The war against Iran is a pang, not the end

War is the first thing Jesus names when his disciples ask for the sign, and the first thing he tells them not to be alarmed by. (Matthew 24:6, "You are going to hear of wars and reports of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for these things must take place, but the end is not yet.") That instruction only makes sense if the wars he has in mind come before the end rather than at it. Then he names the category. (Matthew 24:7, 8, "For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another. All these things are a beginning of pangs of distress.")

A beginning is not a middle and it is not an end. Luke records the same warning with the order made explicit. (Luke 21:9, "for these things must take place first, but the end will not occur immediately.") First, then not immediately. The war against Iran is a war of nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom. On the order of events it belongs to stage I, the pangs, and nowhere else.

What this does not yet mean

It does not mean the great tribulation has begun. Jesus places the tribulation after a sign that has not been seen. (Matthew 24:15, 21, "Therefore, when you catch sight of the disgusting thing that causes desolation... for then there will be great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world's beginning until now, no, nor will occur again.") Between today and that "then" the order still has the inspection of God's house, the sealing, the revealing of the man of lawlessness, and the standing of the disgusting thing itself. A war on its own, however large, cannot be the tribulation, because the tribulation has a cue and the cue has not come.

It also does not mean the cry of peace and security has been overtaken. Paul places the cry after a time of distress and right before the blow. (1 Thessalonians 5:3, "Whenever it is that they are saying, 'Peace and security!' then sudden destruction is to be instantly on them, just like birth pains on a pregnant woman, and they will by no means escape.") A world at war is a world that has not yet said it.

What to watch

Two things. First, the king of the south. Daniel puts a push from the south at the time of the end, and the north's answer to it. (Daniel 11:40, "In the time of the end the king of the south will engage with him in a pushing, and against him the king of the north will storm with chariots and horsemen and many ships; and he will enter into the lands and sweep through like a flood.") Chapter III of this series sets out who these kings are today. The push is the thing to watch for.

Second, the cry itself. Not a ceasefire, and not a treaty between two states, but the world saying together that it is safe. When that is said, stage II is under way, and the order says what follows it.

We see this in hazy outline. If a later event shows this war sits somewhere else on the order, a reading here will say so.