GOING OUT WITH A BANG
In Revelation 13, verse 10 says: ‘Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.’ It links the previous verses about an assault upon Christians to an assault upon mankind.
THE first ten verses of the chapter describe a ‘beast’ full of blasphemy and bent on persecution. Humankind worships it and accepts the overthrow of witness by past generations – saints and martyrs who would die cruel deaths rather than deny their Lord in word or deed; who died for freedom and high principle. There is coming a day, says Revelation in effect, when even World Wars I and II will have their millions dead discounted. The freedoms fought and died for – lost. Patriotism and valour will be no more as ‘the beast’ rules without frontier over every tribe and people, and tongue and nation. ‘All who dwell on earth will worship it …’ says verse eight: everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.’
This Lamb can be found through Genesis 22. Here we have the story of Abraham, father of nations and tribes, and his son Isaac. It pertains to The Last Days because therein is God’s promise of provision for these same Last Days. God Himself shall provide the sacrifice.
Back in Revelation 13, the ‘beast’ afflicting the church in the first ten verses is joined by a second ‘beast’ – and this is manmade. It has two horns and is like a lamb, says verse 11. It resembles the lamb slain from the beginning of the world, but it is not The Lamb.
Is it just co-incidence that the first stage on our way to the full cloning of a human has been Dolly the Sheep at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh? Is it just co-incidence that the picture in Revelation is of a two-horned lamb – an adult child; a child already an adult mature in its physical aspects before due time. Is it just co-incidence that the Director of the Institute, once worried about the ethics of cloning a full human has now reportedly had his fears allayed and it is quite possible there will be a baby clone for the millennium. How fitting – a baby clone announced like getting to the top of Everest for the Coronation. It is ultimate blasphemy out of an anti-Christian way of life.
The clone factor began in March 1953 when Francis Crick rushed into the Eagle pub in Cambridge at lunchtime, spreading the news that he and his partner James Watson had found the secret of life. What they had done, in fact, was decipher the structure of the molecule of DNA, something present in almost every living cell. They had found that DNA can do two things: carry information and – replicate itself. The processes of life were now on display.
A recent Sunday Times supplement itemised what the knowledge could do – from modifying plants to making designer babies. The Sunday Times writer summed up: ‘In short, we shall have the power of a god in the living world.’
‘Both Watson and Crick said that the idea that drove them on to unravelling of the structure of DNA was anti-religious. They wished to show that vitalism was wrong, there was nothing special about life and no need for God. Life was chemistry and ultimately, physics.’ (Life was Chemistry..)
The writer, Bryan Appleyard, described their position: ‘Science is the only source of true wisdom.’
And yet, there are limits … science has no mercy.
Witness a paragraph in The Scotsman of February 25th this year. It says:
‘The millennium bug could cause breakdowns in nuclear reactors and strategic missile systems and lead to severe disruptions in world trade and oil shipments, a senior CIA official warned yesterday.’
General John Gordon, deputy director, was testifying in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. He said midwinter power failures could have ‘major humanitarian consequences’ in Russia. Most countries were far behind the USA in preparations for the crisis.
Leaving aside how odd it is for a spook to be the authority on such matters, we have to recognise that the USA may be ahead of the field in crisis containment, but that is not saying much.
The chairman of the Y2K Committee of the U.S. Senate charts the count-down.
August 22nd, 1999: the end of the first 1,024-week cycle for the Global Positioning System network. Most of the U.S. military is locked into this system guidance for almost all inter-continental ballistic missiles and other navigation in warfare. All world financial transactions are dependent on the Global Positioning System so this will mean a complete shut-down of financial services worldwide.
September 9th, 1999: reads complete erasure for many files.
October 1st, 1999: U.S. Federal Government begins its fiscal year. Nowhere near ready – huge internal crisis.
January 1st 2000: national power grids, fuel refineries, telephone networks, rallroads, air traffic control, social security payments, pensions in turmoil over 24 time sectors of the earth. ‘I call this time … the day the earth stands still, as far as computers are concerned’ says the chairman, Senator Dennet (R – Utah).
But the earth could stand still in another sense.
‘Cosmic cloud could cause Armageddon’ said the Scottish Daily Record of 29th March last year. It was on page 23 then, but will it soon be on the front page?
