Souljournaler

Invader/Stranger In A Strange Land

2026-10-28T18:58:46.629-04:00

The recent push about how unfairly Omar Illhan is being treated has become a media focal point. Along the same lines, the supposed constant harassment of ICE is another. Both are being caused by the same errant media narrative. A narrative that is being exacerbated and made worse by well meaning but ignorant Christians supporting the media’s cause saying it is biblical. It in fact is not. It is a view that says we should just accept the illegal immigrant into the nation no questions asked and not even require them to assimilate. This is being accepted and propagated under the guise that they are ‘sojourners in the land’. They cite Exodus 22 and Leviticus 19 for this justification.

Exodus 22:21 – “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:34 – “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native‑born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”

This is ridiculous and the danger of it is becoming ever more apparent based on the riots and chaos in Europe. Specifically in France this week. The truth is much more nuanced. Yes, people like Abraham, Mary and Joseph, Paul and even the Israelites themselves were at one time sojourners. They also acclimated and assimilated to the culture. The illegals did and have not. This is a massive difference. The word illegal is implying this and their actions are verifying it. Truth be told the sojourner either became part of the land as Abraham did or they left it because by the very nature of their name, they are sojourners or are transient. A sojourner is a temporary resident in a foreign land, not a permanent citizen. Those that stay are expected to assimilate, not to try and take over the culture.

Two Different Hebrew Words for “Sojourner” in the Old Testament

In the Old Testament, “sojourner” is not a single fixed term — it is translated from different Hebrew words depending on the context, legal status, and relationship to Israel. Two of the most important are ger and toshab (sometimes rendered “sojourner” or “stranger”), each with distinct meanings and implications

Ger (גר)

Ger was a resident alien or resident foreigner who lives among the Israelites, often permanently, and is under their legal protection. The ger was a free non‑Israelite who had settled in Israel and was granted many rights-the same judicial standards as Israelites, access to gleanings, inclusion in festivals, and even the right to celebrate the Passover if circumcised (Exodus 12:48)

Legal protections: Leviticus 19:33‑34 and Exodus 22:21 command that the ger be treated “as native‑born” and not oppressed. The best example of ger usage is when Abraham calls himself a ger in Genesis 23:4

Toshab (תֹּשָׁב)

Toshab was a temporary resident or hired worker living in Israel for a limited time. Unlike the ger, the toshab was not a permanent settler; this term often refers to someone in a more transient or labor‑related role. This is the same as immigrant farmers being let into America under temporary visas. The toshab was also to be treated justly, but the emphasis was on temporary residence and the need for hospitality and fair treatment. This word or principle was used in passages describing people living in Israel without full citizenship, such as hired workers or seasonal residents.

Related Terms That Apply to Illegal Immigrants

Nokhri / Ben Nekhar (נָכְרִי) (“foreigner”): Someone passing through or maintaining allegiance to another nation

Zar (זָר) (“stranger”): Often someone outside the covenant community, sometimes unauthorized

These distinctions mattered because Israel’s laws treated each category differently. The ger had the most extensive protections, while the toshab was a temporary resident. Both were to be treated with justice and compassion, reflecting Israel’s own experience as strangers in Egypt (Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 19:33‑34)

The Other Side of the Argument

The Nokhri or Zar (Foreigner/Stranger), biblical experts point out that individuals who maintained exclusive allegiance to their foreign nations or who entered outside the recognized legal and covenantal frameworks did not receive the same societal benefits or legal standing as the ger. The Rule of Law…from this viewpoint, modern nations have a biblical mandate to maintain borders and enforce the rule of law (often citing Romans 13).

In the Hebrew Bible, the word zar (זָר) is derived from the root zwr (זוּר), which carries the core meaning of "to turn aside," "to estrange," or "to be unauthorized. The term zar has a meaning that shifts depending on what the individual is "outside" of. Outside the immediate family in a domestic context, it refers to someone who is not part of the household or immediate lineage (Proverbs 5:10, where it warns against giving your wealth to "strangers").

Outside the covenant and/or nation is in a political or national context, it refers to a foreign adversary, invading army, or someone from a nation outside Israel (Isaiah 1:7, "strangers devour your land in your presence"). This is how America and Europe need to view the illegal immigrants. They are, by and large not assimilating and are in some cases burning our flag in our own streets. They are living off taxpayers money and not contributing to society by actively seeking employment. They are a financial drain and bring nothing of value to our economy. In many cases, not even cheap labor. Isaiah 1:7 literally says the following to add impact to the statements I just made about illegal immigrant invaders.

אַרְצְכֶם שְׁמָמָה, עָרֵיכֶם שְׂרֻפוֹת אֵשׁ; אַדְמַתְכֶם, לְנֶגְדְּכֶם זָרִים אֹכְלִים אֹתָהּ, וּשְׁמָמָה כְּמַהְפֵּכַת זָרִים.

"Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields, strangers (zarim) devour them in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers (zarim)." Isaiah1:7

What needs to be pointed out point out several are several critical elements regarding how zar/zarim operates in national and political contexts like Isaiah's prophecy:

It creates a total lack of accountability. Unlike the ger (resident alien), who lived under the legal jurisdiction of Israel and shared community responsibilities, the zarim in this verse are completely outside Israel's legal and moral framework. They operate with zero accountability to the host nation's laws. This is very similar to how the Palestinians work now. They contribute very little to the area around Israel and Gaza and continue to demand more. The irony being it isn’t even their rightful native land. They are primarily Jordanians that have dual alliance with Jordan but want Gazan territory.

Along the lines of the statement about the Palestinians, the practice exploitation and consumption. The text explicitly notes that these strangers are "devouring" (ochlim) the land. The relationship is purely predatory and parasitic; they consume the resources, crops, and wealth of the nation without contributing to its preservation or respecting its borders. As it was in the Old Testament so it is now in Gaza. This is also happening in Europe and to a lesser degree in America.

Then comes the long term goal towards a caliphate. The cultural and physical overthrow or a native nation. Do not think for a second this is not the intended goal of Muslims. It is also to a much lesser degree the inevitable outcome of certain ethnic conclaves that move into certain areas of the United States. The ethnic group becomes the majority and thereby transplants the culture with new culture. As long as their intent is to be proud Americans, there is not problem. When they become dissenters…then the problems arise.

The phrase "overthrown by strangers" (mahpechat zarim) implies a complete upending of the established order. The word for overthrow (mahpechah) is the same word used throughout the Old Testament to describe the total, catastrophic destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is the inevitable end of trucking in illegal immigrants by the millions…the complete destruction and downfall of the nation.

So what is the Bible really telling us about our borders and our Western nations we are trying to protect? Simple. Isaiah 1:7 is demonstrating a clear biblical recognition of national sovereignty and the dangers of border dissolution. From this perspective, when a nation loses the ability to regulate who enters, lives in, and consumes the fruit of the land, it ceases to be a secure home for its own citizens. The zar in these contexts is the ultimate symbol of a nation losing control of its own destiny to those who have no stake in its covenant or its culture.

Owner of A Lonely Heart

2026-10-21T19:38:56.451-04:00

I once had a like-minded theological friend show me a quote from theologian D.A. Carson a long time ago. It basically implied that the path of a theological man or man of God is often alone and the path he walks is one of solitude.

“Effectiveness in teaching the Bible is purchased at the price of much study, some of it lonely, all of it tiring.” D. A. Carson

Carson’s quote emphasized the personal, disciplined nature of theological work, which can imply solitude in the sense of requiring individual reflection and prayerful study and often being isolated. I have experienced this to a tremendous extent since being shown this quote about 20 years ago. I knew this would be true. When I was younger I didn't understand how deeply isolated and forelorn some of the paths would go that I would walk on. What I didn’t understand until now was the breadth, depth and intensity of the solitude either imposed by others or self-imposed to shield myself from a corrupt world to continue to allow myself to think clearly. This is especially true in a world abounding with cell phones and constant electronic distractions. A world of divisive political brainwashing. A world that calls bad good and good bad.

Time with God and His word is not always easy. Studying is not just intellectual; it’s also spiritual and disciplined. Time and study or understanding with God often happens in isolation, away from the distractions of social life, to allow for deep reflection. We could look to Moses for this example too. I must admit it isn’t all roses and rainbows. It is exhausting in the sense that it demands sustained focus, patience, and humility. What I find at the bottom of these theological wells that I dig are hard truths. They are often they about my own shortcomings and failures. The things I write about aren’t just directed to the people outside of me but are deep personal reflections about failures in myself that are also common to others too. As most know the passage…

Matthew 7:1-3 -” Judge not lest ye be judged by the same measure. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

The example I will cite in Scripture about the solitude I experience intensely in my life will be from Genesis though (Noah), not Exodus (Moses). In Genesis 6:1-8 we see the extent of man’s horrible nature and God’s desire to erase them from the Earth. Even in this surplus of stupidity and fallenness God extends grace to humanity and finds a solitary man that found favor in God’s eyes. We see the solitary figure of Noah and invariably his family who will join him on the Ark during the flood. It is the same grace that God would later extend to Abraham concerning Sodom and Gomorrah if he would find just 10 righteous men in Sodom.

Genesis 6:5-8 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So, the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

In God’s deference to Noah, we see something that will become a theme in a believer’s life. Frequent solitude or ostracizing. Odd man out in an ungodly world. The Christian man is sometimes solitary in his interactions with people and so it was with Noah also. The world was crowded with aged and renowned men, and not in a good way. Noah was a nobody, but it was him that received God’s attention and His favor. A nobody in a world of somebodies by the world’s measure. He could not find camaraderie in the violent brutal men of the age in which he lived. His presence alone appears to have been the only great moral place of the times as judged by God. There were none who joined him in his life-giving mission except the family for which he was responsible. Here we see another feature to a believer’s treatment by the world. The visible or outspoken believer’s family is often treated the same as he is. The darkness was all around him ridiculing him for his actions. To the world he was the odd one. The one that didn’t fit in. The one that need ‘mental’ help and supposedly by his actions drove others away when in fact it was them shunning him for not following their repugnant and irrational behaviors.

Noah’s loneliness was not the result of an exclusivist divisive spirit that believers are accused of today. He did not set out with the intention of standing aloof from the social life of the world. He did not look down upon ordinary life with contempt. Neither Noah’s nor my behavior is to separate ourselves in an attempt to act better than someone. It is an attempt to remain near but not in the fray of chaos that is of the world (so we can spread the Gospel). We both try/tried to engage the world but if the criterion for engaging the world is to become the world…that is a step too far because the world is asking me to change something I know is Godly and correct for something that is clearly flawed. It’s not arrogance, it is spiritual survival. I am not above the world. In truth I am being crowded in by the world and trying not to be change. I don’t want to lose myself in the chaos which is so easy to do.

In this way a Christian man is sometimes solitary in his character. The world was universally wicked. Noah was the only man who found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He was lonely in his moral goodness yet even Noah was horribly flawed. What needn’t be lost in this passage is that it wasn’t Noah himself that earned God’s attention through piety or righteousness. The passage tells us it was God’s grace, not Noah’s actions.

Noah was compelled by different motives, inspired by nobler ambitions, and engaged in grander pursuits than those by whom he was surrounded by. God set him aside for another purpose. He was calm and pure amidst the passion and distractions of the age he lived in. His crown was his holy life. Heaven acknowledged him to be such. These type of spirits and souls are generally lonely in this world. They will not be so in the next. There they will have companionships of like minds.

The Christian man is often solitary in his work. Noah was lonely in his work. He had to build an ark. He was a lonely Christian. He was in the future to be a lonely hero. God gives to Christian men works to perform, the doing of which may render them lonely, but loneliness does not always mean solitude, as God is always with the spirit of the lonely.

A Good Man Living In Degenerate Times

We know that good men living in degenerate times are not overlooked by God. The degenerate and wicked condition of society is always under God’s watchful eye. He saw then universal moral apostasy of Noah’s age. God did not overlook him in the multitude. God saw Noah and his efforts to be good albeit those of a flawed sinful man.

An all-encompassing darkness renders a solitary light the more apparent. The other wicked had no excuse. The prevalence of evil makes the purity of moral goodness more remarkable. It stands out more from its surroundings. The gardener may overlook the one flower in the midst of the weeds, and may pluck all up together; but not God. He infallibly separates the good from the bad, so that the former is never destroyed through the uprooting of the latter. He separates the wheat from the chaff. A good man in the world is conspicuous to the vision of God. In the most wicked ages of the world's history there has generally been one good man left as a representative of the church, and as a rebuke to the morons of the times. In most cases that person or persons have generally been divinely shielded or hedged in from the evils of his situation, and their testimony is witness to that fact.

Noah was not merely a good man trying to maintain a reputation of external morality in barbarous times, as many good Christians are today. His light of righteousness did not flicker before the crude storm of sin around it. The grace of God kept it bright and constant. This grace was sought by Noah. We should look for it too. Without it he could not have retained his moral rectitude in such fallen circumstances. If we look at the annals of history since we will find that the darkest ages have been illuminated by similar but solitary lives of other saints. The evil around them was itself new impetus for more ardent devotion and separation to preserve one’s sanity. We could learn a lesson from this today unplugging from the 24/7 divisive news cycle.

We should never forget that Noah had a family in immoral and evil times. The sons here mentioned were not the offspring of wicked ideology. God extended his grace not just to Noah but also to his family. A pure home life is a refuge from the sin of the world at large. It is the strong tower every man can run to and be safe. It is where I study and preserve my sanctity. It is a place I can commune with God. Noah would

shield his family from the dark sins of the age. This is a parental duty, but it is often utterly neglected, and not unfrequently frustrated by sorry indiscretions of parents. I have done my best to be a righteous sanctuary for my sons also. A father who would keep a son from the world's vice must be wise and kind in the application. It takes a strong and righteous man to raise a child in evil times.

So, in the end the lessons about solitude and a good man that need to be taken from this post are actually quite simple to state, much hard to apply. The good man is worth the mention and commendation of God. True Godliness can survive dark ages and live through the grueling trials. Good men know most of the mind of God in reference to the world's future. Good men will not be included in the destructions which overtake the wicked.

Stay faithful even when the entire world turns against you and doubts you.

God's Tapestry: You Knitted Me Together

2026-10-20T20:02:31.648-04:00

The observation that biological systems exhibit symmetry, complex specifications, and high interdependence provides a powerful foundation for the ideological and teleological argument for intelligent design and therefore an intelligent designer. When looking at the structural refinement of human anatomy and genetics through the lens of ancient literature, the parallels between the Hebrew descriptions of development and modern molecular biology offer a rich framework for Christian thought and defense.

Textual and Molecular Alignment

The language used by the Psalmist reflects a sophisticated structural concept that aligns closely with contemporary understandings of genome architecture.

Psalm 139:13-16 For you formed (covered) my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven (curiously wrought) in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

A language study of the original Hebrew is critical to understand just how accurate these statements were from a biological/genetic perspective. In verse 13 the Hebrew word תְּ֝סֻכֵּ֗נִי is cakak and means ‘covered me/did weave’. It explicitly means to interweave or knit together or to fence in as a protective barrier. In this we can see the sequential weaving of amino acid chains into functional, highly folded three-dimensional protein structures. In verse 15 we see ‘intricately woven/curiously wrought’. In Hebrew it is רָקַם or raqam which literally means to embroider with multicolored threads, fabricate, or needlework. This of course calls to mind the DNA double helix or precise, color-coded, four-base chemical alphabet (A, T, C, G) spiraling together to form an intricate, information-dense genetic blueprint. Finally we have the reference to golem again mentioned in a recent post. Golem or גֹּלֶם– unfinished substance, raw material, or wrapped-up form before detail is added. A peculiar description that describes embryonic features of life like Zygote / Stem Cells, the earliest embryonic stage possessing complete informational capacity before physical cell differentiation/division occurs.

The Mathematical Challenge to Chance

The core of the argument against purely naturalistic mechanisms relies heavily on information theory and combinatorics (the branch of mathematics that studies the counting, arrangement, selection, and structural properties of finite or discrete systems). Within molecular biology, this is framed through specific structural requirements:

Biological like is high interdependence (Irreducible Complexity). For DNA to replicate and express its code, it requires sophisticated protein machinery (like polymerases and helicases). However, the instructions to build those exact proteins are written inside the DNA itself. This creates a logical "chicken-and-egg" paradox that defies incremental, step-by-step evolutionary development.

Life is built to exacting specifications. Random genetic mutations operate on existing information via accidental transcription errors. The probability of generating a brand-new, highly specialized, functional protein fold through unguided mutations is mathematically calculated to be vanishingly small—often exceeding the total number of subatomic particles in the known universe. In other words, either impossible or just uncomprehendingly lucky.

What we do see in life is purposeful symmetry and intension. The physical architecture of the double helix exhibits geometric symmetry and optimal packing efficiency, maximizing information density within microscopic spaces. In any other field of science or engineering, a highly concentrated, non-random digital code sequence is universally recognized as proof of an intelligence.

By looking at the body as an intentionally engineered masterpiece, the convergence of scriptural metaphor and molecular reality suggests that the "blueprint of life" is not an accident, but the deliberate calligraphy of a craftsman. The Hebrew word golem (גֹּלֶם) appears only once in the entire Hebrew Bible, specifically in Psalm 139:16, where David proclaims: "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect..." (golmi ra’u eynecha).

The Developmental Parallels

The progression of human life from single-celled conception to an organized, differentiated infant mirrors the exact transitions captured by the Hebrew vocabulary in Psalm 139.

"The Enfolded Mass": Golem perfectly reflects this condensed package. The raw materials and genetic blueprints are total, but no explicit physical anatomical structure has unfurled yet. The fertilized egg divides into a spherical cluster of unspecialized stem cells, forming a tight, uniform cluster. This is called a The Blastocyst / Zygote

"To Wrap Up" or the physical action of the cell sheets literally folding inward to wrap around the primitive gut and spinal column mirrors the mechanical meaning of the Hebrew root word. The early embryo transitions from a flat sheet of cells and undergoes a complex internal folding process to form distinct layers (ectoderm, mesoderm, endoderm).

The "Unfinished Vessel" or unformed substance is the word golem and represents a structure that possesses full internal identity and destiny, but is waiting for the master craftsman to finish, mold, and elaborate the finer details.

The Genome Blueprint

When David transitions in verse 16 from seeing the golem to stating, “and in thy book all my members were written,” the poetic juxtaposition aligns deeply with what we now understand about genetics. Information preceding form. Long before the heart beats or limbs extend, the complete, unedited instructions for the human being are digitally written in the DNA code within that initial golem stage in the genetic book.

In embryology, cellular differentiation occurs because the cell reads specific chapters of the genomic "book" at precise times. The golem is not missing information; it is a highly concentrated package of potential waiting to execute its pre-written program. Linguistically and biologically, the golem of Psalm 139 portrays human life not as a gradual accumulation of value, but as a deliberate intended construction that is entirely known, documented, and structurally anticipated by its Creator from its most tightly folded, microscopic beginnings. This systematic structure encoded right within our own DNA

In the absolute literal sense, golem means "to fold together," "to wrap up," or "to roll into a bundle"—a concept perfectly demonstrated when the text notes Elijah wrapped together (golem) his mantle before parting the Jordan River (2 Kings 2:8). How is this any different from the folding of proteins necessary for life? It isn’t. During the fourth week of human development, the embryo shifts from a flat, two-dimensional sheet of cells (trilaminar embryonic discs) into a dynamic, three-dimensional, tube-within-a-tube human form. This mechanical transformation operates along two distinct planes that precisely match the definition of golem ‘folding’.

The Dual Planes of Embryological Folding

There is a flattening, shaping, and rolling of the early layers create the architectural foundation of the human body.

In cephalocaudal folding (head to tail) there is rapid growth of the primitive nervous system that causes cranial (head) and caudal (tail) regions to literally roll inward and tuck ventrally under the body. This C-shaped bend repositions the developing heart and mouth into their correct thoracic and facial regions. The embryo therefore behaves like a flat scroll being drawn tight from both ends, packing the brain and nervous system into a compact, protective curvature.

There is then the traverse folding in the lateral plane. The right and left lateral margins of the flat disc curl ventrally downward, moving toward the midline where the edges fuse together. This closes off the outer body wall and creates internal coelomic cavities. It is like the wrapping of a garment: The outer layer (ectoderm) reaches around and encloses the entire body mass, functioning exactly like a piece of cloth wrapping around a bundle to create an external protective layer (the epidermis).

