Test Marketing the Mark of the Beast
Pastor Dale Morgan
Test Marketing the Mark of the Beast* *
- By Thomas Horn
A prototype of an implantable biometric chip capable of marking an
individual's precise location and of monitoring him or her for life is
gaining support. It was named Best in Show of 170 International Science
Exhibitors last year, and released in its "First Phase" wristwatch
format called Guardian Angel soon after. Most recently millions of Today
Show viewers watched an American family get "chipped" with ADS's
VeriChip™ live from a doctor's office in Boca Raton. Recent acts of
terrorism have many calling for mandatory implementation of the
implantable technology.
What set Digital Angel apart from the competition was the innovative
design--a miniature digital transceiver specifically created for human
implantation.
According to information released last year the implantable transceiver
"sends and receives data and can be continuously tracked by GPS (Global
Positioning Satellite) technology. The transceiver's power supply and
actuation system are unlike anything ever created. When implanted within
a body, the device is powered electromechanically through the movement
of muscles, and it can be activated either by the 'wearer' or by the
monitoring facility."
An Information Technology report recently verified plans to study
implantable chips as a method of tracking terrorists. After first
pulling back from the implantable version of its Digital Angel, ADS
foresees a unique use of its product in the wake of terrorist attacks in
New York and Washington.
"We've changed out thinking since September 11," a company spokesman
said, "Now there's more of a need to monitor evil activities."
ADS also claims the Digital Angel has a variety of other uses, such as
"providing a tamper-proof means of identification for enhanced
e-business security, animal tracking, locating lost or missing
individuals, tracking the location of valuable property and monitoring
the medical conditions of at-risk patients."
Following the Internet World Wireless 2001 award for "Best of Show:
Client Services," Mercedes Walton, President and COO of Applied Digital
Solutions, said: ``We have always had high expectations for the Digital
Angel products. This award is truly a validation of our faith in Digital
Angel's ability to capture the imagination of the public. Consumer
anticipation has translated into accelerated interest from potential
partners and allies. We are eager to bring Digital Angel to the
marketplace in a very timely manner...."
To further advocate Digital Angel technology, Applied Digital Solutions
launched a website http://www.digitalangel.net
<http://www.digitalangel.net/> where viewers can peruse diagrams and
read summary information.
Other manufacturers of sub-skin implants have quietly field-tested
similar devices over the past few years. The London Times reported in
October 1998, "Film stars and the children of millionaires are among 45
people, including several Britons, who have been fitted with the chips
(called the Sky Eye) in secret tests."
Due to civil liberty and privacy issues, the ACLU announced opposition
to mandatory microchip implantation when applied to humans. The ACLU is
certain to be a strange bedfellow of Christians and conservatives
concerning this issue.
THE FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY?
Many Christians believe that, before long, an antichrist system will
appear. It will be a New World Order, under which national boundaries
dissolve, and ethnic groups, ideologies, religions, and economics from
around the world, orchestrate a single and dominant sovereignty. The
system will supposedly be free of religious and political extremes, and
membership will tolerate the philosophical and cultural differences of
its constituents. Except for minor nonconformities, war, terrorism, and
hunger will be a thing of the past.
According to popular Biblical interpretation, a single personality will
surface at the head of the utopian administration. He will appear as a
man of distinguished character, but will ultimately become "a king of
fierce countenance" (Dan. 8:23).
With imperious decree the Antichrist will facilitate the one-world
government, universal religion, and globally monitored socialism. Those
who refuse his New World Order will inevitably be imprisoned or
destroyed, until at last he exalts himself "above all that is called
God, or that is worshiped, so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of
God, showing himself that he is God" (2 Thess. 2:4).
The Antichrist's widespread power will be derived at the expense of
individual human liberties. He will force "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. Here is
wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:
for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore
and six [666]" (Rev. 13:16-18).
For many years the idea that humans could somehow succumb to little more
than branded cattle, and that rugged individualism would thereafter be
sacrificed for an anesthetized universal harmony, was repudiated by
America's greatest minds.
Then, in the 1970's, things began to change. Following a call by Nelson
Rockefeller for the creation of a "New World Order," presidential
candidate Jimmy Carter campaigned, saying, "We must replace balance of
power politics with world order politics."
During the 1980's President George Bush continued the one-world dirge,
announcing over national television that "a New World Order" had
arrived. Following the initial broadcast, President Bush addressed the
Congress, saying,
What is at stake is more than one small country [Kuwait], it is a big
idea--a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in
common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and
security, freedom, and the rule of law. Such is a world worthy of our
struggle, and worthy of our children's future! Ever since the
President's astonishing newscast, a parade of political and religious
leaders have discharged a profusion of rhetoric aimed at implementing
the goals of a New World Order. Developers of biometric implant chips
employ similar language in announcing compatible global technologies,
and many Americans consider electronically marking humans or implanting
a series of digital equations under the skin to be the natural progress
of advancing and necessary technologies.
A 1980 defense department cartoon showing a change taking place in
Defense Management. A runner hands over plans for national defense to
another runner with "666" on his track suit.
IT SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE
Some people believe implantable microchips will be the Biblical Mark of
the Beast. These claim that acts of terrorism such as the ones in New
York and Washington, encourage microchipping humans for identification
purposes.
