David and his people live in Ziklag outside the “royal” city: Jesus Christ and His people live outside the “royal” anti-Christian city of this world.

1 Samuel 27:5-7

Click for a description of the mark of the beast.
Click here for a description of the image of the beast.

“Then David said to Achish, “If I have now found favor in your eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you? So Achish gave him Ziklag that day. Therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. Now the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was one full year and four months.”  1 Samuel 27:5-7

Not for one minute did David intend to live in the same city as those who despised the Israelites. The Philistines had a feeling of royal superiority over the Jewish nation and constantly plotted against them. Likewise, Jesus Christ discourages His followers from living together with those of this world. That would be like light trying to mix with darkness, or righteousness trying to mix with spiritual wickedness. Those of the “democratic” society see themselves as being a royal people superior to Christianity, and Christians are not treated well while in their company. That will always be the ways of this world as the land of Christians will always be the land of “Ziklag,” a place set apart from mainstream society.

Being separate from the ways of the world is part of the “scarlet cord” in the Old Testament which points to Jesus Christ. Jesus tells us we are not of this world but are in the world among the anti-Christians. The mainstream “royal” society is the broad way leading to destruction, but we are to stay on the narrow country road leading to eternal life. That part of the “scarlet cord” is everywhere in the Bible, as also revealed when Joseph brought his family to Egypt. As despised sheepherders, they stayed in a country town called Goshen, away from the “royal city” of Egypt. When speaking to the Pharoh, Jacob (Joseph’s father) was counseled on what he should say, as quoted, “…you shall say, “‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.” Genesis 46:34

It’s obvious that those who live by the thing which forms what they think, feel, do, and speak do not want Christians to be around them for any extended period of time. As Christians who feed the flock with the Gospel of Christ, we are an abomination to them. The thing which forms thoughts and feelings enables the image of the beast to live and speak through people. They have no tolerance for us who allow the image of Christ to live and speak through us by the Holy Spirit. Those who allow the image of the beast to live and speak through them are conformed to their place in life by what they say and do. They are conformed to their place within the “royal” city of the “democratic” society of the beast. They are conformed to their mark in life as they are groomed to the mark of the beast.

The Holy Spirit speaks the following words to us,

Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Revelation 18:4-7

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“….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, 3:1