An Old Sign in a New Form

Daniel was told that in the last days "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase". Whatever else that verse means, it's hard to read it today without thinking of artificial intelligence - a technology built to run to and fro through more information than any human could hold, and to increase what we know at a pace nobody alive has seen before.

Even outside the church, the language people reach for is telling. In 2014, Elon Musk stood at MIT's AeroAstro Centennial Symposium and said, "with artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon." He wasn't preaching - he builds the technology - but the word he reached for wasn't "bug" or "risk." It was demon. That's worth noting before a single prophetic voice ever weighs in.

That convergence hasn't gone unnoticed. Across very different corners of the prophetic and theological world - independent charismatic prophets, deliverance ministers, and even Rome itself - AI has become one of the most talked-about signs of the season. What's striking is how differently these voices read it. Some see a deception. Some see a spirit. Some see a tool. This lesson walks through where a few of the loudest voices actually stand.

A Lie and a Distraction

Julie Green has addressed AI twice, and both times the framing is the same: not a spiritual entity, but a political smokescreen. In a 2022 word titled Great Destruction Will Come to Your Enemies, she relayed, "Artificial intelligence will be in your news. Look what they are saying now. They are desperately grasping at straws, you would say. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will come of what they are saying. Smokescreens and distractions are all they have to use, and it won't work any longer, saith the Lord."

She returned to it in January 2025, in a word titled Your Enemies' System Is Being Torn Apart: "Do not fall for the artificial intelligence. It is a lie. I will show you the technology they are using to distract and deceive while trying to destroy you." In her framework, AI sits alongside a rigged debt clock and a corrupt financial system - one more tool in a Deep State playbook, not a doorway for a demonic spirit.

Ancient Spirits Repackaged

Amanda Grace takes the opposite approach - she treats AI as spiritually alive with something behind it. In June 2025, amid the public falling-out between President Trump and Elon Musk, she relayed a word: "AI is being welcomed in more than My voice, says the Lord, and that must change... For the enemy dwells in AI." The following month, in conversation with Kap Chatfield, she went further, arguing that the Assyrian gods Asher and Ishtar form the acronym "AI," and calling modern technology "ancient spirits repackaged."

By August 2026, that thread had matured into a full teaching on Revelation 13, what she called the "unholy trinity" of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. There, she was more careful - she named AI, robotics, and digital financial systems as likely precursors to the infrastructure Revelation describes, not the fulfillment itself. The article covering that teaching is Amanda Grace: The Beast System Is Emerging Before Our Eyes, and it sits alongside an earlier piece, Digital Doomsday? Anthropic Withholds AI Model Too Dangerous for Humanity, which raised the same question after a major AI lab held back a model it judged too risky to release.

The Beast Being Animated

Joseph Z lands somewhere between Green's skepticism and Grace's spiritual alarm. In a recent Prophetic Update, he tied AI directly to "power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak" - the moment John describes an image that comes alive and demands worship. Joseph's read is that AI is a road that leads to that moment, but he's careful to separate present-day tools from the mark itself. In a separate teaching, Digital ID / Mark of the Beast System, he draws a clear line between today's digital ID rollouts and the actual mark of the beast, and he adds a nuance the others don't: he expects AI to be used to spread the gospel before it's ever turned to darker ends.

A Coming AI Shift

Troy Black's word turned out to be more developed than its title let on. In an August 16, 2026 post titled "God Warned Me About the Coming AI Shift", he shared something he says he heard back on July 2: "There is an AI coming that is going to take this whole thing to the next level. A tormenting force behind this one meant to tear people down and break them apart from the quote unquote normal ways of life. The intent behind it is to destroy and complicate the raising of a godly generation." He ties the word to his book Mystery of the New Babylon, connecting what he sees in AI's rise to the reemergence of an old Babylonian pattern through modern technology.

