I have been. My bible says they came out of the GREAT TRIBULATION....what does your bible say?
So, when trying to understand who they are it's important to determine what the great tribulation is.....But, you deem that to be off topic.
If this is what you are after, then the title of the OP and the questions asked is misleading. As
@Josheb and
@Marty said, Rev 7:14-17 answers the question of who they are.
It is completely unecessary to determine what the great tribulation is in order to know who they are. Now, you may have a question as to what the great tribulation is ---or just feel the need to tell everyone what it is and argue about it in yet another thread. But your OP is not really about what the title states but the tribulation. And you are not asking a question about what it is, because you consider that you already know.
And to voice your opinion, or give your understanding is one thing, and perfectly fine, but you consider that you already know what it is, and even though you have told us a gazillion times, want to tell us again. But you have nothing to support your view except other specific isolated verses that you also interpret to fit your idea.
Here is an alternate view that involves just three little words, "the" and "a" and "out"
In all that you have said, you stress THE great tribulation. Your version would have slightly more precedent if it said, "out of A Great Tribulation". That could categorize it as a specific event.
The great tribulation is non specific and could easily apply to an unspecified amount of time that contained tribulation. That could apply to from the fall of Adam to Christ's second advent, as there has been nothing but tribulation since that fall. Nothing works right according to the order of creation. Or, it could mean the time period between the two advents of Christ as it is the saints of all time that we are seeing in Rev 7, as that is the time period when the redeemed of all nations exist, but it would necessitate the redeemed being present during this period of tribulation.
What about "out of"? I suspect you are using that expression as proof of a pre-trib rapture, as though that is the only possible thing "out of" could mean. But look at what they "went out of" "to".
Rev 7:16-17
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
They came out of the tribulations associated with this fallen world and the presence of evil, to an
earth (the home he created for man to dwell in). and it is echoed in Rev 21: 1-7.