Admonition Podcast

I don't know, I'll tell the boys to advance the slides.

I put it down somewhere.

There it is.

Thank you,

This afternoon, we're going to discuss something that is more oh off uh the front page of
the news, as it were, than many of the sermons that I often preach.

But as times change and as circumstances change and as society changes, it is important
for us to realize that there are things that we need to discuss, we need to evaluate, we

need to study.

And we need to do so in a biblical context so that we can navigate the changes that exist
in the world around us, but also do so in a biblical way.

We're going to open this morning or this afternoon with Ecclesiastes, Chapter one and in
verse nine, Solomon would write in Ecclesiastes, Chapter one and in verse nine, that which

has been is what will be.

That which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

This afternoon, I want us to spend some time talking about what the world around us refers
to as AI, artificial intelligence.

It is better understood in a political, or sorry, a practical perspective, and in a
technical perspective as machine learning.

It is a machine learning algorithm.

But I don't want to have a lesson on AI.

I don't want to teach everybody how to use AI.

I don't want to teach you how to use a grok or chat GPT or anything like that.

I want us to consider what the changes going on in the technological world should teach us
and help us to understand from a spiritual perspective.

And it's interesting that as we begin with Ecclesiastes chapter 1, we're beginning with
Solomon.

We're beginning with a man who was granted by God essentially unlimited wisdom, unlimited
knowledge and insight.

When you look at what the world in society and news is presenting to us today, they're

They're telling us that AI is essentially that.

It's unlimited knowledge.

It's unlimited wisdom.

It's unlimited analysis.

It's unlimited this and unlimited that.

And while I can tell you in my day-to-day life and my work and the work I do both in
preaching as well as the work that I do in technology, I use the AI tools all the time.

I use them because they're valuable just like any other tool that I use.

I also use a car.

You wanna know why I use it?

Because I can get further with a car than I can on my own two feet.

And faster.

And.

Maybe not cheaper, but more cheaper by the mile than the shoe tread.

At the end of the day, we use tools, we use technology, we use things that exist in this
world because where they originated when it comes to all things that exist in this world

is the one who created the world.

When in the 1940s, scientists delved into harnessing the power inside of the atom and they
created the atomic bomb,

They weren't creating anything that didn't already exist.

They simply were tapping into what God had placed in nature and had placed within the very
core of what builds nature.

They were discovering what God had already put there.

And the same thing is true when it comes to AI.

in view of the idea that there is nothing new under the sun, we're going to examine the
lesson this afternoon.

I'm channeling Jacob and saying this morning instead of this afternoon.

In view of ancient wisdom for the age of abundant intelligence, we're going to examine
four ancient truths, four things that I think if we put our spiritually educated

biblically educated mindset view of these four truths, we will be able to both operate
inside the coming world.

We will also be able to understand why the world around us fails to comprehend what
they're dealing with.

One unchanging requirement.

Three ages in recent history have existed.

The Information Age.

Usually most people calculate the Information Age to be something around the 1980s going
forward until the early 2010s.

They look at history and one of the things that exploded in that period of 30 years was
the ability to have abundant information.

When you step back into the early 1980s, most people would have gotten their information
from a daily newspaper.

It would have arrived on their door and they would have found out what had happened the
day before, the week before, the month before, however quickly the news arrived and got

printed on the paper.

But in the 30 years spanning from 1980 to 2010,

The speed at which we had access to information got faster and faster and faster and
faster to the culmination of now we use in our normal parlance, Googling something because

the tool created by a company called Google became the easiest way to look up information.

In the information age, information got more abundant, more abundant, more abundant, more
abundant.

It also got cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.

The newspaper you used to buy had a limited number of pages, it had a limited number
amount of information and a whole lot of ads.

And now you're able to just get on your device and look up something.

I remember for years,

stopping in at the auto parts store.

And at the auto parts store, you would have a whole shelves of what?

Auto manuals.

It would go, it would cover the Honda Accord from this year to this year.

And they weren't cheap books either.

But you could get that and you could pretty well diagnose or fix if you were technically
competent, almost anything wrong with that car during that span of time.

Pretty hard to sell those for the same price that you used to be able to sell those books.

Why?

Because the information is now abundantly available online.

the information aid.

We're now in what society would call the intelligence age.

Because we have taken information for the last 30 years, leading up to 2010, and we found
cheaper and cheaper and easier and easier ways to store that information, we have now been

able to apply technological systems, which are really just mathematical probabilistic
systems.

It's highly specialized guessing.

is what AI is.

