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Ever since Adam and Eve brought sin into our world, God has made a very earnest effort to develop a people who would represent His own spotless character to the unbelieving community, and indeed to the whole watching universe. He has had a very limited success in this endeavor of mercy because "the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Ecclesiastes 8:11).
The Lord was willing to redeem man from sin at a tremendous price in order that the whole universe, including the unfallen angels, could see His self-sacrificing nature; and be happy to serve Him from a heart full of gratitude and love, and not out of a heart full of fear. When all created beings come to understand God’s true character of grace, then His throne of glory will be permanently established in the minds of all intelligent creatures. We will all love to do God’s will, because to know Him is to love Him. It was especially the beloved Apostle John who grasped this close relationship between love and obedience. Notice these two verses from his first epistle: "Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments . . . . For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 2:3; 5:3).
It is the solemn mission of this chapter to identify the final dividing line between God’s true servants and those who refuse to follow Him. At important times in history, God has confronted human beings with tests, which have provided opportunity for them to decide whether or not to be loyal to Him. Adam and Eve failed the first test. As for other tests, some people passed them -- most people failed them. Now time is rapidly moving us up to the final trial, the issue that will separate the obedient from the disobedient:
Then you shall again discern
Between the righteous and the wicked,
Between one who serves God
And one who does not serve Him (Malachi 3:18).
This division between those who serve God and those who do not serve Him is brought about by the "mark of the beast." The following verses stress the very serious nature of that dividing line:
Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand,
he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name (Revelation 14:9-11).
Now notice the very different picture portrayed in these two verses:
Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads (Revelation 14:1).
And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God (Revelation 15:2).
Surely it would be extremely unjust for God to pronounce such a fearful sentence on any human being for receiving a mark, and at the same time not tell us what the mark is so that we can avoid it. Certainly God is not unjust. A little careful study will show exactly what the mark is. God will not hold anyone guilty of receiving the mark of the beast until that person understands the issue and requirement involved. It is the prayer of the writer that this work will help bring about this understanding.
In order to know what the mark is, we must first know what the beast is. The Bible uses wild beasts to represent kingdoms, or political powers. In Revelation 13, the Prophet John tells about his vision of the beast, and includes enough description so that we can positively identify the political power symbolized here:
1 Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.
2 Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast.
4 So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?
5 And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months.
6 Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven.
7 It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue and nation.
8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If anyone has an ear, let him hear.
10 He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints (Revelation 13:1-10).
We have numbered the verses in this Scripture quotation. In this way we are able to refer to specific verses as we find the features of the beast which match the correct political power. It will become clear that this beast is a symbol of Rome, first in its pagan form, then in its papal form. The papal combination of church and state was really modified paganism. The reader is invited to compare the discussion in this chapter with that of Chapter 8, on "The Great War."
The beast in verse 1 rose up from the sea, indicating that the power it symbolizes came up out of a well populated area (See Revelation 17:15). The ten horns represent well the ten divisions of the Western Roman Empire (see Daniel 7:7,20); and the seven heads represent well the mountains on which the "City of Seven Hills," Rome, is situated (See Revelation 17:3,9). The blasphemous character of this power is clear in both its pagan and its papal phases.
Verse 2 shows the power, throne, and great authority of this beast to be a legacy of the dragon. According to Revelation 12:9, the dragon is the Devil. Thus, the prophecy here presents a Satanic regime.
Without going into extensive detail, we find ample evidence in verses 3 to 10 to confirm the identification of the papacy in the first part of Revelation 13. Verse 3 mentions the deadly wound inflicted on the papacy by the French government at the close of the 1260 years of papal supremacy and persecution, in 1798.
Verse 4 describes the awe and fear with which the papacy was viewed durings its powerful reign.
Verse 5 repeats the charge of the blasphemies, and mentions again the 1260 years– the 42 symbolic months – of papal supremacy.
Verse 6 reiterates the guilt of blasphemy in further detail.
Verse 7 identifies this power as the one which persecuted the saints with savage severity, and exercised a universal authority.
