The Mark of the Beast Goes Mainstream
One of the most helpful tools I use in the analysis of Bible prophecy is a comparison of how people perceived events years ago, and how they view these same events today. In the 1960’s the government believed that people with homosexual tendencies were mentally ill.
Here in the 21st century, gay is the way. You’ve probably heard about state officials who try to compel florists or bakers to violate their religious beliefs and participate in same-sex weddings. In Minnesota the state claims the authority to do the same to filmmakers. A Christian film company was told to add gay couples to its film to show the normalcy of same-sex marriage.
Another huge change in perception has been how people view technology that could compromise their privacy. I still remember when any news story about software or machines that could track your movements was viewed in a negative light. Today, people are blind to technology that can observe and track everything you do.
Employees at the Three Square Market in River Falls, WI, actually celebrated by wearing “I Got Chipped” T-shirts after they were implanted with microchips by their bosses. The firm’s Operating Officer Patrick McMullan dismisses any concerns that microchipping his employees is akin to Big Brother. He told detractors to “take your cell phone and throw it away” to defend this invasive practice.
Three Square Market is looking to drastically expand the technology and make it standardized, showing how it can already be used to open doors, buy food items, and turn on computer portals. The company’s CEO Todd Westby demonstrated how the microchips can effectively store biometric information as well. “I scanned my hand and here’s my driver’s license information,” Westby said, holding up his phone.
One of my neighbors has their house wired with Amazon’s Alexa device. You can ask Alexa to turn on the lights or play music. You can ask Alexa a silly question like: “Do you have a boyfriend?” or “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” If you ask “Where can I hide a body?” or “What would be the best location to explode an improvised nuclear bomb?” there is a possibility that the FBI might pay you a visit.
The internet provides the government with vast powers in controlling the population. One example of this danger is the number of times authorities shut down the internet to control or stifle. Typically used during times of civil unrest or political instability, a shutdown allows officials to stifle the flow of information about government wrongdoing or to stop communication among activists, usually by ordering service providers to cut or slow their customers’ internet access.
When Zimbabwe turned off the internet during a recent crackdown, Obert Masaraure, a prominent government critic, had no way of knowing when it was safe to emerge from hiding. The Indian government employs the practice more frequently than any other. In 2018, there were at least 196 shutdowns in 25 countries, up from 75 in 24 countries in 2016, according to research by Access Now, an independent watchdog group that campaigns for internet rights. In the first half of this year alone, there were 114 shutdowns in 23 countries.
The horrifying vision of the future described by George Orwell in “1984” has been neutralized by the convenience that technology provides us. You can use your cell phone to watch the house, track the weather, and monitor the stock market. The apps on your phone also allow a dozen different companies to track your physical movement.
China has started ranking citizens with a sinister ‘social credit’ system. It gives a credit score for every citizen based on big data analysis. This surveillance system rewards and punishes people based on their behavior.
The global community should be outraged that China has become an Orwellian state. Many governments are viewing the social credit system as something to emulate. Last week there was a news story on the Drudge Report that discussed using the China model to control people’s access to guns.
When I was a kid, I remember reading a Christian publication that described the mark of the beast as the product of a world gone mad. The world has collectively lost its mind, and it is clear that the introduction of a 666 device would be welcomed by the vast majority of people. During the tribulation we may have individuals wearing “I Got Marked” T-shirts. We have had the ability to create the mark for at least two decades. The lack of any meaningful opposition to this type of technology tells us that the tribulation hour is very near.
“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).
–Todd
End-Times War Intensifying
A man stood up the other day at one Democrat Party function or the other. He was a fellow Democrat with those gathered, as I recall.
The man with the microphone for that moment said something like, “Our nation is in serious trouble, and the only one who can make it right again is the Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s not his exact quote, but it was just as strong as I’ve paraphrased here.
There was immediate and loud reaction to his words. They were not in support of the speaker’s sentiment. Far from it; there were shouts for him to shut up and even stronger invective, as I heard the reaction.
They gave him the proverbial hook in no uncertain terms.
He was exactly right, of course, and what he was doing on that Democrat stage, I must admit, baffled me. Having heard all such references to God in a positive way shouted down by Democrat Party gatherings since well before the 2016 presidential election–shouted down with boos and hisses of serpent-like virulence–I was surprised that even one among them still held to the view he tried to express.
Now I am aware that there are many true Christians even among the Democrat Party as it is currently constituted. However, it is getting more and more difficult to come to that conclusion based upon the God-opposing madness that–again, in my view— has become manifest since the time immediately following John F. Kennedy’s presidency.
