Christians are encouraged to look for “the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). 

We look ahead to tomorrow, living with the awareness Jesus could come today.

One of the ways we look ahead to tomorrow is to consider the hundreds of unfulfilled prophecies in the Bible. We can expect the world to be moving in the direction predicted for the End Times.

We reserve a few minutes Sunday morning to suggest news, or trends, that seem to be predicted by our futurist reading of the Bible:

• To avoid sensationalism, we are careful to use recognized, reliable sources for news.
• We’re not saying the things we report are the fulfillment of prophecy. We’re saying that they are the things you’d expect to be happening in the build-up to the future seven year Time of Jacob’s Trouble.

Elon Musk has been on the leading edge of Artificial Intelligence. He said, “The pace of progress in artificial intelligence is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast – it is growing at a pace close to exponential.”

There is a fascinating prediction at the end of the OT Book of Daniel. The last chapter is about the last days, looking beyond today. An angel told Daniel, “knowledge shall increase.” 

It is a sign that we are accelerating towards the fulfillment of the rest of the Bible’s prophecies when a human knowledge is growing at a pace close to exponential.

Eliezer Yudkowsky said, “Anything that could give rise to smarter-than-human intelligence – in the form of Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or neuroscience-based human intelligence enhancement – wins hands down beyond contest as doing the most to change the world. Nothing else is even in the same league.”

Futurism Magazine said, “The common SyFy trope where AI tech creates its own AI until it reaches human levels of intelligence and eventually surpasses us is quickly becoming a reality. Many believe that it is really only a matter of time before the AI that we create can create AI more intelligent than us.”

Another article was titled, Artificial Intelligence: The Dawn of Humanity’s Greatest Invention.

Excerpts:   

Artificial intelligence has been called the new electricity by Andrew Ng the co-founder of Coursera and the founder of Landing AI and DeeplearningAI. Research by scientists at Oxford University showed that AI will exceed human capabilities at conducting surgeries by 2054, at selling online goods by 2031, and writing school essays by 2026. Companies are rushing to get ahead of the curve to maximize potential benefits promised by this new technology. 18% of all patent applications received by IBM were AI related.

You may have heard that Hollywood writers are on strike. They are concerned about Artificial Intelligence taking over their jobs. “They’re demanding that use of artificial intelligence in the production of literary materials – scripts, treatments, outlines – be restricted, whether that AI is used to write works or to generate story ideas.”

Then there’s this. DailyMailUK posted a story titled, World is on the verge of a contemporary faith started by an AI writing its own sacred texts, historian claims. 

There is a lot we could say about AI. My point today is this: the Bible predicted about 2500 years ago that the last days would be characterized by an exponential growth of knowledge. We have reached the point with AI where it can’t get much more exponential.

One final quote. James Barrat, author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, told the Washington Post, “I don’t want to really scare you, but it was alarming how many people I talked to who are highly placed people in AI who have retreats that are sort of ‘bug out’ houses, to which they could flee if it all hits the fan.”

The resurrection and rapture of the church are imminent. It could happen any moment; nothing needs to happen before it.

Jesus will come, in the clouds, and raise the dead believers of the Church Age.

He will transform the bodies of living believers to glorified, resurrection bodies. We will join Him in Heaven while the earth endures one final seven- year campaign of severe evangelism.

Are you ready for the rapture? If not, Get ready; Stay ready; Keep looking up.

Ready or not, Jesus is coming!