We already talked about the natural disasters that are increasing in frequency and intensity, which could be an indicator that we're living in the last days. How the gospel is being spread to all nations. How Israel has been regathered in the land. And now we also talked about last week the push towards a one world government comprised of ten regions. Did the book of Revelation, the book of Daniel speak about that? Now, this week we want to look at the microchip implant, which could be a forerunner to the Mark of the Beast and the future of casuist society. And next week we'll be looking at the move towards a one-world religion through the United Religions. So let's take a look at Revelation 13 and verses 16 through 18. And talking about a false prophet, the right-hand man of the Antichrist, and it says that he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666. So in the last days, the Antichrist will be worshipped by many, and his right-hand man, the false prophet, will also be in possession. will force people to work with the Antichrist and to receive his mark on the right hand or on the forehead, and they will not be able to buy or to sell without the mark of the beast. It has something to do with his number, which is 666. You know, it's interesting, too. When you go to the store, you're buying. We're already moving in the electronic direction. Sometimes you buy a lot of materials, and you have no idea how much it costs. All you see is a barcode on the side. Now, hopefully you'll have a little bit of something on the row that it's in, on the shelf that it's in, that will tell you how much it costs. Sometimes you don't see that. You have no idea what it costs until they scan that barcode. Okay, so things are being done electronically. There's no reason why we couldn't eventually go with a microchip. and this is what people want to do right now, where you can scan people so that we don't have to exchange money, we don't even have to give a credit card, that the transaction would occur electronically. Now, it's interesting with the universal product code, there are two thin lines in the front, two thin lines in the middle, and two thin lines at the end. Basically, every two lines has a numerical value. And the two thin lines, either in the front, The middle or the end, the numerical value is six. So for some weird reason, the universal product code is already on a 666 basis. So I don't know if that kind of thinking is going to be brought into microchip technology or whatever, but it is possible for each human being to have their own number prefixed by a 666. We don't know for sure. But at this point, the applied digital solutions of Miami, Florida has come up with the Veriship. They call it the digital angel, the Veriship. And now there is a push for microchip implants. It's being argued even beyond, well, the original idea that, you know, you don't want people to steal your money. If somebody, if you go to a cancer society, nobody can steal your money anymore. You can wipe out by, you know, selling drugs and illegal occupations. Because if you go to a gaseous society, all transactions will be monitored. So there's a lot of quote-unquote good that could come out of this. But even beyond that, now with child abductions on the rise, if your child was microchipped, you could track their location, their whereabouts, through satellite technology. And so the list goes on with terrorism. You could identify people, mark all human beings on a planet, so if somebody wanted, you could locate them via satellite and get the terrorist, get the bad guy. And so there's a lot of so-called good arguments for this type of technology. Now, what I'm going to do today is I'm going to look at some of the arguments over the years, some of the writings in secular literature. where they have been arguing for the microchip technology and arguing for some kind of moving to a cashless society. And I'm going to bring you up to date where we're at right now, because since September 11, 2001, there's been a much stronger outcry for the microchip technology. It's something that we really need to take a close look at. Now, there are people, there are thousands of people who have the microchip already throughout the world. That does not mean they have accepted the mark of the beast. In order to accept the mark of the beast, you're going to have to deny Christ and acknowledge the Antichrist as your God, worship the Antichrist as your God. No such thing is occurring right now, because this is not the mark of the beast. At the same time, we are human beings. My dog is microchipped. I'm glad my dog is microchipped. If my dog is lost, I want somebody to take it into a kennel and get it scanned and find out that it belongs to us. And so even if the collar falls off, the dog is returned to us. But I don't have a problem with my dog being microchipped because my dog is a dog. My dog is not a human being. If you own cattle, you brand your cattle. If you don't brand your kids, We're human beings. We need to be treated like human beings. Every move that we make does not need to be monitored by satellites. We don't need Big Brother. Whenever you get a Big Brother society with video cameras everywhere... By the way, if a guy