This week a Japanese bank announced it will be installing about a dozen automated teller machines that will scan customers' hands for identity. I have to hand it to the Japanese: they’ve certainly found a handy way to get cash. And besides that, no one will have to worry about their debit card falling into the wrong hands!
If this “hand scanning” thing catches on, it could change our vocabulary. For example, if your wife needs money to go shopping, she’ll say, “can you give me a hand?” And that homeless guy who sits in front of Lucky's will have a sign that reads, “I’m looking for a hand out.” And bank tellers may sound like cops when they say, “put your hands where I can see them.”
Now before this post gets completely out of hand, let me offer a more serious observation. It seems to me this biometric scan has a somewhat apocalyptic ‘feel’ to it. And while it may not be a chip implant, it could advance Antichrist’s agenda toward a global marketplace (“mark of the beast”). But it also occurs to me that the more things in this world get out of hand, the earthlings will be employing technology to take matters into their own hands. But we have peace, knowing that our life and times are in His hand (Ps. 31:15), the one who opens His hands and meets our needs (Ps. 145:16).
After the attempted shoe bombing 10 years ago, TSA made everyone remove their shoes. Then last year, someone put a bomb in their underwear: the underwear bomber. Thank God for ‘body scanners,” or who knows what new rules TSA might have implemented. But alas! This weekend, a 95-year old woman was made to remove her underwear—an adult diaper! And last month a 5-year old was given a pat-down. Everyone is wondering “what happened to common sense?” (Apparently, it got thrown out with the dirty diapers.) But this matter is not limited to TSA. What about the common sense of our elected officials? On what planet does it make sense to borrow and spend our way out of debt?
Considering the aforementioned, “common sense” seems to have been replaced by its alter ego, “collective insanity.” Let’s hope it is a temporary condition. But “temporary insanity” is not uncommon to fallen man. Adam had a spell of temporary insanity when he agreed to eat the “poison apple.” Wasn't David temporarily out of his mind when he slept with Bathsheba and tried to cover it up. Centuries later, Paul asked the Galatians, “Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth” (3:1). And even Jesus gave witness to this malady in His story of the Prodigal son: “After he came to his senses, he returned to his father “(Luke 15:18). The prodigal had a bout of temporary insanity.
Satan’s strategy has always been to cast a spell of deception on the unwitting. I don’t have much hope for our nation’s “collective insanity.” But I do hope and pray that we in the 21st century American Church won’t wake up one day (come to our senses) and find that we’ve been deceived into a “pig pen” mindset, “just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent” (2 Cor. 11:3).
Since the 2002 shoe bombing, we have to remove our shoes to go through airport security. Now with the “underwear bomber”… well, I’m just relieved to know someone has invented “Body Scanners!” Indeed, some rather unusual precautions have been (and will be) taken as a result of the fear of terrorism. It has added a new dimension to the term: “fear of flying,” (or is it fear of dying?).
After Adam sinned, his first words were ‘I was afraid’, a precursor of mankind’s future fear driven choices and behaviors. Not surprisingly, the admonition to “fear not” is used over 150 times in the Bible. When the angel approached Mary announcing the birth of Jesus, he said “fear not” (Luke 1:30) Then the same words were spoken to the shepherds in the field (Luke 2:10). It’s as though God was saying ‘now that My son is here, you need no longer fear.’ And of course, there were many times in the course of His earthly ministry when Jesus said “fear not.” It seems pretty clear that Jesus came to put an end to fear.
The writer of Hebrews explains that “…by dying, Jesus broke the power of the Devil, who had the power of death, to deliver those who lived all their lives as slaves to the fear of dying” (Heb. 2:14-15 paraphrased). Think about it. When you are no longer afraid to die, there is nothing left to fear.
As I reflected on this, I thought of the Muslim extremists. One of the reasons the Al Qaeda will be difficult to defeat is that they are not afraid to die. What if we Christians were like that? The devil can only defeat us to the degree that we are afraid to die. But the death we fear most is not physical death (end of life) as much as we are afraid to die to the things we love (end of self). If every Christian was not afraid of the latter, how different would the world be today?
