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Signs of the Last
Days: Technology
The book of Revelation reveals
that the antichrist will be able to track and control all financial
transactions and that NO MAN will be able to buy or sell anything unless he has
the mark.
He also forced
everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark of
his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he
had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
[Revelation 13:16-17]
Not until recent times did people
understand how this prophecy could possibly come to pass. There was simply no
way that anyone could control the buying and selling activities on such a large
scale. Certainly it will be a monumental task to keep track of all men, and
their financial transactions, all across the globe.
Advances in
computer technology have placed the world on the verge of an identification
system capable of monitoring virtually every human transaction - an ominous
development for serious students of Bible prophecy. Modern technology has
created a new electronic world without borders. With modern computer
technology, satellites, and devices like the Global Positioning System device
can track anyone within 3 feet anywhere in the world. And new developments in
biometric and smart card technology make such a feat seem more plausible as
well.
Since originally writing about these emerging technologies more
than six years ago, the advancements in recent years have been breathtaking.
Indeed, Anticrhist's world government is not only believeable but seems to have
arrived.
Palm Beach-based Applied Digital Solutions unveiled the
VeriChip immediately after the 9-11 tragedy. Similar to pet identification
chips, the human VeriChip is a syringe-injectable radio frequency
identification microchip that can be read from a few feet away by either a
hand-held scanner or by the implantee walking through a "portal" scanner.
Information can be wirelessly written to the chip, which contains a unique
10-digit identification number.
No one knows how the mark will be
imprinted on the hand or the forehead and I am not saying everything described
here will necessarily become the mark of the beast. Given rapidly evolving
modern technology, if the Lord tarries a bit longer there may be some
development that would fit the bill even more closely. However, there are some
good candidates and numerous ways this could be accomplished
today. |

Virtual Gods
 Foreshocks of Antichrist
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Reader comments...
Kevin wrote, saying: "I'm convinced our country
(USA) and other nations are will be held captive by our god of technology. Our
trust is not in God, rather we choose to trust computers, banks, wall street,
etc... We take for granted we'll always have a grocery store to get a meal,
fuel for our furnace to take away the winter cold. All of these luxuries have
left us complacent about the poor and needy. I've got mine, so what about you.
That's the general attitude of Americans today.
Jesus didn't live a life of
comfort. Compassion came easy to Him because He loved God and His ways and
lived in the streets with those hearts He touched."
Bill wrote, saying:
"I just wanted to say this is the best site on the
mark of the beast,
new world, and
the last days. You did a wonderful job. Keep
up the good work and hang in there. I am ready to starve it out."
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Subcutaneous
implant The technology now exists and
has been successfully tested to allow an identification device of some type,
including a tiny microchip, to be implanted under the skin of the hand.
Programmable subcutaneous visible implants could contain biosensors to
monitor temperature and blood pressure, and display these readings -- clearly a
medical advancement. But the devices could have a more serious purpose. They
could be used for electronic tagging. Whenever anyone wanted to buy or sell
someting, he could be required to wave his hand over a scanning device that
would read the chip, identify the buyer or seller, and validate or invalidate
the sale.
Interval Research (Palo Alto) has patented a "programmable
tattoo." The biologically inert subcutaneous implant is constructed of a
flexible material so as to conform to the skin's surface. The small
liquid-crystal display can be inserted just beneath the skin (e.g., in place of
a wrist watch). Because human skin is partially transparent, the display is
clearly visible. The implant also includes a receiver for receiving programming
information from a user, and a display for displaying the programming
information through the skin. The display is connected to a control chip and
power comes from a small battery. Both of these are implanted beneath the skin.
Implanting is an outpatient operation and the battery can be recharged
inductively, by holding the wrist near a charger.
We have already
demonstrated our willingness to accept devices to electronically tag or track
individuals. It has become quite commonplace, for example, for law enforcement
agencies to require individuals to wear electronic bracelets in order to
monitor their activities.
Digital
Angel The Digital Angel
technology incorporates a microchip that can be worn close to the body and
includes biosensors that can measure the biological parameters of the body and
send the information with RFID (radio frequency identification) technology to a
ground station or computer. It will also have an antenna that can receive
signals from GPS satellites, thus pinpointing the location of the wearer.
