I want you to indulge me for a moment in a hypothetical question. Many have suggested the “mark of
the beast” is bar codes, computer tracking chips, the strips inside 20-dollar bills, the magnetic strip on
credit cards, or many such things. None of that is true; however, I want you to imagine you KNEW,
for CERTAIN, credit cards WERE the mark of the beast. Ok? So for a moment, to you, credit cards
ARE the mark of the beast. What would you do with your cards?
Granted, they’re a convenience; they do make life easier for most people. Pay-at-the-pump, ATMs, no
more coins to carry around, they’re great! But if it is the mark of the beast, does that matter to you?
Let’s read what God said will happen to people with this mark – people like YOU who have credit
cards – and then decide what to do with your credit cards!
Start in Revelation 14:9-10. That certainly doesn’t sound good! Those credit cards aren’t so convenient
now, are they? Starting to wonder if you really need them after all? Keep reading! Verses 10-11.
ANYONE who has this mark of the beast will be TORMENTED with fire and brimstone and have no
rest day or night FOR EVER! Are you scared of those credit cards yet? You should be TERRIFIED of
them, if they were the mark of the beast! Next, read Revelation 16:2.
Is it REALLY worth “pay-at-pump” convenience if you’re going to be smitten with GRIEVOUS
SORES? If credit cards WERE the mark of the beast, and you were CERTAIN of that, you would treat
them like some unclean thing, rip them out of your wallet, chop them up and burn them to ashes and
BEG GOD to forgive you for receiving this mark!
Wouldn’t you? Would you stop to ask yourself “what would my friends think?” Would you waste a
single second in getting that dreadful mark OUT OF YOUR HOUSE?? Would you stammer, justify,
and argue with God? Would you try to find some slick way to keep your credit cards and NOT be cast
into the fire and brimstone with the other boil-ridden “mark of the beasties”??
Or would you QUICKLY, before another minute went by, before you even finished reading this article,
RUSH TO DESTROY THIS MARK BEFORE IT DESTROYS YOU??
Of course you would. Now I want you to hang on to that thought, because credit cards are NOT the
mark of the beast. But something else, something else YOU HAVE, is – and today you’re going to
learn what it is. And I will expect you to treat it the same way as you would treat those dreaded credit
cards!
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TheSimpleAnswers.com
The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 3 – 6
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WHAT IS THE MARK OF THE BEAST?
Most sermons on this mark use only one passage, ignoring the many other times this mark is
mentioned. Revelation 13:16-17 is the passage they use, so read it now and keep it open as you read
the next few paragraphs.
From here, most ministers start to use their imagination, waxing eloquent in various ways to prove this
mark is anything from thinking bad thoughts to the Great Seal of the USA. But if they just stopped to
read all the verses on the subject FIRST, they’d find they didn’t need their imagination at all!
And so that’s what we’re going to do – merge and harmonize every verse about the mark of the beast.
Then, as always, you’ll see that the Bible paints a very clear picture and leaves no doubt at all about
what it is!
This first verse gives us several facts; we will add more facts as we go along, merging new details from
each verse. Let’s keep track of them in a bullet-point format, like this:
1. This mark is POPULAR. It’s the majority that have it – “all, both small and great, rich and
poor”.
2. The mark is received in the right hand, or the forehead, or perhaps both.
3. This mark has a direct impact on making a living; buying and selling, commerce, trade are
directly affected.
It’s important to set something straight right now. Most people seem to envision this mark as being
instituted by a Draconian Empire, where the human cattle are driven through a narrow chute by storm
troopers and as they pass through, their head is locked into a cattle-gate while the mark of the beast is
tattooed on.
But be sensible – is God REALLY going to punish people with grievous plagues, fiery torment and all
manner of wrath because someone held them down and branded 666 on them with a hot iron?
If Big Brother’s jack-booted secret police break down your door and duct-tape you to a chair while the
Man of Sin injects his computer chip into your mind so he can control your thoughts… is God going to
hold that against you?
If something intrinsically beyond your power to control is FORCED on you, if the Beast tattoos his
UPC code on your forehead while you kick and scream in defiance, is God REALLY going to make
you burn with the devil? SERIOUSLY?? God specifically said there WILL ALWAYS be a way of
escape! (1 Corinthians 10:13).
