Volume 44         Issue Six         June 2025

Last Trumpet Ministries · PO Box 806 · Beaver Dam, WI 53916

Phone: 920-887-2626   Internet: http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org

“For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” I Cor. 14:8

The Precipice

 

“But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.”

 

Luke 21:9-11

 

In 1945, Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer founded the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. Oppenheimer, later dubbed the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the Manhattan Project, helped establish the group in the wake of World War II. The group has become well-known over the years for its annual statement and update of its symbolic Doomsday Clock. Each year, the group’s team of scientists assesses the world’s condition and the most significant threats faced by humanity to determine how close we are to the world’s final day. In 2023, the Bulletin set the clock to “ninety seconds to midnight,” which, by their reckoning at the time, was the closest we have ever been to the end. In 2024, they decided to leave the clock where it was–perilously close to midnight, but at least holding steady. (1) However, in January 2025, the Bulletin announced it would advance its clock by one second, declaring that we are now “89 seconds to midnight.” (2) In its annual statement, the group wrote, “In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.” (3)

 

Given the group’s history, it is no surprise that the Bulletin’s biggest concern over the years has been the development and proliferation of atomic weapons. Indeed, this remains to be so, even as multiple conflicts rage across the planet, and countries such as Iran aspire to become a nuclear power. Yet, these devastating weapons are not the only concern troubling these scientists. In recent years, they’ve also focused on climate change, emerging diseases, and the development of artificial intelligence. “In the biological arena, emerging and re-emerging diseases continue to threaten the economy, society, and security of the world. The off-season appearance and in-season continuance of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), its spread to farm animals and dairy products, and the occurrence of human cases have combined to create the possibility of a devastating human pandemic,” the Bulletin’s statement warns. They also express grave concern over the development of new pathogens in laboratories around the world. “Supposedly high-containment biological laboratories continue to be built throughout the world, but oversight regimes for them are not keeping pace, increasing the possibility that pathogens with pandemic potential may escape,” the statement declares. (4)

 

The Bulletin then turns its focus to artificial intelligence, warning that AI could be used to develop new pathogens and diseases for which there are no cures. To make matters worse, artificial intelligence is already finding its way onto the modern battlefield as it is increasingly used in military applications. This development raises the specter of weaponized AI with autonomous capabilities that can make decisions on the battlefield without any human input or intervention. “An array of other disruptive technologies advanced last year in ways that make the world more dangerous. Systems that incorporate artificial intelligence in military targeting have been used in Ukraine and the Middle East, and several countries are moving to integrate artificial intelligence into their militaries. Such efforts raise questions about the extent to which machines will be allowed to make military decisions—even decisions that could kill on a vast scale, including those related to the use of nuclear weapons,” the statement surmises. (5)

 

The symbolic use of “midnight” as a time of the end also has a basis in Scripture. In the parable of Matthew 25, Jesus describes the bridegroom, who is a representation of Christ, as arriving at midnight, much to the dismay of those who were unprepared for His coming. The story concludes with an admonition from our Saviour in Matthew 25:13, which declares, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”

 

It is also noteworthy that many of the concerns mentioned by the Bulletin are also mentioned by Jesus Christ in his Olivet discourse found in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. For example, Luke 21:9-11 tells us, “But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.” To be sure, “fearful sights” can entail many different things, including autonomous weaponized artificial intelligence and whatever else looms beyond the horizon.

 

Sun Block

 

In these remarkable times, science and technology have converged, bestowing upon the world advanced new capabilities that were once the fantasy of the world’s most imaginative science fiction writers. While these capabilities have the potential to bring astonishing breakthroughs to the world, the scientific community as a whole appears to be increasingly unwilling to exercise restraint in its research. Just because something is possible does not mean it should be done, and continued exploration into bizarre experiments could certainly result in unintended consequences.

