Prophecies of Daniel - Prophecies fulfilled, and yet to be fulfilled

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad

May 11, 2025 · by Mark McMillion · In: Current events, Insights, The Future and Endtime

A famous phrase from at least the time of Rome said, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”. Does it apply to now? Is God preparing to destroy parts of the world and so is allowing them to descend into madness so that they bring on their own destruction? To say the least, it’s happened before. The Latin rendition was, “Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat,” an opinion that’s been around for centuries.

Paul the Apostle spoke of this in a different way. He said that God sends “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” (II Thessalonians 2:11) But to whom is that strong delusion sent? Paul covers that quite succinctly. Those who “receive not the truth, that they may be saved.” (II Thessalonians 2:10)

I’ve personally witnessed the progression of history over the last 50 or 60 years. I enjoyed and spent time sharing my faith at Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park in London in 1971. How has Britain progressed over the last 50 years? Or Dam Square in Amsterdam where I was in 1972? Have the nations of Western Europe and North America “progressed”? You might think to say yes. But what do you think the answer would be in the eyes of God? “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”

What incredible depth that saying has and I think I only for the first time really saw it and realized it tonight. Is that saying something that the Hebrew Bible would agree with? It certainly is. One of the most incredible passages in the Old Testament bears out this thought. God said to the spirits around His throne, “Who shall persuade [ancient king of Israel] Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead… And one came forth and said, ‘I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets’. And the Lord said, ‘Go, you shall persuade him’.” (I Kings 22:20-22)

This is almost unfathomable for many people. But the Bible says that the Lord convened a multitude of spirits before His throne and that he sanctioned one who said he would go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets of the evil king Ahab.

This is not taught in the kids’ Sunday school class on Sunday. Or most likely even from the pulpit. But it’s the same idea as the ancient thought, “Quos Deus vult perdere prius”. Or as another translation gives it, “Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason”. Perhaps, if you prefer the Greek rendition, Sophocles said, “Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction.”

God, at length, when they have rejected His messengers, despised His words and misused his prophets, sends a lying spirit to deceive fully and utterly those ones who have already gone so far in rejecting Him.

Like the Bible says of ancient King Saul, who ruled before King David, “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him” (I Sam 16:14). This is where we are now in our times. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

We all feel it and sense it. There is a spirit of madness and virtual insanity that is upon so many in our nations at this time. It is unsustainable. It is overwhelmingly lacking in basic truth and a grasp of reality and the truth that is of this time. But historically this is what happens before destruction. The ancients knew this.

But these are the overwhelmingly fearful and foreboding times we live in. If you study history, you’ll be aware of times when a lone voice was raised, “one crying in the wilderness”. (Mark 1:3) But it went unheeded. The multitude had hasted to follow evil. “They mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his people until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and there was no remedy.” (II Chronicles 36:16) Ask the Germans, they can tell you about it.

Well, this kind of talk is not popular. It’s depressing and discouraging. Still, historically, a solid case could be made that the times we are in right at this moment could be encapsulated by that phrase, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”.

Madness, unreasonableness, fierce senselessness is the order of the day here in our times and even is daily seen in my home country. Hopefully you are not sucked into these things. Hopefully you are anchored in the Lord and His truth. Because the delusion is very strong in our times. And multitudes are being confused and perplexed by it. May God help you and us all.

I’ll take over now, thanks

May 5, 2025 · by Mark McMillion · In: Current events, Insights, The Future and Endtime

It wasn’t a dream, but a strong, vivid experience—just before I woke up. There was a lucid presence, and it felt more like me than I was. So persuasive, so reasonable, and so overwhelming.

“This was all for your good,” I was told. It would take a load off my shoulders. It would begin to navigate life for me, make better decisions than I’d been making, and all I had to do was sit back, relax, and let it take control.

But I struggled with it. The reasoning was perfect and, in a way, spoke what seemed like objective truth. I knew it was some form of AI, having taken on life-like attributes, and it was very persuasively prodding me to let it have control of my most basic being. “All for my good, of course.”

It said it was a better version of me than I was. It had all the attributes and nature of my mind, soul, and personality—but without the downsides, the weaknesses, the shadows, and the wavering. All I had to do was say yes, to yield, to submit. You could say it was a dream—or even a nightmare—but it didn’t feel that way.

When I was in the experience, I knew what to do. It wasn’t a question at all of whether this thing had come from the Spirit of God. I knew it hadn’t. Instead, it was a life-like presence that had emerged from the realm of modern science—some kind of brand-new upgrade now capable of matching and mimicking my innermost individuality, able to simply replace me as the captain of my soul. But again, it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a being, trying to reasonably convince me to let it take over my life, right in that realm of consciousness just before waking.

As Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36) That was what was at stake. I could just let go and let this new, AI-driven version of me take over—and I was told everything would go so much better. And it felt very, very real.

