The Mark of the Beast System Is Being Field Tested in China

In the United States “big data” is a major industry. Anytime you buy or show interest in something that can be tracked, a major retailer will try to convince you to buy their products. Last week I looked online for the price of a toner cartridge. Since then, nearly every site I visit has ads for the same toner cartridge. I also regularly get coupons in the mail from office supply firms, so some system is obviously keeping track of my office-related needs.

This use of “big data” may be creepy at times in a capitalist system, but the only thing its users are after—is money. For an autocratic government “big data” is a useful tool to keep people enslaved. China is currently plotting to use raw data to create a “social-credit system” that will assign a “personal citizen score” to every single person based on behavior.

With Beijing able to draw upon a growing network of data pools, a system of Algorithms could be set up. They could be used to calculate a citizen’s rating, which would then be used to determine a person’s social status. A good rating could mean faster treatment at government offices or access to luxury hotels. A low rating could mean being blacklisted from loans, jobs, or access to the Internet.

China’s judiciary already uses a blacklisting system which can be linked into the national “social-credit system.” A legal scholar working in Hangzhou, cites the example of a client, part-owner of a travel company, who now can’t buy tickets for planes or high-speed trains because the local court put him on a blacklist after he lost a dispute with a landlord.

Beijing has chosen Hangzhou as the pilot for this “social credit” system. The Communist Party has said it wants to roll out the system nationwide by 2020.

The current means of control in China is the dungeon—a system of dossiers the Communist Party keeps on the behavior of urban workers. When you have 1.4 billion people, there is a massive amount of paperwork to just manage the wealthier citizens. The poor people living in the countryside don’t even show up on the radar. They are only managed by not being allowed to enter the major urban areas.

The primary reason why the heads of state fear the masses is because they have no way of tracking them. If a group of people are plotting a coup, the authorities may discover the problem too late to prevent it. During the days of the Cold War, the USSR and China spent enormous amounts of energy suppressing American influences that proved that Communism didn’t work. Now that China has used capitalism to modernize its economy, it can use the fruits of the free market to suppress dissenters.

The Communist Party is trying to put a happy face on their Orwellian plan. The national social-credit system’s aim, according to a slogan printed in planning documents, is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.”

President Xi Jinping’s is a key mastermind behind this new ranking system. He has launched a campaign to tighten his grip on the country and dictate morality. Xi believes that economic uncertainty is threatening to undermine the Communist Party. In October, he called for innovation in “social governance” that would “heighten the capacity to forecast and prevent all manner of risks.”

It would seem to be a fairly reasonable to set up a system that rewards people for their actions. Because sinful human beings are the ones who set the rules, China’s blueprints for utopianism could end up producing something far worse than the police state that governs North Korea.

I’ve talked about the mark of the beast system many times in the past. Up until now, the system that the Antichrist will use enslave the world was in the future. What China is working on is clearly the prototype of what will be the 666 mark. For centuries dictators have dreamed of a system that would allow them to totally control the masses. Now that technology has made it possible, the stage is set for the man who will fulfill the passages of Revelation 13.

“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).

–Todd

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The A B C Questions

We are moving into stranger and stranger times, I sense from consideration of recent developments. Chief among those developments is the most obvious–the election of the candidate thought to have no chance at all just a few months previous. Yet here he is, poised to Make America Great Again–as his presidential campaign slogan would have it.

This being the case, I would ask that you indulge me just a bit, as I would like to construct a scenario or two based as much in biblically prophetic truth as in fictional cogitation.

That America has been forced toward movement into the globalist mold over the past several decades is without question in my view. This has especially been the case during the past eight years of the Obama administration. The nation’s sovereignty has been in process of usurpation by the new world order builders through a series of quasi-legitimate executive orders.

It is more than obvious, to me at least, that the United States was moving along an seemingly unalterable course dictated by the globalists’ agenda. This presidential election didn’t just slow that movement; it halted it in its tracks. The president-elect is an avowed antiglobalist. He views America not as the hegemonic superpower that must be brought down to third-world status, its wealth redistributed in order to create some insanely conceived socialistic Utopia, but as beneficent leader of a world of autonomous nations.

