to meet with like-minded brothers and sisters and uh you know over the last 5 years you discovered who your true
friends really were and we all went through that kind of process and so I
think it was a blessing for us to go through the last f five years. It was a spiritual wakeup call. It functioned
much like the trumpets um in the Old Testament, a warning that there is a day of judgment coming. And we need to be
right with our heavenly father. And so it’s a privilege to come and share with you today. And for those of you who are
watching online, we give you a warm welcome wherever you happen to be watching this program from. All right.
So um I I I was asked to give four talks here, two today and two tomorrow. Um so
um there’s kind of like a they rise in a crescendo. Um, we start out with a relatively gentle introduction and we
get more and more direct as we go through to tomorrow night. Okay? And so that’s the path we’re going to go on for
today. I have two talks. One is called Digital Dungeon One and as you see on the screen and the other is called
Digital Dungeon 2. And tomorrow um I’ll be talking about buyer beware one and
buyer beware 2. And so those are our four um talks that we’re going to go through today and tomorrow. I’ll bring
greetings from my wife. she was due to be here. We have some unforeseen um housing repairs at our house right now
and so she stayed home to watch over that while it’s going on. Uh so uh but my son is with me. He’s doing the
recordings and uh it’s just a privilege for us to share these days with you. So
invite you once again to bow your heads with me and invite the Holy Spirit to bless our time together. Heavenly
Father, we thank you for the blessing and the gift of life. Father, we thank you for the assurance of eternal life
for those who are in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And Lord, as we gather here today on the preparation day, as we look
forward to the joys and the fellowship of the upcoming Sabbath, I ask you, Lord, that your Holy Spirit will fall
upon us, that you’ll bring conviction and conversion aresh to each of our hearts and our minds. Father, we know
we’re living in momentous times. Yet, Father, we know that before Jesus comes again, there will be a time of trouble.
And I ask Lord that each one of us will be found in that lamb’s book of life when Jesus comes again. So Lord as we
spend these two uh three days together uh Lord one of the the reasons for the gifts you give the church are to edify
the body of Christ. And so father I’m here today to build up and edify the body of Christ. Uh that our members and
uh precious souls who are watching present or online will be ready for the coming of Jesus Christ. Uh Lord, we’re
not here to preserve the past. We’re here to protect the future. And so, Father, I ask that you will speak
through me and for me. This I ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. All right. So, uh this is our journey
today. Um we’re going to look at um the UN connection. We’re going to spend uh this first time we’re going to look at
digital IDs worldwide. Then we’re going to look at examples of digital ID overreach. And then we’re going to come
to our conclusions. And I’m speaking about this because this is happening in front of our eyes. And whether we like
it or not, it is happening in America and we already have um an evolving
digital ID whether we even realize it or not. And we all carry it in our own pockets and it’s not on your phone. And
so we we’re already seeing this stuff happening in front of our eyes and that’s why I’ve I’ve entitled our talks
today digital dungeons. So um uh we’ll start out in late 25 just um couple of
months ago the United Kingdom prime minister announced the roll out of digital IDs compulsory IDs for the
entire nation. All citizens in the United Kingdom will be required by the end of the current parliament end of
2029 to have a digital ID. This digital ID will function as an app on your phone
because the assumption is everybody has a smartphone. and that digital ID was allegedly to ensure that um employers
can only employ UK citizens as opposed to illegal immigrants. Now the reality
in Britain is for the last 20 years our political elites of all parties have open the borders to mass immigration.
The number one children’s name in Britain now for boys is Muhammad. And so the governments have been welcoming um
by the millions illegal immigrants to come into the nation for so for the government to say we want to fight
illegal immigration and we’re going to do it by bringing out a digital ID is somewhat disingenuous.
But um the reason for the digital ID was so that only those who are citizens are legally able to work. And this is our
prime minister or their prime minister. I’m a US citizen now. Um he’s called Saki Stama. Um he says this he said if
you come here illegally you will not be able to work. Digital ID is an enormous
opportunity. It will make tougher it will make it tougher to work illegally in this country making our borders more
secure. Now never mind the fact that you have to have a national sec social security number and a passport to prove
you can work. And so why we need a third document to prove that you can work is beyond me. They already have those
checks and balances in place. So this just seems to be a convenient political excuse to roll out a digital ID for the
entire nation. The government went on to say that it would take the best aspects
of existing digital ID schemes from Australia, Estonia, Denmark and India um
citing people’s need for access to education, child benefits, health,
travel and education records. And what was the response?
There was uproar across the United Kingdom. Whether you were on the right or the left of the political spectrum,
it didn’t matter. People of all backgrounds unite and say we do not want a digital ID in our nation because they
say this will be a digital dungeon. Hence the name for today’s uh talk this
morning. And so there was there’s been mass massive push back and the prime minister and being a true democratic
individual has said we will ignore the voice of the people. we’re going to go ahead and do it anyway. So, that is what
is happening in the UK. So, let’s take a look at um why is this happening in 2025
and 2026? Why didn’t it happen in the year 2000? Why didn’t it happen in the
year 2015? Why are these digital IDs being rolled out not just in Britain but
in many many countries around the world? As we speak, digital IDs are being
rolled out. So um let’s take a look first at the UN connection and um if the
UN adopted the universal declaration of human rights in December n December the
10th 1948 and the preamble as you see on the screen there um to the the universal
declaration of human rights it reads up on the screen it says whereas I know
this is very small for you guys this is this is just to pre so so you know it is there I’m not making this up all But you
can Google universal declaration of human rights and this is the first text that you’re going to see. The preamble
says that whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the
human family is the foundation for of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
And after that mention of inalienable rights, the concept of inalienable
rights, that’s a hard word to pronounce. um inalienable rights. It disappears
from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And for the rest of that document, um the UN talks about human
rights rather than inalienable rights. Now, there’s a profound difference between human rights and inalienable
rights. Okay? Human rights are not inalienable rights. Inalienable rights
do not come from any government, but they come by virtue of creation in the image of God. They are equal for every
human. They come by virtue of be of being created in the image of God in a
rational morally created order. And as such, they’re immutable. They cannot be
taken away from you. They cannot be changed. Your inalienable rights are your birthright from God.