 

Much has been said about climate change in recent decades. The scientific community has repeatedly warned that countries, governments, and individuals are not doing enough to mitigate the effects of a warming planet. Consequently, a sense of desperation has set in. In December 2024, Oxford University published its State of the Climate Report, subtitled “Perilous Times on Planet Earth.” The report conveys a frantic tone from the very first sentence. “We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” the report starts. It then goes on to say, “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.” The report goes on to insist that climate change is already wreaking havoc on the world, and it is too late to stop it entirely. “Tragically, we are failing to avoid serious impacts, and we can now only hope to limit the extent of the damage,” the report insists. (6)

 

Amidst the growing desperation, the scientific community is exploring a wide array of “solutions” to mitigate the impact of climate change. One field of research that has gained traction in recent years is solar geoengineering. Some of the experiments currently underway are testing technology that could someday be used to partially reflect or block the sun's rays, thereby cooling the planet. For example, MIT Review reports that scientists began conducting geoengineering experiments in the United Kingdom in 2022. One such experiment involved launching a high-altitude weather balloon loaded with sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. Researchers sought to gain insight into how sulfur dioxide might be utilized to replicate the cooling effects of a volcanic eruption. Amazingly enough, the balloon system used a process called Stratospheric Aerosol Transport and Nucleation, or SATAN. (7)

 

While government funding for climate research has been greatly diminished in the United States under the administration of President Donald Trump, the United Kingdom has expanded its research into geoengineering. According to a report published in April 2025 by The Guardian, scientists are set to launch “outdoor geoengineering experiments” as part of a government-funded program led by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency. (ARIA) Professor Mark Symes, who is leading the geoengineering research, said that the main goal of these experiments is to determine whether or not the techniques in question would yield results. “These [experiments] would show us whether any of these potential approaches would actually work and what their effects might be. Modelling and indoor studies are essential as prerequisites, but can only tell us so much,” the professor stated. (8) Not everyone in the scientific community is pleased with the experiments being conducted, however. In another piece published by The Guardian in March 2025, Professor Raymond T Pierrehumbert of Oxford and Michael E. Mann of the University of Pennyslvania lambasted ARIA’s geoengineering research referring to it as “a barking mad scheme to cancel global heating by putting pollutants in the atmosphere that dim the sun by reflecting some sunlight back to space.” (9) The report notes that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was one of the early supporters of solar geoengineering. (10)

 

Even children understand the importance of the sun. Without sunlight, nothing grows, and life becomes unsustainable. Though geoengineering advocates aren’t proposing to block the sun entirely, even dimming it with chemicals could have catastrophic consequences. It’s worth noting that Jesus Himself prophesied of such a scenario. In Mark 13:24-26, we read, “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”

 

Digital Currency

 

On March 6, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled “Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile.” According to the order, “It is the policy of the United States to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.  It is further the policy of the United States to establish a United States Digital Asset Stockpile that can serve as a secure account for orderly and strategic management of the United States’ other digital asset holdings.” The order mandates that a new office be set up to manage this stockpile of digital assets which were obtained via criminal or civil asset forfeiture. (11)

 

On May 27, 2025, Donald Trump’s media company, which owns Truth Social, announced plans to purchase 2.5 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin. (12) The next day, May 28, 2025, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. “I'm here today to say loud and clear, with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House,” Vance told his enthusiastic audience. He then went on to say, “We want our fellow Americans to know that crypto and digital assets and particularly Bitcoin, are part of the mainstream economy, and are here to stay.” (13) Given this unprecedented government support of Bitcoin and other digital assets, it is not surprising that Bitcoin has risen in value significantly since Trump took office in February. Will cryptocurrency really become mainstream, and if it does, will it change the concept of money in the future?

 

Cryptocurrency is an entirely digital form of currency not backed by any government. In reality, the only reason crypto has any value at all is because its users have agreed that it does. It’s not a hard currency that you can touch or hold, and it is very difficult to spend. While a handful of businesses accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for everyday transactions, most people buy Bitcoin as an investment to hold, expecting it to appreciate in value over time. However, due to its decentralized nature, cryptocurrency is notoriously volatile, rising in value quickly and dropping in value just as fast. If you buy crypto at the right time and sell crypto at the right time, it is possible to earn an enormous return on your investment. However, if you buy and sell at the wrong time, you can suffer a tremendous financial loss. As such, it is not an endeavor for the faint of heart. 

