“Hook in the jaw” — ehhhhh...remote possibility, but likely not. The textual sense is that a/c is on a military campaign at the time, not vacationing.
My read is that, when it’s “The Real Deal” it’ll be a very obvious “fit” with the prophetic passages that apply; nobody with even a passing catalogue of familiarity with chapters like Daniel 9, or Ezekiel 38 will have ANY doubts.
Take a look at the verbiage in 2 Thess. 2 concerning anti-christ; it doesn’t say he will be “discovered” or that he will be “identified”; it says he will be “revealed.” It won’t be a detective operation; nobody will have to work hard to figure out who this guy is.
So, I get 2 things out of that: first, it’s not a good investment of time trying to figure out who the guy is before he’s revealed; second, when the event described happens, the scriptural text will fit like a glove; any man-on-the-street type will be able to look at the headline, read the biblical text and agree, “Wow, this here in the Bible is what just happened.”
People who study biblical prophecy so as to have the background to understand what’s happening when it finally does have never done themselves any good service trying to jimmy current headlines into various prophetic events described in scripture. When it really IS the “real thing” nobody has to break out a textual crowbar to make the prophecies fit the events.
Nice to read a balanced post. The frenzy and pretzel twisting of Scripture to fit headlines doesn’t work.