The world is in a deep slumber about the dangers of nuclear war. This was made frighteningly obvious by negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, in November.

There, America and other nations agreed to a deal that will allow Iran to get nuclear weapons (article, page 26). People throughout the Western world act like this agreement will produce peace. They cannot conceive of the horror it will ultimately lead to!

It has been over 68 years since an atomic bomb was detonated on a civilian population. Over 90 percent of people on Earth have lived their entire lives in a world where nuclear weapons are nothing more than an abstract threat. We don’t understand how real the risks of nuclear warfare are!

Nuclear war is unthinkable to most people. But now even our leaders, who are supposed to be vigilant to such risks, are showing the same childish thinking.

America’s president has said his goal is “a world without nuclear weapons.” The Obama administration is pursuing that goal and eliminating America’s nuclear weapons. In 2010, President Obama agreed to cut America’s nuclear arsenal by one third. This past summer, he said he would slash it by another third. Apparently he thinks other nations will follow America’s example, even though all the evidence shows that this is a foolish fantasy.

The president is pursuing a nuclear-free world by cutting America’s nuclear program—but he also has said, “No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons.” So he is also increasing the likelihood that Iran will finish building its own nuclear bombs! Meanwhile, as I wrote in last month’s edition, the Obama administration is being very careless with hundreds of nuclear bombs that America has stored in Europe and in Turkey—bombs that could easily be used against us (“Europe’s Nuclear Secret”).

People ignore this grievous danger at their own peril.

Leading to Nuclear War

Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism by far. The Iranians support terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and beyond—even in North America. They helped cause and are prolonging several wars that are happening right now. Achieving nuclear capability will increase their power tremendously. Their foreign policy will get a lot pushier than it already is! The Iranians have ambitions far greater than what they have shown to this point.

Iran is already the strongest Muslim nation. It is the king among Islamic states. It has repeatedly, boldly proclaimed its hatred of the U.S. and its intention to destroy Israel. Immediately after the Geneva deal was struck, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, called Israel the “rabid dog” of the Middle East and said the Jews were doomed to destruction! This man leads the nation that the Western world wants to trust with nuclear power!

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s economy minister, said, “If a nuclear suitcase blows up in New York or Madrid five years from now, it will be because of the deal that was signed this morning.”

Khamenei is acting just like Hitler did leading up to World War ii. Hitler described his maniacal intentions in detail in Mein Kampf, yet nobody believed him. It was unthinkable that he would try to conquer Europe and exterminate the Jews. But that is exactly what he did! He succeeded in killing 6 million of them before he could be stopped. That is rather recent history. Yet once again, a hostile nation led by extremists is threatening the Jews and the West, and once again, almost nobody really believes it will do what it says.

Biblical prophecy tells us that Iran, the “king of the south,” is going to make a big “push” that will trigger World War iii. Read it for yourself in Daniel 11:40. Looking at current events, I believe this will happen after Iran gets the nuclear bomb. And that prophecy tells us that Iran is going to provoke a mighty European empire—a nuclear-armed power—into a war. From there, the destruction will only escalate.

Iran’s actions today are leading to a nuclear World War iii!

How will World War iii compare to World War ii? The Second World War ended with the development and use of the nuclear bomb. A world war where many nations—some of which sponsor terrorism—start out with nuclear weapons is an unparalleled nightmare! We can’t even imagine how bad it will be!

When America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in World War ii, over 100,000 people died from the blasts. Many thousands more suffered injuries and even death from the ghastly aftereffects.

Some of today’s nuclear weapons are hundreds of times more destructive! The initial blasts will be far deadlier, and the aftermath will be much worse. Experts tell us that nuclear war will produce a nuclear winter. That means that nuclear explosions will blast dust into the atmosphere, producing toxic clouds that block sunlight for a prolonged period of time and even chill our very climate. Beneath, human beings, animals and plants will suffer from deadly radiation.

These problems are almost too horrifying to even contemplate. That is why most people ignore the potential for nuclear war. But we won’t be able to ignore it for much longer. Biblical prophecy makes that plain.

A Deeply Troubling Vision

Anciently, God forced His prophets to consider the grotesque consequences that would come about because of our modern weapons of mass destruction. God’s prophets understood that man would have to face the horrendous effects of his own sins.

The Prophet Habakkuk discussed a “bitter and hasty nation” attacking Israel (Habakkuk 1:6). This is a prophecy of a fearsome military machine (verses 7-8). It will be extraordinarily violent, inspired by Satan, the evil god of this world (verses 9-11). It will treat people like fish in a net, showing no mercy (verses 14-17). However, that is not the worst part of this prophetic vision.

“When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops” (Habakkuk 3:16). This prophet wrote about “the day of trouble” for Israel—the Great Tribulation. His main vision was not fulfilled during his life. But it is about to be fulfilled here in the end time.

Habakkuk had never before envisioned anything so terrifying! His “belly trembled” and his “lips quivered”—he was having a difficult time fulfilling his prophetic office! An indescribable terror like rottenness kept his bones from holding his body together! The bones are the body’s strongest parts, its stable framework. Habakkuk almost became like a shapeless blob! This was the effect of the shattering alarm and acute pain he suffered because of what he saw.

God revealed to Habakkuk the most terrifying vision ever to afflict this Earth. This man sawnuclear war and its consequences. He wrote about nuclear winter.

