When Duck and Cover Won’t Save You
The Nuclear Prophecy the World Is Not Ready to Face

Hiding Under Our Desks

Many of us of a certain age recall the emergency disaster drills. At the time we were told it was for our protection which in hindsight wasn't going to save us from a nuclear attack. Ostensibly the tactic was to be safer from flying objects as a result of a bomb going off nearby. At least that was the logic foisted upon us by our government at the time. While getting low to the floor would help, going outside the room and into the hallway and letting the wall shield us would have been much better. An article from War History Online notes what the real dangers are:

Among the most dangerous aspects of a nuclear detonation is the resulting heat blast, which can lead to fatal burns. If buildings were being blown away, and a fireball was incinerating the area, hiding under a desk would not save anyone. Even if one was far enough away to survive, there would still be the risk of radiation and fallout, which duck and cover would do little to prevent. On top of that, the odds were that if a bomb fell, it would be the start of a massive nuclear war in which thousands of bombs would be dropped, leading to multiple fireballs, remarkable amounts of radiation, and many shockwaves that would destroy buildings.

Our beloved government knew all this back then yet still insisted on the campaign. Why? The article explains that this way:

So why did the government bother with all of these drills and fallout shelters into the 70s, when they were clearly obsolete by the mid-50s? In fact, public fallout shelters only began being built in the 60s in major cities! The best bet is that the government was hoping to alleviate panic and avoid the perception, however accurate, that it could do little to protect citizens in the event of a nuclear attack. Essentially, it was a way to give people hope.

But there is coming a time in Bible prophecy where such a nuclear danger could be in our future.

Winds Of Change

According to an article from Bible author and teacher Nathan E. Jones a nuclear war is predicted in the pages of the Bible:

Whether it’s morbid curiosity or because people are simply tired of their mundane lives, a subtle, if not insane, yearning to live out a nuclear war has woven itself into our modern psyche. We’ve become a culture fascinated by what life could be like eking out our own survival in an irradiated wasteland. According to the Bible, we’re going to get it! The Bible warns that terrible times are coming soon, bringing a sudden end to our current age. For example, Isaiah the prophet warned the world: “Behold, Yahweh empties the earth to destruction, eviscerates it, distorts its surface, and scatters its inhabitants” (Isaiah 24:1).

If you want a New Testament reference Jones gives that too you as well:

The Lord Jesus revealed even more details: “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth anguish among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26). Jesus pointed out how severe the prophesied danger will be, “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will” (Matthew 24:21). He also added just how high the stakes are for life surviving this coming catastrophe, “And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short” (Matthew 24:22). Jesus did provide hope, for as the world faces its darkest hour, “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to happen, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:27-28).

He then notes more characteristics of what the future world will look like:

The Bible prophesies that in the end times, the world will increasingly experience chaos, destruction, and death, culminating in a seven-year judgment period called the Tribulation. Especially before our Lord returns to defeat His enemies and establish His kingdom, the book of Revelation describes how the oceans and lakes will be poisoned, the grass and trees burned, and people scorched by the sun’s intense heat. At the same time, humanity will suffer from severe plagues, widespread wars and famines, and an atmosphere so polluted that visibility decreases by a third.

Fates Are Sealed

Jones refers to the deal judgments in the book of Revelation:

The first seven of the 21 judgments prophesied in the book of Revelation are known as the seal judgments. They initiate the Tribulation by pouring out God’s wrath on the world’s inhabitants as punishment for their sins. The first five seal judgments will release a one-world ruler who will conquer through world war, and the aftermath will bring disease, famine, and death. A severe persecution of those who accept Jesus as Savior after the Rapture will break out; they are likely to be used as scapegoats for the world’s suffering. These judgments will kill a quarter of the world’s population, which is roughly 2 billion people today. As shocking as these first five seal judgments are, they will be followed by an even worse one—the sixth. John the apostle recorded the future horror he was commanded to witness.

How bad will it get? Much worse as we read from Revelation 6:12-17:

Then I looked when He [Jesus] opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

Jones sees this as a world devastated by a nuclear holocaust:

We read here that to escape such unimaginable destruction, the earth’s population will fearfully flee underground to caves. Deep beneath the mountains, they will cry out in great distress for the rocks to fall and hide them from Christ’s wrath. Revelation 6 genuinely depicts a nightmare scene of such catastrophic global carnage that it closely resembles what we envision a nuclear holocaust to be like.

In Explicit Detail

Jones turns to a secular author to buttress his argument:

Author Nicholas Wade, in his book World Beyond Healing (1987), provides a graphic picture of the physics of an exploding nuclear bomb:

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 X-rays 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.

Jones connects the Biblical dots for us this way:

Drop such a bomb over a city, and it should be clear that John is describing a weapon unlike anything ever seen in human history, capable of destroying our largest cities in mere seconds. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah both foresaw such a scenario (Isaiah 17:1-14; Jeremiah 49:23-27). They foretold that one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities—Damascus, Syria’s capital—would be destroyed by Israel in just one day. For mankind to wipe out an entire city so quickly requires the power of a nuclear weapon and is the only plausible explanation.

This prophesied destruction of Damascus aligns closely with the kind of rapid, widespread devastation also described in Revelation 6.

We certainly have enough of these bombs:

As 2026 begins, a documented 12,241 nuclear warheads stored in silos and submarines await the dreaded launch order. Once God lifts His restraining hand, this destructive arsenal will be unleashed on the Antichrist’s enemies. As John described, the missiles look like stars falling to the earth. When each payload explodes, the force from splitting atoms tears the sky asunder, making it appear as if a scroll is being rolled up. Every 400-kiloton explosion shakes the ground with the force of a magnitude-6 earthquake. As tons of dirt and ash are thrust into the atmosphere, the particles block sunlight and make the moon appear blood-red. While God certainly wields His own supernatural weapons, He only needs to allow mankind to create its own nuclear holocaust to produce this level of destruction and the extensive death John foresaw.

The World Left

Jones thinks that the trumpet and bowl judgments describe a world irradiated by the bombs:

When the next two sets of seven judgments, called the trumpet and bowl judgments, are released upon the earth, their descriptions sound remarkably like the fallout expected by a nuclear winter and radiation poisoning. For example, the poisoning of the waters (Revelation 8:11), the sharp decrease in visibility (Revelation 8:12), the widespread death of the earth’s vegetation (Revelation 8:7), malignant sores (Revelation 16:2), the collapse of ocean life (Revelation 16:3), and the atmosphere’s failure to block harmful ultraviolet rays, leading to severe burns (Revelation 16:8). These are all typical outcomes of nuclear war.

The author rightly puts these warnings in proper context for us now:

Regarding the nuclear war prophesied by the sixth seal judgment, as former Lamb & Lion Ministries evangelist Dennis Pollock noted: “The implications of these prophecies are not pretty—this earth has an appointment with a devastation which shall be horrible beyond imagination.” Fortunately, for Christ’s faithful, our Lord promises the Church, “Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10). The Rapture of those saved will occur before the Tribulation begins, so Christians today will not have to witness the nuclear horror that is to come.

And if you’re not a Christian, well you would be wise to become a believer sooner than later.