Does The Bible Predict A Nuclear Holocaust?
Pastor Dale Morgan
Does The Bible Predict A Nuclear Holocaust?*
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on
it was Death, and Hades followed with him . . . (Revelation 6:8)
On August 6, 1945, when the Enola Gay's bombardier Tom Ferebee sighted
Hiroshima's Aioi Bridge, he knew the moment had arrived. Squeezing the
trigger on his Norden bombsight, he became the first man in history to
drop a nuclear weapon upon a populated city. Tail gunner Bob Caron,
after being temporarily blinded, described what he saw on the ground
below: "It's like bubbling molasses down there . . . the mushroom is
spreading out . . . fires are springing up everywhere . . . it's like a
peep into hell."
The people of Hiroshima within half a mile of the explosion were seared
to bundles of smoking char in a fraction of a second. Thousands of these
small black bundles could be seen stuck to streets, bridges, and
sidewalks. Birds ignited in midair, and 70,000 buildings were
obliterated. Mankind had entered the atomic age, the end of which was
too terrifying to contemplate.
The Nature of Armageddon
Since the beginning of the atomic age, nuclear weap-ons and the term
"Armageddon" have been frequently linked together. Billy Graham rose to
prominence in the 1950's proclaiming that the nuclear "sword of
Damocles" was hanging over all the nations, and that only Christ was a
sure foundation in such perilous days. Hal Lindsey"s mega best seller,
The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), made a strong case for a nuclear
holocaust scenario in the days of tribulation predicted in the book of
Revelation.
Even secular sources took up the theme. The June 12, 1981 Toronto Globe
and Mail noted that the decision to go ahead with the neutron bomb was
the biggest step taken toward Armageddon since 1961. In San Francisco
today you can call a number and get a recorded message by the Doom
Society for Secular Armageddonism, who, in melodramatic tones, tell you
that we are living in the end times and that the coming end of the world
is a fait accompli. They are quick to deny that God might have anything
to do with this, however, and insist that the coming end of the world
will be strictly do-it-yourself, as a result of such things as nuclear
proliferation, racism, ultra nationalism, and (you might have guessed)
relig-ious fundamentalism.
The First Bombs
Many Americans associate nuclear weapons with Armageddon, because, of
all man's discoveries and inventions, they alone contain the capacity to
wipe out all human life on the earth within a few short hours. Let us
consider the awesome power in the first primitive atomic bombs.
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, called "Little Boy," was flown there in a
B-29 bomber and aimed with a bombsight. It weighed nearly ten thousand
pounds and had the explosive power of 12,500 tons of TNT. At ground
zero, the point immediately beneath the weapon, the temperature reached
above 3,000 degrees centigrade. Within seconds, what had been a thriving
city became a wasteland. No part of the city was left untouched. Eighty
thousand people died instantly, many burning into black bundles while in
mid step. A six hour firestorm began. An eyewitness -- a college
professor -- -described it thus:
>
> I climbed Hikiyama Hill and looked down. I saw that Hiroshima had
disappeared . . . I was shocked by the sight . . . I saw many dreadful
scenes after that -- but that experience, looking down and finding
nothing left of Hiroshima was so shocking that I simply can't express
what I felt . . . Hiroshima didn't exist -- that was mainly what I saw
-- Hiroshima just didn't exist.
50 Years Later
After the end of World War II, Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the
Los Alamos project which had given birth to this terrible weapon, was
asked whether there were any significant limitations in the future of
nuclear weapons. He replied, "If you are asking, 'Can we make them more
terrible?' the answer is yes. If you are asking, 'Can we make lots more
of them?' the answer is yes. If you are asking, 'Can we make them
terribly more terrible?' the answer is, probably." Today, some fifty
years later, that probably has turned into a certainty. We have made
them terribly more terrible.
Considering the horrific devastation caused by those first bombs dropped
upon Japan, it would be reasonable to suggest that if we merely doubled
their destructive power we would have created a monster of mind boggling
dimensions. To triple or quadruple such a bomb would be worse still. If
one such bomb can create such total destruction to a major city, what
could a bomb four times that size do? But we have not merely created
weapons three or four times as deadly. While the "Little Boy" and "Fat
Man" bombs were measured in kilotons, today's bombs are measured in
megatons. A one megaton bomb contains the explosive power of eighty
Hiroshimas. Bombs have been tested which are 4,000 times as powerful as
those dropped upon Japan. The only thing merciful about these bombs is
that you wouldn't have to worry so much about horrible injuries to
survivors -- there wouldn't be any survivors!
