Today In Prophecy

A Rapidly Changing World
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“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4).

The world is changing faster than ever before; uncertainty and volatility are the norm. This is most evident in the social and economic change of the past few decades.

Economist Josef Schumpeter describes today’s world with the phrase, “creative destruction.” There is a disruptive force in the new ideas and products that creates growth and benefit even as it destroys previous knowledge. This world of today has been described as one of the most intense periods of creative destruction in many decades. It is a world transitioning from an industrial age towards a “knowledge age.” This is remarkable evidence that Daniel’s prophecy of the end time is especially poignant for our day as traditional societal boundaries and nation states become less relevant. Earth’s population is creating a more global community. Products, and ideas are quickly being shared as rapid advance of communication and information technology allows individuals direct access to one another. Knowledge is increasing its reach, its content, and spreading faster than ever before.

Consider some of the changes occurring in the past decade as traditional boundaries have been broken:
• The company that now dominates the music market is not a music company at all — it is a computer company.
• In 2011, the company that dominated the film and photography industry for decades discontinued its core product, and soon after, filed for bankruptcy. Today, the digital photographic industry belongs to the telephone and computer industry.
• The distribution of music transitioned from LPs to cassette tapes and CDs until a company of the 21st century introduced peer-to-peer sharing through the Internet. Then a technology changed how people create, share, and experience music.
• The world of books and publishing was shattered in 2007 by the launch of e-readers. Authors now have multiple options for the creation of materials and soon will have the ability to self-publish.
• Overcrowded roads, rising fuel prices, limited and expensive parking and a concern over climate change has resulted in new services for real-time connection. The imperative to own a car is shifting as venues such as RelayRides, Spride, and Getaround connect people to people. Convenient mobility is expected to continue to rise in the crowded urban world.
• About one in five workers around the globe, particularly employees in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, telecommute frequently and nearly 10 percent work from home every day, according to a new Ipsos/Reuters poll.

On April 26, 2012, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened the Global Impact Economy Forum with a plea for the creation of “shared value” in the global economy. It was a push for companies and societies to focus on creating value simultaneously so that all will benefit. As a result, many societies are already benefitting from increased initiatives to improve the life in less-developed-countries:
• Dutch-based Unilever launched an initiative employing 300,000 women in inaccessible rural villages throughout India to sell soap and other hygiene products. Washing hands with soap is the single greatest factor in reducing the spread of diarrhea, a leading cause of death for children in developing regions.
• In the slums of Bangladesh, garbage is left to rot on the streets. In partnership between a local start-up company and a global Dutch company, Bangladesh now has the capacity to serve 3.6 million people and to handle 700 tons of garbage per day. The company employs more than a thousand women, reduces health risks, recycles rubbish and increases crop yields for small farmers through the sale of fertilizer.

The increase of knowledge

After some seventy years of captivity in Babylon, Daniel’s prayers concerning the end of Israel’s exile were finally answered. Their final complete deliverance would come at the hand of their angelic “prince,” Michael. “At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” (Daniel 12:1). A few verses later Daniel heard more details about the “time of the end” and when this deliverance would occur.

The prophecy of Daniel 12:4 has been quoted by students of the Bible for more than a century as evidence that the world-wide increase in knowledge and invention, that distinguishes the age in which we live, are signs that we have entered the time of the end and that God is preparing humanity for wonderful blessings (“a feast of fat things,” Isaiah 25:6) that will flow to all under the beneficent reign of the Christ during the Millennium. But to the present generation the very abundance of these blessings renders them commonplace, and the reverent Christian alone realizes their significance.

Daniel was told, “shut up the words, and seal the book,” and “the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end” (Daniel 12:4, 9). At first, it might seem that this increased knowledge refers merely to the general knowledge of man. The explosion of information aforementioned is a fact that stands out and is meant to be observed as a sign of the fulfillment of time prophecy.

However, this text may carry another, deeper meaning for those who are seeking the Lord. Amos 8:11,12 NKJV says, “ ‘Behold, the days are coming’ says the Lord God, ‘That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, But shall not find it.’ ” The parallel to Daniel’s prophecy is remarkable.

Wikipedia says that, beginning in the 1870s, the Bible has been translated into over 450 languages, and, sections of it have been translated into over 2000 languages. The invaluable Ethnologue says that today there are 6909 living languages — one language for every 862,000 people on Earth. However, it estimates that 94% of these languages are spoken by 6% of the World’s population. Thus hundreds of languages have only a few thousand [or hundred] speakers. (Swarthmore College linguist K. David Harrison predicts that 90% of the World’s languages will be extinct by 2050.)

Thus it is evident that most people in the world who can read have access to scripture. Those who cannot read have access to the spoken Word through the explosion of technology. This accessibility to the written word has led to a better understanding of Truth. Leroy Froom notes in The Conditionalist Faith of our Fathers that the doctrine of the immortal soul began to be rejected from 1878 onward when the Archbishop of Canterbury formed The Conditional Immortality Society.

How descriptive are Daniel’s words of our time! We live in the days of a knowledge explosion that has produced means of transport unrivaled in past times. Ever more rapid communication of ideas has interconnected the nations of Earth into one global community. Man’s accomplishments have been great, yet he has failed to find the joy of freedom from sin, sorrow and death.

To those attuned to God’s Word, however, the availability of the Bible and advancement in communication allow unprecedented productivity in spreading the understanding of God’s Word. Bible helps and the ability to understand the deep things of God indicate that we stand at the threshold of the long-promised messianic kingdom.

The expression “time of the end” does not mean the end of time nor the destruction of Earth, but the end of the reign of sin and death. Divine intervention in the affairs of men will soon establish Christ’s kingdom — and an end to war, exploitation, hunger, sickness, and death. Let us rejoice in that knowledge!