So then, if God is angry at these people who accepted the mark of the beast, it must be because they
CHOSE to accept it! They MUST have had a choice to reject it – no power on Earth can FORCE it on
you – because God clearly says it is POSSIBLE to overcome this mark of the beast! (Revelation 15:2).
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Nothing some man tattoos on you while you’re held in irons will interfere with your salvation! It is
what you CHOOSE to do, the marks you CHOOSE to put in your forehead and hands, that will incur
God’s wrath! Otherwise, it would be impossible to get VICTORY over it! So that gives us point 4:
4. It is POSSIBLE to avoid this mark.
Now read Revelation 19:20, which adds two more facts:
5. Those who received the mark were DECEIVED; they didn’t take it KNOWING it was the mark,
they took it because they THOUGHT it was something good!
6. It was the false prophet who did miracles who did the deceiving, NOT the beast.
IMAGE OF THE BEAST
You’ve already studied the identity of the beast extensively in these lessons. You know the beast is the
Roman Empire, and the false prophet is a Pope, or more broadly, the Papacy in general. We studied this
too, but it’s important so let’s refresh what the “image of the beast” means:
Webster says the word image means “a reproduction or IMITATION of the form of a person or thing”,
so the image of the beast is a COPY, reproduction, or IMITATION of the Roman Empire!
“During the reign of [Pope] Leo I [early fifth century], the Church set up, within the Roman Empire,
an ecclesiastical STATE [or GOVERNMENT] which, in its constitution and its administrative system,
was shaping itself upon the [ROMAN] imperial MODEL.” (Myer’s Ancient History)
The Catholic Church was MODELED after, or PATTERNED after the BEAST! The Church took Rome
as the model and became a COPY of that Empire! It truly IMITATED the beast!
“Christianity, in the shape of the [Catholic] Christian church… Its religious impulses and premises
stem from the Jews… its philosophic breadth and the illuminative power of its ideas stem from the
Greeks, its organisational energy and its wisdom in the mastery of reality FROM THE ROMANS”.
(Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History)
He credits the Catholic Church with THREE SOURCES of inspiration; the basic premises from the
Jews; but the philosophy and the “illumination” came from the GREEKS – the ones at Alexandria you
read about in Lesson 3–9!
And finally, the “organizational energy” and “wisdom” CAME FROM THE ROMANS! Only the
merest, tiniest FOUNDATION came from the Bible, which was then interpreted by the Greeks and
mixed with their philosophies, and then ORGANIZED like the Roman Empire!
Now read Revelation 13:12-17, and keep it open while you read here. Through the resurrections of the
Roman Empire such as Justinian, Charlemagne, and the Hapsburgs, the Pope exercised all the power of
the Ancient Roman Emperors by controlling these nations through the Church. And he CAUSED the
Earth to worship the policies and government of Rome… and Rome’s religion as well – such as the
observance of Sunday.
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This IMAGE of the beast (verse 14) is the Church that Leo designed after the pattern of that beast; and
when people serve that Church, they are truly serving the original Roman Empire – and thus, serving
Babylon and, ultimately the dragon – the devil himself (verse 4).
Leo, Justinian, and a few men who came afterward are responsible for giving life to the Catholic
Church as we know it; if not for them she might never have survived the death of Rome. They truly
GAVE LIFE to the image of the beast! (verse 15).
But notice if anyone wouldn’t bend the knee to the Church instead of God, this Church CAUSES them
to be killed! The Church doesn’t kill them itself! Just as history tells us the martyrs were declared
heretics by the Church and then handed over to the state’s police to be tortured or killed! And it is
THIS CHURCH that causes the mark of the beast (the mark of the Roman Empire) to be forced on
mankind! (verses 16-17). And that gives us the next point:
7. The church CAUSES all to receive this mark; it does not ENFORCE it, that is left to the state.
WHAT IS A MARK?
We have talked about what the beast is – Rome/Babylon, and the image of the beast is the Catholic
Church/Great Whore; So we know where this mark comes from – it is a mark of Catholicism, a mark
inspired by pagan Rome.
We know this mark will be EVERYWHERE, embraced by practically everyone, and interfere seriously
with business activities. But what is a “mark”?