It is as if that political element within America is waging war on God. I’m not thinking here in terms of symbolically or allegorically or metaphorically, or any other way than literally. It seems the Democrat Party, with the full-blown assistance of the mainstream media and every other humanistic element of culture and society, is at war with God–specifically with Jesus Christ.
Lest critics brand me as a falsehood-spreading, right-wing deplorable, I offer a couple of pieces of evidence of recent vintage to support my case.
While the anti-God forces seek in every way, and on a daily basis, to push Christian beliefs from the public square, the champions of this force incessantly seek to claim that Christians are doing what they, themselves, are doing to remove all godly governance.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) passed a resolution at its summer meeting championing “religiously unaffiliated” voters, who the resolution noted are the “largest religious group” within the party.
The DNC’s “Resolution Regarding the Religiously Unaffiliated Demographic” stated that “religiously unaffiliated Americans overwhelmingly share the Democratic Party’s values,” and “have often been subjected to unfair bias and exclusion in American society.”
The resolution also takes a shot at deeply religious voters, who are accused of using their religious beliefs to oppress other groups.
It said “those most loudly claiming that morals, values, and patriotism must be defined by their particular religious views have used those religious views, with misplaced claims of ‘religious liberty,’ to justify public policy that has threatened the civil rights and liberties of many Americans, including but not limited to the LGBT community, women, and ethnic and religious/nonreligious minorities…
DNC chair Tom Perez has been openly critical of church-going Americans in the past.
Perez said in December 2018 that Republicans have an advantage because “people buy” what they hear at church.
“It should come as a surprise to no-one that that person has elevated the issue of courts to the top because that person on the pulpit is saying ‘ignore everything else that this person has done and is doing, we have to focus on one issue of Roe vs. Wade.’ And people buy it. Because that’s their only source,” Perez said. (“DNC Resolution Celebrates Democrats’ ‘Largest Religious Group’ — And It’s Not Christians,” Daily Caller, Peter Hasson, senior reporter, 8/30/19)
The “religiously unaffiliated” designation is used to avoid “we are against any governance by any deity” label. America is still a nation that has a significant remnant of God’s people, and the Democrat elite know it. They are masters, it seems, of luciferically inspired language.
Nowhere is the growing war against true believers in Jesus Christ more pronounced than within the so-called higher education institutions of America. We can read or hear news reports almost hourly of professors ranting against the way America was founded. They always bring the slavery issue into the mix of their vitriolic condemnation of the Founding Fathers. They ignore the goodness within the Founders’ intention to, ultimately, bring about realization and acceptance that all men are created equal and that God is that Creator who favors no human being over another.
One example in American academia today of the hatred for all that is Christian is Jeff Klinzman, an adjunct English professor at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He claims to be in sympathy with the domestic terrorists called antifa, and posted the following on Facebook. “I know who I’d clock with a bat.”
He was referring to President Trump, who had said previously: “Antipas are Radical Left Wack Jobs who go around hitting…people over the heads with baseball bats.”
The professor also wrote that he wanted to “stop evangelical Christians” and posted a poem that said, “Kill them all and bury them deep in the ground.”
Klinzman explained why he shared the poem, “It’s not pretty, and I’m not proud, but seeing what evangelical Christians are doing to this [country] and its people fills me with rage, and a desire to exact revenge.”
When contacted by Cedar Rapids ABC affiliate KCRG, Klinzman said he was part of the group, “I affirm that I am antifa.”
Antifa is a far-left group that often goes to rallies to fight white supremacists or groups they perceive to be racist. They also have a history of attacking journalists covering the protests. (“‘Kill them all’: Iowa professor resigns after his comments about evangelicals revealed,” Washington Examiner, Julio Rosas, August 27, 2019)
Jesus’ own words immediately came to mind when observing the treatment of that aberrant member of the Democrat Party’s most active membership, the man who stood with the microphone claiming Jesus as the answer to all problems.
They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. (John 16:2-3)
Just as the pious Jews sought to kill those who believed Jesus was Messiah, the elite of that Democrat Party gathering seem to be of the mindset reflected by the words of the professor as given above.
But it is not just those within the Democrat Party who are waging war against Christ. The whole world is going mad with the reprobate mind that has infected mankind because of collective resistance to Heaven’s governance. They are primed, sad to say, to accept their false Christ, who will soon appear on the world scene. Antichrist will wage the ultimate war against Christ. He–and all who follow him—will meet their devastating end upon the killing field called Armageddon.
Don’t be part of that end-times war-making. Accept Christ as prescribed in God’s Word.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9-10)
–Terry
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What is this madness going on all around us? Why has everything suddenly turned upside down in America and the world? Why the building, explosive, war against god –against Jesus Christ, specifically?
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