Are Smart Cards the Mark of the Beast?
Many recognize the book of Revelation reveals that at some point in time 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 of the beast.
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And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. – Revelation 13:16-17
The smart card – a piece of plastic with a computer chip on its face – is becoming entrenched in the United States. It’s being used from defense and health care to retailing and transportation. 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. They are everywhere.
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.
It looks and acts like your average bank card, but it knows a lot more about you than you may think.
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 uses 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]
“Electronic ID cards have made alarming progress towards becoming universal, around the world. Already, over 2.2 billion people, or 33% of the world’s population, have been issued with ‘smart’ ID cards. Of those, over 900 million have biometric facial and fingerprint systems. On present plans, over 85% of the world’s population will have smart ID cards by 2012.” [ID Cards – a World View]
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 organization’s Clipper Card 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 cards 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.
For the average American who has a dozen pieces of plastic in their wallet, most don’t even know what a smart card is.
- Unlike today’s financial cards, the smart card doesn’t need a magnetic stripe on the back. 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.)
- 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.
- 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.
So, what’s so bad about these technologies. They improve our lives … right?
The Smart Card – A Way To Control The World?
President Bill Clinton proposed a health plan with a provision for a national health identification card, and eventually, a state-of-the-art, tamper-proof numbering system. No one will receive health coverage without a number. It’s been suggested everyone gets an implantation device in the head, arm or somewhere on the body.
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.
In the wake of the Coronavirus plandemic, many are suggesting the use of a immunity passport to identify those who have received the so-called vaccine or that have tested negative for the Coronavirus.
Technology is sold to the public for it’s beneficial aspects.
The U.S. government is already using smart cards to replace food stamps and reduce fraud. With Electronic Benefits transfer there will be an electronic audit trail for every transaction, making fraud much easier to detect and prosecute.
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.”
Mark of the Beast?
I do not believe that smart cards are 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. I do see smart cards as just another technology that builds upon previous technologies, each designed to incrementally condition us to accept even more invasive technologies.
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]
The Coming New World Order
One of the goals of the Jeremiah Project is to warn people of the New World Order and a One World Government, which is being set up today.
When the mark of the beast (whatever form it comes in) comes full force, it is going to be difficult for people to trade any other way but by using the mark.
I hear many Christians say, “I won’t take that mark“. Well, Satan has been a little smarter than most Christians. He is slowly implementing the mark. Like a fisherman, Satan is getting people to swallow the whole bait (mark) just a little at a time (Social Security number, Federal Reserve Notes, barcodes, National I.D. card) until one day we will wake up in his boat.
Now in 2020, we’re hearing more voices calling for a vaccine passport that would restrict a person’s ability to conduct business in the public marketplace. Will that happen? Probably. Billions of people worldwide already accepted the lie of flattening the curve and complied with mask, social distancing, economic lockdowns, and experimental vaccines. Will those people accept the mark of the beast? Well, they have already demonstrated their willingness to comply over Covid fears and lies, it’s not a stretch to expect them to also comply with the antichrists introduction of the mark.
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.
Once the Antichrist is revealed and wielding power on the earth, it will be difficult for everyone… especially the unprepared Christian. Lacking any real knowledge of the Bible and having only a superficial trust in God, many will fall away at that time and accept the Antichrist system.
Exchanging their liberty in Christ for the safety and security of the new world order, they will lose both when they willingly take the mark of the beast.
Are we are now living in the “last days”?
Taken by itself, these technological signs do not prove we are now living in the last days. However, when combined with the big picture of what the Bible and the various categories of signs that the Bible predicted would come together just before the return of Christ, it’s easy to conclude that we are now living in the end times. Jesus Himself gave us the best insight shortly before his execution on the cross.
“Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
“Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. [Matthew 24:4-14]
General ‘signs’ Jesus said would be visible prior to His return.
- Deliberate deception by men of God’s Word
- Rise of false Christs
- Increase in wars and rumors of wars
- Famines, Pestilence & Earthquakes
- Discrimination and hatred against Christians
- Backsliding, turning from the faith, betrayal
- Hatred of Christian against Christian
- False Prophets and “New Age” leaders
- Lawlessness abounding
- Love and concern for others grows cold
- Gospel preached worldwide
A day of reckoning will come. There will be an end. |