Jacob’s Trouble 666 – Life Imitates Art
Going through the news, the headline jumped at me in a startling jolt. Life does indeed imitate art—for certain when it comes to Bible prophecy.
“Whole Foods Ushering in Mark of the Beast with New Palm-Scanning Payment System”
The headline instantly took my thoughts to my first novel, which I started writing in about 1977 and was initially published much later, in 1999. Jacob’s Trouble 666 is the title, and it’s still available on Amazon.com in reprint.
The book was an attempt to portray through fiction what life might be like for the world and particularly for Jewish people during the earlier time in the Tribulation era. Even though the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7) is about the last half of the Tribulation, my story covered basically the first half of the seven-year Tribulation period, following the Rapture. I envisioned—or tried to—the technologies as they might develop by the time that cruel moment of horror inflicts Antichrist rule upon the planet.
Here is a portion of that story written sometime around 1979, as I recall.
An old man shuffled tentatively into the checkout lane, avoiding the gaze of the checker. His broad head was bowed as if he sought to hide beneath the upturned collar of the ragged gray coat he wore. “You got an IN, mister?” Her question cut the air in a tone of disgust.
“Yes… Yes… See here.” The man let his eyes meet hers fleetingly while he pulled back the sleeve on his right arm and moved his hand to a position beneath the countertop Decode scanner, activating an ultraviolet light which made visible a bar code tattooed on the back of his hand. At the same time, the number appeared on the INRU screen:
5DD197920- J
Looking at the screen, the checker pushed a button, and data was added to the display.
5D019792O-J IN5DR – O – CREDIT LINE – D
“You don’t have any drawing rights, Jew! Take these and put them back where they belong!”
The little man shrunk deeper into the oversized coat, although he made a meek protest. “Please— but madam, I…”
“Just get these things back on the shelves, Jew!” She shoved the items roughly at him, cursing beneath her breath. Her outburst drew the attention of others in the Product Center and caused the controller to stiffen to alertness from his position near the exit.
While all eyes were on the frightened man, he moved from the counter and nervously replaced the foodstuffs on their various shelves. His face taking on the bloodless look of a man terminally ill, his only wish was to be gone from the Product Center.
“Are you Jew?” The controller collared him, snarling the question through clenched teeth.
“Answer me, old man!”
He slammed the smaller man hard against a nearby wall, then pushed his elbow into the captive’s throat. Unable to answer and growing dizzy because of pressure exerted on his windpipe, the man ceased to struggle against his powerful captor, who jerked and ripped at the overcoat, sending buttons flying when the coat tore open.
The controller pulled the coat apart, exposing a yellow, thread-stitched Star of David on the gray, tattered shirt.
“Why are you hiding this?” the angry policeman demanded, jabbing his finger into the center of the symbol. “You know it’s forbidden to conceal being Jew!”
Here’s the link to the novel.
The news item, then, as I say, jumped out and smacked my realization. We are at a point no doubt even past the technological development stage of the AI and other advancements which I tried to imagine back then. The following news item excerpt maybe will further enlighten.
Thanks to its acquisition by Amazon, Whole Foods Market is quickly morphing into the grocery store of the New World Order with a new cashless payment system that allows customers to wave their palm over a scanning machine in order to pay for their food.
Instead of having to hand over cash or a credit card, Whole Foods customers can simply wave their hand (and maybe soon their forehead?) through the machine and voila: purchase made.
According to an Amazon FAQ, the palm-scanning technology analyzes “the minute characteristics of your palm – both surface-area details like lines and ridges as well as subcutaneous features such as vein patterns” in order to identify a customer and allow for rapid purchase.
This biometric scanning tool is branded as a faster, easier alternative to paying with a credit card or cash.
The system is officially called Amazon One and it allows for Amazon Prime users to link their accounts and receive discounts and other promotions every time they opt to wave their palm through a kiosk at Whole Foods rather than pay with cash or a credit card… The ultimate goal is to completely phase out paper and coin currency and replace it with a cashless system. Amazon via Whole Foods is paving the way for this by testing out the new system at its Seattle locations. (“Whole Foods Ushering in Mark of the Beast with New Palm-Scanning Payment System,” NaturalNews.com, RR News April 30, 2021)
Technology has caught up to and surpassed my imagination, it is obvious. Bible prophecy manifests for all who are willing to believe God’s truth that the Creator of all things knows the end from before the foundation of this now-fallen world. Life doesn’t really imitate art. Bible prophecy presents life in a story filled with truth only the God of Heaven can foretell.
The end-times electronic economic system of controlling the masses was written about by the Holy Spirit-inspired pen of John the Revelator on the Isle of Patmos.
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 13:16–18)
Let’s pay attention to developments all around us. It is only upon doing this that we can truly anticipate the call we who belong to Christ can expect to hear soon.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17)
Russian Nuclear War Threat?
