Tag: Mark of the Beast

My interest was piqued in early April when I noticed people posting online about “Draw Out Some Cash Day.” On 2 April, Aussies were encouraged to withdraw some cash to show their banks and retailers there was still a demand for cash.

Draw Out Some Cash Day was a clever and successful protest, with long lines reported at banks as people waited to get cash out – something I do regularly. Wherever I go, I take my credit card and some currency. It proved very useful last year when the Optus Network crashed, and we couldn’t use our phones or Apple Pay.

Plot?

It’s important to realise that the phasing out of cash is not some government plot to control us. Instead, it’s something we’ve driven. In 2007, almost 70% of transactions were made by cash (26% by card). By 2022, these figures reversed; only 13% were paid by cash and 76% by card. The Pandemic accelerated this transition, although cash use has increased slightly since 2022.

At this rate, Australia will be functionally cashless by 2030—earlier if the Commonwealth Bank is correct. Banks are responding to this trend, and cash will be more challenging to get in the future, with ATMs closing or limiting cash withdrawals.

Prophecy?

I realise that for some Christians, talk of a cashless society is frightening or exciting, depending on their temperament. I was first introduced to Christianity in the late 1970s. Bankcards were widely used, and Christians were all abuzz about this being a forerunner to the mark of the beast—if you look closely, I was told, you’ll notice that the “b” looks like a 6. I kid you not!

Since then, sections of the Christian community have been caught up (pun intended) in lots of conjecture about credit cards, microchips, and a cashless society – a “prophesied” scheme of a one-world government to control the masses and persecute Christians.

False Prophet

This view of Bible prophecy is based on a dispensationalist interpretation of Scripture. This relatively modern creation was developed in 1827 by John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren and spread widely with the 1909 publication of the Scofield Reference Bible. Darby founded the Exclusive Brethren cult after George Mueller (and other Brethren) challenged him about some of his unbiblical doctrines.

Charles Spurgeon also claimed these teachings were false. Thus, much of the modern understanding of Bible prophecy originated from a heretical cult leader and was popularised in recent times by some “Christian” books and movies—hardly a good foundation for understanding Scripture.

Cashless Society

The notion of a cashless society as prophesied by the Bible comes from Revelation 13: [The beast] forced all people…to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 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. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.

We must remember that John wrote Revelation to seven churches in the First Century. When John told THEM to “calculate the number of the beast“ to identify this man, he wasn’t teasing them to try and recognise someone who would exist two thousand years later. John wrote about a well-known code of the day (gematria) that his readers would understand. Letters had numerical value, and John’s readers would know that he was referring to Nero Caesar (a Greek form of Nero’s name, rendered into Hebrew, gives a combined value of 666).

Currency

John’s words indicate that the Christians’ problem was an economic one. The pagan temples functioned like banks, controlling who received finance and who didn’t. If someone needed money, they’d visit the temple, and the priests would tell them what Artemis (or whatever god was responsible) required. The offerings invariably demanded sexual favours for someone of a higher class or with temple prostitutes. You can see that this could pose a problem for Christians.

What was the mark without which no one could buy or sell? John tells us it was “the name of the beast or the number of its name.” The term “mark” (Greek, charagma) was most commonly used to imprint documents or coins. Charagma was also an imperial seal of the Roman Empire used on official documents during the first and second centuries.

The mark was likely the Emperor’s (Nero’s) inscription on Roman currency, without which one could not buy or sell. Loyal Romans would wear coins on the back of their right hand or forehead to show allegiance to the Emperor.

New Testament scholar Craig C. Hill notes, “The Mark symbolises the all-embracing economic power of Rome, whose very coinage bore the Emperor’s image and conveyed his claims to divinity. It had become increasingly difficult for Christians to function in a world in which public life, including the economic life of the trade guilds, required participation in idolatry.” In 66 AD, the Jews revolted against Rome and coined their own money. Before this, money changers at the Jerusalem temple would exchange coins with the Emperor’s mark with temple coins so that no graven image could enter the temple and defile it.

Fear Not!