Is This What John Saw?
Nearly two thousand years ago, an elderly Christian leader was banished
to an island as a punishment for sharing his faith in Christ. There, as
he communed with the Lord on the island, he had a series of visions
which described things which would take place in the last days. The
man's name was John and the visions he saw were recorded and are now
known as the book of Revelation.
Many have tried to defuse the book by turning it into a giant parable in
which nothing can be definitely known except that in the end Christ will
triumph and all will be well. But such an interpretation makes all the
details of the visions meaningless. Some have dared to suggest that
John's visions may have been more literal than most have supposed. This
more literalistic interpretation just might make sense if John was
seeing the terrible results of a nuclear holocaust just before Christ's
coming to claim planet earth.
In his book There's A New World Coming (1973), Hal Lindsey writes:
>
> Although it is possible for God to supernaturally pull off every
miracle in the Book of Revelation and use totally unheard of means to do
it, I personally believe that all the enormous ecological catastrophes
described in this chapter (Revelation 8) are the direct result of
nuclear weapons. In actuality, man inflicts these judgments on himself.
God simply steps back and removes His restraining influence from man,
allowing him to do what comes naturally out of his sinful nature. In
fact, if the Book of Revelation had never been written, we might well
predict these very catastrophes within fifty years or less!
End Time Prophecies
Throughout the Scriptures, terrible times are forecast for the end of
this present age. Isaiah describes the earth "empty and wasted" (Isaiah
24:1). In the book of Revelation we read of an "hour of trial" which
shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth
(Revelation 3:10). The Lord Jesus, in the gospel of Matthew, warns us of
a "great tribulation" which shall threaten the survival of all life on
earth (Matthew 24:21,22). The apostle Paul speaks of sudden destruction
that shall come just when men are saying "peace and safety" (1
Thessalonians 5:3).
As these verses indicate, the Scriptures (along with current events)
make it plain that world conditions will be characterized by chaos,
destruction, and death just before our Lord returns to take control of
planet earth. In the book of Revelation we read of the poisoning of the
oceans, the burning up of the grass and the trees, and the sun scorching
people with great heat. The book also tells us that horrible plagues
will afflict mankind, that there will be widespread wars and famines,
and that the atmosphere will become so polluted as to reduce visibility
by one third. In the midst of all this devastation, the earth's
population will flee to the caves, as people cry to the mountains and
rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the
throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!" (Revelation 6:16).
What will bring about such universal carnage on the earth? Is the Bible
describing a nuclear holocaust?
Possible Explanations
Actually there are three possible sources of the death and devastation
so pointedly predicted by Scripture. First, it could be that the great
and terrible destructions predicted will be brought about supernaturally
by God Himself without any other possible explanation. Until the nuclear
age this was the primary view, as it was hard to see how such a scenario
could be brought about by natural human means. In the Old Testament we
find God killing 185,000 of Israel's enemies by one angel, without any
natural explanation. If one angel can wipe out that many people, it
should not be too much trouble for all the hosts of God's angelic armies
to destroy three quarters of the earth's population.
Secondly, some of the judgments predicted could possibly come from the
cosmic disturbances created by a comet whose path leads it uncomfortably
close to the earth. Global earthquakes and tidal waves, resulting in
famines on an unprecedented scale would almost certainly be the result.
Some, but probably not all, of these judgments could be brought about
this way.
The third, and in my mind, the most likely explanation for the terrible
judgments which will empty the earth, has to do with nuclear weapons.
Since the end of World War II, nuclear weapons have been proliferating
all over the globe. At first limited to the United States, then produced
by the Soviet Union, they are now in the hands of all sorts of second
and third rate powers. It seems almost every year that new nations are
added to the list of those countries with nuclear capabilities. Our
capacity to destroy all life on earth has multiplied many times over.
The fact that we have not yet seen a nuclear war since 1945 can be
attributed only to the restraining hand of Almighty God! Surely it is
His hand that has prevented us from destroying one another up until this
point. How long that hand will continue to restrain us, only God knows.
