Never mind Brexit, what about the mark of the beast?
rapturAmid expectations of revival post-Brexit, I am concerned that we are failing to prepare ourselves for
the final great test – refusing the mark of the beast (see Revelation 13:16-18).
In Europe it is being introduced as a beneficial security measure. UK employees are receiving radio frequency identification chips so they can enter their office and use the photocopier, while a man told me he has microchipped his children so he can track them and protect them from abduction!
The chip’s more sinister purpose can be seen in China; Barnabas Fund reports that the Chinese government is piloting an extreme surveillance programme of its citizens, using primarily face recognition, to be rolled out to monitor every Chinese citizen by 2020…
They report: “The data will be used to award ‘social credit’ scores to each person and reward or penalise the individuals. At the same time the Chinese government is eliminating cash, meaning that all payments must be electronic and therefore trackable.”
Imagine what that will be like with the added microchip later.
Meanwhile, swathes of Christians, particularly Americans, have been given dreams about being ready to bring in an end-time harvest. Based on Smith Wigglesworth’s and Jean Darnall’s famous prophecies, many hope that the rot in society will turn around as large numbers of people turn to God and fill the churches.
But it could be easy for Christians to lazily await a rapture – the ‘snatching away’ of the Church to heaven which many evangelicals believe will happen before things turn too nasty – and end up falling away when the pressure is on. I do not believe we will avoid the tribulation (not to be confused with God’s wrath, see 1 Thessalonians 5:9), but unless we are preparing by obedience and repentance now, the pressure will be too much.
We must pray to God we may stand firm.
And while many are anxious to separate from Europe so we can avoid becoming part of the ten-nation confederacy of the Antichrist as prophesied in Daniel 10:24, this won’t change the fact that our nation has done unimaginable evils and will eventually be brought down unless we repent and go back to obeying the Gospels.
Rowena Osmond
Belvedere, Kent