‘A bump with a tiny gas cloud could rnean the end of the world’ we are told.
‘The earth would be raked by deadly cosmic radiation and could suffer severe global warming, a great flood or an ice age.’
Gary Zank of the Bartol Research Institute at the University of Delaware is quoted as saying:
‘As our sun moves through extremely ’empty’ or low- density interstellar space, the solar wind produces a protective bubble – the hellosphere around our Solar System – which allows life to flourish on Earth.
‘We could bump into a small cloud at any time, and we probably won’t see it coming.
‘Without the hellosphere, neutral hydrogen would interact with our atmosphere, possibly producing catastrophic climate changes, while our exposure to deadly cosmic radiation in the form of very high energy cosmic rays would increase.
‘The protective solar wind would be extinguished, and cosmic radiation might lead to gene mutations.
‘Hydrogen would bombard the earth, producing increased cloud cover, leading perhaps to global warming, or extreme amounts of precipitation and ice-ages.’
Then we have a report in The Scotsman of 29th April last year. It sends the message right across the top of page 22: ‘Prepare for the sunspot bug’. It goes on:
‘Scientists predict ferocious storms on the surface of the sun could hit satellites and cripple computer systems.
The text says these are a thousand times faster than the tornadoes experienced on earth. These are a major source of magnetic storms disrupting power supplies and interfering with satellites. Dr Richard Harris, principal investigator at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire says the peak of such activity will be reached in 2000 A.D. and should be added to the concern over the millennium bug, because they affect microchips.
Now all this is connected to Genesis one verse 4 where in the beginning, God divided the light from darkness. And another separation, verse 7.
‘God made the firmament and He divided the waters under the firmament from the waters above the firmament.’ And verse 8, God called the firmament Heaven.
The upheavals forecast by the scientists are already signposted. In Revelation chapter 21, verse 1, we read that the visionary John saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth were gone, and the sea no longer existed. Verse 5 declares the re-creation of all things. In the process, the pollutions and the polluters of earthly existence will experience what is called in verse 8 the second death.
But first, there is a living hell to go through.
Revelation 13, verse 16 says the ‘beast’ ’causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead.’
This is where Jews wear their phylacteries – the little leather boxes containing the passages of Deuteronomy about the one true God. The wearing of these items denotes obedience to God in their actions (the arms) and their thinking (the forehead). Jesus used this same quotation when asked what was the greatest commandment. So we find that the beast will demand that both the ancient Hebrew belief and the New Testament word of Jesus be superseded.
As verse 17 emphasises:
‘No one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is the name of the beast, or the number of its name.’
Verse 18 says it is a human number – a manmade number. E.W Bullinger in his book Number in Scripture published in 1894, over a hundred years ago, says this:
‘If six is the number of secular or human perfection, then 66 is a more emphatic expression of the same fact, and 666 is the concentrated expression of it. 666 is therefore the trinity of human perfection, the perfection of imperfection, the culmination of human pride in independence of God and opposition to His Christ.’
Then Bullinger states this:
‘The number, however, has to be computed to reckon, to calculate, not merely to count or enumerate.’
So here we are – back at the computer crash where everything is wrapped up in figures. According to Revelation, we will have a purely commercial lifestyle and whoever does not conform to the five points of economic tests, as Chancellor Gordon Brown would say, will die. Anyone who does not reckon in money has no future. Parochially, we will enter Euroland only for the money, says the Chancellor. There is no objection in principle. That is our world writ small.
Jesus Himself forecast this state of affairs: ‘You cannot serve God and Mammon. You will love, honour and obey one or the other, but not both.’
Many people have already chosen – they are the microchip society. They are preparing for the mark of the beast. And, in a sense, they are prudent. When the millenniurn bug hits, there will be a financial crisis – stock markets all round the world will fall. Panic will ensue.
There will be a run on the banks, devaluation of currencies, civil unrest on a giant scale. The salvation plan will then be trotted out – the microchip embedded in the back of the hand or on the forehead. It is, after all, a mere extension of the smart card facility. Those with it will enjoy preferential treatment, what goods and services are available. In fact, the loyalty card, for supermarket customers only. Only the multinationals can ride the storm.
