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Daniel 12:4-But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
Recently, I was thinking about some particularly interesting experiences I had in jail ministry shortly before relocating to Corbin. On Sundays at the local jail in Perry County, I was blessed to minister to every male cell between 3 PM and midnight. One cell had a gentleman who didn’t speak a lick of English. However, he desperately wanted to learn. He had a Catholic edition study Bible written in Spanish. Now, even though I had two years of Spanish in high school, I am lucky to get by with some West Virginian and Kentuckian. I’m not exactly fluent in Spanish. In fact….I was able to understand his name….and that was it! The gentlemen in his cell were asking lots of questions related to the plan of salvation and spiritual warfare, and even though he wanted to join in, he just wasn’t able to understand!
So I found a program in the App Store that let me translate everything I said from English to Spanish. It would record and translate their questions for him, and then our responses and discussions. It would also allow him to read from his Bible and translate it into English for us, as well as his questions.
Amazing!
I’ve also been thinking about events here locally in the last couple of months. A preacher training class in the country of India has been graciously inviting me to teach them over Zoom on various Bible topics. They have about twenty or thirty people in their class. I will speak a few sentences, wait while it is translated, field questions, and on it goes.
Technology has made a huge impact in our world. The Prophet Daniel prophesied about a time when people would run “to and fro” and when “knowledge would increase.” Consider these words about the knowledge expansion that has taken place in our world especially in the last few years:
“Dr. James Burton Coffman was a contemporary of our own age, having passed away in June of 2006 at the age of 101. He was a prolific teacher, preacher, and biblical scholar who wrote an extensive and renowned set of commentaries on the entire Bible. His work is valued by biblical students the world over. In his hundred-plus years of life, Dr. Coffman experienced the transition from the modes of travel that had been used for the previous six thousand years to the travel and technology innovations of our current days. What an amazing chunk of history to have lived through! In his voluminous work, Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible, he wrote the following concerning Daniel 12: “Men shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Some interpreters have tried to apply this to persons letting their eyes run to and fro searching for the truth; but we cannot find anything like that in the passage. If men will just look at the travel to and from upon the planet earth by men of all nations throughout this whole century, they could not fail to be impressed with the truth that this going “to and fro” on the earth has been multiplied fantastically above everything that was even dreamed of a hundred years ago. Is not this prophesied here as being a development “at the time of the end”? Likewise, has not knowledge been “increased”? In the field of medicine, more knowledge has been learned in the past century than in all previous centuries put together. Furthermore, this same phenomenon may be noted in any one of a hundred different fields of knowledge. Take transportation, chemistry, biology, agriculture, space travel, etc., is it not a fact that “knowledge has been increased”? Does this mean, therefore, that we are indeed approaching the time of the end? Our own conviction is that the answer is undoubtedly affirmative. The prophecies of knowledge being increased and men going “to and fro” could never have been fully understood by any person living prior to the 20th century! In this connection, one should read 1 Peter 1:10-12, where this phenomenon of the prophets not understanding their own prophecies is specifically stated.[78] (Emphasis added)…The words “to and fro” in the English (actually, a fairly archaic form) come from the Hebrew word shuwt, which means to “travel about, over long distances—encompassing the entire globe.”[81]…The Hebrew term Daniel used for “increase” is rabah, which is frequently found in the Bible to speak of an explosive increase.[82]…To illustrate what Daniel was speaking about, consider the following from Bell’s: Bell’s Commentary on the Bible: From the time Christ died to the year 1700, knowledge on earth doubled. It took 1700 years for all of the previously accumulated knowledge to double on earth. In the year 1900 it doubled again, only 200 years later. In the year 1950 it doubled again, only 50 years later. In the year 1970 it doubled again, only 20 years later. Today information doubles every 2 years. Prognosticators are pointing to a day very soon when knowledge on earth will double every single day.[ 83] Bell’s Commentary was published in 2017. As this book is being written, in 2022, accumulated knowledge is said to be already doubling every thirteen months. However, because of additional giant leaps in tech development just on the horizon, accumulated knowledge is very soon expected to reach a doubling rate of every twelve hours![ 84]”. (Carl Gallups, The Yeshua Protocol: An Explosion of Divine Revelation for our Unique Generation, 87-88, 90, 94 (Kindle Edition): Crane, MO: Defender Publishing)
In our day and age, with the amazing potential for learning and communication afforded us by technology, the church has an unprecedented ability to share God’s Word-the most important knowledge with eternal importance-with those near and far.
Do we utilize these advantages?
Do we….
Live Stream Our Church Services?
Offer Bible Studies To People Near And Far Via The Internet?
Utilize Our Social Media Platforms To Share The Word Of God And Invite People To Church?
What are some other ways that we can utilize the technology at our fingertips to carry out God’s work for us in the world?
With great opportunity comes great responsibility.
How are we using God’s providential gifts?
Revelation 1:20-The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.
Lord, thank You for the day and age in which we live. Help us to use our opportunities and abilities to glorify You and share Your Word. Give us knowledge and wisdom, and open the doors that You would have us to walk through. We trust in You and Your guidance. Amen.