But it's guessing based upon a million or a billion or a trillion parameters of
information.

So it's highly specialized guessing.

But what the system does is it processes and analyzes that information in volumes and
massive amounts way faster than we have ever been able to do before.

Providing in the last 10 years

and in the coming years, more abundant, easier to access intelligence.

We call it artificial intelligence simply to distinguish it from human intelligence.

But let's be clear about one thing.

There's a difference between knowledge, intelligence in the form of analyzing knowledge
and a soul.

If we're clear from scripture, turn back to Genesis chapter one, we should know, we should
understand, we should realize that the soul originates with God.

In Genesis chapter one, we read beginning in verse 25, and God made the beast of the earth
according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the

earth according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the
cattle, over all the things that are and over every creeping thing that creeps on the

earth.

So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.

He did not create them male, female and binary robot.

He created them male and female.

And notice, God also gave them a uniqueness in the world.

not because they were alive.

Everything God created had life within it.

Not because they could breathe, not because they could make a decision, but rather because
He made them in His image.

One of the things that we need to realize in the coming period of time in the world that
we currently now live in that information is abundant.

It becomes cheaper, it becomes more available, and intelligence is about to become
abundant and cheaper and more available, which leaves one of the most scarce things...

character.

because you can't generate character.

You can't generate faithfulness and judgment.

You can hardly efficiently train it because most people don't want to learn.

You turn to Proverbs chapter one, you will find the Proverbs chapter one tells us in in
verse seven that the fool despises wisdom and instruction.

and we have no shortage of that type of person on the planet today.

character will be in scarce supply in the coming age because intelligence will be
abundant.

Intelligence will become virtually free.

You can now with a few short requests and about $20 generate a rather good commentary on
any book of the Bible in about three and a half minutes.

about as good as anybody in the Brotherhood could write.

Well researched, well thought out, well examined, three minutes and less than 20 bucks.

and you don't need a single preacher to do it.

Intelligence is going to be abundant.

Character is not.

Proverbs chapter 4.

the Proverbs writer, and we're gonna keep coming back to Solomon.

I'm gonna show you in a minute why.

Proverbs chapter four, verse seven, Solomon writes to us, wisdom is the principle thing.

Therefore, get wisdom.

If you go back to Proverbs chapter one, where we just mentioned just a moment ago, this
same writer,

This same individual inspired with wisdom from God will write in Proverbs chapter 1 and in
verse 2 to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive words of understanding.

He's writing about the Proverbs that he's about to write.

He's introducing that which he's put into this book to receive the instruction of wisdom,
justice, judgment, and equity, to give prudence to the simple.

To the young man, knowledge and discretion, a wise man will hear and increase learning.

A man of understanding will attain wise counsel to understand a proverb and an enigma, the
words of the wise and their riddles.

But then notice what he says in verse seven.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

But fools despise wisdom.

and instruction.

As Solomon introduces this book of wisdom and knowledge and insight and intelligence and
discernment...

He admonishes his son, do not miss that the fear of the Lord is the beginning.

It is the necessary starting point if you're going to gain wisdom.

And here's what we know about the world.

The world does not fear the Lord.

The world will not use highly abundant and almost free intelligence to garner a greater
fear of the Lord.

But we should.

We should, we should use every encyclopedia and all of its knowledge to fear the Lord more
than we've ever feared Him before.

We should use the knowledge and the wisdom that has been garnered and gathered and
assembled and categorized and indexed on the internet to fear the Lord more than we ever

have before.

We should use abundant intelligence to fear the Lord more than we ever have before as we
delve in society further and further into the secrets that nature and nature's God, if we

could coin the term from the founding fathers, had placed in nature.

We're going to suddenly realize just exactly how ignorant we have always been about that
which God created.

But then consider as well, there's three levels of AI in its usage.

AI is used, number one, as an assistant.

In other words, help me with this.

That's what you do with an assistant.

You say, I need to know X.

Find out the information.

So you will find in common, uh to be commonplace in businesses and in education that
people, instead of

sitting down and researching X, we'll get the AI tool to do the research for them.

Well, sometimes people will look at that and say, wow, we're really lazy.

I remind you that it was Einstein that said when he was asked what the formula for a
particular math problem was, he said, why would I spend time remembering what I can easily

get out of any book?

Even Einstein knew there was a limit to the things you could remember, memorize, and hold
in your head.

And he didn't need to hold that which was abundantly available in his head.

That didn't mean he didn't think study was important, or knowledge was important, or
intelligence was important.

