I was startled this week when I began cataloging all the various conflicts raging across our world today.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is now grinding on into its 1700th day. Russia has suffered 1.5 million casualties (aprox 500,000 dead and 1 million wounded). With high-level meetings taking place, there is a small glimmer of hope for an end to this war on the horizon. This week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky appeared willing to make concessions.
Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen are also currently locked in conflict, with the Iran-backed terrorist rebels firing numerous drone and missile attacks north into the Saudi kingdom.
The Houthis are also controlling the Red Sea, causing Egypt to issue threats to become involved in the conflict alongside Saudi Arabia.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the Iranian regime has offered to mediate talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia.
“Iran has not received a response from Saudi Arabia or Yemen’s Houthis to its offer to help broker talks to end the fighting between them, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a television interview aired on Tuesday,” the report highlighted.
Of course, Iran’s “offer” is ridiculous. As the funders of the Houthis, Tehran at any time could simply call off their terror proxy and end the whole conflict. One of the Iranian negotiators insisted that “any foreign intervention would complicate matters,” insisting that Egypt has previously granted assurances that it would not become “directly” involved in the situation in Yemen.
The Jerusalem Post notes that “Egypt has said it is ready to provide Saudi Arabia with the support it needs to defend its security, potentially raising the stakes in the Middle East.”
That’s all we need in the Middle East… the stakes to be raised!
“A vote in the Egyptian parliament on a possible move against the Houthi fighters by the country’s military, one of the Arab world’s largest, was delayed until October 26,” the report detailed.
This is not the only area of potential escalation in the Middle East.
This week, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey signed a trilateral security agreement, called the “Mecca Defense Pact,” committing these three countries to mutual defense, military assistance, intelligence sharing, and defense industry cooperation—and barring withdrawal of any of these three countries for the first 10 years.
We’re seeing nations continue to form defense alliances for security and protection because they’re in a dangerous neighborhood.
We are hearing rumors of a looming war between Taiwan and China.
Israel, of course, is at the epicenter—with Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the ongoing threat from Iran.
The United States is also facing off against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, with this global oil chokepoint still being restrained and escalation ready to break out at any moment.
Iran is preparing for all-out war. Iranian leaders are making all kinds of bombastic threats, trying to deter a renewed large-scale assault by the United States. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is threatening to use the “mother of all bombs” (MOAB) against the regime.
Then you have all the crisis and chaos in Europe. It’s being described as “horror.”
According to one report, “Cities have turned into battlefields as top EU economies, including France, Italy and Spain, approach pivotal elections, while far-right parties have made electoral gains in Germany and could do so elsewhere. It also comes as Europe faces a critical moment in its support for Ukraine…”
All these conflicts are intertwined.
As one headline put it, “From France to Albania, social unrest is setting Europe’s streets ablaze.”
That is interesting in light of Matthew 24.
We’re all familiar with the statement where Jesus said that in the end, “nation will rise against nation” and “kingdom will rise against kingdom.” The word “kingdoms” refers to political states and entities. The word “nation” is “ethnos” in Greek, from which we get the English word “ethnicity,” described as “a body of persons united by kinship, culture, and common traditions.”
That’s really what we are seeing right now in Europe—a clash of cultures, a clash of civilizations. It’s ethnos against ethnos.
It is also interesting to note that the final false messiah, according to Biblical prophecy, is going to rise from a reunited, revived, reconstituted Roman empire (Daniel chapter 2).
The spirit of antichrist has been present ever since the first century, but today it seems we have moved from the spirit of antichrist to the soon surfacing of the antichrist. The world is ripe today. It’s ready. The clamoring chorus for peace is growing. The world is weary of war, and the antichrist is waiting in the wings to give the world what it wants.
My friend Gary Frazier wrote a book several years ago called “Signs of the Coming Christ,” and it contains this chilling quote: “Somewhere at this moment there may be a young man growing to maturity. He is in all likelihood a brooding, thoughtful young man. Inside his heart, however, is a hellish rage. It boils like a cauldron of molten lead. He hates God. He despises Jesus Christ. He detests the church. In his mind, there is taking shape the form of a dream of conquest. He will disingenuously present himself as a friend of Christ in the church, yet he will, once empowered, pour out hell itself onto this world. Can the world produce such a prodigy? Hitler was once a little boy. Stalin was a lad. Nero was a child. The tenderness of childhood will be shaped by the devil into the terror of the antichrist.”
That captivating quote is very accurate, describing something probably taking place somewhere in the world right now—and this person may not be a young lad anymore.
We know that the peace he will bring is short-term. 1 Thessalonians 5:3 states, “For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman…” In Revelation 6, there is a peace, and then the rider on the red horse comes and takes peace from the earth.
It will be a temporary peace, but a peace nonetheless.
Only Jesus can bring lasting peace. He is the Prince of Peace. He will bring permanent, perfect peace to this world when He returns. A thousand-year reign of peace on the earth, on into His eternal kingdom.
The good news is He can bring peace to your life and my life right now.
Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
You can have peace with God through Jesus Christ if you trust in Him as your Savior. Once you have peace with God, you can also have the peace of God in your heart.
Philippians 4:6-7 reads, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God,and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
In the midst of all that’s happening in our world today, and in the midst of all that may be happening in your world, you can have peace with God, and you can have the peace of God in your heart through Jesus Christ.
That’s something that can never, ever be taken away from us.
