Published on 10/12/2006

Commentary

The North Korean nuclear test crisis continues in today's news. This morning's Wall Street Journal reports that America wants unilateral sanctions; South Korea is being more deliberate; Japan has already begun to embargo North Korean exports and imports; and China may be unwilling to support strong measures against the regime.

Meanwhile, we learned the unpredictability of the future again last night: New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor were killed when their single-engine plane smashed into a 42-story building in Manhattan. Tomorrow is certain for none.

We're discussing the North Korean nuclear test and the "end times." Given the biblical prediction that one day "the elements will be destroyed by fire…and melt in the heat" (2 Peter 3:10, 12), could a nuclear war be the way God ends human history? If North Korea has in fact joined the "nuclear family," are we one step closer to a nuclear Armageddon? I think the answer is yes, and no.

Yes, we are one day closer to Jesus' return than ever before. He could in fact return on this Thursday. One morning will be our last morning. This could be the last essay I write or you read. Or he could delay his return a thousand years. Either way, you and I will meet him one day. Death will become life. We will step from time into eternity. And we have only today to be ready.

In another sense, it is hard for me to see the necessary connection between nuclear capacity and the end of history. The Bible makes clear that God will one day create "a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away" (Revelation 21:1). Nuclear war might well render our planet uninhabitable, but it would not destroy it completely. It would not cause the heavens themselves to "disappear in a roar" as Peter predicted. The atomic bombs which devastated Nagasaki and Hiroshima did not vaporize the island of Japan.

When the Lord chooses to end history, he will not need our help. Nuclear weapons, or even more devastating technology yet to be invented, will not be necessary. He could have returned a thousand years before the nuclear age. If the nuclear disarmament movement succeeds one day in obliterating nuclear weapons, his return will not be affected. While the North Korean nuclear test is indeed disturbing, it does not prove that the end is closer than ever before. We already knew that. Let's continue tomorrow, if there is one.