Human rights though are granted by governments. And as a general rule throughout
history, whenever a nation has a constitution, what you find is whatever
rights were being trampled on before the revolution are now enshrined within the constitution of the new nation. So if
the previous government, let’s say the American constitution is a great example. The British soldiers were
quartered in American homes here in New England. Is that right? Yes. And that is why that’s in the bill of rights that
that cannot happen. And so what happens is constitutions are often an
affirmation of rights that were trampled on by the prior administration. And if
you want to know what the situation was before a constitution was adopted, read the constitution. Look at the rights
that are explicitly enshrined in it. And that will tell you what the nation was going through before the whatever
revolution or reformation took place leading to the new constitution. Now here in the United States, we have the
declaration of independence. And um that’s what it says there from
July the 4th, 1776. Says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” And I’ve often
wondered what is the difference between inalienable rights and unalienable rights. I think it is the same thing.
I’ve never found a good explanation for why sometimes it’s inalienable or unalienable. But anyway, the US
Constitution says among these unalienable rights, so that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuits of
happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. that whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new
government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall
seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. And I often wonder if we were to apply these principles to our
own general conference structure. Um, but we won’t go down that path today. So
uh coming back to the UN declaration of human rights um the there is really no
mention of inalienable rights after the preamble and we then focus on human
rights throughout the documents and the thing about human rights is they are not immutable. They can be given by
governments and they can be taken away by governments. Governments can can give rights to its citizens by an act of
Congress or an act of parliament and the next government can come along and just take away those rights. And so certain
human rights are not absolute rights. They are simply um temporary permissions
you have from your government um to do certain things. And you know we have various cultural differences around the
world how we interpret these matters. You know we uh they used to say in the Soviet Union that in Britain everything
is permitted unless it is expressly forbidden and in Germany everything is vorton forbidden unless it is expressly
permitted and in the Soviet Union everything is nezier which means forbidden. Okay. So we all have
different understandings to when we read a document we come up these documents with very very different cultural lens
on but article six of the universal declaration of human rights says this
everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Now that sounds great. Yes. By implication.
Therefore, the ability to prove your legal identity is a prerequisite for legal existence.
No legal identity. No legal existence. You become a
non-person. Have you ever got a rental car at an airport at 11:00 at night and there’s
somebody in the queue next to you and oh, I forgot my I forgot my driver’s license.
They are a non-person. Or you check into a hotel late at night and the person next to you, it was
booked on somebody else’s credit card and that person that card isn’t here and they won’t let them use their personal
credit card. That person becomes a non-person in that moment. And we see I
see as I travel people forget key documents and they become non-people visav travel, transport, accommodation,
um car rentals, hotels, this happens. And so the article six of the UN declaration of human rights um even
though it sounds very nice there’s an implied downside to this. It is that if you do not have any legal identity you
don’t have any legal existence. Now um the uh the Adventist church celebrates
article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights which says that everybody has the right to choose their
own religion and they should not be co coerced into that and we say praise the lord that’s
in fact in one one of our official statements but the problem with universal declaration of human rights is
article 29 um point2 and article 29.3 and you see those on the screen there.
And this is why um supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is
profoundly problematic for us as God’s remnant people because it says there,
this is the quote here from the article 29.2 and 29.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. says, “In
the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject um only to
such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the
rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order, and the general
welfare in a democratic society.” What that tells you is that all of the
rights listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Articles 1 through 28 are not absolute. They’re
not unalienable. They are subject to whatever is determined by the public
authorities to be in the general welfare of society, otherwise known as the
common good argument. So you have rights and you have the right of um liberty of
conscience in article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights but that is subject to the general
welfare of a democratic society. If the government determines that the general welfare requires Sunday worship you have
no rights to claim Sabbath worship for instance. And then the last paragraph there, clause 29.3, these rights and
freedoms may no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles
of the United Nations.
So if the United Nations declares that one of our its principles is to
preserve our common home and that requires Sunday lockdowns and Sunday
observance which is being pushed every year at the climate change treaties this year right now in Bellum Brazil um it’s
a massive gathering in northern Brazil of thousands and thousands of activists and governments and NOS’s from all
around the world and they’re all pushing for coordinated climate change action to
save the planet from what they call the the the climate emergency. And if you look at the language used by ADRA and
the language used by the Pope as it addressed to the Jesuits 10 days ago in the Vatican, it’s identical. We’re all
talking the same language, the need to reserve our common home, the climate emergency, and the common good.