Rather, holding things that were of rare or scarce value were important.

But then consider analysis.

One of the things that AI provides in the tools,

is the ability to analyze information very quickly.

If you wanted to analyze how every single use of the word love is used all across
scripture, it used to be you could get access to some of that analysis through some highly

valuable and specialized and costly tools that were available from software providers.

You can now simply sit down and ask Chad GPT or Claude or uh Grok, any of them.

because the Bible is by the way one of the most well-known books in all of human history,
you can ask it and it will do very good analysis for you.

Be careful to let it know that you only want an answer from the Bible because it knows a
whole lot of denominational nonsense too and it thinks it's true.

So tell it I only want an answer from the Bible and it will do analysis for you as you're
studying.

It's very good, very useful.

The third level and more pervasive in the next few years will be agents.

uh If you think about insurance or if you think about travel, what is a travel agent?

A travel agent is someone who you get to go book your trip for you so you don't have to do
it.

AI will do that in a lot of ways.

Now, unfortunately for society, we're talking about this, some of the disruption that's
coming for society.

some of the disruption that's coming in the economy is going to be because of agents.

Because instead of a travel agent, you'll be able to simply tap a button on a phone, get
an AI to go book your trip for you.

You tell it where you wanna go, what kind of place you wanna stay, what your budget is,
and it'll go do the whole thing.

A lot of travel agents are gonna lose their job.

A lot of lawyers are gonna lose their job.

Because intelligence is what lawyers make their living off of.

not necessarily intelligence in the right sense, but knowledge, wisdom, and insight in the
law, and that's going to be abundantly available.

A lot of change is going to come in the next 10 or 15 years to the culture and to the
world around us, to the jobs that exist in this world.

But in all of these things, what do you see is continually scarce?

character.

When a person can fake knowing anything just by having an AI that knows everything, you
might want to be careful with that person because if they're not of good character, you're

going to have an abundance of hard times as a result of the choices of that person.

But then consider Luke chapter 14.

Jesus would say, which of you intending to build a tower does not

First, sit down and count the call.

You evaluate the changes that are coming, the things that we're seeing in this world, the
differences that are going to occur.

We need to be mindful.

And we need to plan ahead.

when anything that's always been valuable suddenly becomes worthless.

It causes a lot of difficulty in this life.

Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to first Kings.

towards the end of the time where Solomon has dedicated the temple, we understand that
Solomon had been granted wisdom from God, that Solomon had been using that wisdom.

He had been using it in making decisions in the kingdom.

He had been using it in making uh his plans and the things which he had done.

He had been using it in building the temple.

And in 1 Kings chapter 10 and in verse 14, we read the weight of gold that came to Solomon
yearly was 666 talents of gold.

Beside that, from the traveling merchants, from the income of traders, from all the kings
of Arabia and from the governors of the country, and the king Solomon made 200 large

shields of hammered gold, 600 shekels of gold went into each shield.

He also made three hundred shields of hammered gold.

Three minas of gold went into each shield.

The king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

Moreover, the king made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with pure gold.

The throne had six steps and the top of the throne was round at the back.

There were armrests on either side of the place of the seat and two lions stood beside the
armrests.

Twelve lions stood there, one on either side of the six steps.

Nothing like this had been made for any other kingdom.

All King Solomon's drinking vessels were gold and all the vessels of the house of the
forest of Lebanon were pure gold.

Not one was silver.

This was accounted uh for this was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon.

I want you to notice what happens when something that is scarce suddenly becomes abundant.

as we're reading here about all of Solomon's wealth and all of Solomon's riches that he
gained by having virtually unlimited intelligence.

As you examine the list, you have this made of gold and this made of gold and this made of
gold.

And the reason why it was all made of gold is there was so much silver available in the
Kingdom of Israel because of all of the wealth garnered through unlimited wisdom and

intelligence that silver had suddenly become worthless.

When something that used to be scarce suddenly becomes so abundant that everyone has as
much as they want, its value drops to virtually zero.

So as you think about what is coming in the future, if information is reached a point
where it is virtually free, and if intelligence becomes something that reaches a point

where it is virtually free,

How do you make decisions on what to do in planning for the future?

In planning for income, in planning for savings, in planning for retirement, in planning
for grandchildren, in planning for legacy, how do you make decisions?

And what do you make sure to focus on?

One of the things that you see here in this example is how something can become devalued
just by being abundant.

and intelligence is becoming abundant.

So anything that has value exclusively because of intelligence?

is going to become devalued.

