By Danny O’Neill —
On the surface, microchips implanted into your hand could be — excuse the pun — really handy.
They could be a ready substitute for cash or credit card in the check-out line and can’t be stolen by thieves. They could carry critical medical information for an emergency surgery when you’re unconscious.
Companies in Sweden are hailing their microchips as the wave of the future. The size of a grain of rice, the microchip can be injected by syringe in the loose flesh between the thumb and forefinger. With just a wave the hand, doors are opened, transactions completed, printers operate and life becomes automatized.
“The biggest benefit I think is convenience,” Patrick Mesterton, co-founder and CEO of Epicenter told AP. “It basically replaces a lot of things you have, other communication devices, whether it be credit cards or keys.”
But many are not so enthusiastic. Ethicists warn that the new technology raises the specter of a dystopian, Orwellian reality in which people can be monitored by government and hacked by programmers.
Christians — who for decades have speculated that the coming 666 “mark of the Beast” in Revelation could be by a similar technological implant — want nothing to do with it.
“Microchip fears have stoked prophetic speculations for years — but many biblical scholars note that Revelation is not pointing to some inadvertently-adopted technology, but is speaking symbolically of those who cast their lot with the opponents of Christ for societal approval,” noted Jerry Newcombe in The Christian Post.
Revelations 13:16-18 says the Anti Christ “forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[e] That number is 666.”
But when the CEO of a Wisconsin company calls the bio-insert “the next thing that’s inevitably going to happen,” Christians can’t be faulted for seeing an uncanny similarity to what the Bible foretells.
“We foresee the use of RFID technology to drive everything from making purchases in our office break room market, opening doors, use of copy machines, logging into our office computers, unlocking phones, sharing business cards, storing medical/health information, and used as payment at other RFID terminals,” said Todd Westby of Three Square Market.
Westby — who either is ignorant of biblical apocalyptic scenarios or doesn’t give a fig about them — got 50 of his 80 employees to voluntarily receive the injected microchips for their convenience.
“Eventually, this technology will become standardized allowing you to use this as your passport, public transit, all purchasing opportunities, etc,” he said to WKYC studio news.
As far back as 2012, Pastor John Haggee warned that microchipping would be the vehicle for the mark of the Beast. Already, governments are forcing citizens to vaccinate and snitch on each other for not obeying lockdowns. They could very easily make a minor step forward and “start forcing you to wear a chip and they start forcing you to keep laws that you don’t want to keep,” he wrote in Christian Headlines.
Hope Christian Fellowship’s Pastor Dave Doyle was less moderate in his assessment of the microchipping fad. “I take microchipping as a form of the mark. There’s many pieces of the mark, and then again, all these pieces of the mark is designed to control,” the Iowa pastor says.
“It will eventually become something that’s mandatory,” he says. “For those who refuse it, you will have to deal with the authorities who don’t appreciate your opinions.”
Microsoft founder Bill Gates ran afoul of End Times watchdogs when he mentioned on Reddit that “digital certificates” could be used to implant vaccination records into bodies — an appealing option for developing countries where records get lost, Reuters reported. With the rise of COVID-19, a fury has been subsequently unleashed against Gates for that comment. Speculation accuses him of being a forerunner of the Beast.
NPR reported in October 2018 that more than 4,000 Swedes had received the microchip from Biohax International. “Swedes are very pragmatic and the chip is useful,” says Erik Frisk, who received the chip “since a lot of people know each other in the tech community — it’s very tight — [the trend has] been spreading and people have seen the benefits.”
The Swedes are the least religious and most technologically savvy in Europe, by many estimations.
Microchipping pets has also been an alternative, with the benefit that you won’t lose Fluffy.
When all is said in done, there may be something even more sinister in microchipping than it being simply the modality for the 666. It could be a forerunner to transhumanism.
Transhumanism seeks to produce evolution in humans through science, either by introducing genes into humans or by incorporating technology such as microchips implanted in the brain.
Already DARPA has introduced the spider-web gene into goats to harvest bullet proof material from goat’s milk. Speculation swirls around the idea of making super warriors to equip armies, men and women with eagle-eye vision and the stamina of a horse.
If interaction between Artificial Intelligence and human intelligence is achieved, it could be appealing to not have to learn a whit more but simply download calculus or a foreign language — or a skill like flying a helicopter — directly into your brain.
As science fiction becomes science fact, questions arise about the ethics of interfering with natural processes or — worse yet — playing God. Evolutionists who don’t believe in God but think we evolved from apes see no problem with their technological contributions that move evolution along. They argue it’s even necessary for our species to evolve in order to survive.
Christians, on the other hand, are understandably wary about tampering with God’s creation. Some observers warn that transhumanism will be far worse than transgenderism.
Microchipping could be the method employed by the Beast. But will it also further man’s quest to be like God?
Danny O’Neill studies at the Lighthouse Christian Academy of Santa Monica.
