by Irvin Baxter
“In the Book of Revelation chapter 13, we are told that the false prophet will pull down fire from Heaven in the sight of men and will deceive the world by means of the miracles that he will have power to do!”
Moshe looked at Shlomo and whispered, “That’s exactly what happened! This is astounding!”
Freeman continued, “Revelation tells us that the false prophet will use his global influence to cause the world to give allegiance to the antichrist and his world government. If you want to know who Pope Peter II is, ladies and gentlemen, he is not Elijah. He is the false prophet!
“And now for a final word specifically for those of you who recently had to escape from Judea.” Shlomo felt like Freeman was speaking directly to him.
“You were warned to flee from Judea when the antichrist stood in the temple claiming to be the Messiah. But you owe it to yourself to know the source of the prophecy that saved your life. That prophecy was recorded in Matthew 24:15-16 and was spoken by a famous man by the name of Jesus. Yes, if it were not for the prophecy of Jesus, you would have perished just like all of your friends did who refused to believe His words. Jesus actually became your Savior a few days ago. He saved your physical life. However, Jesus did not merely come to this earth to save you physically. He came so that you might have eternal life.
“My dear friends, Jesus is not only your Savior; He is also your Messiah. It was Jesus of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke in Isaiah 53:5-6: ‘But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’
“The wonderful Jewish people have ignored this messianic prophecy for too long. When Jesus was crucified almost two thousand years ago, He became the fulfillment of Isaiah 53. He became the Passover lamb that was wounded for our sins and who paid the penalty of death for each of us so that we could have eternal life.
“I know that this is a huge step for some of you, but if you would like to express your belief in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, please walk to the front right now.”
Moshe was stunned when he saw several hundred Israelis going forward to express their faith in Jesus as Messiah. Then he remembered Shlomo. I wonder what he’s thinking of all this? But Moshe couldn’t see him anywhere. Where had Shlomo gone? Then down near the front Moshe spotted the blue kippa his friend always wore. His hands were high in the air as he gave praise to Jesus as his Lord and his Messiah.
Oh my! Life won’t be the same after this night, Moshe thought. He had to wonder where all this would ultimately lead.
Chapter 18
Word quickly spread about the conference. Many of Israel’s religious leaders were enraged when they heard how many Jews were turning to Jesus. Moshe knew that the lives of Roger Cornell and David Freeman could be in danger. Yet, somehow, he believed there were forces in control beyond the power of human beings. He had never felt such a godliness as he did around Roger and David.
Soon a great revival began sweeping through the nation of Israel. Most still rejected the teaching that Jesus was the Messiah, but many secretly sympathized with it. It seemed that those Israelis from Judea were the least afraid to come forward. Perhaps the difficulties they had faced as settlers had conditioned them to danger.
Everyone seemed to be studying the prophecies of the Bible. Videotapes and audiotapes, books, pamphlets, and magazines were passed from person to person. No one was supposed to be talking about these issues, but everyone was. This Christian fire was getting out of control! Roger and David seemed to be everywhere—on talk shows, in homes, at hotel conference rooms—everywhere.
The authorities were so busy with their grandiose schemes for global government that, for a while, they didn’t recognize the force of the movement that had been born. As a consequence, they paid relatively little attention to these two prophets who now frequented the streets of Jerusalem. They were merely regarded as two more of the religious kooks who regularly appeared in the Holy City.
At the same time, reports of this revival and its prophetic significance swept around the world. Lovers of Israel began to contribute significant sums of money to Cornell’s ministry, who then used it to fan the flames of the already blazing spiritual awakening.
When it finally dawned on Arachev and Pope Peter II how powerful the return to true biblical Christianity had become, they turned the full forces of their wrath against the movement. Laws against prophecy conferences were passed. The influence of the media was mobilized to paint this spiritual awakening as a cult and a right-wing fundamentalist hate group. However, the general public had witnessed the tactics of the mainstream press for so long that many saw right through it. Besides that, the believers had become very skilled at using the Internet to spread the good news. New websites were springing up faster than the web police were able to shut them down. A world that had been fed controlled news for so long, now hungrily devoured the unvarnished reports that were produced by the Bible Christian movement.
Arachev and Pope Peter II tried every device possible to stamp out this surging threat to their beloved New World Order, forcing the Church to go underground. It was so ironic. They had thought the Internet was the key to finally realizing their dream of one-world government. Now that same technology threatened to be the very tool used for its unraveling.
Assassination attempts were made on the lives of David, Roger, and other leaders of the revival. A few of the leaders were killed, but for the most part God granted divine protection beyond anything believers had ever experienced before. It was remarkable!