But even before the New York and Pentagon tragedies, a push was being
made to brand and monitor humanity. Consider the following:
As far back as 1973, Senior Scholastics introduced school age children
to the concept of buying and selling using numbers inserted in the
forehead. In the September 20, 1973 feature "Who Is Watching You?" the
secular high school journal speculated:
"All buying and selling in the program will be done by computer. No
currency, no change, no checks. In the program, people would receive a
number that had been assigned them tattooed in their wrist or forehead.
The number is put on by laser beam and cannot be felt. The number in the
body is not seen with the naked eye and is as permanent as your
fingerprints. All items of consumer goods will be marked with a computer
mark. The computer outlet in the store which picks up the number on the
items at the checkstand will also pick up the number in the person's
body and automatically total the price and deduct the amount from the
person's 'Special Drawing Rights' account."
In the 1974 article "The Specter of Eugenics," Charles Frankel pointed
out Linus Pauling's (Nobel Prize winner) suggestions that a mark be
tattooed on the foot or forehead of every young person. Pauling
envisioned a mark denoting genotype.
In 1980, U.S. News and World Report continued the warning, pointing out
that the Federal Government was contemplating "National Identity Cards,"
without which nobody could work or conduct business.
The Denver Post Sun followed up in 1981, claiming that chip implants
could someday replace I.D. cards. The June 21, 1981 story read in part,
"The chip is placed in a needle which is affixed to a simple syringe
containing an anti-bacterial solution. The needle is capped and ready to
forever identify something--or somebody."
The May 7, 1996 Chicago Tribune questioned the technology, wondering
aloud if we could trust Big Brother under our skin?
Then in 1997 applications for patents of subcutaneous implant devices
for "a person or an animal" were applied for.
On April 27, 1998, Time Magazine ran the story, The Big Bank Theory And
What It Says About The Future OF Money, in which they opined "Your
daughter can store the money any way she wants--on her laptop, on a
debit card, even (in the not too distant future) on a chip implanted
under her skin."
In August 1998 the BBC covered the first known human microchip
implantation.
That same month the Sunday Oregonian warned that proposed medical
identifiers might erode privacy rights by tracking individuals through
alphanumeric health identifier technologies. The startling Oregonian
feature depicted humans with barcodes in their foreheads.
Senator Robb (Virginia) felt it necessary to add the MARC
(multi-technology automated reader card) Card Amendment to the FY97 DOD
Authorization Bill.
One can only speculate why bionics is attempting to create organisms
that contain linked organic (human cells) material with biometric chips
for human implantation (documentation site) Also see here (second story)
Recently millions of Today Show viewers watched an American family get
"chipped" with ADS's VeriChip™ live from a doctor's office in Boca Raton.
Meanwhile, it's the year 2003. Terrorism has many people in the mood to
sacrifice human liberties, and Digital Angel has opened its first mass
production factory in Palm Beach, Florida.
[The ominous Oregonian feature]: WILL DIGITAL "MARKS" SOON BE MANDATORY?
Makers of implantable microchips claim the proceedure will be voluntary
at first. But a report written by Elaine M. Ramish for the Franklin
Pierce Law Center says:
"A [mandatory] national identification system via microchip implants
could be achieved in two stages: Upon introduction as a voluntary
system, the microchip implantation will appear to be palatable. After
there is a familiarity with the procedure and a knowledge of its
benefits, implantation would be mandatory."
George Getz, the communications director for the Libertarian Party
agrees, saying:
After all, the government has never forced anyone to have a driver
license, [but] try getting along without one, when everyone from your
local banker to the car rental man to the hotel operator to the grocery
store requires one in order for you to take advantage of their services,
that amounts to a de facto mandate. If the government can force you to
surrender your fingerprints to get a drivers license, why can't it force
you to get a computer chip implant?
People like Mr. Getz are correct. Conservatives and liberals alike need
to contact state and federal representatives and demand laws preserving
individual rights before Digital Angel and similar forces lead humanity
down a high-tech path of no return.
Just as Social Security numbers were first voluntary, then mandatory,
biometric chip implants will eventually become mandatory unless citizens
rise up in immediate and national opposition. Even Applied Digital
Solution's chief executive officer Richard Sullivan envisions a scenario
where ``people [are] required to be chipped or [have] some combination
of a device requiring them to be scanned and monitored at all times.''
Note what the prophet said!
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,
to receive a mark [charagma; from Greek charax meaning to stake down
into or "stick into"] in their right hand, or in their foreheads....Here
is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the
beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred
threescore and six (Rev. 13:16-18) Did the prophet foresee a hypodermic
needle injecting something beneath the skin? Probably.
A temporary victory was won against such ideas following the original
news story by Raiders News Update concerning ADS's implantable microchip
intentions in 1999. News services across the web ran our story resulting
in an inundation by concerned readers. ADS's shares droped on the Nasdaq
from $5.00 to .50 each. ADS then released this statement:
"We are not pursuing any applications for embedded chips and we have
moved away from that for a couple of reasons....There are a number of
privacy concerns and religious implications -- fundamentalist Christian
groups [Raiders News Update] regard it [implanting computer chips] as
the Devil's work."
More recently however an Independent news story claimed that if the Palm
Beach testing center's wristwatch version of Digital Angel is
successful, ADS "will start implanting them inside humans between the
muscle and the skin on the forearm next year."
Then terrorism came along, the perfect incentive for mandating
everything from face scanning to implantable chips as not only
inevitable, but perhaps a good idea. These are differences in degree,
not in kind, and forecasts a prediction made long ago:
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man
worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead,
or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God,
which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and
he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the
holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their
torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor
night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the
mark of his name. (Rev. 14:9-11)