This commentary is written as the Trump administration’s long-awaited peace plan in the Middle East apparently is on its way. As a result, tensions on Mt. Moriah—the Temple Mount—are building.

President Trump said Thursday, January 23, 2020, that he will likely announce the plan before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz’s visit to the US on Tuesday, January 28.

He told reporters while on a flight to Florida that the announcement would come “sometime prior to that…probably, we’ll release it a little bit prior to [the Israelis’ visit].”

He later walked back the statement, tweeting that the timeline was purely speculative at this point.

If those plans are ultimately carried through, however, it will be not only a significant event for what’s going on politically in America, but, more importantly in terms of heaven’s considerations, something that will rivet the attention of those who watch for prophetic stage-setting.

The Muslim world in particular is already up in arms, emotionally at least. Israel, of course, is at the center of rage and volatility.

Tensions were high on the Temple Mount amid calls for mass attendance at Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque and reports that the Trump Administration’s Deal of the Century peace plan would be released within the week.

Israeli security forces arrested multiple Palestinian activists in Jerusalem and dispersed worshipers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, as Palestinians continued to call for mass attendance at Friday dawn prayers at holy sites throughout the West Bank and Gaza. At least two people were injured on the Temple Mount as police used stun grenades and rubber bullets, according to the Palestinian Quds news. One worshiper was arrested. (“Tensions High on Temple Mount Amid Peace Plan Reports,” Jerusalem Post, Rapture Ready News, January 24, 2020)

The Deal of the Century, as it has become known, has long been on the Trump administration’s agenda. The Israel-hating Muslim world and the overwhelmingly anti-Israel forces prevalent in the UN know that this president follows up on promises. This has doubly ratcheted up tensions surrounding Trump’s comment to reporters.

Indications are strong that something is indeed in the making, because actions to prepare for probable troubles began well in advance of the president’s remark.

Preparations for possible clashes began even before initial reports about the possible imminent release of the Deal of the Century. Israel Police signed orders to keep Palestinian activists from the site due to fears that clashes could break out similarly to last week, when similar calls were made for mass attendance for Friday prayers at the mosque. Police have been instructed to disperse any disturbances by force. (Ibid.)

Hamas called for the world of Islam to come to alert. In a press release, the organization declared:

 The Israeli occupation’s attempts to judaize Jerusalem and holy sites are an alarming sign that must prompt our Arab and Islamic Ummah (community), along with the free people of the world to intervene immediately. We call for similar Fajr prayers to be organized in all Arab and Islamic capitals for the sake of Al-Aqsa and holy places in Palestine.

As any Middle East observer knows, when it comes to the Muslim world, the actions taken rarely stay within the boundaries of “prayers.” Any action by the president in conjunction with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government will be met with elevated hostility. In the matter of laying out the areas surrounding the Temple Mount, there is a potential for war, bringing the millions of the Muslim world into the fray.

This is the fear of UN diplomats and the geopoliticians. However, it is not the fear of students of Bible prophecy. All-out war will not occur—at least, not in the sense of world-rending calamity.

A peace of sorts will be made, the “false peace” of Daniel 9:26–27. It will indeed bring on all-out war, the war called Armageddon.

And this is what we who are prophecy students and observers of world issues and events must caution: That “false peace” will initiate man’s greatest of all wars.

Joel, the prophet, gave the lethal formula that will produce this final war of the age. We’ve looked at it many times:

I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3:2)

We who observe end-times issues and events in light of God’s Word must urge President Trump about the deadly folly of “parting” God’s chosen land to try to make peace in the region. We hope the president listens to voices like Dr. Robert Jefress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas. These, we hope, will inform the president in explicit terms. Don’t be complicit in setting the stage for producing the deadly “peace” predicted by Daniel the prophet.

Today’s article came about as a most profound heavenly influence. Because it involves matters deeply personal in terms of family relationships, I must include details in an oblique way.

In beginning the search for a subject to address, I settled on the topic you see above: “Satan’s Wrath, God’s Wrath.” My thought was to contrast the two kinds of anger and their methods of imposition upon humanity.

No sooner had I settled on how to begin, the heavenly influence I mentioned made it clear why I was prompted to choose the topic I had already chosen.

A message from a family member that was disturbing immediately sent me into the position of prayer to address the Father about the matter at hand. By the time my prayer was finished, the impression that I received was forthcoming. I knew instantly that the assault causing the problem was from our ever-present enemy; Satan and his minions were at work.