I have watched Christians become very fearful about the mark of the beast, a cashless society, and a one-world government, and this fear is ungrounded. Any doctrine that provokes fear is not from God. John writes about this, too, as he encourages his readers to live lives based on love: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

Christians today should not be looking for the antichrist or the great tribulation, and we certainly shouldn’t worry ourselves about the mark of the beast or a cashless society. We should occupy our time doing good works, living productive lives, making the world a better place and sharing the good news of the Christian gospel. Let’s be looking for the genuine Christ, not the anti-one!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve addressed some of the conspiracy fallacies being spread around even by Christians. In response to these blogs, I’ve had people comment, question, agree and disagree. And that’s all fine. After all, that’s what blogs are written for ~ to encourage discussion and debate.

What fascinates me though, is some people’s propensity to send a link to a YouTube clip, news article, or Facebook post as the final word. Little is done to check its source or accuracy: “I saw this, and it contradicts what you’re saying, so you’re wrong.” That’s their message over and over. And so, this week, I thought I’d address some of the current COVID myths:

The Depopulation Agenda

After last week’s blog defending Bill Gates I had many people give me information as to why this man is evil. One reason is that Bill Gates believes in depopulation. Misconceptions and misinformation have been spread by conspiracy “news” sites such as Your News Wire (Now Newspunch).

Depopulation is NOT killing or sterilising people by injecting them with vaccines. Depopulation is about creating an environment that reduces infant mortality. Due to high infant mortality rates in some countries, couples choose to have a larger number of children so that at least some will survive. Bill Gates is not interested in using vaccines to reduce the population by using them as an agent of death or a tool to sterilise unsuspecting masses. Instead, Gates is interested in keeping more children alive to reduce the need for parents to have more children, limiting the overall population growth rate.

And, think of this from a Christian perspective. Imagine the trauma that parents face by losing many children. Reducing child mortality enhances life, prosperity, and wellbeing. It brings some heaven to earth as The Lord’s Prayer says. And so, depopulation is not about reducing the world’s population but instead slowing the rate at which it grows.

Covid-19 is Just Flu

“We the body of Christ can’t gather because of the flu,” someone wrote in a blog comment this week. But COVID-19 is not the flu.

2019 was the second-worst flu season on record. Over 300,000 people were infected with the flu, and sadly 902 died in Australia. The death rate was not higher because most people in Australia have some immunity to the flu, either through previous illness or immunisation. This means if they catch the flu, they are likely to experience a milder illness.

We have highly effective vaccines available for the flu. Studies have shown that people who have the vaccine tend to avoid contracting the virus or, if they do, experience milder illness and are less likely to require hospitalisation. They are also less likely to pass on the virus, which reduces community transmission. For those who do contract the flu, there are effective treatments available. Antiviral medications are widely used and have been shown to reduce the symptoms and the risk of developing severe illness from the flu virus.

Now consider COVID-19. It is at least 30 times deadlier than the seasonal flu and four times more infectious. There is no vaccine and no proven treatment for COVID-19. 15% of people infected with COVID-19 have a severe infection, requiring oxygen, and 5% are acute infections, requiring ventilation. The length of stay in the hospital is much longer for COVID-19 compared to the flu. 25% of survivors have severe organ damage. Many will develop ongoing chronic health problems due to the virus, including heart and lung complications and post-viral fatigue. With no vaccine and no effective treatments, COVID-19 is far deadlier than the flu. This is why we have lockdowns.

Vaccines are Harmful

Sadly, the “Gates’ vaccines used to sterilise Kenyan women” conspiracy is once again doing the rounds. This has been debunked numerous times, but it surfaces from time to time. People blindly share it without doing sufficient fact-checking. The sterilisation claim is more than 20 years old. It has been repeatedly debunked by the World Health Organisation and others ever since.

For those who may be concerned about the impact of vaccines, there are significant safety measures. Australia has an incredibly robust and rigorous vaccine approval process. Besides, EVERY adverse reaction to a vaccine is monitored. Some people DO have adverse reactions – the number of adverse reactions is hundreds out of millions vaccinated. Usually, it has to do with pain at the injection site. Tiredness and irritability are also adverse reactions. Hospitalisation is very, very, very rare.

Vaccines Made From Aborted Babies

Others are concerned that the COVID-19 vaccine will be “ethically tainted” by aborted foetal cells. It is true that some vaccines, and some of the COVID-19 vaccines, are developed using cell lines from legally aborted foetuses (two from the 1960s). No foetus has been aborted to create a vaccine.

