Hal Lindsay, call your office. Back in the '70s and '80s, Christians who worried about the use of technology for totalitarian purposes would speculate about nefarious plots with apocalyptic overtones, usually involving Euro-bureaucrats and a Big Scary-Sounding Supercomputer to be nicknamed "the Beast".
I guess it's time for such stories to start the rounds again, 'cause this technological proposal is enough to creep me out.
I don't want anything under my skin that God Himself didn't put there.
This is creepy. It will never work, because too many people will oppose it... so I wouldn't worry about it.
This creeps me out a bit too.
The Book of Revelation speaks of a one world government and economic system during the Tribulation whereby those who refuse the Mark of the Beast are executed. Of course, they're also not allowed to buy or trade anything. This would seem to suggest a global currency that is not tangible in any aspect but virtual and exchanged by electronic means alone.
Certainly having such an implanted device would be a way of enforcing that system.
But at any rate, the real root sin behind the acceptance of the Mark is the rejection of Christ and the embrace of the anti-Christ in the face of persecution. This is what damns those in the Tribulation period prophesied in the Book of Revelation. At any rate, yeah, I suppose some folks will start making ridiculous warning about cutting up your ATM cards and credit cards and using supermarket scanners and only using cash and yadda yadda. But if we understand how some of the technologies and eroding ethical lines regarding use of those technologies is paving the way, or more aptly, unfolding along God's revelation of the end times, than we take comfort in knowing God is in control and that His Word is ever true and never changing.
I understand your concern about foreign objects in your body, Chris -- but what would you say about a metal splint to keep someone's leg together? Or a pacemaker? Surely you don't mean that as a principle.
Devices with a therapeutic purpose are another matter. For example, how would I get through the day without my implanted brainpacer? :-)