An expression from Dan. 12:1 , where is described the eschatological experience of God’s people immediately prior to their deliverance and the establishment of the eternal kingdom. Seventh-day Adventists interpret the standing up of Michael here mentioned to be an allusion to Christ’s cessation from His high priestly ministry in the heavenly sanctuary at the close of probation, and hence assign this time of trouble to a brief period between the close of probation and the second advent of Christ. This is understood to coincide with the time assigned in Rev. 15:1 to the seven last plagues. God’s people do not suffer directly from these plagues, which are poured out upon those who have rejected God’s mercy, but they do experience a period of supreme testing from which Christ delivers them at His coming. This is called the “great time of trouble” in contrast with what is known as the “little time of trouble.”
Referring to the prophecy of Daniel, Christ speaks of a time of “great tribulation” ( Matt. 24:21 ) subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70 but prior to His coming. He explained that the sun would be darkened “in those days, after that tribulation”—that is, within the period of time specified but after persecution had ceased-and that unless the persecution were thus shortened, “no flesh should be saved” ( Mark 13:24 , 20 ). Seventh-day Adventists equate this time of “great tribulation” with the “time and times and the dividing of time” of Dan. 7:25 (the “time, times, and an half” of Dan. 12:7 ), which on the basis of the year-day principle of interpreting the time periods of symbolic prophecy would be equivalent to the 1260 days of Rev. 12:6 ( cf. v. 14 ). Seventh-day Adventists understand that this prophetic period met its fulfillment in the 1260 years of papal supremacy and persecution, from A.D. 538 to 1798. ( See Daniel, Interpretation of .) An article by E. S. Walker in the Review and Herald of Sept. 10, 1861 (18:117), discusses both of these times of trouble—the time of trouble of Dan. 12:1 and the time of tribulation of Matt. 24:21 —at great length.
In considerable detail Ellen White describes the experience through which God’s people will pass during the great eschatological time of trouble ( EW 282–285; GC 613–634). They will suffer imprisonment at the hands of their enemies, or the privations of flight to remote mountain areas in order to escape persecution. This time of trouble will reach a climax in what is called “the time of Jacob’s trouble,” when the leaders of earth issue a decree authorizing the simultaneous execution of God’s people in all countries of the world. But God in a miraculous way protects His people, and none perishes, though surrounded by enemies bent on their destruction; and at the very crisis, when the death decree is to go into effect, Christ appears and delivers them. See also Jacob’s Trouble, Time of ; Little Time of Trouble .