We focus on Bible prophecy each week for about five-minutes, calling it a “Prophecy Update.”

We are considered futurists. We interpret the unfulfilled prophetic portions of the Book of the Revelation and the Book of Daniel, and all other unfulfilled prophecies, as yet future events in a literal, physical, apocalyptic, and global context.

There are many reasons for being futurists, but I like to point out the most important one: Jesus was a futurist. When He gave His great discourse on prophecy in Matthew 24 & 25, He quoted from Daniel as if the events prophesied were yet future and literal.

In fact, whenever someone in the Bible read unfulfilled prophecies, they understood them to be future and literal.

We talk a lot about the dreaded “Mark of the Beast” that almost everyone has at least heard about.

It is described in the Revelation as something involving hands or the head by which people will transact all their business. In the middle of the future seven-year Great Tribulation that is coming upon the whole earth, the world leader we commonly refer to as the antichrist will use this to take total control over people. Those who swear allegiance to him will be said to have his “Mark.”

It sounds like the system will involve biometrics. Thus from reading the Bible, we expect advances in biometrics that might be the precursors of this Mark.

I read a creepy article titled, Silicon Valley’s final frontier for mobile payments [is] ‘the… takeover of the human body.’

Excerpts:

Aram Sinnreich, associate professor of communication studies at American University, recently went grocery shopping at a Whole Foods Market in his hometown of Washington, D.C., and realized he had left his wallet at home. He had no cards and no cash, but he had no reason to worry – at least, not about paying for his food.
“I used my iPhone to pay, and I unlocked it with my face,” he said.

That’s when it struck him: We are just one small step away from paying with our bodily features alone. With in-store facial-recognition machines, he wouldn’t even need his smartphone.

Removing the last physical barrier – smartphones, watches, smart glasses and credit cards – between our bodies and corporate America is the final frontier in mobile payments. “The deeper the tie between the human body and the financial networks, the fewer intimate spaces will be left unconnected to those networks,” Sinnreich said.

“Using biometrics as a method of payment is going to be pretty popular in the future,” said Hannah Zimmerman, associate attorney with Fey LLC. She said this will be propelled by “the globalization of commerce.”

“It just hasn’t all been integrated into one biometric-payment method yet because it would creep people out.” He said it’s Silicon Valley’s end game: “It’s the… takeover of the human body.”

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-technology-that-should-finally-make-your-wallet-obsolete-2019-09-06

Speaking of these big corporations, in another article I read the following:

Several tech CEOs committed… to invest in their employees and support the communities they operate in. Alongside the leaders of dozens of major businesses, the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, AT&T, IBM and Salesforce signed onto a document that outlined the “purpose of a corporation” and laid out five groups that companies should work to benefit.

The pledge… puts employees and communities on equal footing with customers and shareholders, as well as suppliers.

Other tech companies signing onto the document included Accenture, Cisco, Comcast, Dell, Micron Technology, Motorola Solutions, Oracle, SAP and Siemens. The list included companies in more than a dozen other sectors of the economy, including health, finance, travel, food and drink, and retail.

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-amazon-and-more-pledge-to-support-employees-communities/

No one knows exactly what this means, or how it will affect consumers. What is evident is that more-and-more control is going to be gained over our lives, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

We are at the point where our bodies will, indeed, function just as the Bible predicted. If I weren’t a believer, I’d be terrified.

I am in Christ, and I’m excited. 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!