Vaccines are researched, developed, and produced through the use of laboratory-grown human cells. The vaccines themselves contain none of the original cells. The Catholic Church, which opposes abortion, has stated: “vaccination should not be refused on moral grounds in cases where the public health benefits of vaccination may outweigh the use of aborted foetal tissue to develop some vaccines when an alternative vaccine created from cell lines that are not morally problematic are not available.”

I understand some people’s concerns about this issue. But, if we are genuinely pro-life, our concern must be the protection of the living. As noted already, COVID-19 is an incredibly infectious virus that is extremely dangerous to many people and deadly to some.

Covid-19 Vaccine Microchip

Some have suggested that the eventual COVID-19 vaccine is a ploy by the cabal to inject us with a microchip. This is all part of the one-world government plot. It’s also an incorrect interpretation of Revelation chapter 13.

While it is true that Microsoft has a patent application with the numbers 060606 in it, this is for a system that rewards physical activity with cryptocurrency. It has nothing to do with injectable microchips. In any case, the technology to insert a trackable microchip does not exist at this time. If and when it does, the hypodermic needles would be considerable. For this to be possible, every doctor, nurse, and medical professional worldwide would have to be in on the conspiracy. This is beyond impossible.

Covid-19’s Inflated Numbers

A comment on my Facebook thread said, “NYT posted. Corona numbers in the US inflated by 90%.” No, the NYT did not report this. The New York Times responded to a claim made by Donald Trump suggesting the death count was inflated. The opposite is probably true. NYT reported, “the death toll is probably far higher than what is publicly known. People are dying at their houses and nursing homes without ever being tested, and deaths early this year were likely misidentified as influenza or described only as pneumonia.”

If anything, the Covid-19 numbers that are reported are lower than the real numbers.

It’s 5G’s Fault

“The 5G network apparently weakens the human immune system, and COVID-19 is just a symptom of this weakened immunity” ~ that’s one of the conspiracy myths currently doing the rounds. While 5G uses higher radio frequencies than previous generations (in the 30-300 gigahertz range), there’s not enough energy to break chemical bonds or remove electrons when in contact with human tissue.

5G is approved by the federal government’s Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency as not having more intense radiation’s adverse health effects. Even when you put your 5G mobile to your ear to make a call, radiation exposure is well below the recommended safety level. 5G radiation can’t penetrate skin or allow a virus to penetrate the skin. There is no evidence 5G radio frequencies cause or exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus. Radiation and viruses exist in different forms that do not interact. One is a biological phenomenon and the other lives on the electromagnetic spectrum.

Event 201

The Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, hosted Event 201 in October 2019. Event 201 was a simulation on how to respond to a global coronavirus pandemic. Obviously, this has been viewed as too coincidental ~ or something more insidious!

Johns Hopkins has received a lot of questions about this and made a statement on their website.

In recent years, the world has seen a growing number of epidemic events, amounting to approximately 200 events annually. These events are increasing, and they are disruptive to health, economies, and society. It is only right that medical & benevolent institutions and governments should prepare for these. I see it as preparation for the inevitable.

I hope my comments help you sift through all the information, myths, lies, and conspiracies that are doing the rounds. I encourage you to place your faith firmly in The One who holds this world in his hands. Let’s confess with the psalmist, “I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken” (Ps 16:8).

Lately in the news there has been an increasing number of reports on microchips placed in humans.  The technology used on our pets since the Seventies is now available to us, and hundreds of Australians, as well as those in other countries, are embracing it.

The microchips are the size of a grain of rice and inserted into the hand between the thumb and forefinger.  Ultimately they will allow the recipient to do away with their car keys & credit cards; they will contain medical data and enable you to control all the technology in your home and workplace and everywhere in between.

In future, “other uses might include children tapping to let parents know they are at school safely, refugees checking in at camps or women at shelters.  It can share diet, exercise and sleep information with you and your doctor, and the next generation could even release medicine as and when you need it.” [1]

One of the people who has already had a microchip implanted has had some messages from certain Christians on Facebook telling her she’s going to hell (gotta love it when God’s people preach the good news right?). And here’s the problem, because some Christians have an understanding of Bible prophecy that is based more on novels and movies than on sound Biblical interpretation.  Consider these verses from the book of Revelation:

“He required everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead.  And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name.  Wisdom is needed here. Let the one with understanding solve the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666” (Revelation 13:16-18).

