Many people seem to believe that, though they wish to live good Christian lives, want to obey God, and do not want to come under the Mark of the Beast, that some insidious plotters in Europe, or in the Pentagon, or elsewhere, may be able to secretly impose this hated and mysterious Mark of the Beast upon them by causing them to comply with certain laws or requirements involving registration for a social security number, the issuance of a national identity card, or perhaps submitting to the implantation of a microchip, or an invisible tattoo!
But, notice this scripture and think deeply about what you will read!
"And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls [Greek: psuche, meaning "lives"] of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years!" (Revelation 20:4).No one WORSHIPS computer-generated labels on food packages, or identity cards, or computer chips!
Notice carefully! The refusal of these individuals to worship the Beast or his image, or to receive his mark, and who are clearly pictured as being in the Kingdom of God - now exalted as co-RULERS with Jesus Christ - literally costs them their lives! BUT, it assured their continued possession of eternal life! Do you see?
Here, a conscious choice is to be made! Notice they refused to WORSHIP the Beast, or his image. That tells us they KNEW WHAT IT WAS ! They made a reasoned, conscious choice! Just as happened during the infamous "inquisition", when hundreds of thousands were put to death for refusing to give up their Bible-based faith, so the Beast and the False Prophet will be attempting to FORCE Christians to bow down to them in worship.
They will refuse, choosing to OBEY GOD rather than man (Acts 4:10, 19; 5:32), and they will be martyred because of that choice! Actually, there were countless hundreds of thousands who were martyred during the Middle Ages for the very same reasons!
These people were put to death for refusing to worship the Beast, his IMAGE (the great false church; and ecclesiastical STATE, formed like a GOVERNMENT; patterned after the ancient Roman civil government), or to receive his identifying MARK. Notice Revelation 6:9, 10, where you see the picture of those who were slain for the Word of God, and who cry out, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"
These dead saints, pictured as crying out from their graves, were murdered MANY CENTURIES ago. It becomes obvious then, that the Beast; the image of the Beast, and the MARK of the Beast, have been around for a long, long time! Do you see? It is impossible for you to lose salvation "by accident"! It is utterly impossible for some power to so interfere in your life that it imposes upon you a symbol, identifying sign, some "mark" of some kind which causes you to LOSE OUT on salvation!
Notice! "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, and all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor POWERS, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!" (Romans 8:35-39). Your Bible absolutely promises that NOTHING - the sword (armed force), principalities, powers - can separate you from the love of God, from salvation in and through Jesus Christ!
Read Revelation 20:4 again! Here, resurrected saints are seen as inheriting the thrones promised them by Jesus Christ! (Revelation 2:26; 3:21). They are resurrected because they were martyred. WHY were they martyred? Because they adamantly REFUSED to receive the Mark of the Beast. That should give you the positive reassurance that, even though some brutal men should forcibly hold you down, implant some kind of an identifying microchip under your skin; even though soldiers would literally hold your arms, hands, and legs and tattoo the numbers 666 right across your forehead, in great black ink, two inches high, IT STILL COULD NOT DEPRIVE YOU OF SALVATION! Therefore, such things ARE NOT the Mark of the Beast!
However, make no mistake! The Mark of the Beast is definitely something which will be ENFORCED - will become a matter of law, and people will be ordered to obey it! They will have to make a final, ultimate choice! That choice will be to either submit; to give in and cooperate with the coming socio/economic, military/spiritual system, called BABYLON THE GREAT, which is to emerge as a world SUPER POWER, or under the pain of DEATH, to refuse to cooperate - to refuse the Mark of the Beast! http://www.biblestudy.org/
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