Quaint Terms for Modern Weapons
It was Hal Lindsey who first popularized the theory that the terrible
plagues and judgments seen and described by John in the book of
Revelation might be a First Century man's description of a thermonuclear
war. In his book There's A New World Coming (1973), Lindsey refers to
the fractional orbital bomb, and then goes on to cite nuclear passages
in the book of Revelation:
It [the bomb] consists of a dozen or so nuclear tipped missiles which
can be fired simultaneously from an orbiting space platform. Because the
missiles come straight down from the sky, they can strike several cities
simultaneously and with virtually no warning. When these missiles streak
through the air they'll look like meteors showering the atmosphere!
(Possibly fulfilling Revelation 6:13: "the stars of heaven fell to the
earth.")
The Apostle John's description of the sun becoming black as sack cloth
and the moon becoming like blood perfectly describes the phenomena that
would result from massive amounts of dust and debris blown into the sky
by multiple nuclear bursts.
"And the atmosphere was pushed apart like a scroll when it is rolled
together" (Revelation 6:14). Do you know what happens in a nuclear
explosion? The atmosphere rolls back on itself! It's this tremendous
rush of air back into the vacuum that causes much of the destruction of
a nuclear explosion. John's words in this verse are a perfect picture of
an all out nuclear exchange . . . The whole world will be literally
shaken apart!
As we read the book of Revelation, we find John did not use terms like
"nuclear weapons, ICBM's, or fractional orbital bombs." Instead we find
him describing things like "hail and fire," "a great mountain burning
with fire," and "a great star . . . burning like a torch." This is what
we would expect of a First Century man, describing things he had no
knowledge of in the only terms he knew to use. Could it be that what
John was really witnessing in the Spirit, was an end of the age nuclear
holocaust? The effects he describes certainly seem to bear this out.
The Nature of the Bomb
Let us consider the nature of a nuclear explosion. Nicholas Wade, in his
book World Beyond Healing (1987), gives us a graphic picture:
* The explosion of a nuclear weapon is an event of immense power . . .
Within a fraction of a millionth of a second, the nuclear materials and
casing of a one megaton weapon are transformed into a packet of energy
five times hotter than the center of the sun.
* Out of this mini-sun bursts a flash of Xrays so intense that the air
for several feet around the weapon is heated into an incandescent ball.
* This little fireball, only a few millionths of a second old, contains
the vaporized contents of the weapon, and a vast flux of energy created
by the fission and fusion reactions of the nuclear explosion. So immense
an amount of energy packed into a tiny space creates temperatures of 100
million degrees centigrade and pressures of millions of pounds per
square inch.
A violent expansion begins.
* In less than a thousandth of a second, the fireball of a one-megaton
weapon has grown to 440 feet across. In ten seconds, the fireball is
more than a mile in diameter.
It should be evident that what we are talking about is a weapon
unparalleled in human history; a weapon with the capacity to obliterate
huge cities in seconds. This is a scenario that perfectly fits with the
kind of swift, mass destruction spoken of in the book of Revelation.
Indeed, considering the widespread death predicted by John, it would be
hard for us to imagine anything other than a nuclear holocaust which
could come close to producing such carnage.
The poisoning of the waters (Revelation 8:11), the severe reduction in
visibility (Revelation 8:12), the death of much of the earth's
vegetation (Revelation 8:7), malignant sores (Revelation 16:2), the end
of ocean life (Revelation 16:3), and the inability of the atmosphere to
block out harmful ultraviolet rays, resulting in severe burns
(Revelation 16:8) are all expected results of nuclear war. The
implications of these prophecies is not pretty -- this earth has an
appointment with a devastation which shall be horrible beyond imagination.
Secular Confirmation
Amazingly, predictions by secular writers parallel the horrific visions
of John in nearly every major detail. Contrast the words (in regular
print) of secular writer Jonathan Schell author of the book The Fate of
the Earth (1970), with what the Bible says (in italics) as he describes
the consequences of a nuclear war:
Bearing in mind that the possible conse-quences of the detonations of
thousands of megatons of nuclear explosives include . . . the extinction
of many ocean species, among them some at the base of the food chain . .
. (And every living creature in the sea died -- Revelation 16:3)
* . . . the pollution of the whole ecosphere with oxides of nitrogen.
(And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of
the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day did
not shine, and likewise the night -- Revelation 8:12)
* . . . a significant decrease in photosynthesis in plants around the
world; the scalding and killing of many crops . . . (And a third of the
trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up -- Revelation 8:7)
* . . . the increase in rates of cancer and mutation around the world . . .
