Just a Little While
“You will have tribulation for ten days” (Revelation 2:10).
Just before Jesus said “Be faithful until death” he said, “You will have tribulation for ten days.”
Ten days. What could you endure for ten days?
Years ago, I did an intense exercise program for about 75 days.
My wife and I swore off all sugar for almost 500 straight days.
Ten days? I feel like I could do a lot of things for ten days, probably including many varieties of pain, and suffering.
Except, Jesus did not mean “240 hours.”
He meant, “Until heaven’s purposes are fulfilled.”
The number ten is symbolic for God’s plan. The tribulation would last until God said, "Enough."
When the souls under the altar pleaded to know when the suffering of the infant church would end, they were told that “they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also” (Rev. 6:11).
Yikes.
We don’t know precisely how long this was, but when you are suffering, ten days seems like ten years! There were ebbing and flowing regional and local waves of persecutions of Christians across the Roman empire until A.D. 313. It is plausible that “ten days” and “a little while” spanned nearly 200 years!
In this life we will have tribulations of all varieties (John 16:33). But we can be of good cheer. Jesus has overcome the world!
No matter how protracted our trials and troubles have seemed to us here, when we arrive on heaven’s shore, if someone asks us, “How long were you there?” the sheer joy of God’s presence will completely reverse our earth-bound experience of time.
We will answer, “It felt like ten days!” or, “Oh, it was just a little while!”
“Faithful till death said our loving Master,
A few more days to labor and wait;
Toils of the road will then seem as nothing,
As we sweep through the beautiful gate.” — W.B. Stevens
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