Its supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, grandson of modern North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung, is known for his outrageous and inflammatory public threats toward neighbors Japan and South Korea and toward its international arch-nemesis, the United States.

Popular response to North Korea and its leader is typically characterized by mockery and disregard, as with U.S. Senator John McCain’s recent dismissal of Kim Jong-un as a “crazy fat kid.” Yet McCain further called him extreme and irrational and a person who could start a world war, China being the only one who can control him—and that China had better do so or face economic penalties (Daily Mail, March 29, 2017).

Given the lack of gravity with which the West often regards North Korea, public perception is that the rogue state poses no real threat. But the reality is that the unpredictability and instability of North Korea’s government, combined with its formidable military manpower and arsenal, means that any threat must be treated as real and dangerous.

“Thanks to one of the largest standing armies on the planet—with over 1.2 million men under arms and another 7.7 million in reserve—and with chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons carried by over 1,000 missiles, Pyongyang has the capability to kill millions of people and start a conflict that could quickly escalate into the next global catastrophe” (Harry Kazianis, “After North Korea Attacks: An Ominous Asian Future Imagined,” The Week, March 31, 2017).

This grim picture of a possibly horrific future serves as a needed reminder that, apart from God’s sustaining mercy, the world stands on a knife’s edge, and immense destruction is possible at any time. Thankfully God has a plan for mankind that does not involve mutually assured destruction and the end of the world. Get to know the wonderful future you have in God’s Kingdom and His plan to save mankind from itself in our free study guide The Gospel of the Kingdom. (Sources: Daily Mail, UPI, The Week.)