“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
In my last message we looked at how the increase of knowledge is a major sign of the Lord’s imminent return. It is the sign that heralds the beginning of the End Times. This increase of knowledge is not just in the secular realm but in the spiritual realm as well. In fact its because of the world being enlightened spiritually that man has become more inventive, hence the increase of knowledge.
Increase in
SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE
Not only has secular knowledge increased, but spiritual knowledge as well. One of the results of this increase in knowledge has been that we now have many translations of the Bible available for us today. In the 1950s the most common bible used by the Western Church was the King James Version. Unfortunately for many, it was hard to understand with its ancient English language. All the ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ and ‘verily s’ were confusing for the modern generation. Now we have the New King James version that makes it a lot plainer, along with the New International version, and the Living Bible to name a few. I love the Passion translation of the bible, especially when it comes to the Song of Songs and the Psalms.
“And that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.” Acts 3:20-21
I believe that we are now in that time just before the coming of the Lord spoken of in the book of Acts. The time of the restoration of all things.
To fully appreciate this you have to realise how dark the world was spiritually 600 years ago. The church was barely a shadow of what it used to be. With the invention of the printing press, so much has changed. The entrance of God’s word into mankind brought light. In 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on the Church door at Wittenberg. The Reformation began and the Church saw that we could be saved by faith and it was not by works. In 1511 AD while Luther was in the city of Rome he saw things that appalled him and this prompted him to write sermons against the system. He was shocked at the Indulgences of the Pope who claimed that they could remit or lessen ones time in purgatory, for this was their exclusive power. Certificates were issued by the Pope pardoning sin even without confession or repentance. Money was collected to free souls from purgatory with the claim that as soon as you heard the coins clink in the chest, they would rise up to heaven.
Martin Luther
From then on we have had the restoration of water baptisms, world wide evangelism, healings and then the baptism of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues at the beginning of the last century. All these things had been lost for hundreds of years.
Christ is building His Church
At midnight on the eve of the 20th century there was a watch night service at a Bible College in Kansas. They were praying for a new Spirit filled move of God. A lady asked to be baptised in the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues. She was touched by God and ended up speaking in tongues for 3 days in Chinese, which she had never spoken before. This was indeed a sign. From the fruit of this outpouring the Azura Street Revival began and this changed the face of the Church worldwide.
They were praying for the Baptism of the Spirit with speaking in tongues
Since then we have had the Welsh Revival, healing ministries and the recognising of Prophets and Apostles once more in the Church. The teaching that healing was for today had not been taught for hundreds of years, and to be recognised as a Prophet was considered presumptuous.
The teaching on the grace of God was very important, as even the Pentecostal Churches had become very legalistic. Due to the damage done by the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages the teaching of a body ministry was definitely in need of a restoration. In those dark days the Priest did everything while the people just sat back and watched, but now there is a restoration of the body ministry of believers. We are all a holy Priesthood.
The Welsh Revival 1905 AD
The Welsh Awakening is worth noting. Revival spread from Wales as far away as some parts of the USA. In Wales 10% of the population were saved. That’s 222,500 people. 70,000 were added to the Church in two months, 85,000 in five months, and 100,000 in six months. In 1904 there were 11,000 cases of drunkenness recorded in Wales, but in 1908, there were only were only 5000. Taverns were closed and policemen were unemployed. Because there were none to convict in the courthouses, the Judges wore white gloves. Mules that drew coal out of the mines were so used to being given orders by swearing, that when most of the men came under conviction of sin and didn’t swear anymore, the mules stopped working, as they didn’t understand the new language. In the USA there were meetings of up to 180,000 people at one time. In Jersey, Atlanta City, out of 60,000 people in the city, only 50 weren’t saved. In Philadelphia, the Methodists had 10,000 converts and young people’s meetings rose by 300%.
Up until the 1800s the Church had virtually ignored the heathen, leaving them to the wrath of God! When Captain Cook and other explorers discovered the ‘New World’ this opened up new territory in the South Pacific and other parts of the world for the gospel to be preached.
The new world was opened up in the 1800s
William Carey was one of the forerunners of the missionary thrust to the world. He was a humble Shoe Maker who read in the Bible that Christians were to evangelise the world;
“go into the entire World and preach the Gospel to every creature.” Matthew 28:19
William Carey
He went to India, and through his ministry the first Mission Society was formed. After this a lot of other Bible Societies were formed and many Bibles were sent into foreign lands.