It was during this time that God began to use Roger Cornell and David Freeman to perform some incredible miracles. The modern underground Christian Church had returned to the power of 1st Century Christianity.
Chapter 19
Finally, the government announced the program that every Christian knew was coming. When Roger picked up the newspaper that morning, there it was: “A new global economic system is being launched. It will stamp out drugs, eliminate check fraud, abolish armed robbery, and eradicate tax evasion.”
In actuality, this system was not totally new. Most people in the world had been operating practically cashless for a number of years. The big difference was that this system finally called for the elimination of cash altogether. With this new development, participation in the cashless society became mandatory.
As usual, a vast majority of human beings repeated the thinking they were being spoon-fed by the establishment media.
“The drug problem just has to be solved.”
“This will stop the terrorists cold in their tracks.”
“We will have a record of every person who buys any explosive device.”
“We can track any person who purchases books or checks books out of the library on bomb-making.”
The small, closing paragraph of the article contained the most ominous news of all. “The time has come to bring disruptive elements of our society under control. The sweeping Christian upheaval threatens to disrupt the religious harmony that has played such a pivotal role in bringing peace and security to our system of global governance. In order to participate in the new economic system, every citizen will be required to pledge an oath of allegiance to the Global Ethic, the United Nations, and to World Leader Arachev.”
The enactment of this new legislation had the opposite effect from what Arachev and Pope Peter II intended. Instead of driving people away from the Bible-believing Christians, it attracted more people to them. The believers had been warning everyone for a long time that this development was coming. Consequently, when it actually happened, it merely added fuel to the fire of the Christians’ faith. The stronger the opposition rose against them, the closer they drew together; the more they were persecuted, the faster they grew.
The implementation of the new system was fairly simple. In truth, the technolog
y to run such a program had been available for a long time. Public resistance had been the only thing that stood in its way.
Arachev and Pope Peter II agreed that the threat to the New World Order was serious enough to mandate coercive force. They could sense the tide of society shifting from allegiance to their system of global government and global spirituality to the Christian groundswell. They agreed that it was now or never for their New World Order. If they didn’t stamp out the movement headed by Roger Cornell and David Freeman now, everything the globalists had worked so hard to achieve for the past one hundred years would go down the drain. The time for strong, resolute action had come.
The first step was to issue a Personal Identification Number to every person on earth. For Americans, for instance, this would be their Social Security number. While this was being accomplished, the global computer system that had been under development for several years would have to be prepared for number validating. This would not be difficult since the necessary software already existed. They would employ the same method that was used to check the validity of a credit card. If a card was overcharged, the message merely came back: Transaction declined.
That’s the way this new system would work. If a person had not cleared the validation process, any attempt to conduct financial transactions would trigger the “transaction declined” message. Arachev and Peter II were sure that every person would soon bow to the will of the World Community. After all, money was the bottom line. When people couldn’t eat or feed their families, they would submit.
It was January 1 when the letters arrived at the mailboxes of every citizen under the New World Order’s control. “Our new system of safety and security has now been tested and is ready for implementation. This system will provide you and your family with absolute security against terrorism, theft, drugs, and religious proselytizing. Won’t it be wonderful to live in a society where the drug trade is eradicated, bank robberies are impossible, personal muggings are a thing of the past, and you never have to worry about having forgotten your wallet?”
The letter continued, “All that each citizen will need for the implementation of this global security system will be his own validated Personal Identification Number. The time of the appointment for you and your family to receive your number validation will be sent to you within the next three days. You should be at your local courthouse by 9 a.m. on your assigned date. This new cashless system of safety and security will take effect on March 1st. Make sure all money is deposited in your bank account before that date. Any money not transferred into electronic funds will be worthless after that time. You should take special care to assist the elderly and the young in making this transition, as it would be tragic if people lost their life savings because of negligence.” The letter was signed, “Global President, Michael Arachev.”
When people around the world received this seemingly innocent letter, reactions were mixed. Some hailed this as a long overdue development. “The only people against a system like this are the criminals. If you don’t have anything to hide, what’s the problem?”
Of course, the privacy advocates opposed it. But there are always those who are paranoid—those who see a bear behind every bush. Heated arguments about “Big Brother” and the encroachment of big government were heard on all the talk shows. But the media “spin doctors” did their job…“What privacy? Since the Internet, everything is known about everybody anyway. Get used to it!”
