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Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a

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moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith.

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Today, what is the mark of the beast in Revelation? Oh, the mark of the beast in the book of Revelation

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written by the Apostle John. Are we to breathlessly look for barcode strips and microchips

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on our foreheads and hands as Revelation Red Heifer Rapture teachers tell us will happen

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in the takeover by the Antichrist? Or does Revelation actually indicate to us that John's

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first audience, that is the Christians of Asia Minor in the first century, knew exactly what the

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mark of the beast was without having to wait some 2,000 years for barcode strips and microchips?

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The answer has a great deal of meaning for you, dear listener. If you think all of this is future,

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if you buy the fantasies of your Revelation Red Heifer Rapture teachers, your guard is down today,

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regarding the beast and his impact on you and our world around us. If you maintain with us,

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however, that the beast had a first century context, then you can see how the mark of the beast is

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evident not only then, but today in the beast and his followers today. There is a beast today,

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and there are followers of the beast today. You are far more able to identify the beast and his deeds

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today, honestly and realistically. The beast, as we have seen over the last few weeks, the beast

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was simultaneously in Revelation a territory and a tyrant. John says the seven heads are seven

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mountains on which the woman is seated, and that, of course, is the seven mountains of the city of Rome.

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But they are also seven kings. That is Caesar Nero. And we establish this with three different vectors

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that John gives us. That is succession. There were seven, eight successors, one of which was Nero.

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There was resuscitation, succession, resuscitation, and 666. Resuscitation, that is the Nero redidivus

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myth. That is the resurrection of Nero. And then there was the number 666, which we saw perfectly fit

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Caesar Nero. But what is crucial for you and me is that it doesn't end there. A satanically inspired

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beast is alive and well on planet Earth now as we speak. And unless you face it squarely,

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you will end up serving it. There is no compromise here. Satan is a deceiver. His partner in crime,

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the beast from the Earth, deceives those who dwell on the Earth, as John says. And this includes clever

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Christians who are deceived into thinking all of this is future when it's happening now. And the beast

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demands your loyalty and allegiance now. And the beast, with foolish Christians, buy into a futurist

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scheme, they go ahead and blindly serve the very beast they swear they would never submit to if

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they were left behind and bidden to take barcode strips and microchips. There is no more perfect

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scheme of deception than to convince men that Satan manifest is in the future, only after a sequence of

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particular events that will never happen, when in fact he is out and about now, marking his own

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now, requiring worship now, animating the beasts now. The pre-tribulational rapture scheme as outlined

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by your revelation, Red Heifer rapture teachers, will never happen. You are waiting in a fantasy and

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as long as he can string you along into thinking it will, deceiving you with blood moons and raptures

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soon, you will continue to serve the beast. Stop serving the beast, oh listener. The beast has already

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gained victory over you, if this is your view. You go on pledging your allegiance to him,

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making your fortune, serving in his armies, and you worship the beast in countless ways about which

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you are totally unaware. After all, you reason, the really bad stuff like the Great Tribulation and

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the Antichrist may be close, but it won't happen until after I bail out through the escape hatch of

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the rapture. So, my service to the system as it is now is all good. I can't possibly be one of those

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with the mark of the beast, because the rapture hasn't happened yet, and I don't have a microchip in me.

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At least, I don't think I do. So many millions of men are already walking around with chips under their

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skins, dear listener. Bear with me, though. Please do bear with me. Have patience with me.

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I began to show you over the last few weeks that the beast of revelation is not what your

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revelation, Red Heifer rapture teachers told you he was. This means as well that the mark of the beast

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is not what they're telling you it is. One thing your revelation, Red Heifer rapture teachers don't

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tell you is what John expected his first century readers to see from their world around them and the

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source from which he expected them to draw their conclusions. That is the Bible. How novel. How

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revolutionary. You are looking around your world, drawing on literal symbols like barcode strips and

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microchips when John expected his readers to look around their world, that is the world of the first

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century, and draw upon the Bible and not wait two millennia and then consult Fox News and the latest

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tech journals. John himself says this calls for wisdom. If we are to see what God intends for us to see

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in Revelation, then we must first see what he intended our first century brothers to see.