1804 AD THE FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY Sent out 650 million Bibles
1861 AD THE SCOTTISH BIBLE SOCIETY Sent out 170 Million Bibles
1881 AD THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY Sent out 400 million Bibles
Bible Societies were being formed at this time
Many men and women went into all the World as Missionaries during this period. There were famous names as Hudson Taylor (China). Livingston (Africa) Marsden (South Pacific), to name just a few.
Go into all the World
In 1830 AD there was a move of God in New York and Boston through the preaching of Finney. Because of these Spiritual awakenings there were many changes in society, such as the freeing of slaves and improved working conditions, especially for children.
In 1885 AD there arose a great preacher called Spurgeon, who had a Church that seated 6000 people. D. L. Moody was another great man of God who travelled millions of miles preaching to over 1 million souls in his lifetime. Other great men of God were William Booth, Andrew Murray, Wesley and George Whitfield: Whitfield was an Anglican minister who had the pulpit closed to him when he started preaching the gospel, so he went into the streets where 1000's came to his meetings. Once in Edinburgh he preached to 40,000 people in one service. In recent times we have had the amazing ministries of Billy Graham, Oral Roberts and Katherine Kuhlman to name a few.
It was through the waking up of the Church and the printing of the bible that mankind came out of her secular darkness. Unfortunately as time went by man worshipped the work of his own hands instead of the God who had enlightened him. As knowledge has increased more and more there has been so many different translations of the bible and hundreds of Christian Books and magazines.
Christian Television is now available
As far as spiritual knowledge is concerned there is so much available today that other generations would have envied. There are not only Christian Radio Stations here in New Zealand like Radio Rhema in every region, but also Christian Television like Shine TV. On the internet you can watch hundreds of Christian TV Channels from all around the world in just about every language.
YouTube has opened up Christian teachings from all around the world and again with the internet we can live stream a Church Service from virtually any country.
We also have access to thousands of Christian songs through YouTube and Spotify to name a few.
30 years ago I needed a whole pile of books to prepare a sermon, but now I have them all on my smart phone. I have untold translations of the bible, concordances, Greek and Hebrew and untold bible maps at my fingertips on my phone. I can also do my internet banking and even pay my tithes while travelling overseas. These are amazing days. We are so blessed.
I can do most things now on my mobile phone
The question I want to ask you is this? Are we using all this knowledge for the advancement of the Kingdom? The danger is that we can be tempted with too much secular knowledge and have no time to digest spiritual knowledge. Timothy said that in the Last Days men would be ‘ever learning’ but never coming to the ‘knowledge of the truth.’ There is so much fake news and fantasy out there that fills our thought life.
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.. Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 2 Timothy 3:7
Jesus is the Truth and He wants us to fill our minds with the excellency of the knowledge of Himself, but we can be tempted to over indulge on secular knowledge. We have to make the right choices.
We eat so much spiritual junk food
I remember when my boys were young we lived in Kadoma, Zimbabwe. There was a lady opposite us who was a great cook. In the afternoons our boys would go over there to play as she was good with children. The trouble was she was feeding them cookies. When it came to our main meal at night they weren’t hungry anymore. My wife and I couldn’t understand why they weren’t hungry for the good food. The trouble was they were eating too much junk food. I can see that in these days we need to be careful to eat the right spiritual food, as too much junk food will take away our hunger for the word of God. We need to create a hunger in our hearts. There is so much information out there so we need to discipline ourselves so as to enjoy the right stuff.
My wife and I went on a media fast once that changed our lives. For a whole month we only watched and read Christian material and didn’t watch any news and it really made a difference to our spiritual health. One of the obvious fruits of this was that unbelief began melt away. ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.’ We do live in amazing times, but too much of a good thing can kill us. We need to let the word of God dwell in us richly.
Desire the milk of God’s word
“as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,” 1 Peter 2:2
Let us seize the day for we have such an opportunity to grow in Christ like no other generation before us. I think of that verse that says to those who have been given much, much will be required. We have so much today but are we taking advantage of it?
"From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded" Luke 12:48