Jogging and Computers - signs of the End?

“The sky was dark with threatening storm clouds, the sea’s angry waves pitching the little boat to and fro. Danny Orlis and his friends were in a precarious situation. Tossed further and further out to sea, they clung to a thin thread of hope that they would be rescued.”

In detail the picture is clear in my mind- just as I imagined it years ago, with my ear close to the radio trying to listen through the static to hear my favourite program.
I remember so vividly that, as my imagination provided the brush to paint the ‘moving pictures’ on my mind’s screen , I wished there was such a thing as a ‘box’ you could look into and actually ‘see’ the story unfold.
I had yet to see my first television set.

In the early 60’s I remember my teacher telling us about the marvels of this thing called a ‘computer’.
Trying to grasp the capabilities of this ‘monster’, I excitedly asked “You mean I can ask it any question and it will tell me the answer?”
I was laughingly told ‘well, yes, if you put the answer in first’.
My bubble burst. Of what use was it to have a machine that could only give you the answer to your question if you first told it the answer?
Of course, today I CAN ask my computer any question and it does tell me the answer without me telling it first!

Computers have changed the world… even in the last decade.
The ‘internet – World Wide Web” became available to the average household when my ten year-old granddaughter was born. I remember my son-in-law trying to download some files and telling us NOT to pick up the phone or his connection would be lost and he would have to start the tedious process all over again…beginning with waiting in line for access to the files he wanted to download!
I remember learning about bytes, then kilobytes and megabytes. Now we have gigabytes and terabytes (1000 gigabytes), petabytes (1000 terabytes) and waiting in line there are exabytes, zettabytes and yottabytes.
By 2010 the web’s information base will double every 11 hours.
The world’s body of knowledge doubled between 1800 and 1900. By 1940 it was doubling every 20 years, by 1970 every 7 years, by 2002 every 2 years and by 2015 it will be doubling every 35 days.
Is your brain elastic stretched to its limit yet????

There is a verse in Daniel that prophesies what signs will be evident in the end time.
“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.” (Daniel 12:4)

There was a time in the not very distant past that a person could learn all there was to know and if he continued to study could keep up with the new knowledge being added.

If you were able to travel back in time and find Abraham and take him with you on your return trip and dropped him off in time, say 150 years ago, he may have marvelled at some of the advances man had made but he could have quite comfortably settled into that world society.
But if you took him with you all the way to 2007, I think he would have thought the world had gone mad with sorcery and witchcraft – vehicles that drive without horses, doors that open because they ‘see’ you coming, people talking to people who aren’t there , anything you want or need is accessed by simply pushing a button, and on and on.
Can you even imagine his bewilderment?

In just the last century of human history there has been a wild explosion of knowledge.
I’m sure Daniel could never have imagined to what extent knowledge would increase when he wrote down the prophecy that God gave Him about the signs that would precede the end of this world.

The other sign given in Daniel's prophecy is that, “many shall run to and fro’
If we take that literally, jogging is a very recent activity of choice. If any of you are close to my age (past the 50 dividing line- smile) think back to your childhood. Can you imagine your parents or grandparents remarking “Well, I think I shall go for my run!” People then walked or ran because they had a purpose and a destination … they never went ‘to and fro’ for the ‘fun of it’.
But if we take a more serious interpretation – we see that world travel has increased unbelievably. We can go anywhere in the world – and do. If not by car, then transit bus, or train, or plane, or even space ship!!
Every year the American people spend 78 billion dollars on on-line travel alone!
Our world has indeed become very small – we can travel ‘to and fro’ with ease.

Daniel’s prophecy has come true.
But if these are such visual signs of the end, why do we not talk more about Jesus' soon return? The ‘end time’ teaching fervour of the seventies, eighties and nineties seems to have evaporated.
People have lost interest.
Is that not also a sign of the times? That people will be so preoccupied with the things of this life they will no longer be actively looking for his return? (II Peter 3:4)

How often do you think about Jesus coming back? Do you ever look up into the blue sky and wonder, ‘could it be today?’
One day there will be a loud trumpet blast like we have never heard before, the sky will open up to reveal Jesus in all His Kingly glory descending with His holy angels and we who are His, will rise up to meet Him.
What earthly excitement could ever come close to the exhilaration of that day?
We who are alive today could very well be the ones who will experience that Day!!
If we REALLY believed that would we live differently than we do?
Would our priorities change?
Would we truly look up with joy and excited anticipation??

“Now when these begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near!”
Luke 21:28