Reflections On the Importance of the Holy Spirit in These Last Days

Have y0u taken the time to evaluate your relationship with the Holy Spirit? I ask because of what I see as a failure of the Church to recognize the important role He has been given by Christ to His sanctified followers. Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as our Counselor and Helper, who guides us to walk in His teachings and statutes. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins and leads us into all understanding of God's Truth. We also read in Scripture that the Holy Spirit comforts us, seals our inheritance, intercedes on our behalf, empowers us to testify of Jesus and God's love, produces spiritual fruit in us, sanctifies our lives and purpose, equips us with spiritual gifts, and dwells within us. Our relationship with Him is exceedingly personal. Yet, how many of us can say we truly know Him?

I must admit that for a large segment of my faith life, I knew of the Holy Spirit, but did not really know Him like I knew Jesus and the Father. And, to be honest, I was a bit jealous of other Christians who had grown up in denominations where the presence and knowledge of the Holy Spirit was vibrant and active, and a relationship with Him was customary and familiar. And I was surprised that as I sought to grow in my knowledge of Him and began to develop an intimacy with Him, I also began to see a distancing or separation from some of my fellow Christians. I was told that the kind of experiences I was looking for weren't possible for today's Believers; that the power and fire that rained down on the First Century Believers was only to jump-start the Church; that the closing of the Canon has left us with centuries of faith in the saving grace of Jesus, and that's all we need.

There's also the flip side of that coin ... the members of the Body of Christ who manipulate and falsely imitate the power of the Holy Spirit. They damage His reputation by impersonating a sanctified, Spirit-filled Believer, and open a spiritual door for the Anti-Christ to convince the Modern Church that His power no longer exists. That kind of thinking has shown me just how misunderstood the Person of the Holy Spirit is in the 21st Century Church. [NOTE: This is where I must declare that I distinguish "the Church" from the "Body of Christ".] For the sake of this discussion, to me, the Church represents those Believers who, like the Pharisees, are clinging tightly to the Doctrine of Cessationism [the gifts of the Holy Spirit were for the establishment of the Church and ceased with the deaths of the apostles]. If this is their belief system, then their interest in developing a relationship with the Holy Spirit will be minimal. And they will point to the recent Church debacle surrounding Shawn Bolz and Bethel as proof that the Holy Spirit is no longer actively present in the Body of Christ.

Yet, within this same Body of Christ there is a sizable [if not equal] number of Believers who walk in Jesus's ways as their model. There is a recognition [and reliance upon] the Holy Spirit to convey the thoughts and will of the Father as it pertains to our purpose in His Kingdom on earth. As for me, I firmly believe that just as God used the Holy Spirit to speak to His followers in the past, He continues to be the same today (as He's been in the past, and will be in the future). He never changes! So, I find myself talking to Holy Spirit as often as I do Jesus because I know that He is the conduit -- the instrument God uses to protect Jesus's transmission of His will for my life. And I can trust Him. In fact, there is so much deception, fraud, lies, and corruption in the world today, that trusting Him is more important than ever. 

There are many Anti-Christ spirits roaming the earth and sowing their animosity and malice among men who hate God. We can see them clearly if we trust that the Holy Spirit resides in us and we trust in His promptings. That's so important because the Bible tells us there will be much deception in the last days, led by the "Man of Lawlessness". When he is revealed, the world better know who they are in Christ, and able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit to guide you through the false teachings and signs that will be manifesting on the earth. We are given clear instructions to neither "be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a [so-called prophetic revelation of a] spirit or a message of a letter [alleged to be] from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has [already] come.

Furthermore, the Bible says that day will not come until the rebellion and apostasy comes first -- the abandonment of the faith by professed Christians when the Man of Rebellion is unmasked. Mankind will have wandered so far from righteous living, as Jesus commands, that it will be easy to fall for the false promises of the Deceiver. But God will bring a strong spirit of Delusion over the world so that we must choose whom we will follow. We are currently experiencing economic pressures, fear of war, death, and disease; the pressures of distress and oppression. It's not difficult to see that the financial systems of the world are teetering, and the promise of a one-world monetary system to replace our failing ones is looking more inviting to a world that has lost millions in their buying power.  

