We reserve a few minutes Sunday morning to suggest news, or trends, that seem to be predicted by a literal, futurist reading of the Bible.
We are careful to use recognized, reliable sources for news. There is a lot of sensationalism surrounding unfulfilled Bible prophecy, and we don’t want to add to it.
We’re not saying the things we report are the fulfillment of prophecy – only that they are the things you’d expect in light of the Bible’s unfulfilled prophecies.
There is an intriguing passage in the Revelation about an idol, a guy we call the false prophet, and the Beast – another name of the antichrist.
Apparently an image of the Beast is going to come to “life”:
Rev 13:14 And [the false prophet] deceives those who dwell on the earth – by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.
Rev 13:15 He was 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.
It sounds a lot like what we would call Artificial Intelligence; AI for short.
Elon Musk is at the forefront of AI. We’ve reported on his brain-interface company, NeuralLink, in previous updates. A recent article was titled, Elon Musk trots out pigs in demo of NeuraLink brain implants.
Excerpts:
Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface company NeuraLink showcased a pig outfitted with the company’s device, at an event livestreamed on YouTube.
The design of the Neuralink device has changed since it was unveiled last year, rendering the device itself hard to see on Gertrude. It is now coin-shaped, and meant to sit flush with the skull, rather than having a small module resting near the ear.
It’s “like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires,” Musk said. The device can pair with a smartphone app over Bluetooth Low Energy, he said.
… the most important thing the device might be able to do, Musk said, would be to let people achieve what he calls “AI symbiosis,” which allows the human brain to merge with an artificial intelligence.
“Such that the future of the world is controlled by the combined will of the people of Earth – I think that that’s obviously gonna be the future that we want,” he said.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/28/21406143/elon-musk-neuralink-ai-pigs-demo-brain-computer-interface
It’s interesting that the passage in the Bible says, “those who dwell on the earth… make an image to the beast,” and Musk says, “the controlled will of the people” is best served by AI.
Musk is on record, calling AI humanity’s “biggest existential threat” and comparing it to “summoning the demon.” He and others – like the late Stephen Hawking – are concerned AI will quickly surpass humans and take over, like they do in every SyFy show.
While we are on the subject of AI, let’s recall an end times prophecy by Daniel. He was told, “shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (12:4). In terms of knowledge increasing, listen to this:
A sudden and unexpected AI “intelligence explosion” might take an unprepared human race by surprise. To illustrate, if the first generation of a computer program able to broadly match the effectiveness of an AI researcher is able to rewrite its algorithms and double its speed or capabilities in six months, then the second-generation program is expected to take three calendar months to perform a similar chunk of work. In this scenario the time for each generation continues to shrink, and the system undergoes an unprecedentedly large number of generations of improvement in a short time interval, jumping from subhuman performance in many areas to superhuman.
Superhuman AI. It’s Ultron but there are no Avengers.
We’re not saying the image of the Beast will involve AI. We’re saying that developments like AI are what you’d expect from reading your Bible.
We believe the resurrection and rapture of the church is imminent. It could happen any moment; nothing needs to happen before it. It will definitely happen before the Tribulation.
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!