It Was a Wild Year

Some would say every year is wild now, but it’s always good to assess how things went in any given year from a Bible prophecy standpoint. Fortunately, we do have blueprints for how the future will play out for the end times and it’s fascinating to start getting more and more details about these events and trends. While I could just look at the various Olivet Discourses in Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13, I’m going to look at a few other prophetic scriptures to review the past 12 months and I will provide news stories to support how their fulfillments are happening right before our eyes. Here are the three passages:

“But Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret; seal it up so that it will not be understood until the end times, when travel and education shall be vastly increased!” (Dan 12:4, TLB)

You may as well know this too, Timothy, that in the last days it is going to be very difficult to be a Christian. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money; they will be proud and boastful, sneering at God, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful to them, and thoroughly bad. 3 They will be hardheaded and never give in to others; they will be constant liars and troublemakers and will think nothing of immorality. They will be rough and cruel, and sneer at those who try to be good. 4 They will betray their friends; they will be hotheaded, puffed up with pride, and prefer good times to worshiping God. 5 They will go to church, yes, but they won’t really believe anything they hear. Don’t be taken in by people like that. (2 Tim 3:1-5, TLB)

For there is going to come a time when people won’t listen to the truth but will go around looking for teachers who will tell them just what they want to hear. (2 Tim 4:3, TLB)

So, let’s get to that review.

Exploding Travel

Exploding information and travel reaching record levels is all over the news. 2025 will end with record traveling as seen in an article from Forbes:

Unveiling the research, Dave Goodger, managing director, Tourism Economics EMEA, revealed how tourism continues to outpace economic growth. “While there is some concern around economic conditions, travel continues to outpace economic growth and we expect this to continue over the next 10 years,” says Goodger. “We expect travel and tourism GDP to grow 3.5% on average over the next 10 years with international and leisure sectors, in particular, showing continued growth.”

They noted that 2025 saw over a billion people traveling to and fro:

In 2025, global travel has bounced back from the economic turndown following the pandemic, reaching new record levels. “International arrivals are set to increase to more than 1.5 billion this year, surpassing the previous record achieved in 2019.”

One source tells us just how many people are traveling now:

ACI World Director General Justin Erbacci said: “Air travel is on track to reach 9.8 billion passengers in 2025, underscoring aviation’s role as a driver of global mobility and economic growth. International travel remains the main engine of growth, but regional variations reflect a mix of structural strengths, policy challenges, and evolving travel patterns. To sustain air travel demand globally, regulators must foster policies and frameworks that enable improved connectivity, long-term resilience and sustainable growth.”

That’s a ton of people and it’s only going to keep growing.

Faster Information Access

Could it be that the angel talking to Daniel actually saw the future we’re experiencing now? It really doesn’t matter because technology is allowing us to have access to so much information, whether it is good or bad it’s mind boggling. 2025 saw the rise of Artificial Intelligence in how people get their information. In an article from Fast Company we see just how fast things changed in 2025:

In artificial intelligence, 2025 marked a decisive shift. Systems once confined to research labs and prototypes began to appear as everyday tools. At the center of this transition was the rise of AI agents—AI systems that can use other software tools and act on their own.

While researchers have studied AI for more than 60 years, and the term “agent” has long been part of the field’s vocabulary, 2025 was the year the concept became concrete for developers and consumers alike.

Even children can easily ask for answers from these chatbots. In 2025 it all got so much easier:

AI agents moved from theory to infrastructure, reshaping how people interact with large language models, the systems that power chatbots like ChatGPT.

But more importantly, AI is getting closer to Skynet than you think:

In 2025, the definition of AI agent shifted from the academic framing of systems that perceive, reason, and act to AI company Anthropic’s description of large language models that are capable of using software tools and taking autonomous action. While large language models have long excelled at text-based responses, the recent change is their expanding capacity to act, using tools, calling APIs, coordinating with other systems, and completing tasks independently.

