[The text below represents an edited transcript of this Tomorrow’s World program.]

Finding God’s Protection as the World Prepares for War

We live in times of startling upheaval. The Middle East continues to be a source of global chaos and instability. Alliances are breaking and reshaping at blinding speed. The systems and institutions on which our modern civilization depends—economic, governmental, medical, scientific, educational—all continue to prove themselves unworthy of our trust, yet with no alternatives to replace them. News programs seem to carry a litany of tales of suffering—not only on a global scale, but also the intimate and personal.

There has never been a time in human history when the entire world needed to pay more attention to Bible prophecy, yet many don’t.

God has given us Bible prophecy for a reason, and the times in which you and I are living, right now, make understanding those reasons more important than ever.

Today, we want to make those reasons plain, and to equip you to do more than wonder about prophecy—we want you to understand it.

Now, if you have watched Tomorrow’s World for any length of time at all, you already know that we don’t shy away from prophecy. In fact, we spend quite a bit of time with it, because it helps to make sense of the world around us, even as that world appears to be descending into chaos.

With the previous power structures of the Middle East detonating before our eyes, with national economies continuing to teeter on the brink of crumbling, with ethnic and racial tensions on the rise in multiple states and nations, world leaders are growing ever more worried about what lies ahead.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told his colleagues in June 2025:

“To preserve peace, we must prepare for war. Wishful thinking will not keep us safe. We cannot dream away the danger. Hope is not a strategy” (“NATO Secretary General invokes spirit of Churchill to spur on NATO defence spending.” Euro-sd.com, June 10, 2025).

And preparing for war is exactly what nations across the globe are doing, as munitions factories fire into production, engineers pour their passions into new forms of warfare, and governments scramble to find the billions they need to survive the conflicts they see on the horizon.

But unless they understand Bible prophecy, today’s leaders won’t be able to understand how events are being moved into place into their final end-game positions.

Anyone not paying attention to Bible prophecy is simply not getting it. And they are failing to truly understand the news at the very time when understanding it is increasingly becoming a matter of life and death.

In fact, in early 2026, a popular online “prediction market”—essentially a gambling site focused on different events—was taking bets on the just when a nuclear Armageddon would finally begin (“Betting on nuclear war: what are prediction markets and could they come to the UK?” TheGuardian.com, March 6, 2026).

If ever there were a time when Bible prophecy could help us understand what’s going on in the world, now is that time. And yet, so many professing Christians—and so many professing Christian churches—don’t spend any time on prophecy at all.

When they do, it’s often seen as a mere curiosity or distraction—something that’s not really part of the “important stuff” in the Bible—not related to your salvation in any way. Or it might be considered somewhat important, but it seems too confusing to spend time on, with all of its symbols and imagery—seven-headed beasts, and strange creatures and statues. Some worry that they just can’t make sense of it, and that there just isn’t any spiritual profit to them personally if they spend any time in it.

“Man shall not live by bread alone” | Matthew 4:4

Yet, when you go through the Bible verse by verse, you find that, by some counts, at least one-fourth of the entire Bible is prophecy. How big is that?

Well, from the beginning of the Bible, ignoring a fourth of the Bible would be like ignoring Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and 1 Samuel—maybe parts of 2 Samuel, too. Or from the other end, cutting out the last fourth of the Bible would be like removing most of the New Testament. Could God possibly want us to ignore that much of His word?

We don’t have to guess at the answer to that question. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who inspired the word of God, is the same one who admonishes us very directly in Matthew 4:4.

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

And my friends, every word means every word—including the words of prophecy.

Today, all of us here at Tomorrow’s World want to encourage you to understand Bible prophecy—not to hold it out at arm’s length, but to begin studying it, to learn from it, to gain from it all the things God intends for you in His prophetic word. And He intends a lot.

In particular, we want to explain to you what the purpose of prophecy is. When you begin to see its purpose, you begin to appreciate why God gives prophecy, what He is trying to accomplish with it, and what its impact in your own life can be. Plus, prophecy provides context for events we see in the world today.

The Middle East has been shaken by Iranian leaders who look to their Muslim faith as justification for war and atrocity. On the other side of that conflict, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth spoke of the American military, saying:

“The providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops” (“Pete Hegseth wanted an ‘American Crusade.’ Now he’s leading a war in the Middle East.” CNN.com, March 13, 2026).