When I converted from atheism to Christianity in the late 70s, everyone was reading Hal Lindsay books, such as “The Late Great Planet Earth,” which interpreted Revelation in the light of current events.  Movies like “A Thief in the Night” and “Image of the Beast” reinforced our view of the End Times, and there were regular predictions about the end of the world (as there have been since time began).

This same interpretation of Revelation was again highlighted in the 1990s and 2000s when Tim LaHaye co-authored 16 best-selling religious novels known as the Left Behind series.  LaHaye’s book “The Rapture” was released on the 6/6/06 to capitalise on the 6-6-6 connection.  Tim LaHaye died last year aged 90 and Left Behind a loving family and a lot of money!

I don’t doubt that these books (and movies) have brought many people into the Christian faith. They were hugely influential in my early Christian years in good ways and bad. For example, because Jesus was coming back soon and the world was going to end, it wasn’t worth buying a house, so I didn’t. I still regret listening to Hal Lindsey instead of my dad.

The greater problem with this kind of pop-theology is that it is simply wrong.  In fact, a lot of things taught as valid interpretations of Bible prophesy these days show little historical understanding of the Book of Revelation and other prophetic Scriptures.  As a result, much of the church is watching – and sometimes taking a rather gleeful longing – for an increase in war, natural disasters and marks on the right hand and forehead – like the microchips.

This fairly new approach to the interpretation of Bible prophecy is called dispensationalism. It was developed in 1827 by John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren and spread widely with the 1909 publication of the Scofield Reference Bible.  Darby went on to be the founder of the Exclusive Brethren cult after George Mueller (and other Brethren) challenged him about some of his unbiblical doctrines.  Charles Spurgeon also claimed these teachings were false.

We need to remember that the apostle John wrote his Revelation to seven churches in the First Century. When John told THEM to “solve the meaning of the number of the beast” to identify this man, he wasn’t teasing them to try and recognise someone who would exist two thousand years later. He was writing in a well-known code of the day (gematria) that his readers would understand.  They would know that John was referring to Nero Caesar (a Greek form of Nero’s name, when rendered into Hebrew, gives a combined value of 666). [2]

Understanding history helps us comprehend the book of Revelation and the great tribulation, a period that is spoken of as 1260 days or 42 months or “a time, times and half a time.”  All of these refer to three and a half years in the lunar calendar used at that time.  These three and a half years began when the people of Judea rebelled against the Roman Empire in mid-66 AD.  Nero sent Vespasian to bring the province under control.  He was ruthless – destroying villages and crops, massacring people or selling them into slavery.  In AD 68 he captured and destroyed the town of Jericho and then advanced onto Jerusalem, which his son Prince Titus defeated in AD 70.  The Jewish historian Josephus reported the slaughter of some 250,000 Jews, with much more dying of disease and starvation, and 97,000 Jews sold into slavery.

These are the events that Jesus warned of in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, “And when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that the time of its destruction has arrived.  Then those in Judea must flee to the hills. Those in Jerusalem must get out, and those out in the country should not return to the city. For those will be days of God’s vengeance, and the prophetic words of the Scriptures will be fulfilled” (Luke 21:20-22).

History reveals that Jesus’ followers understood His prophecies:  the believers obeyed the warnings and fled Jerusalem to a town called Pella, and thus saved themselves.  In fact, not a single Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem. Christians left Jerusalem thus escaping what Jesus referred to as the “great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21).  The destruction of Jerusalem occurred three and a half years later, at the end of the Great Tribulation.

Christians today should not be looking for antichrist or the great tribulation, and we certainly shouldn’t worry ourselves about microchips or the Mark of the Beast.  We should occupy our time doing good works, living productive lives, making the world a better place and sharing the good news of the Christian gospel. Let’s be looking for the real Christ, not the anti-one!

 

[1] http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/wearables/australians-embracing-superhuman-microchip-technology/news-story/536a08003cb07cba23336f83278a5003

[2] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/atheology/2016/09/first-century-coin-of-nero-found-in-jerusalem-the-mark-of-the-beast/#kSyToUFzpo6Q2hKj.99