Representatives from more than 150 countries, international organizations and civil-society groups convened in Vienna on December 8 for the third Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Conference. “As long as the nuclear weapons exist, the risk of their use on purpose or accidentally exists too,” Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz stated in his opening remarks.

Kurtz wants to see world leaders eradicate all nuclear weapons. With over 16,000 nuclear warheads scattered around the globe, the risks of human error and cybercrime detonating a nuclear device are astronomical.

“After the Cold War, most people stopped worrying about nuclear weapons. But this is fundamentally wrong,” said Kurz.

Kurz is right: We still do need to worry about the likelihood of nuclear war.

In the lead-up to the conference, more than 120 senior political, military and diplomatic figures urged world leaders to minimize the risk of nuclear war by taking immediate action. They expressed that a potential nuclear conflict is “underestimated or insufficiently understood” by world leaders. “Tensions between nuclear-armed states and alliances in the Euro-Atlantic area and in both South and East Asia remain ripe with the potential for military miscalculation and escalation,” they noted in a letter to the Austrian foreign minister.

The dignitaries also stated, “Stockpiles of the world’s nuclear weapons and materials to produce them are insufficiently secure, making them possible targets for terrorism.” Similar to the Austrian foreign minister, these dignitaries called for the world to eliminate its nuclear weapons. They see this as the only solution to preventing a nuclear war.

Yet some nuclear nations around the world are doing the opposite.

These nations believe building up their nuclear arsenals is necessary to prevent a future war. Some national leaders believe mutually assured destruction will prevent any nation from contemplating nuclear war. And there are some nations that likely have more aggressive ambitions with such devastating weapons.

South Asian nations are the “most at risk of a breakdown in strategic stability due to an explosive mixture of unresolved territorial disputes, cross-border terrorism, and growing nuclear arsenals,” according to Gregory Koblentz, an arms control and non-proliferation expert. Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. By 2020, Pakistan could produce 200 nuclear weapons, roughly equal to the United Kingdom’s arsenal. Pakistan’s nuclear stockpiles are far from secure.

North Korea is another volatile nation stockpiling nuclear weapons. “North Korea is presumed to have the capability of producing some four nuclear bombs per year, and it appears that the North will possess some 20 nuclear bombs by 2016,” said Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University research professor who visited North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility in 2010.

Iran is another nation that aspires to become a nuclear power. The Trumpet recently reported about Iran’s continued progress toward the production of a nuclear bomb despite sanctions.

Then there is China.

What would happen if a terrorist got his hands on such a weapon? There are already claims that the Islamic State has a dirty bomb in Europe.

The reality is that one day a nuclear bomb will go off. And a whole bunch will follow. It is just a matter of when—not because a bunch of experts warn that it is a possibility, but because Bible prophecy clearly indicates it will happen.

Shortly after the end of World War ii, Herbert W. Armstrong warned about the reality of a coming nuclear war.

We might as well face the stark, ugly, horrifying truth, my friends—the world leaders know within themselves that there is no hope, so far as human effort and international agreement or organization is concerned, of preventing another war—and all know now that even this greatest of all wars (World War ii) will have been but child’s play by comparison. We have engines of destruction now which can annihilate humanity from this Earth—stamp out all human life!

Today, it is just as Christ said it would be: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved [alive—Moffatt translation]: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24:21-22).

But Christ will intervene to save mankind from himself and bring an end to man’s misrule over man. Christ will usher in a time of peace—a time world leaders can only dream about. Soon, nuclear weapons will be extinct—but not before this world has learned some very painful lessons. Nuclear war is coming.