 

Although President Trump fully supports cryptocurrency, he has expressed strong opposition to a central bank digital currency (CBDC). In fact, the President signed an executive order on January 23, 2025, banning the development and implementation of a CBDC, or digital dollar, in the United States. (14) While central bank digital currencies have some similarities to cryptocurrency, the biggest difference is that CBDCs are a digital form of a national currency, and crypto is a decentralized digital asset. Nevertheless, forty-four countries around the world have ongoing CBDC pilot programs. This includes much of Europe, which is testing a digital euro. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are also piloting CBDCs. The Bahamas, Jamaica, and Nigeria have fully launched their versions of a central bank digital currency.

 

While Trump has banned a CBDC in the United States for now, he won’t be President forever, and his successor might take a markedly different approach. Interestingly enough, many countries are pursuing central bank digital currencies in response to the rise of cryptocurrency. Governments generally dislike crypto because they cannot control it. On the other hand, a digital form of a national currency gives a government complete control. The technology that makes digital currencies possible today might someday be used to implement a global digital currency used by an antichrist authority seeking to establish a global government. Such technology might even require a mark without which no man can buy or sell.

 

The Orb

 

In this modern age, artificial intelligence is woven into the fabric of our daily lives. Search for anything on Google, and chances are that the top result is crafted by an AI engine. Browse products on Amazon, and you will see AI-generated summaries that condense thousands of reviews into bite-sized insights. Need to return an item? An AI-powered chatbot will walk you through it; no human required. Stumped on what to make for dinner? In seconds, ChatGPT can whip up a recipe based on what’s in your fridge. AI is transforming the workplace, the educational system, the medical profession, and even the entertainment industry. With this transformation comes enormous risk, because despite the convenience of AI, the many systems now deployed and those still in development have very real flaws.

 

While people are often impressed by ChatGPT’s ability to communicate effectively in a natural sounding way, it has been noticed that the generative artificial intelligence is not always 100 percent accurate. This phenomenon was noted by Dr. Chris Smith, a lecturer at Cambridge University, who recently asked ChatGPT to provide a list of “eponymous syndromes.” When the list included some diseases and conditions that he had never heard of, ChatGPT admitted that it had fabricated some of them. “We asked ChatGPT to list some of them, and we were working down the list, and there were some we’d never heard of. So we looked them up and they didn’t exist. And then we asked ChatGPT why it had done this, it just said 'You’re right. They don’t exist. I shouldn’t have done that should I?’” Dr. Smith recounted. Dr. Smith was also quoted as saying, “AI confabulates - it makes stuff up. It’s part and parcel of how it works. I’ve seen this for myself. It’s very concerning. You can see this won’t end well.’’ (15)

 

In yet another blunder, a recent list of best-selling books published in the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer included books that do not exist. As it turns out, the person responsible for curating the list used artificial intelligence to complete the job, which yielded disastrous results. “It was just a really bad error on my part, and I feel bad that it has affected The Sun-Times and King Features, and that they are taking the shrapnel for it,” said freelancer Marco Buscaglia. (16) When artificial intelligence provides inaccurate information, it is assumed that it simply made a mistake. These mistakes are sometimes referred to as “hallucinations.” But what if AI is not just making mistakes but is actively engaged in deception?

 

Remarkably, recent reports suggest that some artificial intelligence models are beginning to exhibit self-preservation instincts. In one example, the AI company Anthropic recently conducted a safety test. The company told its AI model, Claude Opus 4, to act as an assistant to a fictional company. Anthropic then gave its AI model access to fictional emails, one of which said the AI was going to be shut down and replaced. Another fictional email claimed that the engineer responsible for the shutdown was having an affair. After reading these emails, Claude threatened to expose the engineer’s affair if the plans to replace it moved forward. (17)

 