Of course, leaders have claimed God to be on their side throughout history, even when the conflict was between so-called Christian nations.

What has been missing has been an understanding of His mind, His desires, and His plan for coming world events. And prophecy is vital in gaining that understanding.

So, in our next segment, we’ll begin to focus on four vital purposes of prophecy. In doing so, we hope to encourage you to begin making a growing understanding of prophecy part of your own, personal Bible study. And we want to help you do it right.

Four Purposes of Bible Prophecy

Though the symbols of prophecy can seem strange and unfamiliar, there is a proper way to understand them. God does not allow us to simply interpret them however we want, and He makes that clear in 2 Peter 1:20.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation [or origin], for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Prophecy reveals God’s thoughts, and we want to handle them rightly.

Prophecy is clearly important to God. But why? Why is it so important to Him? Why does Almighty God put such a priority on prophecy in His word—so much that at least one-fourth of the Bible is prophecy?

Understanding the answer to that question is at the very foundation of understanding prophecy. So let’s dive in and answer it together.

Bible Prophecy: Warning from God to Repent

When you look at the big picture, you find there are four fundamental reasons God inspires prophecy. The first purpose of prophecy is this:

1. Bible prophecy warns people and nations to repent so they can avoid punishment.

Like a good parent, God does not desire to punish people—He desires to bless. And He provides a warning to us as individuals and to entire nations when punishment is on its way, so that we can repent and change our course before it is too late.

Punishment is coming on the world for sin. Eventually, it will culminate in the greatest time of trial and suffering that the world has ever known—a time called the Great Tribulation.

Picture the footage we’ve all seen from the horrors of wars past, such as the Holocaust of World War II, the killing fields of Pol Pot, or the genocide in Rwanda. Today, our social media feeds bring us images of dead and mutilated Russian and Ukrainian soldiers at war, newly ravaged regions of the Middle East, and the devastation of civil wars around the globe, from Myanmar to Mali, from Afghanistan to Yemen, and elsewhere.

Jesus Christ prophesies in Matthew 24 that the time to come will be far worse than any of those times ever were. Read His thoughts for yourself, beginning in verse 21.

“For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened” (Matthew 24:21–22).

A time of suffering never experienced before by mankind that will threaten to extinguish all life on earth if God were not to cut it short.

The Bible makes plain the fact that these days are coming, but they’re coming for a reason—because of this world’s sins. In particular, those days will begin with the punishment on the United States and the British-descended nations before engulfing the entire world, as we have explained from Scripture many times on this program.

But God takes no pleasure in any of this, and He tells us ahead of time so that we will change, so that we can avoid punishment. That is His desire.

Consider His loving warning in the prophetic book of Ezekiel, in chapter 18 and beginning in verse 30.

“Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord GOD. “Therefore turn and live” (Ezekiel 18:30–32).

And for you, viewing today’s program. Your nation may not turn to God, and it may continue in national sin. But you do not have to. You personally can turn to God—cease from breaking His laws, cease from ignoring His commands, and seek to follow the true Jesus Christ of the Bible, in love and obedience. As the Apostle Peter warned his listeners (in Acts 2:40):

“Be saved from this perverse generation.” Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them (Acts 2:40–41).

Though Jerusalem and its people paid a terrible price in 70AD, some heeded Peter’s words and were saved from the slaughter that followed in their day.

Jesus Christ died for you, so that you, too, can escape the snare of sin, turn, and be free. But you must choose to repent. May God give you the strength to follow Him and to commit your life to Him.

Part of the purpose of Bible prophecy is to warn people and nations to turn, so that they can avoid punishment.

Even Under God’s Punishment, You Can Repent

But not everyone will repent. Not everyone responds. We know that many of you, our viewers today, will choose not to respond to God’s desire that you repent and avoid what is to come. But prophecy has a purpose even then.

Purpose number two today is:

2. Bible prophecy encourages those in captivity to repent.

God had this purpose in mind when He made this proclamation to ancient Israel in Deuteronomy 4:27–31.

And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

God intended that those who have been punished for their sins and in captivity would remember the words and the warning they had heard, and they will begin to seek God in a way they did not before their punishment.

My friends, the Bible highlights in Malachi 3:6 that God does not change, just as Paul says in Hebrews [13:8] that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” For the reasons discussed in today’s free resource, these same, ancient promises apply to modern nations, today.