According the the
Digital Angel
web site, "While a number of other tracking and monitoring technologies
have been patented and marketed in the past, they are all unsuitable for the
widespread tracking, recovery and identification of people due to a variety of
limitations, including unwieldy size, maintenance requirements, insufficient or
inconvenient power-supply and activation difficulties. For the first time in
the history of location and monitoring technology, Digital Angel
overcomes these limitations.
Some of it's potential uses, according
the their web site includes: monitor patients by doctors, commodities supply
chain management, locating people such as small children and the elderly,
tracking parolees, people under house arrest, and individuals in witness
protection programs, trace valuable items such as art pieces or computer
equipment. Of particular interest is its application as an important security
measure. It can carry personal identification information and transmit this
information via wireless communication with personal computers.
The
Digital Angel human implant, called
VeriChips, was recently
approved by the FDA for storing medical information and the company is going
forward to market their implantable chips that would provide easy access to
individual medical records. (WorldNetDaily, October 21,
2004)
Applied Digital Solutions, based in Delray Beach, Fla.,
expressed hope that such medical uses would accelerate the acceptance of
under-the-skin ID chips as security and access-control devices. (The New York Times, October 14, 2004)
All it takes is
a syringe-injected microchip implant for patrons of the Baja Beach Club in
Barcelona, Spain to breeze past a "reader" that recognizes their identity,
credit balance and even automatically opens doors to exclusive areas of the
club for them. "By simply passing by our reader, the Baja Beach Club will know
who you are and what your credit balance is," Conrad K. Chase explains.
(WorldNetDaily, April 14, 2004)
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Iriscans
Iriscan technology is already being introduced in
financial organizations here and abroad that require nonintrusive, noncontact,
and accurate electronic identification.
Iriscan technology identifies
people by analyzing the unique pattern in the iris of the human eye. The iris
is the colored ring of tissue that surrounds the pupil of the eye and is a
complex combination of patterns that can be recorded and stored by the
computer. The iris-recognition product captures a photographic image of the
iris, analyzes its unique visual structure, and then compares it to previously
stored Iriscodes for authentication of identity. ["Security for
Your Eyes Only," Byte, May 1998.] Imagine this technology being in place
providing access control to facilities and point-of-sale control. It's already
in place at some bank ATMs.
Thermograms
Thermogram's are a type of imagery that
translates a person's heat-emitting facial features into an infrared image.
Registering the various heat peaks and valleys in surface, the thermogram looks
like a colorful, face-shaped topographic map. Like a fingerprint, each person's
face creates a unique thermal pattern. Captured by a special infrared camera,
the image can be digitized and stored in a computer. Later, the person is
rephotographed and the new thermal image is electronically compared with the
old. ["Smile, You're on Thermogram," ID Systems, August
1995.]
Bar Codes
Bar codes are everywhere: they are as familiar as
a trip to buy groceries. Now part of almost every package that crosses the
supermarket, drugstore, and retail counter, bar codes stand poised to move into
many other facets of society.
In their quest for better device
identification, the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA are testing coding
systems that pack in much more information than current bar codes. These new
"two-dimensional" bar codes can squeeze in enough information to fit the
Gettysburg Address into a two-inch square. "It's a technology that will open up
a whole range of applications," says Richard Bravman, vice president of
marketing for Symbol Technologies, Inc., in Bohemia, N.Y., one firm with a new
bar code system.
This next generation of identification codes needs no
centralized database. Instead, the symbol itself can contain all the necessary
information, says Bravman. Thus these codes can help companies and the military
keep better track of products that "cross organizational boundaries," he adds.
When the device, substance or person travels to a new warehouse, store,
hospital or location, all its data go along, in compact form, accessible to
anyone with a machine that can read the symbol.
"It's a portable data
file," says Doug Mohr, mechanical engineer in program development at the Idaho
National Engineering Laboratory in Idaho Falls, who is evaluating these
technologies for use by the federal government. At the Wilford Hall U.S. Air
Force Medical Center in San Antonio, Tex., hospital administrators expect that
within a year patients there will carry ID cards with medical histories and
personal data encoded on the back. The hospital had evaluated other types of
codes, including current bar codes, but discovered with the two-dimensional
format that "we didn't need to tie up our database memory," says Lt. Col. Frank
J. Criddle, an emergency room physician at Wilford Hall.
Miniaturized,
some of these new codes can identify electronic components, jewelry or even
medical devices. "It represents a giant step in component traceability," says
Robert S. Anselmo, president of Veritec, Inc., in Chatsworth, Calif. He boasts
that his company's symbols could fit on a grain of rice. Others say they can
make their codes invisible to the eye but still readable to a
scanner.
