part 20: The Mark of the Beast & the image of God
Puzzled About Revelation, March 31, 2022
“I think one of the reasons why the “mark of the beast” has fallen into the category of “kooky” and “weird” is because it has been completely detached and divorced from its Biblical roots and from its historical precedent. ”
Main text: Rev. 13:14-18
“Because of the signs it [the second beast] was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced (lit. made) all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive (lit. offer up) a mark [in] their right hands or [in] their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is [lit. mankind’s number]. That number is 666.”
Questions:
Q: What is the “mark of the beast,” and how is it connected to the “image of the beast” and the “image of God”? (My view is that the mark is “internal” and image is “external”)
Q: What is the significance of the location of the mark? How is it connected to (true or false) worship?
Q: Why is it impossible for those who worship the image and receive the mark to repent and be saved? What lessons do Jacob’s brother, Esau, and a bowl of stew teach us?
Q: Is the “mark of the beast” already here? When will it appear?
Q: Why would a loving God allow this to happen? What is the purpose of the “mark”? Will the saints (believers) face this? If so, how can we be overcomers?
Observations:
1. The “mark” occurs during the last 3.5 years/42 months or last half of Daniel’s 70th “Week” (See Dan. 9:27; Matt. 24:15; Rev. 13:5,14), and the TIME that the “IMAGE (STATUE) of the Beast” is set up. Yet the global system must already be in place because the time is short.
2. The “mark” is connected to FALSE WORSHIP of the IMAGE of the BEAST (Rev. 13:15; See Matt. 22:20-21).
3. The “mark” will be both “VOLUNTARY” and NECESSARY to participate in society, own property, work, buy & sell, eat, etc. (Rev. 13:16).
4. The “mark” will be located IN the RIGHT HAND or FOREHEAD (Rev. 13:16). (In the body and in the mind. The right hand represents power or strength. And your mind represents your will, your emotions and your thoughts. What is the greatest commandment? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.)
“To the Hebrew, the soul is the innermost seat of one’s being... Hebrew scholars have shown that the layout of the tabernacle is modeled after the design of the human body. And the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant was, which was considered the seat or the footstool of God on the earth, corresponds to the mind of man. And that is the great mystery... that the temple of God is not a building, the temple of God is His people in which God dwells by His Spirit in our spirit, in our soul, in our innermost being.”
Therefore, for man to worship the beast is to give the beast occupancy of the very place that God designed for Him to reside in, for His presence to dwell in by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 22:15-22: “Whose image is [on the coin]?… Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s…” What is the implication? The coin had Caesar’s image… Where is the image of God found? On the human body, mind and soul. (Genesis: formed from dust, God breathed into him the breath of life (Spirit) and man became a living soul.) God has reserved the human body and soul for Himself to take up residence in. Satan is trying to get man to give to “Caesar” what only belongs to God.
We are already seeing signs of the “state” wanting control over your mind and your body. In the last days, the state/the beast system will attempt to “erase” the image of God from your body, soul and mind, and replace it with the “image of man”. (More on this next week.)
5. The “mark” is an ECONOMIC CONTROL SYSTEM using modern TECHNOLOGY (Rev. 13:16-17).
6. The“mark” is a SYSTEM of IDENTIFICATION and COMMUNICATION (Rev. 13:16-18).
7. The “mark” is a CHOICE between (eternal) LIFE and DEATH (Rev. 13:15; 14:9-11). (It “caused all people to offer up...”) Sadly, many will choose death…
Q: When was mankind given the first choice between life and death, blessing and cursing?
A: In the beginning, in the Garden of Eden!
Adam & Eve (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:1-5):
“And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’
. . .
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
In the midst of conquest, war, famine and death (the four horsemen) and the great deception, people will be looking for rescue. Some will look to Christ, others to the “state” - the beast system.
In the garden, Eve was offered the opportunity to be “like God” and to “not die”. It is likely that this same offer will be repeated and the same choice offered at the end of the age. This may involve AI and transhumanism. (The offer of living forever WITHOUT GOD.) (More on this next week.)