In the meantime, the Bible-believing Christians were experiencing unprecedented mobilization. “The Letter,” as it came to be called, became the Christian’s foremost witnessing tool. Bible studies were in progress around the world all through the day—morning, noon, and night. The subject was the same at every study. “The Letter” would be laid on the table and the Bible opened to Revelation 13:16-17: “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.”
It was shown in the Bible that anyone who took this number, called the “mark of the beast,” would be forever lost. People were persuaded by the thousands to refuse the mark of the antichrist and, instead, to receive the name of the real Christ through baptism. During this month of “The Letter,” more new Christians were baptized than in any other month in the entire history of the world. The advance of biblical Christianity was nothing short of remarkable!
When John and Melinda Snyder arrived at the county courthouse, the line was quite long. Melinda had not been at all excited about having a computer chip implanted under her skin. She could see the advantages of it when it came to her children. If they were ever kidnapped or lost, they could be immediately located by global positioning satellites. She did like that feature of this new system. The thing that bothered her most was memories of sermons she had heard as a young child about the “mark of the beast.” This placing of a Personal Identification Number on each person’s body sounded an awful lot like what she had heard in those sermons.
Melinda had agreed to come for implantation only after John had pointed out that Pope Peter II had endorsed this program. Since the Pope himself was Christian, there surely couldn’t be anything wrong with this new system. Plus, how would they feed their kids if they didn’t get their validations?
The conversations taking place up and down the line were most interesting. One woman stated loudly, “My ex will never disappear with my kids again. Within fifteen minutes, the cops will nail his hide.”
Another remarked, “This will be great for my business. We won’t ever again have to worry about bad checks. Do you realize how much money we lose every month because of bad checks?”
Melinda noticed a man and woman up ahead of them. They didn’t appear to be waiting for validation. Instead, they were working their way slowly through the line talking to people. She noticed that three or four people actually dropped out of line after talking to them for a while. I wonder who they are and what they are doing? She really couldn’t tell for sure since they were being quite discreet.
Melinda returned to her conversation with John. “Will this chip implantation hurt?” she asked apprehensively.
“No,” he replied. “The letter said it is totally painless. They’ve had this technology perfected for quite some time now. Melinda, just relax. You’re getting on my nerves!”
Melinda noticed John’s irritation. I don’t think he’s as comfortable with this as he has tried to let on, she worried.
About that time the couple who had been moving along the line, talking to different ones, slid in beside them. “Hi! We’re Larry and Samantha Hightower,” the man said. “We don’t mean to intrude, but have you ever been told about a prophecy in the Bible that foretells a time when every person will be forced to have a number in order to buy or sell?”
John curtly replied, “Look, I’ve heard a lot of prophecies preached through the years that never did happen. I just don’t put any stock in any of them. A lot of those prophecy preachers made a big deal about Y2K. And you know what happened with that—nothing! Look, I don’t mean to be rude about all this, but we’re a little edgy already.”
Larry said reassuringly, “I know how you feel. Linda and I don’t mean to upset you. Let me just show you exactly what the prophecy says. If the fact that a cashless system, just like the one you are getting ready to volunteer for, was described in the Bible two thousand years ago doesn’t mean anything to you, we’ll leave you alone. You know, we don’t have anything to gain by being here. We just know that if you take this mark, you will be lost forever. Just look at what it says right here in Revelation 14:9-11: ‘…If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in th
e presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.’ Folks, the decision you are making right now is a matter of eternal life or eternal death!”
Melinda broke in. “John, I don’t want to go through with this number validation. I’ve been against it ever since we got the letter.”
John shot back, “You want to eat, don’t you? You want to feed your kids, don’t you? Do you realize I’ll lose my job if I don’t take this mark?”
Melinda started to cry. “Please, John. Let’s at least take a few days to think this over. I’ve heard all of my life that this was coming someday. Now here it is. Please, I don’t want to do this. We can come back next week if we change our minds,” she pleaded.
Larry stepped forward, “John, why don’t you come to our house for a bite of lunch? We’ll go through all the Scriptures about this and answer any questions that you and your wife have. That will at least give you some time to think.”
“Well, okay,” John finally agreed. “But I sure hate having to go through this twice.”
Over lunch Larry went through the entire subject point by point. “Two thousand years ago, the prophecy was given that an economic system would be set up in which every person would use a number for buying and selling. This was prophesied before the invention of the computer or the Internet. Yet, it would be impossible for such a system to operate without these recent inventions! The prophecy states that this cashless economic system would be put in place at the same time that a system of global government was established on earth.”
“All this business about the need for global government began at the fall of the Berlin Wall,” John broke in. “I remember President Bush saying that the fall of the wall was the beginning of the New World Order.”