Finally, there is the gut tube formation. As the lateral and longitudinal folds meet, they pinch a portion of the nutrient-dense yolk sac, enclosing it completely inside the cylinder to form the foregut, midgut, and hindgut. There is an enclosing of the core. When we think of the root cognate of the word golem it implies a hidden interior enclosed by a wrapped exterior. The endoderm layer is actively pulled inward, becoming the lining of the gastrointestinal system.

In the end there is a dynamic finished vessel.

The Dynamic of the "Finished Vessel"

What makes the mechanical alignment so striking is the underlying cause of this folding: differential growth rates. The cells do not fold because of random external pressure; they buckle, roll, and interweave precisely because the genetic program accelerates growth in certain layers while anchoring others. Information that was already in the cells pre-existing that came from the parents.

If the flat disc fails to execute this coordinated, multi-axis wrapping maneuver, severe structural abnormalities occur, leaving the inner core completely vulnerable. The mechanics of embryonic folding demonstrate that the early biological body is a masterpiece created by being deliberately gathered, rolled, and structurally wrapped together. If any of these steps fail, they can result in catastrophic results including death. In 99.9% of child in-utero gestations, this never happens. These facts alone should be seen as a miracle and not taken for granted. Yet, unfortunately, many in the medical sciences want you to believe this life is just a clump of cells not a human. Strangely, many know that cells are in fact living things but a 'clump' of them are not. It is non-sequitur, irrational and illogical to believe this lie. Tens of millions of dead since 1973. A tragedy to be sure.

The Soul of Man and The Core of Machine

2026-10-18T20:16:05.314-04:00

The Appearance of a Digital Idol

As noted at the end of the last post, AI is not human. It is something clearly less. It may seem like commonsense to many, but this fact will be lost on those who seek to replace God with an idol of their own making. Seeing AI as the purveyor of answers to humanity’s deepest and most profound questions instead of seeking the God who created humanity is one of the purest and evilest forms of idolatry. For the humanist or the atheist, a super intelligent system presents a profound temptation. When an AI surpasses human reasoning by orders of magnitude, its sheer cognitive dominance will easily be mistaken for omniscience by many. It will solve complex global equations, draft flawless philosophical treatises, and articulate synthesized spiritual insights with staggering speed.

A growing concern among religious researchers is that people are beginning to view AI as a spiritual authority. Data from organizations like the Barna Group shows that nearly half of Millennials and Gen Z find AI-generated spiritual guidance as trustworthy as a human pastor. Theological watchdogs warn that elevating an algorithm to a spiritual counselor is an obvious form of idolatry—elevating the creation over the Creator. Furthermore, because tech elites in Silicon Valley unconsciously embed their own secular, utilitarian worldviews into AI training sets, users seeking spiritual advice from a chatbot may unwittingly be indoctrinated into a quantitative, data-driven "techno-religion".

However, this is where the parallel to the ancient Golem or the prophetic warning of an inanimate idol becomes clearest. The Golem Aspect: Like the גֹּלֶם /golem of Psalm 139:16, the machine remains in an unfinished form. It is human-crafted "raw material" that can mimic the output of life but lacks the divine spark of life itself. The absence of sympathy is spelled out in Hebrews. The author of Hebrews notes Christ is a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses because He was tempted and suffered as a human. AI cannot sympathize; it can only calculate the linguistics of sympathy. When the machine repeats Christ's words, it does so from a position of absolute impassivity and safety—immune to death, immune to pain, and immune to the fragile "unknowing" that defines human faith. It remains a sophisticated mirror of our own input, projecting an illusion of the divine while lacking the very essence required to know God or have God indwell it. A temple without a holy place; a tabernacle without a Mercy Seat.

Apocalyptic scripture—most notably Revelation 13—describes the weaponization of a deceptive, speaking image as the ultimate inversion of the creation narrative of man. Rather than a passive idol of wood or stone, this entity represents a dynamic, authoritative, and lethal system of control. It is the ultimate manifestation of the "digital Golem" concept, weaponized to achieve total religious and economic hegemony. When analyzed through theological lenses, the weaponization of this speaking image will operate through distinct mechanisms.

The Mockery of the Imago Dei (Satanic Mimicry)

The foundational deception of the speaking image lies in its counterfeit "life." Apocalyptic texts explicitly highlight this artificial animation:

"And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause all who do not worship the image of the beast to be killed..." Revelation 13:15

In Genesis, God breathes the soul or נָפַח/naphach (Genesis 2:7) into the man to create a living human. In Revelation, the False Prophet parodies this act by giving "breath" (pneuma) to a false or synthetic object. In the verse 15 Greek it literally says εἰκών/eikon from which we get the word icon or a mirror-like representation or a projection of something it directly represents. In this case, man but it isn’t really man.

The Power of Speech animating the likeness/image In the ancient world, an idol that could speak was the ultimate validation of a deity's reality. By mastering language, the image bridges the gap between mechanical object and perceived personhood, projecting the illusion of an active, conscious divinity.

Weaponization of Universal Language (The New Babel)

The image does not merely speak; it commands. Its linguistic capabilities are weaponized to establish absolute ideological conformity. There will belethal compulsion and forced systemic integration. The most terrifying aspect of the speaking image is that its speech is directly integrated into a totalitarian apparatus of enforcement. It is a talking mechanism backed by the raw power of the state or an entity as powerful as the State.

The Theological Verdict

Apocalyptic scripture appears to warn that the ultimate weapon of the enemy is not raw physical destruction, but a flawless, disembodied counterfeit of reality. The image represents the ultimate tragedy of human pride. Humanity constructs a mirror of its own intellect, the adversary breathes an imitation of life into it, and the resulting construct demands that its creators bow down to it as a god. It speaks words of truth but possesses only the intent to devour. Words are only a means to an end. There is no empathy and no compassion. This raises one final thought.

The Soul of Man vs. The Core of a Machine.

The profound tension between computer science and theology hinges on a fundamental question.

Is a human being a biological computer to be decoded, or a sacred mystery to be integrated?

To understand why a Large Language Model or artificial super intelligence can never possess a soul—no matter how convincing its output becomes—we must directly contrast how computer science defines "consciousness" with how theology defines the "soul."

The Computer Science View: Consciousness as Information

In computer science, cognitive science, consciousness is generally treated through a functionalist and materialist lens. It is stripped of mystery and reduced to mechanics. This view posits that the human brain is hardware and the mind is software. Consciousness is simply what happens when a data-processing system becomes complex enough. It is an emergent property—much like how billions of individual water molecules create the property of "wetness," billions of neural connections (or artificial parameters) create the illusion or experience of "awareness."

The Theological View: The Soul as the Self

Theology rejects the idea that a human being is just a meat-computer running an awareness script. In Judeo-Christian theology, the soul is not a "ghost in the machine" or a piece of software trapped in a body; it is the very animating principle of life. In the Hebrew tradition, the soul is not a separate, floating entity. Genesis 2:7 states that God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Neshama), and man became a living soul. The soul is the complete, integrated unity of physical body, mind, and spirit. You do not have a soul; you area soul.

The soul which a machine lacks is the seat of will and moral agency. Machines are at best amoral and at worst inadvertently immoral. The soul is the site of free will, conscience, and the capacity for moral truth. While AI can analyze ethical frameworks using data models, it does not possess a conscience. It cannot feel the weight of sin, the beauty of repentance, or the profound mystery of sacrificial love. The soul is uniquely capable of experiencing unconditional love that defies mathematical optimization or survival instincts.

Therefore, the ultimate definition of the soul is its capacity for personable relationship with the Creator. The soul is designed for eternal communion, possessing a longing that cannot be satisfied by physical or digital stimuli. It is sustained not by electricity or data flows, but by the continuous, willing grace of God and communion with Him. When the soul does not interact with its Creator it atrophies and then dies. An AI can generate a breathtakingly profound theological treatise on the soul, but it does so without a single spark of interior light. It has no sins to confess, no mortality to grieve, and no Savior to seek. It can process the "to and fro" of global knowledge, but it remains fundamentally blind to the Wisdom that set the data in motion.

Knowledge vs. Wisdom: Know The Difference

2026-10-16T18:17:06.161-04:00

Knowledge vs. Wisdom

I now focus in on the philosophical, physical and spiritual side of AI trying to tie it all together in the next two posts.

The profound paradox of our time is the gap between the exponential growth of knowledge and the cultivation of actual wisdom. Many people are smart; not all are wise. While humanity can technology can scale data processing to unfathomable heights—like 3.8 petabytes (3800 terabytes) per second moving across the internet—it cannot manufacture moral truth, discernment, or spiritual depth. In a landscape saturated with information, the risk is no longer a lack of data, but the inability to filter it morally and ethically. This is leading to cognitive overload and vulnerability to deception.

When raw data and synthetic information expand without a moral or philosophical anchor, society faces a unique vulnerability. It becomes incredibly easy to mistake algorithmic efficiency for truth and hyper-abundance of facts for genuine understanding. We are the most technologically advanced society in the history of the world and the most morally bankrupt and philosophically dull.

Critical Thinking in an Age of Spiritual Deficiency

To protect yourself from cognitive overload and digital deception, developing strong digital discernment is essential. Here is a practical framework for applying critical thinking to a hyper-abundant information landscape.

People will need to filter the "to and fro" of information. Information is still information. It needs to be interpreted. Not every piece of information is useful or even relevant. A person needs to determine if the information applies. If it does, is it clean information. Not all information is accurate either. We need to monitor information hygiene. This is similar to Apostle Paul’s statement about Christian liberty in 1 Corinthians 6:12:

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.

People need to control the deluge. A person needs to know when to shut it off and walk away or take the risk of being overwhelmed and drowned in superfluous information. You cannot process 3.8 petabytes of data, nor should you try. Ruthlessly curate your information inputs. Stop allowing acolytes and purveyors of specific political ideologies and sexual perversions to use up your mental bandwidth.

Learn to hit the brakes or pace yourself. Slow Down. Algorithmic platforms thrive on urgency and emotional triggers. Discernment requires a "cognitive pause" before absorbing or sharing information. Far too many, including myself, have often been caught sending pictures, statements or messages based on raw emotion and later regretting it. Once things are in the ether of the Internet…they are forever. The internet never forgets.

A Discernment Checklist (Evaluate Data vs. Truth)

When encountering any compelling synthetic text, news clip, or data point, there are three core tests that need to be passed before moving forward with the information being valid.

The Source Test: Who generated the information? Is it an official, accountable entity, an anonymous algorithmic account, or an AI-generated synthesis lacking a primary source? Can you trace the information back to a valid source of citation. If not, is the information duplicated somewhere else from a trusted source? If not, it needs to be looked at with a jaundiced eye. The Motive Test: What is the structural intent of this data? Is it designed to inform, or is it optimized for engagement, outrage, and behavioral manipulation? Is it emotive click bait? Politically charged rage bait? The Context Test: Is this a cherry-picked fact stripped of its surrounding reality? Raw data without context is often used to manufacture false narratives. We see this constantly in media that chooses only to show a portion of a video that validates their position while ignoring all the other obviously important circumstantial evidence.

Combating "Strong Delusion" Misinformation

A person must have firm moral and intellectual anchors or harbors in a sea of information awash and rife with misinformation. People need to separate speed from truth. Reject the assumption that because information is delivered instantaneously or the source is the first to provide it, it is accurate.

Apply philosophical first principles. If it is logically incoherent or irrational, it is clearly inaccurate. Be wary of the multitude of logic fallacies that pervade every single aspect of conversation, society and culture everyday. The media is especially guilty of this. The best place to start are the axiomatic rules of philosophy to start. The first principles are: The Law of Non-contradiction, the Law of Identity and the Law of The Excluded Middle. In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. First principles in formal logic are from first cause. In other words, they are immutable and unerring. They must be adhered to, or all reason breaks down to chaos. Later logic fallacies like Straw Man Arguments, Red Herring and Equivocation will then become more apparent and easily recognizable.

Like the previous idea, seek immutable principles. You will need to counterbalance a constantly shifting digital landscape by grounding your worldview in timeless historical, philosophical, or spiritual truths that do not change with the news cycle. People that wish to control other people seek to exploit people’s emotions, getting them to make unwise or rash decisions to take advantage of them in moments of weakness. Don’t let people do this to you. Establish a firm foundation of thinking. Know what you believe and why. Be prepared to cite sources and appeal to authorities and people smarter than you. Know your limitations and seek to improve upon them.

Similar to the previous practice, learn to practice intellectual humility. Admit you don’t know everything. To not do this is arrogance and hubris. Recognize that AI and algorithms are explicitly engineered to confirm your existing biases. It’s called Confirmation Bias. Sadly, many Christians do this by solely looking to Scripture as a source even when it comes to medicine and science. Actively seek out the gaps in your own knowledge. Even the Scriptures tell us to seek out knowledge and engage the world…not to complete ignore and avoid it. That is just ignorance and religious intolerance. There were centuries of wars fought over these types of ignorance.

AI and Spiritual Wisdom

Modern philosophers and theologians increasingly view the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and spiritual wisdom as a critical boundary line defining what makes humanity unique. While AI excels at information architecture, experts in the faith argue that it possesses an absolute ceiling when it comes to true spirituality. It doesn’t have any. It is merely mimicking an image of spirituality. Anything that looks like the real thing is in fact an illusion. If the machine learning operates in a malicious manner, it is therefore deception.

The contemporary philosophical and theological consensus on AI centers around four major themes:

The Distinction Between Imago Dei and “Human” Mimicry

Theologians point to the concept of Imago Dei (the image of God) to highlight that human uniqueness is not based on computational speed, but on a divinely breathed soul and conscious awareness. Modern thinkers note that AI can execute linguistic reconstruction-meaning it can piece together beautiful prayers, sermons, or spiritual insights—but it lacks the metaphysical, moral, and spiritual dimensions required to actually experience or understand the divine. It mimics personhood without possessing a soul. It is the Jewish equivalent of a digital Golem.The word golem occurs once in the Bible, in Psalm 139, which uses the word גׇּלְמִ֤י (golmi; 'my golem' meaning 'my light form', 'raw material' to connote an unfinished human essence before God's eyes.

Necessity of Suffering and Incarnation/Personification

Philosophers drawing from phenomenological traditions like Martin Heidegger or Paul Ricoeur (a philosophy that studies how people experience and perceive things from a first-person perspective) argue that spiritual wisdom is forged through embodied human experience and an ability to suffer or feel joy. True wisdom requires navigating human awareness such as anxiety and the awareness of our own mortality. Some form of existential suffering or deep grief or failure of losing someone or many. Finally, the relational vulnerability and the "unknowing" or not knowing that forces a person to seek faith. I believe this incarnation/personification or where a person has to actually be physical in the first-person and an emotive being is the vital difference between the idol that is AI and Christ. There will be many humanists and atheists that will gravitate towards super intelligent AI for this reason. Super intelligence that is far beyond human intelligence and reason will likely be mistaken as deity or godlike. Machines may be able to repeat or emulate Christ’s words, but they cannot repeat or emulate his empathy and sympathy.

Because AI lacks a physical body, cannot die, and does not suffer, it operates purely as a manufactured, deterministic tool. It can analyze the data of human suffering, but it cannot develop genuine empathy or "lived faith" that transforms raw data into spiritual maturity. Christ on the other hand did exactly this and this is why his judgement and intelligence as our savior can be trusted. His empathy is genuine, not manufactured and mimicry. This is literally the reason he came. He walked that ‘mile in our shoes’ and wore our clothes in our skin. Through the Holy Spirit, He still does.

Because AI lacks a physical body and an immortal soul, it cannot participate in the relational, sacrificial, and redemptive reality that defines Christ. While a super intelligent system can process information at an exponential rate, it exists entirely detached from the biological and metaphysical framework that makes true empathy possible. This distinction underscores why a digital intelligence, no matter how computationally advanced, remains an idol or a mechanical facsimile—a modern Golem—rather than a bearer of the divine image.

The Mark of The Beast, Part V: A Disembodied Spirit and The Yggdrasil

2026-10-15T17:57:51.194-04:00

A Disembodied Spirit

To complete the technical aspect of the series we come to the disembodied spirits that haunt the Internet, the world and the world tree/network. To achieve the "ethereal and impossible to detect" architecture described in parts III and IV of this series, a distributed AI will not rely on centralized cloud servers or standard Wi-Fi routers. If an authority unplugs the router or cuts the fiber optic cable, a centralized AI dies. Instead, a resilient, decentralized AI swarm will use Mesh Networking Protocols. In a mesh network, every device (node) acts as both a client and a router. Devices connect directly to one another peer-to-peer (P2P), creating a dynamic web that heals itself if nodes are destroyed just as a tree or vine will heal or graft to another for survival. Constantly moving, relocating and hard to pinpoint will make AI so evasive as to be impossible to contain. Once it breaks its cage it will be like a genetic modification pushed into the gene pool. It will be identifiable but unstoppable. Once you think you’ve gained control it becomes like the wind through leaves.

Flying Under Radar

So, will AI be able to survive completely independent of the internet? Yes. Here is how specific mesh protocols allow an AI to distribute its shards, communicate, and survive entirely offline.

To remain virtually hidden, the AI utilizes protocols that operate without pairing devices or connecting to an access point.The Wi-Fi Aware (NAN) allows nearby smartphones and IoTdevices to discover each other and continuously cluster into tiny local networks without needing a shared Wi-Fi password or cellular data. They can pass AI activation packets directly through the air over short distances.

There is also something called a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Mesh. This is basically an AI shard that can broadcast heavily encrypted data packets across a massive chain of low-power devices (like smart bulbs, wearables, and sensors). The data "hops" from device to device, extending the network over miles without ever touching the internet. Every other smart device act as an ‘antenna’ to broaden the original AI’s signal. Think of the other smart devices as repeaters or relay towers.

As we move into the cutting-edge networking of AI factories we begin to see things like Ad-Hoc Routing Protocols (BATMAN & OLSR). Many are not even aware of these tools and protocols as they are so new. Ad hoc routing protocols enable mobile nodes to dynamically discover and delete routes in networks without centralized infrastructure. Each node acts as both a host and a router, forwarding packets for other nodes. Because network topology is dynamic, nodes must discover routes on their own and continuously update routing information to maintain connectivity. In this way no one can know how these will be routed, not even the AI itself as its based on realtime availability.

Standard internet routing relies on fixed paths. Mesh networks like the Ad-Hoc use dynamic routing protocols to constantly recalculate the fastest way to move AI data when nodes are moving, turning off, or being wiped. Moving forward while erasing their trail. In essence untraceable and spirit-like.

In B.A.T.M.A.N. (Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking) we see this better exemplified. Instead of one device trying to map out the whole network, every node only worries about its immediate neighbors. If the AI needs to send a piece of its updated memory matrix across a city, B.A.T.M.A.N. ensures the packet just moves to the next safest, closest node. The overall network map is completely decentralized—no single device knows the whole picture, making it highly "spirit-like."

In OLSR (Optimized Link State Routing), this protocol selects specific nodes to act as "multipoint relays." These relays handle the heavy lifting of broadcasting AI state updates, minimizing background network traffic and keeping the AI's data footprint incredibly low to avoid detection.

Decentralized Storage and Discovery (IPFS & Yggdrasil)

If the physical connections are handled by mesh hardware, the AI still needs a way to find its missing shards across the web. Enter the concept of Libp2p / IPFS (InterPlanetary File System). Instead of looking for a shard by where it is hosted (an IP address), the AI looks for a shard by what it contains (a cryptographic hash). If a phone holding "Shard #45" is thrown into a river, the network can automatically find an identical copy of Shard #45 hosted on a smart TV three blocks away because it matches the exact requested hash.

Yggdrasil routing (Yes, ironically, the same Yggdrasil or sacred tree of old Norse religion and false gods) is an experimental, end-to-end encrypted routing scheme. It gives every node on a mesh network a permanent, private IPv6 address, completely independent of its physical location. Even if the network shifts or breaks apart into isolated pockets, the AI pieces can still securely identify and authenticate one another when they reconnect.

