“Without a bank account, you become a nonperson,” said United Kingdom politician and Brexit leader Nigel Farage. He speaks from experience. When his bank account closed in June, he didn’t know why. What everyone suspected was later verified: His account was shut down for political reasons. On June 29, he wrote on Twitter: “If they can do it to me, they can do it to you too.”

On July 26, the Epoch Times reported that JPMorgan Chase shut down accounts for companies owned by covid-19 vaccine critic Dr. Joseph Mercola. This hearkens back to the Canadian government’s response to the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa last year.

But this trend is not limited to liberal Western governments. Bank accounts or assets of government critics around the world are regularly frozen. It has happened in Uganda, Belarus, Russia, China, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Turkey and other countries.

Governments have even seized protesters’ money. You may not need to oppose the government to lose your business. In France, companies lose necessary financing if they don’t reach the climate goals of the government.

Think about all the things you may do your particular government may not like: supporting a particular organization, a protest or a subscription to a magazine. Sanctions and asset freezing can restrict one’s ability to engage in business, and the indication is this practice may become all too common. But it may not even take shutting down your account to limit your ability to engage in business.

Many factors go into a bank’s assessment of someone’s creditworthiness, determining if a person can get a credit card, a mortgage or a loan. It is mostly based on a person’s financial history, but some lenders also run background checks before giving out a mortgage. As people are finding out, the list can easily be expanded.

For example, a bank could say a person is a financial risk because he does not support the lgbtq+ movement, limiting his job opportunities. The same could be true for someone who hasn’t taken the covid vaccine or drives a gasoline-powered car. By outlawing those things, the government could ruin a person’s creditworthiness.

The more complex government policies become, the more complex are the considerations for giving out a loan. To check a business’s compliance with diversity employment, climate change regulations and other liberal trends, you may need the help of artificial intelligence.

The European Union drafted a law that regulates just that. The law reads: “AI systems used to evaluate the credit score or creditworthiness of natural persons should be classified as high-risk AI systems, since they determine those persons’ access to financial resources or essential services such as housing, electricity and telecommunication services.”

High risk means it will come under strict government scrutiny:

AI systems used for this purpose may lead to discrimination of persons or groups and perpetuate historical patterns of discrimination, for example based on racial or ethnic origins, disabilities, age, sexual orientation, or create new forms of discriminatory impacts.

The EU wants to ensure that no minority groups are discriminated against by AI systems that could limit their ability to live a normal life. But what if a Chinese-style social credit system is developed that evaluates your trustworthiness based on your tolerance toward the liberal norms of our Western world? What if this system determines if you are allowed to have a bank account?

AI could search someone’s social media accounts and determine if the person might get into trouble with the government in the future. It could analyze any communication, financial activity or other records the government allows access to. Instead of looking at the past criminal record, it could predict future potential criminal records. It could evaluate complex data and draw conclusions hard for human beings to understand.

What if the government designs the AI and demands that banks use it? The bank may not understand why a customer was denied access to its financial service.

If you know such a system exists, you would avoid criticizing the government. The possibilities of government overreach are endless.

This brings a particular biblical prophecy to life. As the late Herbert W. Armstrong explained in Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast?, Revelation 17 depicts the union between a powerful government and a church—represented by a woman riding a beast. This church-state combine is the Holy Roman Empire.

Revelation 13 reveals what this empire has done and will do in the near future: “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. 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” (verses 15-17).

About a.d. 363, the Council of Laodicea decreed: “Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, resting rather on Sunday. But, if any be found to be Judaizing, let them be declared anathema from Christ.”

The Church decreed it, and the state enforced it. The Bible reveals it will be the same in the end time. Governments have more power than ever to force such a decree.

You need to understand what the mark of the beast is. Those who reject this mark are protected by God. To learn more, read Which Day Is the Christian Sabbath?