And so as as the nations and the peoples of the world unite around what they
allegedly think as the climate emergency, and there was no global warming this morning in Maine, I can assure you. But as we unite around the
the alleged climate emergency, we find that Jesuits and ADRA, the Adventist
Development Relief Agency, are finding common ground and common language and
common objectives to secure our common home. But the point about this final statement
here is that you cannot exercise liberty of conscience if it runs contrary to the
the purposes or principles of the United Nations. If one of the purposes of the United Nations as they are discussing is
to take um climate change action to preserve our common home and that requires one day a week for us all to
rest to preserve the world from the ceaseless cycle of economic consumption. that will be on Sunday. Then your your
God-given right and responsibility to fear God and give glory to him and to honor the Sabbath day that is now done
away with. The United Nations is not a democratic
organization. In plain English, we are only allowed to exercise our rights subject to the
dictates of governments, international government or intergovernmental organizations such as the WHO and other
UN and globalist stakeholders. Inalienable rights are mentioned in the preamble to the Declaration on Human
Rights, but they don’t appear thereafter. What the UN calls rights are not rights at all. They’re merely
temporary permissions that can be revoked at any moment should what you wish to do conflict with what the global
governance regime calls quote the general welfare of a democratic society
or goes against the UN’s own stated purposes and objectives. So in 2013 the
UN published a statement about its role as as being providing a new global
governance regime for the entire world. And in 2013, this is what the United
Nations stated. It said, “Partnership can promote a more effective, coherent, representative, and accountable global
governance regime. A global governance regime under the opaces of the UN will
have to ensure that the global commons will be preserved for future generations.
the global commons. The UN’s purpose is to preserve the global com commons,
whatever they define that to be. Essentially, national governments are being reduced around the world to
translating global governance priorities into national policy. We noticed in
Britain before Brexit that it didn’t matter who you voted for, you got the same policies at the end of the day. If
you voted for Labor or Conservative, which is our version of Republican and Democrat, the faces changed, but the
essential policies would not change. Hence, people voted for Brexit. They wanted nothing further to do with what
was being dictated from Brussels. And you know, even then we got politicians who still follow the old policies and
the old agenda. So effectively changing governments in national elections only
changes the players but it doesn’t change the core globalist policies. Uh so you have different politicians the
same policies. In America we call it the uni party. The uni party at work. Now
in 2015 the UN adopted agenda 2030. You’ve heard of agenda 2030? We hear a lot about
project 2025 but perhaps more worrying at a global level is agenda 2030. So the
UN you used to have what they call the MDGs or the millennium development goals and the goal was to eliminate all human
poverty um by the turn of the millennium by the year 2000 and actually they made substantive progress towards that. It
really wasn’t caused by um NOS’s non-governmental organizations wasn’t caused by well vision save the children
in ADRA. What lifted more people out of poverty than anything else was good government, government for the people
and economic growth around the world. And but because they didn’t complete the task, in 2015, the UN voted agenda 2030,
which has 17 what they call sustainable development goals, and all of those goals must be rolled out globally by the
governments of the world by the year 2030. Hence the urgency we see right now for digital IDs because we’re running up
against that 2030 deadline. The goal of the agenda 2030 is to eradicate poverty,
promote prosperity, and protect the planet by the year 2030. And these
sustainable development goals are at the heart of the new globalist regime. And if you look at sustainable development
goal number 16, it’s the goal you see on the screen is to promote just, peaceful,
and inclusive societies. And you say, well, that doesn’t sound bad at all. I mean, this is always couched in nice,
positive language. It’s like, you know, when my father says Connory said, I like a conversation with you. You know, that
sounds like a nice thing until you realize um I’m going to have a learning conversation here, not just a regular
conversation here. But when you look at the goals, the specific goals of
sustainable development goals 16.9 um you see them on the screen there. It’s taken from the UN website there.
They all look fine till this bottom one here 16.9 says by 2030 provide legal
identity for all including birth registration. Now I used to work in in Azabahan. I was
right on the Iranian border and high in the mountains there there were many communities and they were absolutely
impoverished and when children were born um the health care system was so corrupt
that if your child was born you had to pay a bribe to the registar to get a
birth certificate for your child and because many families were too poor they would choose maybe one child to get a
birth certificate and without a birth certificate you had no legal identity. Without a birth
certificate, your child would not be enrolled in the one of the schools in the area. Without a birth certificate,
you could not go to college. You weren’t you didn’t legally exist. So, what you found were children in the mountains
growing up who didn’t legally exist. They were non-persons who could never access health or education or transport
or travel or um pension or any kind of social provision within their nation.
And so um I realized all those years ago that having legal documents, having a legal identity is a huge deal. We take
it for granted until you see people living without it. So you see it on the
screen there. I’ve put it a bit more clearly up here. There is the goal of the UN sustainable development goal 16.9
to provide legal identity for all including birth registration. And then the indicator that goes with it is this.
It says that the proportion of children under five years of age whose births have been registered with the civil
authority by age. And the goal is to have a 100% of children under the age of five registered with the civil
authority. Now, this sounds benign, but it’s not
because just after voting the um sustainable development goals and the agenda 2030, months later, the UN voted
the ID 2020 alliance. It was established in late 2015 and it was to implement a
global digital ID scheme to fulfill sustainable development goal 16.9.
And uh by 2030 this was the stated purpose of the agenda ID 2020 alliance.
They aims the the alliance aims to have facilitated the scaling of a safe
verifiable persistent digital ID system consistent with a sustainable development goals agreed upon by the
United Nations. So if you want to know is the is the UN pushing digital IDs at a global level?
