Have you checked your bank account lately? No – not to see what your bottom line looks like … or share some with me – but to see whether you can for-sure access your accounts. If you had no difficulty, here in Canada it was likely because you did not support the ‘Freedom Convoy’ with any of your hard-earned cash. Lucky you! In return, it appears the Feds decided out of the goodness of their heart that you were not the enemy; at least - not yet! Still, for the first time in a Western democracy, government froze the bank accounts of protesters. Think what we might, in the future, freely accessing our money and doing as we wish with it will become problematic at best … even impossible - without government surveillance … and approval.
In Canada, the Federal Liberal party has had a belly-laughing time lampooning the leader of Her (now ‘His’) Majesty’s Official Opposition, Mr. Pierre Poilievre, calling him “reckless” for encouraging Canadians to invest in something so volatile as crypto. Though several months ago now, his position was not helped when the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies plunged and more recently FTX died. Canadians might even remember former MP Patrick Brown (the Brampton Mayor who famously broke his own COVID-19 rules at a hockey rink) saying that Poilievre was encouraging investment in “magic internet money”. Call it any number of names you wish - Fake money, Abracadabra money, even Monopoly money – but is digital currency really nothing more than slight-of-hand magic? I mean when heavyweight FDX collapsed, was ‘nothing’ lost? Sure!
Canada and Singapore remain unconvinced that digital currency is the way to go – but they will have little choice when their trading partners demand payment this way.
It will happen!
Digital Currency
When you go to your neighbourhood bank and withdraw $50.00 from the ATM you are transforming a portion of an electronic record of your currency (in this case $50) into physical dollars. This is what most folks are familiar with – electronic currency. Likewise, an ACH (Automated Clearing House) payment to pay those online bills, or receive a tax refund directly into your account is electronic currency. Digital currency however, never takes physical form, never leaves a computer network, allows for traceability … and even ‘control’. Digital money comes in three varieties: cryptocurrency, stable coins and central bank digital currency (CBDC) – namely money that is issued, overseen and backed by a country’s central bank.
“We have moved beyond conceptual discussions of CBDCs and we are now in the phase of experimentation …. The history of money is entering a new chapter.”
Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director, Atlantic
Council, Washington, DC. February 9, 2022.
On March 9, 2022 the Biden administration released an Executive Order (EO) instructing federal agencies to study digital assets, including bitcoin and Ethereum and bring forward proposals to regulate them. But there is considerably more going on here, because the EO also charged the Federal Government and Federal Reserve to “prepare the groundwork for a potential new U.S. currency, a digital dollar.”1 Just last month (May 13, 2023) the Bank of Canada launched public consultations, looking to find out what Canadians think. According to the public notice report, any decision to create a digital currency is to made by politicians. In English – that means testing the political wind first. Truthfully though, in my view it IS a fait accompli. You cannot stop government control ... or, thankfully, God’s immutable, righteous government.
Going ‘cashless’ is convenient, especially when you are buying that outrageously priced Salted Caramel Mocha Grande for $5.65 + tax, from that ubiquitous coffee shop – Starbucks, with your debit or credit card. It eliminates the pain of having to pull a $10 bill out of your purse and only get a measly loonie or two in return.
Crypto like Bitcoin and Solana (SOL), while notoriously volatile (high-risk-high reward) operates on blockchain technology, which by design is decentralized. The appeal here is that transactions are fast, secure, pseudonymous (until you cash-out; capital gains tax), with less transaction fees and little government interference – for the moment. Unfortunately, once launched, you cannot control it. Interestingly, in China private ownership of crypto currency is banned. Wonder why they would do that?
Now back to that ‘White House guy’s’ EO 14067, and the possibility of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency.2 While the U.S. is at this moment only encouraging conceptual discussions about CBDC development and making it a monetary instrument like cash, it seems inevitable that a White House who pronounces their “mission …. is to advance … security, environmental quality, and justice (Interesting choice of words) for all Americans”, will be unable to resist going down this path. Of course, they are not the only nation currently expressing interest – but since the end of World War II, (1944 Bretton Woods Conference) the U.S. dollar has been the world’s most important currency, the most commonly held reserve currency of the eight recognized by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the most widely used currency for international trade and transactions globally.
