According to a report by Asia Harvest, tens of thousands of Chinese pastors have gone into hiding in China to avoid persecution by the tyrannical Communist regime.
Part of this includes removing themselves from the internet by disconnecting their cell phones and computers. As well, people are required to have a government-issued identity card with them at all times. However, it also contains a chip that gives the government limited ability to track people, so some pastors have also found ways to disable that chip.
The Christian Post explains:
“Each person in China must have an ID card. It is impossible for a person to catch a flight or train, open a bank account, get a job, or rent an apartment without using their card. Each ID card contains a computer chip which is also used to track people’s movements,” the [Asia Harvest] newsletter added.
Yet, despite this the church in China, that is apparently heading back underground under its current tyrant, Xi Jinping, has doing remarkably well as Christian Post adds:
Despite persecution, Christianity is growing in China. According to the World Evangelical Alliance, the Protestant church has grown from 1.3 million members in 1949 to at least 81 million members today. Similarly, the Catholic Church in China has grown from 3 million members to over 12 million during the same 50-year period.
That chipped card sounds oddly familiar to something the Apostle John saw 2,000 years ago in his vision of the end times:
17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. (Revelation 13:17 NIV)
OpentheWord.org 