Absolutely it is. is called the uh ID 2020 alliance and that alliance is is a
is a mixture of major um tech companies around the world um defense contractors
uh UN agencies and governments and banks are all collaborating in the ID 2020 alliance to roll out digital IDs at the
moment they’re doing it on a case-byase basis around the world and what they’re doing is they’re cherrypicking the
hardest countries on earth to do it so they can learn the lessons and so once they’ve learned the lessons. We’re going
to come to some specific examples in a minute. Then they know how to roll it out for everybody else. So, uh, this
digital ID scheme, um, just so we understand exactly what we’re talking
about, you Microsoft Microsoft, um, was is involved in this
program. They’re on the ID 2020 alliance. And the beauty about the internet is nothing can be hidden.
And there are certain search engines where you type in the name of the website you want and the the date and the hour and the year and the day and
the month from when it was online and it will take you back to what was sitting there. So people can change today’s
website. Um but with the internet you can go back and see what it said yesterday or 6 months ago. And on one of
those websites you can go back and look at the this is an internal chat group within Microsoft. And this was they were
discussing what um participating the ID2020 alliance meant for Microsoft. And
in this internal discussion blog, this is what the text says. This is the end of that article. It says, “As more and
more transactions become digital in nature and are built around a single global identification standard supported
by Microsoft, the question of who will govern this evolving global community and economy becomes relevant, especially
since participants in the system would be unable to buy or sell goods or services.
So there you have it in black and white from Microsoft. They understand the implications that if you don’t
participate in the digital ID plan that’s being rolled out globally, you will be unable to buy or sell. You will
be a non-person legally. That’s what it’s going to be. So these
digital IDs will theoretically provide you with a legal ID theoretically giving
you access to health, education, travel, shelter, unemployment, retirement, social security, Medicaid, Medicare
benefits, access to the justice system, and other benefits provided by your government. But the lack of an approved
digital ID or if you are switched off from the system will turn you into a non-person legally non-existent and will
exclude you from all access to government or private sector services.
So do we have your attention this morning? Yes, we I hope we have this attention now. There is no plan as yet
to turn this into a single digital ID system that was rolled out globally. uh
the key word is interoperable and what is happening is every government is designing its digital ID
system that applies to its country but the so you see the face of it but the
architecture behind it means if you travel from America to Thailand your US digital ID can be read in Thailand they
know who you are and vice versa so they call it interoperable so that wherever you go in the globe um your your
national ID will be registered and recognized in that country. So for instance, the EU just announced that
Americans coming to America to the European Union next year will require a digital ID.
An American digital ID will be functional in in Europe.
So you see these restrictions starting to come out. During the pandemic, I discovered there were many loopholes.
One of which was um it depends who you fly as. And had I flown to um Germany as
I did or France or America or Britain during the pandemic, had I flown as an American citizen, I would be denied
access because they required US citizens to have vaccines to travel to Europe. I always traveled with my Irish passport
because then I was returning home as an Irishman and therefore you didn’t need to have a vaccine because I was
returning home because I have an Irish passport. And when I traveled to Britain, I traveled on my UK passport
because I was returning home and therefore the vaccine regulations didn’t apply. Okay, I just want to encourage
you, get as many passports as you can possibly find.
Here in Maine, if you have relative, if you have a grandparent who was born in Ireland, you qualify for Irish
citizenship. It’s an EU passport that may come in awfully handy one day. at
Jones said, “There is coming a day when Adventists in America will ru the day or or regret the day they did not leave
before the mark of the beast restrictions come in here.”
So this is what Microsoft is saying. The real goal of the ID 2020 agenda is this
three-fold. One is to empower a global governance regime.
The two is to exploit threats both real and imagined to advance the new globalist regime objectives. You might
call that the Hegelian analysis. And thirdly, it’s to force an unwarranted, unwelcome, centrally
controlled system of digital ID upon all of humanity. That is what the governments of our
world are actively doing all around the world today. Most governments of our
world are actively rolling this out as we speak. So let’s come to those digital ideas worldwide. Now um uh what you find
when you read the literature is that these plans are always bathed and baptized in warm fuzzy sounding words.
These are some of the lang the some of the words that are used in the in the literature. UN and NGO leaders talk
about financial inclusion. They speak about bridging the ID gap. I
didn’t know I was worried about the ID gap, but apparently we should be. They talk about citizen centric financial
systems or even more um Kfka-esque, they talk about the people’s money. People’s
money. This is really though rolling out the establishment of a global financial
system that rewards the compliant and punishes those who refuse to bow to the
new globalist agenda. So in Thailand today, they’ve already rolled out the new digital ID. I used to work with
Adventist Frontier Missions and they’re aware of this. What happened in Thailand was that all cell phones are now linked
to SIM cards. You cannot buy uh to a digital ID. You cannot buy a SIM card
without linking it to a digital ID number. That means you can’t buy a burner phone. That means you can’t have
a private conversation when you really want it. It is no longer possible to have an anonymous telephone conversation
in Thailand. In Nigeria today, one of the most populous countries in the world
and with its own internal tensions between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, there is a huge
struggle going on between the government and the people. And they’ve rolled out their own digital currency, central bank
digital currency. It’s called the NERA. And they’ve rolled out digital IDs for the whole nation. And there is massive
push back in Nigeria from the people who don’t want the digital IDs and they don’t want the digital currency. So
Nigeria is becoming a hot spot for Bitcoin because it’s a the cryptocurrency outside of government
control. And so Nigeria is is an Bitcoin hot spot today. And Mexico
with its problems with the cartels and all the rest of it, they’ve just agreed with the World Bank to roll out a new
digital ID scheme by late 2026. And the agreement is in Mexico, nobody can be
employed without having a digital ID that that verifies their employment eligibility. And no employers, including
the Adventist church, will be exempt from the requirement to verify against the digital ID system. So it’s being
rolled out in countries like Nigeria and Thailand and Mexico. And as I said before, they’re not choosing the easy
countries to roll out. They’re rolling it out in the harder countries to do it where you have weaker central government
because they’re learning the lessons so it can be rolled out elsewhere. In the UK, the tax authorities in partnership
with the new digital ID push are redesigning their systems so that the self-employed and the small businesses
will be required to submit their tax data quarterly instead of at the end of the financial year using government
approved software. That gives the government more continuous oversight and visibility into people’s financial and
business activities and billions are being spent to connect all these databases the government holds into what
they called a joined up database system. So you apply for a driver’s license and that information is visible to every
other government department not just the DVLA. So, uh, what this means is that the John
Doe who applies for a fisher’s license, fishing license, is recognized, um, by
the administrative clerk who you’re talking with as the same John Doe who receives a carer’s allowance and the
same John Doe who pays $1,500 quarterly in self-employment tax. Joined up
databases allow for the government to have a 360 degree view of all your
interactions with every arm of the state. Today, in almost every country in
the world, government benefits and services are generally offered on a one-sizefits-all basis. There’s a few
variations like the reforms to SNAP that are being pushed right now that you have to do so
many hours of volunteer work to get your SNAP benefits, but as a general rule, government health care is and government
benefits are offered on a one-sizefits-all basis with digital IDs.