As of February 2023, according to the IMF, 114
countries are considering introducing their own
central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)
to compete with cryptocurrency.
A Cashless World
If talk about cash, crypto and CBDCs is giving you a brain-numbing feeling, I apologize! I mean, most folks do not tire themselves out wondering about the inner machinations of J.P. Morgan in the States or The Royal Bank and CIBC’s Wood Gundy here in Canada. Folks generally just want to get their Friday night 12 pack, pay their Saturday night restaurant bill and buy their Monday morning, first-of-the-month, bus pass so they can get to work. Still, this shift away from physical to digital dollars has very real prophetic significance.
Imagine a world where …
Financial privacy ceases to exist for all citizens, except possibly the elites who invariably fall under different rules.
Electronic audit trails track how citizens gather, secure and spend their wealth – down to every last Canadian loonie, American quarter … and Mexican peso.
Government, along with banking conglomerates ‘control’ all currency assets and thereby control people’s lives. Since these assets can be made ‘programmable’ – this means they can build rules and regulations into it to restrict our travel, determine the kind of car we ‘should’ own (EV, of course), even penalize people or their company for political views [Think ‘Freedom Convoy’].
Every currency asset is traceable …and therefore also taxable … satisfying a governments immutable and insatiable lust for more money to fund everything, whether the item is woke-ificationally dumb, dumb, dumb (Equity – it is ‘better’ than Equality, we are told) or shockingly sane and sensible (Law and Order).
Indeed, when the president’s Executive Order 14067 was released, here is how the centrist news media source, The Hill responded:
“If the United States were to adopt a digital currency like the one discussed in Biden’s executive order, it would be one of the most dramatic expansions of federal power ever made, one that could put individuals and businesses in grave danger of losing their social and economic freedoms… A digital dollar would not merely be a digital version of the existing U.S. dollar, but rather an entirely new currency …. Unlike the current dollar, though, a central bank digital currency (CBDC) would not exist in physical form, meaning you would not be able to go to a bank or ATM and withdraw it.”
Is this media source on to something? Has a reporter discovered an unused Bible on the shelf of our Library of Parliament in Ottawa – and read book # 66? For sure, students of Scripture should not be astonished by a coming shift from physical to digital money – nor the “danger of losing their social and economic freedoms.” [See my earlier blog – The Greater Re-Set]. Indeed, the idea that future government[s] will actively use their powers to control the world through the economy (or war) is hardly novel. That the Revelation of Jesus Christ (# 66), written in 96 A.D, would so monumentally present not only the past and present – but the future (Revelation 1:19), speaks to God’s concern that his followers have a relevant awareness of life between Christ’s two comings – “the things that must soon take place” (Revelation 1:1).
Evangelical preterists (like R.C. Sproul) look at John’s eschatological pictures and try to convince their readers that such ‘schemes’ are clearly rooted in 1st century Asia. Sorry! One cannot change “things to come”
to “things that came”.
Like politicians who delicately parse words to ‘evade’ truth, preterists like James Tabor (former prof. Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte), are ‘technically’ accurate and equally disingenuous when they say rather glibly that “there is no reference whatsoever to the Antichrist” in the Book of Revelation. Really? Would Tabor prefer we read Revelation in isolation? Is this how he reads all 66 Bible books – no inner contextuality? Consider:
It is both traditionally and fundamentally agreed that the Gospel of John, the three letters (1, 2, 3 John) and the book of Revelation were written by John the apostle – the same guy who does use the word “antichrist” in his epistles (1 John 2;18, 22; 4:2-3; 2 John 7). What a shock!
