then one day 458 people walk into a lake to be baptized.
So What?
And while that doesn’t prove a national revival is underway it does remind us that Christianity isn’t fundamentally measured by denominations, polling percentages or political influence.
It starts the same way it did 2,000 years ago: with God’s spirit moving and individual people turning away from emptiness and seeking real meaning and light.
When John wrote about “great tribulation,” he wasn’t introducing a brand-new end-times idea. His Jewish readers already had centuries of history—and several biblical passages—shaping how they heard the word.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, tribulation usually means severe distress brought on by war, invasion, persecution, exile, or judgment. It wasn’t necessarily the official name of one future event. It was what happened when a nation or its people were squeezed to the breaking point.
Jeremiah described one such crisis:
“Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” — Jeremiah 30:7, KJV
“Jacob” means Israel. In context, Jeremiah is describing national disaster, captivity, and suffering—but also promising restoration. Some modern prophecy systems move “Jacob’s trouble” entirely into a future Tribulation. Others connect it primarily to Israel’s historical exile and oppression. Either way, the verse’s central movement is easy to miss: trouble is followed by rescue.
Daniel 12:1 uses similar language, predicting “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation.” The passage grew out of a world in which God’s people knew exactly what violent empires could do. Jews had endured Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem, forced exile, and later the brutal persecution associated with Antiochus IV, who outlawed Jewish practices and desecrated the Temple.
By John’s lifetime, Rome was adding another chapter. Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple in AD 70 after a horrific siege. Ancient accounts describe starvation, bloodshed, and mass death. For Jewish families who lived through it—or lost relatives in it—that certainly qualified as great tribulation. No imagination or prophecy chart required.
Jewish teaching also came to speak of intense suffering before God’s deliverance as the “birth pains of the Messiah.” The image came from the prophets: war, fear, and upheaval were compared to a woman in labor. Labor is painful, but it moves toward something—the birth of a new reality.
So What?
That background helps us understand Revelation. John’s images of beasts, war, famine, persecution, and judgment were not random scenes from a supernatural disaster movie. They drew upon Israel’s long experience of suffering under kingdoms that acted as though they were untouchable. Yet those kingdoms always fell.
For John’s Jewish readers, tribulation meant real suffering, but it did not mean God had lost control. It was the darkness before deliverance, the labor before birth, and the pressure through which faithfulness was tested.
Next, we’ll look at what Jesus meant when He warned His disciples about “great tribulation” in Matthew 24.
Cindy Clemishire has asked the Supreme Court of Texas to revive most of her defamation lawsuit against Gateway Church, disgraced founder Robert Morris and former church elders.
An appeals court dismissed most of her claims under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, which limits civil courts from interfering with church doctrine, governance and internal affairs. Clemishire’s lawyers argue the court stretched that protection too far because the dispute concerns public statements about abuse—not theology. Morris pleaded guilty in 2025 to five counts involving sexual abuse of Clemishire when she was a child.
Religious liberty is essential, but religious immunity isn’t.
Government shouldn’t decide whether your church believes in predestination, speaking in tongues, the Trinity or Saturday worship.
However, allegations involving sexual abuse, concealment or publicly defaming a victim aren’t theological doctrines.
So What?
Jesus didn’t tell churches to protect institutions, and He had some extraordinarily severe words about harming “little ones.”
Matthew 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
The Texas Supreme Court now has a chance to clarify where the line between church doctrine and criminal behaviour belongs, and it should be a no-brainer.
This book isn’t written for scholars or theologians. It’s written for ordinary people who are curious about life, about God, and about what the Bible actually says about the future.
You don’t need a religious background or special training to follow along. The goal here is simple: to walk through the Bible’s big story in clear, everyday language.
The book is divided into three parts. Part One explains the big picture of God’s plan and how people throughout the Bible connected their lives to that plan. Part Two explores what the Bible says about heaven, hell, the end of the world, and what comes after this life. Part Three focuses on the most practical question of all: how do you and I plug into God’s forever plan right now in everyday life?
The paperback version is $10.99 and the e-book is $2.99.
A new national political debate is emerging around candidates such as Texas Democrat James Talarico, Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon and Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, who are explicitly incorporating faith into their campaigns. Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell accused progressive candidates today of “virtue-signaling” to Christian voters rather than authentically representing biblical Christianity. See story here.
For decades, Republicans have enjoyed something close to ownership of America’s public Christian vocabulary. That may be changing, and that would be a good thing.
Let Republicans quote Jesus. Let Democrats quote Jesus.
Phillipians 1:15-18
Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
Listen to them all then open the Bible and check them all.
Jesus isn’t Republican or Democrat, and Scripture shouldn’t be retrofitted to whichever political platform we already support.
We’ll also be continuing our regular features, guest articles, and series:
Your Life And What Comes After: Plugging Into God’s Forever Plan Now
Armchair Apocalypse
They Said It: Poignant quotes on a variety of topics
Guest articles
And more…
Watchdogs
As always, we’ll be keeping a watchdogs eye on all of the latest political, religious, biblical archaeology, and cultural news and events from around the world and bringing to you in bite-size chunks to keep you informed.
