It should be no secret that before Israel’s final deliverance at the Lord’s return to Zion (Isa 59:20; Joel 3:16; Ro 11:26), the fledgling new nation, recently regathered back to the Land, yet in a state of unbelief (Jer 30:3; Eze 22:19-22; 38:8; Joel 3:1-2; Zeph 2:1-2) would pass through their greatest trial as a nation.
Jeremiah would call this time of unequalled tribulation, “the time of Jacob’s trouble” compared to a woman in labor (Jer 30:6-7). Daniel would call it “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time”, and Jesus would cite Daniel’s prophecy using nearly the same words, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Mt 24:21).
This time would come in the “latter days” (Jer 30:24; Eze 38:16; Dan 10:14; 12:1), not only after a single generation of 70 years, as prophesied by Jeremiah (Jer 25:11-12; 29:10), but this time after “many generations” of Jewish absence and perpetual desolation of the Land” (Isa 61:4; Eze 36:4; 38:8).
After this preliminary return in unbelief, but before the great, unparalleled trouble, several verses in the OT mention a dangerously deceptive false peace that would compromise Israel’s vigilance and be broken by the sudden and unexpected invasion of the last aggressor, called by several names in scripture but commonly known as the man of lawlessness or the Antichrist.
Much could be said about this false peace that Isaiah calls Israel’s ill-fated “covenant with death and hell” (Isa 28:15, 18 with Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 9:27; 11:23; 1Thes 5:3), but until very recently, any realistic prospect of peace, even the illusion of peace, seemed an elusive, unrealistic dream.
But since the advent of the “Abrahamic Accords”, and now with what appears the neutralization of the Iranian threat, a new unified partnership for peace has emerged that has put the unlikely dream into realistic reach. This is unprecedented!
In 1Thes 5:3, Paul makes this statement that is familiar to the readers of the NT:
“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”
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