Over his six-year reign, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has conducted more missile tests than both his father and grandfather combined. This year, North Korea has provocatively tested 16 ballistic missiles in violation of United Nations resolutions.

Thus, last month’s launch of two more intercontinental ballistic missiles (icbm) shouldn’t have been surprising. But it was alarming: North Korea—a despotism armed with nuclear weapons—now has icbms capable of delivering nuclear payloads to Guam, Hawaii, Alaska and, according to some scientists, cities across the United States.

The state of Hawaii is preparing its citizens for the possibility of a nuclear attack, laying out evacuation plans in the event of war with North Korea, cnn reported. Residents would have about 20 minutes to hole up inside a concrete bunker.

As the Apostle Paul prophesied, we are living in dangerous days (2 Timothy 3:1).

The bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War ii were about 10 feet long, weighed around 10,000 pounds, and required a massive bomber to transport them. Now North Korea possesses bombs that only weigh between 500 and 600 pounds but that have even greater destructive potential. They could fit inside the nose cone of one of their missiles, which can reach 2,300 miles into space. With a flatter trajectory, those missiles could reportedly reach Los Angeles, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Philadelphia or New York City.

Stunningly, the media are downplaying the threat. But as the Trumpet’s Richard Palmer has reported, nuclear experts are taking this nuclear threat far more seriously than the media are.

All 15 members of the United Nations Security Council can see that the threat from Kim Jong-un is serious and real. In response, last week they agreed unanimously—including Russia and China—to impose the toughest-ever sanctions on North Korea: a penalty amounting to $1 billion.

Pyongyang reacted by threatening the United States, saying it would launch a “thousand-fold revenge” against America.

In response to this threat, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters that “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” The next day, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told North Korea that its rhetoric could “lead to the end of its regime.” These were the strongest comments Washington has ever aimed at the nuclear rogue state.

The major media and the Washington establishment exploded in anger. But their anger wasn’t directed against the existential threat from North Korea—it was aimed at President Trump’s “fire and fury” statement!

Some equated the president with Kim Jong-un, likening their rhetoric and calling them both liars. They actually likened America’s president to a madman who allows his own people to starve while he builds his missile and nuclear arsenal, who tortures and murders untold numbers of his political enemies!

At a State Department press briefing on August 9, spokesperson Heather Nauert responded to questions criticizing Mr. Trump’s statement: “As people look at this, and some consider comments to have been alarming, I would have to go back to this: Let’s consider what is alarming. What is alarming: two icbm tests in less than a month; two nuclear tests that took place last year. As a matter of fact, when there’s an earthquake in China, I get many e-mails and calls from all of you asking, ‘Was it another nuclear test?’ That is how big of a deal this is, what is going on. … [I]t is a concern to the world, not just the United States. Those are alarming actions. They are provocative actions on the part of North Korea.”

Exactly right! The truly alarming story was what North Korea is doing. Nevertheless, the reporter remained locked on President Trump’s words, asking: “Given those provocations from North Korea, which has been belligerent in the extreme—granted, stipulated—is it helpful or unhelpful for the president to use the kind of language that we have seen previously coming from Kim Jong-un, not from presidents of the United States?” Yes, North Korea is dangerous and unpredictable—but Donald Trump is making the situation much more dangerous!

That is how the media covered this story last week. It seems they perceive President Trump as a greater threat to world peace than Kim Jong-un. They are more concerned about what comes out of the president’s mouth than about the prospect of a nuclear bomb-wielding madman incinerating San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago or Boston! (This week, by the way, they have moved on to other stories aimed at making the president look bad. Never mind the North Korea nuclear threat.)

What terrible, inexcusable blindness!

Last year when a photo was released of Kim Jong-un standing beside a miniature nuclear weapon, many in the media scoffed. It must have been staged—surely North Korea doesn’t yet have an actual miniature nuke. Turns out it was real.

While the majority of media voices are obsessed with bringing down President Trump, at least a few voices are warning of the sobering reality we now face.

Ambassador John Bolton warned last week that Americans had a stark choice: “Are you willing to risk using military force now, before North Korea has an extensive capability to hit the United States? Or are you prepared to live from now as far as the eye can see with a nuclear capable North Korea under a regime like this? That’s the choice.”

Former U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North said the situation is direr than even the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. At least then, we understood that the Soviets wanted to survive the crisis, hence the success of the mutually assured destruction strategy. Today, however, “[t]here’s no such assurance with either the Iranians or the North Koreans that they have that same survival instinct.”

What happens when rogues states led by madmen get hold of nuclear weapons? In Iran’s case, they believe setting off nuclear bombs would hasten the return of the 12th imam!

And these two rogue states—Iran and North Korea—are now working together as never before. After the UN slapped sanctions on North Korea, Iran’s official irna news agency reported that North Korea’s “No. 2” official arrived in Iran for the inauguration weekend of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Kim Yong Nam, chairman of the Supreme Assembly of North Korea, was expected to stay for 10 days to establish closer ties with Iran in exchange for economic ties that would help to offset Western-imposed sanctions.

It’s another alarming development mostly ignored by the major media.

Where are these events leading?

We are finishing production on a new booklet by the Trumpet’s editor in chief, Gerald Flurry. He offered it some time ago on the Key of David television program but was subsequently pulled on to other projects before he could finish it. Once he returned his attention to it, he decided a change in title was warranted.

What he offered on television was a booklet called The Matthew 24 Prophecy. But he has since changed the title to something far more dramatic: Nuclear Armageddon Is ‘At the Door.’

In this booklet, Mr. Flurry discusses Pyongyang’s nuclear capacity in light of Jesus Christ’s warning in Matthew 24—the most important chapter of prophecy in the Bible. Christ prophesied that, unless He intervened, catastrophic world war would erase all humanity (verses 21-22). This terrifying prophecy could only be fulfilled in the nuclear age. In fact, this is only one of several explicit biblical prophecies of a coming devastating nuclear World War iii! Read Gerald Flurry’s article “The Unthinkable Will Happen!“

Prophecy does give several details of how this war will play out. It shows that it will be triggered not by an Asian power, but by a radical Islamic power, headed by Iran (Daniel 11:40). It is the clash between Germany and Iran that will ultimately set the world on fire.

However, that doesn’t preclude a provocative strike from North Korea or a preemptive attack of some kind led by the United States. It doesn’t mean that significant damage couldn’t be inflicted by other nuclear attacks that don’t escalate into full-scale world war.

As Jesus said in Matthew 24:6, even before the Great Tribulation, there will be wars and rumors of wars.

If nothing else, the mere threat of a mentally unstable tyrant in North Korea using nuclear weapons should cause all of us to be asking some very hard questions. Rising current nuclear tension should provoke us to consider seriously the biblical prophecies of nuclear destruction. Those prophecies are drawing closer than ever to fulfillment! This world is rapidly moving to the brink of nuclear warfare!

“This prophecy [in Matthew 24:22] is obviously about nuclear warfare, yet people say, So what,” Mr. Flurry writes in his new booklet. “Will they have to experience it before they say more than ‘so what’?” Considering the media’s response to these events, the lamentable answer to that question seems obvious.

Don’t make that mistake.

What is going on with North Korea is definitely alarming, but keep your eyes on the Daniel 11:40 clash. And watch North Korea as it strengthens its ties with Iran. Follow Christ’s command in Luke 21:36: “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”