Good day Blain!
From the time the Lord called me, I was drawn to understanding end-time events and the book of Revelation. What has become a sign that we are that last generation is the rise of the mark of the beast technology.
When the first ATM's came out, I knew that this was relevant to the coming mark. Then came the Universal produce Code (UPC), followed by the Point of Sale (POS) system, where you swipe your credit or debit cards. Following that came the RFID chip technology where people are having them inserted between the skin of their thumbs and index finger, for the purpose of gaining building access, security, accessing company machines and for making food purchases.
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He also 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 his name.
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The technology for the mark of the beast was not going to just suddenly appear, but had to come into being and has been evolving for some time now as electronic crediting and debiting i.e. buying and selling. When money goes into your account it is an electronic credit and when money comes out of your account it debits your account. We see this technology everywhere. When we go into the grocery stores, people get out their cards to pay for their purchase electronically buying. People don't even recognize what this technology is or what it is ultimately going to be used for.
As we continue to move into the future, the mark technology will continue to evolve. Currently it is an RFID chip, but I'm positive that will evolve into something more applicable. What will remain consistent is that this device for buying and selling will ultimately be located on the hand or the forehead. The video below is not Christian based. Charlie Warzel the editor of Buzzfeed magazine wanted to live for a month making purchases with nothing but by having his hand scanned, which in real time debited his back account for each electronic purchase.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...C5293894ECC971F10B69C5293894ECC971F&FORM=VIRE
Currently, Sweden and her sister countries, are pretty much a cashless society using the scanning or swiping of cards in order to buy and sell (crediting and debiting). We also have companies here in the US who are offering chips under the skin of the hand for making purchases in their break rooms. All of these things are the continuing evolution of the coming mark.
As this mark technology continues to evolve, cash and checks have been in the process of being phased out, so that electronic buying and selling will be the only way to credit or debit ones bank account. When that the beast is revealed, in order for that mark to work which says that anyone without the mark would not be able to buy or sell, the other methods of buying and selling (cash, checks, credit and debit cards, etc.) must be made obsolete, so that the only way to credit or debit ones account will be by the use of that coming device in the hand or the forehead, which will be the mark of the beast. The word of God says that it will be the number of a man. I believe that in the same way that our debit and credit cards digitally have bank codes and misc. codes within the chip of your card, in the same way I believe that the name of this beast or the number of his name will ultimately be encoded into that device/mark. Receiving this mark will then become a form of worship, aligning oneself with the beast.
But getting back to your question, it is this technology that has been here and evolving that tells me that we are in the last days. The next event to take place will be the appearing of the Lord to gather His church. Once that takes place, the Day of the Lord will follow, which is the time of God's wrath via the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments. It will be somewhere in the middle of that last seven years that this mark will become the only way of buying and selling and according to that third angel in Revelation 14:9-12, we know what the consequences will be for those who receive the beasts mark.
For those who are on the earth during that time, it will be a matter of taking the mark in order to be able to continue buying and selling, or rejecting the mark because knowing what it is and whose mark it is. Those who receive it will be those whos names were not written in the book of life before the world began. And those who reject it will belong to the group known as the great tribulation saints.