God's Presence in Sin City

And as I studied Bamidbar this week, I could not shake the feeling that this ancient picture is more relevant today than ever before.  God counted His people. God positioned His people. God gave each tribe a unique assignment. And most importantly, God placed His presence at the center.

That pattern has never changed.

God is still counting His people. He is still positioning His people. He is still assigning gifts and responsibilities. And He is still calling us to keep His presence at the center of everything.

But this week, the Lord took that lesson off the pages of Scripture and made it incredibly personal for me. He showed me this truth in one of the most unexpected places imaginable.

Las Vegas. Yes, of all places—Sin City.

I traveled there this week for a procurement conference, and what I thought would be an ordinary business trip became a profound spiritual lesson about discernment, deception, and the importance of knowing the voice of the Shepherd.

What I experienced there—both at the Sphere and at the conference itself—gave me a fresh understanding of the times we are living in.

And it confirmed exactly what Bamidbar teaches us: When God is at the center, there is order. When God is at the center, there is clarity. When God is at the center, we know where we belong. And when God is at the center, we are far less likely to be deceived.

Let me tell you what happened.

 "Who is wise? One who learns from every person."— Pirkei Avot 4:1

Now three times this week I stumbled across this Jewish saying: "Who is wise? One who learns from every person." And it worked, or rather - fit very well for the week.

I left Kentucky last weekend, a little aggravated with humanity... struggling to love humans...though they are created in God's image, they fail to display His characteristics most time. And was wrestling with hypocrisy and unloving people, which funny enough made me a bit of a hypocrite myself. But I arrived in Vegas and felt God's presence in Sin City the whole time. It's funny how things work like that.... Everything I was expecting and experiencing was the flip side of my fleshly thoughts.

God in Unexpected Places

I've put off taking this trip for over a year. I don't know why but about 14-15 months ago I was driving and God said "Las Vegas." I immediately called Diane and ask her to pray that I wasn't supposed to go. I DID NOT want to go to Sin City. My first trip to Vegas wasn't stellar. I'll spare you the details, but I saw and understood the root for slang name for the city. I didn't feel like I had any business going there... (like I’m the one in charge...lol) But I pretty much refused to go. 

Then Peabody broke his neck.  And both of our lives changed, I guess.  I have such a greater appreciation for God.  I was always thankful…. I think… well at least the last ten years or so, but this last year I began to see a little more of the bigger picture, of how undeserving we are, and quite frankly indebted to Him.  I know I can’t earn it.  I can’t repay Him, but I can acknowledge that.  And I can try to serve Him the best I can.  And I can relinquish the reins to Him.  So better late than never, right?  When a trip to Vegas popped up this time. I was begging to go!  I wasn’t getting left behind this time.

Divine Appointments in Sin City

I landed and my first Uber driver was great!  I felt safe.  I felt God’s presence.  And throughout my stay, I was, and am, fortunate to work with a team of believers who would not dream of being out drinking and partying… Nope. We were eating burgers and talking about Jesus.  And that’s so cool!

One Uber driver was from Africa and had nearly the same accent as my preacher pal from Zambia.  So, we immediately connected.  We talked about the Lord and listened to part of one of my friend’s sermons on my short ride.

But the last Uber driver was the best!  She had worship music blasting when I got in!  The next song, one of my favorites!  Homesick for Heaven!  We had a sing along!  AND she allowed me to pray for her before I got out!  I was sheeting in cold chills the whole time.

So, I still don’t exactly know the “why” for going out there… maybe it was to ask our coworker Cory about Jesus and talk to him about the Lord.  Maybe it was to pray for that Uber driver.  Maybe it was to talk to the lady in the wheelchair at the airport. Maybe it was to meet Kevin Bacon.  Who knows?  Maybe it was just a simple test of obedience… delayed obedience.  But obedience nonetheless.

AI Won't Take Your Job

But while I was there, I was there for work.  And of course, over the last year or more, AI (artificial intelligence) has been becoming more prevalent.  And during that time, I began using it here in that to help expand my bandwidth.  It could create reports, analyze data and find loops in contracts in minutes rather than days or hours for me.  I immediately became more productive.  I could remove my typos and strengthen my communication.  And I saw the value increasing each month that I used it.

Then back in April, we traveled to Miami to a Procurement Conference and the #1 topic was using AI.  The message was simple that week: “AI won’t take your job, but people who use AI will.”

