“If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of His wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name. This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep His commands and remain faithful to Jesus.” Revelation 14:9-12
Imagine a world with all of the different types of marks that would be on a person according to the prophecies of the Bible. It seems that we forget about the most important mark of all, which is the seal of God put in the forehead of the followers of Christ, as described in Revelation 7:2-3 and Ezekiel 9:6. With that, there would be the masses of people in every city around the world with a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. That would be quite a world to walk down the streets with people wearing their mark representing who they belong to. It would be like rival gangs wearing their colors, which is spiritually the environment we are living in today. Of course, people will say that the marks will be invisible to the naked eye, and to that I say, “Exactly.” It is something internal to us which we should be looking at, not physical devices, chips, and marks.
The battle is for the temple of God, our body, and we are not in a warfare against the physical world, such as marks, chips, etc. on or implanted in the body. “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” 1 Corinthians 6:19 And contrary to that, referring to the entity, “…who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:4 The response is, “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God.” 2 Corinthians 6:16
A physical and literal mark on the hand or forehead can do nothing to change our choice to serve God through Jesus Christ. However, our choice to live by the entity which forms thoughts, feelings, words, and behaviors is our denial of God.
This is not a world where the government of the beast (United Nations) plans to mark the global population with an external sign of ownership. Everyone knows that there are no external signs that seals the allegiance of a person’s heart. However, the mark of the beast is directly related with a person’s allegiance to allowing the image of the beast to live and speak through them. Therefore, the mark of the beast relates to an internal presence signifying a person’s commitment to the thing which forms what a person thinks, feels, does, and says. It enables the image of the beast to live and speak through a person. The global government of the beast governs through the image and mark of the beast.
The United Nations is very big on the principles of humanism as they require people to live by the thing which forms what they think, feel, do, and say. The masses of people in every city around the world are already internally controlled/marked by the thing which has power over physiology. Christians refuse to live by it because it blasphemes the Holy Spirit, denies the reality of God, and discards the need for what Jesus Christ did for us on the Cross to atone for sin. Today, Christianity is already unwelcomed in every sector of society around the world. It gets worse as the global tribulation progresses forward.
We often forget that the Bible does not say that people who refuse the mark of the beast will be killed, this is what the Bible does say, “He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.” Revelation 13:15 Those who do not serve the image of the beast will be killed, and it is the image of the beast which requires everyone to receive the mark of the beast. The image of the beast is given life to live and speak through people by the thing which forms thoughts, feelings, words, and behaviors. By what they say and do they are conformed to their place in life according to the mark of the beast. For a post with more on the mark of the beast click here.
Revelation 13:14 implies that persuasion and deceit are being used to compel people to live by the image of the beast and its mandates, including the mark of the beast, “And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.” Revelation 13:14 Although I used the word persuasion, it’s more like coercion. It is not going to force itself upon the global “democratic” society but will “make you an offer you can’t refuse.” It orders all the earth to worship the beast and has power over the inner workings of physiology, it has healing powers, and power over life and death. Part of the coercion to live by the image and mark is to impose hardships, difficulties, affliction, the fear of death, and the inability to buy or sell if refused. That coercion involves employment opportunities, health care, social acceptance, dignity, esteem, and the ability to achieve goals. It promises you everything you need with it, and hardly anything without it.
The image of the beast is what is commanded to be worshipped, and it is able to speak, but the mark of the beast is a result of allowing the image of the beast to live and speak through a person. It lives and speaks through people by the thing which forms thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and words. Everyone who lives by it will be required to live by the mark of the beast, “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13:16-17
The mark on the hand or forehead is spiritually symbolic in the same way that God’s mark/seal on the forehead is spiritually symbolical. The “image” is used in the same way that the word “image” is usually used in the Bible. For example, “So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27 and “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” Romans 8:29 The image and mark of the beast is a war against the soul, it wants to sit in the temple of God, our body, as if it is God, but we make our body the home of the Holy Spirit. A physical and literal mark on the hand or forehead can do nothing to change our choice to serve God through Jesus Christ. However, our choice to live by the thing which forms thoughts, feelings, words, and behaviors is our denial of God.
It would be easy for a person to believe that social security numbers are the mark of the beast because no one can work without it. Without work, there are no wages, without wages there is no buying, and without buying there is nothing to sell. However, having a social security number does not prevent anyone from living for God through Jesus Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit. That’s because a social security number is external to the soul and spirit. Likewise, any external device or marks, such as microchips, has no impact on us as the temple of the Holy Spirit. That is how we know the mark of the beast is internalized through the image of the beast that lives and speaks through people. It lives and speaks through people by the entity giving people what to think and feel.
The “image” refers to an inner presence that reveals itself in what we think and in what we do. The mark on the forehead represents thinking according to the image of the beast that is within, and the mark on the right hand represents doing according to the image of the beast within. The mark of the beast is what stations us to our place in life by what we think, do, and say. It establishes our livelihood, the amount of money or digital currency we are given to live on, it establishes our position in employment (whether we are made to be a janitor or a governor) etc. If we refuse to allow the image of the beast to live and speak through us then we are refusing the mark of the beast, we are refusing a place within the “democratic” society.
The people of God are called to endurance and patience while the image and mark of the beast are unleashed onto the world. The consequences of living for the inner presence of the thing forming our thoughts, feelings, words, and behaviors is eternal torment, as is described in the verses below. The world is warned not to live by the image and mark of the beast.
“Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira,
to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets,
‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’”
“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
Revelation 2:24-25, 3:11
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