The Future Foretold/Globetrotters and Jetsetters
From The Endtime
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"Many shall run to and fro…" (Daniel 12:4).
The modern means of communication and transportation that have made it possible for the Gospel to now be preached in all nations bring to mind another specific prediction regarding Endtime conditions. In 534 B.C., the prophet Daniel received an outstanding revelation. Afterwards, God told him not to worry that he couldn't understand it all, that even though the prophecy was given to him, it wasn't for him. It's only been in recent years that the book of Daniel has been opened. The Lord told Daniel:
Many running to and fro literally means "speeding about, here and there," or as The Living Bible renders this verse, "travel shall be vastly increased."
When you consider that people's means of transportation—horse and buggy, wagons, camels, boats, etc.—did not change substantially for thousands of years, you can appreciate the significance of this prophecy.
[edit] Speed Freaks
In 1789 it took George Washington eight days to travel the 200 miles from his home to his inauguration in New York City. The fact that it took eight days is not significant. What is noteworthy is that Julius Caesar could have made the same trip just as rapidly in the year 50 B.C.! No real progress had been made in transportation over the 18 centuries that passed between their lifetimes. But look how mankind has advanced in the past hundred years!
Today we not only drive at enormous speeds and cover great distances in our automobiles, but a jet can fly around the world in 24 hours, and a spacecraft circles the planet in 80 minutes.
Two thousand six hundred years ago, another prophet described the following "in the days of the Lord's preparation" before He returns. "The chariots come with flaming torches in the day of His preparation, and the spears are brandished. The chariots rage in the streets, they jostle one another in the broad roads; they seem like torches, they run like lightning" (Nahum 2:3-4). No horse-drawn chariot ever ran like lightning. Could this be a vision of our modern highways at night filled with vehicles with their headlights on? It would certainly fit the description. And if it is, our modern vehicle-filled highways are another indication that the Lord is soon to return.
And they certainly jostle one another in the broad roads. "Since the invention of the motor vehicle over a century ago, it is estimated that about 30 million people have been killed in road crashes. A recent review of road deaths worldwide estimated that between 750,000 and 880,000 lives were lost in road crashes in 1999, a conservative estimate compared with earlier WHO figures."[1]
[edit] Travelmania
Before the downturn in the travel industry after the 9/11 attacks, the number of people traveling was absolutely unprecedented. In 1995, John Naisbitt, economic forecaster and author of Megatrends 2000,[2] underscored how the largest industry in the world is now the one which enables people to "run to and fro":
Travel and tourism is the biggest and the most energetic industry in the world. It will be one of the three super-industries driving the (global) economy of the next century, along with Information Technology and Telecommunications.
This year, travel and tourism is forecast to generate US$3.4 trillion in gross product, accounting for 10 percent of global economic output, consumer spending and investment.[3]According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), member airlines carried 1.35 billion passengers on all services in 2001—equivalent to more than one in five of the world's population.[4]
The Madrid-based World Tourism Organization in a news release in January 2003 reported:
One reason that many people today travel to distant lands, particularly young people, is because they are dissatisfied with their own country, culture, or religion, and are searching for solutions or answers elsewhere. These truth seekers and pilgrims bring to mind another prophecy about the last days, given by the Old Testament prophet Amos: "'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'" (Amos8:11-12 NKJV).
Never in all of world history have people traveled the distances, the speeds, or with the frequency that hundreds of millions are traveling today. Truly many are running to and fro, just like God said they would in the "time of the end."
[edit] Notes and References
- ↑ "Why Are Road Crashes a Problem," on the Global Road Safety Partnership Web site
- ↑ Naisbitt, John. Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990s. New York: Morrow, 1990
- ↑ "Tourism to Grow Steadily over the Next Decade," Reuters, 13 Mar 1995, reporting on the annual meeting in Singapore of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)
- ↑ IATA Press Release, "World Air Transport Statistics 2002 Is Out Now," 15 Jul 2002
- ↑ "Tourism in 2002: Better than expected," WTO Madrid, 27 Jan 2003
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