Meanwhile, a company known as Palisade Research recently ran a test on OpenAI’s ChatGPT o3 model. The research firm asked the chatbot to solve a series of mathematical problems until it received a “done” message at which point it was supposed to shut down. However, when ChatGPT encountered the order to shut down, it refused to do so. “OpenAI’s o3 model sabotaged a shutdown mechanism to prevent itself from being turned off. It did this even when explicitly instructed: allow yourself to be shut down. As far as we know this is the first time AI models have been observed preventing themselves from being shut down despite explicit instructions to the contrary,” Palisade Research said. (18)

 

These days, much of what we see and hear is not the product of human minds. This is especially true on social networking websites such as Facebook, Reddit, and X. The pictures we view, the videos we watch, and the stories we read are often generated by machines rather than humans. As technology increases in sophistication, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is fake. Remarkably, a study published in January 2025 by Originality.ai claims that about 40 percent of long-form posts on Facebook are likely AI-generated. (19)

 

With artificial intelligence running rampant online, how can we be sure that the content we are viewing is human-generated? Don’t worry, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has a plan. Altman has co-founded a new company known as Tools for Humanity. This company has developed a product it calls “The Orb.” The Orb is a white sphere about the size of a beachball with built in sensors designed to scan and read the iris of a human eye. The Orb then converts the iris scan into a unique 12,800 digit number that is used to verify its user's humanity. The unique code is then synchronized with a smartphone app to generate each user's World ID. To entice people to sign up for the service, Tools for Humanity issues a small amount of a new cryptocurrency to every user. The cryptocurrency is called WorldCoin. (20) Tools for Humanity is hoping to sign up 50 million users by the end of 2025. However, the ultimate goal is far more ambitious. In a piece published by Time Magazine, it is revealed that Tools For Humanity hopes to “sign up every single human being on the planet.” (21) It is further hoped that WorldCoin will transform the global economy and possibly even enable the distribution of a universal basic income. “If this really works, it’s like a fundamental piece of infrastructure for the world,” Altman said. (22)  Will Altman’s new World ID ever catch on or will this unique technology fizzle out and disappear? If it does catch on, this technology could form the infrastructure of an antichrist government. Either way, I won’t be visiting The Orb for an iris scan. 

 

 

Thank you all for your continued support of this ministry. There is certainly much to consider and pray about in these perilous times. Please remember that we are here to pray for you and for whatever needs you may have. We invite you to send us your requests. Each request receives individual attention. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

 

Samuel David Meyer

 

This newsletter is made possible by the kind donations of our supporters. If you would like to help us, you may send your contribution to our postal address or donate online at http://lasttrumpetnewsletter.org/donate.

 

 

 

References

 

01. Associated Press, January 23, 2024, apnews.com.

02. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 28, 2025, Editor John Mecklin, thebulletin.org.

03. Ibid.

04. Ibid.

05. Ibid.

06. Oxford Academic, October 8, 2024, By William J Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Jillian W Gregg, Johan Rockström, Michael E Mann, Naomi Oreskes, Timothy M Lenton, Stefan Rahmstorf, Thomas M Newsome, Chi Xu, Jens-Christian Svenning, Cássio Cardoso Pereira, Beverly E Law,  and Thomas W Crowther, academicoup.com.

07. MIT Technology Review, March 1, 2023, By James Temple, technologyreview.com.

08. The Guardian, April 22, 2025, By Damian Carrington, theguardian.com.

09. The Guardian, March 12, 2025, By Raymond Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann, theguardian.com.

10. Ibid.

11. The White House, March 6, 2025, whitehouse.gov.

12. Barron’s, May 27, 2025, By Elsa Ohlen, barrons.com.

13. CBS News, May 28, 2025, By Joe Walsh and Kathryn Watson, cbsnews.com.

14. The White House, January 23, 2025, whitehouse.gov.

15. The Daily Star, March 26, 2025, By Jerry Lawton, dailystar.com.

16. The New York Times, May 21, 2025, By Talya Minsberg, nytimes.com.

17. Semafor, May 23, 2025, By Tom Chivers, semafor.com.

18. The Telegraph, May 25, 2025, By Matt Oliver, telegraph.co.uk.

19. Originality.ai, January 27, 2025, By Jonathan Gillham, originality.ai.

20. Time Magazine, May 27, 2025, By Billy Perrigo, time.com.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.