God’s News In The News

Week One Hundred Sixty-Two

Prophecy Update: While You Were Sleeping

It’s Alive!

Not too long ago an executive order was signed authorizing the implementation of the CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency. Or at least it paved the way for such a digital currency since such a move away from a cash society would require the US Congress to enact it. But having it as an option is what we see now. And as of July 20th of this year, it the system called FedNow is live for approved banking institutions. While not fully used by the United States, this is a huge step in banking for America since such a system was not operational until this month. Federal officials have made public statements that the cash you have in your wallet will still be good and that the digital currency is only an option, albeit one they will push more and more. The banks themselves are under immense pressure to adopt it as the preferred way to make transactions since the instant access to funds will speed up processing speed greatly. But Americans are not too keen on seeing those Benjamins replaced by a digital dollar.

Slow To The Party

Interestingly, many of the major nations in the world are lagging behind in their adoption of the CBDC. In an article from Forbes.com from June 6th of this year by Wayne Duggan America is behind to the digital currency party:

The U.S. is a latecomer to the CBDC party. China’s digital yuan pilot program is being used to pay salaries today, while the Bahamas’ sand dollar is legal tender in the Caribbean nation. Australia, Thailand, Brazil, India, South Korea and Russia are running or preparing to launch CBDC projects.

Why the hesitance? Well, losing control of how you spend your money is at the top of the list for reasons Americans and other countries aren’t switching over. According to Rich Checkan, President and Co-Founder of Assets Strategies International there are some real issues with the CBDC:

The negatives of CBDCs are overwhelming, including total government control of the populace, noted Checkan.

"The biggest one for me is just the complete loss of individual privacy. There's no financial privacy with the CBDC," he said.

Also, CBDCs are programmable and can be used to control how the money is being spent.

"If you control the money, you control the people. And there's no doubt in my mind that a lot of central banks around the world are looking at this as a means of control of the populace," he added.

Who Controls The “Money”

As far as using physical dollars, that has been declining for years anyway. The number of “unbanked” households, those who never use a bank for anything, has risen dramatically as online transactions such as buying from Amazon or just about anywhere else don’t take cash anyway. To say that Americans are against this move based on not being able to use cash is not the issue here. This issue, as Checkan notes is control and Americans are fiercely independent about their freedoms. Well up until the pandemic, that is. Many world leaders saw how easy it was to get people to give up simple freedoms for health reasons and so the template is there. But the matter of convenience is also there so squaring the two can be complicated.

Is It Inevitable?

If you are a student of Bible prophecy, the answer is yes. We will see a world-wide system that controls buying and selling as clearly noted in Revelation 13:16-17:

Also he compels all [alike], both small and great, both the rich and the poor, both free and slave, to be marked with an inscription [stamped] on their right hands or on their foreheads,

17 So that no one will have power to buy or sell unless he bears the stamp (mark, inscription), [that is] the name of the beast or the number of his name. (AMPC)

Going back to Checkan we read this:

A CBDC could be inevitable in the U.S. due to the rising pressure on the greenback to remain the dominant reserve currency. "From the U.S. standpoint, it's about the global lead in this effort," Checkan said.

There are 130 countries exploring a CBDC, and the U.S. doesn't want to be left behind. "That's a real concern for our leaders," he noted.

The U.S. has benefited from being the world's reserve currency, with the rest of the world buying American debt. "It has a big impact on our standard of living. And if it goes away, our standard of living will suffer," Checkan said.

And with the de-dollarization trend gaining speed, central banks worldwide hold fewer reserves in U.S. dollars, preferring gold and other currencies, Checkan described.

"There are two things that we're doing that are driving people away from dollars. We're mismanaging the dollar. And we weaponized it," he said.

The West freezing nearly half of Russia's $640 billion of gold and forex reserves last year has triggered a shift, encouraging many other countries to look for an alternative to the U.S. dollar.

Just Another BRICS In The Wall

Pressure to go digital is also coming from the growing BRICS movement. BRICS stands for the five founding countries wanting to create their own currency backed by the gold standard. BRICS is comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa however those wanting in on this movement is expanding almost daily. In an article by Reuters from July 20th of this year we read this:

More than 40 countries have expressed interested in joining the BRICS group of nations, South Africa's top diplomat in charge of relations with the bloc said on Thursday.

Anil Sooklal and officials from the department of foreign affairs were addressing journalists in the main commercial city of Johannesburg, a day after South Africa confirmed Russia's Vladamir Putin would not attend the BRICS summit due to take place on Aug. 22-24.