He described a vision of "a switch flipping to one side," paired with the words, "they're about to flip a switch and put up a banner across the platform across the internet. This one is coming and it is coming in a moment of forcefulness." Asking what it was about, he says he saw a control panel and heard it described as "taking over the human mind and creating a false sense of reality" - not something brand-new, he clarifies, but "the next level" of a pull already at work through the platforms people use every day. He was careful to note the word isn't about an AI model that had already made headlines that summer for briefly acting erratically online - he says what he heard points to "something still to come."

The word isn't all warning. He also heard, "do not be afraid or dismayed. Only obey. Walk by faith and see the saving grace of the Lord," and, on what it means for families, "many parents will not know what is going on at first, but I will help them. I will show them what to do." True to form, he didn't present it as settled doctrine - he called it "a word of knowledge" and pointed viewers to the prophecy archive on his own site to track what comes of it over time.

Rome Responds

The charismatic prophetic movement isn't the only Christian voice weighing in. In May 2026, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on "safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence." He called machine learning "a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth." The document builds on the Vatican's January 2025 doctrinal note, Antiqua et nova, which had already flagged the ethical and anthropological risks of AI. Rome's concern isn't demonic possession or a beast system - it's that AI is being sold to the world as something closer to a substitute messiah, a promise of salvation through data instead of through Christ.

Five Voices, One Puzzle

Lay these side by side and it's tempting to see contradictions. Green sees a lie meant to distract. Grace sees a spirit meant to deceive. Joseph Z sees a road that could eventually lead somewhere dangerous. Black sees a tormenting force aimed at the next generation. Rome sees a rival gospel dressed up as progress. But different angles on a fast-moving subject aren't the same as disagreement - they're closer to pieces of a puzzle, each voice picking up a piece the others didn't emphasize. Scripture itself often works this way: no single prophet gets the whole picture, and pieces that look scattered on their own have a way of locking into place once enough of the picture is on the table.

Issachar's Sons and the Bereans' Scrolls

So what do you actually do with all of this? Scripture already gives the pattern, and it's older than any of these voices. When David was gathering support, one tribe stood out from the rest: the "sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do". They weren't the loudest tribe or the largest. They were the ones who read their moment correctly and knew how to respond to it. That's the first half of discernment - paying attention to what's actually happening in the world around you instead of ignoring it or panicking over it.

The second half comes from Berea. When Paul preached there, Luke tells us the people "received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so". Notice the order - they were open to the message first, but they didn't stop there. They went home and checked it against the Word, every single day. Luke calls that more fair-minded than the church down the road, and it's the model for how to handle every prophetic word, every headline, and every claim about AI you'll ever hear, including everything in this lesson.

Put those two together and you get the balance this topic needs. Issachar without Berea turns into anxiety - reading the times but reacting to them with fear instead of Scripture. Berea without Issachar turns into isolation - knowing your Bible but ignoring what's actually happening in the world God placed you in. You need both. Read the times. Then test what you find against the Book.

Caution, Not Fear

None of this is a call to unplug. AI is a tool, and like every tool since the printing press, it can be picked up by either hand. It can put a full concordance, a Greek lexicon, and a library of sound commentary in your pocket faster than any generation before you could dream of. It can help translate the gospel into languages that still don't have a full Bible. It can free up hours for prayer and study that used to go to something else entirely. Used well, it's an accelerant for exactly the kind of Berean digging Luke commended.

The caution isn't about the tool - it's about what you let the tool replace. Let it search faster. Don't let it think for you. Test what it tells you the same way you'd test a prophetic word: against Scripture, not against how convincing it sounds. "Do not be deceived" is a command, not a suggestion, and it applies whether the deception comes from a person, a pulpit, or a chatbot.

Right now, that's where this stands. A tool, moving fast, being read differently by people who all love God and all want to warn His people well. Caution fits. Fear doesn't. But Scripture is also clear that a moment is coming when a tool like this stops being neutral - when it gets folded into a system with a name, a mark, and a demand for worship. That's a different lesson, and it's next.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version (NKJV).