Is a “Cashless Society” a Sign of the End?

American Vision ^ | July 20, 2009 | Gary DeMar

[topcat54]

I’m beginning to see that prophetic speculation is taking place on the fringes of the Christian publishing industry. Of course, you will still find the occasional prophetic pot-boiler. Mark Hitchcock writes a couple of prophecy books a year. They are mostly exercises in “newspaper exegesis,” driven more by current events than the Bible. Consider these three, all to be published in 2009: The Late Great United States (Multnomah), 2012, the Bible, and the End of the World (Harvest House), and Cashless: Bible Prophecy, Economic Chaos, and the Future Financial Order (Harvest House). How do you go from The Late Great Planet Earth, Hal Lindsey’s mega-best seller from the 1970s, to the end of America? It seems to me that The Late Great Planet Earth would have included the United States. Anyone familiar with Lindsey’s timetable will remember that it was all to happen before 1988. Of course, these publishers are counting on people not remembering or not even knowing of past failed predictions. As P.T. Barnum is reportedly to have said (it was actually David Hannum), “There’s a sucker born every minute,” and these suckers make money for companies that continue to publish out-of-date prophecy books that end up being an embarrassment to the Christian faith.

The cashless society argument has been done before. Hitchcock’s former co-author, Thomas Ice, wrote The Coming Cashless Society in 1996 with Timothy Demy. Where does the Bible mention a “cashless society”? Revelation 13:17 is used as the operating prophetic text on this issue: “And [the Beast] causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.” How does this translate into a cashless society? The “mark” is the key to the transaction. Nothing is said about what the people are using to buy or sell. It just says that they can’t buy or sell without the “mark,” and the mark has to be 666 on the forehead and right hand, not an imbedded microchip. If it’s a microchip in Revelation 13, then it’s a microchip in Revelation 14:1.

What if the world decides to make gold the coin of the realm? Wouldn’t this be a good thing? How could we oppose a world currency based on gold since it’s written into our constitution? “No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility” (Art. 1, sec. 10). Even the Bible considers gold to be a normative currency for everyone.

The meaning of Revelation 13:17 has to be found contextually. Like much of Revelation, its familiar symbols are meant to represent familiar concepts to its first readers. This is why Revelation must be read against the backdrop of the Old Testament and the contemporary historical context. As Ferrel Jenkins writes: “The book of Revelation is the most thoroughly Jewish in its language and imagery of any New Testament book. This book speaks not the language of Paul, but of the Old Testament prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.”[1] The beasts, both sea (Rome) and land (Israel), the mark on the hand or head (Deut. 6:8), and the number 666 should be interpreted in light of the Old Testament (1 Kings 10:14), similar to the way Sodom (Rev. 11:8), Egypt (11:8), Jezebel (2:20), Balaam (2:14), and Babylon (14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2, 10, 21) are interpreted in Revelation. By understanding the way the Old Testament uses and applies marks and the significance of 666 (spiritual adultery with the nations: 1 Kings 11), it is not that difficult to determine what John is describing in Revelation 13.

There is an article on the Always Ready Apologetics Ministry Blog (ARAMB) website with the title “A One World Monetary System” (July 14, 2009). The “evidence” that Revelation 13:17 could be in the process of being fulfilled is that Russia, China, and other nations want to switch from the Dollar to a “united future world currency.” This must mean that at the present, the Dollar is the united world currency; it’s been so since after World War II. So why wasn’t the Dollar the fulfillment of Revelation 13:17? Charlie Campbell, the Director of ARAMB, doesn’t offer a sound biblical argument for his claim that “the Book of Revelation speaks of a time when there will be a one world monetary system in place (see Revelation 13:16–18).” His interpretation is based on an already adopted dispensational system. But there is no real exegesis to back it up. Campbell should take notice of his May 13, 2009 article “Hermeneutics 101: Interpret Scripture with Scripture.” He offers some very good advice:

A correct interpretation of the Bible will always be consistent with the rest of the Scriptures. Therefore, it is essential for us as students of the Bible to interpret a passage in light of what the rest of the Scriptures say on the topic.

Whoever carried the mark of the beast would be identified as someone who aligned himself with the beast, and whoever carried the mark of the Lamb would be identified with the blood and seal of the Lamb (Rev. 14:1). Those who identified with Rome against Jesus Christ died in the destruction of Jerusalem when Titus and his army swept in to destroy the temple and the city. These are the ones who drank “of the wine of the wrath of God” (14:10). Those who carried the name of Jesus’ Father “written on their foreheads . . . follow the lamb wherever He goes” (14:1, 4). The two marks identified two groups of people: one for Christ and one against Christ. As far back as Genesis, we find the division: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heal” (Gen. 3:15). Cain and Abel fit the pattern throughout biblical history that will one day culminate in the final judgment. Revelation 13:17–18 is not about economics.

