It seems that every interview I’ve heard lately contains words along the lines of: “We just want peace in our neighborhood/city. We want to be safe when we go from our homes. We want security that is afforded by the police—not chaos and danger to our family, to our children.”

The cry for  ”peace and safety” at this present hour might not be the same as we’ve traditionally thought as being centered around potential Mideast war threats or even world peace. The term has nonetheless leaped to the forefront of life in America (I realize I’m perhaps being too America-centric again in my analysis). However, it’s most relevant to examine in prophetic terms considering the many significant signs of these last days that have converged and are proliferating.

Each news cycle brings about worries as expressed in interviews with those who have just experienced threats from Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and other violent anarchist organizations. Some of the threats are terrifying.

A number of such interviews came following the wrap-up of the Republican National Convention August 27. Many people, when they were leaving the White House grounds that evening after President Trump’s acceptance speech as his party’s nominee for president, were threatened by large mobs of rioters. Senator Rand Paul, for instance, told in several interviews how he, his wife, and a couple of friends were all but physically assaulted. As I understand, Paul has even begun legal movement to get the FBI involved in going after those who hurled the nastiest kind of invective—threats to kill—at himself and those with him.

Another Fox News pundit—a former police officer and secret service agent—said that he and his wife were also verbally assaulted and threatened when they left the grounds following the speech. The mob threatened to rape and kill them, according to the officer, as well as to do the same to others who were leaving at the same time.

Yet another man told in a studio interview that he and his neighborhood had to face-down a mob of threatening anarchists who shouted that they were out of the cities and now were intent on destroying “your communities and places you live.”

He called for increased “security” in the suburbs now, because the rioters promise to “disturb the peace” at every opportunity.

There is a call for “peace and safety” unlike at any time that I’ve known in the nation. As I mentioned previously, with the converging signals that this generation is nearing the end of the age, the cry almost certainly has dramatic prophetic overtones. I have no doubt that it is crucial to consider it as a key indicator of just how near we are to the end of this Church Age (Age of Grace).

As the title of this piece implies, we’re considering the time of “sudden destruction” that God’s prophetic Word indicates will mark the dénouement of this dispensation.

Let’s look at two key prophetic Scripture passages that explain my point.

The first is the apostle Paul’s warning in his letter to the Thessalonians:

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. (1 Thessalonians 5:2–3)

Recently, we posted my article, “Thief in the Night,” which, of course, is a reference to the Rapture of the Church. The “day of the Lord” comes with the disappearance of those millions of believers.

The Church Age or Age of Grace ends and the Day of the Lord begins, and prophecy unfolds all the way to the end of this period, which reaches its consummation with the remaking of the heavens and the earth following the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.

The “thief-in-the-night” break-in upon the generation living on earth comes while there is a call for ”peace and safety.” Paul says that when this happens, “sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”

The apostle distinguishes between “we and us” and “them and they” to specify the saved from the lost (those who will be left behind at the Rapture). The pronoun “them,” in this case, refers to those who don’t know Christ for salvation.

Those left behind will, Paul warns, face “sudden destruction,” and they won’t be able to escape it, as those who were taken in the Rapture.

The second passage we’ll examine validates what Paul has just written, I’m convinced. They are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself:

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17: 28–30)

Jesus, like Paul, said that it will be just like the time when Lot was taken out of Sodom to safety. Judgment followed that very day. “Sudden destruction” will occur when He is next revealed, and that will be at the Rapture.

A key indicator prevalent at that time of Christ’s call to His church, according to Paul, will be a great cry among earth dwellers for “peace and safety.”