Just thinking about how connected the world is today. I can find someone who speaks English anywhere I go. ( I have tried.) For a small fee, I can find just about anyone in the United States via internet. If you have a GPS-enabled device, you can be tracked around the globe. (And some kinds of phones, notebooks, and even e-books have them, I am told…)
The universal system of language, law, and government that allowed Christianity to spread freely throughout the Roman world was the same system that made possible universal persecution of the Church under Diocletian and other emperors.
Scripture tell us of a one-world government rising in the last days. John’s vision of the last days recorded in The Revelation mentions this. In chapter thirteen, John writes, ” He [the Anti-Christ] also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.”
This is a pretty amazing prophecy when you consider that such a thing could never have been possible when John saw it. It could be decreed, but would be impossible to enforce. But now we have a world financial system. You may have noticed that any recession is now world-wide. As more of our transactions are electronic (even personal checks are instantly debited at Wal-Mart) it is more plausible than ever that a worldwide electronic currency could be created. Could the mark be a chip in the forehead or hand? We already put them in pets. It is also interesting that he mentions that the system is based on a number. All electronic communication is digital, based on numbers. Even now, I can get cash all over the world, if I have my card and remember my pin. (I once had to use an ATM in Baguio City, Philippines.) We should pause to consider that all these things were unimaginable in the first century. Later, there is a scene in Revelations where the two prophets are killed and it is seen by the whole world. A satellite feed can be blocked at the source, as we have seen in Iran. But if something like this were picked up on a cell phone and put on YouTube… This is the first age that many of these details are even possible.
The same systems that are tearing down barriers all over the world, that are uniting us together, are also making us more dependent upon everyone else in the world. We have gone from a small world to a micro world.
What am I saying? Use all these advantages to share the life-changing message of Christ Jesus. But do not be surprised when, just like Roman times, they are used against the church.
By the way, at the end of the book, we win.
Jimmy H. Malone Jr. 