Luke 21:23-24
[23]How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people.
[24]They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
The time between Babylon captivity and Jesus return. It is a time when God’s people live under ungodly world dominion .
Matthew 24:21
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.
Use the phrase “ great tribulations” taken from
Daniel 12:1
“At that time Michael shall stand up, The great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; And there shall be a time of trouble, Such as never was since there was a nation, Even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, Every one who is found written in the book.
Which book
Revelation 13:8
All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Revelation17:8
The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
To refer to the intensity of the suffering during this time of judgment. Luke called it great distress.
Wrath is God’s anger against sin expressed as righteous judgment. The survivors of destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 were spread all over the know world, even more extensively than the Diaspora of the Babylonia exile hundreds of years earlier. From 70 until the emergence of the modern state of Israel in the mid- twentieth century, Jerusalem was controlled by Gentiles. The Times of the Gentiles refers to the current opportune time in which Gentiles nations embrace the gospel. Meanwhile Israel is spiritually hardened and will remain so until near the end
Romans 11:25-26
[25]I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in,
[26]and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion;
He will turn godlessness away from Jacob.