This generation has witnessed stage setting for the last days, as predicted by Jesus and the Old and New Testament prophets. None is more relevant than the prophetic stage-setting we are watching in this crucial hour of last-time human history.

The prophecy of relevance has been in the stage-setting process for decades, even centuries. But, the 20th and 21st centuries have moved ahead preparation for this particular foretelling as perhaps no other era. The process is part of dynamic rearrangements that will eventuate in configuring the world for man’s most horrific military conflict –the war called Armageddon.

Jesus himself gave the prophecy as part of the Olivet Discourse while sitting with His disciples overlooking the Temple Mount: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation…” (Matt. 24:6-7).

The prophecy we need to look at in this most fascinating time in history is the prophecy Jesus gave that foretells that nation will rise against nation in an unprecedented way just before He returns to set up His Millennial Kingdom on Planet Earth. When giving only a cursory glance at these words, we think that yes, that’s certainly true. Many a nation has risen against another nation just during the past several decades. There have been many wars, and other wars are looming. But, is this the kind of “nation against nation” reference Jesus specifically gave in His discourse upon the Mount of Olives?

To answer this, we must look at the Greek language –the language from which the New Testament was translated into English. Jesus was in actuality saying that these uprisings would be unusual, in that they would be based in ethnos –the Greek word, here, for “nation.” They would be ethnic in origin. They would pit ethnic, or racial group, against racial group.

It is equally true that ethnic factors have been the cause of many wars throughout the centuries. The Arabs and Jews –as a matter of fact, many ethnic peoples against the Jews– marked the conflicts of Old Testament times. Almost without exception, those early wars were “ethnic” in origin.

Things have not changed. Arabs and Jews still have the ethnos factor at the heart of their differences. And, never in history has the conflict been more virulent –in rhetoric, if not in fact. The Islamic nations –mostly Arab—are blood-vowed to push the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea and to wipe the Jewish race from the planet. Some Arab leaders of the past and other leaders –e.g., the Iranian—continue to want all Jews expunged from the region, and even off the planet. They have made it their national policy, through their oratorical invectives. There have been conflicts in the century just passed involving peoples of the Caucuses, the Balkans, etc., and horrific slaughters in Africa, and other places –all based upon ethnic differences.

Now, this hemisphere is experiencing the early effects of ethnic struggle. The latest is more and more pitting those of Mexican descent against, particularly, Caucasian types, while the protests over immigration laws escalate. These uprisings aren’t spontaneous, but are fomented, obviously, by those who have ulterior motives –other than to see that illegal immigrants get a chance to start new lives in the most materially blessed nation in human history.

I have my personal thoughts on the politics of all of this, which I will keep to myself, except to say that some political entities are showing a total disregard for their national well-being by wanting to just ignore the laws on these important immigration matters, and extend unlimited amnesty to those who have entered America illegally.

Point is, Jesus said that a great, swelling uprising involving ethnic strife would grow to be a major crisis during the Tribulation era –that last seven years just before He returns to put an end to all of the conflicts at Armageddon (Rev. 19: 11).

Ethnic disturbance we are witnessing each day in our headlines is, in my view, something to watch closely, so far as being observant for prophetic signals is concerned. The unrest constitutes yet another indicator of where this generation might stand on God’s prophetic timeline. We can say with a degree of certainty based upon study of God’s Word, and belief in the Pre-Trib Rapture of Christ’s Church, that because of the burgeoning ethnic unrest, in conjunction with all of the other indicators we see interjecting themselves with growing intensity and frequency, Jesus’ shout, “Come up here!” can’t be far distant. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.