From John’s writings we can observe: (1) At the end of the age, a final antichrist is expected; (2) The spirit which characterizes this future antichrist was already at work in John’s time; (3) The spirit of antichrist is that of departing from the truth; apostasy, and (4) the spirit of antichrist denies Jesus is the Christ.
In 2 Thessalonians 2:4-10 a future “man of sin” who opposes and exalts himself “sits in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God.” But “the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming.” There is no leap of faith in concluding this is an end-time figure.
In Revelation 13, two figures appear: one, a beast arising out of the seas (13:1-10), the second, a beast that arises out of the earth (13:11-18). Both beasts are intertwined, as the second beast forces the world to worship the first (13:12). Later in the book John identifies the second beast as the false prophet while the first is labeled simply the beast (16:13; 19:20; 20:10). It is this beast that most label the antichrist. Both the false prophet and the beast are connected to the dragon, who is identified as Satan – as Revelation 12:9 clearly reminds us. So, logic suggests that if the dragon is a person, the first and second beasts of the next chapter can be as well.
Sure, there are pastoral challenges to understanding some of John’s content that is not immediately evident, like wierd creatures, mysterious numbers,
and a sulfur suffocating abyss. Still, it is unmistakable that every scene moves to the steady beat of a Divine metronome, in all ages.
Nevertheless, it is tough to convince preterists that Revelation constitutes any prophecy of events to be yet fulfilled. They prefer a 1st century fulfillment ... which I suspect lessens all things ‘drama’ for them – like the future restoration of Israel, the physical reality of Christ’s second coming, and the dreadful nature of the Tribulation by limiting it to the fall of Jerusalem, to name but a few.
I ‘almost’ hesitate to mention Revelation 13:16-17 here, since the passage is so familiar to so many, that I sometimes wonder if it is in danger of losing its significance because prophecy-sensitive nah-sayers have pooh-poohed any possibility of a literal interpretation. The passage is a tough one ... about a tough future awaiting humanity. Yet, as Covid’s three-year reign of terror demonstrated, government control over behavior, movement and freedoms is hardly mythical; first came persuasion, later traded for force!
16 It 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, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark …” [emphasis mine].
I skipped over the part in Revelation 13 where it says those “who refused to worship the image” (of the 1st beast) are to be put to death, not because I was afraid of irritating or alarming atheists, but because my focus is on the economic component here (‘buying and selling’), not the religious one (‘worship’). Money will not be a problem for everyone, for it seems clear that the imposed economic sanctions are confined to believers – those who do not accept the governing authority’s power. Unbelievers therefore have nothing to fear – except of course the catastrophic calamities associated with the Seal, Trumpet, and Vial judgments of Revelation 6, 8, 11,16) – each a septet signifying completion or perfection of the wrath of God.
To suppress the use of paper money so that electronic audit trails can track consumer wealth, even stop access to it, can surely be accommodated with the Apocalypse of John’s global forecast and painful picture of the world before the second coming of Christ in Revelation 13. How bad can it be, you might ask? Well, Daniel says that it will be “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time” (Daniel 12:1). To the question then of what government in “the last days” will look like - limited or far-reaching … benevolent or autocratic … controlling or freedom-loving, Revelation 13 declares that it will use blunt force to achieve its end game – control and subservience! Yes – blunt force!
In North America we are witnessing the weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies against people with decidedly different perspectives, including collusion with Big Tech to silence dissidents on social media platforms. Does anyone really think government over-reach will not also extend to cash flow?
In a recent trip to South America, I had no problem purchasing goods in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile or Peru, using the American greenback. It remains the king of global finance, with over 65 countries pegging their currencies to the US dollar. Even here however, the ground in recent years has shifted significantly.
In 2017, the People’s Bank of China and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation agreed to carry out oil transactions in Chinese Yuan. Since then, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Brazil and parts of Africa are now trading in what is formally known as the Petro-yuan instead of the US dollar.
