"Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." — James 4:13-14, KJV
My pastor preached John 15 Wednesday night.
Simple sermon. Running thought. Not three points and a poem. Just one idea that hit me harder than any AI article on the internet.
He said this: There's something in all of us that chooses to believe things are just going to continue the way they are right now. We get in our routine. We like our routine. And we just motor along like nothing's ever going to change.
Then he opened to the Gospels and walked us through Peter.
I haven't stopped thinking about it since.
Peter With The Sword
Christ spent the better part of His final days trying to tell the disciples that things were about to drastically change. "Yet a little while is the light with you." "Little children, yet a little while I am with you." Over and over. I'm going away. Things are going to be different.
They didn't get it.
Or, and this is the part that got me...they didn't accept it.
Matthew 16:22. Christ tells them He's going to Jerusalem. He'll be killed. He'll rise again. Peter's response? He rebukes the Son of God. "Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee."
That's not confusion. That's resistance. Peter heard it fine. He just refused to accept it.
Then Matthew 26:51. Garden of Gethsemane. Judas shows up with a mob. Peter draws his sword and cuts off a man's ear.
He's still fighting the change. Still swinging. Still trying to force tomorrow to look like yesterday.
30 million people read an article this week about how AI is going to change everything. The CEO of an AI company compared it to COVID. Said the disruption will be bigger. Said the people he cares about deserve to hear the truth.
30 million people read it.
And the entire internet grabbed a sword.
Every Man Doom-Scrolling Is Peter In The Garden
The man who wrote that article runs an AI company that raised $5.4 million. In AI, that's a lemonade stand. His article got 42 million views. He ended it with "follow me on X" and "join my email list."
That's not a warning. That's a growth hack.
A month ago, another guy wrote an article about fixing your entire life in one day. 150 million views. He made $4,495 from the platform. But he made $4 million that year selling courses about how to write articles that go viral.
The content isn't the product. You are.
Meanwhile, the AI he's panicking about still hallucinates 10% of the time. Makes things up. Confidently wrong. 912 lawyers have been sanctioned for citing cases AI invented. The company building the "superintelligence" just introduced ads and erotic roleplay to keep the lights on.
And you're swinging your sword at it like Peter in the garden. Panicking. Sharing. Doom-scrolling. Trying to fight something you can't control with tools that don't work.
Christ told Peter to put the sword away. "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."
The sword didn't save Peter. And your panic isn't saving you.
Here's what that panic actually is. It's a man who can't accept that the world is going to change — so he fights the change instead of preparing for it. He shares the article. Argues in the comments. Bookmarks the thread. Feels like he did something.
He did nothing. He swung at the air.
The Beast System Panic
Right on cue, the Christian internet lit up.
"This is the beast system." "Mark of the beast incoming." "Revelation is unfolding."
I know this crowd. I love some of them.
One pastor did a podcast episode last summer called "Babel 2.0: The AI Revolution." Said artificial intelligence is the Tower of Babel rebuilt. Same guy predicted a world-ending disaster for August 12, 2026. Specific date. Mark your calendar. He's also done episodes on Illuminati bloodlines, hollow earth civilizations, and DMT as a portal to the spirit realm. 459 episodes over 12 years. The rapture has been imminent the entire time.
Another prophecy site has been running for years. In that time, they've called AI checkout systems, vaccine passports, palm scanners, cryptocurrency, the Metaverse, FEMA emergency alerts, and the letter X itself the mark of the beast.
The Metaverse collapsed. Meta lost billions. Nobody's in VR buying and selling. The vaccine mandates ended. The passport systems were dismantled.
They're still publishing daily.
Social Security numbers were the mark. Credit cards were the mark. Barcodes were the mark, IBM engineers were confronted in person by people who believed UPC codes contained 666. Microchips. RFID tags. Smartphones. Apple Pay. The COVID vaccine.
In 1988, a former NASA engineer published "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988." He distributed 4.5 million copies. Nothing happened.
In 2011, a preacher spent $100 million on billboards predicting the rapture for May 21st. Nothing happened.