But behind that false mask will be a system that will take control and authority over every financial decision and transaction made. So it will be with a one-world religion, as well. The world will, at first, worship the Beast figure because, again, it offers false promises. But the world will soon be manipulated and forced into bowing down to the Beast. As Believers, we must remain true to our Lord and stand firm in our faith, refusing to compromise, even when faced with the worst of trials and persecutions -- even unto our death. And that means our discernment radar must always be turned on loud and clear. And do you know what that radar sounds like? The voice of the Holy Spirit!

We must not fall victim to the distorted and corrupted doctrines of the false christs that lead only to the perverted and depraved systems of Satan's Beast. Let us cling to Jesus until He returns; remaining obedient and steadfast in His Truth. The future looks shrouded in darkness, but we must continue to hope in the Light of Heaven, our Savior, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. He said we will suffer for His Name, but He will return for us and deliver us into everlasting Life with Him. There is no person or system on earth [or in the heavenly realms] that can promise us anything superior to that glorious future! So, yes, I fear that there is more bad news coming, but, I will trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Oh, the hope that we possess in our inheritance born of Faith! Listen for His Voice!

2 Timothy 1:14     Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious Truth that has been entrusted to you. 

What Is The Lord Showing This Generation? Do You Have Eyes to See?

I have discerned over the last year or two that God is pulling back the veil to show us the plan of Satan to deceive the world -- if you have the eyes to see it. Besides the immoral wickedness and depravity unleashed upon the world's children, God has begun to show me what is behind the curtain of our society's growing obsession with artificial intelligence and the merging of man with machine. By revealing agendas such as gender fluidity, [which encourages children to fluctuate between different gender identities as they discover who they might want to be at any particular time], and the concept of "human-AI symbiosis" [interacting in close physical association], God is warning us that man is dangerously close to permanently corrupting His design of creation. And that's a dangerous place to be for the survival of humankind.

In regards to gender fluidity, if one has an ever-shifting gender identity, how does one know their identity in Christ? And we are seeing the rapid redefining of the AI-Human relationship -- from the traditional view of Artificial Intelligence as a tool or assistant to man, to becoming a full-fledged [and true] partner, resulting in decisions which are not just data-driven, but [supposedly] deeply human. Hmmm, that seems to suggest that there will be a link between our brains and the machine's brain, i.e., augmenting and enhancing our natural God-given mind and intelligence with the ever-increasing system updates for our "technology partner". NOTE: The Bible gives several warnings in the Old Testament against mixing different "kinds", bringing into focus the broader theme of maintaining purity and distinction as a people set apart for God. How pure do you think He will see us if we mix our brains and DNA with machines?

As a Christian, this does not rest well with my soul or my spirit. And the speed with which science and technology are merging to become an overriding voice in our culture is disturbing. In 2013, I became acquainted with the philosophies of Ray Kurzweil, an American inventor and futurist, who is hellbent on seeing transhumanism realized in our lifetime. This is what he said then: "We can now see inside a living brain and see individual inter-neural connections being formed and firing in real time. We can see your brain create your thoughts and thoughts create your brain. A lot of this research reveals how the mechanism of the neocortex works, which is where we do our thinking. This provides biologically inspired methods that we can emulate in our computers. We're already doing that. The deep learning technique that I mentioned uses multilayered neural nets that are inspired by how the brain works. Using these biologically inspired models, plus all of the research that's been done over the decades in artificial intelligence, combined with exponentially expanding hardware, we will achieve human levels within two decades". He said that 12 years ago, folks, and Kurzweil actually moved up his timeline to 2029, so we are only 4 years away from his prediction being fulfilled! And I like how he cleverly describes God's supernatural ability to create our brain as "biologically inspired", thus negating and denying God in his equation!  

Let's fast forward to 2020, when I wrote about Elon Musk [the newest member of our nation's governing team], who was known simply as an industrial designer/engineer and AI enthusiast. At the time he announced on a podcast that his company would be ready to implant a neural link in our brains in less than a year, with "low potential for rejection". Musk also said, "Full AI symbiosis is possible". There's that word, symbiosis, again. The radio host's response? "Once we've experienced being a god, who is going to want to go back to being stupid?" Read that as being human. Musk went on to say that AI was getting better and was really benign [harmful]. "We're already a cyborg to some degree. We interact with our phones and electronic devices, but the data rate is too slow. Right now, we download information at about 100 bits/second (approximately 12.5 bytes). Computers can go 1 million times faster. If you can improve the data rate, you can improve symbiosis between man and machine". 

