We focus on Bible prophecy each week for about five-minutes, calling it a “Prophecy Update.”

We are considered futurists. We interpret the unfulfilled prophetic portions of the Book of the Revelation and the Book of Daniel, and all other unfulfilled prophecies, as yet future events in a literal, physical, apocalyptic, and global context.

We divide the Revelation into three sections, based on the outline the book gives itself in Revelation 1:19. There, the apostle John is instructed to “write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.” Following this three-part outline:

Chapter one contains John’s vision of the risen Christ and represents the past (“what you have seen”).

Chapters 2 and 3, which contain the letters to the seven churches, describe the present (“what is now”).

Chapters 4-22 describe events in the future (“what will take place later”).

There are many reasons for being futurists, but I like to point out the most important one: Jesus was a futurist. When He gave His great discourse on prophecy in Matthew 24 & 25, He quoted from Daniel as if the events prophesied were yet future and literal.

In fact, whenever someone in the Bible read unfulfilled prophecies, they understood them to be future and literal.

In the Revelation, the antichrist is referred to as “the Beast.” There is a prediction that a guy called “the false prophet” will make an image of the antichrist. He will be, “granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed” (13:15).

It may not be – but it sure sounds like Artificial Intelligence.

I was therefore fascinated by a recent article titled, Japan temple puts faith in robot priest.

Excerpts:

A 400-year-old temple in Japan is attempting to hot-wire interest in Buddhism with a robotic priest it believes will change the face of the religion – despite critics comparing the android to “Frankenstein’s monster.”

The android Kannon, based on the Buddhist deity of mercy, preaches sermons at Kodaiji temple in Kyoto, and its human colleagues predict that with artificial intelligence it could one day acquire unlimited wisdom.

“This robot will never die, it will just keep updating itself and evolving,” priest Tensho Goto told AFP.

“With AI we hope it will grow in wisdom to help people overcome even the most difficult troubles. It’s changing Buddhism,” added Goto.

The adult-sized robot began service earlier this year and is able to move its torso, arms and head.
But only its hands, face and shoulders are covered in silicone to replicate human skin. Clasping its hands together in prayer and speaking in soothing tones, the rest of the droid’s mechanical parts are clearly visible.

Wiring and blinking lights fill the cranial cavity of its open-top head and snake around its gender-neutral, aluminum body.

A tiny video camera installed in the left eye completes an eerie, cyborg-like frame seemingly lifted straight out of a dystopian Hollywood sci-fi thriller. 

Developed at a cost of almost $1m in a joint project between the Zen temple and renowned robotics professor Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, the humanoid – called Mindar – teaches about compassion and of the dangers of desire, anger and ego.

https://www.wionews.com/world/japan-temple-puts-faith-in-robot-priest-faces-criticism-242936

This kind of news is exactly what you expect from reading your Bible.

The times in which we are living are no time to spiritualize, or allegorize, the end times prophecies.

Jesus promised He’d return to rapture His church – which entails the resurrection of the dead in Christ of the Church Age, then the translation from earth to Heaven of all living believers.

It is presented in the Bible as an imminent (any-moment) event.

Are you ready for the rapture? If not, get ready, stay ready, and keep looking up. Ready or not, Jesus is coming!