the government and joined up databases. Governments can tailor their assistance to every individual on a conditional
basis and on a personalized basis. That is access to government welfare and
systems is conditional with compliance with whatever government mandates are in force at the time. Maybe the largest
example right now of digital ID is India. And in India in 2016 they passed
the ADAR act and uh the United Nations through ID 2020 partnered with the
Indian government to implement the ADAR system. And today almost 90% of all
India’s 1.4 billion citizens are registered with a 12digit ID
registration number known as a personal account number. Registration involves Irish scans and checking all 10
fingerprints in order to register as a resident. and that all your identity is stored in a single centralized database
known as the central identities data repository. Theoretically, participation is voluntary,
but it’s you need a personal account number to pay personal taxes, to get tax rebates, to open or use a bank account,
to have a credit card, to make any bank transfers, any transfers exceeding $600.
And there’s a huge range of government benefits and subsidies such as health care and education, access to subsidized
grain and wheat and seed and fertilizer for the farmers. All of which requires a
PAN, a personal account number in the ADA digital ID system. But as they say,
the system is entirely voluntary. It’s up to you. You cannot participate providing you
don’t need to pay taxes, don’t buy a vehicle, don’t make any financial transactions, don’t want a bank account,
don’t want access to government health care, education or social security, you don’t need access to subsidized food or
grain or seed, and you never wish to vote. The choice is clearly yours, but it is entirely voluntary.
And in the USA, what about us?
Well, you’ve heard of the Real ID Act. You should read it.
The Real ID Act of 2005 established minimum safe security standards to help enhance stateisssued
driver’s licenses and ID cards. That’s what it was sold as. The act prohibits
federal agencies from accepting accepting any information that doesn’t meet these standards. and it mandates
the collection of specific personal information including your full legal name, your date of birth, your social
security number, your residential address, your signature and a photograph. And this standardized data
collection across the states of the United States is creating a comprehensive profile of all individuals
which many critics are demonstrating will lead to increased government surveillance.
Now of the in America today um the following states have switched
their digital the real IDs to digital IDs is Arkansas, Arizona, California,
Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, New
Mexico, New York, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico.
These states have already digitized the Real ID system and it’s being rolled out in the other states. And because many of
the states didn’t want to do this from 2005 to 2020 when the car’s act was
voted in the start of the pandemic in 2020, the Trump administration put teeth
in the car’s act requiring states to fall in line with this Real ID program.
They weren’t just pushing health for people hurting with COVID. they were actually rolling out the mechanism for a
digital ID for the rest of the country. So
let’s give some examples of digital ID. You know, I’d encourage you to go back and read the Real ID Act because the
language of of what it can be used for is at times really vague. Something like
whatever the Secretary of State requires. I mean, it’s it’s incredibly broad.
It’s not just so you can have more ID on your driver’s license or you can travel with it. So let’s look at examples of
digital ID overreach. The problem with this is that we face a
dilemma. We all want more convenience, but with more convenience comes more
control. And we’re willing to sacrifice personal liberty and personal security if we have
what we think is modern or more convenience today. And because we’re not willing to take a
step back and realize that the devices we carry in our pockets are essentially 24/7 surveillance instruments.
We like the convenience. We like to drive home and stream YouTube. We like to press in a map and say, “Where’s my
hotel today?” We like all these apps on our phones. We’re being seduced by
convenience to yield um a surveillance mechanism 247 in our lives.
And so there are some clear examples of how digital IDs overreach.
So here you have this is the point of connection. The this is what you have it for. This is what it actually is used
for theoretically and this is how it can be um misused by governments. And some
of these when I say maybe these already are being misused by governments. So the
first is your health records up here. Theoretically having your digital health
records makes helps for more accurate keeping of all your medication records.
In reality, uh, having a digital ID that has access to your medical history allows the
government to disallow entrance to parts of a city if your vaccines are not up to date. This is what happened in China in
2022 and 2023. People’s digital IDs were switched off, which meant they couldn’t
get access to trains and buses, and they were turned away from certain areas. And when Chinese or citizens wanted to
protest at banks which were not giving them their their deposits back, the government just switched off their
digital IDs. This is known as geo fencing. And the government switches or limits where you can go in the city by
um accessing you on controlling on your phone where you can go and it shuts down
all mechanisms you have to get to where you’re going. Oh yeah, this happened a couple of years ago in China. Then you
have your health provider app. Anybody here have a health provider app on their phone? Yes.