Anything that is still scarce, and what have we mentioned again and again and again, is
exhibited as still being scarce in this world?

Character.

Now suddenly becomes more valuable because it's still scarce.

Nehemiah chapter four, Nehemiah chapter four, verse six, as Nehemiah has returned to
Jerusalem to work to rebuild the wall, Nehemiah is going to come to the wall.

He is going to observe the city.

He is going to see the plight that is going on in the city.

And Nehemiah is going to work with every single family.

in the city who had a property that was up against the wall and he's going to commission
all of them to build the wall together.

And so in Nehemiah chapter 4, we have a description of the fact that the people worked
together because the people had a mind to work.

And as you go through the course of that event and that story, you'll find that at the end
when the wall was completed, they dedicated portions of the wall that had been built by

individual families and they put the family's name on the wall.

as a dedication to the work and the labor that they did.

mention this because as we enter into what is bound to be a rather tumultuous time in
human history.

Something that has never changed is that when God's people work together...

They build what could never have been built working alone.

And in the coming days and in the coming years, there will be challenges for the church.

There will be hardships for the church.

There may be a significant change in the ability of the church to do the things that it's
done in the past.

It may become easier.

It may become harder, but it'll change.

But what won't change is the willingness of those who believe in the Word of God and are
obedient to the Word of God to work together to reach lost souls.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

And in verse 6, Solomon tells us that there is a time to keep and there's a time to throw
away.

My wife loves this verse.

She just wishes I would apply it more often.

The last part, not the first part.

I consider almost everything to be a time to keep and she considers almost everything to
be a time to throw away.

but when uh intelligence becomes as abundant as information.

Think about what you've probably done somewhat in your life.

Years ago, you would buy a product.

The product would come in a box or in a package.

You'd open the package.

Inside the package was an instruction manual.

And the manufacturers now know what happens to most of the instruction manuals.

Most of the instruction manuals immediately get thrown in the trash.

Why?

Because the information is abundantly available at a search that does not involve
searching your house for where you put the instruction manual.

You can get on YouTube, can get on Google, you can put in the name of the product, and you
can get the user manual downloaded for free.

I don't need to keep the paper anymore.

Now I know some of you, you still have filing cabinets full of those papers somewhere in
the house for that product, that thing that you bought 20 years ago.

Some of those products you've got papers for you haven't owned in 20 years.

But when information becomes abundantly available for free, guess what you don't have to
keep as much of stored up just in case you need it in the future?

Information.

When intelligence becomes abundantly available, same thing's going to change.

That's going to change a lot of people's lives and their actions and how they operate.

But there's a time to keep and there's a time to throw away.

There's a time to realize that, you know what, the past, as nostalgic as it may be, is the
past and it's time to move on.

Holding on to the past doesn't usually get us very far.

Changes will come.

Things will change.

But here's the thing, as we've gone through this, I want you to notice that nothing we're
talking about here is new.

All the way back in Solomon's day, humanity had access to unlimited wisdom and knowledge.

Matter of fact, the queen of Sheba came to Solomon back in chapter 10, sorry, chapter nine
of, sorry, it is chapter 10 of first Kings.

Queen of Sheba had heard about Solomon and all of his wisdom.

And so she came to inquire of Solomon to find out just exactly how much wisdom he had.

And when she left, she said that the half had not.

been told.

Abundant intelligence is not a new thing in this world.

It's just new in the packaging that is currently in.

But I also might remind you, Matthew chapter 15 verse 13, that Jesus would tell us that
every plant which my Heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.

One of the things that you've seen occur in the last 150 years of modern technology and
innovation and industrialization is you have seen splintering and splintering and

splintering and splintering of the church.

Because with new things come men who want to chase the new thing instead of the thing God
gave.

So there's a warning here that with this new technology, you will find men promoting the
following of technology instead of God.

You will find false teachers teaching something that sounds a lot like the Bible, but it's
not.

It sounds a lot like the Word of God, but it's

We need to have our eyes and our ears open.

We need to be careful to examine the things which we hear, the things which we're taught.

One of the things that is somewhat abundant in the current tools of AI is sometimes it
will just straight out lie to you.

They call it hallucinating.

It just loses its context and it just gives you an answer out of nothing because it knew
you wanted an answer.

So it just told you anything.

Well, people do that too, by the way.

Employees do that.

I don't know what the answer is.

I'm just going to make it up.

But when we allow ourselves to be duped into believing that religiously, it has eternal
consequences.