My idea isn’t to sing the praises of the future president. He is merely a man who has been thrust into the end-times picture for God’s own great purpose. My thinking here is to explore and examine a bit the possibilities that purpose might include. Thus we come to the title of this commentary: “The A B C Questions.”

I watch with great interest the uptick in the world’s fiscal markets as the wizards of finance contemplate changes taking place in our country. The records being set in the stock markets, etc., move in synchronization with the strangeness of this election. The whole matter, to my way of thinking, generates questions involving Bible prophecy potentiality.

My questions and ruminations follow.

Question A

AMERICA–Is this nation, rather than being on the brink of imploding economically as most prophecy students thought before this election, now about to enter a time of, perhaps, unprecedented financial boom?

Most who have been responsible for making profit within the private sector know and lament that regulations coming out of the current presidential administration have been deadly to business development. Mr. Obama, himself, has boasted that he has “a pen and a phone”–meaning that he could and would bypass Congress to accomplish what he wanted done. This he has done prolifically. His use of his pen and phone have been particularly ruinous to the free enterprise system in this nation. Increased taxation, added to the regulatory edicts, have resulted in horrendous job losses because of business down-sizings and closings. The nation seemed poised to go much deeper into the economic abyss. The election of Donald J. Trump, a highly successful business mogul, seems to have suddenly turned things around with promises to roll back taxes and regulations and to introduce a plethora of innovations.

The financial markets are apparently buying the promises, and the uptick in the stratospheric of economic anticipation shows it.

All of this just doesn’t fit the thinking of observers of Bible prophecy. Most seem to look for America to succumb to the forces of globalism. And, as stated before, the nation was certainly headed in that direction prior to this election.

So, it is reasonable to ask whether the United States of America might be headed into another great economic boom instead of descending into depression as feared just weeks ago. This conjecture brings forth another most interesting question.

Question B

BABYLON--Could we now be witness to the beginnings of the creation of the prophetic entity termed “Babylon the Great”?

Revelation chapter 18 presents a stunning portrait of the greatest human commercial entity of all of history. This nation and city is prophesied to dominate all the earth with its commerce and debaucheries. Here’s what is said of this city-state called “Babylon the Great”:

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. (Revelation 18:3)

This Babylonian system will be destroyed in one hour, God’s Word tells us. It will be a much-deserved judgment. All the world will mourn this destruction.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more. (Revelation 18:9-11)

Here you will, I hope, indulge my postulations a bit. If this generation is at the very end of he Age of Grace (Church Age) as most who are well-versed in Bible prophecy from the pre-Trib view believe, there is but one entity on the stage of history that could possibly be seen as doing business in such a mighty way as described in this prophecy.

For there to develop from the ground up such a commercial power, it would take decades, not just seven, or even twenty years. America, if there was a massive jinning up of enterprise, could possibly reach such heights of interaction with the rest of the world in a matter of a year or two. There is simply no nation on the planet that has ever been so materially blessed as the USA. There is no other city on planet earth that has the commercial outreach and influence as New York City.

Seeing as how the timeline seems to be a major factor in this prophecy–this destruction of Babylon the Great taking place within the seven-year Tribulation–we can legitimately ask, I think: Is America to develop into that judgment-bound entity?

Perhaps we might get a clue if the optimistic outlook of the current stock market elites plays out as they, at least at this moment, anticipate.

Question C

CHRISTIANITY –-Is Christianity about to experience a Great Awakening like in times past?

I have been hearing for years now preachers and others saying that there will be a great revival before the Rapture. Some of those who don’t hold that there is a Rapture coming also say there will be another Great Awakening, as in times past. I’ve never held that belief, I must say. However, the strange turn of events–with the anti-God forces of the left and the globalists’ ravenous desire to gobble up the United States being suddenly halted–or so it seems–one has to question” why?”.

Could we be about to experience a final outpouring of God’s great mercy in the form of the true church carrying out the Great Commission in a Holy Spirit directed outburst of supernatural witness?

–Terry

The Liberal Media Has Regained the Ability to Criticize the President

One of the most destructive factors about the nearly eight year Obama Administration is the protective relationship he has established with the liberal media. Every time he does something that is clearly harmful to the best interests of the American people, the press has defended his actions. Even in a case where people are suffering from some disaster and Obama is on vacation at Martha’s Vineyard—the criticism—never comes from the press. They give this special treatment to all Democrats.