The question of how far and fast to expand the club - centred around Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - is top of the agenda at the summit of nations seeking to offset to the perceived hegenomy of the U.S.-led West in global affairs.

Aside from the 22 countries that had formally asked to join, Sooklal said there was "an equal number of countries that have informally expressed interest in becoming BRICS members ... (including) all the major global south countries".

South African officials want BRICS to become a champion of the developing world, and Argentina, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, Gabon, and Kazakhstan have all expressed interest.

The interest in BRICS could be laying the groundwork for a one-world government, also predicted by the Bible in various places, from Daniel to Revelation. And by going digital, that mark of the beast system could right around the corner.

I Wish We’d All Been Ready

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.” (Rev 8:8, NKJV)

Although it isn’t in the Bible, a 1969 song by Larry Norman popularized the phrase “A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold.” in his song “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” This line was probably based on the scripture quoted above telling us just how much hyperinflation there will be during the Tribulation. We’ve seen it happen before during the Weimar Republic in Germany from November 9th of 1918 to March 23rd of 1933 where things were so bad that it is said a man went to the store with a wheel barrow full of money, and when he came back out the money was on the ground but the wheel barrow was stolen because it was more valuable than the money. Several other current countries are experiencing such high inflation now with Venezuela leading the way with a staggering inflation rate of 1,198%. Those who advocate a CBDC system point to all of these examples for using a digital currency as a way to avoid excessive inflation because it changes could be targeted and immediate implementation. But that also highlights the danger of it as well. As the scripture also notes, not harming the oil or wine is a reference to not hurting the very rich while you restrict everyone else.

Feeling Chipper

Along with the CBDC changes and the BRICS movement, the advances of implantable chips that could allow people to buy and sell without any money or even credit cards on them is a very real goal. In fact, it already exists in some places. And some companies put such microchips in their employees allowing them to not use cards to enter or leave their plants or offices. Just about every pet has a chip in them so it’s not like any of this tech is new. Of course, with Elon Musk’s Neuralink program, the goal is to implant a chip right in the brain, which is very scary in my opinion, regardless of the benefits he touts. A lot of Bible prophecy teachers think this is what John the Apostle describes in Revelation 13 and even secular journalists are jumping on that bandwagon. However, we need to pump the brakes on the mark of the beast being a microchip under the skin of a person’s body. That’s not what John said.

Seeing Is Believing

In the book of Revelation John is caught up by the Holy Spirit and taken to the future to record what he sees and hears. It is important to note that when John doesn’t understand what he is seeing, he asks for help. He will say that what he saw looks like this or that most likely because he is seeing things that haven’t been made before or have never been seen before. But when he sees something that he knows or is simple to describe, he uses plan language. Such is the case when he tells us about the mark of the beast, something he actually sees and the original language supports that assertion. The word for “mark” is charagma (khar'-ag-mah) and means properly, an engraving (etching); (figuratively) a mark providing undeniable identification, like a symbol giving irrefutable connection between parties, ("brand-mark") was originally any impress on a coin or a seal, used by an engraver on a die (stamp, branding iron)… later became "the identification-marker" (like with an owner's unique "brand-mark"). Some commentators say it is like a tattoo and even some translations use that word as well:

He required everyone—great and small, rich and poor, slave and free—to be tattooed with a certain mark on the right hand or on the forehead. (Rev 13:16-17, TLB)

Now, the chip could work with this mark to allow the system to work easier, and John actually had a word for something put under the skin (hupo, which is where we get the word hypodermic from if that was what it was, but he chose to not use it. It was clearly seen as it was given.

All That To Say This

The technology for a cashless society is getting closer and closer to being digital and global. And that is needed for the mark of the beast to be implemented and that’s exactly what is seen. I also believe that national currencies are going to go the way of the dinosaur which, again is something that is predicted in Bible prophecy. Even people who have no knowledge of the Bible at all can see what is unfolding and when it is noted that John saw it over 2,000 years ago it gives credence to all of prophecy and all of scripture as well. It is a great way to evangelize the lost and God tells us to do just that. Time is also short as these pieces fall into place so we should also purify ourselves as John also told us in 1 John 3:3:

Dear friends, we are God’s children now. But it has not yet been shown to us what we are going to be. We know that when He comes again, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is. 3 The person who is looking for this to happen will keep himself pure because Christ is pure. (NLV)

And we need to work during the day, because the night is coming when no man can work. The fields are ripe unto harvest so let us be about out Father’s business!