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Smart Cards
The smart card - a piece of plastic with a
computer chip on its face - is becoming entrenched in the United States with
uses from defense and health care to retailing and transportation. It looks and
acts like your average bank card, but it knows a lot more about you than you
may think. The cards have replaced food stamps for many and meal tickets for
students in college. Marines and peanut farmers are whipping them out for boot
polish and crop reports. The Clinton Administration announced a nationwide
system to use electronic banking technology to deliver billions of dollars in
government benefits and President Clinton's proposed health-reform plan would
have required every American to carry a health identification card bearing, at
a minimum, his or her Social Security number.
For businesses, the card
is a shortcut to valuable market research. With your card in its computer, a
company could learn your ZIP code, shoe size, what magazines you subscribe to,
or the date of your sporty sedan's last oil change, and respond accordingly.
Already, the Vision marketing system for supermarkets is tailoring coupons to
U.S. shoppers who use smart cards. Customers insert their Vision cards into
computers at the checkout line. Then the card tracks purchases and supplies the
customer with product coupons, allowing the store to collect marketing data and
pitch its products more effectively.
New computerized systems are
being implemented for drivers licenses. Instead of the cumbersome Polaroids,
the new system will use a special camera that will store the photographic image
that is on the card on a computer instead. Weight, eye color, and signature
will be stored on a magnetic strip on the card as well as to a computer data
base. Copies will be shared with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, giving
agents quick access to photographs of suspects and victims. The KBI will share
copies with other law enforcement agencies. [Dave Ranney, "Say
goodbye to Polaroids next time you get your license renewed," The Wichita
Eagle, April 19, 1994]
Smart card acceptance in the U.S. has
skyrocketed in recent years. The Smart Card Forum, a consortium of
organizations utilizing smart card technology, forecasts between 1-1.5 billion
smart cards will be in use by the year 2000.
At the
Smart Card
Alliance 2004 annual fall conference in San Francisco, a number of sessions
indicated strong growth and continuing interest in applications for contactless
payment devices for fare collection in mass transit systems across the country.
During the conference, Ann Flemer, deputy director of operations for the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the transportation planning,
coordinating and financing agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay area,
gave an overview of her organizations
TransLink program, which
is developing a single contactless payment system for the more than 20 transit
agencies, including Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), San Francisco Municipal
Railway (Muni) and Golden Gate Ferries, with 1.5 million daily users
combined.
The U.S. State Department is switching over to new passports
that will be fitted with chips using RFID, or radio frequency identification,
technology. Reader devices at borders and customs checkpoints will be able to
read the information stored on the chip, including the person's name, address
and digital photo.
To increase use, card makers are forming alliances
with companies that are closer to consumers. Micro Card Technologies Inc.
supplies cards to Copicard Inc., which worked with the University of Calgary to
convert student and staff IDs to smart cards and is doing the same at several
U.S. colleges. Micro Card Vice President John Taskett said a few U.S. airlines
briefly tested the smart cars for frequent flyers. Meanwhile, AT&T and
Lockheed Corp. will jointly seek contracts for public highways where drivers
would pay tolls with dashboard-mounted smart cards. A transmitter at the
tollbooth would read the card as the car goes by.
The average American
who has a dozen pieces of plastic in their pocket probably doesn't even know
what a smart card is," said Nicolas Samaras, a technology analyst at Dataquest
Inc. in San Jose, Calif. technology analyst at Dataquest Inc. in San Jose,
Calif.
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Unlike today's financial
cards, the smart card doesn't need a magnetic stripe on the back. |
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Instead, it's equipped with
a wiry silicon chip, often displayed at left center but sometimes hidden in the
plastic. (Smart cards may also have embossed account numbers, holograms,
graphics and photos on the front or back.) |
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Like a bank card, the smart
card is slipped into a computer. Then the owner enters a four - or five-digit
ID number and uses the card to make purchases, convey information, or
both. |
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The card can hold three
pages worth of typewritten data, compared to one line of type for a
magnetic-stripe card. That means several accounts could be loaded onto one
smart card, said Diane R. Wetherington, president of smart card systems at
American Telephone & Telegraph Co. For example, the same card that checks
out library books and buys clothes on credit could give an emergency-room clerk
a patient's blood type insurance data and doctor's name. Each account would
have a separate ID number, so the librarian couldn't see your blood type.