Yes. Yeah. Most of us do. We use that for interacting with hospital visits.
When you get a letter from your primary care physician. Yes. I get a letter from my primary care physician after my
annual medical. I sit down. I take a deep breath and I pray and off I Lord may I pray you forgive this doctor for
what she’s about to say to me. And then I sit down and I read it through. And she lectures me about your LDL is too
high or sometimes my LDL is too low. I wonder what am I supposed to do about this? I’m not morally responsible for
having higher than expected HDL or low than expected HDL. But anyway, that’s another issue. We use our apps for
interacting with our healthcare providers. We like the convenience,
but as with um health record apps, your health provider app can be used to limit
access to certain harmful resources or to certain parts of the city. Again, that’s what happened in China. You have
supermarket apps now appearing. Do you use a super supermarket app? Do you buy online with Walmart in the pandemic?
Okay. The the the the apps, they know what you’re buying for home delivery. A lot of people use that during the
pandemic. Um that can be used for food rationing. It can also be used
to deny food to the socially non-compliant. You don’t step in line, you don’t fall
in line, then we’ll shut off your access to food. Google Maps and location services. Who uses Google Maps on their
phone? And when you download an app on your phone, there’s always a question on
on the permissions. Do you do you allow permission to share this information? Yes. Always say no.
Okay? Because when you say yes, you’re allowing this interoperability across all of your apps. So all the providers
know what’s going in your life, not just that particular provider. And so with Google Maps and location services that
gives location visibility, the overreach for that is behavior profiling
that those the one of the um the benefits or the side effects of 5G telephones is that they can there are
layers of tracking built into the 5G system. So with your 5G phone, if
somebody wants to know where you are 24/7, they know exactly where you are. the system automatically follows your
route through the city on your way home. Um, in in China, the Chinese pioneered
these systems in Tibet in the 19 late 1990s, early 2000s. And then they moved
the governor from Tibet up to northwest China to Shani, which was the home of the Weaggguers. And the major city of
the of the Weaggguers is called Arumchi. And the Weaggguers were somewhat restive. They didn’t want to be part of
China. And so in the last 15 years, the Chinese government has clamped down really hard on that religious minority
group. You’ve probably heard of the persecution of the weaguers where the men are taken into re-education and
indoctrination camps and the Chinese government has moved handmen into their homes to live as husbands with their
wives and they’re they’re trying to breed them out of existence and destroy the home dynamics. Well, the Chinese
government has instituted a social credit system across the nation and they piloted it in Urumchi and they put um um
smart cameras on every street corner ac across every entrance to every building
and they could track somebody and AI is being used so that if you’re going home from work in the evening and you
suddenly think, oh, I need to go and buy myself oh, I don’t know, a salt shaker for home. I just nip into Walmart and
buy that. that gets flagged in the system as being out of your normal rat run.
And if the government if the system thinks that this is suspicious, it can close off access to the shop for you.
And so um this kind of 24/7 surveillance state is already in existence in China
and it comes with a social credit scheme where if you on social media in China if
you don’t like enough government propaganda pieces every month then you lose benefits. You don’t get access to a
passport. Your children can’t can’t travel overseas for for education. You can’t get a foreign visa. Um you can’t
live in a nicer part of town. The Chinese government has a very advanced social credit scheme and it’s tied to
digital IDs which are being rolled out nationwide. It’s coming to us.
We have a soft version today. It’s called cancel culture. But it is coming our way. So we call behavior profiling
with Google maps. You have tokenized items. You’ve probably heard of the tokenization work of the Bank of
International Settlements. And so every nation has a central bank, but the central bank for all central
banks is known as the BIS. And the bank of international settlements and they are um moving as fast as they can to
tokenize all the assets around the world. And you say, well, how does that affect
me? Well, the problem with that is that the government can deny you access to your
own assets. They can you can buy a new car these days and it can be remotely shut down.
You can buy a property and then be denied access to do it by a government through a court order because they know
exactly which property you own. Everything is itemized. In fact, with the item with the digitalization program, I was chatting two weeks ago
with a man in Canada who’s managing part of the Canadian government’s rollout of their own CBDC. He was telling me that
the system is being designed so at the touch of a button, somebody’s assets can be transferred to somebody else on the
blockchain and you can be you can lose everything you own at the touch of a button.
So then you have your cameras. Everybody like their cameras on their phones.
Yeah, those cameras are nice things, but they can also see take pictures and
they can also see what you’re seeing. They can also be used to monitor everywhere you go and what you do there.
So if you have an laptop at home, most laptops have a little camera at the top of the screen. Yes.
I understand that Bill Gates and Elon Musk when they have their laptops, they cover those things over because people
can gain access to your computers and they can record what is happening in your room without you being aware of
that. So we come on to the digital ID social media messaging apps.
And people these days live on social media. We love posting pictures of weddings and me being very happy while
I’m in the midst of depression. But they can also be used for profiling.
Um all communication on a smartphone is seen by the smart the the social app
companies and this can give consequences. Even today, if you’re hiring a Gen Z or
millennial, most employers should, well, I know everything I’ve seen, employers are
looking at your social media history. You don’t hire somebody today without looking at their Facebook and Instagram
and Snapchat accounts. That’ll give you an idea of who you’re dealing with more than anything else. People post things
at 3:00 a.m. when they’re exhausted and there’s no filter going on. It’s amazing
what you can learn about somebody from those 3:00 a.m. postings. And so, even we as Adventists, I’ve done that. I’ve
checked people’s Facebook profiles before making employment decisions.