Since verse 8 states that those who worship this power are people whose names are not in the Lamb’s Book of Life, we must affirm again that this is a Satanic power.
Verse 9, of course, is God’s call for us to pay attention to this prophecy. And rightly so; for as we will see, it leads on into a matter of life or death!
In verse 10 we have a brief summary of the consequences to be experienced by a power that fights against God and His saints. And then there is a brief mention of the kind of enduring character God’s people have always possessed.
At this point the reader is asked to make a thoughtful comparison of the characteristics of this beast of Revelation 13:1-10 with those of the little horn of Daniel 7:8-25. Please study chapter 8 of this work again, giving attention to the defining explanations given there. This will help to make the accuracy of our interpretation an absolute certainty in your mind.
And now, in Revelation 13:11, we read that John saw another beast, this time rising up out of the earth, showing that the power symbolized here was appearing in a sparsely populated area. You will recall that the papacy’s 1260-year reign of terror ended in 1798, when Pope Pius VI was taken prisoner by General Berthier. At that very time a new nation with lamb-like gentleness was taking shape in the wild, unsettled territory of the New World. The beast here very aptly represents the United States of America.
The initial glory of this new nation lay in its two lamb-like horns, for its power is to be found in its two basic principles of liberty. One is that of civil freedom, enjoyed in so many ways, such as free speech, a free press, free enterprise, and a republican form of government. The other is freedom of religion; each person is free to decide what his religion will be. We have no dictator in the state or in the church. Our nation was born on the foundation of these two great liberties, and we have held fast to them for more than two centuries.
As we read on in Revelation 13, we see that this lamb-like creature "spoke like a dragon." The United States has clearly matured as a dominant power in the world. Ever since the defeat of the German Kaiser in World War One, this country has exerted a tremendous influence over the behavior and destiny of other nations. Thus, we are fulfilling the prophecy of verse 12: "And he exercises all the authority of the first beast." You will recall that the "first beast," the papacy, maintained authority over the nations.
Since the overall theme of the Bible is God’s dealing with the problem of sin, we find that the prophecies of Scripture deal with secular affairs and political matters when they relate to God’s people, and the progress of the struggle against evil. In keeping with this scope of Bible Prophecy, we find in verse 14 that the image to the beast would be a copy of the principal feature of papal Rome that is relevant to God’s true church. That outstanding feature is clearly the papacy’s use of its political power "to make war with the saints and to overcome them" (verse 7). Since the image is to be made "to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived," it may be useful here for the reader to refer back to verse 3 to confirm the identification of papal Rome.
And since the awesome power of papal Rome was embodied in its religious laws, resulting in the brutal treatment of God’s people, we can most surely expect this second beast of Revelation 13 to make an image to Rome by practicing the same kind of religious intolerance against the saints.
On May 31, 1998, the present Roman Pontiff issued the:
Apostolic Letter
Dies Domini
Of the Holy Father John Paul II
To the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Catholic Church
On keeping the Lord’s Day Holy
In this Apostolic Letter, the pope referred to the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, in which Pope Leo XIII "spoke of Sunday rest as a worker’s right which the State must guarantee" (para. 66). John Paul II went on to say: "Therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy."
In these Vatican statements, we hear echoes of religious persecution growing out of the demand by the Church that her dogmas should be enforced by the government. As we read Revelation 13:15, we find that the image of the beast will have power to speak and to force men to worship the image. Since the government speaks through its laws, we can expect our nation to speak by enacting religious requirements, just as the papacy did for centuries. As we shall see, the Bible tells us just what kind of religious statutes we can expect our own country to legislate.
According to Revelation 13:16,17:
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.
We need to observe here that the three words, "mark, sign, and seal," all carry a similar meaning. Referring to Abraham, the Apostle Paul says that "he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised" (Romans 4:11). Here the seal and sign are synonymous. We read in the Book of Daniel that King Darius shut Daniel in the lions’ den, "and the king sealed it with his own signet ring" (Daniel 6:17). We see here that the seal is a sign of authority. And in Genesis 4:15, we find that "the Lord set a mark on Cain," a sign that he was under God’s protection.