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They were John's first readers of the apocalypse. Then we can look for those same things as they appear

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now. But until we do this, we are practicing isogesis. Isogesis is reading into a text things that are not

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there, like barcode chips and microchips. Instead of reading out of text things that are there, this is

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exegesis, things native to the text. Well then, what kind of marks are native to the text? In the biblical

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context, what does it mean to mark a man, whether of a beast or a man or of God, because God marks

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men too? The Bible. Rather than your imaginative newspaper headlines, the Bible is the abundant source

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for the first century church. Let us look first of all to the mark of Cain, the mark of Cain, because

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God marks men too. It doesn't take long into the history of mankind before a man is marked. And this

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is Cain, the first murderer who slew his brother Abel. Now, when God pronounces judgment, and he does this

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in upon Cain, he says, when you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You

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shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on earth. Well then, Cain is dismayed. Note Cain's fear in chapter

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four of Genesis. He says, I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will

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kill me. Well, God contradicts Cain. He says, not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken

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on him sevenfold. Now it's here that the so-called mark enters, because the text says, the Lord put a

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mark on Cain. The word mark here in Genesis can also be translated sign or omen, and it is translated

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precisely that in other contexts. For example, in the creation narrative, the lights of heaven are said

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to be, let them be for signs, that is, or marks. The rainbow of Noah was also a sign or an omen,

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the circumcision that God made with Abraham was also a token of God's covenant, that is a sign or

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an omen. And that's the best understanding here, in fact. Not mark, but sign or omen. And many

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translations do exactly this. The New American Standard says, the Lord set a sign for Cain.

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The American Standard Version says, and Jehovah appointed a sign for Cain. The English Revised

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Version says, and the Lord appointed a sign for Cain. Well, then what was that sign? The context tells us,

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dear reader, so important. The context tells us what the sign or omen was for Cain, because rather

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than being driven away, being hidden, being a fugitive, and a wanderer, note what the text says.

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Cain would settle in the land of Nod. This is the sign and omen that God gave to him.

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And in settling, men would be less likely to slay him. And then he would bear a son in peace,

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and that would be Enoch. And much more, Cain would build a city. What wanderer, what fugitive does

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this? No one does this unless he is indeed given a sign or an omen from God. Surrounding peoples

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would refrain from killing one who has built a city. Cain's subsequent career was anything but that

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of a fugitive and wanderer. Well, what other alternatives do you have to offer, dear listener,

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for the mark of Cain? There have been many. For example, the LDS Church used to maintain that the

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mark of Cain was the curse of black skin upon him, and then later his descendants Cain. And this

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interpretation was also popular in the antebellum slave South and amongst groups like the Ku Klux Klan and

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other white supremacist groups. Well, some have thought that the mark of Cain was also a physical

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deformity. And then a popular current understanding is that it was a physical mark on the forehead

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and or hand, like that of the Beast of Revelation. Some even say it was the number 666.

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Well, dear listener, the sheer number of speculations as to what a literal physical mark might be

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should send up warning flags to you about literal interpretation. Literalism in a highly symbolic

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book like Revelation, and then parts of Genesis too, leads the interpreter into blind alleys and absurd

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understandings like those that we have just mentioned to you. The problem with these interpretations is that

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our Hebrew word is never a literal physical mark in the Bible. As the exegetical commentators,

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as Kylan Dalich put it, they say, and I quote, the mark which God put upon Cain is not to be regarded

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as a mark upon his body, but as a certain sign or omen, unquote. So, the mark of Cain was not a literal

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physical mark on the body, a truth that cannot be wished away. The sheer number of speculations on such

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a physical mark shows its implausibility. Rather, the mark of Cain was a sign, an omen given to him,

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and all who would slay him, that he would be an opposite of a fugitive and wanderer. That is a settler

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and a city builder. The second set of marks that we see in the Bible are the mark of God upon the

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elect, because indeed God marks his own as well. The next text that our first century reader, we must

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think in terms of our first century reader when we come to Revelation, not two millennia later to

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red heifer rapture teachers, no. The next text our first century reader would think of when he thought

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about the mark of the beast on the forehead was Ezekiel 9, where men were marked on the forehead

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there as well, only by God for preservation rather than by the beast for condemnation.