owns a business and he wants to put up cameras to monitor every inch of his store, that's his business, literally. Okay? And I'm all for his right to do that. But when it's the government that wants to do that, that's a whole different story. Big government, all powerful government, is mutually exclusive with worship of the true God. Because big government is really the government's attempt to play God. And we need to watch out for that. Those are the arguments coming for this mark right now. that it could provide us with so much protection and prevent so much bad that is going on. Let me just read what Revelation 14, 9-11 says about those who accept the mark of the beast. So no matter how good the arguments are, not only would I not accept the mark of the beast, but I wouldn't even accept any kind of permanent marking on my right hand or forehead or any microchip, whatever. We need, I think this is an issue where we need to draw the line in the sand. And the people who accept the microchip Before it becomes the Mark of the Beast, I think they're going to be just one step closer, and it's going to make the decision to reject the Mark of the Beast that much harder. Look at Revelation 14, 9 to 11. It tells us what happens to those who accept the Mark of the Beast. Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. The smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name." So it's real clear that if you accept the mark of the beast, you are held out. If you accept the mark of the beast, there is no way that you can be forgiven. So I think accepting the mark of the beast would be tantamount to blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, whereby a person rejects Christ, makes a final heart denial or rejection of Christ, and they will never, ever, ever think of accepting Christ as long as they live. The Scriptures are clear. Those who accept the mark of the beast will be lost forever. So now what I want to do is look back at a couple of articles that I referred to years ago, warning about the mark of the beast, and then show you where we have come since then, what's going on in the news right now. Now, this first article is from Computer Source magazine, and it's dated June 1997. That's, what, about eight years ago. And the article's titled, Strange Horizons Under Your Skin. by William Van Winkle. He starts out with a paragraph that says this. A man sits in a holding cell deciding. He is the last human without an implant, that network chip wired into the brain space. He can't exist in virtual space nor conduct any financial transactions. He has no history, except in his primitive natural mind, and no social identity. In short, he cannot function with the rest of his species, and he must either adapt, accepting the government's implant offer, or die. He feels himself torn and cannot choose, even when he hears the approaching footsteps. And so this is a computer source magazine. They're arguing about the technology. This is the kind of technology that's coming down. So this guy comes up with this fictional story here. Now, he says this. Researchers at Harvard Medical School and MIT are now working on an artificial retina chip perfectly suited for this reason. This would sit at the back of the eye, tied into the optic nerve, and pass visual images to the brain. There's no reason why such signals couldn't be recorded or even transmitted. And further on, it says, the proposition of bringing computers into the human body is no longer fantasy, but fact. People I surveyed seem unanimously averse to accepting a computer into their bodies. But acceptance is a slow, reluctant process. It begins with the medical benefits, such as those listed above. Next month, we'll explore a different option. Would you be willing to implant all your ID and your money under your skin? Developments are afoot that may not only intrigue, but persuade you. In the next month, he goes into his article, Liam Van Winkle, Strange Horizons, Smart Money, and he has several other articles as well. All this computer source magazine is doing is looking at the technology that is there. And what they're saying is we have the technology to microchip human beings and handle all our financial transactions electronically. April 27, 1998, Time Magazine, on the cover, it says, The Future of Money, and it says, Are Banks Really Necessary? They give this big argument about going with smart cards and eventually moving on to a microchip implant. One little sentence in this article says, Your daughter can store the money any way she wants, on her laptop, on a debit card, even in the not-too-distant future, on a chip implanted under her skin. And so we see that in 1998, Time Magazine was talking about this movement towards microchipping human beings and moving to a cashless society. Now, bringing you up to date, some articles written in 2005 We have Thomas Horne, he's a Christian writer, he writes for newswithviews.com, and this article is from April 24, 2005, and the title is, Are Christians Being Groomed to Access the Coming Antichrist? He starts his argument with this. Today I learned that Montrose High School in the little town of Montrose, Oregon, is the latest government institution to allow students to pay for their