Russia’s bellicose actions lately have some predicting nuclear war and what would amount to World War III. One blogger who is a long-time commentator on geopolitics as they might relate to Bible prophecy believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans an assault on Alaska.
His thinking is that Russians have long sought to recover Alaska from the time they owned and sold the now American state to the US. Josef Stalin was, he says, set to invade Alaska, but the action was preempted by the Soviet dictator’s death in 1953.
The blog pundit throws in the fact that China also has its sights on taking over America, and that Putin needs to prevent that from taking place, because Russia is planning the same thing.
The blogger’s conspiratorial analysis goes much deeper, but that’s the overall gist of his suspicion—America is on the brink of being taken over by Russia, China, or both. The inept, even seditious, traitorous Biden administration, as he characterizes it, and its deep-state provocateurs are fomenting this attempted takeover by pushing hard at Russian involvement in the threat to Ukraine. He believes the new administration is doing this in order to provoke nuclear conflict. This, somehow, is so that the new, global order they wish to construct can, with the help of China as a sort of partner in the whole agglomerate matter, leap to world domination.
No, I haven’t a clue how China would ever agree to be part of such an amalgamation. Its goal is clearly total world dominion, not partnership in such.
And China, like the U S Senate’s Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, plays the “long game.” That is, they are extremely patient and will go through the geopolitical gyrations for as long as necessary to—in China’s case—achieve global domination. Only if they see there is no longer a pathway to such domination will they then resort to all-out nuclear war.
They are threatening militarily around the world—like, for example, their constantly running their air force and navy up to the boundaries surrounding Taiwan. And like their nonstop intimidation of US and other naval forces in the China Sea and around the globe. But they know which side their bread is buttered on. They couldn’t win a nuclear conflict with America. They’ll never try—this side of the Tribulation era.
Same with Russia. They wouldn’t have a chance of winning nuclear all-out conflict with the US. Most all experts who study war agree. All would suffer unacceptable devastation in such a conflict.
The threat of nuclear exchanges has existed since the Soviets stole American technology and built their nuclear arsenal. The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was the closest the world has come to such an exchange.
Like in every case, avoidance of such world-changing or even world-ending conflict has been held back by the very hand of God. There is no doubt about this to anyone who is a believer and is spiritually attuned to the supernaturally foreknown movement of human history.
As a matter of fact, God’s Word outlines precisely the final disposition of both of the nuclear powers which the blogger confidently predicts will soon take over the US in a probable nuclear conflict.
Ezekiel the prophet gives us God’s view and His way of dealing with Russia in chapters 38 and 39. The Russian leader, Gog, leads his forces against God’s chosen nation and they are obliterated except for one-sixth of that force.
China is held behind the oriental barrier to the occidental world so far as domination is concerned until they are freed to come across the dried-up Euphrates, as prophesied in Revelation chapters 9 and 16. This force will be annihilated at Armageddon.
God’s restraining hand is in evidence even on the level of this nuclear confrontation matter.
Observers were looking to the potential conflict presented by Putin sending troops to the Ukrainian border en masse. They looked poised to invade. President Joe Biden’s poking at the Russian bear, sending airplanes full of tactical nuclear weapons into Ukraine, supposedly, was meant to provoke that nuclear conflict, whereby all the New World Order stuff outlined above would begin to roll out.
Of course, I see all of that as not possible—not if Bible prophecy is true. And it is. Even if such were the plans of the globalists and the Chinese leadership, God’s restraining hand would never allow it—again, according to Bible prophecy.
We again see a stepping down from the nuclear brink in the following excerpt.
After weeks of tension over a build-up of Russian troops close to Ukraine’s border, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shogun has ordered a number of units in the area back to their bases…
Russia said all along that these were nothing more than military exercises.
But Moscow knew very well that its troop movements close to Ukraine and in annexed Crimea were making a lot of people very nervous: in Ukraine, Europe and in America.
And that was the point.
Moscow may well have been using the build-up of troops to send a signal to Kyiv, Brussels and, especially, to Washington that Russia is a force to be reckoned with. (“Russia to Pull Troops Back from Near Ukraine,” BBC News, April 23, 2021)
Nuclear war involving these end-times nation-state actors will take place. The kings of the east will almost certainly use nuclear weaponry to kill one-third of the world’s population. Nuclear exchanges are inevitable during the Tribulation. No weapon ever invented by the fallen minds of mankind has ever been withheld in the murderous wars of history.
The Christian of this Church Age (Age of Grace) needs not fear suffering through that time of such horrors. Believe in Jesus today and be kept from that terrible hour of evil. Jesus promises the following to those who belong to Him.
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation [Tribulation,] which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10)
Terry James Prophecy Line 