“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls” (verse 17). Why won’t the fig trees blossom? Even widespread conventional warfare, like in World War ii, would not prevent the fig trees from blossoming. Why are there no grapes on the vines? Even vineyards that are untended would still produce some grapes. Why no olives on the olive trees? Invading armies, even mechanized infantry, even air-dropped bombs could never have so totally devastated an area—until the advent of the nuclear bomb. This is discussing a massive nuclear attack. Bombs are dropped on the cities, yet we see that the farms are also affected. This is a new, unparalleled kind of terror. There are no sheep in the pens nor cattle in the stalls. The total failure of fields to yield crops indicates nuclear fallout!

Only nuclear fallout and nuclear winter could inflict such grotesque damage. That is the only explanation. Habakkuk is crying out to us that the modern Chaldeans are about to attack modern Israel with modern nuclear weapons. Even a nuclear-armed Iran is nothing compared to what this prophecy reveals will happen.

Astronomical Death Counts

How widespread will these horrific nuclear attacks be? The answer in Bible prophecy is deeply sobering.

“Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel. The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up. For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that [the same city of 1,000] which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel” (Amos 5:1-3).

The city is the target here. Notice those casualties! A 10 percent loss in a military campaign is disastrous. Here, 90 percent of the people in a city die immediately! Then, only 10 percent of the survivors remain alive. Only 10 out of a thousand are left—10,000 out of a million. This is speaking of nuclear bombs being dropped on our major cities—destroying 99 percent of the cities’ populations! This is clearly a prophecy of nuclear holocaust.

“And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die. And a man’s uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord” (Amos 6:9-10). There is no indication of an army invading here, yet death still fills the cities. An uncle comes into a house, burns the bodies and takes some bones outside. Everybody was dead in the house, undoubtedly because of nuclear radiation.

“For, behold, the Lord commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts” (verse 11). The word breaches is rare. The Anchor Bible says there is “no other occurrence of any word with the same root.” Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon defines this word as “drops of dew.” If you carefully read the context, there seems to be no doubt that this is referring to nuclear fallout!

The word clefts means fissures. That is “a break or lesion in the tissue, usually at the junction of skin and mucous membrane,” according to Webster’s Dictionary. The root word means “to tear in pieces.” “Drops of dew,” or nuclear fallout, certainly will “tear in pieces” human flesh.

Nuclear warfare is coming! And we can’t hide from it by ignoring it or by dreaming of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Imagine how terrible this holocaust will be! It will be the worst time ever known to man! Many Bible scriptures tell us that.

The Prophet Daniel said it would be “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation” (Daniel 12:1). Jeremiah wrote, “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it” (Jeremiah 30:7). Jesus Christ Himself prophesied of it being “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21).

Jesus’s prophecy continued, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved …“—or as the Moffatt translation reads, “saved alive” (verse 22). He was talking about a time when the annihilation of all human life would be possible! Yet, how many theologians discuss these verses? Will we listen to Christ?

As the Geneva negotiations proved, the world is asleep to this grave threat to human survival! Yet nothing can prevent these prophecies from being fulfilled. Our nations have passed the point where even wholesale repentance would change the course of events. (Request a free copy of my booklet Lamentations: The Point of No Return.)

The only question is, will you, individually, be protected—or will you be in the middle of that nuclear nightmare?

The Cause

At the end of World War ii, Herbert W. Armstrong said on his radio program, The World Tomorrow, that human survival itself was now threatened. “Before the end of the war in Europe we heard a lot of talk about this being the last 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 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! Too horrible to contemplate? Well, we must contemplate it! We must face it, for we are the generation destined to live into and through it!“

“You can’t cure any sickness without finding the cause and removing that,” Mr. Armstrong continued. “Let’s dare to boldly look, then, to the real cause. It has to do with the system that grips this world, holding it, in the modern complex structure of this machine age, bound so tightly we are unable to free ourselves” (Nov. 4, 1945).

What system grips us? The Bible makes it clear that Satan is the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) and that the world is in the grip of his deception (Revelation 12:9). We think we are working toward peace, but the clock is ticking rapidly toward nuclear annihilation because something is dreadfully wrong with human nature.

“Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Revelation 12:12). This is the reason we are seeing destructive weapons proliferating and people ignoring the most imminent mortal threat ever. It is also the motivation for the intense hatred between peoples that will motivate men to detonate these weapons! Humans are ruled by the devil. We need to understand that, and think afresh. We need, as Gen. Douglas MacArthur stated, a “spiritual recrudescence.”

But there is hope at the end of the nuclear winter. Satan is full of wrath right now. Why? Because he knows he has only a short time. A short time until what? Until Jesus Christ comes to Earth to rule it! Christ will end Satan’s rule! That is maddening to the devil. He knows that not much time is left on the clock! And, since he has nothing to lose, he will do all the damage possible before Christ gets here. That is why we are about to experience a nuclear holocaust.

Yet that imminent nuclear annihilation itself actually means we are very close to the greatest possible news you could ever hear! It is a sign that Jesus Christ is about to return to Earth, to stop mankind from destroying itself, to rule all nations, and to show the world how to have peace, happiness and joy!

Whether we listen to God’s prophecies or not, they will be fulfilled. In the meantime, God promises those who heed His Word protection from this nuclear holocaust (Daniel 12:1; Revelation 12:14). Will that include you?