For when they are saying, "Peace and safety," then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman; and they will in no way escape.
Peace and safety: Hendriksen calls attention to "the combination of suddenness and unpreparedness" suggested in these verses. The lost will maintain a false sense of security right up to the end. So long as they can delude themselves into thinking all is peaceful and all is safe, they will see no need to prepare for the cataclysmic events that will signal the end of time. They shall say one thing. They shall experience quite another.