In early March of 2022, the Kingdom of Saud in Riyadh was in talks with Beijing to purchase some of its oil sales in Chinese yuan. This past March (2023), it decided in favour of pricing oil in Chinese yuan.
Even the Indian rupee is making advances, with some 18 countries currently trading in Indian currency for cross-border, not US dollars.
China is on the ascendency. Even as I write, the G-7 nations have just concluded a meeting in Japan to discuss her growing menace. The scriptural, prophetic identity of the most populous nation on the planet remains a matter of great debate among Christians. Does the second son among Japheth’s seven sons, Magog (Genesis 10:2) bear special importance to the prophetic identity and role of the Chinese? What about that prophecy in Ezekiel 38 about “the land of Magog”. Finally, in Revelation 16:12 it is prophesied that following the drying up of the Euphrates (a natural land barrier) the ‘kings of the east’ will gather to a place called Armageddon? Does this Eastern Confederacy include China? I say ‘Guess away’, because only God knows for sure.
What can be said with some degree of certainty, however, is that China is increasing its military strength, intimidating Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, pushing eastward to increase their Communist influence, and challenging the United States dollar’s lead in commodity markets around the globe to weaken U.S. hegemony. Digital currency (and therefore financial control) is a key component of their march forward to dominate the globe. Having already distributed the digital renminbi, called e-CNY to 15 of her 23 provinces, it is entirely possible that it could become the de facto standard for international commercial and retail payment? The implications of such an event are staggering!
A Word about ‘Social Scoring’
Imagine I receive a letter in the mail from our boys and girls in Ottawa. On the government letter head, the letter addressed to me – a white, conservative, male, I am ‘asked’ to attend a gender-identity, sensitivity training class. If I attend, I am promised an increase in my Old Age Security (OAS). If I do not go, it will be ‘clawed-back’. In some circles it is called – “managing the population,” which is just a fancy way of reducing individual freedoms.
For a social scoring system is to be efficient, it must control the actions and movements of every native, the ultimate outcome being social stratification – and the birth of ‘undesirable citizens’.
Perhaps you have never heard the phrase, but I can assure you that it is coming to a city and neighbourhood near you. Imagine a scenario where every action you take, every interaction you have and every word you post or express on Facebook, Twitter and their media cousins, being reduced to a five or ten-point scale. A high score brings advantages and benefits; a low score bringing punitive measures. Social Scoring is about rating your behaviour and conduct (even race) and to some extent we are already witnessing it here in North America.
Airlines and restaurants blacklist people for unacceptable behaviour.
Insurance companies monitor driving habits, and offering reduced rates to place a tracking device in your vehicle.
Banks evaluate reliability in paying off a mortgage or a Ford F-150 loan
Jobs denied because of a posting on a social media platform
‘Free speech’ monitored and blocked on Twitter or content deactivated on the CBC should it not fit ‘the narrative’.
Hospitals deny organ transplant surgery to unvaccinated.
Government freezing bank accounts of selected ‘activists’ to combat protests against their mandates.
Federally funded Canada Research Chair program, which gives $300 million to academic, uses an identity quota system.
Higher Education: At the University of British Columbia, the 2022 research chair posting in computational cell biology noted that white, male and able-bodied people need not apply. This kind of active exclusion also holds true at the universities of Toronto, McGill, Laval and Western. Harvard undergraduate-admissions placed quotas on Asians and in a 2009 Princeton study, Asians had to score 140 points higher on S.A.T. than whites to have a chance at admission.
When my wife and I returned to Canada from our snowbird wintering in the U.S. at the height of the pandemic, we were instructed to stay self-isolated for 14 days … and informed that the government would ‘check-in’ on us several times. Compliance, tracing and control were their preferred coercion tools in ‘managing the population’.
