Signpost 9—Modern Progress.

Why, after centuries of human history, is mankind suddenly now making such scientific and technological progress? Why has transportation and communication brought the world so close together?

IN “THE TIME OF THE END, many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”
—Daniel 12:4.

The eight preceding signs that Christ’s Second Coming is near began to be fulfilled early in the Christian era. These signs have intensified, multiplied, and crescendoed to a climax in our day. Daniel’s prediction is unique in that it refers exclusively to our day, to “the time of the end.”

Daniel here indicates that knowledge of his prophecies would increase in “the time of the end.” But the language used in this prediction also seems to point straight to our computerized information age. Knowledge of all kinds has increased at lightning speed these past few years. One commentator has stated: “There have been more changes in the past fifty years than in the previous two thousand. We do thousands of things that H.G. Wells and Jules Verne never dreamed of in their most visionary moments.”

“MANY WILL GO HERE AND THERE to increase knowledge.” Before 1850, people moved around by horse and buggy, pretty much as they had from the beginning of time. Now we break the sound barrier and span the globe in everything from Concorde airplanes to space shuttles.

Increased travel and the recent flood of inventions suggests a fulfillment of Daniel 12:4 and gives further evidence that we’re living in “the time of the end.”