Pastor Lamar put two words on the screen Sunday that look almost identical. Ai and A.I.
One's a city in Joshua chapter seven. The other's sitting in your pocket right now.
The idea
Ai means "heap of ruins." That's not a coincidence, that's a warning label.
Israel had just leveled Jericho. Then they walked into Ai overconfident, sent a small squad because the city looked easy, and got embarrassed. Thirty six men dead. Yesterday's victory didn't guarantee today's win, and it never does for us either.
But here's what got me. The problem wasn't that Israel lacked information. They had eyes, they had spies, they had a plan. What they skipped was consultation with God. They didn't ask. They just moved.
Now put "A.I." next to that story. Artificial intelligence can gather more information than any spy Joshua ever sent. It can answer your question in two seconds and predict a trend before it happens. I use it every week to help build parts of this very community.
But information was never the danger back in Joshua's day, and it's not the danger now. The danger is letting information replace revelation. Letting a screen answer a question only God was ever supposed to settle.
Achan's confession is the oldest trend in the book. I saw it. I wanted it. I took it. I hid it. I did it. Five steps, zero technology required. He didn't need an algorithm to talk him into sin. He just needed a heart that wasn't consulting God.
Here's the part that should stop every one of us. Achan thought his sin only touched him. Scripture says the anger of the Lord burned against all of Israel. Thirty six other men paid for one man's hidden choice. Your sin was never a private transaction. It never is.
And whatever you're hiding, it's going to face the truth eventually. A.I. can expose the trouble. Only the I AM can expose the heart. Jeremiah 17:10 says God searches the heart and tests the mind before anybody else ever gets a vote.
A question to sit with
What have you been asking a search bar, Chat GPT, a screen, or your own gut to answer, that you should have brought to God first?
Sit with that one before you scroll past it.
This is exactly the kind of thing we drag into the light together every week inside Brotherhood Forged, guys who won't let each other keep information without consultation.
Every brotherhood starts with one guy forwarding this to another guy. Be that guy.
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