lunch with a swipe of a hand. Only yesterday in a related event, Chief of Police Jack Schmidt of Bergen County, New Jersey, a member of the police force for over 30 years, received a VeriShift implant as part of applied digital solution strategy of enlisting key regional leaders to accelerate adoption of its product. Kevin H. McLaughlin, VeriShift Corporation CEO, said at the event that high-profile regional leaders are accepting the VeriShift, representing an excellent example of our approach. to gain adoption of the technology. Again, they refer to this as a digital angel at this point. It appears that somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 human beings on the planet have already been microchipped, and voluntarily at that, they usually volunteer for it. There's arguments that this could help us with our medical records as well, if you were You know, if you found them nauseous somewhere, emergency medical teams could come in and just scan you and receive all your medical information. And, you know, if you were a diabetic, that could really help out and things of that sort. So now what we're seeing is this is coming about. What Computer Source Magazine spoke about in the 1990s, what Time Magazine spoke about in 1998, now we see occurring. In fact, the first known human microchip implantation occurred in August of 1998, and now we have quite a few people, a few thousand, around the globe. Tom Warren states that recently millions of today's show viewers watched as the decade of prophetic warnings materialized when an American family got shipped. with the verichip, live from the doctor's office. This is what was spoken about in the 1990s, is coming about, and this could be preparing the way for the mark of the beast. Now, here's something reported on news.com, July 18, 2005. It says, former Bush official to get RFID tagged, it's one of the names of the Applied Digital or the Digital Angel. It states as follows by Michael Kanellos, Tommy Thompson, the Health and Human Services Secretary in President Bush's first term and a former governor of Wisconsin is going to get tagged. Thompson has joined the board of Applied Digital, he's on the board, with Jones Berkship, the company that specializes in placing RFID tags for humans and pets under the skin. To help promote the concept behind the technology, Thompson himself will get an RFID tag implanted under his skin. Now, this is the interesting thing with Tommy Thompson, too. He worked as the former Health and Human Services Secretary in President Bush's first term. He's former governor of Wisconsin. Supposedly, he's supposed to be on the political right, calls himself a conservative, and he claims to be a born-again Christian. And here this guy is getting microchipped, setting up what I think is a really bad example for us. This is becoming more and more common since September 11th, 2001. I preached a message, you can listen to it over the internet, you can go to our website, and then click on sermon audio. I preached the message, Terrorism, How America Should Respond, on Sunday after September 11th, September 16th, 2001. In that message, I argued that whenever tragedies like September 11th occur, As horrific as they are, as bad as they are, usually what is worse than the tragedy itself is how people allow the governing authorities to respond to it. In other words, when you have big tragedies, they're almost always followed by the government, gaining more and more power, more and more control over the lives of the law-abiding citizens, supposedly in an attempt to keep them safe, to protect them, save lives. But then once the catastrophe is over, people never get their rights back. And so the outcry, the technology has been around since the 1990s, But the outcry to now microchip human beings is now being blended with the outcry for protection from terrorism. Now, this is what I'm going to say right now is not going to please those in the Democratic camp or those in the Republican camp, okay? But the fact of the matter is Ben Franklin spoke For the Founding Fathers, you could read their writings. The Founding Fathers, especially if you read the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers, you'll see that the Founding Fathers all shared the same concern. But Ben Franklin said that a people who are willing to trade liberty, freedom, in exchange for security, deserve neither. See, what Ben Franklin was saying is, if you want the government to protect you, every step that you take, everywhere you go, that's going to entail federal agents, armed federal agents everywhere you go. It's going to entail hacks being rolled down the street in modern days. Right now, the earlier arguments for the microchip technology, for implementing it, now appear to be stronger than ever before because of the threat of terrorism. And let me tell you, the Bible tells us over and over again to submit to the governing authorities. But contrary to popular belief, and contrary to what is being taught from most pulpits throughout this land, including evangelical pulpits, the Bible nowhere tells us to trust the governing authority. In fact, the Bible tells us, do not trust the king. Do not trust the prince. When you look at the founding fathers, they