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

We are 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.

Because we are in an era of rapid technological advancement, we report quite a lot about biometric identification for humans. It’s because the dreaded Mark of the Beast, in the Book of the Revelation, sounds a great deal like biometrics. It is something in or on the hand or forehead by which the citizens of the Great Tribulation will be controlled. They will have no privacy, and will only be able to buy or sell if they swear their allegiance to the world-leader we commonly call the Antichrist.

I read an article from The NYTimes titled, Smile, Your City Is Watching You.

Excerpts:

Consider the LinkNYC kiosks installed across New York City – more than 1,700 are already in place, and there are plans for thousands more. These kiosks provide public Wi-Fi, free domestic phone calls and USB charging ports.

Yet the LinkNYC kiosks are not just a useful public service. They are outfitted with sensors and cameras that track the movements of everyone in their vicinity. Once you connect, the network will record your location every time you come within 150 feet of a kiosk.

And although CityBridge calls this information “anonymized” because it doesn’t include your name or email address – the system instead records a unique identifier for each device that connects – when millions of these data points are collected and analyzed, such data can be used to track people’s movements and infer intimate details of their lives.

LinkNYC exemplifies the trend in “smart cities” today: the deployment of technologies that expand the collection of personal data by government and corporations. Certainly, this data can be used for beneficial outcomes: reducing traffic, improving infrastructure and saving energy. But the data also includes detailed information about the activities of everyone in the city — data that could be used in numerous detrimental ways.

Whether we recognize it or not, technologies that cities deploy today will play a significant role in defining the social contract of the future. And as it stands, these smart city technologies have become covert tools for increasing surveillance, corporate profits and, at worst, social control. This undemocratic architecture increases government and corporate power over the public.

Once these smart city technologies are installed, it will be almost impossible for anyone to avoid being tracked. Sensors will monitor the behavior of anyone with a Bluetooth- or Wi-Fi-connected device. Given the expansive reach of cameras and the growing use of facial-recognition software, it is increasingly impossible to escape surveillance even by abandoning one’s personal digital technology.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/opinion/cities-privacy-surveillance.html

That phrase, “Smart City,” is something you’re going to hear more-and-more. Listen for it.

Is this the Mark of the Beast? No; the Mark isn’t technology; it is swearing allegiance to him, worshipping him.

But reading the Bible as we should, as futurists, these advances and invasions of privacy are exactly what was predicted.

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