There need be no surprise about this. Already livestock are tagged – the BSE scare was the excuse -why shouldn’t it now be humans? Infopet is only one of several companies that can inject a bio-chip by syringe. The chip is read by a scanner and the code identifies the owner. This calls up a whole file.
Already over a billion pets can be tracked by satellite and cellular towers. Motorola is into human versions. It says a chip the size of a grain of rice can cover 34 billion unique sets of individual identification codes. Enough for every living person in the world. Using three entries of six digits each (666), every member of the human race can have their own social security number.
Such a chip in the body would be able to contain details of every aspect of one’s life – ID, passport, driver’s licence, bank status, benefits, family history, address, next of kin, medical and income tax records, criminal convictions. Above all, this chip keeps track of you. You will be never out on your own anywhere in the world. But there is no hiding place either. The planners estimate they need only 66 low-level stationary satellites to achieve this.
Of course this implanted chip needs power – rechargeable batteries, automatically. After million-dollar research it was found that human heat did the trick. Only two locations met the requirements: the back of the right hand and the forehead, just under the hairline.
The implanted chip will be sold to the public as an aid to the cashless society (cut-down on thieving); as a welfare safeguard (benefits paid direct into a bank account and purchases deducted from weekly lump sum – if you overspend, go out and work for it); as a general short-cut on bureaucracy; and as a constant watch on lost or runaway children, paedophiles and recidivists. We will be rendered more circumspect in the Orwellian cornmonsense of it all. But we will be not only psychologically affected – the chip will alter our physical make-up. It will likewise interfere with the spirit of God…
The Kingdom of God within will be out of touch, the guidance and care of God will have interference.
Users of mobile phones should watch carefully how they go for they are subscribing to the same processes and there may be some fire under the smoke of newspaper scare stories about loss of memory. Memory after all is at the heart of our identity. If we lose that, we lose everything personal and collective, we lose every significance God promised in Genesis 22, verse 18.
We have then, nothing more to lose – only God is left for us. Will Jesus not come back now?
We know well enough the situation attendant upon the Second Coming: Jesus describes it in Matthew 24: wars, famine, disease, earthquakes; martyrdom, hatred; sun and moon darkened, stars failing.
Then He will be back on the Mount of Olives at Jerusalem – the precise spot frorn which He departed after his Resurrection.
We know the nations of the world will be at war, all over Jerusalem, and the eyes of the United Nations will see Him. Indeed, we shall all see Him wherever we may be and whatever we are doing. His arrival will be so evident that no one will miss it. The only way that every eye will see Him, and every knee bow and every soul shall call Him Lord is by a cloudburst from beyond the solar system.
Why must it be from outside the solar system? Because the solar system runs on the schedule described in Genesis and that means half the world is awake while the other half sleeps. There is night and day in the planet governed by the solar system but for us all to be awake and watching, there must be a trumpet blast and an abolition of the night and day regularity of the solar system. According to the scientists, the solar system could be breached, abolished really, any time. There is nothing scientifically to rule that out. If the solar system is afflicted, so are we. It dictates our existence.
We are what we eat, they say. But we don’t eat if the solar system goes wrong. It controls our crop yield, it supplies our water, or not. It all depends on the weather. And the weather relies on the solar system – does it rain? does the sun come out? do we have frost, snow, mild or hot climate – it all depends where we are under the solar system. No wonder we are fixated on the weather forecast … and most phone calls ask a question: “What’s it been like your end?”
Looking at the mess we’ve made of planet earth, can we wonder that God should intervene with the weather, at the last, as His demonstration of power. From beyond the solar system, He comes again spreading from east to west His glory in what is the twinkling of an eye, in the person of Jesus as ultimate prophet, priest and king. We know this from Revelation.
It has been proved true by events so far – may we not believe what it now says: verse 4: Revelation, chapter 21, verses 3, 4 and 5:
‘God’s dwelling place is among men, And he will dwell among them and they shall be His peoples. Yes, God Himself will be among them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more; nor sorrow, nor wail of woe, nor pain; for the former things have passed away … BEHOLD, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW.’
[Reprinted from Bible Class July/August 1999]
