Since we are living in what the Bible calls the last days, we believe we should be able to identify trends in the world that you’d expect from a literal, futurist reading of unfulfilled prophecy.
That is why we focus on Bible prophecy each week for about five-minutes, calling it a “Prophecy Update.”
I try to be careful to point out that we are not claiming these trends to be the fulfillment of prophecy. They are things that seem to resonate with the Bible’s yet to be fulfilled last days prophecies. Things you’d expect to be happening.
Have you heard the term, “Smart City?” One definition goes like this:
Smart city is an urban area that uses different types of electronic Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to collect data and then use insights gained from that data to manage assets, resources and services efficiently. This includes data collected from citizens, devices, and assets that is processed and analyzed to monitor and manage traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities, water supply networks, waste management, crime detection, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services.
I read an article this week titled, Smart city spending climbs along with deep reservations by residents.
Excerpts:
Citizen protests and lawsuits notwithstanding, municipalities around the world are rushing to install surveillance systems marketed as Smart City technology.
Spending on systems in North America and Europe makes up just 30 percent of the global market. China spends much of the rest of that total… research suggests.
That is hardly surprising. Research… in 2019 found that eight of the 10 most-surveilled cities in the world were in China. (London and Atlanta rounded out the list).
Estimates [are] that sometime next year, China will have one public closed-circuit television camera for every two of its citizens. That would mean mounting 700 million cameras nationwide.
Spain has launched machine-learning drones to catch people driving unsafely – talking on a phone, ignoring traffic signs, not wearing seat belts, etc.
Smart City lighting systems use sensors to change light output based on activity in the immediate surroundings. There were 10.4 million individually controlled smart street lights globally in 2018. Estimates [are] that that number will triple, to 31.2 percent, by 2023.
It is only a matter of degree between detecting an approaching vehicle and recording a 2020 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat painted TorRed under a Scat Pack Bumblebee Stripe with Nevada plates.
As reported by the American Planning Association, a 2017 effort in Toronto to redevelop 12 acres of waterfront property as a “smart” neighborhood called Quayside. It included plans for, among other amenities, underground delivery robots, driverless buses, smart lights and a biometric identity system.
What do Smart Cities have to do with Bible prophecy? In the future Great Tribulation, the leader we most commonly call the antichrist will exercise totalitarian control over those who swear their allegiance to him. That kind of oversight will require something like Smart City surveillance, among other things.
Smart Cities are a trend you’d expect from unfulfilled Bible prophecy.
Jesus promised He’d return to rapture His church – which entails the resurrection of the dead in Christ of the Church Age, then the translation from earth to Heaven of all living believers.
It is presented in the Bible as an imminent (any-moment) event.
Are you ready for the rapture? If not, get ready, stay ready, and keep looking up. Ready or not, Jesus is coming!