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Here in Ezekiel 9, God was judging Israel for her idolatry by removing his presence from the temple,

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slaying the idolaters, sparing only those who bore his mark on the forehead. The text says in Ezekiel

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chapter 9, pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark upon the foreheads of the men who

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sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it. And to the other angels, he said in

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my hearing, pass through the city after him and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no

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pity, kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one upon

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whom is the mark, unquote. And here we have a mark on the forehead that all commentators universally

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confess to be an invisible one, a mark known to God and his angels as he judges. Nowhere in the

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historical documents does the text require a literal mark on the forehead. Nowhere in the historical

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documents is there a record of men running around the streets of Jerusalem, wide-eyed and zombie-like

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with 666 on their foreheads or some other number, as we see portrayed to us by the revelation red

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heifer rapture teachers who represent these things as literal marks. What is required by the context in

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Ezekiel chapter 9 is that the avenging angels of God distinguish between the godly and the ungodly,

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the just and the unjust. In this highly symbolic prophecy, the angels see what is required to

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distinguish the good from the bad, the righteous from the evil, while we do not. Ezekiel, of all the

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Old Testament prophets, along with Zechariah perhaps, uses spiritualized picture parables to

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communicate to his generation. Spiritualized picture parables. And despite the horror and revulsion you

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may feel at this, if you are a literalist, revelation red heifer rapture teacher, dispensational

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premillennialist. Well, the Bible does precisely spiritualize many texts at various junctures,

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Ezekiel chapter 9 being one. Third set of marks that we see in the Bible, we have the mark of God

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upon the elect in Revelation 2, Revelation chapters 7 and 9, echoing Ezekiel. Here is why I say to you,

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you cannot understand the New Testament and Revelation without first understanding the Old Testament.

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John in Revelation is drawing upon the parallel tradition in Ezekiel for his purposes. Just as

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God knew his own all throughout the apostate days of Ezekiel, which was the function of the mark upon

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the forehead there, so God knows his own all throughout the days of John, not some far-off

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irrelevant days for American evangelicals who hold a newspaper in one hand and a copy of Left Behind in

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the other. John says, then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun with the seal of the

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living God. And he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth

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and sea, saying, do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of

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our God on their foreheads, unquote. From Revelation chapter 7, with great hope the angel seals the

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servants of God on their foreheads. How beautiful and how reassuring that is. Why don't Revelation

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Red Heifer rapture teachers pay any attention to this wonderful passage full of so much promise for

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the church? Almost all agree, too, in interpreting this, that it is a symbolic spiritual seal that

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identifies possession by the sealer that is God Almighty. The seal on the forehead of believers is

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meant to be seen by the supernatural forces of judgment, not by all and sundry upon the earth.

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Let me repeat that. The seal upon the foreheads of believers is to be seen by the supernatural forces

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of judgment, not by all and sundry upon the earth. The kind of fierce wrath that God pours out in

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judgment upon the world will not hurt the people of God. That's the promise of the seal. Revelation

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chapter 9 also reveals the same principle to us, because it says there, they, that is the demons arising

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from the pit. We're told not to harm the grass and the green plants and the trees, only those who don't

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have the seal of God on their foreheads. There are many other places in Scripture, too, where men are

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marked in precisely this fashion. Mark the blameless, David says in the Psalms, Psalm 37, mark the blameless

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and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace. If you, O Lord, should mark

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iniquities, from Psalm 130, O Lord, who could stand? Though you wash yourself with lie, in fact,

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Jeremiah says to the Israelites, though you wash yourself with lie and use much soap, the mark of

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your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord God. One of the many, many places where the word mark

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is also used. We have observed consistently throughout the Bible that to mark a man is a spiritual,

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symbolic act by which he is identified in association with a character, quality, or possessor.

