Hope of Escaping World Destruction
Will this nationalistic “pushing” match result in World War III? Possibly. The world political situation certainly looks hopeless from a human point of view. But there is another point of view to be considered.
Just as God’s Word correctly predicted the present tense world situation, it also predicts the outcome. Without specifying whether or not the present arms race will touch off World War III, it does make this statement about our times:
“But the nations became wrathful, and your own wrath came, and the appointed time for the dead to be judged, and to give their reward to your slaves the prophets and to the holy ones and to those fearing your name, the small and the great, and to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”—Rev. 11:18.
Economic greed and pollution are already “ruining the earth,” and God has plenty of reason to put an end to those responsible for such things, even without the added ruination that a third world war might bring. Still, in view of this prophecy, even if a global war should break out, God would never let it totally ruin this beautiful globe, which he created to be the home of humankind, not its graveyard.—Isa. 45:18.
The Bible even has a name for the symbolic battle in which God Almighty puts an end, once and for all, to present-day nationalism, militarism and war. Its symbolic location is called “Armageddon” in the “King James Bible,” known as the Authorized Version.—Rev. 16:14, 16.
“Armageddon?” You may ask, “But are not Armageddon and World War III the same thing?” The answer is NO!
Newspaper pundits may use the word “Armageddon” out of its Biblical context to refer to World War III and nuclear destruction, but the Bible indicates a strikingly different meaning for this term. The Bible describes this battle in Revelation chapter 19, not as a fight among earthly nations, but as a fight between all those nations and heavenly armies under the command of “The Word of God,” Jesus Christ.—Rev. 19:11-21.
Armageddon is not the consequence of nuclear war. It is the solution to nuclear war, a solution imposed by the only One powerful enough to enforce his will on this violent, gun-toting system of things. Armageddon will not result in smoking craters of radioactive debris. Instead, the result will be a “new earth,” cleansed of all forms of wickedness, including arms races. Consider this heartwarming promise:
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth . . . with that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: ‘Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them.”’—Rev. 21:1, 3.
What will happen to the arms race in this new earth? To Armageddon survivors, used to ever-growing munitions outlays, the change will be astonishing. God’s Word states:
“Come, you people, behold the activities of Jehovah, how he has set astonishing events on the earth. He is making wars to cease to the extremity of the earth. The bow he breaks apart and does cut the spear in pieces; the wagons he burns in the fire.”—Ps. 46:8, 9.
Can anybody stop world destruction? No human powers can. Only one Person in the entire universe can save us out of it, and he will. If you get to know him now, you can escape destruction, not by World War III, but at the hands of Jehovah God, who will soon “crush and put an end to” the world system so near to ruining our planet.—Dan. 2:44.