Q: Will people really be killed for refusing to worship the image? I can't see humanity doing this to each other….
1. The method of execution by decapitation (Rev. 20:4) is a distinctive of Islam (a murderous Antichrist religion) and its founder, Mohammed.
2. Nazi Germany, a highly intellectual and modern culture, was capable of systematic murder on a massive scale.
3. Who says they will be human... (next week)
4. The spirit of Satan is a spirit of murder. He was a murderer from the beginning…
Q: Where do we first read in Scripture of someone being “marked” as cursed?
A: Cain! He was a murderer from the beginning and bore the image of his true father, Satan!
Cain
“Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.
. . .
For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.”
Interestingly, worship is in view there as well - life and death, blessing and cursing. Cain had offered fruits of the soil, and God was not pleased. God told Cain that he would be accepted if he did “what is right.” But instead, Abel got the blessing, Cain murdered Abel, and God cursed Cain. Genesis 4.
Cain was afraid for his life after that. He lost his inheritance, and he was banished from the land. Cain appealed to God, and God put a MARK on CAIN so that no one who found him would kill him.
Q: Where else in Scripture do we read of a brother with a murderous spirit because he lost his inheritance? How did he lose his inheritance?
A: Esau! He lost his inheritance because he was godless and carelessly threw it away for a bowl of “red” stew.
Esau
“The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.) 31 Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” 32 “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?” 33 But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright.
. . .
Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
. . .
See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind (repentance), though he sought the blessing with tears.”
Esau became Edom because of the RED stew. Edom became the ancestor of the Edomites, Amalekites, and of Gog of Magog. I believe that the antichrist comes from this lineage, and is a descendent of Edom. In revelation, the beast is “red” (Edom) and may offer mankind the option of selling their birthright (eternal soul) in order to buy and sell, perhaps even for a literal bowl of stew.
Jesus told His disciples not to worry about what they should eat or drink: (Matthew 6:25,31; Luke 12:22,29)
Q: What is the significance of the LOCATION of the “mark”? Where else in Scripture do we hear of people putting something on/in their foreheads and hands/bodies?
A: The people of Israel!
Israel (Deut. 6:4-9; 8:1-20; 30:19-20):
Deut. 6:4-9: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
Deut. 8:1-5: “Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbledyou, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.”
Deut. 30:19-20: “19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
The Old Covenant was EXTERNAL and written on tablets of stone, but the New Covenant is INTERNAL and written on our HEARTS and MINDS…this is significant because the “mark” will be placed IN the FOREHEAD or IN the RIGHT HAND!
Q: Why would a loving God allow this to happen? What is the purpose of the “mark”?
A: It is a FINAL TEST for those who live on the earth at the end of the age:
1. It is a Romans 1 type JUDGMENT on the wicked and unbelievers, who will receive in themselves the due penalty for their rejection of God, truth, and morality.
2. It is a JUDGMENT on apostates, hypocrites, and false professors of faith who will be exposed as such by this test (See 1 Peter 4:17-19).
3. The saints will overcome all this and inherit eternal life. They will be martyr-witnesses to a watching world, and so through their death many will come to saving faith (See John 12:24-26) as the gospel is preached to all nations (Matt. 24:14).
Q: If Adam, Cain, Esau, and Israel as a nation FAILED their TEST, how can we hope to be OVERCOMERS?
A: Through Jesus Christ our Lord! We are to follow in His footsteps (See 1 Peter 2:21)!
See Matt. 4:1-11; 6:19-34; Heb. 12:1-17.
Next Week:
Q: What is the significance of the number “666”? How does this relate to Transhumanism and the WEF’s “4th Industrial Revolution”?
Q: How are FORCED INJECTIONS and DIGITAL ID conditioning the masses and paving the way for this system to arise?
Final Thought:
If the true gospel and blessed hope is Christ IN you, the hope of glory, is the satanic counterfeit anti-gospel the Beast (Dragon) IN YOU via the mark of the Beast!? And is the cursed hope that of becoming “like God” (all-knowing, eternal) but apart from repentance and faith in the blood of Jesus Christ?