“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)
We have been promised that at the time of Christ’s return, the time of the end, that knowledge shall increase. Does this not describe the times we are living in?
Back in 1982 R. Buckminster Fuller estimated that all the knowledge of humanity, from the dawn of time until the time of Christ had doubled by about the year 1500. Human knowledge doubled again by 1750. By 1900 it had doubled again. In the mid-1900s, Eric Johnson, president of the US Chamber of Commerce estimated that knowledge was doubling every 10 years. By the year 2004, the American Society of Training and Documentation estimated that knowledge was doubling every 18 months. Recently Time Magazine reported: “IBM predicts that in the next couple of years information will double every 11 hours.”
Concurrent with this vast increase in knowledge is its spread. No longer limited to libraries and research institutions, knowledge is being spread and propagated in ways our ancestors could never have imagined. Rapid communication, beginning in 1844 with the telegraph, then telephone, radio, and television, and now email, the world wide web and smart phone technology is putting that knowledge into the hands of all of us, any time, any place.
What about the knowledge of the Lord? Isaiah prophesied that in the day of the root of Jesse: “… the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). Certainly this has come to pass. Riding the rising wave of knowledge and communication, we have seen an exponential growth in the translation and distribution of the Bible and the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world. Never before in human history has the Word of the Lord been so available to the peoples of every nation.
This vast explosion of knowledge, both secular and divine, and the means for its propagation, can be traced back in time to the mid-1800s. It was during this time that Bahá’u’lláh announced His Revelation to the world. Among His prophetic words were these:
“…the moment the word expressing My attribute ‘The Omniscient’ issueth forth from My mouth, every created thing will, according to its capacity and limitations, be invested with the power to unfold the knowledge of the most marvelous sciences, and will be empowered to manifest them in the course of time at the bidding of Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Knowing.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 142)
The signs of this Revelation are becoming increasingly apparent worldwide.