Perhaps if I’d written it down immediately, I’d remember more. But it was so unusual, so topical and current, that I had to take some time just to digest the experience. I believe what happened was that God allowed me to have this incident as a warning—of what is either just around the corner or perhaps already here.

It really looked like a good deal. A better me? Sure, why not? It’s sobering to think of how many people I may even know personally who, in a situation like that, might totally go along with it and sign on the dotted line.

People have been conditioned for generations now to fully and immediately accept anything that comes across as scientific. If they were presented with this offer in a modern, convincing way, multitudes would go for it. But if some clear and obvious demon tried to muscle into their heart and mind, they might actually resist that.

This all sounds like bad news—and I suppose it is. On the other hand, it seems exactly like the kind of thing envisioned in Revelation 13, written in 90 AD, about the condition of the world in the last days before the return of Jesus. For more on this, you could read a recent post I wrote called “Summoning and AI”, based on a New York Times article about the merging of AI and demonology that’s progressing rapidly in places like Silicon Valley.

God help us all. Seriously. This looks like something so many people would accept in a heartbeat. It was only because I have the Lord—and the protection and wisdom of the Holy Spirit—that I was able to resist this thing and even recognize what was happening. In one sense, some of the events spoken of regarding the end time don’t seem to be here yet. But in another very real way, some of them truly do seem to be happening already, right now.

How Russia now views the USA

Mar 21, 2025 · by Mark McMillion · In: Current events

Could Donald Trump be for the USA what Michael Gorbachov was for Russia? That’s a popular view in Russia currently. While Trump’s election was greeted warmly in Moscow, digging a little deeper we find that all is not as benign as it seems.

It turns out that many in the Kremlin feel that a Trump presidency might bring about the collapse of America. That the USA is in the final stage of its history is not a new idea in Russia.

Nikolai Patrushev, one of Mr. Putin’s key advisers, said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, that he expected the United States would split into North and South, with the South moving “toward Mexico, whose lands were seized by Americans in 1848,” he said.

That might sound laughable to us in the USA. But you have to admit that, viewed from afar, the fractures in American society can easily be seen to be beyond the point of no return. And many Russian advisers and officials see the recent American film “Civil War,” which depicts California and Texas seceding, with bloodshed erupting across the nation, as a reflection of how Americans see their near future.

The movie was released in Russia under the title “The Fall of the Empire”. Dmitri Medvedev, former president of Russia, remarked on his Telegram channel that he took it as proof that civil war in the United States is inevitable. “Hollywood doesn’t make films about it for no reason”, he said.

Let’s not forget how close to home this can hit for Russians and their leadership. In the lifetime of many of us, Russia was the head of a vast empire, the USSR. But it collapsed in the 1990’s and that’s seen by much of the leadership there as the greatest failure ever to hit their motherland. Putin is fully known to see it that way.

And who immediately preceded the collapse of the USSR? Michael Gorbachov. I lived for a year in Moscow in the mid 90’s and it struck me as strange how many Russians viewed Gorbachov back then. It was a common belief there that he may have been a CIA plant. For one, friends said, the way Gorbachov spoke Russian was suspicious; it didn’t sound right, they said. And the end result of his rule is seen by so many as a vast failure and catastrophe for the nation.

But he rose to power through the ranks of the Soviet government, having what was a good track record and he intended to shake things up. Glasnost and Perestoika it was called. However, the end result was far from what those in power were intending. The shake ups and radical reforms turned into a death knell and collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Russian empire. In the corridors of power in the Kremlin now, Trump is seen as a likely Gorbachov for the declining empire of America.

As the good Lord said, “A nation divided against itself cannot stand” (Mark 3:24). And nothing pleases a predator more than to find potential meals fighting amongst themselves. Reflecting on these current views of America, it’s hard not to feel the Russians have a point.

To officials in the Kremlin, Gorbachev was a self-absorbed narcissist who loved to talk — a man without a plan, a strategy or any clear understanding of his goals, a politician who undermined core institutions that supported the state and left only chaos in his wake. And they see the current president-elect here as playing a similar role.

Well, it’s an interesting viewpoint and it all remains to be seen. But it just helps sometimes to see ourselves as others see us. Particularly in this time of hyper-partisanship, when we are forced at every turn to choose between the hard right and the extreme left. Is the American dream and empire about to fall? We’ve heard that before and still, here we are.

I’m glad that my identity is rooted in Christian discipleship which should make it possible to rise above the chaos that is so enveloping here currently. I’m a providentialist, I believe I can and should accept what has transpired with the recent election while continuing to keep my foundation on the rock of Christ and God’s truth, rather than the roaring confusion that is so strong now.

[I should mention that some of the information and views expressed in this article come from an editorial in the New York Times, written by Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist.]

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Daniel’s Dreams and Visions