The 25th Hour

The 25th Hour is the name of a book by a French writer. It talks about the current state of the world, about how it is divided into rival camps, each trying to eliminate the others, and about how this rivalry can only end in the complete extermination of humanity. A frantic arms race transforms the whole world into a vast dumping-ground for weapons, and continuous war preparations drag the globe to the brink of total destruction. The author remarks that our 24th hour is past, and that now our 25th hour—when the world will end—is just about to start.

What the author relates in connection with this enormous, final war triggered off by human beings has echoes with the Divine Day of Judgment. God has created this world for a limited period of time in order to test human beings. The duration of this period is known to God alone. We humans have no definite knowledge of how long it will be. At any moment, God can announce the end of this period. And then, the whole world and the entire edifice of human civilization will be destroyed.

If you see things in this perspective, you will realize that our every moment on Earth can be the ‘final moment’. When we get up in the morning, we can never be sure if we shall get to see the evening of that same day. And every evening, we have no idea if we will live to see the next morning.

Every moment of ours in this world could very well be our last. Any and every moment can possibly be the last moment for the whole of humanity as well, marking the end of the period that God has determined for it—the passing away of its 24th hour, as it were, and humanity’s entry into its decisive ‘25th hour’.

People are nervous of a nuclear war, but what they should really be petrified of is the announcement of the Day of Judgment, because it is not definite that a nuclear war will ever happen, but that the Day of Judgment will come some say is certain and definite, and its consequences will be ever lasting.