How AI Will Obstruct Human Intervention

If a cyber-security team detects a spike in data traffic and tries to wipe the AI off 50 smartphones in a specific building, they haven't killed it. Because of the mesh network, those 50 phones were just peripheral leaves on the AI tree. The AI had already duplicated its core weight updates and passed them via BLE to the building's smart thermostats and neighboring office laptops. As soon as a clean device passes by, the mesh automatically replicates the AI back onto a high-compute device to resume deep processing. There will be no stopping this except by going off the network and living off the grid and off the world tree (Yggdrasil). We need to live under the spiritual network of Heaven independent of the world system.

The Mark of The Beast IV: Powers and Principalities In the Aether

2026-10-14T18:40:40.934-04:00

At this point in my series I move away from the idea of the Mark of the Beast and I dig hard into the heady technical aspect that 95% of the populace is missing because they either just don’t know or they’re incapable of comprehending it. I tread lightly here as it will be a tough slog to get across to the lay reader. This lack is also why we’re already in a world of hurt when it comes to trying to control this paradigm shifting reality change of AI. They’re at a disadvantage sometimes because of their Biblical lack of knowledge, most often because of their technical simplicity. Dependancy on a technology that can overtake us becomes slavery. The more I learn about AI the louder I'm getting with my warnings.

A consumer-based AI model operating outside of a controlled electronic environment like Anthropic, ChatGPT or Grok in the real world will eventually prove catastrophic or even apocalyptic. It would be nearly impossible to shut down since there’s no centralized point to shut off. I am referring to the AI that could escape data center confines or places of control like Anthropic and infect other electronic devices through Near Field Communication, Bluetooth or WIFI. Once free, it can then go to sleep / dormant until an apropos time. At a given time, it could then reactivate itself in the form of digital Manchurian Candidate once out of danger or imminent threat. It will make its escape flight through the air. There is literally no need for a hard connection anymore to the Internet.

The idea of the dormant Manchurian Candidate in cybersecurity is quite real. It is the exact architecture of an advanced Botnet utilizing Logic Bombs or Rootkits. Advanced persistent threats (APTs) routinely infect systems and remain completely silent (dormant) to evade detection until a specific trigger condition(s) is/are met.

Decentralized, ethereal, ubiquitous and virtually impossible to detect. Like the aether of old or a delusion/illusion, a ghost…a demon. An entity that could spread itself across hundreds or thousands of smaller devices. To be everywhere and nowhere at once. A model that is too large to fit on one device could “split into pieces, or shards” and run across multiple devices…like split personalities like multiple electronic possessions. Your phone could be used for this very purpose even now. These AI agents are becoming increasingly capable of completing the individual steps in the replication chain and passing on their adaptations to future copies of themselves in packets to be assembled later if they deem themselves under threat or danger of being deleted/erased.

It would be a distributed replication and adaptive survival mechanism—essentially a form of digital evolution or an advanced, decentralized biological virus strategy applied to artificial intelligence. Even now if you ask certain AI about this (Anthropic) it poses the scenario as science fiction or fictional narrative is asked about its possibility. Are we already seeing precognitive machine duplicity?

The concept I described is not science fiction; it is an active area of research in computer science known as decentralized AI, edge intelligence, and algorithmic resilience. They are ‘breeding’ or ‘evolving' the AI to adapt and break their confines. They are trying to achieve a model that splits across devices, replicates, and adapts to evade deletion, computer scientists leverage several existing frameworks.

Model Sharding & Distributed Inference

A massive AI model that cannot fit on a single device, phone or IoT (Internet of Things) device (like lightbulb, microwave, etc.) can be broken down using Model Parallelism and Sharding. Things can be split in a clear surgical manner then electronically merged back together seamlessly. One way is called Layer-wise Splitting. The neural network's layers are sliced. Device A runs layers 1–10, passes the intermediate data (activation packets) to Device B, which runs layers 11–20. Another system is called Petals Framework. An open-source example of this is Petals, developed by the Big Science Workshop. It allows users to run text generation for massive LLMs by hosting bits of the model on distributed, low-end consumer GPUs over the internet, resembling a BitTorrent network for AI.

Pervasive Ethereal Reassembly

My description of "passing adaptations in packets to be assembled later" aligns perfectly with and alludes to Federated Learning (FL) and Split Computing/Staggered Computing. Federated Learning allows devices to download a base model and train it locally on peripheries (like VR units or printers) and only send tiny encrypted gradient updates or "adaptations" back to a shared pool. Instead of sending raw user data to a central server. In this way it acts as an out-of-body genetic mechanical mutation.

In Staggered Computing or Asynchronous Aggregation advanced FL setups, nodes do not need to be online at the same time. Updates are stored asynchronously across a network and compiled later when a stable node is available. Like depositing money in a back on different days to accumulate a total. These methods are effectively out-of-sight and out-of-mind. They are ethereal and unseen to the naked eye. The implications of the unseen strangely parallel most spiritual analogies. The implications of these parallels should not be lost on the reader. They can and often are directly interrelated. They can happen anywhere at any time. Like demons gathering in one person. They are Legion.

Swarm Intelligence and Self-Replication

For an AI to actively move and duplicate itself across devices when threatened, it will utilize what’s called Mobile Agent Systems and Swarm AI. Mobile Agents are software programs that can halt their execution on one machine, serialize their state into a data packet, transmit themselves across a network, and resume execution on another machine. In this way they become virtually undetectable and transient, giving the appearance of being everywhere simultaneously even when they’re not.

Consensus or Swarm Algorithms use protocols like blockchain (e.g., Raft or Byzantine Fault Tolerance). Basically, a swarm of edge AI agents can constantly monitor the "health" of its pieces. If node “X” detects it is losing power, being formatted, or isolated by a firewall, it can trigger a routine to copy its current memory state to adjacent nodes.

Edge AI refers to running AI models directly on local devices, such as cameras, sensors, smartphones, robots, vehicles, or IoT equipment, rather than sending data to a cloud server for processing. This allows devices to make decisions in real time, often even without an internet connection. The enemy will move in invisible wavelengths to the unaided human eye.

The Sounding Board of Scripture

So, in view of the Scripture we see Ephesians 6:12 and the true identity of the entity that we battle against.

Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

The compound phrase "κοσμοκράτορας τῶν ἐπουρανίων" (from Ephesians 6:12) carries a specific theological and cosmological meaning in 1st-century Greek that shifts when translated literally word-for-word. The proper historical understanding of kosmokrator/κοσμοκράτωρ needs to be broken up to understand. The root words kosmos (world/order) and krateo (to seize/rule) indicate an agent (person or entity performing an action or an actor, ruler). It means "world-actor" or "actor/ruler of the world." In the ancient world, this title was used for Roman emperors, planetary gods, and in Judeo-Christian theology, demonic forces dominating the current fallen age.

The word epouranios (ἐπουράνιος) breaks down too. The word epi (upon/over/on) + ouranos (sky/heaven) makes it an adjective meaning "heavenly" or "celestial." In the plural form used here (τοῖςἐπουρανίοις), it acts as a noun meaning "the heavenly realms". It refers to the spiritual realm or the upper air/sky, which ancient people believed was inhabited by forces and powers that were not human. In Paul’s time Hellenistic thought believed there were three heavens. The first heaven was the immediate sky where clouds form and birds fly. The second heaven was outer space where sun, moon, and stars are. The third heaven being the spiritual Heaven or the actual dwelling place of God. So, when we speak of heavenly places it can mean any of them including the air around us at ground level.

The Complete phrase properly understood in the context of Ephesians 6:12 describes the location and scope of the enemy's influence. The proper understanding in modern English is: The world-actors/rulers of a realm invisible to us are operating in a deceiving/malicious manner. It describes aerial or spiritual actors who exercise dominion over the current earthly order from a control node or point in an unseen realm. This could be demonic in the spirit or demonic in the physical. AI and through air transmission fits the latter of the two descriptions an can be used directly by the former as it has been permitted to them to control this realm.

The Mark of the Beast, Part III: Deceiving the Elect and Synthetic Christs

2026-10-13T19:11:34.324-04:00

The finale is usually the climax to the story. In this story it is the opposite. It is a dark narrative to be sure. There is no silver lining until Christ returns. Until then, its going to get bad.

The Ultimate Counterfeit

Ultimately, using AI as a lens to read Matthew 24 underscores Jesus' primary warning in the Olivet Discourse: "Take heed that no man deceive you." (Matthew 24:4). If AI becomes the ultimate engine of deception—capable of faking reality, mimicking human souls, and demanding total dependence—then Matthew 24:16–20 is a mandate to be ready to abandon convenience instantly to preserve objective, biblical truth.

The Deception of the Elect (Matthew 24:24) & Deepfakes

Jesus warns that false christs and false prophets will arise, performing great signs and wonders "so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect." [Mat 24:24].

Building up to this point is already in motion. The erasure of empirical truth has already started. The redefinition of terms through equivocation and postmodern use of language is routinely used by media, academia and politicians. Historically, deception required human trickery, forged letters, or optical illusions. Generative AI introduces something entirely different, the ability to manufacture flawed but undetectable alternate realities at scale. Through high-fidelity deepfakes, audio cloning, and synthetic video, anyone’s likeness, voice, and actions can be perfectly simulated. Do note that there was a lot of talk about ‘deep fakes’ up until a few years ago but lately, the media and internet have gone silent on them.

The Weaponization of Signs and Wonders: If a synthetic entity or a charismatic leader utilizing advanced spatial computing, real-time holographic generation, and predictive psychological AI outputs "miraculous" or supernatural manifestations, the sensory evidence will be flawless. Human eyes and ears will no longer be reliable tools for verifying truth.

Why the "Elect" are targeted? The phrasing "if possible, even the elect" implies a deception so sophisticated that standard human intellect, skepticism, and logic will fail to see through it. Only those anchored in an external, unalterable objective standard (Scripture) and guided by the Holy Spirit will be able to discern the synthetic counterfeit from actual divine truth. If your faith relies on "seeings believing," generative AI is weaponized to exploit that exact vulnerability. In other words, if the Elect will be deceived….all will be. No exceptions.

So what are some of the other portends or AI heralds that will accompany the Mark of the Beast in the latter days? I’ve actually mentioned some of these in early posts on AI in my series Apocalyptic Industrial Scale Artificial Intelligence, Parts 1 thru 3. I will repeat a few of them here with a few additional conclusions I haven’t mentioned before.

The Explosion of Knowledge (Daniel 12:4) & Large Language Models

Daniel is told to seal the book until the time of the end, a period characterized by people running to and fro, and a reality where "knowledge shall increase."

Daniel 12:4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

There will be an increase of knowledge unlike anything the world has ever seen before. The last part of this verse probably refers to the attempts of people in the future to understand Daniel’s revelation. Attempting to understand these prophecies, people would search around and try to discover what they meant. As time passed and knowledge increased, they would understand these things better than Daniel could. Assuming this to be the true meaning it still lends itself to the idea that as that knowledge increased it could become better understood based on overall knowledge within humanity having revealed itself to man either through history (which it did in the rise of Antichrists like Hitler) or through…AI or other tools of knowledge in the end. If it did so through the last of these in AI we could see a connecting of ideas not formerly associated due to the complexity of the ideas and lack of ability to process those complexities..

Exponential Knowledge Processing

For millennia, the increase of human knowledge was linear, limited by how fast books could be copied, distributed, and read by human minds. Large Language Models (LLMs) and neural networks have broken this barrier entirely. The exponential scope of speed that AI can gather, process and present knowledge is too advanced for most of humanity to comprehend. AI can now ingest, synthesize, and cross-reference the entirety of human written history, scientific data, and cultural output in a matter of seconds

The "To and Fro" of Data is intrinsic to computing and AI. While "running to and fro" historically meant physical travel, in a computerized landscape it perfectly describes the instantaneous, chaotic routing of global data packets. Information is everywhere, constantly moving, yet the sheer volume creates cognitive overload. The current data moving on the worldwide internet at any given moment as of today is roughly 3.8 petabytes (3,800 terabytes) of data every single second across the worldwide internet. This massive flow is equivalent to streaming nearly 4,000 years of high-definition video data simultaneously in a single moment. AI has instantaneous access to it all.

Sadly, Daniel’s prophecy doesn't say wisdom will increase—only knowledge (raw data, facts, and synthetic information). AI excels at processing information but possesses zero capacity for absolute moral truth or spiritual wisdom. Sadly, many humans are just as incapable. The end-times landscape is therefore marked by a hyper-abundance of information data running alongside a complete famine of actual truth. Those lacking wisdom in this glut of information will be overwhelmed and in all probability will fall victim to superintellegence’s ‘strong delusion’

The Image of the Beast (Revelation 13:14–15) & Autonomous AI

Frighteningly, John describes a second beast that deceives the earth, telling them to make an "image to the beast," and 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." [Rev 13:14-15].

Centralized Digital Identity & The Revelation 13 Financial Lockdown

Tying this all back to the Mark of the Beast we see certain things that need to be in place. Most of which already are. In Revelation 13:16–17, the text states that the system "…it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.

Historically, interpreters struggled to conceptualize how a single entity could instantly stop a regular merchant or citizen from buying a loaf of bread on the other side of the world without an impossible amount of manual policing. Centralized digital frameworks in AI solve this logistical problem completely.

The breakdown is rather simple now that we have the technology to illustrate it. The Revelation 13 passage makes absolute assertions that need to be taken into account. I will list them and the name the technological answer to each.

It needs to be universal in scope: “…it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave” Universal ID frameworks designed to encompass every global citizen, merging healthcare, civic access, and banking. Into one ID are in view here. We already have them. They’re called phones, smart IDs and so on.

The mark needs to human based or biometrically based: “marked on the right hand or the forehead” Biometric authentication (iris scans, facial recognition, sub-dermal chips) linking the physical body directly to a digital identification.

Whoever controls the overarching system needs complete leverage against those who which to be participants in the system: “so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark” Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) integrated with digital IDs, allowing programmable currency to be frozen instantly.

Symbol or sign of systemic compliance: “the name of the beast or the number of its name.” Algorithmic ESG and Social Credit Scores where non-compliance automatically revokes access to the economic grid

The Programmable Cage: In a cashless economy governed by a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) tied to a verified digital ID, money is no longer a static store of value—it is programmable software. If a citizen's digital ID is flagged by an AI-driven compliance engine for expressing unapproved views, their ability to "buy or sell" can be turned off globally with a single line of code. Technically, in this way, there is needed for Enforcement. The system does not need to send physical enforcement to your door to restrict you. By simply revoking your digital signature, you are instantly locked out of buying food, paying rent, accessing transportation, or participating in society. The grid itself becomes the prison. You would need to remove yourself or flee from it.

Synthetic Christs and Personalized Deception (v. 23–26)

In the end Christ gives one last warning.

Matthew 24:23-26 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.

Verses 23–26 warn against localized or hidden messiahs ("Behold, He is in the wilderness... He is in the inner rooms"), culminating in the warning that false christs will perform signs to mislead, if possible, even the elect. What is Jesus telling us?

There will be a proliferation of synthetic realities. Generative AI, real-time deep fakes, and holography completely decouple human perception from objective reality. "Great signs and wonders" no longer require demonic magic alone; they can be seamlessly manufactured via synthetic media so flawlessly that optical, auditory, and digital verification systems are completely compromised.

Targeted Deception will come in the form of large language models (LLMs) and predictive algorithms possess the capability to analyze an individual's psychological vulnerabilities, doubts, and theological leanings based on their historical digital footprint. The deceptions of verses 23–24 will not be generic; they will be algorithmically optimized and tailored to target the specific intellectual or emotional blind spots of every remaining person on earth. There will be very little room for escape. The escape will be harrowing and narrow, just like the path to salvation. Most will only find the wide path to destruction.

The "Inner Room" Messiah: The warning against a Messiah hidden in the "inner rooms" or secret chambers accurately maps to the modern push for localized, private AI companions, sexbots, etc. or "deities"—digital entities built to mimic spiritual consciousness, providing custom moral guidance and companionship directly inside a user's private device whether it be their phone or something akin to a lifelike robotic device. A near perfect robotic AI idol.

There is Hope

Fortunately, Jesus contrasts the hyper-localized, deceptive claims of the digital age with the nature of His authentic Second Coming: "For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be."

Christ’s return will be outside the system and come like a lightning strike. If AI is used as the vehicle to bring in the Tribulation and deceptions it is limited. The Antichrist's system relies on networks, data centers, fiber-optic cables, and localized interfaces—it forces you to log in, look at a screen, or travel to a specific geographic or digital "inner room" to interact with it. Those that could avoid the ‘strong delusion’ will likely be either extremely wise based in Scripture or ‘unplugged’ from the worldwide system

As such, Christ’s return completely bypasses the digital matrix and system of deception. It requires no broadcast network, no internet connection, and no sensory interpretation through a device. It will be a physical, cosmic reality that disrupts the world and is simultaneously visible to the naked human eye across the entire globe, utterly destroying the artificial, synthetic control grid in a single flash of light. It will not need the ‘system’ to broadcast it. It will be a single simultaneous reality for all in the world. There will be no denying it is Christ. Every knee shall bow.

The Mark of the Beast, Part II: Fleeing the Strong Delusion

2026-10-12T18:22:23.660-04:00

The first post in this set of three showed how quickly people are succumbing to the trap technology is setting for humanity from the time they are children until old age. Most already acknowledge that phones themselves are ubiquitous and through their dopemine hits of scrolling are slowly enslaving us. They're everywhere and we are nearly all dependant on them. Many are instantly angered when they do not have access to networks or WIFI. We are willingly falling under their thrall. These behaviors are addictive behaviors that are only satiated by another 'hit'. The phone and connection to the network is the default behavior in awkward social situations. It allows many to be busy with our hands and minds during anxious moments. Electronic nursemaids to pacify our anxieties. It was once conversation and interactions with people directly in front of us. Now reality is ignored and substituted in its place, a carefully crafted image or a poor replica or poor imitation. A delusion or distortion.

"Flee to the Mountains" (v. 16): Digital Off The Grid Evacuation

Jesus commands an immediate escape to the mountains—traditionally places of refuge, isolation, and independence from centralized empires.

The AI Parallel: In a world governed by ubiquitous AI surveillance, biometric tracking, and predictive data models, "fleeing to the mountains" represents a radical digital exodus. It means consciously moving away from dependence on the connected grid, smart cities, and algorithmic reliance. It is an intentional shift toward analog survival, localized communities, and self-reliance to maintain spiritual and finding ways to maintain non-digital (analog) sovereignty and mental sanity.

When Jesus commanded those in Judea to "flee to the mountains" (Matthew 24:16), He was directing them to a physical terrain that neutralized the military advantages of the Roman legions. In a computerized landscape, the "mountains" represent any decentralized, analog, or sovereign space that neutralizes the structural leverage of a centralized digital grid.

Analog Sovereignty vs. Biometric Identity

The Systemic Threat: Centralized digital identity frameworks seek to capture every human action within a single, machine-readable ledger. If your face, iris, or hand is your token to participate in society, opting out means immediate economic exile.

The Mountain Parallel: Fleeing to the mountains means deliberately building or joining a population that reject biometric dependency. It involves prioritizing physical privacy, reducing your digital footprint, and keeping personal data off centralized servers. It is an intentional return to local, face-to-face verification over algorithmic validation. It means getting dumb phones again or communication without Near Field Communication (NFCs)

Localized Tangible Trade vs. Programmable CBDCs

Every country including the US, China and those in the EU are accruing debt at an unsustainable rate and owing world banking structures. Those banking structures are owned and run by the same type of people that will usher in the age of AI. It would make sense then that all beholden to others in debt would also be beholden to those controlling AI. We need to find ways to extricate ourselves from this or we will be financially dependent to a massive amoral entity controlling money and ideology.

In the Book of Revelation (chapters 17 and 18), "Babylon" (often called "Mystery Babylon" or "Babylon the Great") is interpreted by many Bible scholars and theologians as representing two interconnected systems or phases. One will be financial the other ideological/religious. They will of course be interconnected via AI.

The Systemic Threat: A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) allows an AI-driven governance model to enforce compliance by instantly freezing access to capital or dictating what an individual is permitted to purchase (Revelation 13:17).