were the same way. They did not trust Great Britain. We realize part of their argument for declaring independence from Great Britain is that as a British soldier, killed an American citizen, he wasn't tried in America, he would be tried in Great Britain. And they didn't know whether he'd be found guilty or not. But because they did not trust the governing authorities, they assumed, the worst case scenario, that these guys were getting away with it. Basically, you know, you look at John chapter 2, the last two verses. There, that Jesus knew what was in the heart of all men, so he didn't trust any of them. The founding fathers, when they were handcuffing the future leaders of America, and with a separation of powers and system of checks and balances, so no one man or no one group of men could have too much power, and that there would be a lot of red tapes and butting heads in government, it was because they did not trust government leaders, even when those government leaders were going to be themselves. So the Founding Fathers were telling us we can't trust George Washington, then why in the world do we think that we need to blindly trust our leaders today? And so basically we should be active in the political process as believers, but we need to watch our leaders like a hawk. And the antithesis of holding the government in suspicion and not trusting them and watching them closely, because the Founding Fathers knew power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The antithesis of that would be allowing the government to intrude into our bodies, give us a mindership, monitor our every move, and then feel like we're a lot safer. Since September 11, 2001, it's easier to get into America illegally, It's easier to stay here in America if you're illegally here. The only people's rights we've been infringed upon are law-abiding citizens. Believe me, it can get worse. The way we're treated at airports right now, the day could come when we're treated any time you step outside your home. And believe me, if the rest of America becomes the way airports are today, and if our freedom of religious speech is stifled as it is in our public schools today, so basically the rest of the country becomes like our public schools and airports. You basically have a pretty good description of the old Soviet Union. Now, I wish I could say that one political party would get carried to that they're fighting it, but the fact of the matter is, through different routes, both sides of the aisle are calling for bigger and bigger government. And so we Christians need to closely monitor this and to cry out, take a stand for human rights, so that we are not treated like as being less than human. Now turn to Matthew 6, verse 24. I'll put the Matthew 6, verse 24 right there in the quote for you, 2 Corinthians 5.15. 2 Corinthians 5.15 tells us that it says, and he, talking about Jesus, and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. You see, our response to this should be, our response to everything should be, well, I guess I'm just going to have to live for Jesus. And if you are willing to live for Jesus right now, I think you're doing pretty good for you. We're doing a lot better. Because in America, we're automatically doing better than 90% of the people on the planet Earth. People in many countries don't even know where their next meal is coming from. But if you are willing to live for Jesus during the good times, then you have good reason to suspect that you'll be willing to die for Jesus if things get bad. But if you're not willing to live for Jesus right now, don't tell me that you're willing to die for Him. If we can't live for Him during the good times, how are we going to die for Him when things get bad? But we need to be so in love with Jesus. You know, there are many people who teach that the church will be raptured before the tribulation starts. Among Christian scholars, Christian Bible scholars, that is not a real common view to hold. And so I don't see the biblical or the historical evidence for that doctrine, although I hope it's true. But I doubt. It seems to me that the pupils of the Apostles, selected by the Apostles to lead the early Church, the Apostolic Fathers, in their writing, it's very clear that Jesus will return, will literally reign on earth, but the Church will be persecuted by the Antichrist during the Tribulation period. We need We basically need to sit down and examine our consciences, and ask ourselves, am I living for Jesus, and am I willing to die for Him if need be? Now look at Matthew 6, verse 24. Listen to what Jesus says here. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and man. And man is the Aramaic word for wealth. In the end, the decision about whether or not we're going to side with Jesus is going to come down to deciding Jesus, to follow Jesus rather than wealth, deciding to follow Jesus rather than having food and water, to decide for Jesus and a supposed life of comfort. Let me tell you. People will act like, well, you set the mark of the beast, you'll have a comfortable time. No, it seems to me that when the mark of the beast is instituted, there's only three and a half years left before the return of Christ, and it's going to be hell on earth for everybody. So whether you set the mark of the beast or you don't, your life is going to be pretty miserable from a human perspective. Let's say on a basis of one to ten, it's as far as engaging badness. It's a nine if you accept the mark of the beast. If you don't accept the mark of the beast, it's even worse. It's a ten because you can't go to the store to buy food. Okay? The fact of the matter is, that'd be three and a half years of hell on earth. But if you refuse to accept the mark, and if you stay loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ, then you get eternity of joy and wisdom. Those who accept the mark of the beast are going to get three and a half years of the worst time in the history of mankind on the planet earth, and then that's followed by the eternal flames of hell. That's not a real good deal, but that's the kind of deal you get when you decide you're Lucifer. That's the kind of deal you get when Lucifer convinces us the grass is greener on the other side, and that we need to leave the fields of our Lord and come to Him because He's got a better offer. Adam and Eve had paradise. Adam and Eve turned it down to what Satan had to offer, and all he gave us was thorns, and suffering, and pain, and sweat. You know, we've got to make that decision, but don't wait. Don't wait to make that decision in the future. You need to stay with Joshua, but it's from me and my house. we will serve the Lord. You need to decide for Jesus right here and now, and that means being so in love with Jesus you're willing to live for Him, and being so in love with Jesus that you're willing to die for Him. Now at this point, if you turn to 1 Corinthians 11, we're going to receive the Lord's Supper. It sounds like a tough transition to make from the Mark of the Beast to the end time prophecies. to celebrating the Lord's Supper, but it's really not. Because I'll tell you, the worse things get, the more anti-Christian things get in this world. I mean, how many times have you watched CNN? You've seen them slam Christianity time and time again. Yesterday I was watching CNN. It was not one of these shows that they have on. They were just reporting the news. And they decided to interview a lady wrote a book about Buddhist meditation. And then the lady reporter was just so excited about it and asked her, could you describe how you do Buddhist meditation, how our viewers could do it? And then she was all real excited about it. So their CNN was promoting Buddhist meditation while at the same time on a regular basis they slam traditional Christianity so things are going to get worse and worse and as the evil get more and more anti-christian what that's going to force the church to do is to get closer and closer together and so we may not always like each other sometimes we may get on each other's nerves but this is our family And I thought of what happened in China recently. The Chinese government went to a Sunday school to regular practice. They took the children, they put them on a bus, and they drove them to a place and tried to get them to put in writing that Jesus is not their Lord, something along those lines. And the children refused, they sang praise songs. The authorities didn't know what to do, because they didn't want to kill the children. So then they called the parents and got the parents to be the parents who denied Christ. And most of the parents did, because most of the parents weren't Christians. The kids were just going to the churches and becoming Christians. So they gave their children back, but a few of the parents refused to deny Christ. And the government didn't know what to do, and they just thought, you know, if we just pretend this thing never happened, we'd be better off, and they just released the children to the past. Days are getting rougher and rougher. Eventually that persecution is going to come here to America. And so we need to take a stand for Jesus. And we need to gather together and announce, not just to ourselves, but to the world, that we do believe. That's one of the things we do when we partake of the broken bread and the fruit of the vine. We proclaim Jesus' death and His resurrection until He returns in glory. We tell the world, we don't care what you think. We love you. We'd love to see you in heaven someday. But the fact of the matter is, Jesus died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead to conquer death for us. There is salvation in no one else. So we'll turn to Him and to Him alone in salvation. Let me read 1 Corinthians 11, 23 and 26. The Apostle Paul says this, 1 Corinthians 11, 23, 26. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took breath, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take ye, this is my body which is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me. The same hour he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. And so now, before we examine, before we partake of the bread and the fruit of the vine, let's go to the Lord in prayer, examine our consciences, and acknowledge the Lord in what areas we fall short in, ask Him for His forgiveness, Ask Him to straighten us out, to purify us, to make us more like His Son, but also to thank Him for sending His Son to die on the cross for our sins.