China’s Orwellian State Gets a Thumbs Up from the World
China has announced that it will soon be able to judge each of its 1.3 billion citizens based on their social behavior. The plan was rolled out earlier this year, and it is rapidly moving closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident.
Each citizen will be given a score on an 18-digit national identification code that is based on their criminal and credit history, their shopping habits, profession, and if they post negative articles or opinions about the government on social media or are connected to people that do, among other things. If a person’s score is low, they may lose the ability to land a new job, rent cars, travel domestically, and they may lose access to the internet or other forms of communication.
A system of public shaming is also being used to keep citizens in line. Some cities have replaced the citizens’ dial tones with recorded messages stating their shortcomings and encouraging callers to chastise them for their failures. The pressure is even being applied to people’s love lives. A cartoon TV advertisement by Credit China shows a man being rejected by his dinner date after she sees a billboard declaring that he’s a blacklisted citizen.
China has long experimented with systems that grade its citizens. The tracking of individual behavior in China has become possible by economic life moving online. Today, you can get loans, pay bills, and travel by using smartphone apps. The Chinese government has made Big Brother a reality by simply adding a kill switch to these functions.
I am just amazed to see how readily people are embracing technology that allows corporations to monitor our activities. It has been well over a decade since anyone cared about the camera that now records all public activity. Now, what we do in our own homes is coming under watch. Google has revealed plans to monitor our moods, our movements, and our children’s behavior at home.
Parents in a research group said Google is developing smart-home products that are capable of eavesdropping on us throughout our home in order to learn more about us and better target us with advertising. It goes much further than the current Google Home speaker that’s promoted to answer our questions and provide useful information, and the Google-owned Nest thermostat that measures environmental conditions in our home. What is planned is a system with sensors and cameras mounted in every room to follow us and analyze what we’re doing throughout our home.
They describe how the cameras can even recognize the image of a movie star on a resident’s t-shirt, connect it to the person’s browsing history, and send the person an ad for a new movie the star is in.
One patent, No. 10,114,351, reads, “According to embodiments of this disclosure, a smart-home environment may be provided with smart-device environment policies that use smart-devices to monitor activities within a smart-device environment, report on these activities, and/or provide smart-device control based upon these activities.”
I can think of many wonderful positives of having Big Brother in our house. If you have a medical emergency, the smart-home device can register that you are having an attack and can call 911. If there is a fire, the fire department can be notified. It would be great to have extra eyes to keep a watch on children that like to get into trouble.
I would never ever have one of these Alexa devices in my house because of the danger to human nature. If something can be used for evil, it will be used. With an open microphone to Big Brother, I would quickly get on the secret naughty list for all my ranting about the liberal media and other leftist groups. During the tribulation, people will have to hide in their garage or basement to read their Bible.
A few days ago I noticed Amazon.com was selling a voice-controlled microwave oven. Since ultra-liberal Jeff Bezos is running the corporation, the day will come when someone will learn that Alexa refuses to warm their Blueberry muffin until they switch their political party affiliations.
When I first heard of China’s blacklist systems, I thought initially it would be strongly condemned by most Western governments, but there is very little said about it. One Democratic congressman said that it’s a good idea. Venezuela likes it so much, it will likely be the first nation to copy China’s ID system. Chinese telecom giant ZTE Corp has been working with the Venezuelan government to provide ID cards to all citizens of that South American nation.
When I first heard about the mark of the beast as a kid, I was puzzled over why people would welcome a system that would mean their enslavement. The old saying “give me liberty Or give me death” has been replaced by “give me convenience Or give me death.” The 666 mark will be very deadly because it offers a host of conveniences.
“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. 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” (Revelation 13:16-18).
–Todd
Bridge over the Abyss
Part I
Terry’s note: This two-part series is from a chapter by the same name I wrote in one of my books years ago. Also, I’ve presented it in other published/posted forums. It is more relevant now than ever, so wanted to share it again. (Foreshocks of Antichrist, Harvest House, 1997)
You and I are privileged to be living at the most exciting time in the history of the human race. Why is this the most exciting time? Is it because people of this generation are witnessing the formation of governmental power spheres precisely configured like those prophesied for the end of the age?
Is this the most exciting time to be alive because socioeconomic, technological, and religious conditions seem to be rearranging in the exact order that God’s Word predicts they will be as the climax of history approaches? Or are these the most exciting times because the geophysical and astrophysical worlds around us more and more display dynamic upheaval like those prophesied for the apocalypse (awesome displays such as great earthquakes, violent storms, environment-changing volcanoes, devastating floods, and spectacular stellar cataclysms-for example, comets slamming into planets)?
Fear can be a powerful stimulus upon the process of generating excitement. Since the indicators strongly suggest that we stand at the very precipice of that horrific period that Jesus called the Great Tribulation, these are fearful signals indeed. Certainly, however, it would be inaccurate to say that it is a privilege to live in times that are exciting based solely on the fearful events we see occurring all around us. To be privileged implies living in conditions that are enjoyable. Fear-engendered excitement produces no enjoyment for rational-thinking people.
Steps Leading into the Abyss
News accounts coming at us in barrage after barrage from the many media outlets around the world report in large measure the most tragic aspects of the human condition. None are more tragic than instances of violence against children. Nothing that man perpetrates against his fellow man tears at our hearts more than the beastly activities engaged in by child pornographers.