So, second procurement conference this year was the one in Vegas.  And it followed suit but doubled down.  The technology here was unreal.  The entire conference was about using AI in our jobs and building agents to complete our tasks.  In other words, rather than completing a task myself repeatedly.  I would now build the agent that would do those tasks for me from here on out.  AI agents will assist, advise, and/or take action.  And how those agents work, what they do, how they think, the guardrails they work within are all up to me. And suddenly what once seemed so simple, just like using software, became something much bigger.

The Sphere Experience

But let’s go back a few hours.  Night one, Sara and I went to see the movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at the Sphere.  I heard it was a great experience.  And I was excited to go, but little did I know or understand what I was really in store for.  This was an immersive experience they called it. I knew it was a big screen. I knew the chair had haptics.  I knew apples would fall from the trees.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.

While standing in line, we began to read the fine print on the monitors.  It described a little bit of the technology they’d be using, including facial monitoring to collect data.  Oh yeah, and did I mention I’m terrified of open heights? Airplanes are fine. Glass elevators mostly fine.  But high open air… not fine at all.

We didn’t buy the most expensive tickets.  We were on the cheaper end, but God had to intervene there, because somehow we were front row.  And not for the reason you’d think…. But I had a small wall in front of me….just a little lower than waist height.  I was already nearly sick with fear.  We were EXTREMELY high.  Remind me to show you pics of the Sphere.  It’s an open ball inside and we were at least halfway up, probably more.  And looking out and over was horrible.  Looking up even worse.  But then they turned it on… a full 360 view and it was the sky.  The sky slowly turned into a movie. And it was breathtaking, in a very anxiety filled way. 

Imagine being several stories high, sitting outside on the ledge and the entire sky being a screen.  But that’s not all.  The sky wrapped around you.  You’re looking up, around and down.  And I was sick.  I had to sit in the floor and touch the wall to ground myself.  The ratios were wild.  You felt like you were IN the movie just by visuals alone.  But then it continued. 

As the scenes change, the temperature changes.  And the way the screen moves, it messes with your visual perception and equilibrium and your brain processes that ‘you’ are moving and swinging around with the scenes.  You get closer, farther, higher, etc.  And depending on the scene, your seat does actually move.  But if you have watched The Wizard of Oz, you remember the tornado scene…….  I was completely overwhelmed.  And many others too. 

We have 5 senses. And standard practice that therapists and scientists teach to overcome anxiety is that you can use your 5 senses as a grounding mechanism.  What do you see?  A tornado.  What do you feel?  A tornado!  The temperature change, the wind, the leaves!  High speed forceful winds barreling against you.  Shaking your chair.  What do you hear?  A tornado! High force winds, Loud freight train like wind sounds, the sounds of debris hitting the house, the sounds of Dorothy screaming.  I can’t even describe to you how load and surrounding it is.  Your brain is getting all the signals that you are in danger.  On the brink of death even, but in reality, you’re safe and sound.  And to make these mind acrobatics work is unreal.  I was praying.  Sara was holding my shoulder and I’m sure praying for me too.    And then it was over.

What had lasted only a few minutes, changed everything.  It felt evil, but I felt God in its presence.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not about to go against scripture and fall into or waste precious time on conspiracies, but we have to be mindful that this could be used as a tool of the enemy as this technology progresses and becomes even more sophisticated.

It was also very beautiful.  Munchkin land was absolutely dreamy.  The technicolor flowers, and trees, the butterflies, and detail.  All the multidimensional visuals.  It was just more beautiful than you could even imagine. 

I left in awe.  Just absolutely shook.  Not to mention that the Wizard (as the green scary head in the sky was eerily similar to an end times dream I had as child).  I spent a lot of nights/early morning hours this week fighting a flood of childhood memories that I began to recall.  And I’m reminded that even at 45 and a maturing Christian that I still need a lot of healing.

The Agentic Age

Next day at work, we enter the conference to these words:  “You are about to enter an immersive experience.”  And I laughingly tell Sara that I’m just gonna go ahead and sit in the floor. 

Just kidding.  I stayed in my chair this time.  But a portion of similar technology began to be unveiled here too.  The visuals, the sounds, the data collection…… and the Lord began to give me thoughts.

