The STONE

THE STONE

Recently I have been looking again at Daniel’s prophecy and at what is happening within the human race.

We are living in an extraordinary time.

Knowledge is increasing.

Information that once took months or years to obtain is now at our fingertips. And with the development of artificial intelligence, humanity is creating something extraordinarily powerful.

Daniel was told:

“Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”— Daniel 12:4

I am not saying Daniel was prophesying about AI.

But what I am seeing around me has caused me to look again at the great statue Daniel saw.

The statue was made of different materials, representing successive human kingdoms.

But when Daniel comes to its feet, he sees something strange.

Iron mixed with clay.

There is strength in the iron.

But there is fragility in clay.

And Daniel says:

“They will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.”— Daniel 2:43

That picture has stayed with me.

Because humanity is becoming extraordinarily powerful, yet we still cannot seem to hold ourselves together.

Our technology connects the world.

Our knowledge increases.

Our ability to create grows almost beyond imagination.

Yet the human nature controlling all that power remains human.

We still compete.

We still divide.

We still desire power.

And now there is a race to lead the development of AI.

That concerns me—not because I believe AI itself is the problem, but because I know something about the human desire to be first.

When being first becomes the goal, there is always the danger that wisdom, patience and safeguards become secondary to winning the race.

But perhaps the problem goes much further back than AI.

It goes all the way back to a tree.

Humanity ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Not simply the knowledge of evil.

The knowledge of good and evil.

And perhaps this is something humanity has never escaped.

We can believe we are doing good while remaining unaware of what is driving us.

We can increase in knowledge without increasing in Life.

We can become technologically brilliant while the nature controlling that technology remains unchanged.

Knowledge is increasing, but knowledge is not Life.

This is why the iron and clay speak so strongly to me.

Enormous strength joined to human fragility.

The iron becomes stronger.

The knowledge becomes greater.

The technology becomes more powerful.

But the clay remains clay.

Throughout history kingdoms have risen.

They have accumulated power.

They have fought to retain it.

And eventually they have fallen.

Daniel’s statue tells the same story.

Gold.

Silver.

Bronze.

Iron.

Iron mixed with clay.

Human kingdoms change.

Human knowledge develops.

Human power increases.

But then something happens that does not come from humanity at all.

Daniel sees:

“A stone... cut out without hands.”— Daniel 2:34

The Stone strikes the feet of the statue.

The entire image falls.

And then something extraordinary happens.

“The stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”— Daniel 2:35

Daniel tells us what this means:

“The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.”— Daniel 2:44

This is what has captured me.

Humanity keeps trying to build something strong enough to endure.

But the Kingdom of God does not arise from humanity finally perfecting its systems.

It does not emerge because our knowledge becomes great enough.

It does not come because our technology becomes powerful enough.

The Stone is cut without human hands.

I do not know where AI fits within Daniel’s prophecy.

But I can see something that has followed humanity from the Garden, through kingdoms and empires, and into our technologically powerful age.

Humanity has never lacked the knowledge of good and evil.

What humanity has lacked is Life.

And eventually Daniel’s attention is taken away from the statue altogether.

The gold is gone.

The silver is gone.

The bronze is gone.

The iron and clay are gone.

But the Stone remains.

And it grows until it becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth.

Because the final revelation was never the statue.

It was the Stone.