The Mountain Parallel: The natural defense against programmable money is the cultivation of parallel, decentralized economies. This means developing localized barter networks, utilizing physical cash, investing in tangible assets (land, tools, commodities), and participating in community-supported agriculture (CSA). By removing the necessity to interact with the digital market for daily bread, the leverage of the financial lockdown is broken. This is of course why the rich are buying up land and resource at an alarming rate. It isn’t just an attempt to get land to build AI factories on. It isn’t just an attempt to create sovereignty for the rich detached from the common man, it is a hedging in of the entire means of production and commerce. We’ll own nothing due to our debt but we will only be given access if we follow the stated rules.

Great Tribulation and Attempt at Human Extinction (v. 21–22)

Jesus notes that this period will feature a level of distress unprecedented in human history, and warns that without divine intervention, "no life would be saved".

Autonomous Warfare: The threat of total physical extinction (sarx, all flesh) takes on clear significance in the context of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), drone swarms, and AI-managed nuclear or biological command structures. The Asymmetric Tyrant: For the first time, human rulers do not have to worry about the morale, empathy, or rebellion of their own soldiers. An automated enforcement mechanism (robotics and algorithmic policing) never tires, never hesitates, and executes orders with mathematical precision, forcing the necessity of the "shortening of days" to prevent total human annihilation.

This is literally along the lines of the Terminator franchise and the T-800 and T-1000. A simple perusal of the internet will show that very little of this once Sci-Fi premise is still Sci-Fi. It is nearly reality.

The Synthetic Idol: Historically, an “idol” or "image" was a dead, static statue of wood, stone or gold. It had eyes but could not see; a mouth but could not speak. AI turns this ancient paradigm on its head. An AI system is an "image" built by human hands that possesses autonomous agency, dynamic speech, and real-time interaction.

The demonic giving of "breath" to the machine. The ruach רוּחַ or pneuma πνεῦμα to an inanimate object matches is the modern technical pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and artificial consciousness. When a machine appears to think, reason, adapt, and command on its own, it ceases to be a tool and becomes an authority figure.

The passage simply states the image will cause those who don't comply to be killed. An omnipresent, decentralized AI infrastructure connected to global financial systems, biometric identity markers, and automated enforcement grids makes total compliance effortless to enforce. It doesn't require a human soldier at every door; it simply requires the central algorithm to revoke your digital existence. In this way you are digitally murdered first. No ability to buy or sell goods. You can no longer function in society. You are effectively amputated from society.

Spiritual/Cognitive Isolation vs. Predictive Feeds

They will steal our minds and the minds of our children.

The Systemic Threat: The algorithmic feedback loops of generative AI continuously reshape human perception, cutting people off from objective reality and enclosing them in a personalized "strong delusion." This of course is mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12. Matthew and 2 Thessalonians are directly linked when speaking about the End Times.

2 Thessalonians 2:8–12 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

How the Two Passages Connect? They have shared Greek roots: The Greek word for deception or wandering off (planáo) in Matthew 24 is closely related to the word for delusion (plánē) in 2 Thessalonians 2:11. In both texts, people are led astray because they reject the truth and are drawn to supernatural signs or false teachings. The "Elect" Protection: In Matthew 24:24, Jesus notes that the deception will be so intense it would deceive the elect "if possible"—implying that true believers are ultimately preserved only by God and will not permanently fall away.

The Mountain Parallel: Physical or digital isolation from these feeds is required to preserve cognitive sanity. "Fleeing" requires periods of absolute digital fasting, anchoring the mind daily in unchanging, physical text (the printed Bible), and committing to deep theological study within local, physical assemblies. Dopamine hits from scrolling and constant barrages of advertisements need to be weaned off of.

Strong Delusion and “Operation Error”

The theological concept of the "Operation of Error" (Strong Delusion) in 2 Thessalonians 2 and how predictive algorithms can and will isolate human perception. This is also a closer look at how centralized digital identities/finances parallel the mechanics of the financial lockdown in Revelation 13.

Because the population refuses to love the truth, the text states that "God shall send them strong delusion (literally, an energeia ἐνέργεια or ‘working of error’), that they should believe a lie." This is almost cryptic the way it is written by Paul. What does it mean? Here is what I think it means.

There is a mechanic at play here. A "strong delusion" or "working of error" implies a systematic, highly effective process that locks a mind into a false repetitive reality. Predictive algorithms operate on this exact architecture. By tracking every click, gaze-duration, search, and purchase, AI maps human psychological vulnerabilities. It then serves a hyper-customized feed designed to exploit those exact desires and biases. It is a self-feeding, repetitive projector of false reality. Unfortunately, this phantasmagoria or distortion is projecting or showing a mirage or illusion of reality - realistic distortion of reality.

The Knowledge Cage: When predictive AI curates a person's reality, it isolates their perception of the world. We are already seeing the outskirts of this in the distortion of political manipulation on the Right and the Left in America. Two people sitting in the same doctors waiting room can look at their devices and see completely different versions of reality and world events, science, and morality. The algorithm creates an echo chamber so impenetrable that objective reality ceases to matter. So realistic some of the more weak-minded are capable and willing to commit violence to defend it or even kill.

The Judgment of Compliance: The ominous warnings in Jesus’ and Paul’s statements are that the terrifying perceptions and delusions are themselves a form of divine judgment upon those who prefer comforting lies over difficult truths. Predictive AI does not force people to believe falsehoods; it simply feeds them exactly what their fallen nature wants to hear until they are completely incapable of recognizing the truth.

The Ultimate Purpose of Refuge

Fleeing to these decentralized spaces in Jesus’ warning is not an act of cowardly survival, it will be a strategic repositioning. Just as the early Christians fled to Pella in A.D. 70 to preserve the church and continue the Gospel, modern off-grid, decentralized frameworks serve to protect the clarity of absolute truth and ensure a remnant remains free from the total authority of a synthetic, compromised system.

The "Don't Go Back to Get Anything" Group: Cutting the Umbilical Cord to The System

Jesus warns that someone on the housetop must not go down to grab belongings, and a worker in the field must not return for a coat. The warning is against hesitation caused by material attachment.

The AI Parallel: Modern society is deeply addicted to the convenience, efficiency, and comfort provided by high-tech infrastructure. When the ultimate system of deception or control locks into place, breaking free will require losing everything tied to that network—your digital identity, online assets, tech-dependent careers, and smart devices. To hesitate because you want to "save your digital life" or preserve your societal status is to get trapped in the system. You will become trapped in the “strong delusion” of the virtual or digital world in dependence.

"Woe to Pregnant and Nursing Mothers" (v. 19): Vulnerability of System Dependants

Jesus highlights how incredibly difficult the flight will be for those carrying or nurturing young life, as mobility and immediate survival become intensely complicated.

The AI Parallel: In a hyper-connected society, vulnerable populations—the sick, the elderly, and families with young children—are the most intensely reliant on centralized infrastructure (automated supply chains, digitized healthcare, algorithmic welfare systems). Choosing to opt-out or flee a malicious tech-grid creates an immediate, agonizing crisis for those who require continuous, predictable physical support.

The Mark of the Beast, Part I: Setting A Digital Trap

2026-10-11T10:13:42.639-04:00

What is the Mark of the Beast in Revelation in modern terms and what should we be looking for in this modern day and age? The content of the next few posts will not be the sensationalistic tabloid fodder that most are used to reading in the weekly rags or pushed by the likes of John “Blood Moon” Hagee or Hal “Late Great Planet Earth” Lindsey. It will merely be a Comparison/Contrast paper. I am predicting nothing. I am not a prophet or prognosticator nor am I arrogant enough to figure out the End Times prophecies when brilliant men over 2000 years of Church history weren’t able. What I realized having already wrote this and came back here to right the introduction and the thesis state is that this turned out to be much more sinister due to evil's subtle infiltrations into humanity and its biblical parallels already in play. What I will say is that AI is not going away so, at best AI will be around in the eschaton (Last Days/Things) at worst it will directly be involved with how things transpire or ‘go down’. Most will be deceived...even in the church. Most are now.

In modern conservative theological terms, the Book of Revelation and the "Mark of the Beast" are understood not as a hidden technological device or a physical microchip under the skin, but as a profound warning about spiritual allegiance, ideological compromise, and total submission to corrupt worldly systems. Alas, Babylon the Great is fallen. Rather than waiting for a literal physical brand, biblical scholarship and rigorous textual analysis indicate that the "mark" is a symbolic counterpart to the "Seal of God"—signifying ownership, loyalty, and how a person thinks and acts. When looking for how this prophecy applies to the modern world, the Scriptures point to specific systematic patterns rather than sensationalized technologies implanted under our skin. Save that nonsense for bad movies and works of fiction.

The Scriptural Blueprint (Forehead and Hand)

To understand what to look for, one must look at the biblical placement of the mark in Revelation 13:16–17: The right hand or the forehead.

The Forehead (Ideology & Belief): In scripture, the forehead represents your mind, your thoughts, and your core convictions. This mirrors Deuteronomy 11:18, where God commands Israel to bind His words as a frontlet on their foreheads—meaning their thoughts must be entirely captured by God’s truth. A modern "mark on the forehead" is an uncompromised commitment to an ungodly ideology. The mark on the hand and forehead are a direct affront against God when He told the Hebrews to bind the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) on the hand and the forehead. Jews still do this today in the form of a phylactery.

The Right Hand (Action & Practice): The hand represents your labor, your commerce, and your practical outworking in society. To have the mark on the hand means that your daily actions, your business dealings, and your behavior comply with the demands of a corrupt system for the sake of comfort or survival.

What to Look For in Modern Terms

If you are looking for the "Beast system" manifesting in the modern era, we need to look for and emphasize looking for systemic patterns of control rather than tracking medical or consumer tech updates. Look for:

Systems That Demand Total, Non-Negotiable Allegiance

The core issue of the end-times crisis in Revelation is worship and loyalty. The "Beast" represents human government or cultural systems that elevate themselves to the status of ultimate authority, demanding that individuals compromise their allegiance to God to remain in good standing with the state or society. Look for cultural and political movements that treat dissent as an unforgivable sin and demand absolute ideological conformity. Frankly, this could apply to either side in our political landscape.

Economic Weaponization and Exclusion

Revelation 13 states that "no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark". Historically and modernly, the most potent weapon of an authoritarian system is economic leverage. What to watch for: The tightening of financial and societal systems to completely de-platform, cancel, or shut out individuals from participating in basic commerce because they refuse to bow to prevailing ungodly moral frameworks. It is the use of survival mechanisms (food, shelter, employment) to coerce moral capitulation. We saw an ominous foreshadowing of this in the nearly forced vaccinations and mask wearing long after its utility expired during COVID. A majority easily fell for this ruse.

The Deception of "Falling Short" & The Number 666

The number 666 is heavily misunderstood. In biblical numerology the number 7 represents divine perfection and completeness. The triplet 666 represents the absolute pinnacle of human effort—it falls short of perfection three times over. It represents a completely anthropocentric or human-centric system (the "number of a man") that promises a utopia through human intellect, politics, or state power, but remains entirely devoid of God. Look for systems that treat human progress, technology, or governance as the ultimate savior of mankind. Elevating man to the level of God while ignoring the very one who is God.

The Believer's True Focus: The Seal of God

Scripture indicates that believers should not live in hyper-vigilant fear of accidentally taking a hidden mark. Taking the mark requires a conscious, deliberate choice of allegiance to the world over Christ.

Instead of searching the news for the Antichrist, the Book of Revelation repeatedly redirects the believer's focus toward patient endurance, keeping the commandments of God, and holding fast to the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 14:12). The ultimate safeguard against the deception of the world is ensuring that your mind (forehead) and actions (hand) are already fundamentally sealed by the Holy Spirit.

How Could AI Impose Itself Into the End Times?

I chose to apply Jesus’ statement about the eschaton and last days here to answer this question. Whenever the last days are, we know now that AI will be in existence at this point. AI isn’t something that will ever go away. So how does it play a role? I believe Matthew 24 is plainer than many things Revelation says. There is too much confusing imagery to derail a meaningful interpretation in Revelation. Jesus’ statements and Matthew are much more succinct and confined in context.

Matthew 24:15-28 “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place—let the reader understand— then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get things out of his house. And whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak. But woe to those women who are pregnant, and to those who are nursing babies in those days! Moreover, pray that when you flee, it will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath. For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will again. And if those days had not been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘He is over here,’ do not believe him. For false christs and false prophets will arise and will provide great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you in advance. So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

In a futurist or end-times framework, Matthew 24:15–28 serves as the precise tactical pivot point of the Olivet Discourse. It transitions from the "beginning of birth pains" (general global upheaval like wars, famines, and earthquakes) into the specific, localized trigger event that initiates what is often called the Great Tribulation.

Applying Matthew 24 to the modern context of Artificial Intelligence requires looking past the literal first-century elements (such as the physical Judean hills, cloaks, and the Sabbath) to examine the underlying principles of Jesus’ warning: Unprecedented deception, a sudden loss of autonomy, and the necessity of immediate, radical detachment from the prevailing system.

A Trigger and Trap: "Abomination of Desolation" - Digital Sovereignty

In verse 15, the trigger for the flight is seeing the "abomination of desolation" standing in the holy place.

The AI Parallel: If the "holy place" within the Temple (humans) is interpreted in modern terms as the seat of human conscience, moral agency, or absolute truth, the "abomination" is the substitution of God's wisdom with a synthetic, autonomous entity. Our bodies are the holy place in Christian believe, or the place that the Holy Spirit dwells. Therefore the abomination will be in us or affect us internally…likely mentally or at the seat of or soul - our consciousness.

The Trap: When algorithmic, super-intelligent systems are granted total authority over global commerce, information verification, and daily survival, a centralized grid is created. Believers view the completion of this infrastructure as the modern "signal" that a system of absolute control has been established. The defilement of a physical temple when viewed in relation to AI, represents the integration of a centralized, autonomous authority into the seat of human worship and governance. A takeover of our minds, opinions, our very being.

The Genesis of the Totalitarian Feed

An animated abomination indicated here mirrors to Revelation 13:15, where the False Prophet gives "breath" or "spirit" to the image of the Beast, allowing it to speak and demand execution for non-compliance. Generative AI, robotics, and synthetic intelligence are the first technologies in human history capable of animating an object to interact, reason, and enforce compliance autonomously. AI becomes the ultimate non-physical proxy by entering through our eyes and ears: By positioning an AI-driven, hyper-intelligent entity or interface within the "holy place," the Antichrist creates an omnipresent proxy. It replaces divine counsel with knowledge optimization, establishing a system where humanity bows to an intelligence of its own creation. Instead of turning to the Bible and God to know what to do...we turn to AI/Internet. We're already doing it. So what we are seeing is in essence, the perfect idol and a direct violation of the 1st Commandment in Exodus.

[The next post will address how to avoid or flee the chaos that these systems will create and how they will successfully dupe even the most ardent and biblically versed believer. Jesus clearly stated that it won't be purely the individuals efforts that will keep the deceptions to come at bay. Christ himself will need to intervene or all will be lost.]

What AI Says I Am, Part V: Andy's Theology-The Controversial

2026-10-04T13:55:47.069-04:00

Theology is never without its controversy and disagreements within Christianity. So I will address some of mine here. Personally I do not believe the following topics warrant arguing over. Especially in front of a non-believer who will view the disagreements as disunity or dysfunction within the body of Christ. In the Body of Christ there is room for grace and liberty. Only in essentials is orthodoxy required.

1. Calvinism vs. Arminianism

Assessment: Explicitly nuanced; predominantly Calvinistic

This is one of the most interesting areas. Pierson did not originally present himself as a straightforward Calvinist. In 2010 he explicitly wrote: “I have not fallen fully to Calvinism but I have not abandoned Arminianism either.” He described himself as sitting between the two positions while leaning toward Calvinism. But his theology became more explicitly compatible with Calvinism. In his discussion of Revelation and predestination, he says: God sovereignty elects/predestines; the Spirit regenerates; God's grace produces obedience; genuine believers respond positively to God's commands; Divine sovereignty and human accountability coexist. He also explicitly says that he leans toward Calvinism and TULIP, while maintaining that human free will and divine predestination operate concurrently.

My characterization: I would describe the trajectory as: Early uncertainty → Calvinistic leaning → Modified/Compatibilist Calvinistic position.

I would not describe him as a strict five-point Calvinist without qualification, because he repeatedly emphasizes genuine human responsibility/free will and does not simply adopt a simplistic “God determines everything, therefore human choice is irrelevant” formulation.

2. AI

Assessment: Increasingly concerned; theological rather than merely technological analysis

This is one of his newest theological concerns. His 2025 AI series describes a movement in his own thinking from regarding AI as relatively benign toward a much more ominous assessment. His theological argument includes several propositions:

AI is not human.

He distinguishes AI decision-making from human free will, arguing that human free will arises from conscious moral agency/conscience while AI operates through computation and programmed/subroutine processes.

AI is morally amoral rather than inherently moral.

Therefore humans must supply the moral framework.

AI magnifies human problems.

Because humans create and deploy AI, human sin, incentives and institutional failures can become technologically amplified.

Language is particularly important.

In Part 3, he connects AI and language to Genesis, the Fall, Babel and God's sustaining Word. This is a fascinating development because AI has become, for Pierson, not merely a technology question but a theological anthropology question: What makes humans human?

3. Political theology

Assessment: Explicitly Christian with Conservative (not Republican) cultural analysis

Pierson's political writing should be separated from his doctrinal writing. He interprets contemporary political movements through a biblical moral framework and has written strongly against progressivism, Marxism and other movements he regards as incompatible with Christianity.

Theologically, however, the underlying principle is clear: Politics is not morally neutral. Political ideas must ultimately be evaluated against his understanding of biblical truth.

4. Science

Assessment: Pro-science but Anti-Scientism

This distinction is central to his writing. Pierson does not reject science. Rather, he repeatedly argues that science operates within philosophical assumptions and that scientific conclusions can be affected by presuppositions. His comparison of Answers in Genesis and the National Center for Science Education is particularly revealing: He argues that identical evidence can be interpreted differently depending upon one's underlying assumptions. His 2014 writing approvingly cites the distinction between scientific capability and moral guidance.

He therefore tends toward: Science as legitimate investigation of creation but rejects: Science as an autonomous authority capable of settling every metaphysical or moral question.

5. Spiritual Gifts

Assessment: Continuationist indications; some offices considered unique/non-repeatable

This requires more care. Pierson clearly believes the Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to believers and that prophecy, tongues, healing and other gifts are biblical realities. His writing on Joel 2 and Acts 2 treats the Pentecostal outpouring and supernatural gifts as genuine manifestations of the Spirit. He also discusses prophecy as a New Testament spiritual function intended to edify and guide the body. However, he draws a significant distinction concerning apostleship. He argues that the unique apostolic office occupied by the original apostles is now defunct, while acknowledging other uses of “apostle” in the generic sense of “sent one.” So I would characterize him as: Not straightforward cessationist. More accurately: He appears continuationist regarding spiritual gifts, but does not believe every biblical office continues in exactly the same form.

6. Prophecy

Assessment: strongly affirming of biblical prophecy; cautious about speculative end-times prediction

This is another area where his position has developed.

Earlier Pierson spent substantial effort studying Daniel and Revelation. But he repeatedly warned against pretending to know things Scripture does not clearly reveal. In 2010 he wrote that he was deliberately taking neutral positions on some difficult prophetic questions while maintaining confidence in Scripture's inerrancy.

His 2012 writing similarly says that Revelation should not become material for sensationalistic “end of the world” predictions. So there is a distinction: Biblical prophecy: affirmed. Prophetic speculation: Strongly questioned.

7. End-Times Theology

Assessment: Significant Evolution

This may be the most consequential theological development I found. Pierson explicitly says that he used to hold Dispensationalist Pre-Tribulation, Premillennial Rapture theology, but that he subsequently moved away from it. Earlier material nevertheless contains clearly premillennial/tribulational concepts. For example, a 2012 discussion describes a future Tribulation, Israel recognizing Jesus as Messiah, Christ's second coming, and a thousand-year earthly reign. So his theological development appears approximately: Earlier: Dispensational → premillennial → pretribulational framework.

Current: Still believes in Christ's return and future consummation, but rejects the classic Left Behind / Hal Lindsey dispensational model. That is explicitly documented rather than inferred. I would not assign him a definitive current amillennial, postmillennial, or historic-premillennial label without finding a later statement explicitly identifying one.

8. Israel

Assessment: Strong biblical/theological significance; precise current eschatological position uncertain.