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If you have a teaching series, opinion piece, research piece or other content that fits with the Bible Rebel mission we’d like to see it!
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Here are four quotes from four different voices on themes in the Book of Malachi:
G. Campbell Morgan — on empty religious ritual:
“I am more afraid of the profanity of the sanctuary than I am of the profanity of the street.”
Charles Spurgeon — on Malachi 3:17 and God’s “jewels”:
“Our God, who regards quality more than quantity…”
Matthew Henry — on Malachi as the final prophetic voice of the Old Testament:
“Though he be the last… the Spirit of prophecy shines as clearly, as strongly, as brightly in him as in any that went before.”
Dwight L. Moody — paired with Malachi’s criticism of weary, halfhearted worship:
“I get tired in the work, but I never get tired of the work.”
Malachi’s target isn’t atheism. It’s comfortable, going-through-the-motions religion—people who still show up, still perform the rituals, and still use God’s name, but whose hearts have checked out. That’s probably one reason this 2,400-year-old little book can still hit uncomfortably close to home.
The commission specifically highlights imprisoned Christians along with Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and others targeted by Beijing’s religious controls.
A Washington briefing yesterday brought together representatives of several persecuted religious communities to discuss Chinese Communist Party repression and concerns that intimidation extends into the United States.
So What?
Christians should absolutely demand freedom for imprisoned Christians in China.
But will we also demand freedom for the Muslim, Buddhist or Falun Gong prisoner? We should, because religious liberty isn’t Christianity asking government for preferential treatment.
We’ll be looking closely at questions and answers about “The Great Tribulation” in a four-part series, starting with Part One here.
Part One: Does Revelation Actually Describe a Seven-Year Tribulation?
Ask most prophecy teachers about the Great Tribulation and you’ll probably get a detailed seven-year timeline involving the Antichrist, the Beast, global war, and judgments arriving one after another.
You might even get a chart.
But if we’re going to understand Revelation, we should begin with what the book actually says—not with the chart.
The phrase “great tribulation” appears in Revelation 7:14, where John sees a huge crowd standing before God:
“These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” — Revelation 7:14, KJV
The Greek word translated “tribulation,” thlipsis, means pressure, distress, affliction, or suffering. It was not a special word reserved only for a future end-times disaster. In fact, John opens Revelation by calling himself his readers’ “companion in tribulation” (Revelation 1:9).
The believers in Smyrna were also experiencing tribulation and were warned that some of them would be imprisoned (Revelation 2:9–10). In Pergamum, a believer named Antipas had already been killed (Revelation 2:13).
For those Christians, tribulation wasn’t a theological theory. They lived under Roman authority in cities where emperor worship was part of public life. Refusing to honor Caesar and the Roman gods could cost them friendships, employment, freedom, or life itself.
Revelation does mention periods of 42 months, 1,260 days, and “a time, times, and half a time.” Each equals approximately three and a half years and draws from the symbolic language of Daniel. What Revelation does not do is combine two of those periods, call the result seven years, and name it “the Great Tribulation.”
The familiar seven-year scenario comes from connecting Revelation with a particular interpretation of Daniel’s seventieth week and several other passages. That may be a valid theological argument, but readers should know that the complete system is assembled from several texts. It is not plainly laid out in Revelation.
So What?
John’s first readers probably weren’t calculating how many years remained before suffering began. They were trying to remain faithful while suffering was already happening.
That changes the question. Instead of beginning with, “When will the Great Tribulation happen?” perhaps we should first ask:
What did tribulation mean within the Jewish and biblical world John’s readers already knew?
A major Associated Press report published Monday examines the escalating dispute at the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Pastor Sarah Lucas of Foundations for Nations publicly condemned traditional Arapaho practices—including the Sundance and sacred pipe ceremonies—as “idol worship.” The sermon triggered protests, and Northern Arapaho leaders have told the church to leave.
There’s a legal complication: the church sits inside reservation boundaries but on privately owned land, making the tribe’s authority to remove it uncertain. Attendance at the church has reportedly fallen by roughly half, and tribal leaders have adopted new rules requiring religious organizations to obtain approval before operating on tribal lands.
Can Christians respect another person’s religious freedom while simultaneously telling them their religion is false? Biblically, yes.
Paul didn’t arrive in pagan Athens and announce that every religion was equally true. He saw a city filled with idols—and then reasoned with the people about the God they didn’t know.
So What?
Christians shouldn’t mock Native Americans or pretend the brutal history of forced religious assimilation never happened.
But neither should a Christian pastor be required to say something she believes is worship of another god is compatible with Christianity. Respecting someone’s right to believe something is not the same as agreeing that what they believe is true.
That’s religious liberty.
But let’s be clear about the basic tenet of our faith as declared by Jesus Christ, and let’s not hesitate to speak the truth boldly:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” — John 14:6 (KJV)