And now we face the question: What is the sign of the beast’s authority; that is, the mark of the beast? It is appropriate here to let the beast speak for itself. We can read the answer in this statement from the office of Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore. It is in reply to the question concerning the change of the rest day from Sabbath to Sunday:
Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters (C.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons, Catholic Mirror, Dec. 23, 1893, Baltimore; cited in A Time for Joy, Article: "The Bible Says," Wildwood, GA, Family Heritage Books, 1998, 26).
We call attention to one more statement showing that the Roman Catholic Church cites the change of the Sabbath as the mark, or sign, of her authority:
The Divine institution of a day of rest from ordinary occupations and of religious worship, transferred by the authority of the Church from the Sabbath, the last day, to Sunday, the first day of the week,…is one of the most patent signs that we are a Christian people (James Cardinal Gibbons, The Cross and the Flag, Our Church and Country, "The Claims of the Catholic Church in the Making of the Republic," New York: The Catholic Historical League of America, 1899, 24,25; cited in Bible Students’ Source Book, Washington: Review and Herald, 1962, 885).
While the keeping of Sunday did not originate with the papacy itself, it did spring up among certain of the church fathers, many of whom were sadly out of step with the true teachings and spirit of the Scriptures. Early in the fourth century, the Roman Church grasped the political advantage of officially adopting the "venerable day of the sun" as its weekly day of rest. Claiming to be "another God on earth," the Bishop of Rome accepted and blessed the counterfeit Sabbath.
There is an abundance of Catholic statements showing that the Church considers the change of the Sabbath to be her mark of authority. But we feel it unnecessary to belabor this point by quoting more of them.
According to Revelation 13:16,17, those who refuse to receive the mark of the beast will face an embargo against buying or selling, and even the death penalty. Since the mark of the beast is Sunday observance, the type of legislation we can expect is a religious law requiring everyone to keep Sunday.
If you should think that here in the land of freedom and reverence for the first constitutional amendment, such religious legislation could never happen, think again. Right now many influential Christian leaders are pushing for this country to "return" to its "Christian nation" status. And some important political leaders are declaring that the founding fathers never intended that there be a wall of separation between church and state.
This of course is understandable. Many devout Americans are thoroughly disgusted with the trash and filth now permitted to be promulgated under the protection of the free speech, a free press, and freedom of religion provisions of the first amendment, and are even calling for the repeal of that constitutional protection. No doubt the great majority of these good people have no real concept as to where legislative controls in these areas, especially religious laws, would ultimately lead us.
For a religion based on force is valueless. If God were satisfied with a forced religion, He would have made us all like robots, incapable of evil. No one enjoys a master-servant relationship under force. God made us to be free moral agents, and Jesus even gave His life to foster a fellowship based on love. He leaves us free to choose that fellowship of love, or to reject it.
God also has His mark, or sign of authority. It is known as the seal of God. We read about this in Revelation 7:1-4; 14:1. The seal of God can be identified by giving attention to the elements of a seal: Name, office, and jurisdiction. We see these elements in the seal of a notary; as, "Mary Smith, Notary Public, Chautauqua County."
As we look for these elements in order to identify the seal of God, we find them in the heart of the decalogue, in the Sabbath commandment. We see God’s name ("Lord"), His office ("made" – Creator), His territory ("the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them"). The presence of God’s seal in this commandment enhances the importance and enduring nature of His holy Sabbath.
We can see from this study of the mark of the beast and the seal of God that the Lord has chosen to use the seventh-day Sabbath as the point on which to base His final test of loyalty. And of course this is reasonable, since His claim to our worship stands on the fact of His creatorship, and the Sabbath is the monument to His creation. Just as it was in Bible times, the observance of the true Sabbath is still a sign of our allegiance to God.
Revelation 15:2 pictures the ultimate experience of those who have shown their allegiance to their Creator by keeping His holy Sabbath:
And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God.
They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.
Chapter 9
Index
Chapter 11
Copyright © 2001
- by McDonald Road SDA Church
All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are
taken from the New King James Version.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.
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