Living In A Cashless Society.

Today the trend is to live in and conduct all our personal business without using actual physical cash.  It has been reported that North Americans pay 97% of purchases today without using money.  Instead they use some sort of credit, debit or some other plastic bank card.  This was unprecedented 60 to 80 years ago. 

Technology does not have to be developed to live in a society that is described in Revelation 13:16-18.  The passage is talking about a period of time where a person will have to have some type of electronic identification if they want to "buy or sell", if they want to engage in any type of economic activity. 

It is in this passage that the scriptures talk about man receiving “the mark of the beast”.  The scriptural text describes man receiving some type of mark “in their right hand or in their forehead”.  What the scripture is actually talking is about how people will act during this period of time.  “In the right hand” means what people do, and “in their foreheads” means what people think.

The “mark of the beast“ is associated with the period of time when the Antichrist will come into worldwide power.  It is actually describing who people will swear their entire allegiance to in the end times, starting in last seven years before the return of Jesus Christ.  It is all about how people will think and how they will act as they are living their daily lives. 

If an individual swears their allegiance to the Antichrist and his policies, they will receive  “the mark of the beast”.  These people will receive some type of electronic identification which will allow them to engage in economic activity related to "buying and selling".  These people will be left alone.  Those who do not have this type of electronic identification, if found out and if they refuse to swear their allegiance to the Antichrist, they will be martyred.

“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.  And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:  And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.  Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” (Revelation 13:15-18).