Well, happily I can report that we did … and they did, too! Now the fly in the ointment – “Who watches the watcher?” Who programs the AI algorithms: left wingers … right wingers … or weekend woke-ster activists? Who decides what ‘fake news’ looks like or what ‘truth’ is? To illustrate, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, was busy pronouncing that the self-styled Freedom Convoy money was coming from foreign states and ‘foreign actors’, which was clearly at odds with what David Vigneault, Director of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) specifically said in a February 6 call (Feb. 14, 2022; Emergencies Act invoked): “There are no foreign actors identified at this point supporting or financing this convoy … It is primarily a domestic issue.”3 Why would Freeland have said such a thing, when she knew better? In the words of someone almost famous: "C’mon man!”
Imagine social scoring concentrated in the hands of a single social / government group able to change the rules of how the system works as they wish, thereby affecting the lives of those in other groups who are unable to influence scoring rules. It’s already here!
In 2019 I flew into Shanghai, China. On arrival, my passport was scanned, my finger prints were recorded and I underwent a retina-scan. Yes, some countries take their sovereignty seriously, unlike a few here closer to home. Throughout my three days stay I noticed that surveillance cameras populated the city like fleas on a Tennessee hound dog. They were omniscient to the point where when I used a bathroom on the Bund, open to the public, I was required to step in front of a machine on a wall and have a retina-scan in order to secure some measly toilet paper from a machine. [I tried to get a 2nd batch – but the machine refused!].
In China a low social score falls around 350, while a higher score sits around 950. A higher score earns privileges. I wonder if ‘maybe’ more toilet paper is on the list? I am confident that had I misbehaved while there – not only would my social score have bottomed-out, but my next steps could have been back to the airport for a flight to some other part of South East Asia, because China has been using social scoring [or social credit scoring] among its population since 2014.
According to 2015 Chinese policy documents, a low score means, among other things, you will not be considered for public office, be more thoroughly frisked at customs, can lose access to social security and welfare, will not get a bed in overnight trains, and your children will be ineligible for private schools. Even the Chinese dating app Baihe openly displays social credit scores to weed out low score achievers and attract higher ones. My wife has her own version of ‘Social Scoring’ but I cannot figure it out!
Demonic forces beyond our control are aligning themselves for conquest, a fight that will ultimately be against God. Digital currency is one technology clearly helpful to accomplishing Antichrist’s agenda.
The world IS going digital … not ‘maybe’. The world is going cashless … not ‘maybe’. Though it can be difficult to give definitive statements about Scriptural prophecies, there can be little doubt that money will play an essential role in the ‘last days.’ The ‘mark’ (Revelation 13:16) clearly serves as a global currency – for “they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark …”
Some reading here might think, “Just another conspiracy theory.” After all, these days, such words are among the favorite expressions of politicians, media platforms … and ‘yes,’ even clergy. It has become the hammer used to quell debate, resist any investigation and shame any adversary. So, I would hardly be surprised if someone raised the canard that this move to digital currency is innocent, benign and all imagined nonsense on my part. I could offer that if you believe in the Bible, then the ‘mark’ of Revelation 13:16 is hardly a conspiracy theory – but I will resist!
The good news is that while current orthodoxies appear to be dying everywhere around us, the Scriptures are resistant to public opinion, shaming, social activism, or ideologically-driven media blitzing! Cash or no cash – we are currently living in the end times. Even though going cashless is neither godless, antibiblical, unethical, immoral or the driving force that ushers in Antichrist – it seems evident to me that going cashless is tailor-made technology advancing John’s prophecy and the evil purposes of Satan’s two partners, Antichrist and False Prophet. It’s kind of exciting watching it unfold. “OnlySaying…”
1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/09/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-on-ensuring-responsible-innovation-in-digital-assets/
2. Policy Objectives for a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency System. September, 2022.
3. GoFundMe president Juan Benitez reported that 86% of the money raised on his platform from donors came from Canada. GiveSendGo [a U.S. based Christian fundraising website] chief Jacob Wells said 60% raised on his platform came from Canada and 37% came from the United States. [Source: CBC News. October 19, 2022].
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