Doomsday Clock Now Closer Than Ever To Nuclear Midnight

February 8, 2025 by Jeremiah Jacques

The end of the world just drew closer. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists nudged the minute hand of their symbolic “Doomsday Clock” forward by one second on January 28, pushing the time to just 89 seconds until “midnight”—the symbolic hour of worldwide nuclear catastrophe. This is the nearest the countdown has ever been to “doomsday” since the symbolic clock was created by Albert Einstein, Robert J. Oppenheimer and their associates 78 years ago.

In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe. Trends that have deeply concerned [us] continued, and despite unmistakable signs of danger, national leaders and their societies have failed to do what is needed to change course. Consequently, we now move the Doomsday Clock from 90 seconds to 89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe. Our fervent hope is that leaders will recognize the world’s existential predicament and take bold action to reduce the threats ….
—John Mecklin, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists editor in chief

Created in 1947, the Doomsday Clock is a metaphorical indication of the prospect that mankind will launch a nuclear war, with midnight symbolizing zero hour—worldwide devastation. The farthest from midnight the clock was ever set occurred in 1991 when the Cold War concluded, and it was placed at 17 minutes to midnight. The closest to zero hour it had ever been—before the present era of escalating tensions—was in 1953 when the clock was moved to two minutes to midnight following the announcement that America and the Soviet Union had test-detonated nuclear weapons within a year of each other.

• In 2018, it was again pushed forward to two minutes to midnight as North Korea’s nuclear activitysoared to a crisis point and other powers grew more aggressive.

• The clock was left at 11:58 throughout 2018 and 2019.

• From 2020 to 2022, it was set forward to 100 seconds to midnight.

• At the start of last year, it was pushed forward again to 90 seconds to midnight.

But now Mecklin and the others behind the Doomsday Clock perceive the threat as even more acute.

[T]he war in Ukraine, now in its third year, looms over the world; the conflict could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation. Conflict in the Middle East threatens to spiral out of control into a wider war without warning.
—John Mecklin

Besides Russia’s war on Ukraine and Middle Eastern conflicts, the Bulletin also calls special attention to China’s rapid expansion of nuclear capabilities, the collapse of nuclear arms control treaties, Russia and China’s antisatellite weapons, and increasing biological threats.

Some aspects of the Bulletin’s reasoning is ill founded. But we do live in perilous times.

In 2002, when the Doomsday Clock was pushed from nine to seven minutes to midnight, Trumpeteditor in chief Gerald Flurry discussed the significance of the move. “The world should have jolted out of sleep at the news,” he wrote. “Headlines should have splashed across all the media. But no real alarm was sounded. The majority of the news media dismissed it. And many still slumber on as the world heads toward self-destruction.”

Mr. Flurry said the time change was so significant because the Bible prophesies about a coming nuclear World War iii. “Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ prophesied about this global state of affairs,” he wrote. He then quoted Jesus Christ’s words recorded in Matthew 24: “For there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again. In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive” (verses 21-22; New Living Translation).

Mr. Flurry wrote:

Jesus Christ was talking about a time when the annihilation of all human life would be possible. This has everything to do with the Doomsday Clock. Yet how many theologians discuss these two verses?

Mr. Flurry said that even though setting the Doomsday Clock forward pointed to dark times ahead, it also indicated that the most hope-filled event in human history is near. In verse 22, just after Christ says that nuclear war at the end of this era will be so catastrophic that it could wipe out all human life, He adds a crucial detail: “But it will be shortened …” (nlt).

Before the nations detonate enough warheads to vanquish all human life, the war will be divinely ended. And just after that time of unprecedented death, an unprecedented epoch of harmony and peace will begin. Mr. Flurry continued:

[S]even minutes to nuclear annihilation really means seven minutes to the greatest possible news you could ever hear: It is all a sign that Jesus Christ is about to return to Earth—to stop mankind from destroying himself—and show the world how to have peace, happiness and joy.

Now those seven minutes on the symbolic Doomsday Clock are down to just 89 seconds.

To understand more about how close mankind is to an unprecedentedly cataclysmic nuclear conflict, and why it will be cut short before it ends all human life, read Mr. Flurry’s free booklet Nuclear Armageddon Is ‘At the Door.’