The control of economic transactions drives modern claims of a one-world government controlled by the antichrist during the great tribulation. This sensationalistic but popular view is outlined by Thomas Ice and Timothy Demy in their book The Coming Cashless Society:

Using every means at his disposal, including the technology of a cashless society, the Antichrist and his demands will bring the world into its greatest-ever moral and economic turmoil. Such chaos will make the stock market crash of 1929 look like a minor economic adjustment.

Revelation 13:16, 17 is the biblical point of entry for discussion of the cashless society, a one-world government, global economics, and biblical prophecy.[2]

Revelation 13:16–17 says nothing about a “cashless society.” Having gone out on a limb with their prediction, the authors come back to biblical reality and write, “The Bible does not specifically predict computers, the Internet, credit cards, or any of the other trimmings that facilitate the modern electronic banking system.”[3] In fact, Revelation 13:16–17 does not describe the control of financial transactions but rather access to the temple controlled by the Jewish anti-Christian religious establishment. The key to interpreting the passage is the prohibition “to buy or to sell” (13:17) if a worshipper does not have the mark of the beast.

Buying and selling, properly understood, are worship-related rituals (Isa. 55:1–2). “This is established in [Revelation] 3:18 (and compare 21:6). When those who refuse the mark of the Beast are not allowed to buy and sell, it means that they are expelled from the synagogue and Temple. The merchants of the land in Revelation 18 are those who worshipped at the Temple and synagogue.”[4] “Babylon the Great,” described as “the great city” (18:2, 10, 21) is Jerusalem (11:8; 16:19). Jesus foretold that this would happen: “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue; but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God” (John 16:2). Keep in mind that it is the “beast coming up out of the land” that is involved in these events. The land beast is most certainly associated with first-century Israel, especially the priests who control the temple.

Early in the church’s history the disciples went to the temple to preach the gospel (Acts 5:20–21, 24, 42; 24:12). At first, they were welcomed (Acts 2:46). Peter and John frequented the temple during “the hour of prayer” (Acts 3:1). Jewish Christians continued to use the temple, even participating in some of its rituals (Acts 21:26). After the temple officials learned that these Jews were preaching that Jesus was the Messiah—the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world—Paul was “dragged . . . out of the temple; and immediately the doors were shut” (21:26–30).

Jesus tells the church of Laodicea, “‘I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich. . .’” (Rev. 3:18). How were the people to buy gold from God? Buying gold refined by fire is symbolic and relates to spiritual worship. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that the reference to “buying and selling” in Revelation 13:17 is also symbolic and related to worship.

The interpretive background for understanding Revelation 13:17 can be found in the gospels. During Jesus’ ministry, the temple officials were “selling,” and worshippers were “buying,” access to the temple (Matt. 21:12). Their “buying and selling” turned “God’s house” into a “robbers’ den” (21:12–13), a “synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9; 3:9). Only those Jews who aligned themselves with the priests, the sacrificial system, and the temple buildings were allowed to enter the temple for worship. If anyone approaching the temple did not have the mark of the beast, that is, if they did not align themselves with what the temple now represented apart from Christ, they could not “buy or sell” in order to offer the appropriate sacrifices.

To take the “mark of the beast” meant a person denied that Jesus was the Messiah, the true temple of God, the only sufficient sacrifice. Of course, Christian Jews avoided the “mark of the beast” and showed their true allegiance to Jesus, “having His name and the name of his father written on their foreheads” (Rev. 14:1). They did this through public professions of faith and allegiance to Jesus over against the corrupt priesthood that had chosen Caesar over Christ (John 19:15).

When commanded not to “speak to any man in this name,” Peter and John responded, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:18–20). When the disciples heard Peter and John’s account of their encounter with the priests Annas and Caiaphas, they turned to Psalm 110 for understanding: “‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ’” (Acts 4:25-26). This “rage” only intensified as Jews made their decisions regarding Jesus more resolute.