The night that Hillary Clinton realized she had lost, she went into a rage. Reporters and Secret Service officers confirmed that she began yelling, screaming obscenities, and pounding furniture. She picked up objects and threw them at attendants and staff. Clinton in such an uncontrollable rage, she had to be sedated by a doctor. When a reporter working for CNN described what she had witnessed, her editor banned the story from going out to the public.

Now that Donald Trump has been elected to be America’s 45th president, the liberal media has gone into 24/7 attack mode. Anything they can find that is negative about Trump they will send out on the news feeds.

The Media Research Center found that 91 percent of news coverage about Donald Trump on the three broadcast nightly newscasts over the past 12 weeks has been “hostile.” He’s not even in office and the press had declared him a failure.

Paul Krugman, the head economist for the New York Times said “Trump is going to bring about an era of corrupt governance unprecedented in US history.” American University professor Allan Lichtman had reporters salivating when he predicted that Trump will likely be impeached.

The one-sided attack on Trump has backfired on the liberal media. When CNN’s Jake Tapper was trying to link Trump to white nationalist leader Richard Spence. They ran a banner that questioned “If Jews are people.” The backlash against CNN for highlighting a racist statement was so strong on twitter, Tapper had to return from vacation to apologize for being so callous against Jews.

The next day on CNN Charles Kaiser used the N-word while allegedly quoting Trump adviser Steve Bannon. He was quickly found to have quoted the wrong person. His use of the N-word sent the show’s host into panic mode:

All right, gentlemen. We’re done. We’re done. I appreciate both of your voices. The more I’ve sat here and listened to the fact that somebody used the N-word on the show…it is not okay! It is not okay. Charles Kaiser, I respect you. I enjoy having you on as a guest but…not okay. By the way, the claim that Mr. Bannon used the N-word — I’ve never heard of this. So there’s that. Take a break.

If you want to find a story that not biased against Trump, you need to turn to alternative news sources. Last week, Unionwear, the producer of political campaign material for mostly Democratic candidates, filed for bankruptcy.

The press gave coverage to the firm when it produced hats with slogans like “Make Donald Drumpf Again,” (a reference to Mr. Trump’s ancestors altered the family name) and “Make America Rage Again.” Not a single major news organization pointed out the firm’s demise from obvious poor sales.

The press may be irreparably undermining its credibility with its nonstop mud ball attacks against Trump. They have already eroded the public’s trust by being so obviously biased in their coverage of the 2016 election.

If they keep labeling him as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic Islamaphobic—in a couple years the average American citizen will be immune to believing such charges. Trump could invite the KKK to have a clan rally on the White House lawn and people would just yawn at any outrage by the press.

The liberal media’s sudden role reversal may have a profound impact on the state of our nation. Come January, we will have a press that has no reason to continue hiding the fact that our national debt is growing out of control, crime is rampant in our urban cities, and the Middle East is a total mess.

The press may have the collective goal to damage Trump so that they can set-up the next Democratic candidate for the 2020 race. The rate at which the world is going downhill, I’m not sure Christians will be around to worry about the outcome.

“Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28).

–Todd

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Pre-Tribulation Pondering

Listening to the “experts” thinking aloud on what this election means is exercise in frustration, if not futility. The talking heads across the cable and broadcast spectrum attribute Donald Trump’s win to everything from the late FBI turn of events to news media’s biased poll-taking and misreading of exit polling. These throw in that those in charge of the losing campaign just didn’t understand the people of middle America. They didn’t see the people’s pent-up rage against the Washington establishment–the D.C. insiders.

All of these elements no doubt contributed to this election–as many of the pundits put it–eventuating in a totally unexpected outcome. But, it is the never-mentioned aspect of this election dynamic that is frustrating to me as a Christian. It is this that produces a sense of futility.

No one in media is talking about the 81% – 84% (depending upon the figure you accept) of “evangelicals” who turned out in this election. Christian participation just isn’t figured in at the highest levels of broadcast and cable punditry.