But then imagine if that’s being used systematically against all citizens. Then you have smartphones. We use these
for telephones, social media, banking, and other apps. But it’s also ubiquitous listening, tracking, and tracing device.
and providing through fi through 5G networks. It provides a 247 geoloccation
device for government surveillance agencies to uh track you wherever you go in the world.
Then you have the last two here for for digital IDs. You can have
religious and and political profiling. Any religion seen as inappropriate can
be dealt with by enforcing targeted restrictions on travel, purchases, and financial transactions.
It can also be used to determine your political alignment and either target you or restrict you as you plead,
including your ability to go and vote. So, these digital IDs that are being rolled around are not so much for
financial inclusion, but they’re for financial control. You know, it used to be that my when my
boy was growing up, I’d say, “David, I’ll pay you $5 to mow the lawn. It’s a three-hour job.” He was delighted to get
$5. And I was delighted to pay $5 for a three-hour job.
But with digital IDs and digital currencies, you can no longer make that personal transaction.
You’ll have to make a digital transaction, and that will be a taxed transaction. Everything will be known to
the government. Nothing is outside the system. and you essentially lose all personal privacy. The core issue here
with um with digital IDs is the ability of governments to engage in personal profiling.
It is not the government’s role or right to know every aspect of your life.
Limited government supports the existence of immorally self-regulating government.
The most violent part in America today are our prisons.
And the more government restrictions you place on a man, such as in a high security prison, the more you you you
reduce his capacity to act as a moral agent. When everything is controlled and
every decision is made for you, you are reduced to the status of an animal and men behave as animals in these prisons.
And when government reduces its controls on the citizenry, it increases our ability to engage in moral decisionm and
to act as moral beings and to live in harmony with our conscience. And so as
we see government controls increasing upon society, we the natural result is
we will see more animallike behavior because we are losing our ability to act as moral agents in a moral creation.
Digital IDs will let government to map out every aspect of your health, your
personal habits, all of your finances, your personal interests, every aspect of your personal history, all your
participation in social networks, your values and aspirations, your religious faith, your political views, and all
your personal vulnerabilities. And it also allows governments to act
upon that knowledge. It’s not just personal profiling. The problem with these digital IDs is you can fuse
intimate knowledge. You can merge intimate knowledge about an individual with the coercive power of the state.
And when you fuse intimate knowledge about the individual with the coercive power of the state, it means the
government will have the ability to restrict all your access to travel, food, money, access to your own
belongings. It’ll cut you off from utilities and housing, unemployment, health care, retirement accounts,
welfare support. Which is why the push for digital IDs is such a profound
threat to civil and religious liberties worldwide. Such an app, these apps that have been
rolled out will inevitably be an instrument of a total surveillance and control society under the guise of
digital inclusion and a digital ID. So, I hope my wife says, “Conra, you
have a unique ability to cheer people up.”
And the only good news right now is that lunch is in 35 minutes.
And this is the lightest of all the talks we have this next two days. All right?
But a job the job of a pastor is not to preserve the institutions of
the past. It is to protect it is to prepare prepare people for what is coming ahead.
We want to prepare people to be ready when Jesus comes. And we know that between now and then there is a time of
trouble coming such as never has been since nations came into existence. Sister White said in 1895, she said
there will be, I’m paraphrasing her here, she said um that the price of food will rise so high and the moneyed men
are controlling access to the supply of food that there is starvation in the cities of India, China and America. And
she says this will lead to a renewed civil war in the United States. She said that in 1895. And then she says this
will usher in the time of trouble of Daniel 121 and 2. So we we know there’s
social polarization in our nation. We saw what happened with the SNAP benefits potentially being cut off just two weeks
ago. People were saying we’ll just go and take it for ourselves. Law and order will completely break down. And what
we’re seeing in America today is not a division between right and left, but it’s between the social elites and the
people. Whether it’s AOC or Donald Trump, they’re all arguing for the people vis
the elites. It’s not a right or left issue anymore.
And so our job as pastors is to prepare people for what lies ahead.
When I was in Toronto two weeks ago, I sat in a Lebanese restaurant and um
that’s my favorite food, by the way. It’s delicious Lebanese food. It’s healthy and it’s nutritious and it’s
fresh salads. It’s wonderful. And um there was a little church opposite
and people were walking by. My eye was drawn to I it looked like a lady in a sari
and it was it was the color of this this thing here this light kind of like like faded brass
and she was just sitting there. Look the sari overhead and her hand was just held up like that. She was um sitting
cross-legged on the street and society was just passing her by and
I watched her before I realized that’s a statue. That’s not a real human being. That’s a
statue. And she was sitting there by the entrance to the church with her hands outstretched, not even looking up,
begging for a few pennies to come her way. But it was a statue. And my borrow from me. I said, “You see that statue
over there? God’s people are going to be like that one day
on the outside of society, excluded from all participation in all
financial or government services. Maybe evicted from our homes and our properties that we thought we’d paid
off, but you can’t pay property taxes if you don’t receive the mark of the beast. So, your property’s gone.
That’s where we’re going to be. But God will watch over his own.
So think about it and ask yourself, why are we striving for homes and cars and
holidays and bank accounts and retirement accounts? One day with the digital ID system, it can all be
switched off at the turn of turnover button. What matters is salvation, not the
dollars in our bank account or the assets in our balance sheet. So our time is up here. I need to bring
this to a close. While the UN talks about inclusion,
in reality it is building a global digital ID system that is inherently
exclusionary and will be used to punish regime critics or silent dissident voices by
cutting them off from any participation in society. We know this as the mark of the beast in Revelation 13.