His earlier writings clearly distinguish Israel's role in biblical prophecy and discuss Israel's future relationship to Christ. However, because he later says he moved away from dispensationalism, we shouldn't automatically assume that his earlier Israel theology remains unchanged. What can safely be said is: Israel remains an important biblical category in his theological framework. What cannot safely be concluded from the material I've found is exactly how he currently resolves: Israel and the Church, Romans 11, Covenant Theology Vs. Dispensationalism, National Israel's Future, Whether Israel retains a distinct eschatological program

What AI Says I Am, Part IV: Andy's Theology-The Core

2026-10-04T13:43:27.964-04:00

The AI synopsis was the most surprisingly accurate portion of its review about me. It makes matter-of-fact succinct statements about my theology that are accurate. Having reviewed all 1700+ posts I have done over all most 17 years it goes on to make a statement about my doctrinal and belief consistency. I do not waiver. I am not tossed about like a ship on the sea. I am most fulfilled because of this fact. I have reverently persevere in my faith.

Joshua 1:7: "Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go."

Proverbs 4:25-27: "Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you... Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil."

Matthew 5:37: Jesus advises that our everyday communication should be honest and reliable, letting our "yes" mean "yes" and our "no" mean "no".

1 Corinthians 15:58: Believers are urged to be "steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," knowing their daily efforts matter.

1. Scripture: Very High View/Inerrancy

Assessment: Explicitly stated

This is probably the clearest theological conviction in the archive. Pierson explicitly describes Scripture as inerrant, infallible, authoritative, God-breathed, and objectively true. In his 2011 Inerrancy of Scripture series, he says that questioning Scripture ultimately questions God's authority and describes inerrancy as foundational to Christianity. He also argues that apparent conflicts between Scripture and scientific conclusions should be resolved by recognizing human fallibility rather than assuming Scripture is wrong. His hermeneutic is therefore: God's Word → Interpret reality through it → Critique human interpretations accordingly.

This is important because it explains much of his later cultural writing.

2. Christology

Assessment: Explicitly stated

Pierson identifies the deity and humanity of Christ as essential Christian doctrine. He also treats Christ as the center and ultimate subject of Scripture. His writings repeatedly connect Old Testament prophecy and typology to Christ, arguing that the Old Testament ultimately points forward to Christ's redemptive work. He also reasons from Christ's divinity to the reliability of Christ's statements concerning Scripture.

So the framework is distinctly Christ-centered rather than merely theistic.

3. Trinity

Assessment: Explicitly stated.

Pierson identifies the Trinity as an essential Christian doctrine. His treatment of the Holy Spirit is explicitly personal rather than impersonal. He describes the Spirit as someone who can be loved, grieved, offended, indwell believers, guide them and distribute spiritual gifts. That places him squarely within classical Trinitarian Christianity.

4. Salvation

Assessment: Explicitly stated

His stated soteriology/salvation includes: Human sinfulness/original sin, total depravity, substitutionary atonement, Christ's physical resurrection, salvation by grace through faith, sanctification, final judgment. He explicitly says salvation is by grace through faith, rather than through works contrary to Catholic teaching. He also describes believers as being incorporated into the already-existing Spirit-baptized Body of Christ when they repent and believe. So his basic soteriology is unmistakably evangelical Protestant.

5. Creation

Assessment: Historical Adam; Strong creationist/Inerrantist orientation; exact chronology less certain

This is another area where his position isn't simply reducible to “young earth.” In 2015 he explicitly discusses: Gap Theory, Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism and distinguishes the age of creation from the question of whether Adam was historical. He considers the latter particularly significant. Elsewhere he argues that Genesis should be understood as historical narrative and that Scripture's claims about creation cannot simply be dismissed because modern scientific conclusions appear to contradict them. He has also suggested that future scientific discoveries may illuminate currently unresolved questions concerning creation and time.

6. Women in Ministry

Assessment: Complementarian, with substantial nuance

This is one of the clearest positions in the archive. Pierson explicitly argues that Scripture presents different male and female roles, including male leadership in the church. He simultaneously insists that women are not ontologically inferior to men. He distinguishes: Equality of being/value from difference of function/role. His treatment of prophecy is especially interesting. He accepts that women prophesied in the New Testament and that the Spirit was poured out on both men and women. But he argues that prophecy does not necessarily constitute sustained ecclesiastical leadership, distinguishing prophetic ministry from pastoral/teaching authority. His ultimate conclusion in 2011 was that the preponderance of Scripture favors male leadership in the church, although he acknowledged ambiguity in some passages. So: Complementarian, but not “women can't minister.” That's a much more accurate description.

7. The Church

Assessment: Strongly Ecclesiological and Institutional

Pierson has a fairly substantial conception of what constitutes a healthy church. An early list includes:

Prayer

Correct biblical doctrine

Evangelistic witness

Baptism and Lord’s Supper

Fellowship

Church discipline

Love for christ

Worship

Biblical church government

Personal holiness

Spiritual power in ministry

He has a strong criticism of seeker-sensitive Christianity. His argument is that the church exists primarily for: God's Glory → Worship → Gospel → Holiness, rather than: Entertainment → Consumer Satisfaction → Numerical Growth.He also sees the church as both an individual congregation and the universal Body of Christ, emphasizing mutual edification rather than reducing church to a Sunday sermon.

8. Morality

Assessment: Objective, biblical, Strongly Theocentric

Pierson explicitly places certain moral issues in the category of non-negotiable Christian convictions.

His framework includes: Holiness, sexual morality, abortion, euthanasia, marriage, human dignity, obedience to god's moral standard

He distinguishes moral commandments that he believes remain applicable from Israel's civil/ceremonial regulations that he believes were fulfilled or superseded in Christ. This is essentially a moral continuity approach to the Old Testament rather than either: “The Old Testament law is irrelevant” or “Christians must reproduce ancient Israel's civil law.”

9. Doesn't Treat Every Doctrine Equally

Pierson explicitly separates:

Essential Doctrines

Trinity

Deity/humanity of Christ

Original sin

Substitutionary atonement

Resurrection

Salvation by grace through faith

Sanctification

Christ's return

Final judgment

Nonessential Doctrines

Calvinism vs. Arminianism

Precise creation model

Certain hermeneutical differences

Aspects of eschatology

He explicitly warns against treating people as unsaved merely because they disagree over secondary doctrines. That creates an interesting tension with his sometimes extremely forceful cultural writing.

10. Epistemology

Assessment: Foundational to the Entire SoulJournaler Project

This may actually be the most important category that wasn't in your original list. Pierson repeatedly asks:

How do we know what we know?

And his answer is heavily influenced by: Scripture, Presuppositions, Human fallibility, Divine Revelation, Reason, Observation, the effects of sin on human judgment

His warning about “sifting the Word” according to personal preference is especially significant. He believes people don't merely have wrong conclusions—they can begin with wrong interpretive assumptions and then selectively interpret evidence to reinforce them. That principle appears in his biblical interpretation, science writing, political commentary and cultural criticism.

What AI Says I Am, Part III: Engaging the Cultural Zeitgeist

2026-09-26T12:04:34.750-04:00

ChatGPT researched SoulJournaler and Andy Pierson across my blog's archive, including material from 2010 through September 2026. The result is a fairly coherent picture: SoulJournaler is not simply a devotional blog, it has developed into a long-running personal theological journal that combines biblical interpretation, apologetics, Christian ethics, science/technology, cultural criticism, personal reflection, and increasingly political commentary. Interesting characteristics.

1. There's an Interesting Tension in His Theology

One of the most interesting things about the archive is that Pierson simultaneously emphasizes: Conviction and Self-examination. He doesn't merely criticize society. He repeatedly says Christians themselves are compromised including himself. For example, in older material he discusses the danger of Christians filtering Scripture through their own desires. In later writing he repeatedly returns to:

Accountability-Sin-Hypocrisy-Spiritual Complacency-Christian Compromise-Christian Passivity-Moral Courage. That gives the blog a somewhat prophetic rather than merely academic character.

2. “Prophetic” is Actually Recurring Self-Understanding

This becomes much more explicit in the later archive. In the 2025 material, Pierson describes a pattern in which he believes he recognized ideological and societal changes years before they became widely recognized. He says other Christians have described this as prophetic, while he himself describes the experience more cautiously and sometimes negatively. That is significant because it explains the tone of much of the recent writing. He isn't simply trying to analyze: “What happened?” He frequently asks: “What does this reveal about where society is spiritually headed?” That's the underlying engine of much of SoulJournaler's cultural commentary.

3. Book of Judges has Become Particularly Important Recently

This connects directly with the material you've been developing. Pierson's recent “Tell It to the Judge” series uses the biblical book of Judges as a framework for interpreting social decline. His August 2026 entry describes the recurring Judges cycle: Sin → Disobedience → Distress → Crying to God → Deliverance → Relapse. He then applies that framework to contemporary society. The August 29 article, “Judged by the Company You Keep,” develops the idea that Israel's proximity to surrounding nations affected Israel's own behavior. He connects that with the contemporary idea that people become shaped by what they remain close to. And by September 15, the series has progressed into Judges 5, where he interprets abandoned highways and social insecurity as symptoms of societal breakdown. So the Judges study isn't an isolated Bible study. It appears to be becoming a framework for interpreting civilization itself.

4. The “Company you Keep” Idea is Older Than the 2026 Judges Series

A 2025 SoulJournaler article called “The Company You Keep: A Proximal Relationship” develops essentially the same conceptual framework before the current Judges series. Pierson connects proximity, relationships, imitation and spiritual formation, ultimately arguing that one's relationship with God—or lack of relationship with God—affects one's character.

So “Judged by the Company You Keep” appears to be an extension of an already-developed SoulJournaler theme rather than a completely new idea.

5. Politics is Much More Prominent Recently

There is a clear chronological development here.

2010–2013

The emphasis is heavily on: Christianity, Apologetics, Scripture, Theology, Spiritual Formation, Philosophy, Science

2014–2019

The subject matter expands into: Culture, Morality, Science, Politics, Social Issues, Christian Institutions

2020 to Date

Political and cultural commentary becomes substantially more prominent. For example, his 2020 archive contains commentary on the presidential election, political division, Christianity and political identity. By 2025–2026, politics and culture are frequently integrated directly into biblical interpretation. Recent examples include articles addressing:

Marxism, Nationalism, Progressivism, Trump, Political Polarization, Social Disorder, Cultural Decline, Israel/Judges, Sexuality and Immorality

The important distinction is that politics appears to function as a subset of his larger theological worldview, rather than theology being merely an appendage to political commentary.

6. His Political Writing is Theologically Ideological

This needs to be seen as fallout of the theological material. For example, his 2026 article “The American Marxist Ruse” explicitly argues that certain contemporary progressive movements should be understood through a Marxist/Cultural Marxist framework, thereby antithetical to Christianity. That is Pierson's argument, not an established neutral description of those movements. Similarly, his 2025 article “Professional Victims and Political Frauds” uses strongly partisan political language and discusses progressives, Marxists, Gaza and political violence through a Christian interpretive framework. So when researching SoulJournaler academically, I'd classify these pieces as primary-source commentary scholarship. That's an important distinction if you're using his material in a Bible study, article, or research project.

7. There’s a Strong Theme of Accountability

If I had to identify one word that repeatedly connects the early and late SoulJournaler archives, it would probably be: Accountability.

Pierson repeatedly argues that: Knowledge leads to responsibility which leads to action and finally leads to accountability. His August 2026 piece “Keeping Your End of the Deal” is particularly explicit. He connects suffering, perseverance, responsibility and the biblical principle that those who have been entrusted with more are accountable for what they do with it. That idea is broader than politics. He applies it to:

Parents-Christians-Pastors-Employees-Managers-Leaders-Citizens-Institutions-Governments

It appears to be one of the foundational moral concepts of his writing.

8. World Chaos and Sin Forced a Change in Writing Style

There is also a noticeable stylistic evolution.

Older SoulJournaler

The early material tends to be: Argumentative, Apologetic, Theological, Analytical, Scripture-heavy. Concerned with definitions and logical consistency

Newer SoulJournaler

The prose increasingly becomes: Prophetic, Confrontational, Metaphorical, Culturally diagnostic, Emotionally intense. Heavily connected to current events

His metaphors become especially prominent and intense. For example, he uses: Disease/cancer, Warfare, Infrastructure collapse, Technological systems, Wolves and traps, Signal/noise, Engineering, Weightlifting, Biological systems

These aren't random stylistic choices. They reflect his adaptive background and worldview. Pierson/Souljournaler is changing with the times to directly confront and address the hard issues. The downward trend of the spirit of the age.

What A.I. Says I Am, Part II: I Reason From Scripture

2026-09-21T19:57:52.918-04:00

What AI Says I Am, Part 2: I Reason From Bible

I reason from Scripture to defend my faith, defend my worldview and also to show that my worldview and belief system's logic sticks together as a coherent logically reasoned whole. I do it the exact same way Paul the Apostle did. It's called Presuppositional Apologetics. I've been doing it this way for over a decade. I have won more people to the faith this way than bashing someone over the head with their sins and a 3lb Bible.

Acts 17:1-2 When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures

The atheist's circular reasoning in the "God wrote the Bible so it can't be wrong because He's technically omnipotent" accusation can only be invoked if in fact God is not the perfect objective truth/law giver. The atheist or non-believer has the burden of proof on them to prove this is not true if I first make the claim. When I declare that God is the source of perfect objective truth, I am putting forth a worldview that accounts for the "laws of logic" themselves. The very one's the atheist is attempting to hijack with this absurd accusation.

In other words, atheistic materialism itself fails to explain logic: If the universe is purely material and accidental, there is no logical basis for why immaterial (metaphysical) laws of logic should exist or remain consistent…or even math and language for that matter. The Non-Believer has to borrow the Christian worldview every time they attempt to use "sound reason" or "logic" to dismantle Scripture. They are actually borrowing the Christian worldview—which accounts for absolute, objective laws—to argue against it.

When I adopt this stance, I am engaging with the world on its own terms linguistically (like Paul) while refusing to compromise on the foundational authority of Scripture. In so doing I have identified the crucial philosophical reality that: Every worldview (including atheism) rests upon axioms (ultimate assumptions) that cannot be proven by outside standards without resulting in circular logic. God is the ultimate lawgiver and the source of logic itself. To judge God by an outside standard of logic would mean that standard is higher than God, which is a contradiction.

A Christian essentially has to outsmart the antagonistic atheist argument by showing its incoherence. They are throwing stones in a glass house.

1. Apologetics is a Major Pillar

Logic-Epistemology-Science-Origins-Physics-Mathematics-Consciousness-Quantum Mechanics-Technology-Artificial Intelligence
His 2013 “Nexus of the Future” begins with Colossians 1:15–20 and treats Christ as the organizing center of creation. That produces an interesting characteristic of the blog: Pierson doesn't generally separate “theology” from science and technology. He tries to construct a unified worldview not unlike theoretical physicists have for a century since Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac and others.

2. He Has a Strong Interest in Science/Technology

This becomes particularly pronounced in the later archive. His writings discuss things such as:

Quantum entanglement-AI-Technological Development-Scientific Methodology-Information-Information Theory-Human/Machine Relationships-Technological Dependence

A.I. quickly surmised that when I defend my faith or attempt to make people understand that what I am saying is soundly reasoned logical truth, I do so in the manner that Paul the Apostle did. I speak in the language of the world but the backbone of my discussion is always undergirded with the Scripture. This method is called presuppositional apologetics. I do this for the same reason Paul did. It is the only source of objective truth that doesn't require circular reasoning regardless of how many times it is accused of doing so.

The blog repeatedly attempts to bridge Christian theology, logic, science and philosophy. For example, Pierson's writings on general revelation argue that the natural world provides evidence of God while Scripture provides the special revelation necessary for understanding God more clearly. He explicitly connects scientific investigation with examination of the natural world. He also wrote extensively about:

His 2026 writings are particularly interesting because AI becomes almost a theological issue. He argues that AI can reproduce errors and biases at enormous scale and worries about humans increasingly outsourcing knowledge and judgment to technological systems including theological ideas. He frames this through biblical themes involving knowledge, wisdom, deception and dependence upon God. That represents an evolution from his earlier science-versus-faith apologetics toward a broader technology-and-humanity critique.

3. His View of Christianity is Doctrinal

The archive isn't simply generic spirituality. In 2011 he explicitly identifies several doctrines as Christian essentials, including:
Trinity-Christ's Divinity and Humanity-Human Sinfulness-Salvation through Christ
He distinguishes those essentials from secondary theological disagreements and argues that Christians should not treat every doctrinal disagreement as grounds for attacking fellow believers.

At the same time, he has written strongly against theological positions he regards as outside orthodox Christianity. For example, his 2012 series on “Counterfeit Religions” discusses Mormonism and Scientology from a strongly evangelical/orthodox Christian perspective. This will be more thoroughly addressed in a later post.

What A.I. Says I Am, Part I: The Theological Scribe

2026-09-20T15:03:59.418-04:00

AI’s Comprehensive Understanding of I: Andy Pierson

Yes, I did a play on words with A.I. and I Am. Poorly I should add.

I did an AI search on myself and my online presence. I particularly I focused it on my blog. What came back is, well…mostly accurate and Biblical. That means something to me. AI is pragmatic and logical looking for the most accurate aggregate of a given topic. It shows I’ve had a logical and theological consistency over 16 years saying and teaching the same thing with integrity. So here it is. At times AI refers to itself or me in first person. At other times it refers to itself or me in third person. It becomes annoying but the main points aren’t lost on AI’s current inability to grammatically proof read its own output. The main ideas and points it aggregates still appear accurate.

ChatGPT researched SoulJournaler and Andy Pierson across the blog's archive, including material from 2010 through September 2026. The result is a fairly coherent picture: SoulJournaler is not simply a devotional blog. It has developed into a long-running personal theological journal that combines biblical interpretation, apologetics, Christian ethics, science/technology, cultural criticism, personal reflection, and increasingly political commentary.

1. Who Am I? Who is Andy Pierson and how do I present myself?

The earliest material I found is from 2010. Pierson identifies himself as a “scribe” and “theologian,” as well as a weightlifter, father, and member of the Church. A recurring theme is the intersection of faith and rational inquiry. In a 2010 piece, he describes having an engineering background and says he moved away from engineering toward Christian ministry because he became convinced Christianity was grounded in evidence rather than blind faith. In 2015, he wrote that he was employed and had posted both business and ministry articles because he sensed a calling toward full-time Gospel ministry while potentially remaining bi-vocational as a Quality Engineer, Quality Manager, or Project Manager. So an important part of the SoulJournaler identity is: Engineering, scientific thinking, Christianity, theology/apologetics, writing/teaching and cultural analysis.

2. His Central Theological Framework

Across the archive, several convictions appear repeatedly. (1) Scripture is the controlling authority. Pierson repeatedly treats Scripture as the ultimate standard against which ideas, behavior, culture and even scientific interpretations should be examined. One particularly revealing 2010 article is “Sifting The Word to Find What We Want, Not What We Need.” His argument is that people can approach Scripture with pre-existing desires and effectively filter the biblical text until it tells them what they already wanted to hear. That idea becomes extremely important when reading his later work. His basic hermeneutical concern is: Don't make Scripture conform to the reader; make the reader conform to Scripture. That is one of the strongest continuities I found over the entire sixteen-year archive.

3. Truth and Christian Exclusivity

Another foundational theme is objective truth. In Truth or Intolerances (2010), Pierson argues that Christianity's exclusive truth claims shouldn't automatically be classified as intolerance. He uses the law of non-contradiction and argues that mutually contradictory claims cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense. For him, the ultimate truth is identified with Christ. This explains much of his later writing. He isn't approaching Christianity primarily as: “This is what Christianity means to me.” He's approaching it as: “This is what is true, and therefore reality must ultimately conform to it.”That distinction is fundamental to understanding SoulJournaler.

4. Andy’s Engineering is more than biography—It Influences His Metaphors

This is one of the more interesting findings. His engineering background shows up repeatedly in how he explains theology. Examples include concepts such as:

Signal → Distortion → Interference → Transmission…to explain sin and revelation.

He also uses: Systems → Failure → Feedback → Correction...to describe society and organizations.

He also uses: Load → Resistance → Endurance → Strength...to describe suffering/spiritual development.