Every generation. Every technology. The mark is coming. The end is now.
And every time, nothing.
63% of evangelicals believe we're living in the end times. That's not fringe. That's the majority.
More sword-swinging. More panic. Zero fruit.
Signs Are For The Jews. Symptoms Are For The Church.
"For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified." — 1 Corinthians 1:22-23, KJV
Signs are for the Jews. Always were. The church was never called to decode newspaper headlines into Revelation timelines.
But Paul DID give the church something.
Symptoms.
"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection..." — 2 Timothy 3:1-5, KJV
Lovers of their own selves. Check your Instagram.
Without natural affection. 70 million abortions since Roe v. Wade.
Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. The average Christian spends 7 hours a day on screens and 7 minutes in the Word.
Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. Sunday morning church. No Monday morning obedience.
That's not a sign in the sky. That's a symptom in the mirror.
The prophecy crowd is scanning the horizon for the beast. Paul told you to scan the pew. Scan your home. Scan yourself.
Peter Goes Fishing
John 21:3. After the denial. After the devastation. After everything fell apart.
"Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing."
My pastor pointed this out Wednesday night. He said: When we get devastated by a change we didn't see coming, we go back to what's familiar. Old mindset. Old habits. Old sins.
Peter had been called to catch men. Christ said it plain — "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." But when the bottom dropped out, Peter went back to the nets. Back to what was comfortable. Back to before.
That's every man right now.
The man who reads the AI article and shares it with a thoughtful emoji — that same man hasn't led his family in prayer in six months. Hasn't opened a Bible with his kids in a year. Hasn't taken his wife on a date without a screen between them since before the pandemic.
He's worried about AI replacing his job.
He already replaced himself at home.
He's not swinging a sword anymore. He's gone fishing. Back to the scroll. Back to the feed. Back to the comfortable numbness of consuming instead of leading.
AI panic is comfortable. It's abstract. It's out there. Something big is coming and you can't stop it. You can share it, feel smart, and go back to your feed.
Beast system panic is even better. You get to feel spiritually superior for seeing the signs while doing absolutely nothing about the sin in your own house.
But telling a man his home is collapsing? That requires a mirror. Nobody wants that article. Nobody shares it. It doesn't get 42 million views because conviction doesn't go viral. Comfort does.
The Real Disruption Already Happened
Something bigger has been happening for 20 years. No CEO wrote an article about it. No journalist covered it. No venture capitalist tweeted a warning.
Men stopped leading their homes.
Not all at once. Slowly. Quietly. The way rot works.
A father hands his son a phone at age 8 because dinner needs to be quiet. A husband stops initiating prayer because it feels awkward. A man stops correcting his children because his wife handles it better. A dad gives up date nights because Netflix is easier.
No one panics. No Business Insider article. No 42 million views.
Just a house that gets emptier while everyone's still in it.
The average Christian father spends 3 hours a day on his phone. His son does the math before he does.
The boy isn't learning masculinity from Dad. He's learning it from whatever the algorithm serves him. Andrew Tate. Reddit. Discord servers you've never heard of. Pornography at age 11.
You're at men's breakfast eating pancakes. He's watching a man on a screen explain what strength looks like. And that man is not you.
There's a priest in the Old Testament named Eli. He let his sons run wild. Didn't correct them. Didn't lead them. Let the corruption happen under his own roof while he sat in his chair doing nothing.
The ark of God was captured. His sons died on the same day. His daughter-in-law went into labor from the shock, named the baby Ichabod — "the glory has departed" — and died.
That wasn't AI. That was abdication. Same thing is happening now. Different chair. Same passivity.
Steve Jobs built the iPad. Never let his kids use one. Bill Gates built Microsoft. Banned phones until his kids were 14. Mark Zuckerberg designed Instagram. His children barely touch screens.
The men who built the algorithm protect their own families from it.
You hand it to your kids at dinner and call it peace.
What AI Can't Replace
AI cannot sit at the edge of your son's bed at 11 PM and explain why porn will destroy his ability to love a real woman.