A recent account involving child pornography sheds light on this sin-putrified symptom of our times. The report detailed the indictment of sixteen men on charges that they participated in an international Internet pedophilia ring in which members once chatted online while a 10-year-old girl was being molested. According to the report, the men belonged to a club, a “chat room in which users swapped stories about child sex and conspired to produce and exchange sexually explicit images of girls as young as 5.”
Although we can be thankful that this particular abominable operation was crushed, it was, statistics tell us, only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The knowledge that even one child is at this very moment being subjected to such horrendous activity is heart-shattering. Yet thousands, perhaps millions, around the world endure this vileness that must regurgitate directly from the mind of Satan himself.
Child pornographers exhibit the fact that they are “without natural affection”–one of the major characteristics that Paul the apostle said would mark the end of the age (2 Timothy 3:3). For who with God-given natural affection can look into the beautiful, bright-eyed faces of little ones and conjure up the absolute abomination of child pornography?
The Homosexuality-Abortion-Euthanasia Connection
How Satan hates God’s creation called man! The creature God loved so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for continues to follow in the devil’s footprints, which lead to the abyss.
Homosexuality is now termed “gay.” The act that God indicts as being an abomination the Satan-controlled minds of men now call bright, happy, and alternate lifestyle. Despite the reality that AIDS and other deadly diseases such as hepatitis are directly attributable to their “gay lifestyle”–thus making it in fact a death-dealing existence–they refuse to cease their life-ending activity. God’s Word says that they receive in themselves the recompense of their
error which is fitting (Romans 1:27). God, in other words, says that they get what they deserve when they refuse to repent of their abominable activity.
Homosexuality cannot procreate, which further attests that Luciferian hatred is behind it. How better to kill off the human creation?
Abortion in the United States is a highly profitable business that delivers death on demand. Congress, as of this writing, is considering making legal the French-produced RU486 abortion pill.
Reprobate thinking dominates our culture today thinking that calls good evil and evil good, thinking that condones killing for the sake of expediency. As proof that ours is a generation steeped in reprobate thinking–that is, thinking that is convoluted, irrational, and even demented–consider the following.
Rational, loving parents would never for a moment think about giving their child a cyanide capsule. Many of these same parents, however, would support legalizing the abortion pill and would themselves take the pills, effectively poisoning their children in the womb. Death on demand is made attractive when it is legitimized and comes nicely merchandised and packaged. Expedience and convenience declare to the reprobate mindset that the unwanted pregnancy equates merely to an upset stomach or a headache that must have a quick fix.
Euthanasia raises its Luciferian head during the last days of societal collapse. Whether considering the ancient Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Incas, or Aztecs–or the more recent atrocities inflicted upon those under the Nazi regime–the systematic murdering of sick, disabled, and elderly people marked those cultures in the last stages of their decline and fall. Unwanted people were and continue to be discarded through genocide, such as that currently taking place in China, where girl babies reportedly are drowned by the millions.
Satan’s hatred for God’s creation called man is easily observable in our own time. “Dr. Death” is the nickname given a medical doctor who routinely involves himself in so-called “assisted suicides.” The doctor’s own words obviously betray his feelings about the sanctity of life and the Creator who gives it.
During a luncheon before the National Press Club, [Dr. Jack] Kevorkian defended himself and attacked the religious community, boasting: “Had Christ died in my van, with people around him who loved him, [it] would have been far more dignified.”
Attempts made to convict him of murder have thus far failed. With each failure of justice comes the desensitizing effects. Ours is a generation quickly becoming anesthetized to the fact that euthanasia is murder. How near we must be to the time when God says, “Enough is enough!”
Homosexuality-abortion-euthanasia are inalterably linked to Satan’s ravenous desire to destroy human beings. God’s Word says that Satan “as a roaring lion who walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
These rampant anti-God activities increasingly find acceptance, even among those who call themselves Christians. But homosexuality, abortion, and euthanasia represent a satanically inspired death wish for all people. Individually and collectively, these hellish practices oppose the one and only Lifegiver.
The Drug Abyss
God’s prophetic Word tells us in unequivocal terms about the rebellious, blasphemous generation that will populate planet Earth during the time of the apocalypse, the closing years of this earth age, which Jesus referred to as a period of great tribulation.
“Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts” (Revelation 9:21).
The word “sorcery” is translated from the Greek word pharmakeia. The approximate equivalent is the English word “pharmacy,” which means the art of preparing and dispensing drugs.
Drugs will flow through the veins of that end-time generation while those people blaspheme God even though they know His judgment is upon them. The people of apocalypse will refuse to repent and turn from their total immersion in drug addiction and every other imaginable sin even though their very souls hang in the balance.
Our evening newscasts are all we need to validate that we are already waist-deep in a cesspool of illicit drugs. Every crime on the books, it seems, can in one way or another be linked to the mind-altering poisons routinely distributed on the streets of every city in America. We have only to recall our last local news broadcast to remember a reporter saying something like “police believe this [shooting, murder, robbery, etc.] was probably drug-related.”
Gangs with members as young as seven years old willingly become slaves to drugs and the dealers who live luxuriantly on the billions of dollars generated. Governments are demonstrably inadequate to the task of stopping or even curbing drug trafficking. Politicians promise wars on drugs but inevitably prove impotent in fulfilling those promises once the electioneering is over.
Note: We begin next week with continuation of the deadly effects of the drug culture.
–Terry