6 End of the World Scenarios That Will Keep You Up at Night

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A long time ago, God began telling the story of reality. From His first words were wrought the heavens and the earth and the light that illuminates it all. He spoke the waters and the skies and the plants and the animals into being. And finally, He spoke His children into the world—the first human man and woman.

The story continued, moving through the ups and downs of the Old Testament, the great triumph of Christ’s resurrection in the New Testament, and on to the establishment of the Christian Church. And today, we continue to move and live within God’s tale.

But like all stories, it has to come to an end.

There are hints, throughout the Bible, of a coming calamity. There will be signs, but we cannot know the time or the manner in which it will occur—even the angels do not know, nor does Christ, according to Mark 13:32.

But in each of these signs, we find clues as to how this world may pass away in preparation for the new. Let’s take a look at these 6 end-of-the-world scenarios, and how they might really play out in our modern world.

Something Will Happen to the Sun

The sun is the source of all life on Earth. Without its power, we would quickly starve, freeze, and cease to be. But in Acts 2:20, Peter preaches to a crowd, saying that before the second coming of Christ, “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”

Left to itself, our sun has a lifespan of billions of years. But at the end of that lifespan, it will run out of hydrogen to burn and begin to swell. Not only this, its color will shift—to red—and our sun will become a red giant, burning hotter and brighter than ever before. Naturally, the moon will reflect this color, turning to “blood.”

The sun will continue to increase in size until it has engulfed the Earth, and in a few more billion years, will collapse back upon itself, transitioning from a red giant to a relatively tiny white dwarf.

Could this be the sign Peter mentions in Acts 2:20? Will something happen to the sun to accelerate this process, or do we have a few billion years to wait until Christ’s return?

Only time will tell.

Nuclear War Will Occur

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A far more immediate threat comes not from the depths of space, but from our own brethren—nuclear war.

Another of the signs of the end, mentioned by Christ in Matthew 24:6, is “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”

But even more telling is 2 Peter 3:10, which tells of Christ’s impending return, saying that “The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.”

This certainly sounds like nuclear war, or at the least, something very close to it.

With the current political climate, this is definitely one end-of-the-world scenario that should be keeping you up at night. With the wars in the Middle-East and tensions between the Western world and China, Russia, and North Korea, anything could happen.

With so many nations now having the means to produce nuclear weapons, this may just be the event to which 2 Peter 3:10 alludes.

An Asteroid Will Impact Earth

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The slow death of the sun isn’t the only threat we face from the outer darkness of space. Take a look at this description from Revelation 8:8-9.

“The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.”

This “huge mountain” sounds exactly like an asteroid impact, which, depending on the size of the space-rock, could certainly wipe out a third of all life on Earth.

We’ve had some close calls with asteroids in the recent past—for example, the asteroid known as 1999 RD32, a hunk of iron and stone with a diameter of 3 miles, came within 860,000 miles of Earth. In cosmic terms, that’s a brush with death. Another asteroid, known as 1950 DA, is projected to possibly strike the Earth in 2880.

While we’ll probably have plenty of warning, thanks to NASA, before a strike might occur, there’s only so much of space we can observe at once—you never know what might be coming from that infinite darkness.

Machines Will Overrun Us

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There’s an interesting passage in Revelation 9 that may be more relevant to our modern age than you think.

“And the locusts looked like horses prepared for battle, with something like crowns of gold on their heads, and faces like the faces of men. They had hair like that of women, and teeth like those of lions. They also had thoraxes like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the roar of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails with stingers like scorpions, which had the power to injure people for five months.”

Sounds weird, right? But think for a moment, about our modern-day drones. Imagine if someone from around 2,000 years ago seeing one in action. How would he describe it? Perhaps he would call its weapon a “stinger.” Their metal bodies might look like “breastplates of iron.” Sensors and instruments might look like hair and teeth and facial features.

This might be a description of an invasion of manmade machines.

With current advances in artificial intelligence, it won’t be long before we create machines that can think, and begin turning over many of our activities to these creations. It may be that we will lose control of them, and Revelation 9 will be carried out by our own robotic warriors.

Try not to think of that image if you want to get some sleep tonight.

Natural Disasters Will Strike

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Natural disasters are often the first things people think about when the Biblical signs of the end times are spoken of, and for good reason. Let’s check out Luke 21:10, in which Christ speaks of the signs of the end.

“There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.”

All of these events may very well be tied to how we treat our planet. Climate change is a hotly debated subject, but scientific evidence seems to point toward our actions as the reason why the Earth’s climate is shifting.

If it continues to do so, there will, indeed, be famines, pestilences, and other fearful events. Crops will not grow. Changing conditions will worsen the spread of infectious disease. The atmosphere, itself, will change. And under those conditions, life may end.

We can’t be sure, of course, but this very well may be one of the harbingers of the end.

A Transhuman Takes Power

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The Antichrist is one of the most mysterious and talked-about figures in the Bible. When he arises, he will display great charisma and intelligence, and will, according to 2 Thessalonians 2:9, “use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie…”

Revelation 13:3 may reference this same person, showing him—or her—to have even greater power.

“And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.”

This person will not only perform wonders, but will heal from a mortal wound.

Here’s an interesting thought: the antichrist may be our own creation.

Research into the augmentation of the human body has reached new heights—we’re not far from the ability to edit our own genes, replace our aging organs with superior substitutes, and even grant ourselves extended lifespans and miraculous healing abilities through nanotechnology in the form of tiny machines that can flow through our bloodstreams.

So this antichrist may be transhuman—a human being taken to the next level, physically and mentally superior in every way. He would be smarter than us, stronger, faster, and more able to manipulate and deceive.

And if someone like this takes power, it’s unlikely that they will give it up, and even less likely that we will be able to take it from them.

Keep an eye out for emerging medical technologies—they may just create our own apocalypse.