It cannot take your wife's hand during an argument and say "I was wrong. Forgive me."
It cannot lead your household in worship when nobody feels like worshipping.
It cannot teach your daughter what a good man looks like by being one.
It cannot kneel beside your bed at 5 AM and beg God for wisdom you don't have.
These things require a man. Present. Imperfect. Stubbornly faithful.
No technology replaces that. No beast system threatens it.
A man on his knees is the one thing no algorithm can build and no apocalypse can touch.
The Warning Nobody Shared
The Bible already gave us the disruption warning. Thousands of years ago.
"Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." — Proverbs 27:1, KJV
James said it. Solomon said it. Christ said it to His own disciples over and over. Things are going to change. You don't know when. You don't know how. But the man who builds his life on the assumption that tomorrow looks like today is a fool.
The AI panic is new. The fear isn't. Every generation grabs a sword at something. Every generation runs back to the nets when it doesn't work.
The question was never "what's coming next." The question was always "where are you anchored when it arrives."
Abide In Me
John 15. The chapter my pastor preached Wednesday night.
Christ is about to leave. The disciples are about to face the worst change of their lives. And His instruction isn't complicated. It's not a five-step plan. It's not a prophecy chart.
"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me." — John 15:4, KJV
Abide in me. Before the change. During the change. After the change.
My pastor said it plain: The answer before the devastation is abide in Him. The answer in the midst of devastation is abide in Him. The answer after the devastation is abide in Him.
The answer isn't decoding prophecy. It isn't panicking about AI. It isn't swinging your sword at a mob you can't stop. It isn't going fishing because the pain is too much.
"Without me ye can do nothing." — John 15:5, KJV
He meant that literally.
The Most Fruitful Season Came After
Here's the part nobody preaches.
Peter denied Christ three times. Went fishing. Was devastated. Done.
Then he got restored. Got back. Abode in Christ. Got filled with the Holy Ghost.
Acts 2:41 — Peter preaches at Pentecost. Three thousand souls saved in one day.
Acts 4:4 — Peter preaches again. Five thousand.
The most fruitful period of Peter's entire life came after the worst devastation of his life.
Not before. After.
Not in spite of the change. Because he went through it anchored to the vine.
John was the only disciple who seemed to abide all the way through. Leaning on Christ's breast at the supper. In the judgment hall. At the foot of the cross. First at the tomb. He never grabbed a sword. He never went fishing.
But Peter — the man who swung, denied, and ran — Peter's story proves that even if you've already panicked, already failed, already gone back to your nets, the most fruitful season of your life is still ahead of you.
If you abide.
And the book John wrote — the Gospel of John, the epistles, Revelation — is still bearing fruit two thousand years later.
Abiding works. It's the only thing that does.
The Choice
"And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." — Malachi 4:6, KJV
That's the last verse of the Old Testament. God's final word before 400 years of silence.
Not about economies. Not about technology. Not about beast systems or artificial intelligence.
About fathers.
You can share the AI article. Feel informed. Scroll on.
You can share the beast system post. Feel prophetic. Do nothing.
Or you can put the phone down tonight. Sit with your family. Open the Word. Read it out loud even if it feels awkward. Especially if it feels awkward. Pray together even if nobody wants to. Especially then.
Put the sword down. Get out of the boat. Stop fishing for yesterday.
Abide in Him. And watch what grows.
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." — Hebrews 13:8, KJV
The world around you is going to change. He won't.
That's not a bumper sticker. That's the anchor. That's the vine. That's the reason Peter went from denial to Pentecost and from fishing nets to five thousand souls.
My pastor closed with this: "I don't know what the change is going to be for you. I don't know when it's coming. But the way you go through it and handle it is going to determine your fruitfulness on the other side."
The glory hasn't departed yet.
But Eli thought the same thing.
Choose wisely.
I write for men who are tired of being lied to — by the culture, by the church, and by themselves. If this hit, you're not alone. More at biblicalman.substack.com
