And, Father, as we look this morning and know that it could happen before night, this nation, or world, could be blowed to bits. Some little nation or some fanatic let one of those missiles loose and they're all aimed at one another, here it would go; but before that happens, God, the Rapture, the trumpet will sound and we'll be summonsed into the skies to meet our Lord. What type of people should we be this morning? Happy, lifting up our heads as we see the fig tree budding, and the great signs, and the science saying it's three minutes before midnight. Most any time it could strike.
The world received a dramatic awakening a couple weeks ago with the latest update to what is known as the “doomsday clock” being moved to 3 minutes until midnight. Since 1947, Atomic Scientists have used this clock symbol as a visual warning to gauge the end of mankind. The closer the clock is set to midnight, the closer scientists believe the world is to global disaster.
“The probability of global catastrophe is very high,” says the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in Chicago, which moves the hands back and forth. “And the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.”
For the 3rd time since 1947, atomic scientists have moved the clock within three minutes of midnight. Only once has it been closer to the midnight strike than it is currently, when in 1953 it reached two minutes until midnight as Russia and the United States were on the brink of war.
1947: 7 Minutes to Midnight
The Doomsday Clock is originally set.
1949: 3 Minutes to Midnight
Alexander Langsdorf moves the minute hand up by four minutes after a Russian nuclear test.
1953: 2 Minutes to Midnight
The nuclear arms race begins when the US tests a massive hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific, 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped at Hiroshema.
1960: 7 Minutes to Midnight
For the first time, the United States and Soviet Union appear eager to avoid direct confrontation in regional conflicts.
1963: 12 Minutes to Midnight
The United States and the Soviet Union sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which bans atmospheric testing of nuclear devices.
1968: 7 Minutes to Midnight
The Vietnam War. The India-Pakistan War of 1965. And nuclear weapons in France and China.
1969: 10 Minutes to Midnight
Most major world powers sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
1972: 12 Minutes to Midnight
The United States and Soviet Union sign a pair of treaties aimed at slowing the arms race.
1974: 9 Minutes to Midnight
India runs its first test of a nuclear device. And, the Bulletin adds, the United States and Soviet Union continue to modernize their own nuclear capabilities.
1980: 7 Minutes to Midnight
United States and the Soviet Union still view nuclear weapons as an integral component of their national security.
1981: 4 Minutes to Midnight
Russia invades Afghanistan. The United States boycotts the Olympic Games in Moscow.
1984: 3 Minutes to Midnight
More pessimism over the state of diplomacy between the United States and the Soviet Union.
1988: 6 Minutes to Midnight
Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev have signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which bans a specific type of nuclear weapon.
1990: 10 Minutes to Midnight
The Berlin Wall falls, and Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania break out from Soviet control.
1991: 17 Minutes to Midnight
This is the farthest the clock's minute hand has been from doomsday, indicating the group's momentary optimism at the official end of the Cold War.
1995: 14 Minutes to Midnight
The group notes at the time that there are more than 40,000 nuclear weapons around the world.
1998: 9 Minutes to Midnight
Russia and the United States still have nuclear warheads aimed at each other, and India and Pakistan conduct rival nuclear tests.
2002: 7 Minutes to Midnight
America withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, 20 years after it was signed.
2007: 5 Minutes to Midnight
North Korea tests a nuclear weapon, and the West is worried that Iran wants one, too.
2010: 6 Minutes to Midnight
The United States and Russia are in talks to renew something akin to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and the Bulletin is slightly more optimistic on international efforts to combat climate change.
2012: 5 Minutes to Midnight
"The challenges to rid the world of nuclear weapons, harness nuclear power, and meet the nearly inexorable climate disruptions from global warming are complex and interconnected. In the face of such complex problems, it is difficult to see where the capacity lies to address these challenges," the Bulletin writes.
2015: 3 Minutes to Midnight
Speaking of nuclear weapons modernization, climate change and the continued existence of nuclear weapons arsenals, the Bulletin writes that "world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.”
Three minutes! No wonder science says it's three minutes till midnight. Three minutes is all it'll take to rock the world completely to pieces and blow it up. We're living on borrowed time.
59-0415A God's Provided Way
We don’t know the day or the hour, but this is just one more witness the Lord has allowed to this generation: an actual clock developed about the same time Brother Branham received his commission from the Angel of the Lord.
As this doomsday clock ticks closer to the dreaded midnight, there is another timepiece moving, God’s perfect timepiece. Both stand as a constant reminder that one day it will strike midnight, but before that happens there is a promise from a Bridegroom to a waiting Bride who is watching every hour for His arrival.