And it’s interesting to me how many secular commentators are now talking about the mark of the beast.
politicians, commentators, journalists are looking at Revelation 13 again and
they’re talking about it on social media. They’re saying, “What does this chapter actually mean?” If there ever
was a time for us to talk about the mark of the beast and the third angel’s message, now is that time? Because
people understand that something is coming upon our world the like of which we’ve never seen before. The digital
mechanisms for the imposition, the digital mechanism for the imposition of the mark of the beast is being built
before our very eyes. The push for digital IDs we’re witnessing today all around the world will enable CBDC’s and
a track and trace 24-hour surveillance regime to be rolled out worldwide that
will lead to coercion whether it be of conscience or of economic activity. So I’ve been using the image today from
Daniel chapter 3 this picture that you see on the screen and in a sense we’re
in the same situation. Daniel 3:1 says, “King Nebuchadnezzar
made a golden statue whose height was 60 cubits and whose width was six cubits. He sat upon the on the plane of Jura in
the province of Babylon.” End quote. Now, like today’s digital ID system, the
statue didn’t appear overnight. It was built day by day, and Daniel,
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could watch it being built. And they knew that the invitations had been sent out by the
couriers to all the regions of the Babylonian Empire inviting all the all the leaders to come in. They knew what
was coming. They would have seen the furnaces being built beside that statue. This thing wasn’t done in secret. It was
done openly. And that means they had time to decide
in advance what their response would be.
And so I preach this today so that we start to make that decision in advance.
What do we stand for? What is most important to us? What are we willing to lose or sacrifice in this world to
ensure that we remain in the next world? Amen. The statue was not built overnight.
So those three Hebrew boys, they had already decided as the statue went up
how they would respond to the coercion of conscience and false worship that’ll be imposed when the statue is complete.
The king, the herald proclaimed aloud in Daniel 3:4-6, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that
when you hear the sound of the p the horn, the pipe, the liar, the trigon, the harp, the drum, and the entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down
and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar set up. Whoever does not fall down in worship shall immediately
be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire. So God had made Nebuchadnezzar the ruler
in civil matters. But Nebuchadnezzar wants to be the ruler in civil and in religious matters. And God has never
given the civil authorities the right to rule in religious matters. Civil authorities are there to regulate
person interpersonal behavior, the second half of the ten commandments, but they are not authorized by God to
regulate the first four commandments, which is our relationship with God.
Daniel, Shadrach, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, they answered the king, “Oh Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to
present a defense to you in this matter.” Why? Because we are accountable to God, not to you. The word Daniel
means God is the judge, not Nebuchadnezzar. When you stand for what is right, you
don’t have to justify to civil authorities. You we are justified before God, and he is our judge. But it goes on
to say, “If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O
king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, oh king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not
worship the golden statue that you have set up.” They watched the system of coercion
being built and they made up their minds before the moment of truth arrived. They
were ready to lose everything rather than disobey God. They chose to honor God and his commandments over the
commands of men no matter what. They were accepting of cancel culture, of dismissal and humiliation and execution
on the public stage. They were ready to become non-persons rejected by their global government that had suddenly
turned on them and be thrown into the fiery furnace. And in that moment, in
the fiery furnace, Jesus was never closer to those disciples than in that moment.
How are we going to survive as non-persons excluded from everything this world has
to offer? We’re going to claim the promise of Jesus in Matthew 28:20. And lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of the age. When the disciples came to Jesus in
Matthew 24, tell me when will this be the destruction of the temple. And what will be the sign of your of your coming
and of the end of the age? The end there Jesus concludes his response to Matthew
28 by saying, “Whatever happens between the fall of Jerusalem and the second coming of Christ, I will always be with
my people in a personal way. If we look to ourselves, it’s scary.”
But we have this story from Daniel 3 as a reminder that we are never closer to Jesus than when he is with us in the
fire. He delivered them in the fire. Their faith was vindicated and God was
glorified before the whole Babylonian Empire. Jesus’ promise to those disciples is the
same as his promise to us here today. And lo, I am with you always, even to
the end of the age. So don’t bow to men, bow to God. Don’t stand for error. Stand
for truth. Don’t settle for today when eternity is on the line. And no matter
what happens, may God be glorified through our witness before men and watching angels.
Amen. Choose today and choose eternity. Amen.
Amen. Let’s close with a word of prayer here. Our heavenly father, we see the golden statue being built in
front of our eyes. Father, we hear the language. We know what is coming from prophecy.
And Father, some you will lay to rest in their graves before that time of trouble comes.
But Father, in your grace and by your mercy, I’d like to see Jesus coming again. I want to be among those who do
not call for the rocks to fall upon them and hide them from the face of the one seated upon the throne and from the lamb. But Father, I want to be among
those who will stand tall and say, “This is our God whom we have waited for.” So Lord, between now and then, give us
wisdom and discernment. Give us the right priorities in our lives. Guide us in our use of the
talents and time you’ve poured out into each of our lives. And father, we claim the promise of Jesus that no matter how
persecuted we may be, no matter how much of a non-person we may be turned into,
we claim the promise of Jesus that he will be with us always, even to the end of the age. So, Father, fill us with
your spirit now. Watch over us with your angels. And may the love and the grace
and the person of Jesus shine out of all that we say and do. In his holy name we pray. Amen.