But it didn’t exactly start here.  It’s strange to realize that every little detail on our lives are directed by God.  We don’t always know why or understand, but sometimes years later he begins to explain small pieces. But what I thought was a bit of a U-turn in my career, I worked at cellular company for a while.  And even way back then, we were beginning to design data collection devices that would capture customer interaction.  Timing how long you looked at a product, how long you held it, timing for when you picked it up or put it down, how long you were in the store, facial expressions: were you happy or sad or mad.  And that was over a decade ago.  And what seemingly seemed so innocent, just to be able to provide better products, make you happier customers, now… suddenly seems more sinister.  Because in the wrong hands it becomes manipulative. 

But as I sat through this opening session, the epiphanies continued.  This is really a brink of an evolution. Human labor is being redefined – again. And I think I have uncovered a pattern.

 

The Great Transfer of Labor

Era	Primary Labor Source	Human Role	Transformational Impact
Ancient World	Human and enslaved labor	Direct physical work	Built civilizations, but labor-intensive
Agricultural Revolution	Animal power and simple tools	Farmers and craftsmen	Greater productivity and settled societies
Industrial Revolution (late 1700s–1800s)	Steam engines and machinery	Machine operators and supervisors	Mass production and urbanization
Automation Revolution (1900s)	Electricity, assembly lines, computers	Process managers	Scale, standardization, efficiency
Information Age (1980s–2020s)	Software and data systems	Analysts and knowledge workers	Digitized information and business processes
Agentic Age (emerging now)	AI agents	Strategists, orchestrators, decision-makers	Autonomous execution of cognitive tasks

What struck me in that moment was this:

History seems to move in great shifts where mankind transfers its labor to something outside of itself.

At first, societies were built on the backs of human beings. Kings, empires, and nations depended on physical labor—often through slavery or servitude. Human muscle was the engine of civilization.

Then came the great mechanical revolutions.

During the Industrial Revolution, steam engines, looms, and factories changed the world forever. Men who once swung hammers and worked fields from sunrise to sunset began operating machines that could do the work of thousands.

Humanity transferred its labor from muscle to machinery.

That shift changed everything.

It created new industries, new wealth, new cities, and a new way of life. It also displaced workers, disrupted families, and concentrated tremendous power into the hands of those who controlled the machines.

But even then, humans were still required to think, plan, direct, and decide.

The machines could do the work.

But they could not do the thinking.

Then came the information age.

Computers took over calculations, recordkeeping, communication, and data storage. We digitized our businesses, our money, our memories, and eventually much of our lives.

Humanity transferred its labor from paper to software.

Still, the human mind remained central.

We told the computer what to do.

We interpreted the results.

We made the decisions.

But now, standing in that conference, I realized we are crossing another threshold.

This time, we are not merely outsourcing our physical labor.

We are outsourcing portions of our mental labor.

Agentic AI does not simply follow commands.

It can reason through a problem, gather information, evaluate options, make recommendations, and in some cases take action on our behalf.

For the first time in history, we are building tools that imitate aspects of human cognition.

Humanity is transferring work from mind to machine.

That is why this moment feels so significant.

The Industrial Revolution mechanized strength.

The Digital Revolution mechanized information.

The Agentic Revolution is mechanizing routine judgment.

And that raises profound questions, and quite frankly sets off some alarms and red flags.

If machines can think through tasks, what becomes of human work?

If agents can make decisions, who is accountable? The agent or the builder?

If technology can influence what we see, hear, and believe, who is shaping our perception of reality?

And perhaps most importantly:

Will these tools serve humanity—or will humanity become enslaved to the very systems it created?

Wisdom Matters More Than Ever

The truth is that technology itself is neither good nor evil.

It is a tool.

The same hammer that can build a home, can become a weapon.

The same technology that helps doctors detect cancer can also manipulate minds, distort truth, and amplify deception.

That is why wisdom matters now more than ever.

Not intelligence. Not innovation. Wisdom.

“Who is wise? One who learns from every person.”

The wisest people in this next era will not be those who know the most.

They will be those humble enough to keep learning, discerning, and testing everything against truth.

Because while machines may grow more powerful, they still lack what God uniquely placed within us: Conscience. Compassion. Discernment. Moral responsibility. The breath of life.

We were not created merely to perform tasks.

We were created in the image of God to steward creation and reflect His character.

That means the future does not belong to the people with the most advanced technology.

It belongs to those with the wisdom to use it rightly.

As I sat there in that immersive experience—first at the Sphere, then at the conference—I felt the Lord impressing this on my heart: The world is entering a new age.

But the timeless need remains the same.

We do not need more powerful machines nearly as much as we need wiser men and women.