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There's no escaping this conclusion if we are honest in examining the Bible's consistent use of to mark.

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Well, what then are we to conclude when we come to the mark of the beast? Are we to conclude anything

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different? Are we to make an exception here in order to avoid profound disappointment in our special

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inside knowledge of literal barcode strips and microchips as marks of the beast? Let me remind

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you again of a very important interpretive principle here. A text cannot mean what it could not mean for

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its first audience. Neither John nor his people knew anything about barcode strips and microchips.

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The writer, John, wrote with a particular people in mind, the churches of Asia who lived in thought

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within their own day and time, that is the particular culture and set of ideas in the first century

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of which barcode strips and microchips were not a part. Therefore, if we are to understand what John

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means, and not just make it up to suit our own fancies, well, then we must endeavor to interpret

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John's text in the context of his day and time. They knew nothing of barcode strips and microchips,

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but they did know how a man's thoughts, words, and deeds marked him as a sinner or a saint,

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as belonging to the Caesar or Christ, as a worshiper of the emperor or the one true God.

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From Revelation chapter 13, verse 16, this is the meaning of it. That is also, it causes all,

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both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand

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or the forehead. That's the sense of this text. If you examine the Bible from Genesis to Revelation,

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you find that the forehead is symbolic of a man's thoughts and words, and the hand is symbolic of

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his deeds or his works. In exhorting, for example, Israel to obedience to God's word, Moses commanded

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Israel to have that word ever before them. And he puts it this way in Deuteronomy chapter 6,

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and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to

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your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when

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you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as

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frontlets between your eyes, that is, your forehead. The hand and the forehead, dear listener, the word

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of God was to be there with the Israelite. This is the tradition of the phylacteries, that is, those

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little boxes that you see bound on the forehead and the right hand of pious Jews even today when they

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pray. Those little phylacteries or black boxes are filled with scriptures, symbolic of the ever-present

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word to guide that pious Jew in their thoughts and words on the forehead, and then in their actions and

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deeds, that is, on the right hand. This is that which identified a man with God, that is, his thoughts, his

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words, and his deeds. And not even the phylacteries per se. The phylacteries are redundant and

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unnecessary. They were never acquired by God. God never meant for this text to be taken literally.

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To have them bound as a sign or a mark on the hand and forehead is a spiritual symbol, that a man's

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thoughts, words, and deeds are so tempered by the word of God that he is consistently obedient to it,

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and thus he belongs to God. This is the mark of a man belonging to God, the mark of God, if you will.

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What is then the mark of the beast? I suggest to you it is the very same thing. Same thing here in

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Revelation 2. That is, his thoughts and words symbolized by the forehead and his actions symbolized

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by the right hand. Satan, possessing the beast, requires even now, not after the rapture, he requires

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even now Satan does a like kind of devotion from his followers, a commitment of every thought, word,

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and deed exclusively. The mark or sign of the beast is the corresponding loyalty and devotion of all by

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their thoughts, words, and deeds. This rich tradition of spiritual symbolism is what our first century

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audience would have immediately referenced. Knowing their Bibles, they would not have stood around

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tapping their feet and looking at the watches, muttering, whatever does John mean. I guess we'll

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have to wait two millennia for this text to mean anything until they invent barcode strips and

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microchips. No. They would have been able to apply the mark of the beast immediately in their own day.

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The emperors were already beginning to require this kind of worship by thought, word, and deed of

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every citizen. By the time we reached the reign of Emperor Decius, for example, every citizen was

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required to confess his loyalty to Rome's Pontifex Maximus, as he was called. Pontifex Maximus,

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which was translated the supreme priest. Who else is the supreme priest with whom he's competing,

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dear listener? We know from Hebrews that is the Lord Jesus Christ, of course. But, of course,

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in the first century, all citizens of Rome were required to confess their loyalty to the Pontifex

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Maximus, the supreme priest, the Caesar, by appearing before one of Caesar's lesser priests

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of the emperor cult. And then the citizen was to confess with his mouth, Caesar is Lord.