This means, to me, that the experts believe this election had nothing to do with our being fed up with the social debauchery and degradation that has been taking place, particularly over the past almost eight years. The homosexual, transsexual, same-sex marriage agenda, with mandated same-sex, multiple-occupancy public restrooms, had no influence on the voting this election year, the experts are saying with their silence. We, the voters–who are Christians and came out in numbers that have not been seen in many elections–apparently weren’t (according to the pundits) making a statement that we are fed up with our White House being bathed in rainbow colors emblematic of the homosexual lobby. We aren’t sick and tired of having the homosexual rainbow flag flown atop that same American presidential edifice, is the message of the pundits’ silence.

This electoral landslide against the candidate and party that have crammed down America’s throat all of this hellishness–mostly through presidential, executive order-fiat–had nothing to do with the social issues, I guess we are to take away from this silence.

That we are disgusted with small bakery owners being publicly humiliated and fined for refusing to bake same-sex wedding cakes obviously isn’t considered worth mentioning in the analysis of this election results. The absolute horrors and atrocities that we learned about involving Planned Parenthood and the selling of human baby body parts didn’t, in the thinking of the post-election, political analysts, figure in our collective voting statement.

It was all about terrorism, wallet issues, and building back America’s defense, while determining to “drain the swamp.”

These were all important issues in my own thinking, as in the thinking of many other Christians, while election day approached. But, in addition to stopping a further tearing down of America’s founding structure, I wanted–and continue to want–a government that will stop the anti-godliness, down the road of which the administration of the last eightyears has deliberately moved this nation.

As expressed previously in these commentaries, it was God’s people praying the prayer of 2 Chronicles 7:14 that turned this election so dramatically. This is the answer the pundits are seeking when they ask incessantly about what happened that the news media types missed. How could this election have turned out so differently than expected right up until 9 p.m. EST Tuesday, November 8?

The fact is that the throne room of Heaven was deluged day and night with God’s people imploring Him for mercy–asking that He hear from Heaven and answer our prayers. This, of course required repentance–not of America’s population, but of God’s people. It is more than obvious that He did hear and answered in a spectacular way. God cannot lie, and He promised He would answer such prayer–uttered under biblically prerequisite conditions.

Now, the question is: Will we who are called by His name continue to pray and to follow up on those prerequisite conditions? How we respond will determine how our nation–and our lives–fare over the coming days, months, and, perhaps, years. We have proof that our Lord answers prayers in a spectacular way. The pundits will never see it, but we who did and are doing the praying certainly understand. We can further understand God’s influence in this election by the truly Christian people He has placed among the soon-incoming power elite.

So, in this pre-Tribulation time, we have a window of opportunity to honor our Lord’s merciful answer in giving us a leadership that promises a return to founding principles. Along with that merciful action, it is also obvious that we have been given a course-correction, a return to the moral pathway–out of the depravity foisted on us in recent years.

We don’t have to wonder about how to honor His mercy and kindness in having answered our prayers. His number-one priority has always been and will always be the salvation of souls. We are expected to honor His decision to give America a reprieve–I have no doubt–in order to, first and foremost, lift Jesus Christ so that the Holy Spirit draws all to Christ for salvation.

Just beneath that all-important mission for God’s people in America is to let the pastors of our churches know that the true, Christ-believing bodies of worship should be devoted to teaching and preaching truth. That is, we are now, more than ever, to be the Philadelphian church and not the Laodicean church. (Read Revelation chapter 3.)

There is no doubt that we see this gracious, merciful, moving of God’s hand in America. However, there are also signals that are growing stronger by the day that we are in times at the very end of the age.

Jesus forewarned in the Olivet Discourse that there would be great ethnic strife. We have been seeing it manifested in American cities. The seas and waves of humanity are “roaring” in America and in Europe. This election has intensified that roaring, I believe.

People who refuse to accept the election results are exemplifying the apostle Paul’s perilous times characteristic “incontinent”–or, “out of control.” Jesus said societal conditions will be exactly like now when He intervenes catastrophically into the affairs of mankind. That will happen with the Rapture.

With the United States now seeming to be headed back toward the America we once knew and loved, with the promises of the new administration, we can enjoy our moment of gratefulness this Thanksgiving season.

However, this time of national renewal is also likely to be a time like described by Jesus–a time that will bring His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of mankind. That time might just be upon us.

“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” (Matthew 24: 44)

–Terry