Knowledge shall increase, yet the fruits are barren

"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

What does this mean, "knowledge shall increase"? Some scholars take it to mean we will have increased knowledge of the prophecies, since that part of the verse immediately precedes the phrase. And that is certainly happening as well. It seems that God is revealing understanding of His prophetic promises at an increasing rate.

It also could simply mean that one of the end times signs is that humanity will know more, seek more knowledge, and have more access to it than any other time preceding the end. Therefore, I made an examination: DO we know more? HAS knowledge increased? The answer is yes.

"In the nineteenth century, it took about fifty years to double the world's knowledge. Today, the base of knowledge doubles in less than a year."

That is an extremely interesting, and perhaps prophetic, statement.

This University Professor said: "We're all striving to keep up with the quantum leaps being made in all areas of knowledge. It's estimated that medical knowledge, for example, doubles every seven years, and scientific knowledge doubles every twenty years. The total written knowledge in the world is said to have doubled between 1450 and 1750, and then to have doubled again between 1750 and 1900. Between 1900 and 1950, human knowledge doubled once more, and then again from 1950 to 1975. Now, it is believed to double every 900 days. By the year 2020, global knowledge is predicted to double every 72 days!"

It seems that knowledge is increasing, but is wisdom increasing alongside? Discernment? No, not in my opinion. Not when Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club devolved over the last 230 years from a club initiated "to cultivate the social affections and cherish the feelings of friendship and patriotism" to what it is today, a no-holds barred anarchist spectacle of a burlesque. Not when we have to create an entire awards category named "The Darwin Awards" to highlight man's stupidity in the face of all this increased knowledge. With all this increased knowledge, we have gotten stupider.

We can launch men and women into space, land on other planets in search of knowledge, only to deny the God who made the universe. In the face of technology capable of delving into the universe's very depths, we use it instead to attempt to gain satisfaction from soulless gadgets. In the face of knowledge that would astound Socrates and Aristotle, we instead use it instead to perfect brain-dulling drugs, drink, tobacco, and fast food.

When God asked Solomon what gift God could give him, Solomon did not ask for knowledge. He asked for wisdom. In the face of all the richest blessings of knowledge this humanity has ever possessed, we have forgotten to ask for the key gift: wisdom in how to use it. Knowledge has surely increased. Yet we are not smarter, because we have left God out of the equation.

Peter reminded the disciples to "add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Peter outlines knowledge as a link in the progression from the beginning of faith, but by the time of the end, the progression has been vitiated.

In the forgetting to ask for these Godly additions to our knowledge, we have become barren and unfruitful. God knew that knowledge would increase, but it is not knowledge of Him that would be increasing. Colossians 1:10- "so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" but in the case of knowledge without God, the knowledge we gain profits a man but instead he has forfeited his own soul.