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What does that sound like from Romans? Paul says we are to confess Jesus as Lord. But they were to

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confess Caesar is Lord. And then they were to purchase a pinch of incense to toss upon the fire

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that burned upon the emperor's altar. If he did do these things, well, then the citizen would receive

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a certificate of compliance that would entitle him to walk freely through the local marketplace

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and buy food from local vendors who were members of local pagan cults who were required by Rome to

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these guilds, required by Rome to demand that buyers produce this certificate of compliance.

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And even oftentimes, these foods, especially meats, were offered previously to whatever god the vendor

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was a devotee in his particular guild. So now, do you see how hard it would be for Christians to buy or

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sell, as the text says, to participate in the local economy if they refused the mark of the beast?

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Can you see why the mark of the beast cannot be barcode strips and microchips for John's audience?

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They would have understood it in terms of the Bible, not 21st century technology and headlines.

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Additionally, their understanding must be ours as well. As it was in the first century, so it is in

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our own. If the mark of the beast was obedience by thought, word, and deed to the satanically inspired

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empire of Rome, then so the mark of the beast must be for us. Obedience by thought, word, and deed to

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the satanically inspired beast in our day. And there is one in our day, dear listener.

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What is the nature of that beast in our day? Who is the beast in our own day? This we will

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interpret and unpack for you in days to come. What's important to leave you with today is the

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clear understanding that these things, the beast from the sea and his correspondent, the beast from

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the land, and the mark and the number of the beast, have direct application in the first century as

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well as our own. But that application to us must be consistent with that of our brothers in the first

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century. Or else it is wishful thinking nonsense. Revelation red heifer raptured fantasies like

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barcode strips and microchips that our brothers to whom John was writing would know nothing about.

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It is entirely possible that well-intended Christians today are serving the beast they

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so studiously think they avoid simply by not taking barcode strips and microchips under their skin

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from the government. If only it were so simple. Truth, however, is always more complex. This calls for

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wisdom, as John says. As we will unpack in greater detail in weeks to come, the beast in Revelation has a

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long history throughout the Bible, not confined to a narrow, exclusive seven-year Great Tribulation

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in the future. Do you seriously suppose that Satan has been waiting till that moment in some distant

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future to establish his worldwide dominion in a blasphemous copy of God's kingdom? Quite the

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opposite. Satan has been laboring since the Garden of Eden to do this. Even the serpent in the

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Christ there is more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord has made. Satan inhabited the serpent

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beast there, and we can trace this beast theme through biblical history, as we will do. Men have served the

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beast since our first father, Adam, doing so exactly as Adam did by thinking the thoughts of the beast, speaking

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the words of the beast, and doing the deeds and actions of the beast. That is Satan's incarnation in the world.

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Most men did it unwittingly, even, thinking they were serving God sometimes. Even the Israelites

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worshipped idols, thinking they were merely representations of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

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And also, the Pharisees, even of Jesus' own day, thought that they were worshipping God, but they

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were actually hypocrites, that Jesus said whose father was the devil, true father was the devil. But make no

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mistake, dear listener, they were serving the beast by their thoughts, words, and deeds. Many serve the beast in

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the very same fashion in our own day, unwittingly, thinking at times they're serving God. Twice John

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calls for wisdom in interpreting the spiritual symbols that he reveals, and both times they are

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in reference to the beast. Yet so many well-meaning Christians run headlong into barcode strips and

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microchips, Barack Obama and 666, and they think they're employing wisdom. Oh, come out of your

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revelation, red heifer, rapture, foolishness. Stop serving the beast, dear listener. Revelation is a

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book that exalts and glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ like no other. Revelation gives us insight

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into heavenly worship and earthly service. Revelation confirms and records history, as well as revealing

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what the future will be like. Tie these things together in your interpretation. In it, all Jesus looms

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over all. Yes, he does. He says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was and who is to come,

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the Almighty. Jesus will defeat the beast fully and finally, even as he has done so in the past. So,

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dear listener, may you see, hear, and interpret with wisdom. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the

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corner of 4th and Boulevard. Call us at 523-0196.