There are Brothers and Sisters in Christ who interpret the Bible in such a manner that they have come to the conclusion that the Church will go through the Tribulation. Those that believe the Church is destined for the Tribulation say that we who believe the opposite are merely seeking to escape.
Well, call me an escapist because I believe the Lord will deliver His people. No less authority than the Lord Jesus said, while giving the Olivet Discourse, “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass.” (Luke 21:36) In the Olivet Discourse Jesus was discussing signs of End Times events. The Apostle Paul spoke several times of the Church escaping God’s wrath. (I Thessalonians 1:10, I Thessalonians 5:9, Romans 5:9) The Lord Jesus in speaking of the Church at Philadelphia, which is representative of the faithful End Time Church, made this promise, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world.” (Revelation 3:10)
In the Luke version of the Olivet Discourse the Lord warned the Christians of those days, “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.” (Luke 21:20-21)
In 66 A.D. the Roman consul Cestius marched against Jerusalem and surrounded it with his army. Cestius was not a military man and made several tactical mistakes. Despairing success, he withdrew from Jerusalem. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus said, “he (Cestius) retired from the city, without any reason in the world.” This gave Christians in Jerusalem the opportunity to heed the words of Jesus and escape. And they did.
The Christian historian Eusebius wrote, “The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella.”
They went to Pella, which was in what is now the country of Jordan. To this day, there is a tradition among the residents of that area that First Century Christians came to Pella to escape the destruction of Jerusalem.
The whole church at Jerusalem escaped, because they listened to the words of Jesus. The Apostle Peter, after describing how the Lord protected Noah and rescued Lot, said, “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” (II Peter 2:9)
The Lord has provided several historic pictures of how He provides for His own. He provided for the Christians in Jerusalem. He is able to provide for the Christians of the Last Days. May His name be praised always!