*. . . and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark
of the beast -- Revelation 16:2)
* . . . the atten-dant risk of global epidemics . . (And there will be
great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences -- Luke
21:11)
* . . . the possible poisoning of all vertebrates by sharply increased
levels of vitamin D in their skin as a result of increased ultraviolet
light. (the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was
given to him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great
heat -- Revelation 16:8)
* . . . and the outright slaughter on all targeted continents of most
human beings and other living things by the initial nuclear radiation,
the fireballs, the thermal pulses, the blast waves, the mass fires, and
the fall-out from the explosions. (By these three plagues a third of
mankind was killed -- by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone --
Revelation 9:18).
* Considering that these consequences will all interact with one another
in unguessable ways and, furthermore, are in all likelihood an
incomplete list . . . one must conclude that a full-scale nuclear
holocaust could lead to the extinction of mankind. (And unless those
days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake
those days will be shortened -- Matthew 24:22).
The Nature of God's Wrath
Why would God allow such a terrible devastation upon the earth? Is He
not the God of love and compassion? The God of all mercy? Certainly the
Bible makes plain that God is all of that. Yet we also learn from the
Bible that "Our God is a consuming fire," (Hebrews 12:29) and that He
will not leave the guilty unpun-ished (Exodus 34:7).
It is interesting to note the way God judges sin in individuals and
nations. We find that He almost never seems to bring immediate judgment
for sin. He allows people to lead cruel and wicked lives for years while
enjoying prosperity. This is the great stumbling block that has caused
many to question either God's love or His involvement in human affairs.
Job cried out, "The tents of robbers prosper, and those who provoke God
are secure -- in what God provides by His hand" (Job 12:6).
We find that sin has an accumulating effect. In the book of Revelation
we read about Babylon: "Her sins have reached up unto heaven, and God
has remembered her iniquities" (Revelation 18:5). In Genesis, Abraham
was told that his descendants would have to wait 400 years before they
could take possession of the promised land, for "the iniquity of the
Amorites is not yet complete" (Genesis 15:16). It appears that God lets
sin "pile up" for years, or even generations before it provokes Him to
act in swift decisive judgment and destruction. In Romans, Paul writes
that sinners are "storing up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath
and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" (Romans 2:5).
If that is true for nations and individuals, could it not also be true
for the entire planet? What if God has been restraining His judgment for
thousands of years, while men have filled the earth with blood, hatred,
war and immorality? Could it be that the terrible plagues and judgments
in the book of Revelation are the accumulation of God's wrath over the
history of mankind, stored up for that season of time which would
immediately precede the return of the Lord Jesus Christ? This certainly
appears to be the thought given in the sixth chapter of Revelation where
the world's leaders, along with the rich and the poor of the earth cry
out, "The great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
(Revelation 6:17).
Is There Any Hope?
Up to this point the picture seems grim and hopeless. And in a certain
way it is. There is no hope for this present evil age. It is under a
death sentence from Almighty God. The flood of hatred, violence,
immorality, abortion, homosexuality, and the mockery of all that is good
and holy will finally produce a response from heaven. God has decreed
that this present evil age shall pass away in a flame of fire, death,
and judgment. No amount of peace talks, goodwill conferences, or think
tanks will be able to change that.
Likewise those who refuse to repent and turn to Christ are in a hopeless
situation. There is no peace or security for those who determine to live
life by their own rules. When God's wrath begins to fall, it will
overtake the rich and the poor, the celebrities along with the unknown,
the sophisticates with the simpletons. No hiding place on earth, no
amount of wealth or prestige, no measure of cleverness or ingenuity will
be able to spare people from the wrath to come.
The good news in all of this is that God has always provided a hiding
place whenever He poured out His wrath. In Noah's flood, that safety was
found in the ark. In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot was told
to flee to the mountains. Rahab found safety from the destruction of her
city by staying in her house with a scarlet cord tied to the window.
In these last days God's hiding place will be found, not in a cave in
the mountains, not in a mammoth ark, but in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It was on His Cross that Jesus took the wrath of God upon
Himself, in order that those who would put their trust in Him might be
spared. The Scriptures tell us, "For God did not appoint us to wrath,
but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thes-salonians
5:9). For those whose godly lives reveal that they have truly placed
their faith in Jesus, He will come and take them unto Himself.