And if there was ever a time for believers to walk in discernment, humility, and truth, it is now.

Technology and the Last Days

And as these thoughts unfolded, I could not help but consider what this means in light of the days we are living in.

The Bible tells us that in the last days, deception will increase.

Yeshua warned in Matthew 24:24 that false christs and false prophets would arise and perform signs and wonders so convincing that, if possible, even the elect would be deceived.

For years, I read those verses and imagined counterfeit miracles, false religions, and charismatic leaders. And surely those things will play a role. But I am beginning to understand that technology itself may become one of the greatest tools of deception the world has ever known.

Think about what I experienced at the Sphere.

Every one of my senses told me I was in danger.

I saw the tornado. I felt the wind. I heard the roar. I sensed motion. My body reacted as if the threat were real.

But it was an illusion. I was perfectly safe.

My senses were fully engaged, but they were bearing false witness to reality.

And isn’t that exactly how deception works?

It feels real. It looks real. It sounds real. It triggers genuine emotions. But it is not true.

Now imagine this technology advancing exponentially.

Artificial intelligence can already generate voices, images, videos, and conversations that are nearly indistinguishable from reality. At the conference, I even walked past a holographic robot that greeted me by name.

Agentic systems can observe behavior, learn preferences, predict responses, and personalize messages designed to influence decisions.

Data collection can track where we look, what captures our attention, what stirs our emotions, and what motivates us to act.

In the right hands, these tools can serve incredible purposes.

In the wrong hands, they can shape perception, manipulate belief, and create highly personalized deception.

The book of Revelation describes a time when the world will be captivated by signs, wonders, and systems of control so persuasive that multitudes will follow them without question.

Whether or not today’s technology is part of that exact fulfillment, it certainly demonstrates how such a system could operate.

For the first time in human history, we possess the technological infrastructure to monitor, influence, and direct people at a global scale.

That should not lead us to fear. But it should lead us to discernment.

The Voice of the Shepherd

Because the answer is not to hide from technology. The answer is to know the voice of the Shepherd.

Yeshua said in John 10:4, “My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me.”

In a world where images can lie, voices can be cloned, and experiences can be manufactured, the safest place to be is near the One whose voice never changes.

The Network Effect

The enemy has always trafficked in illusions. From the garden of Genesis to the wilderness temptation, Satan’s strategy has been to distort truth and entice people to trust appearances rather than the Word of God.

“Did God really say?”

That question still echoes. Only now, the tools for amplifying deception are more sophisticated than ever before.

And here is what struck me so deeply this week. The theme of our procurement conference was “the network effect.”

The hosting software company has built tremendous value by connecting millions of buyers and suppliers around the world. The larger the network grows, the smarter and more powerful it becomes.

And immediately I thought: the enemy understands the power of networks. Satan has always been building a network. He recruits. He influences. He plants seeds. He multiplies lies through willing participants. He rarely works alone.

And sadly, in many ways, the kingdom of darkness appears more intentional about recruiting disciples than the people of God.

No wonder the remnant feels small. No wonder truth sometimes seems outnumbered.

But we must remember this:  the kingdom of God was designed to spread through a network too. Yeshua did not tell us merely to attend church services and keep our faith private.

He commissioned us to go.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...” (Matthew 28:19)

Every believer has been entrusted with that mission. We are called to plant seeds. We are called to disciple our children. We are called to encourage coworkers. We are called to pray for strangers. We are called to speak truth in love. We are called to expand the Kingdom of God one relationship at a time.

The enemy is leveraging every available tool to advance his agenda.

The question is: are we as intentional about advancing ours?

Who are you discipling? Who are you praying for? Who are you teaching to hear the voice of God?  Who are you equipping to stand firm in a world filled with deception?

The Battle We Are In

Because we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, and spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

This battle will not be won by better arguments alone.

It will be won by believers who put on the full armor of God, know His Word, walk in the Spirit, and boldly proclaim the gospel.

God’s Word will not return void. But someone must speak it. Someone must live it. Someone must pass it on.

The Greatest Lesson from Las Vegas

Perhaps that is the greatest lesson the Lord was teaching me in Las Vegas.

The world is building immersive systems to shape hearts and minds.

But the Kingdom of God advances the same way it always has—through transformed lives, Spirit-filled believers, and faithful disciples who carry the truth into every corner of the earth.

The enemy has a network.

But so do we.

And our King has already won.

But for now, we armor up. Stay discerning. Keep learning.

And go make disciples.