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He also forced
everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark of
his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he
had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
[Revelation 13:16-17]
Mark of the
Beast? I do not believe that the
people developing this technology are necessarily conspirators purposely
developing a system they know the antichrist will use for his own wicked
purposes. These are men and women who are developing what, to the natural eye,
are brilliant ideas for the world's future. Nor, do I believe that today, as I
am writing this piece, that the technologies I write about are NOW the mark of
the Beast. Rather, I see them as being potential technologies that need be in
place in order for the Antichrist to accomplish his nefarious scheme.
So, what's so bad about these technologies. They improve our lives ... right?
David Chaum, a leading cryptographer, believes that an
identification-based system could lay the groundwork for a future dictatorship.
As a Jew, Chaum is sensitive to the memory of how government records enabled
the Nazis to systematically identify Jews. He is also concerned that
competition and self-interest could be causing many decision-makers in this new
technology to miss the broader social consequences of their decisions.
One critic calls them "little brother in your wallet." David Banisar of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center believes that the ability to monitor
every transaction an individual makes will soon be in place. While tracking
single transactions may be harmless, the combined trail left behind by an
identification system that tracks all financial transactions could one day
become a tyrant's dream. What's wrong with having a single card that contains
all of your personal history from medical files to veteran's status to tax
records to your bank balance and credit available? It's convenient, portable
and you have at your fingertips access to all the details of your life. It's
like carrying around a little computer that has stored every piece of
information about you.
The Smart Card - A Way To Control
The World?
President Bill Clinton proposed a health plan where there
is a provision for a national health identification card, and eventually, a
state-of-the-art, tamper-proof numbering system. This probably means an
implantaiton device in the head, arm or somewhere on the body. No one will
receive health coverage without a number. We are also headed for a cashless
society - first by credit card, and later by a laser implantation beneath the
skin. The European Community has already planned for this.
Technology is
sold to the public for it's beneficial aspects.
The U.S. government plans to use smart cards to
replace food stamps and reduce fraud. According to Vice President Gore, a
national Electronic Benefits transfer system will reduce "waste, fraud and
abuse," and cut red tape. With EBT there will be an electronic audit trail for
every transaction, making fraud much easier to detect and prosecute," said
Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. ["Welfare
Benefits to be Delivered Electronically," The Wichita Eagle, June 1,
1994]
One concern about the smart card is privacy. Even though
manufacturers are confident that accounts on the same card would remain
separate, some are still unsettled that so much personal information could be
stored on one little computer chip. What if the librarian could look up
someone's doctor bills? And, asked Richard Civilles, program director at
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, could using smart cards as
national IDs give the government more control over citizens at employment
agencies or highway checkpoints? What if the government denied a job or
benefits to someone based on personal tidbits gleaned from the card?
But manufacturers are optimistic that consumers will warm up to smart cards as
they become more prevalent, said Amy Wight Eckel, product manager for AT&T
smart cards. "It looks and feels like a credit card," she said. "People already
know how to use it."
The Coming New
World Order One of the goals of the
Jeremiah Project is to warn people of the New World Order and One World
Government, which is being set up today. One of the methods to be used to
enslave every man, woman and child on the face of the earth will be a new money
system that will be introduced taking us into a "The Cashless Society". Sadly,
many people today find it difficult to believe that those days will ever come
or if it does how they can be hurt by it.
Now listen, you rich
people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your
wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are
corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like
fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. [James 5:1-3]
The transition from the
beneficial uses of technology to that of the Beast spoken of in Revelation 13
will happen quickly. Prophecy teachers have been speaking these words for many,
many years. It is only just now, during your lifetime, that the prophecies are
literally being fulfilled. You would be enlightened if you were to turn to the
Word of God particularly the prophecies in the books of Daniel and Revelation
and understand that these are no idle words of a mere man but these are words
of the living God. |
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