The article actually connected both prophetic trends when it noted that AI is not only giving you information on that next vacation, but it actually will also book and plan it for you and even help you pay for it. But there are dangers out there, too:

As agents became more capable, their risks became harder to ignore. In November, Anthropic disclosed how its Claude Code agent had been misused to automate parts of a cyberattack. The incident illustrated a broader concern: By automating repetitive, technical work, AI agents can also lower the barrier for malicious activity. This tension defined much of 2025. AI agents expanded what individuals and organizations could do, but they also amplified existing vulnerabilities. Systems that were once isolated text generators became interconnected, tool-using actors operating with little human oversight.

Like I said, Skynet is so much closer than we know.

Fake Everything

All of these tech advances are actually dovetailing with the perilous times Paul talked about. In 2025 the ability to know who is real and who isn’t just got incredibly difficult. 2 Timothy 4:3 warns that people “will not endure sound doctrine” and, with “itching ears,” will gather voices that tell them what they want to hear - and 2025 gave some clear “information-age” illustrations of how that happens at scale. In articles found in Reuters we see examples of the problems and people wanting them to be investigated. A UN/ITU report urged stronger measures to detect AI-driven deepfakes because synthetic audio/video can convincingly impersonate real people and spread misinformation for fraud or interference. Then you saw governments reacting to the same risk pathways, like when Poland urged the European Commission to probe TikTok over viral AI-generated content framed as political persuasion. And it’s not just politics - health misinformation can be “packaged” behind manufactured credibility, like this report on AI deepfakes impersonating real doctors to sell questionable products from The Guardian. Finally, the pipeline matters: when more people rely on social video and AI-style answers for news, the system naturally optimizes for what feels compelling, not what’s true - captured well in this overview from the World Economic Forum of how people were getting news in 2025 which drew from Reuters Institute findings. This also is in keeping with the warnings of Jesus to be careful of false teachers just before He returns. 2025 showed us just how pernicious this is with strong signs 2026 will only get worse.

Perilous Times Indeed

2 Timothy 3:1–13 opens with “…in the last days perilous times will come,” and 2025 had no shortage of “perilous” signals - The Associated Press’ 2025: Year in Review framed the year as marked by conflict, political upheaval, and extreme weather. At the same time, deception and exploitation (themes Paul lists throughout the chapter) are getting “industrial”: Reuters showed how major AI chatbots could help craft persuasive phishing scams, lowering the cost and raising the scale of fraud. And another Reuters investigation reported Meta built a “playbook” to fend off pressure to crack down on scammers - highlighting how profit incentives can collide with protecting the public. And this doesn’t even deal with the Church which the Apostle Paul actually addressed in this passage. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul doesn’t just say the last days will be dangerous - he describes what the danger looks like in people. He says, ‘perilous times will come,’ and then he lists a whole character profile: people become lovers of themselves, lovers of money—proud, loud, and unthankful. They stop honoring authority. They lose natural affection. Forgiveness dries up. Self-control disappears. And here’s the part that should sober all of us: he says they can have a form of godliness but deny its power. That means the outside can look religious while the heart stays unsubmitted—no repentance, no transformation, no holiness. And Paul says it doesn’t plateau. Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse,’ deceiving—and being deceived. So, when you look at the world and think, ‘Why does it feel like truth is optional and cruelty is normal?’ Paul told you. This isn’t the time to blend in. This is the time to cling to Scripture, walk in the Spirit, and let God make us the opposite of the age we’re living in.

There Is Hope

When we line up 2025 headlines with Daniel 12:4 and Paul’s warnings in 2 Timothy 3 and 4, the picture makes sense: knowledge is accelerating, travel and information move faster than ever, deception is scaling, and the culture increasingly rewards comfort over conviction and feelings over truth. But this isn’t written to make Christians panic - it’s written to make us steady. The Bible doesn’t just predict darkness; it calls us to be light in it. Even if the world won’t endure sound doctrine and chooses voices that scratch itching ears, Christ doesn’t change, truth doesn’t expire, and God’s power is still real. So, our response isn’t fear or rage - it’s faithfulness: cling to Scripture, cling to sound teaching, cling to prayer, and cling to the Blessed Hope. The times may be perilous, but the Church is not powerless. If anything, moments like this are when real