Credit: Thomas Hawk/Flickr/Creative Commons
In the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John recorded a vision of the future that God gave him. It wasn’t just any future, it is what lay ahead for believers and the world in the end times leading to second coming of Christ.
One of the verses that has caught the attentions of many people who study end times events are John’s references to the mark of the beast that would prevent people from buying and selling:
16 And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, 17 and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. (Revelation 13:16-17 NASV)
Remember this is a vision that John had of society in the future and he was just recording what he saw. He saw people with a mark on either their hand or their forehead and without this mark John also noticed that people were unable to buy or sell.
In a recent article in USA Today, Jefferson Graham provided a chilling image of a future where he suspects everyone will be micro chipped. He starts by telling the story of a company in Wisconsin called Three Square Market that is embedding micro chips in the hands of its employees. Three Square Market is a technology company that focuses on the food service industry such as kiosks for cafeteria’s.
The micro chip, which is the size of a rice grain, is inserted into a person’s hand using a syringe. It is not mandatory and so far 50 of the company’s employees have gone ahead with the procedure.
Once embedded, the chip enables employees to open electronic doors with a simple wave of their hand or log into the company’s computers. But there is one extra side benefit, people will also be able to buy snacks from the company’s vending machine using the chip that costs $300 to produce.
Graham says that this is the future. He interviewed Noelle Chesley, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, who predicted that everyone will eventually be required to have micro chips. Chesley, who is 49, is not sure it will happen in her lifetime, but most certainly it will happen in the life time of her children.
Christians studying end-times prophecy were warning about this back in the 1970s and 1980s. They were not predicting this based on their knowledge of technology, because it was simply not even conceivable at that time, but rather their study of the Bible.
Now 40 years later, a major, mainline US newspaper says that future predicted in the Bible is closing in on us.
As Graham points out there will be many benefits to the chip which will be a big part of its initial acceptance:
“This would go beyond paying with your smart phone. Instead, chipped customers would simply wave their hands in lieu of Apple Pay and other mobile payment systems. The benefits wouldn’t stop there in the future, customers could zip through airport scanners sans passport or drivers license, open doors, start cars, and operate home automation systems. All of it, if the technology pans out with a wave of a hand.”
BioHax, a Swedish company, has a similar chip that allows users to access the National Rail System without needing to physically buy a ticket. Debit and Credit Card companies would look at such chips as a major way to cut back on fraud.
Graham quoted one analyst, Gene Munster, who suggested that full acceptance of chips is still 50 years away. However, I disagree. I have been shocked by how rapidly things are changing both culturally and technologically. The widespread acceptance of chips is not 50 years away.
It will ride in on convenience and initially the microchips will seem harmless. But if the Bible is right at some point, there will be a sinister change.
The chip could pave the way for what the Bible describes as the Mark of the Beast.
In Canada, we have seen a hint of what may happen. The Federal government has a summer student program that provides grants, to encourage businesses and organizations to hire students over the summer.
Religious groups and churches have used the grants for years to hire students for such things as summer camps and vacation Bible programs.
But this year, the grant application process took a sinister turn.
The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau added a small check box to the online application form that people needed to check before the application would even be processed.
That check mark indicated the applying company or organization fully supported the Trudeau government’s position on a woman’s “sexual and reproductive rights.” A fuller explanation said this included accepting abortion.
What in the world has this to do with a summer student program?
Nothing.
Yet the federal government is demanding that everyone totally agree with its stand on abortion to receive funding.
The government is demanding that people compromise their conscience in order to receive money. People are required to think as Trudeau believes.
Of course, the federal government is still quite willing to take tax dollars from people who don’t believe in abortion.
A harmless grant program is now denying people’s right to disagree. It is smashing its foot down on religious freedom.
Is this a foreshadow of how a harmless microchip could be transformed into the mark of the beast preventing people from buying and selling?
Sources:
OpentheWord.org 