Technology is at the heart of why we should believe that Armageddon is coming soon. Consider this verse from the Book of Revelations:

“⁷Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. ⁸Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. ⁹For three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. ¹⁰The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.” (NIV)

Pay attention to verse nine in particular. How can people from all over the planet view the dead bodies of these two witnesses? Up until 60 years ago it was not possible. Now it is commonplace for us to see events real time from all over the planet.

Or consider this verse from the same book:

“²¹From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.” (NIV)

 I often wondered what kind of weather could be so bad that it produced 100 pound hailstones. Hailstones are formed by water drops that are caught in updrafts until they reach a height where they freeze and fall back to earth from their own weight. This process is repeated until they are too heavy to be sustained by the updraft and so fall to earth. That must be some updraft! But another explanation came to light for me recently when I was watching a program on a learning channel. This program was about the period of nuclear tests done during the cold war. There were 2 nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in the 1950's. The military set up a scenario with many ships on the ocean near the atoll to see the effect of an air burst explosion on sea going vessels. It turned out to be unsatisfactory so they set up a second test. This time the explosion was underwater. It had the desired effect on the fleet of vessels. But there was also another effect mentioned in conjunction with the blast. The extremely hot mushroom cloud ascended into the sky and the cap of it turned to ice. What fell on nearby areas were hailstones, some weighing as much as 100 pounds.

How about this creepy one when the fifth trumpet is blown:

“¹The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. ²When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. ³And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. ⁴They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. ⁵They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. ⁶During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.”

Not being an expert but this immediately puts me in mind of genetic manipulation. Do we accidently create this thing and it takes us 5 months to get it under control? Sounds like a John Carpenter movie to me. A simple search of the web will confirm the many weird combinations of species used in genetic experimentation today.

Many other examples abound, these are but three from one book in the bible. I believe these are a fair representation of my point. The increase in technology and knowledge has affected us morally as well. The distribution of knowledge without boundaries allows anything to be learned by anybody, even destructive behavior. The Book of Zohar (Book of Splendor) written by Rabbi Shimeon Bar Yochai (Rashbi) - (80-160 CE) gives us an interesting take on the current knowledge explosion:

“In the sixth century of the sixth millennium, the gates of the supernal wisdom will be opened, as will the springs of the earthly wisdom, preparing the world to be elevated in the seventh millennium” (Zohar I, 117a).

This verse is stating that the explosion of knowledge is actually God preparing the planet for the transition to the Millennium. This lends a lot more weight to the Angel’s charge to Daniel:

“¹ "At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. ² Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. ³ Those who are wise ^[a] will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. ⁴ But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge." (Daniel chap. 12 NIV)

 In light of our current times, verse four seems to imply more relevance to the overall picture than one sees at first blush.

So, while we run all over this planet and beyond, sticking our collective noses into any and everything, are we simply playing into the hands of God? Have we become too smart for our own good? In truth, we have opened Pandora’s Box and cannot put the lid back. If this is so, then we must play out the scenario; it has no other place to go but forward. The question then becomes, who will save us from ourselves?