What is Revelation’s Hour of Testing? Rev 3:10 contains a specific promise to the Philadelphian Church. The nature of this promise has long been the subject of debate.
Because you have kept the word of my perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth. Rev 3:10
Testing: πειρασμός (peirasmos) Meaning: an experiment, a trial, temptation
Some assumptions
We all tend to bring assumptions to our interpretations. It’s difficult not to. Mine include regarding Rev 3:10 as still future and occurring during the 70th Week of Daniel. I’ve written on this subject previously. You’ll find Richard Mayhue’s thoughts HERE. See also Jeffery Townsend’s The Rapture in Revelation 3:10 and Tony Garland’s commentary.
Pretribulationists use this verse as a proof of the pretrib rapture. Premillennial posttribulationists often insist that the promise is to be kept safe within the hour. Recently, leading prewrath rapturists have agreed with pretribbers that Rev 3:10 is a rapture verse. But they insist it supports their view.
One recent challenger asserts that it’s easy to refute the pretrib reliance on Rev 3:10. He notes that pretribbers agree that the church does not suffer the DotL’s wrath. Then he points out that Rev 3:10 does not address when it actually begins. His assumption is that God’s wrath (hour of testing) occurs after a “shortened” Great Tribulation, and that the GT is not the hour of testing. In fact many prewrath tenets are interpreted through this shortened GT grid.
A few pretrib thoughts
Richard Mayhue and John MacArthur place the DotL at the end of the 70th Week, yet still hold that God’s wrath is present before then. Furthermore, while the text doesn’t tell us when the DotL begins, neither does it say what the hour of testing is.
That said:
Ezekiel 7:3-19 references God’s anger, fury and wrath with famine, sword and pestilence (v 15) and in context to the Day of the Lord’s wrath (v 19). All these elements are also found in the 4th seal of Revelation. And as Larry Pettegrew pointed out in “Forsaking Israel,”
…Matthew 24:21 says that the Great Tribulation will be the worst time ever. So, how can it be replaced by the Day of the Lord which is more horrible? Wouldn’t that be the worst time ever? (Page 280)
For more on the Day of the Lord language, see my previous article linked above.
Thinking about peirasmos
An enticement to sin, temptation, whether arising from the desires or from the outward circumstances… Of the temptation by which the devil sought to divert Jesus the Messiah from his divine errand.
The meaning of peirasmos fits very well with the Apostle Paul’s warning found in 2 Thess 2:8-12,
… with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.
Considering all this, I believe the pretrib assumptions are more compelling and natural to those of the posttrib-prewrath camps.
So, keep looking up!
Maranatha!
Sharing is caring!