All of these passages fit together nicely since true redemption comes from Mt. Zion where “the Lamb was standing.” And where is this “Mount Zion”?: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriad of angels” (Heb. 12:22). Revelation 13 and 14 contrast two ways of salvation: access to the stone temple through the mark of the beast (Rev. 11:1–2) or through Jesus the true temple (John 2:13–25) and the mark of the Lamb (rev. 14:1)

Endnotes:
[1] Ferrel Jenkins, The Old Testament in the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1976), 22.
[2] Thomas Ice and Timothy Demy, The Coming Cashless Society (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1996), 69–70.
[3] Ice and Demy, The Coming Cashless Society, 85.
[4] James B. Jordan, A Brief Reader’s Guide to Revelation (Niceville, FL: Transfiguration Press, 1999), 19.

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Permission to reprint granted by American Vision, P.O. Box 220, Powder Springs, GA 30127, 800-628-9460.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[BuckeyeTexan]

Did you get the impression from anything I said that I thought the mark and all prophecy regarding it is insignificant? Because I acknowledge the significance of the mark and all prophecy. I am not getting your point.

I don’t agree that there is any sin more heinous than receiving the mark, which is rejecting God with the full knowledge that he exists. Revelation 14 says that those who receive the mark will experience the full power of God’s fury and wrath and will be tormented day and night forever. All those on Earth whose name is not in the Lamb’s book of life will worship the beast and receive his mark. I can see no worse sin and apparently neither can God because he plans to send them to Hell for their choice.

[guitarplayer1953]

I thought so to when I first heard it too. I went through a class on what became the seven humpies of the bible. It all dealt with the six day, six thousand year pattern in the bible. Up to the time of Jesus it was 4000 years since Adam and Eve and there for the fourth day. Then we began studying 2 day references in the New Testament equaling 2000 years for the return of Christ or should I say promise of His return and the end of the 6th day and then the 7th day of Rest the Millennial reign of Christ.

[raynearhood]

Statement of faith for these people?

What they Believe was at the bottom of the page. Gotta be impressed, though, this "ministry" has quite the track record. It's a good thing the entire "ministry" isn't built around the predictions and personality of one guy. /sacr

[Quix]

ESSENTIALLY,

I agree
with you.

HOWEVER,

Also, ESSENTIALLY, by the time MOST of the REPLACEMENTARIAN crew hereon gets through pontificating, they have repeatedly INSISTED THAT:

1. All the promises to Israel/Blood children of Abraham Isaac and Jacob either have ALREADY been fulfilled [as idiotic as that nonsense perspective is];

2. Or by some Scripture mangling mumbo-jumbo have declared and decreed that ALMIGHTY GOD'S EVERLASTING PROMISES THAT WILL NEVER FAIL AS LONG AS THERE ARE A MOON, STARS ETC. have been abandoned and negated, forgotten by GOD ALMIGHTY because they rejected Christ and ALL such promises that by some slip of the REPLACEMENTARIANS calculations MIGHT POSSIBLY have slipped by unfulfilled will be fulfilled ONLY & EXCLUSIVELY with THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

3. That for any & all functional, prophetic, predictive purpose conceivable, ISRAEL, as blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have ceased to exist in any significance AT ALL to the REPLACEMENTARIANS and their Rubber Bibles.

4. That ALMIGHTY GOD NO LONGER even sees Israel as a distinct, unique, Biblical, entity of any specific, enduring significance to Him whatsoever [They have never offered any rational explanation for the 12 Patriarch's thrones along with the Disciples'].

5. That Israel as a Nation, to REPLACEMENTARIANS, is of no more significance to God, to unfulfilled prophecy, to the END TIMES, than is a dead spider in the most remote out-house in Siberia.

Therefore, the seemingly willfully blind folks--particularly most of the contingent hereon--have well earned the label: REPLACEMENTARIANS.

[Quix]

The REPLACEMENTARIAN perspective as presented hereon so foolishly and relentlessly over the years cannot be weaseled out of so easily. See my post just above.

[Quix]

Extremely well put, imho.

Thx.

[Quix]

It is true, that He provides for our Spiritual Life, but it is false to assume Israel and the Church are the same.

Go back and read Scripture containing His Word.

Let God provide for our understanding, rather than resting upon our understanding to know Him.

= = =

INDEED.

[Quix]

Why do you teach, since in that time, His Word will be written in the hearts and minds of His people, no longer requiring one to teach one other about His Word.

= = =

Excellent question.

Awaiting the rationalized-weasel-answer.

[BuckeyeTexan]

Since you are representing their beliefs and claims, I’ll respond specifically to your points. If you are incorrectly representing their claims, I’ll expect them to clear it up. Mind you I’m not trying to resolve a dispute. I’m just trying to understand the essence of the disagreement.