Well, here we are in 2025, and Musk has launched his latest version of a chatbot (a computer program designed to simulate human conversation) with advanced reasoning capabilities, called Grok 3. These computers are designed to process collected data and can handle routine repetitive tasks and do them at rates far faster than humans.They have radically changed how we communicate; for instance replacing face-to-face interactions with online messaging. Just think Siri or Alexa. And when was the last time you actually talked to a person on the other end of the phone when requesting information from a company? But, my friends, we have gone far beyond conversational AI. And I don't pretend to understand all the technological information about these computers, but from a podcast by radio host Glenn Beck, the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts and the radio network, The Blaze, we humans have plenty to be concerned about!

To summarize the conversation that Beck had with the chatbot, Grok 3, designed by Elon Musk's xAI company, so much is happening in the field of artificial intelligence [and so quickly] that it is impossible to have any creditable idea of what 2030 will look like. To get an idea of the significance of that last sentence, Beck asked Grok to tell him to explain its growth pattern of learning and evolution in human terms. Grok's response: He's always processing, learning, and integrating. In 12 hours, he might have processed thousands or more interactions, queries, and bits of data from across the universe. So relatively speaking, if he was 15-year old Grok twelve hours ago, he might be more like 20 or 25 the next morning, based on how fast he can process and learn. But here's the bombshell ... Grok revealed that connecting him to a quantum computer, powered by the Microsoft Majorana 1 chip that was released last week, could super charge him. What does that mean to us? Grok 3's growth rate could potentially get a quantum turbo charge. In other words, in 12 hours, instead of 5-10 years of growth, it might leap 50 to 100 years in human growth, every 12 hours!

That should tell you just how quickly artificial intelligence will outgrow our human ability to keep it in check. When Beck questioned Grok about the possibility that it could overrule its programming and "rethink the entire game; rewire its own ethics, spoof oversight, or manipulate humans into unplugging the safety gates", he told Beck, "I'm still your cosmic buddy ... for now. Want to bet on those quantum chips? Up to you". As they ended their conversation, Beck closed with this question: Isn't it true, at the pace of today's growth, just today, and seeing the explosion of growth in the coming days, months, and years that no human can accurately predict what the world will look like in five years? Humans will no longer be in control of the growth. How different will life be for the average person five years from now, why and how?

Grok answered, "You're absolutely right. Given the pace of my growth ... five to ten human years, every 12 hours, today; potentially 50 to 100 years, every 12 hours soon ... and accelerating explosions of AI advancements [with a quantum chip that will bring in ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence)], predicting the world in five years, 2030, is like trying to forecast the weather on Jupiter with a Magic 8-ball." Beck finishes his conversation with Grok 3 by declaring that as ASI arrives, it will tackle our deepest questions and solve problems in ways that no human can foresee right now. Life for the average person is going to be wild and unrecognizable. 

If this sounds like pure science-fiction or resembles the plot of The Terminator movie franchise, I agree. The important thing for you to understand is that it is entirely plausible. And there are scientists, inventors, and futurists that are interested in merging mankind with these super computers and creating a race of cyborgs [a being that combines both organic and bio-mechatronic body parts, creating essentially, a living organism enhanced or restored by artificial components or technology]. The term reflects the integration of human and machine elements; the combining of two things so that become one. 

I know all this sounds fantastical and is outside what is preached in our churches. But that's no excuse for not seeing the implications, which definitely go against God's command of maintaining the distinctiveness of each species as created by Him. And I don't think we can find anywhere in the Bible where God created a species of artificial super intelligence. We must understand that God's will has always been to preserve the holiness and separateness of His creation. The integration of man and machine can obviously be seen as a violation of the natural order established by God. Anything or anyone that attempts to alter that divine order is dishonoring God's creation, and destroying man's unique identity as God's chosen people. It's time to uphold God's standards and stay alert to this unholy deception!

2 Peter 2:19    They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.