We might wonder how trouble could be a special sign to indicate the nearness of His Kingdom. For there has always been trouble somewhere in the world. The answer is found in the last part of the verse quoted above. Jesus said, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.”

Recall for a moment the devastation that took place in Hiroshima Japan on August 6, 1945. From one atomic bomb dropped over the city, more than 200,000 people died and countless others suffered radiation burns. By today’s standards, that bomb was relatively small. Its destructive power was the equivalent of exploding 13,000 tons of TNT. On October 30, 1961, Russia exploded a test Hydrogen bomb that had the equivalent of 50 million tons of TNT. That is 3,846 times greater explosive power than the one bomb on Hiroshima!

In 2012 there were eight confirmed countries that had nuclear warheads: China, England, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia, and the United States. There are currently about 31,000 nuclear warheads owned by these eight countries. The combined explosive yield of these weapons is approximately 5 billion tons of TNT. That’s 200,000 times greater that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

We can see the fulfillment of Jesus’ sign of the end of the age when he said, “except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved” (Matthew 24:22). Never before in the history of man would it have been possible to destroy all life on earth. Today there are enough nuclear weapons to destroy all flesh on earth many times over. How thankful we are that God has promised that the trouble will be shortened. It is most reassuring to know that the purpose of the trouble is to remove Satan’s present evil order, and that following the trouble it will be replaced with the new righteous government and social structure of God’s Kingdom.