Writing as a man well into my 50’s, I can say this with assurance. The future that lies before us is unlike any I imagined as a kid or a young man. The world has been turned on its head. That men would marry men – and women marry women – is absurd beyond belief. That science would anticipate a time when human beings would no longer be fully human is would have stretched the boundaries of credulity. That true Christianity would have become a pariah in the culture that it once defined and ordered remains an amazement. So today’s installment will be just about some seemingly unrelated trends that are shaping our future; all of them setting the stage for eventual prophetic fulfillments.
STAGE SETTING
BEYOND HUMAN – Scientists are altering the human experience. Mankind will no longer be limited to the features God gave him. A recent article carried by Yahoo reviewed some of the ways that we’ll be changing in just a few short years. The first listed was “Implantable Smart Phones.” The article describes how: “Researchers are experimenting with embedded sensors that turn human bone into living speakers. Other scientists are working on eye implants that let an image be captured with a blink and transmitted to any local storage (such as that arm-borne RFID chip).” And images might be displayed on either artificial skin on your arms – or in your eye implants. Healing Chips – that automatically respond to your bodies need, Cyber pills that talk to your doctor, Implantable birth control and “Smart tattoos…that not only look cool, but can also perform useful tasks, like unlocking your car or entering smartphone codes with a finger-point.” If that’s not enough, there is Brain-computer inteface, with “the human brain linked directly to computers” to operate external devices. This could be in place in just a few short years – by 2020 some scientists believe. Finally there is the Mother of All Implantables – what the Yahoo article calls “The Verified Self.” This would be an implantable chip that “could be used to ID every single human being….Already, the U.S. military has serious programs afoot to equip soldiers with implanted RFID chips, so keeping track of troops becomes automatic and worldwide.”[i] This of course brings to mind the oft-quoted prophecy found in Revelation 13:16-17. “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[f] the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
CHRISTIANITY NOT WELCOME HERE – While parts of Africa and other areas of the Third World are experiencing an explosion of faith, the West is fast turning away from its Christian roots. Here’s a story from the land of Wesley, Great Britain. A Christian school in the UK has been told that it must have a Muslim Imam, or a leader from another no-Christian faith, lead its assemblies or face shut down by the government. World Net Daily reports: “Britain’s official education inspector has informed an independent Christian school that it is out of step with ‘British values’ prescribed by the government… The threat comes amid a series of new school inspections imposed by the government in response to a ‘Trojan horse’ scandal in which several public schools in Birmingham, England, were taken over by Muslim managers who imposed Islamic education standards.”[ii] Welcome to the Theater of the Absurd that inhabits the culture of the West.
The absurdity continued. Charisma news reported: “Street evangelist Mike Overd, a client of the Christian Legal Centre, is being prosecuted in the United Kingdom for an alleged religious aggravation public order offense. The charges follow a complaint to police in Taunton, that Overd made a comparison between the perfect life of Jesus and the life of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad.” Overd was simply being factual. One point he made was to compare the “perfect life of Jesus” with that of the Prophet Mohammed, who married a girl at the age of nine.[ii] I guess in land that gave us CS Lewis, that is now a prosecutable offense.
[i] Mike Edelhart, 9 Real Technologies That Will Soon Be Inside You, Yahoo, October 19, 2014
[ii] UK: Christian street preacher charged with “religious aggravation” for comparing Jesus and Muhammad, Jihad Watch, October 2014
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