The old serpent is working his nefarious evil to circumvent God’s protection over me, personally. Satan, for God’s own reasons, can’t directly get at me for the moment, so he is attacking those I love with all my heart.

I’m not one who claims to hear the literal voice of God or have constant, ecstatic experiences or heavenly interventions. As a matter of fact, I think I’m too much the other way. I’ve expressed on many occasions that the Good Friday 2011 clinical death I experienced after a widow-maker heart attack and the subsequent visit to the heavenly environs was something that went against my stodgy, Baptist sensibility.

But, it is a flawed sensibility, I now know. The Lord does indeed intervene—sometimes in dramatic, even spectacular, ways. I’m still wary—I believe properly so—about claims of supernatural experiences, but God does intervene.

He did so in the genesis of this commentary, as I’ve said.

The thrust of this article was and is to point out the evil within Satan’s wrath and the absolute purity and goodness of God’s wrath. 

As many who read these articles know, I believe we’ve been witnessing, through the political goings-on in America before and after the 2016 presidential elections, Satan’s wrath. The old serpent’s plans to build the platform for his so-called New World Order have been disrupted. The installing of a man in the office of president who believes in national borders and sticking to constitutional principles has taken Satan off his game plan.

The result is infectious rage. It has metastasized within the US and world populations to great extent, driving those who mostly oppose godly principles of personal and governmental conduct into a reprobate mindset. They call good evil, and evil good. Satan’s wrath is thus manifest for all to observe.

It is directed at all who oppose his desire to completely do away with anything godly. This is why anti-Semitism is again underway and growing. It will reach levels that even will exceed Hitler’s hatred for God’s chosen people.

Satan’s wrath is why hatred against Christians is progressing geometrically. The following news item illustrates:

Shortly before President Trump signed phase one of the historic trade deal with China, a Chinese pastor described the fear and intimidation believers are enduring under the Communist government.

“The Chinese government has now placed severe restrictions and policies on the house churches, asking neighbors to spy on one another, pressuring school teachers and college professors to betray and sign a statement to denounce their own faith as well to do the same to students,” Pastor Jean Zhu said.

Zhu described the Chinese government’s alarming actions as Christian persecution has continued to spread around the world…

Some 260 million Christians have been living in areas of high persecution — that’s one in eight believers worldwide — an increase of 10 percent compared to last year, according to the watchdog group Open Doors USA’s 2020 World Watch List.

“The drivers of persecution are still very significantly entrenched. Islamic extremism is spreading in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia,” David Curry, the president and CEO of Open Doors USA, told Fox News. “Then you add this rise of surveillance. Every year, Open Doors USA, a bipartisan grassroots organization, has released a list of the 50 most dangerous countries for Christians. North Korea topped the list for the 19th year in a row, but China became the focus this year because of its forced labor camps and oppression of Uighur Muslims that’s expected to spread and worsen. (Caleb Parke, “Christians see ‘alarming’ trend worldwide as China builds ‘blueprint of persecution’,” Fox News, January 18, 2020)

Satan’s rage is also seen in every direction in America one looks. Businesses are boycotted and have lawsuits filed against them because of “hate crimes”—for example, bakeries that refuse to prepare wedding cakes displaying that the marriage is same-sex suffer public obloquy. Restaurants are sued because their owners support biblical precepts when it comes to homosexuality or right-to-life issues contrary to abortion activists’ demands. The anti-Christian forces display, with increasing vigor, Satan’s hatred and wrath.

God’s Word warns of that rage and wrath:

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:12–13).

Satan’s wrath sits heavily upon humanity because he wants to destroy God’s creation called mankind. His wrath is steeped totally in hatred. God’s wrath, by contrast, is the ultimate expression of His absolute love for mankind.

He so loved us that He poured out His wrath on His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He did so while Jesus hung on that old, rugged cross and took on all the past, present, and future sin of the world. God did this so that anyone who accepts Christ’s substitutionary, sin-death sacrifice as His grace gift for salvation will be saved—once and forever.

God—Jesus Christ, Himself—will one eternal day do away with sin and rebellion forever at the “Great White Throne,” where God’s mighty judgment and wrath will express His perfect love. There will be no more sin and death—forever.

He has promised that ultimate expression of His love through His Holy Word. John wrote the following:

“And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son” (Revelation 21:5-7).