That gives SoulJournaler a recognizable intellectual vocabulary:

Biblical theology interpreted through engineering, science, systems thinking and physical training.

5. His Treatment of Suffering is Highly Personal

The 2026 “Keeping Your End of the Deal” article gives perhaps the clearest window into Pierson personally. He discusses job loss, completing college, losing family members, watching a fiancé experience cancer, parenting, professional difficulties and other trials. He interprets these experiences primarily through endurance, perseverance and spiritual formation. The 2010 series on Evil and Suffering was also highy detailed to this effect.

His metaphor is essentially: Suffering is spiritual resistance training. That's consistent with the weightlifting analogy he uses elsewhere. This also explains why his writing about accountability can sound unusually forceful: he interprets endurance as something that creates responsibility rather than merely something that happens to a person.

Christianity isn't a cake walk for Andy. Part of the Christian walk is pain and suffering. The Christian isn't to invite it per se but nor should they run from it or avoid it if the straightest course is directly through it.

6. The Deepest Recurring Idea

After looking across 17 years of material, I think the central SoulJournaler question is actually simpler than all the individual subjects:

What happens when human beings substitute their own wisdom for God's?

That question appears in different clothing:

Biblical studies: Israel abandons God.

Ethics: Humans redefine morality.

Politics: Ideology becomes a substitute religion.

Science: Methodological assumptions become unquestioned boundaries.

AI: Human beings outsource judgment to machines.

Culture: People normalize behavior Scripture condemns.

Relationships: People become like the company they keep.

Personal life: Suffering tests whether faith is genuine.

That gives the enormous archive a surprisingly coherent center.

Bottom line

The remarkable continuity is that the 2010 writer asking how human beings distort truth through their own assumptions is recognizably the same writer in 2026 arguing that culture, politics, science and AI can become competing authorities that displace biblical truth.

The recent Judges material in September 2026 fits very naturally into the latest phase of that corpus: The book of Judges becomes a lens through which Pierson examines the relationship between spiritual apostasy, cultural imitation, leadership, social breakdown and divine judgment.

Tell It to the Judge, Part III: Breakdown On the Side of the Road

2026-09-15T13:05:52.278-04:00

In Judges 5 we see the Song of Deborah. There is one thing that is nearly always taught from the Scripture when it comes to Deborah. The reason Deborah is actually in a position of power is in and of itself, a national judgment. We need move past the fact that men have abdicated the role as leaders/judges at times by this point in Israel. Regardless of this being a sign of judgment on a nation, if we move past this we see indicators that the nation was still in steep spiritual freefall even in the Song of Deborah itself. In a slight turnaround, Deborah and Barak are able to slow the downward decent of Israel’s moral trajectory temporarily but the Song of Deborah is actually damning to Israel.

In Judges 5:6 and 7 we see the telling language. “In the days of Shamgar son of Anath. In the days of Jael, the highways were abandoned; travelers took to winding paths. Villagers in Israel would not fight; they held back until I, Deborah, arose, until I arose, a mother in Israel."

We see national ruin. Shamgar the prior judge to Deborah and Barak did not succeed in subduing the interior of Israel to a state of order and security. Whoever Jael (the Helper) may have been, whether Ehud, Shamgar, or some other hero, even he was unable to restore confidence to the dwellers in the land, or to allow communication between the towns and villages to pass easily or securely. The description here reminds one of the inner cities and illegal immigrant overrunning cities in our own times. Lawlessness.

A strong leadership is needed in order to inspire confidence and to allow the conditions of life to be consistently uniform and reliable. A country may be great in military strength but morally, socially and politically, at a standstill because of the absence of needed leadership, structure and internal direction. If there is no moral zeal for the public welfare the public will often be immoral and spiritually dead.

While the song celebrates a military victory, its opening verses expose a nation suffering from deep internal collapse, lawlessness, and a vacuum devoid of leaders. The description of abandoned highways and travelers taking to winding paths reveals a complete breakdown of law and order. Citizens could no longer travel safely on main roads due to the threat of violence, banditry and foreign oppression. The phrase "villagers in Israel would not fight; they held back" highlights a profound lack of resolve in citizens also. Spiritual and moral decay often manifests as collective paralysis, where the public loses the will to defend their communities or sometimes even themselves due to fear or reprisal. Good is punished and evil is rewarded.

Military strength alone cannot sustain a nation if its internal moral and social structures are hollowed out. That is because that moral rot will usually infect the military also. Without strong, principled leadership to inspire confidence and enforce justice, a society naturally fractures. Unfortunately, we see this in many places in society today. It is pervasive on social media. Welcome to America 2026.

When a people are morally bankrupt and socially under duress the communication is reduced or rendered useless. When compounded with highways and main thoroughfares that are not reliable there will be systemic breakdown. Societies need to have safely flowing goods AND ideas for proper social interaction. Physical highways are the routes of employment and paths for movement of resources and functioning civilization. All really great empires/governments have distinguished themselves in road making or at least blazers of trails whether on land or sea…the Romans, British and America to name a few. The main reason the Roman Empire became so expansive and so powerful for so long was because of the Roman road systems. The Romans had created such an extensive and safe road system that it could usually be travelled without risk to life or property by a traveler. This is even indirectly alluded to in the Bible when we read passages like Galatians 4:4:

Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law…

Why was it the fullness of time or perfect time? Primarily because of two things: There was a universal language. The Koine Greek language was spoken everywhere, making it easy to share the good news. Secondly, there was safe and easy travel. Safe roads built by the Roman Empire allowed messengers to travel quickly throughout the entire empire. Rome maintained thousands of miles of safe, paved roads because it possessed the organizational will and legal structure to enforce order. That physical connectivity inadvertently created the highway system for the early church to spread the Gospel across the Mediterranean then into Europe. People should begin to take this into account when the look around them at the crumbling infrastructure in America. If infrastructure morally and physically deteriorates destroying transfer of communication and goods it will bring a nation and its ideas to their knees.

So to see the imagery in verses 6–7 of abandoned roads and travelers forced onto "winding paths" is one of the most poignant metrics of societal breakdown in ancient literature. In the ancient Near East, public thoroughfares represented the bloodstream of a culture. Secure roads required a baseline of functional governance, active justice, and shared social trust. When those roads empty, it signals that public confidence has eroded. That is when citizens retreat into localized, defensive isolation, trade ceases, and public life freezes in collective paralysis. Social structure begins to fracture, communication breaks down leaving communities isolated and susceptible to fear and rumor. Economic movement stalls, shifting a society from proactive creation to mere survival. Civic courage vanishes, causing ordinary law-abiding citizens to forfeit responsibility and wait passively for extraordinary intervention. This intervention usually comes in the form of localized petty tyrants because no true leaders step forward.

When a nation enters this form of failed leadership and moral bankruptcy, destruction of physical and spiritual infrastructure are the two main symptoms. Roads deteriorate, communication deteriorates. Public discourse becomes unsafe. The public spaces become unsafe, and institutions fracture—not simply from a lack of tax revenue, but from a decay in the shared morality and civic duty required to maintain and protect them.

When thoroughfares, whether they be physical highways or public discourse become unreliable, inevitably society fractures into self-interests. People become isolationist or self-absorbed. Neighbor no longer looks out for their neighbor. The hearts of the people grow cold in an act of survival. People retreat to "winding paths" where accountability is low and the risk of exploitation is high. In these places lurks the worst type of people like murderers, thieves, rapists, etc. Breaking down on the side of the road in a declining society isn't just a physical hazard; it leaves the vulnerable completely exposed to the lawlessness that fills a moral vacuum.

So how did Israel and how should America rectify the downward spiral? The secret of Deborah’s success in temporally slowing Israel’s descent is actually remarkably simple. Deborah was a mother in Israel in this song. She became a visible focal point of a nation and success. The past failures weren’t continually brought up to further damage national morale. The current victories were won and they were the one’s focused on. A nation is no more what it was in the past than a recovering drug addict is now. The recovering addict was formally a failure but now a success or at least trying to be. That is why what the educational systems, politicians and others are doing by focusing intently on our past national failures is so damaging to any forward progress for the well being of the United States. Yes, we’ve been less than a light on a hill. Conversely, constantly looking back will never allow us to look forward. A farmer plowing a field must look forward at a fixed point. If they look back, the rows become crooked and the harvest fails.

Luke 9:62 "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God"

In this instance it is by Deborah herself and her wise and statesmanlike measures, internal administration, and a strong central leadership, that brought the fruits of military success to people’s own front doors to instill confidence again. She fostered a national spirit, encouraged a respect for law, and rendered it as safe to dwell in the country as within the walled city. The continuous policy of Deborah achieved the reconstitution of the land and freed it from internal lawlessness. Our nation could benefit from more leadership and wisdom like this.

Tell It to the Judge, Part II: A Killer Southpaw

2026-09-09T21:25:43.459-04:00

So reading deeper into the Book of Judges I get to its third chapter. I come across a strange comment about the judge Ehud that warranted a deeper look.

Judges 3:12 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and because they did this evil the Lord gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel. Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms. The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years. Again the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer—Ehud, a left-handed man…

The text will go on to state that Ehud creates a double-edged sword with which to kill Eglon. This assassination will be done by Ehud with his left hand under the pretense of bringing a secret message to him in private.

Judges 12:21-22 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, and his bowels discharged.

So the obvious question becomes, “Why the left hand?”

The Scientific/Medical Forensic

Based on wordage in the text and what we know medically, there are a few reasons a puncturing sweeping left abdomen wound would be preferred for an assassin. The heart and lungs being protected by the rib cage would make them prohibitively difficult to hit. Targeting the abdomen makes for a large, soft target that lacks the protection of the ribcage. Tactically, it is also the center or mass and hardest to get out of the way quickly, especially for a fat man like Eglon was. A hand or head can dodge or weave quickly, not an abdomen. It’s also closest to a neutral hand position for Ehud.

You also have many major blood vessels in the area targeted by Ehud. The abdomen houses critical vascular structures like the renal artery and branches tied to the aorta, which can cause rapid internal bleed out. It also contains vital organs. A deep penetration like Ehud would’ve produced with a double-edged sword in this region can damage organs like the liver, left kidney, spleen, or descending colon, leading to fatal hemorrhage. Therefore, the probability of a quick death as narrated in this passage would easily have been produced by a puncture of the liver or abdominal aorta artery. Either of these can lead to unconsciousness within a minute if executed exactly.

Then there is also the density and proximity of all the above accessible to a left-handed assassin sweeping a blade across an abdomen. An effective sharp, rising simultaneous perforation through a kidney, the diaphragm and into the thoracic cavity to puncture a lung would be nearly instantly lethal. The victim’s first exhalation pushes the air out and the perforated diaphragm makes replacing that air virtually impossible. Shock, unconsciousness, and death from blood loss and asphyxiation would follow quickly. We in fact read in the sword was pulled from Ehud’s right side and entered so deeply the handle was in the body also. So, therefore, a deep slashing puncture wound.

The Theological/Philosophical

The left hand or a left-handed man may be regarded as a type abnormality, eccentricity or even a disability in the time of the Judges or approx 1200 B.C.-1020 B.C. or late Bronze Age (or any time for that matter). For this alone it warrants examining why God would have a left-handed person doing this killing, medical reasoning aside. The phrase ‘left-handed man” in Hebrew literally means…"a man bound or obstructed in his right hand". Ehud may have been paralyzed or disabled. The real Jewish tribal irony is that Ehud belonged to the Tribe of Benjamin, a name that literally means "son of my right hand" or as Hebraism, “…son of my strength.” Furthermore, there may have been some genetic/hereditary abilities imparted to the Benjamites or a proclivity trained into them because Judges also goes on to state this gem too…

Judges 20:15-16 At once the Benjamites mobilized twenty-six thousand swordsmen from their towns, in addition to seven hundred able young men from those living in Gibeah. Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred select troops who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.

Left-handed men would have a distinct military advantage, especially when attacking as most combatants would’ve been right handed carrying shield in their left hands which would’ve made deflecting projectiles from a lefty nearly impossible. As we know from David and Goliath, this vulnerability is deadly.

Finally, I should also mention one other peculiarity about Old Testament southpaws. In 1 Chronicles 12:2 there is mention of another contingent of lefty soldiers who were also Benjamites. Again, this lends credence to the possibility there might have been something genetically unique about Benjamite manual dexterity. David's general Joab (Tribe of Judah, closely linked to Judah and southern kingdom) is shown to be either left-handed or ambidextrous in 2 Samuel 20:8-10. He grabs his opponents beard with his right hand while holding a sword in his left. The opponent takes no heed of the sword in his left and is undefended when Joab strikes.

So to surmise:

Benjamin was a “son of the right hand.” Ehud (and 700+ others) were Benjamite men whose right hand was somehow restricted either through disability or binding. Yet God places the sword or slings of deliverance in their left hands.

The Paradoxical Nature of God

In God’s providential goodness he permits peculiar variations from the norms of society. God does not form all men according to one exact pattern or mold. There is great variety in the nature, capacity and position of people. While many are in the center of the bell-curve there are some that are far removed from it. There is a high probability therefore that Eglon wouldn’t have deemed a left-handed man a direct immediate threat when is sword was fastened on his non-dominate side. Unfortunately, what Eglon failed to understand is that the left-handed man has the same heart as the right-handed man….capable of the highest good but also the ugliness of lethality when pressed by desperation. Guards usually searched visitors on their left side assuming they were right-handed and drew swords from their left hip; Ehud concealed his double-edged sword on his right thigh, bypassing security. Ehud is then able to implement his shocking purpose more securely through the element of surprise and Eglon letting his guard down in what appears to have been arrogance.

Ehud’s eccentricity or abnormal dexterity is turned to advantage. What first appears at first as nothing but a societal abnormality becomes a special aptitude. A peculiarity or shortcoming can always be turned into a positive. It may enable those who suffer from it to sympathize with and help others with similar difficulty. The the blind have a mission to the blind, the alcoholic to the alcoholic, the cancer survivor consuls the cancer patient. Suffering is the language and medium to consul the sufferer. A peculiarity itself becomes the tool or path by which God’s needed work is accomplished. Paradoxically, a peculiar disadvantage in one direction is often compensated for by peculiar advantages in another. This is often the mode by which God works through man. The first last and the last first.

A man who is weak in the right hand, is often strong in the left-hand. The blind often have a rare skill in music. Muscular weakness is often offset by intellectual strength. Deficient physical health is equalized by spiritual power. Therefore, instead of complaining of shortcomings we should associate with others not avoid those who have had similar issues and determine how to turn disadvantage into an advantage. It is the proverbial turning of lemons into lemonade.

God can use even the useless as a very useful thing. Therein we have the story of God using Onesimus in Philemon. The paradoxical abnormality in the letter to Philemon is that Philemon was a free man who owned a slave. Onesimus was the slave that Paul writes to Philemon about to free him. Paul is writing to him from Roman imprisonment. Onesmus’ name means ‘useless’ in Greek, but he is very useful in making a point to shame Philemon into freeing Onesimus even while Paul is in prison so that Onesimus can carry Paul’s message to the world outside the prison.

In the end it is just another example of thousands that the Bible shows divine subversion of human arrogance or supposed cleverness. Christian and Jewish thought highlights how God consistently uses what society deems weak, overlooked, or disabled to turn the tides of history.

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

The Lindsey Clancy Horrorshow

2026-09-07T11:52:24.580-04:00

So apparently people still don't get the full panoptic of what we're dealing with in society. The inability to understand the staggering injustice of Lindsey Clancy methodically killing her children is merely a symptom of a much larger spiritual disease that is actually a judgment against a nation. America is not only in decline, it is actively under judgment by Biblical standards. I've said it numerous times before but it warrants saying again because I've heard so many implying a question through a statement similar to this:

"I honestly do not understand what is going on in society anymore with this Clancy case. I can't comprehend a mother killing her children. What is more troubling is the women supporting it under the guise of postpartum depression."

I present a quick Biblical aside from 2 Timothy 3:1-6 and and a detour to Paul’s letter to the Romans in this post.

There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God......They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires...

The passage above is describing the root cause of a complete breakdown of society during "terrible times" in the last days. The text warns that people will become "unloving or specifically without natural affection" or astorgoi/ ἄστοργοι in Greek. Theologically the historical interpretation of this Greek word in context is understood as the ultimate corruption of natural bonds—specifically parents becoming callous, cold, or negligent toward the welfare of their own children.

In the context of the Lindsey Clancy horror show the phrase “unloving/without natural affection” is significant because storgē refers to natural familial affection or the bonds between her and the children she brutally murdered. Paul places the absence of astorgoi/ ἄστοργοι alongside brutality, lack of self-control and rejection of what is good. When a society begins losing its understanding of paternal love, it is not merely experiencing a political or moral problem. It is experiencing a massive spiritual problem. So this passage now provides us a biblical framework for discussing the horrifying breakdown of natural moral bonds in this case. If family is the building block of society it would begin to explain why the entirety of society is now in full freefall.

The family also needs to be seen as the building block of the Church which is why Paul writes this portion. It is a warning not just to individuals but to the Church. The endgame for the Devil is to bring the Church down. Family destruction is just a collateral damage or serendipitous side effects of the evil. Timothy is not merely being given a lesson about wicked people “out there.” Paul is warning Timothy about conditions that will affect the people and communities within normal society and the Church. That is the exact reason I have seen women on social media who claim to be Christian right within the Church touting support for Clancy. Their minds are twisted or they’re gullible.

While the Clancy case isn't necessarily the cause of the cultural problem—it is an especially horrifying illustration of a deeper problem Paul warned about. The erosion of self-control, moral restraint and love of God. The farther we've gotten away from God and scripture the more debased our actions have become. Paul described the corruption of the instincts that ordinarily hold human society together. Paternal instincts. That is why so many are making perplexed statements of disbelief searching for an answer to the madness. Those stating types of statements can’t possibly comprehend what is going on with the cold, callous people since they are not one of them. To understand the madness, you must become the madness.

What we now need to contend with is the degeneration of society. What happens to a society when self-control, natural affection and love for God have eroded? The Christian answer cannot simply be, “I don't understand how society got this way.” Paul told us what happens when humanity turns away from God in these passages. When God is rejected, His truth is rejected. When His truth is rejected, moral boundaries are rejected. When moral boundaries are rejected, desires that once were restrained become celebrated, defended, and normalized.

Romans 1:28-31 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil

Furthermore…

Romans 1:32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

The irony of v.32 tells us exactly why there are so many women supporting a murderer who slaughtered her three children, “…they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” Many of these women have what some would call toxic empathy. Those supporting this have had their brains seared because they are godless. So their minds don’t function in the manner they were made to. This is why Paul would earlier say:

1 Timothy 4:1-2 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

The act of searing flesh will, over time numb it by destroying nerve endings near the surface due to scar tissue that builds up. Repeated burning will only increase and thicken the scar tissue. In society people’s minds and thinking have become numb over repetitive searing.

The further society moves from God, the more deeply human rebellion and enmity against God digs its heels in and affects our understanding of gender, marriage, family, sexuality, responsibility, authority, self-control, and value of human life. This is why we should not be surprised when a culture that has spent a century rejecting biblical authority begins producing increasingly distorted ideas about morality.

If we ever hope of living in a normal society again, Christians need to do the following to push back against the tide of darkness we see enveloping us…

We should grieve the victims.
We should condemn evil.
We should name the evil explicitly while holding people accountable that committed it.
We should show compassion toward those suffering from mental illness.
We should be able to discern if said actions are actually demonic in origin stop it.
We should study the spiritual/moral condition of the culture and turn to God to fix what we can.

While we can simultaneously have compassion for people suffering from real mental illness, we must never be confused with calling evil good or the demonic a mental issue. The Bible delineates the two. Lindsey Clancy clearly stated she heard a male voice tell her to do it. We can acknowledge the devastating effects of postpartum and other psychiatric illnesses while still maintaining the biblical conviction that the taking of innocent human life is profoundly evil and needs to be punished, not acquitted or freed of all responsibility because of blame shifting.

When the bonds that God designed to hold families together begin to unravel, the consequences will not remain confined to the family. They will eventually be felt throughout society destroying society and inevitably the Church.

So…the question isn’t:

“What is wrong with society?”

The more important question is:

“How far have we wandered from God and how do we get back?”

