18 Oct, 2004
The Mark Gets FDA Approval
The FDA has given its blessing to Applied Digital Solutions Inc. to produce a
microchip that can be implanted under the skin for the purpose of
identification and retrieval of data. ADS plans to market the chip to
doctors so they can instantly access a patient's records.
About the size of a grain of rice, the VeriChip doesn't actually store data.
It contains an ID number that can be used to correspond to health
information in a computer database. A handheld scanner can retrieve the
patient's number from the chip, which emits radio waves when activated.
The FDA approval gave a big boost to the company's stock. The day after the
news was made public, ADS shares soared nearly 70 percent on the NASDAQ
stock exchange.
The announcement also did wonders for my email in-box. It has been many
months since I've received so many forwarded news articles about a single
topic.
The reason prophecy-minded Christians are interested in the VeriChip has
to do with how closely it resembles the mark of the Beast. The Bible
describes the Antichrist using an implant system to control all the world's
financial transactions.
"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" (Rev. 13 16-17).
It is doubtful ADS will ever receive an order for 6 billion
VeriChips. This is a small company, and it will likely require several firms
with vast resources to deploy a global tracking system. At this stage,
VeriChip is only important because it helps introduce implants to the
business world and the general public.
I think Wal-Mart is a far bigger force in driving the technology that will
lead to the mark. The Wal-Mart way--a fanatical devotion towards endless
cost cutting--has led the company to invest heavily into chip technology.
By 2006, Wal-Mart wants its top 100 suppliers to have tiny radio
transmitters on all products they provide to the retail giant.
The labels will allow customers to speed through a checkout line with all
their items being read by a scanner. Once all the products become marked,
the logical question will be asked, "Why aren't we marked?" If people had
implants, there would be no need for checkout lines.
A shopper could walk into a store, grab an item off the self, and leave
without any hassle. As shoppers walk through the scanner at the exit, Big
Brother would instantly tally the price of the items removed from the shelves
and charge the total against each customer's account.
There are many benefits to having a global system that can handle all
financial transactions. The technology is convenient, cheap, secure, and
most importantly, it can be a valuable tool in the battle against
international terrorism. Unfortunately, the Bible predicts all this
good eventually will be outweighed by the Antichrist's using the mark to compel the world to worship him.
Before the Antichrist comes to power, we could see a system that requires or
implies an oath of allegiance be given to a central government. It's
doubtful that the Beast is suddenly going to introduce the 666 mark at the
midpoint of the tribulation. A global financial web is will require several
years of preparation.
Because God's wrath will be upon all who willingly take the mark of the
Beast, it is very important that prophecy-minded Christians keep a wary eye
on any type of microchip implant. I think it is unwise for believers to
assume the mark will instigate a dilemma only people on the other side of
the rapture will have to face.
"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).
-- Todd
The Morality of War?
During the course of this presidential election season, I’ve received a number of e-mails critical of my favoring the Bush position on several matters. While I do not wish to be misunderstood in this next statement, I must take the risk and say it.
I don’t set out to support the Bush position because the man, George W. Bush, is a Republican, or because he is more favored by God, in my view. My support for the positions in question that Mr. Bush holds is based upon my conviction that these are the positions God holds on the key issues.
Again, not wishing to be misunderstood, I base my belief about these key issues not on what the president or the Republican party spinners are saying, but upon what God says to us through His Holy Word, the Bible.
Todd and I have written in these columns many times on those issues, issues involving homosexuality, abortion, God’s place in the public forum, etc. But, the issue that keeps popping up in the critical e-mails pointing a finger at me for coming down on the wrong side of the matter involves war. Specifically, some believe I’m wrong to support America’s sending military forces to fight in places like Afghanistan and Iraq –particularly in Iraq.
One of the critics sent excerpts from quotes critical of America’s involvement in war. Here are a couple of quotes the person sent.
"The September 11 attacks were a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by Osama bin Laden (who knows?) and delivered by his couriers, but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the victims of America's old wars.
"The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel - backed by the U.S. - invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel's occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists who the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms." - Arundhati Roy
"The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy." - Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
"Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment... People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers...do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to." - William Blum, author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower and Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
The above quotes and others came from authors that included Americans, not just from the pens of distant American-despising political philosophers. The scathing, hissing words of obvious hate come not from foreign dictatorships, where such rhetoric against their own regime would be met with instant execution, but from Americans in America, the nation whose children have shed blood to defend their right to spew such vitriol.
Like any great lie, those above contain a modicum of truth. Mistakes have been made in war by Americans. But the mistakes have far and away been made in battlefield tactics, not in the reasons for going to war. Americans have fought and died to liberate throughout its history, not to subjugate, thus to establish empire.
We could analyze each of the charges in those quotations and prove the ludicrous nature of the charges if space allowed. One example is the charge implied that our actions brought the 9/11 attack upon ourselves because of our actions to kill 17,000 Palestinians by supporting Israel. You notice in the quotes that there is no mention of the thousands of Israeli and other innocents murdered by the suicide bombers and other terrorists on an almost daily basis in the region we call the Holy Land.
Here is part of the reply I made to the critic who sent the quotations.
"How Ramsey Clark, or anyone else who sees this nation in such an inglorious light can call himself an American, is beyond me. It's garbage, leaving out the whole truth, that this nation, though flawed, continues to be the beacon for freedom. That beacon is found in America's true Christian people (their carrying Gospel light to the world, and acting as God's sword in protecting the nation Israel, in the human, national sense.)
"Such tripe [as these writers propose] is from the mind of Satan, not from sound rationale… Neither America, nor Christianity are at the core of world-wide terrorism. Islam is. They serve Allah, who, in my view, is Satan. We will fight them where they nest, or we will be fighting them while they try to enter our homes.
"The Islamics, once they are in power and control, won't give you the option of exercising Christian love, any more than would have the Nazis under Hitler, or the Soviets under Stalin and Brezhnev.
"Jesus most definitely approved of protecting one's own household: "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace" (Luke 11:21). And, that is but one of a number of statements by Jesus on the topic of self defense --which sometimes means one must take the offensive…"
It is true that throughout mankind’s history war has been immoral in most every sense. But, it has been the aggressors against those who only want to live in peace that make war immoral. It is those who want to take what others have and intend to enslave others who make war immoral. Going against those who want to kill you, when you have done nothing but desired to live in peace, is both honorable and moral.
War is scheduled to increase exponentially from now through the tribulation era. God’s Word says no one will be able to stand up against the king of fierce countenance –Antichrist. That is, not until the King of all kings comes to put an end to Antichrist and all of the war-makers of this fallen planet.
--Terry