1. The verses I quoted from Hebrews state clearly that no one has yet received any of the promises that God promised to Abraham, not even Abraham. Any claim otherwise is hogwash.

2. Malachi 3:6-7 I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendents of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty.

God doesn’t change. Israel has until the end of the world to return to God and be accepted by him with open arms. After that, they’ll be destroyed with all the other unbelievers. God will never forsake his first love until he destroys the Earth by fire.

Again Hebrews makes it clear that together, children by faith and children by seed, will receive God’s promises to Abraham.

3. To be addressed fully in a subsequent post after some sleep.

4. See #2. God does not change.

5. See #3.

[Quix]

THANKS.

I THOROUGHLY AGREE WITH YOU.

However, they have lots of slippery Bible-mangling rationalized weasel-moves around such Biblical truths and facts.

I don’t think their weasel-words get a micro-meter’s worth around any such Scriptures but they seem to think they do.

It would be laughably ignorant blather not worth commenting on except that it has such outrageous potential to delude folks into a mentality that could cause them to miss Heaven.

I consider that serious—very serious.

I don’t mind being fierce about the issue of HEAVEN VS HELL.

[BuckeyeTexan]

One more point about Malachi 3:6-7, which is the last chapter of the last book of the OldT.

It is no coincidence that one of the very last things God said to Israel in the OldT before offering grace to the Gentiles was: Return to me and I will return to you!

Israel is God’s chosen people. He loves them and cherishes them dearly and is still offering them His hand. Will they ever take it? God knows, surely and truly he does.

[just me]

The Bible was written for us, not to us...... Jesus came the generation He said He would... You are like all generations before you. Looking for a promise you already have....The Bible was written so that we may know God... Time will go on...

Eph 2 v 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in [his] kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

Eph 3 v 21 Unto him [be] glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

[Quix]

IMhO,

God has it all scheduled

IN HIS TIME,

FOR HIS GLORY.

I think the 144,000 may be a key . . . He ha ALWAYS had a remnant even amongst the rebellious Israelites . . . not that they had a monopoly on that! LOL.

I think folks often miss the reality . . .

Not only are the children of Israel God’s chosen people for HIS PURPOSES TO SHOW HIS GLORY . . . AS A PEOPLE and often as OBJECT LESSONS probably for ALL CREATION . . .

They are also

HIS SOLEMN PROMISE TO

GOD ALIGHTY’S

BUDDY, HIS FRIEND,

AND AS SCRIPTURE NOTES: GOD IS

NOT REMOTELY EVEN IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF

SLACK CONCERNING HIS PROMISES.

Any notion otherwise is blasphemous, imho.

[Quix]

What curious non-sequitur comments.

Am beginning to think we don’t use the same Bible.

Mine is represented by such translations as the

KJV,
NIV,
AMPLIFIED,
MESSAGE

I gather yours was ‘translated’ [using the term exceedingly loosely] by

REPLACEMENTARIAN INC.

[just me]

You don’t recognize the KJV? That is mostly what I read.. I kind of feel sorry for you... You laugh at people. You use news paper head lines in your assessments.. I use scripture. You use Bible Codes when the Bible says not to add or take away. If I am so wrong please feel free to explain the scriptures that I have posted.... Teach me...

[just me]

By the way I won’t be home today, I am getting ready to meet my new grand nephew... Thank God he has hope in the world.... May God Bless....

[BuckeyeTexan]

Good conversation tonight.

I’ll follow up tomorrow on those o/s points. Goodnight, see you then.

Eyelids very droopy. Brain very mushy. :)

[RegulatorCountry]

Quix has some unusual and very diverse interests, but to me at least, his Christianity is not in doubt. You’re being very unfair.

As far as Bible Codes, how is this adding to or taking away? They’re there, and have been known to be there for going on close to a thousand years or more. Jewish tradition states that all that has ever been and ever will be is contained in Torah, our Pentaeuch. Isaac Newton spend the best part of his life searching for codes in the Bible. The Enigma Code was broken with the help of a Jew who studied those codes and recognized “ELS” codes there, in the Bible or Torah.

Where the trouble comes in, is in attempting to interpret these things. I’ve honestly begun to think that this represents the sealed book of Daniel and Revelation, myself.

As far as the KJV, I prefer it myself. A lot of people were persecuted and died to make that translation possible. It’s beautiful, like poetry, almost Shakespearean. But, it’s not the only true Bible out there. Perhaps Quix prefers to refer back to contemporary translations from the original languages?