I am here to remind you that over in the book of Acts, when we read about the Bereans, we
read about those individuals who were Jews, those individuals who were not Christians, but

they were more noble than those of Thessalonica in that they searched the scriptures daily

to see whether or not the things Paul was preaching were true.

If it is necessary to check the teaching and the preaching of an apostle, it is most
certainly necessary to check the things that come out of AI.

We need to be aware.

We need to have our heads up.

We need to have our eyes open and we need to check what we're learning against the Word of
God because it may sound right and it may be entirely wrong.

Daniel chapter 6.

Daniel was a governor of the king of Babylon who ruled under the king of Persia.

Daniel was an old man, probably 85 or older.

And as Daniel was serving as governor of the land of Babylon, together with three other
governors, the king decides everything that I give to Daniel turns out great.

So I'm just going to give Daniel more.

And the other governors decide that's a really bad idea because they don't want less
power, they want more power.

So they go to begin some investigation of Daniel's life to try and find something they can
use against him and they find out.

that there was no charge or fault that could be laid against Daniel because he was
faithful.

So they go to the king and they inquire of the king, great king, considering all of your
might and majesty and all of your greatness, we think it would be best if you would issue

a decree that no one should offer any request or prayer to any king or any God except you
for 30 days.

a law and a rule which certainly could have been written by the kings of the Medes and the
Persians but could never have been adopted by a follower of God.

So the king writes the law, signs the law, and when the law had been written and when the
law had been signed, Daniel went and did as he did every day.

And he went into his house and he opened the windows towards the land of Jerusalem and he
prayed in accordance with, by the way, the prophecy that Solomon made at the consecration

of the temple.

And the people observed that he was praying, and they took him before the king, and they
sent word to the king that Daniel had violated the law which had been written, for he had

prayed to the God of the Hebrews.

And the king knew that he had been duped.

The king also knew something about the law, the Medes and the Persians.

What was written was written and it couldn't be changed.

So the king took Daniel and put him in a den of lions.

And the king, the door of the lion's den, was about to be closed.

determined that surely Daniel's God could protect him.

So the king went back to his house and stayed up all night worrying and concerned about
Daniel's well-being.

And first thing in the morning, the king came to the door and inquired, Daniel, has your
God saved you?

Remember this, in a time of abundant intelligence and AI, all of the magical wonders that
technology can offer do not stand in comparison to the might or the ability of God.

Daniel answered the king, I am well.

For God has sent his angel and shut the mouths of the lions.

We need to be reminded that no matter what the law says, no matter what men contrive to
order people to do, we are to follow God no matter what comes.

And we are to trust in God no matter what comes.

Obedience to God requires character.

It requires honesty, discipline, self-honesty, and humility.

All of these should be an abundant supply amongst Christians, and they should be mighty
rare in the world to come from the world around us.

So in view of that, what kind of person do you want to be when you have access to all of
the world's knowledge and intelligence?

Because if we don't determine now how we will live, how we will move, how we will have our
being, if we don't determine before it ever occurs how we will operate in obedience to

God, then we will be too late when we have to make a decision.

How will you be as a person when everything that was so hard suddenly becomes easy?

When everything that you couldn't afford is suddenly available at the touch of a finger?

When everything that you wanted to produce can now be produced for virtually nothing?

Will we just have houses chocked full of stuff forever?

Proverbs chapter four verse seven.

In the coming age, in the coming years, I suggest to you that this passage will become
abundantly more important in all of our lives.

Wisdom is the principal thing.

Therefore, get wisdom.

And with all thy getting, get understanding.

If you're here this afternoon and you have needed the invitation of our Lord, understand
this.

No matter what humanity produces by way of technology, our Lord reigns.

No matter what a world power produces by way of a weapon, our Lord reigns.

No matter whether the language that is spoken abundantly around the world is English or
Mandarin.

Our Lord reigns.

No matter whether Christians are lauded as the unique bright shining light in all the
world or persecuted in every corner of it, our Lord reigns.

If you're not yet a child of our Lord, we encourage you to hear the word of God and
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God because he provided evidence as we discussed

in our sermon this morning that he was.

If you believe that he is the son of God, you must be willing to repent of your sins and
confess the name of Christ.

You must be willing to be immersed in water for the remission of your sins, to rise to
walk to newness in newness of life, because this world will be burned up and everything in

it.

And when eternity comes, you will stand before God in judgment.

As the Hebrew writer says, we're all going to die.

And after this,

the judgment.

So when you're ready for that day I encourage you to be ready standing as a Christian,
obedient to God, faithful to Him.

If you have need of the invitation why not come now?