Sinkhole swallows man; robot recognizes his own reflection

I found a 12-minute Youtube compilation of natural disasters that are happening in the world. The disasters you are about to see all happened within the last month. There is nothing bloody or gory. Just a plethora of disasters that are coming upon the world like birthpangs. Note how often you hear comments in the audio from people who say things like "this is unprecedented" or "I've never seen this in all my life."

I've reported on some of the disasters, like the Philippine floods or the Louisiana sinkhole. Below the video, is one news excerpt I expanded from the video that goes into more depth.


Here is a lengthier treatment of the moment in the video above where a sinkhole swallowed a man.

Sinkhole swallows man
"As Typhoon Saola trounces Taiwan, surveillance camera footage showing an unidentified man being swallowed by a sinkhole in Sansia District, Taiwan, has surfaced. In the video, the man can be seen walking along the street until -- within a split second -- the ground gives way and he disappears. A rescue operation reportedly was attempted, but according to CNN the man later died of his injuries."


I tried to screen cap it for those who can't or don't watch videos, but it really was a split second. On the video above, at second 7 he is walking jauntily along, and at second 8 on the video there is a gaping hole and a dead man under the rubble. Jonathan Edwards preached on this very thing in his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

"If God should withdraw his hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them; and if God should permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and lost. ... for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ. -- That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up. You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw his hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it".

Now ...here is something else. I've posted very few posts lately on the prophetic indicators for the Mark of the Beast partly because it depresses me and partly because by the time the Mark comes both the saved and the unsaved are so far along in the Tribulation these pre-rapture signs will mean little to the Tribulation survivors. But this one struck me.

Robot learns to recognise itself in the mirror
"NICO spends a lot of time looking in the mirror. But it's not mere vanity - Nico is a humanoid robot that can recognise its reflection - a step on the path towards true self-awareness."

Now if that doesn't give you chills, I don't know what will.

I am part of an interesting generation. I was born in 1960, before the space age. I remember the US astronauts on the moon in 1968. I lived most of my adult life before the internet, and personal computers only came along after college. I wrote my term papers on a typewriter and used a lot of white-out. Audio cassettes weren't even invented until 1962 and my family didn't use them until I was nearly in my teens. CD music, cellphones, cable television...all very new. I was 12 when Pong was invented and my dad brought it home. Now look where we are with computer games...

The ATM wasn't invented until I was nine and their use didn't become ubiquitous until I was a teenager. For most of my life, the notion of a one world payment system was simply unbelievable.

Now we are closing in on Artificial Intelligence. The major question in robotics and computering is "can machines ever become self-aware?" I propose that it is a moot question, because God would shut down the whole shebang before another "creation" with consciousness and intelligence appears on the scene. Once a robot is self-aware, would they then have to become cognizant of their own sin and then choose a savior? Of course not, the premise that God would allow man to create consciousness is ridiculous. But if a robot is that close to recognizing itself, how close are we to AI, and how close to the rapture? What will the Mark of the Beast look like...how will it work? The world doesn't have long to find out, I think.

Fortunately those who have repented of their sin will be carried safely up to heaven before all this crashes down and man lives with his folly. We will be made fully perfect, and that includes an awareness of the entire body of the Church to a degree we know about now cognitively but don't directly experience fully (due to our sin nature.) Best of all, we will see, know, and experience a life with Jesus the Savior clearly, and not dimly like we do now. (1 Corinthians 13:12-13).

Any person who repents will be in that blessed group of the Church Age believers who are raptured out. For those who fence-sit, or who outright refuse to believe, well, just think on this. If robots are becoming self aware, how long do you think it will take before kings, dictators, and evil men use them to hunt you down? ("Open the pod bay doors, HAL. ... I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.")

The disasters on the video, remember, occurred in just this last month. What does God have in store for the next month? We do know the near future holds wars and rumors of wars, pestilences, volcanic eruptions, floods, drought, hail, fires, pain, anguish and death. Doom and gloom? You betcha.

Jesus is HOPE and LIGHT! I prefer the hope and light to the doom and gloom. If you repent of your sins, and you are a sinner you know, and ask Jesus to forgive them, He will. He is a good savior. So when will the end come? Just because He hasn't judged men in wrath does not mean He won't. He has been patient up until now:

"The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." (2 Peter 3:9).

However that patience is coming to an end, and as a thief in the night, the end will come. The repentant will be given their reward and their relief, and the unrepentant will have given to them what they chose: the worst time the world has ever known or will ever know again. (Matthew 24:21). Like the Taiwanese man who was happily walking one moment and the next was dead under the rubble, Jesus will suddenly and without warning end His patience and begin His wrath. You really don't want to be here for that.