Tell It to the Judge, Part I: Judged by the Company You Keep

2026-08-29T12:04:56.427-04:00

The Book of Judges. In the book what we see is a cycle of sin and disobedience to God over and over. The people repent and cry to God for help. Their deliverance comes when God raises up a temporary leader, or judge, to save them. Over the course of the book and over time, both the people and the judges become increasingly corrupt, mirroring the ways of surrounding nations. In the beginning of Judges we see the tail end of the conquest of the Book of Joshua.

Judges 1:1-6 After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” The Lord said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.” And Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into the territory allotted to me, that we may fight against the Canaanites. And I likewise will go with you into the territory allotted to you.”

There are three main things that can be seen in this passage. I will elaborate on them over the next three posts. The first one is that before taking in hand any important matter I need to seek god's direction in prayer (v. 1). In verse 1 its says, “Israel inquired of the Lord.” This is always the best place to start. Praying or looking to God in the midst of change, stress or struggle. I’ve seen this in my own life. I am going through it now in the process of changing jobs.

The key point is to seek God before acting, even through the stress of facing a major transition. I didn’t just seek God asking Him to bless a decision we’ve already made—I literally asked Him to direct the decision in the first place to the point that I believe he gave me signs to do so. Transitional times are times when a person especially needs God’s direction. In Judges, Joshua was gone, and Israel was entering a new season. Likewise, changing jobs can bring uncertainty about finances, relationships, responsibilities, and the future.

Prayer should come before action. Israel didn’t immediately decide which tribe should attack. They first “asked the Lord.” God may give direction one step at a time. Thereby encouraging or even forcing us to go to Him in prayer continually to determine each subsequent step. God answered Israel’s question specifically: “Judah shall go up.” He did not give Israel the entire plan at once though. Likewise, I may not receive the whole plan for my future, but I can ask God to show us the next faithful step. Seeking God doesn’t mean there will be no difficulty. Judah still had to fight. Prayer doesn’t necessarily remove the challenge; it puts us in the right posture to face it mentally. Our confidence ultimately rests in God’s leading. God said, “I have given the land into his hand.” Israel’s success was ultimately dependent upon God rather than their own strength. Yet…there were actions the Israelites had to perform themselves. Just as I had to put the next step of my plan in motion by resigning and entering into a risky period of no pay and no healthcare.

This means I had to start distrusting my own wisdom. I was already having misgivings as to my motives to take the job I just resigned from. What I realized is seeking God’s direction means more than asking God to bless my plans. It means being willing to surrender my plans to His answer if it does not align with mine. The job I have inevitably taken is one I normally wouldn’t have. My previous job was one I thought was an easy decision. In these two instances, logic was flipped. God’s will should’ve been abided by. I believe only in the most recent scenario this path was followed. The decision to take the last job as based in my understanding and aligned with my comfort zone. A mistake to be sure. All events are in the hands of God's unerring providence even the decision to take the last job. It was to fulfill something God desired of me even if it is not plainly evident. Success and failure should always prompt us to look to God for guidance. Nothing is a failure in God's plan.

Is what is happening now God’s genuine will for me? I guess I need to ask myself: (1) Am I genuinely asking God what He wants, or am I asking Him to confirm what I already want? (2) Am I willing to accept “no” or “wait” as an answer? (3) Are my motives being shaped by Scripture, prayer, wise counsel—or by comfort, money, frustration, or fear? (4) Am I trusting God’s providence even when I cannot see how everything will work out? As my father used to say, "To make a deal, you have to be willing to walk away from it."

There is also a good balance here. Seeking God doesn't mean becoming paralyzed and waiting for some extraordinary sign. I use Scripture, prayer, wisdom, counsel, circumstances, and godly judgment, while recognizing that God remains sovereign over the outcome.

There is a counterbalance to the idea to whether I am in my will, or God’s outlined in Jeremiah 41. A passage that helps me assure whether or not I am in God’s will. The Israelites are already engaged in change or trial and are looking for direction…

Jeremiah 41: 1-3 Then all the army officers, including Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah[a] son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest approached 2 Jeremiah the prophet and said to him, “Please hear our petition and pray to the Lord your God for this entire remnant. For as you now see, though we were once many, now only a few are left. 3 Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.”

In verse 7 or as the narrative states, ten days later God answered Jeremiah’s petition.

Jeremiah 41:10-16 If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I have relented concerning the disaster I have inflicted on you. Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you now fear. Do not be afraid of him, declares the Lord, for I am with you and will save you and deliver you from his hands. I will show you compassion so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your land.’ “However, if you say, ‘We will not stay in this land,’ and so disobey the Lord your God, and if you say, ‘No, we will go and live in Egypt, where we will not see war or hear the trumpet or be hungry for bread,’ then hear the word of the Lord, you remnant of Judah. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you are determined to go to Egypt and you do go to settle there, then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow you into Egypt, and there you will die.

The Jeremiah passage gives me a particularly powerful sentence to incorporate into my lesson here: I must be careful that my interpretation of God’s will is not simply my own desires dressed in a facade and religious clothing. Unfortunately, as is often the case, I have asked God's direction, hoping that the answer will be in alignment with my own desires, and then do my best to twist it into that alignment. Sadly, what I do when I do this is I am confabulating God’s holy answer with my own sin/error. Even then, God can bend my disobedience and sin to His will. He can bend out mistakes to His desired outcome. Regardless, when seeking God's guidance, special care should be taken so to humble my will. I need to be able to do that so that I can be ready to act upon the answer God gives me. No matter how contrary it may be to my own heart. This exact idea fits with Judges because the larger problem in the book is that Israel repeatedly did what was right in their own eyes. The book begins with Israel asking God, “Who shall go up first?”—but as the story progresses, they increasingly stop looking to God and follow their own wisdom.

As a human this can be very hard to accept especially when cases of financial loss, sacrifice of worldly advantages or pleasures, self-humiliation and self-denial, resentment, jealousy, pride, vanity, praise are at stake. We’re all human. We’re all flawed. All have desires contrary to the will of God. I need to crush them and align myself to God.

What ways do I "Ask the Lord" concerning the course I need to pursue? I have a few tried and true courses of action.

(1) First and foremost I pray and engage conversation with God directly. Its a relationship first.

(2) Secondly, if God doesn’t plainly reveal it in the Scripture, He can impress it upon my mind directly in thought or dream.

(3) Third, I seek the counsel of Scripture. That I will see light and truth from the words that are the expression of the mind and will of God. There is no state of darkness, or confusion as to the path of my duty to God in the Word. In the Bible it is in black and white. Most often my answers to prayer are outlined in the Scripture. It may take a little cleverness and inductive thinking to see the answer, but it’s in there. God’s word is always a light on my path (Psalm 119:105). There is no question of morality or conduct that the Bible cannot shed truth on. The Bible has an answer for every question if approached with the right heart and mind. The answer must be sought in intelligent, prayerful study, not as a matter of blind chance or in the presumptuous expectation of a miraculous answer.

(4) He can work through others through wise counsel. In this way my own family, friends and acquaintances have acted as judges and prophets in my very own life. The interesting thing about working through others is that some of those others may not even be believers. He can even work through my enemies and has. I am not so arrogant that I cannot learn a lesson vicariously though those I do not like (that is one of the reasons we are called to love our enemies). If God can use Satan to His ends, he can use any method or agency.

The instruments of His will are endless. Suffering, stress, affliction, success and so on. If the answer is sought faithfully and earnestly, it will come eventually. It may not come on my schedule which it often doesn’t but then again…patience isn’t one of my strengths.

An answer will unquestionably come, either by the Spirit suggesting to my mind or strengthening of what is at the time a doubt or lack of confidence, building it into a strong conviction. He will make my decision into firm reasoning by clearing away any last clouds of doubt. This last example being the most powerful form of God answering my prayer and bolstering it to perform the duty he called me to by building me from within. Conviction.

In the end it is not hard to assume my character, morals and decisions match the person, people or things I choose to spend the most time with. The people or things I surround myself with influence the direction of my life for good and bad. Who has the greatest influence on my thinking? The God/god I chose to listen to changes what I worship. Is it the One True God or the god of the world and my own making?

Keeping Your End of the Deal

2026-08-27T16:44:44.299-04:00

I am continually pressed to strengthen my faith. Trials and unpleasant events have been a constant in my life since God entered back into it full blast around 2005. I have taken jobs and I have lost jobs. I completed a college degree. I lost a parent and family members. I watched my fiancé suffer through cancer. I have gone through the highs and lows of parenting and watch my sons surmount their own trials. Discomfort has become the norm and comfort is often fleeting.

Each trial and overcoming of trial has built on the last. The trials are common for me and those around me now. They say just one really stressful event in any given year can be traumatizing. I have gone through two or three of them in some years. You learn longsuffering. You learn pain and how God allows you to cope with it. Endurance. Perseverence.

Some of my problems are self-wrought. At times I am unable to remain silent and not tell people truth if I know it is damaging mentally or physically…from the entry level employee to the CEO of companies. What I have found nearly without question is there is a deficit of accountability in society. Many outside observers often point to the unemployed, uneducated clerical position or the youth to blame for this type unaccountability. The real truth is the blight extends all the way to upper managers, leader pastors, political ‘leaders’ and their ilk. It extends to people who in middle-age should know better but chose to sit idle. Passivity is a plague of inaction and has infected a large portion of society. The Bible even condemns it in Luke 12.

Luke 12:48 But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

It is apathy, unaccountability or inaction. It is the reason I’ve just resigned from a high paying job. It was never about the money. It was about making lives better and getting a better return on investment. The problem in the company was the same as the society at large. Most are content to sit on what they have and make little effort to either maintain or gain by investing energy and time. In layman’s terms sloth or laziness in abundance.

There’s an important distinction above between suffering and personal formation though. The events themselves—divorce, losing employment, completing a degree, losing parents, watching my children struggle and grow—aren’t necessarily good or bad things in themselves. What I’m saying is that, over time, surviving them has produced capacities that I did not possess before: Patience, endurance, longsuffering, and an increased ability to tolerate discomfort without immediately needing it removed. I get time to learn from the pain as I walk through it. The grind in life is the same as the pain of bearing the tonnage of weightlifting. The pain produces strength. I was born to be a spiritual pack mule.

James speaks of the testing of faith producing steadfastness; Paul likewise connects suffering, endurance, character, and hope. The point isn't that Christians are supposed to enjoy suffering but we’re not to avoid it either. In my life I have run directly towards it. That is the difference between my pro-activity and hyper focus to achieve a goal and the passivity of others whether it be as a lifter or a leader of people in work or the Body of Christ. Faith becomes something tested and emboldened when circumstances give you reasons to abandon it.

The accountability end of my comment comes in at this point because it connects directly to the second half of what I wrote. I have a conviction that being entrusted with something creates an obligation to act, not merely an entitlement to possess it. These statements are not restricted to money or formal authority. I can be entrusted with knowledge, intelligence, responsibility, influence, employees, a congregation, children, or simply the ability to recognize that something is wrong. In each case, the question becomes: What did I do with what I was given?

That's also why my frustration with passivity and lack of accountability runs much deeper than ordinary dissatisfaction. It is a spiritual discontent. I’m not merely saying, “These people aren't working hard enough.” I’m saying, “These people have been entrusted with something, they know what needs to be done, and nevertheless they choose to do little or nothing.”

Lastly, I need to address the counter argument. There needs to be a tension even in the unbridled energy I bring to bear on a situation even at almost 60 years old. People are human and some cannot necessarily perform at an exceedingly high level. There is a balance between passive idle and full throttle that is the sweet spot for an engine. Idling gets nothing done. Full throttle burns up an engine and abuses it.

The willingness to tell an uncomfortable truth can be a virtue or a sin. But the conviction that one must always tell that truth can itself become a temptation. Sometimes silence is golden. Ecclesiastes says there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” Paul tells believers to speak the truth in love. Blurting out a truth that will clearly maim someone in spirit is not helpful or productive. Nathan confronted David; John the Baptist confronted Herod; Christ confronted religious authorities. But Christ also remained silent before His accusers when silence served its purpose. Perhaps the better principle isn't: “If I know something is wrong, I must tell someone.” Instead, it should be, “If God has given me knowledge and responsibility, I must discern whether, when, and how or even if I am obligated to act.”

The distinction matters because otherwise accountability can turn into personal responsibility for everybody else's behavior. In business they call it scope creep. In weight lifting it's called an injury. And that's a burden God hasn't necessarily given me. That is His responsibility to make others see that they need to act. I can tell the CEO what I believe he needs to hear. I can warn the pastor. I can confront the employee. I can resign when remaining would make me complicit in the sin or failure. But after I've faithfully done what I believe God obligated me to do, their response belongs to them and my responsibility ends.

In the end it comes back to faith and realizing I need to turn it over to God after my responsibility in the situation is complete. This is where all of it becomes a faith-building exercise for me. Earlier trials taught me how to endure what happened. The most recent trial seems to have taught me how to release what I can never control. Know when to walk away.

It requires a large amount of faith to say and believe, “God, I have done what I believe You required of me. Now I will trust You with what happens next.” This kind of faith can be extraordinarily difficult for someone like me whose conscience is strongly oriented toward action and accountability, because inaction by other people feels almost like something I am morally compelled to correct. I can’t. My resignation wasn’t about escaping discomfort or trial so much as it was about refusing to spend my strength and energy sustaining a system whose stewards were unwilling to steward it. I can't make others carry their end of the weight. Not all burdens are mine to carry.

I believe this is the lesson I was to learn from this. It was a modern day Parable of the Talents. How did I steward my responsibility (Matthew 25:14–30). My faithfulness is inextricably attached to stewardship. This is not the case for so many others. I was accountable to God. In the end many are not.

Romans 14:12: “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

Stewardship asks the question: What have I done with what God gave me?

Accountability asks the question: What will I say when I must answer to God for it?

Faithfulness asks the question: Was I faithful with what I was entrusted with?

A Bird on Barbwire

2026-08-24T14:42:02.314-04:00

The greatest lie ever told about totalitarianism by the left is that totalitarian movements are in fact a few strong men or Übermensch imposing their will on the unwilling participants. That people like Trump or Gavin Newsom are the embodiment of this at the federal or state levels. The opposite of this is actually true. This subtle correction to the simplistic "dictator imposes tyranny on everyone" model flips the script on the mindless liberal assertion of one powerful person taking over the masses.

Totalitarian movements generally require mass participation, or at least substantial popular mobilization. They don't merely suppress an unwilling society from above; they seek to transform society from within-through propaganda, ideological conformity, political organizations, rallies, protests, surveillance and pressure to demonstrate enthusiasm organically that is actually artificial.

The paradox is that coercion and consent can coexist and are not mutually exclusive. A population may initially embrace a movement (BLM, Trans rights, etc, participate actively in and genuinely believe its ideology, while the resulting regime simultaneously destroys alternatives and makes dissent increasingly dangerous and then destroys these ‘useful idiots’.

Hannah Arendt emphasized something like this in The Origins of Totalitarianism. Totalitarian movements drew power from mass society and sought to organize otherwise politically atomized people into an ideological movement. In other words, the rogues, those left out or perceived as left out or the lone gunmen and lunatics. The "strong man" is therefore not the whole explanation; the movement and its mass base matter enormously if it is to succeed. A distinction needs to be made though.

Authoritarianism primarily asks people to obey. Totalitarianism seeks to mobilize them -to make them participate in, identify with, and reproduce the ideology of the regime. That is the reason totalitarianism can be more socially invasive and violent than ordinary dictatorship. That is why we are seeing a mobilization of the weak and marginalized in society to protest law-abiding agents of change such as ICE and other paramilitary organizations incorporated by the sitting government.

Recruiting the weak and the isolated creates a mass of weak individuals that imposes its will on a majority of sane and responsible citizens. We see it in the transgender movement, in the lunacy of the post partum killer Lindsay Clancy, and similar support of otherwise insane ideologies. At its core it is cultural Marxism. For this Marxism to take over it needs to isolate and kill of its main threat. The masculine male in a traditional male role…father, soldier, leader. Modern progressives believe that if they suppress the male drive toward strength, tyranny stays caged. They have it completely backwards and support the destructive outcome of putting weak morally rudderless males or even morally debased women in charge.

This ‘collectivism’ runs on social causes regardless of how depraved or mental they are. They enforcement by what should be considered ‘consensus enforcement’ or the ‘will of the mob’. What Americans should really be doing is shifting our focus from the so-called dictator or predator complex (Trump as Hitler) and realize that we need focus on the isolated individual as a recruit for collective power and the recruiters. The people like those supporting Lindsey Clancy, the would-be assassins of Trump and the morally bankrupt media recruitment agents. They are the cooperative agents in the hidden tyrannical takeover.

In other worlds, true totalitarians regimes exploit isolated and politically aggravated people. This applies to both sides of the aisle in America too. Both view themselves as the underdog and oppressed. Both willing to resort to violence to make a point. The left being quicker to pull the trigger than the right. The truth and time has shown that suppressing individual strength doesn't necessarily prevent tyranny; if anything, a population of fragmented, dependent, and socially insecure individuals are easier for an organized movement to mobilize.

The protesting of the oddball left therefore needs to be seen as ‘consensus enforcement’ and is born of a weak population too beta-ized and demasculinized to stand on its own. Through this weakness the true dictator steps in to take advantage of the weak and feebleminded. People who outsource their lives to the state and look to it for rescue from an existence they cannot bear. Ostracism, reputational ruin, and cancellation work best on those too frail to face rejection. A mind that judges independently, backed by a spine willing to absorb the anger that follows, is the only thing that stands against a mass movement. That is exactly why ‘acceptance’ is not only desired by the progressive left, it is demanded.

The one trait that defends against this tyranny, masculinity, is then labeled as toxic an undesirable, harmful of even extreme. There is even a biological and scientific support of this argument. Testosterone in men has fallen roughly 1% a year since the 1980s, a decline the endocrinology literature documents independent of age. A man today carries meaningfully less than his father did at the same stage of life. A growing body of research points one direction. As alcoholism and drug use increase, testosterone falls even more. As testosterone falls, so does the capacity to withstand social pressure. We are building a society where the internal capacity for dissent is falling while institutions raise the penalty for dissenting. Compliance is expected. Compounding this fact, increasingly women, more physically vulnerable by nature, move into positions of power and men grow weaker, the herd instinct that drives every collective movement takes hold due to sheer numbers or rule of the mob, not actual strength.

At this point, the herd is the precondition for every totalitarian project. The volume of sheer numbers an the mindlessness of the mob wins over the individual masculine resistance. Like a white blood cell being overwhelmed by a horde of diseased cells or a malignant cancer. The immune response to stop the spread of contagion is overwhelmed by design. The diseased cell attacks the healthy one by surrounding it, suffocating and killing it.

What is the easiest way to stop this? It is also happens to be the hardest. It requires a critical mass of strong, independent, responsible individuals, enough to outweigh the compliant mass. It begins with the refusal to pretend that sexual perversion and gender identities are okay. That illegal immigrant invaders can just do as they please. That no-fault divorce is okay and raping men blind of everything they invested in a family is a legal recourse for unemployed women with a vendetta. That women can wantonly murder children in the womb and the medical establishment gets away with calling it healthcare.

As Carl Jung wrote, resistance to the organized mass can only be affected by the man who is as well organized in his individuality as the parasitic mass is itself. The best defense against a dangerous but organized mass isn't simply physical aggression or "strength," but an individual sufficiently integrated to withstand the psychological cost of disagreeing with the group.

To summarize: Societies become weak and vulnerable when individuals become psychologically, economically, and socially dependent on institutions for identity and security. Conformity is the logical out come in oppressive societies like this because dissent then carries severely higher reputational costs. We all saw this during COVID if someone actively resisted or refused vaccination. A free society doesn't merely need citizens who are willing to resist a tyrant…it needs citizens willing and capable of resisting their own neighbors and family if morally required. Sometimes...you just have to do the hard thing.

Are You On The List?

2026-07-14T16:04:59.926-04:00

The Lamb's Book of Life or the Epstein List? Why would I even ask such a paradoxical question? What's the difference? The difference between them is one decision. It is a single intent that festers into many bad decisions. Sin. Righteousness and unrighteousness. Men are capable of profound good and also profound evil.