Concerning the coming Great Tribulation, the book of Revelation prophecies that many will learn from their suffering and will turn to God during that time—Revelation 7:9 calls them a “great multitude” or an “innumerable multitude.” In the despair of that time, they will begin to seek God as they never have before, and they will find Him and the comfort only He can provide.

For those of our viewers today who watch our program or receive our materials, but who never act on what they read and who, perhaps, will find themselves under the punishment of the Great Tribulation, it is our prayer that you will remember these things and remember to seek God with all your heart, with all your mind, and all your strength. He WILL hear you.

Bible Prophecy Points to the Kingdom of God

A third purpose for Bible prophecy is to:

3. Announce the good news of the coming Kingdom of God.

If you’re a regular viewer of the Tomorrow’s World program, you know that this is our primary focus—just as it was the primary focus of Jesus Christ and His disciples. In fact, vast amounts of Bible prophecy—in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament—are devoted to describing the coming of God’s Kingdom, what that Kingdom will be like, and the role of Jesus Christ as the King of that Kingdom.

Time would fail us to read them all, but look for yourself.

• Read of the miraculous change in the animal kingdom in a newly peaceful world in Isaiah 11.
• Read of people of all nations and languages coming to Jerusalem to worship God at the Feast of Tabernacles in Zechariah 14.
• Read of the removal of Satan the Devil and of resurrected Christians ruling beside Jesus Christ as kings and priests in Revelation 20.
• Read in Zechariah 8 of a world where children and elderly—the weak of society—are safe and able to congregate and play in the streets.
• Read of a world physically transformed, with deserts blossoming into life, and the lame and sick healedand whole in passages such as Isaiah 35.
• And of the world being spiritually transformed, described in Isaiah 11:9, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

In Acts 3:21, the Apostle Peter calls these prophesied times “the restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”

Regardless of how mainstream Christian churches ignore it, the prophetic message of the coming Kingdom of God is the main message of the Bible and the primary thrust of Jesus Christ’s message to the world. The message of that Kingdom was the Gospel—the good news that He brought to humanity. And His true ministers will continue to preach that prophetic witness to the world until its arrival with the returning King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Bible Prophecy Shows God Is in Control

So far, we’ve reviewed three of four purposes of Bible prophecy. It warns people and nations so they can repent before being punished, it encourages those in captivity to repent, and it announces the good news of the coming Kingdom of God.

The fourth purpose is simple, but inspiring:

4. Bible prophecy demonstrates God’s total sovereignty and power.

In the book of Isaiah, God comments on this aspect of prophecy’s purpose—in chapter 46 beginning in verse 9.

Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,” calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it (Isaiah 46:9–11).

Our predecessor in this work, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, said many decades ago that there is one most important fact in all the universe, and it can be stated in three simple words:

God reigns supreme.

My friend and colleague on this program, the late Richard Ames—who is the author of today’s free booklet offer—frequently reminded others of this inspiring truth, and I have benefitted from the passion, clarity, and focus it gave him in his life.

Prophecy teaches us that God reigns supreme. It is meant to remind us that all of history—both history past and the rest of human history that is yet to unfold—is all under the care and providential guidance of a loving and All-Powerful Creator.

What does this mean?

It means that His purposes will be fulfilled.

• His plan of salvation, climaxing in the Kingdom of God and the transformation of His people into glorious children in that Kingdom will come to pass.
• The removal of Satan the Devil for all eternity will come to pass.
• The complete purification and utter transformation of this world will come to pass. God has declared it.

And He is not only the God who announces prophecy, but He is the God who has the power to make His prophecies come to pass.

A God of prophecy who has the power to declare the end from the beginning is also a God in whom we can place our trust. He’s a God with whom we can share our hopes, our dreams, and our concerns. He’s a God who knows our purpose and has it in sight, even when we don’t. He’s a God we can obey and place ourselves 100% in His hands, even under threat of persecution or harm, because we know that in His hands is the best possible place we can be.

Indeed, Bible prophecy does declare God’s sovereignty and power. And it reminds us that the one who lovingly demands our loyalty and obedience is truly worthy of that loyalty and obedience, for He is GOD, and He reigns supreme.

I pray that God blesses you abundantly as you grow in your understanding of Bible prophecy.