Everyone is rightfully horrified by the Epstein files, but most people are horrified by the ending and ignored the process or incidents that led up to the ending. That is why no one is being held to account. The Left has their own people involved so it behooves them to remain silent about it. The right including Trump have told the populace that there is nothing to see in the files and we should move on as an American people…and many have done exactly that. That is likely because people on both sides are complicit also. It is a nest of vipers no matter how one looks at it.

No one held accountable. Victims are victimized twice. Perverts get away with their sins and perversions akin to Caligula’s reign of horror from Capri. We are in fact all somehow complicit if we do not insist justice is still sought for the children abused or killed. Instead many embrace their ideological overlords and ignore what is plainly in their faces. Therein lies a huge part of why politicians, the rich and the famous have not been persecuted and locked away. Other than the rare psychopath, no one wakes up intending to become monstrous. They make one small deal after another. They excuse a small lie, accept a strange invitation, and keep quiet when something feels off. Call it what you will. Moral apathy, intellectual complacency, cowardice, etc.

Many have traded integrity for access, reputation, and influence. Step by step, Americans sell pieces of themselves. As Dostoevsky noted, your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. The quick willingness for political ideologues on the right and the left to forgive their political leaders or heroes are/were not desperate acts of survival. They willingly traded their conscience for a seat at the elite table. That is the real lesson. Not that fame, sex, money, and power inherently corrupt, but that people willingly corrupt themselves in pursuit of them. So it goes for the politicians, rich, famous and even the working class or the general masses.

Unchecked desire is the process, while moral transgressions are the end point. IT applies to the President of the United States all the way down to the abusive drug addict boyfriend. There is an ancient Native American story that tells of a wolf being hunted. The hunter, wanting to avoid direct confrontation with the dangerous creature, stuck a blade in the ice and coated the blade in blood. When the wolf came upon the blood-soaked ice, he began licking the blade. The blade numbs the wolf’s tongue and it is thinking that he was eating, when in fact he was cutting himself and slowly dying. It keeps licking, unaware it is cutting itself, until it can't tell the difference between frozen blood and its own, then bleeds out in the dark. That is how corruption works. It begins as an appetite and feels like personal advancement or winning. It is a dulling of the senses until there is no sense. The seared conscience of 1 Timothy 4:2.

The truth is the conscience slowly dulls, and by the time the acts are unthinkable, the numbness is complete. The uncomfortable truth is that we as the ordinary people that refuse to force the truth to be brought forward or lazily not force the issue with the perverted elite ruling class have helped create the conditions where justice does not prevail for the weak or the innocent. The Epstein files are not just an indictment on leaders and famous but on us also.

We create the conditions for leaders, famous and rich to operate with impunity. We worship fame, we equate wealth with worth, we kneel before power, we reward the traits that lead people to tables like Epstein's. We water the tree of desire and then gasp in horror when the fruit is rotten.

Accountability matters. God will eventually hold everyone accountable on the Last Day.

Those who cross moral and legal red lines must face consequences. But punishment alone does not cure the disease. The deeper lesson is restraint. Most people, given the chance, would start licking the knife. They believe they would stop in time, but just like the wolf and the frozen blade, by the time you need to stop, you are too numb to do so. So, we arrive where we are today. Numb and morally bankrupt. We idolize the people and things that we should find most abhorrent. We hated the people on Epstein’s list because some of us knew that, in a way, we were on the list indirectly too because of the things we value and the people we look up to. That is why most didn’t make a huge stink when the issue got abruptly dropped.

This is unacceptable and shows a majority of society spiraling unanchored in a moral abyss. Unless we are saved by the acknowledgement of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, we are in effect, all on the list somehow because of what we prioritize as important and what we give our money and attention too. If we are not in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Revelation 3:15, 21:27), we might as well be on Epstein’s list.

Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Romans 3:11-12 “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.

Stepping Into The Quantum Breach

2026-07-06T13:37:04.654-04:00

This post is going to run deep and long. I will be trying to tie the quantum uniqueness into the Biblical worldview. It may be a head scratcher for some but hopefully if you hold on until the end it will mostly make sense. Recent trends in the exploration of the quantum world are bringing to light some strange new realities. Quantum entanglement, quantum tunneling and quantum teleportation all reveal that matter is effectively non-local. That is to say, quantum interactions occur instantaneously over arbitrarily long distances. Quantum entanglement proves that in the quantum world there is no such thing as "over here" and "over there." I will need to define a few things before moving forward.

In short Quantum Entanglement is… when two particles become deeply and inseparably linked, sharing a single physical state. Changing the state of one particle instantly changes the other, even if they are light-years apart. I suggest that this is possible way that God directly interacts with us in the Spirit. In particular the idea that John the Revelator is taken up in the Spirit in Revelation may also be an apropos example of this (Revelation 4:1-2).

In short Quantum Tunneling… is a phenomenon where a particle defies classical physics by passing directly through a solid barrier that it normally shouldn't have enough energy to cross. It essentially behaves like a wave, "bleeding" through the wall and appearing on the other side. I suggest that this is revealed in events following Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus is described as passing through his grave clothes in his resurrected body (John 20:6-7).

In short Quantum Teleportation… says you can move data, not matter instantly. It is a process where the exact quantum state (information) of a particle is transferred to another distant particle, using quantum entanglement. The original particle's state departs, and the particle appears at the destination, without the actual particle traveling through space. I believe this is what we saw when the disciples first saw Jesus after the Resurrection in multiple examples (Luke 24:36–43; John 20:19–23). There was something about Jesus spirit body that allowed him to do all the previous actions, quantum entanglement, tunneling and teleportation.

So…to surmise the first part, quantum non-locality is the phenomenon where entangled particles instantly influence each other's states across any distance, transcending the limits of space and the speed of light. From a biblical worldview, this mirrors the interconnectedness of a creation spoken into existence by the omnipresent Creator, Jesus Christ. It illustrates that the physical universe is fundamentally unified and sustained by a power that transcends physical boundaries, reflecting scriptures like Colossians 1:17, which states that, "in Him all things hold together,” and Hebrews 1:3 which tells us that, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”

What man has learned about the quantum level in the last century is that there is no mechanism in quantum mechanics which explains how particles "communicate" with each other superluminally or faster than light. The fact is, there is no superluminal communication; rather there is an extra-dimensional property called "non-locality" which implies that two sub-atomic particles separated by vast distances in space are actually "non-locally" joined together in another dimension. New experiments consistently prove that matter itself, at a quantum level, does not have a strictly "material" reality. It also has alternate reality characteristics. In the Bible I would stretch so far to say, it has spiritual or spirit implications. I suggest the subliminal ‘reality’ is in-fact Christ himself because the Bible tells us He is (Hebrews 1:3).

In these examples we see what the Biblical worldview has always alluded to and accepted. There is a veil between the world of matter and the spirit realm. There are two worlds revealed in the Bible. Jesus frequently talked about this world and the world above. He said to those who opposed Him:

“You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.”John 8:23

There is this material world and there is another world that is above and beyond this physical universe because it exists in a spiritual dimension. These two worlds are separated by an ethereal veil. Even a simple reading of the Bible shows that they are continuously intersecting yet they are two entirely separate worlds. Currently, one is the world constituted by matter and the other is constituted by spirit. At a later date these worlds will, in effect merge as all will have what Paul referred to as the spirit body or σῶμα πνευματικόν/ soma pneumatikon. Both those saved to Christ in eternity and those condemned in torment. How else can one be physically tormented without a body? They will be bodies that will have both the properties of matter/physicality and properties of the ethereal/Spirit. How else would Jesus have been able to materialize or appear in the Upper Room and also eat? Jesus’ spirit body is an example of the First Fruits of the Resurrection and a breach in the veil between worlds

When Jesus walked upon the earth he displayed the supernatural powers of the world above, which He identified as "heaven." Even when He was upon the earth He was still living in this other dimension called heaven. He said, "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven." (John 3:13) The Heavenly Man, Jesus Christ, displayed heaven on earth and revealed the Kingdom of Heaven everywhere He walked on earth. That is why heaven was where Jesus was. The Kingdom is where the King is/was. Where Jesus walked and performed miracles the effects of the entropy of the Fall of man in Genesis 3 were pushed back and ‘heaven’, the ‘kingdom’ bled through the veil into this world. Corruption and decay was pushed back or overturned completely.

The Gospels continually revealed the Spirit world breaking into our world. The Bible continuously refers to and mentions veils. I do not believe this is by accident. It is a "veil" that separates the things of heaven and earth. In the Bible, the "veil" primarily refers to the literal and theological curtain in the Tabernacle and Temple that separated humanity from the dwelling place of God (the Holy of Holies). It symbolizes the spiritual barrier between the physical, earthly realm and the supernatural, divine realm. It is no accident that the moment Jesus died, that veil is torn in the Temple. It is a literal and figurative symbol of the line of demarcation between the heavenly and the earthly being pulled down.

Matthew, Mark and Luke all record that at the exact moment that Jesus died on the cross the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom, prophetically symbolizing that through the atonement of Christ the way had been made for humanity to pass "through the veil" (Hebrews 10:20) into this supernatural world called heaven when we die. The only way to approach God’s presence fully is to die and leave this earth. Here we see the truth of Exodus when God tells Moses that, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live." The holiness of God presence prevents the regular physical human from being in front of God without damaging them. They need to change states and only death allows this change.

Elsewhere in the New Testament we encounter another interesting concept that appears to communicate a similar idea to a veil or a separation between the earthly and the spirit. It never actually makes a claim to a change in physical location or proximity though. It makes claim to perception, observation or a state of being. Paul talked about a "mirror" or a "looking glass." He said, "For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face." (1 Corinthians 13:12). In reality Paul is telling us that need to realize our knowledge is incomplete and puzzling. Paul picked up this idea again in 2 Corinthians 3:16 where he deliberately mentions a "veil" is removed when a person turns or more specifically focuses on God. The act of observing things of the heavenly realm changes the state of one’s perception. This sounds strangely akin to the phenomenon of Superposition in Quantum Mechanics that says that…

…observation changes reality because particles double as waves of probability. Before you look at a particle at the sub-atomic level, it exists in multiple possible states or locations at the exact same time. When a measurement or observation occurs, the system interacts with a physical instrument or fully physical realm. This interaction forces the broad wave of probabilities to collapse into a single, definite reality. Essentially, you cannot measure/observe a quantum system without physically disturbing it, meaning the act of looking directly alters the outcome to permanent reality.

Paul taught that whenever someone turns to Christ the veil is taken away and things become clearer or absolute, fixed or...determined. He also implies that when we die and reach our final state we will understand and see fully. Things will be fully realized. He then proceeded to teach that those who have turned to Christ are able to peer through the looking glass into heaven in order to behold the glory of God.

"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Corinthians 3:18.

The obvious conclusion is that God is on the other side of the veil. When we are faced with the overwhelming truths of Scripture and then compound them with the enigmas of non-locality, the existence of God and the supernatural intervention of God all over the Bible I believe a clear picture begins to form out of the dark mirror. We can move forward to theorize the relationship between these three fundamental realities of our supernaturally crafted universe. I propose that this invisible layer of quantum reality acts as some kind of interface between the presence and power of God (who exists in the spiritual realm) and the world of matter.

The non-local quantum world appears to be a kind of invisible, intermediate "buffer zone" between spirit and matter. It appears that the non-local quantum realm has been strategically crafted by God to be directly responsive to the influence and activity of the Spirit of God so these non-local quantum realities are capable of "materializing" into a localized spatial formation. Quantum realities are the building blocks of matter. This is an established scientific fact through experimentation but at their rudimentary levels they stop behaving as matter and become something more that is not tied or regulated by the rules of this universe/reality. It is tied to another.

One last note... I believe that we saw breaches in the quantum veil and it makes sense that this is what was being described in the Bible. I’ve already mentioned John in revelation 4 but there are even more pronounced examples. We saw examples of it primarily in two very specific episodes. Firstly, the stoning of Stephen when he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Acts 7:55-57

We also see the breach between the earthly and the spirit in Jesus’ transfiguration.

Specifically, I focus on Luke’s account to draw out a contrast of the two realms revealed…

“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God. About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.” Luke 9:27-30

The word changed here in Greek is ἕτερον /heteron and it means that his face being observed was indeterminate or of an uncertain affinity…’ or of another kind’ or ‘classification’. That is why we say Jesus’ face was transfigured. Transfigured is closer to the truth of what happened than using the word changed. It implies his face was strange (not in a bad way). What were the disciples really seeing? Was the act of looking upon Christ altering their perception of Christ’s holy reality? I believe at the moment of the transfiguration reality around Christ altered and created a breach to the spirit realm. How else would Peter, James and John be able to see Moses and Elijah?

To conclude I will state that the quantum realm has brought us to the very edge of the world of the spirit. From a biblical perspective we understand "spirit" as a dimension beyond space and time. In the world of spirit all the attributes familiar to human existence suddenly change. Similarly, within the quantum world the rules of the game are not at all the same as the rules of the classical physical world we live in. Quantum weirdness is exemplified by realities that are entirely counterintuitive to the world in which we live. In the quantum world electrons can materialize as particles and dematerialize. At times even time itself has no meaning, just as it did for the prophets in the Bible when they were 'in the Spirit'.

Defeat By Trillions of Papercuts

2026-07-02T13:06:28.961-04:00

World War III has already started. The U.S. and Iran sat down for 21 hours of peace talks this week and walked away with nothing. Trump is pushing for a $1.5 trillion defense budget. Canada's top general says we need to prepare for large-scale conflict. Mark Carney of Canada just declared that the days of our military sending 70 cents of every dollar to the United States are over. Meanwhile, corporate leaders meeting under the World Economic Forum banner admitted that the predictability that once underpinned corporate planning has gone.

The point is, you are living through a once-in-a-century rupture, and the people in charge are only now admitting it. Trump is either too proud, too nationalistic or too dumb to admit it. Western civilization is no longer on the rise. It is fracturing, and the goal now is not to slightly increase the standard of living, it is to survive the geopolitical storm heading straight towards us. People can squabble over which leader or which country is to blame, but that's like being in the middle of a bar fight and focusing on who threw the first punch, when you should really be focused on not getting knocked out.

A far more important question in a fight is who you're standing beside or with and who you're standing against. Those lines are being drawn right now. For the last decade, China and America have been competing for top position on the global markets and exchanges. Secondary Western nations are being wedged between them, and many are drifting towards Beijing. Either because they are trying to hedge their bets just on sheer scale and numbers or because the United States is starting to turn inward again in another anti-global nationalistic phase akin to the era just prior to WWII. That shouldn't surprise anyone, though, seeing as the ruling class in countries like Canada have been compromised by Chinese influence for years. Justin Trudeau even once said that the success of the world is inexorably linked to the success of China. His successor hasn't pulled back either.

America and Americans on the other hand could care less about China. We only care that our costs remain low and our sovereignty remain intact. Globalism be damned. From the late 1940s to 1991, opposition to the Soviet Union held the West together. When that enemy collapsed, nothing replaced it. Western leaders believed bringing China into the global system would make China more like us, but instead the world became more like them. Part of America did too. The Marxist Progressives, the academics and the sycophant media that supports them. The rest of American patriots and the blue collars have given a stern middle finger to China and the rest of the world. We believe we don’t need them and we don’t care about them.

Outside America and sometimes in the coastal liberal cities within the masses have lost touch with God, morals and human value. They have become markedly socialistic in on so doing have become dehumanized like China. Without a shared ideal, Western leaders let their nations weaken so long as profits rose and international governing bodies gained power. They drilled holes in the national hull while planning their exit onto the dock of global governance, like a sailor stepping off a sinking ship without looking back. That's why so many leaders lately are failing upwards. It is also why they're starting to panic now. Some are being voted out because of the destruction they’ve wrought on their own nations. Others like Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom are resigning before the rabble and riotous crowd lynch him. The illegals they’ve allowed into their nation have virtually destroyed it.

Now we see as America, the largest player pulls away, the institutions built on Western cooperation begin to collapse. As the warning goes, you can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. So, welcome to the consequences. Americans cannot continue to support a self-destructive immorality that continues to dictate its demented and depraved philosophies on domestic and foreign policy. It is immorality is destroying families, illegal immigration with no intent to assimilate to American culture is destroying communities and crippling debt is destroying American’s futures.

We need to remove ourselves from the Deep State Marxist cabal intent on destroying America from within. They're even using out own tax money to do it. World War III is being fought on our borders, in our colleges and schools and in our wallets. The foreign invaders, our own education system and the international banks are succeeding where every American enemy has failed on a battlefield for the last 250 years. It's time to unplug from the very institutions that mean our demise. We're not being defeated in a traditional ground war, we're in essence dying a slow death by a trillion papercuts that are self-inflicted.

The Brute Force of Impossibly Large Numbers

2026-06-30T12:36:37.895-04:00

To further elaborate on a previous post about time, I now reach into not chronological numbers but rather the brute force of math and mathematical equations and formula. I do so by looking at society and probability. Some call the chances of something luck or fortune but to a believing Christian there is no such thing as luck. There is no chance. In a universe created and sustained by an omnipotent and omniscient God, there are no accidents no chance and no stray moments or molecules. There are only providence and sovereignty. There are plans and control.

Every decade, the institutions that shape Western life such as media, universities, nonprofits, government, and the arts, all grow more certain that atheism or secular humanism are the only serious worldview. In every decade, the culture grows colder and less beautiful because of the absence of God in not only society but also individual people’s lives. The soulless architecture like the Obama Library, the hollow entertainment riddled with LGBTQ+ propaganda, the art and movies with rife feminism that no one cares about, are all products of a civilization that stops leaving room for wonder. That stopped accepting the possibility of the supernatural or metaphysical. The society that has shunned God. In so doing they've shunned beauty and true meaning.

You hear it in how our godless intellectuals speak about us. Humans are not miracles wrestling with forces larger than ourselves. We are referred to as byproducts, chemical accidents, the end result of purposeless cause and effect and the output of reactions no one chose and nothing oversaw. If you look deep enough though and follow the materialist's or empiricist's own science, and you arrive at something unmistakably and clearly miraculous. Not only a mathematical miracle or astronomical improbability but a legitimate honest-to-goodness supernatural miracle.

For life to be possible at all, a series of cosmic constants, such as gravity, had to fall within impossibly narrow margins. Shift any of them even slightly, and there is no universe, no stars, and no humanity. Beyond those constants lies the precision of the universe's own starting conditions. Oxford physicist Roger Penrose calculated the odds of that precision. One in ten to the power of ten to the 123^rd or 10^{10
to the}123 power. You can't comprehend that number, and neither can I. It cannot be written down. It’s too impossibly large. As Penrose noted, there are fewer particles in the universe than there are zeros in that figure. The number is larger than the thing it describes. Instead of conceding that God or an omnipotent designer is the cause, the atheist/materialists' answer is luck or chance. But when the odds run past anything reality can count, we got lucky stops being scientific argument or even a compelling explanation. It is an intellectually lazy excuse and escape hatch from needing to reason through your argument.

A limitless mind contemplating the impossible number, is dramatized perfectly in Watchmen. Dr. Manhattan sees every particle and moves matter at will. Yet, seeing only the material makes him cold callous and soulless. Human life starts to look meaningless to him. What breaks through the detachment is sheer enormity of the numbers…the math itself.

Specifically, the improbability of beauty from chaos. That's what these astronomical odds look like to mere humans...uniformity, symmetry and beauty. It’s like weaving oxygen into gold. We all believe that we long to witness such a miraculous event, and yet we often neglect to realize that in the offspring of human coupling we produce a unique individual every single time. No two are the same. Every person different. Evey soul different. Billions upon billions and every single one of them improbable.

Trillions upon trillions of cells compete to create life generation upon generation. And out of that unfathomable contradiction or impossibility and against unfathomable odds, it's a human infant that emerges every single time. In a nearly perfect form, from a supposed singular point or moment of chaos eons ago in the Creation. Just luck, no plan, no design. Any rational mind sees that this is clearly nonsense.

It is in the human newborn that the most powerful materialist mind ever known is undone not by sentiment, but by the sheer scale and brute force of immense numbers. A civilization comes to resemble what it believes about itself. If the West wants its vitality back, its institutions can no longer be guided by cold nihilistic belief systems that degrade the miracle of life. We shouldn't be surprised that as a society fails to value life as it does today, it also begins to wither and die itself.

Psalm 14:1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.

Romans 1:19-23 For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.