Online Bible Greek Lexicon says of the Greek word translated mark, that it means “a stamp, an
imprinted mark… the mark branded upon horses”. We know the mark is of the BEAST; and the
beast is the Roman Empire. Every ruler of every empire has had a great seal; such as the personal seal
the President of the United States; it has the name of the sealer and/or his title, the territory he rules,
and often a motto of some sort.
Whatever has this stamp on it belongs to this empire; having the American flag on an airplane for
example, shows it belongs to America and to shoot it down is to declare war on the nation it represents.
Branding a horse (putting a mark on it) means that horse is YOURS. So anyone carrying this mark of
the beast might as well hold up a sign saying “I belong to the beast!”
But the astounding fact so few realize is that GOD has a mark too! Ezekiel 20:20. Just like the beast
does (well, almost) – in fact, that is where the beast got the idea! The slight difference is, God has a
sign and the beast has a mark; a sign is taken voluntarily – a mark is put on by force.
Notice it is the SABBATHS that are a SIGN between God and you! Why? So you will KNOW to
which God you belong! It is a sign between Him and you! It identifies those who are GOD’S people, as
a SIGN they hang out to say “Here goes a person of God!” (Exodus 31:13).
It is a SIGN between God and you; it goes both ways! You hold out the sign for God and the world to
see “Here goes someone who believes the Bible more than tradition”; but the sign has writing on both
sides! That is to say, the same sign that tells God and others who YOU are, tells YOU who God is!
(Verses 16-17).
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And remember, if you’re a Christian, you are part of Israel! The seventh day is a memorial of
Creation; it shows God’s office as CREATOR of all things. There are many gods out there to worship;
Apollo is god of the sun; Venus the goddess of love; Hermes the god of travel. Each god or goddess
worshiped by pagans, has their own area they govern, their own claim to fame; but OUR God created
ALL that! (Isaiah 66:1-2).
When you worship on Sunday, you honor the god of the SUN! A “god” that was made by the LORD of
the Sabbath! And when you worship on the seventh day, you honor the God who rested on that same
day after making ALL THESE THINGS!
So you see the Sabbath shows ALL the things a state seal does; it shows who HE is, it shows who His
SUBJECTS are, and it shows His TERRITORY – everything! So by worshiping on the Sabbath you
VOLUNTARILY take upon yourself the SIGN OF GOD! The sign that shows GOD you are willing to
reject the groundless traditions of the paganized world, with all their promises and threats, and follow
HIM, and keep HIS day holy!
HAND AND FOREHEAD
And believe it or not, God’s commandments – one of which is the Sabbath, His mark – are to be put in
the FOREHEAD and in the HAND – the same place the beast’s counterfeit mark is placed!
Deuteronomy 11:18 So keep these words deep in your heart and in your soul, and have them fixed on
your hand FOR A SIGN and MARKED on your brow;
God’s sign is in your HAND, and in your BROW! And the mark of the beast SUPPLANTS the sign of
God, overwriting it with ITS identifying insignia in your hand and forehead!
Now think about the symbolism of having a sign in your hand and your head. What does your hand
do? You WORK with it! And what happens in your head? You THINK! So this sign of God and mark
of the beast affects WORK, and THOUGHTS!
8. The mark affects your work, and your thoughts.
TWO PARTS TO THE COMMAND!
As I’ve said before, the Sabbath is a two-part command, as Exodus 35:2 makes clear. On the seventh
day that you MUST rest. This is not optional! In the Old Testament, it meant DEATH to work on the
Sabbath – that’s how serious God feels about it! And God feels the same way today, for He is “the
same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8).
But that verse ALSO contains a command that the other six days WORK SHALL BE DONE! “Six
days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work” (Exodus 20:9) – it is just as much a command to DO work
the other six days, as it is to REST on the Sabbath!
God commands us “to work with your own hands, as we commanded you” (1 Thessalonians 4:11).
And by being out WORKING on Sunday, and the other five days, it is IMPOSSIBLE to serve the
commands of the beast to keep Sunday!
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THE MARK OF THE BEAST
It is now easy to see what this mark is. The mark of the beast is SUNDAY OBSERVANCE in
particular, and following any commands of the Catholic Church in general.
Go back and compare the facts we learned;
(1) EVERYONE does it, small and great.
(2 and 8) It’s in your hand (your physical labor is stopped on Sunday, but you work on the Sabbath) and
in your forehead (you worship on Sunday).
(3) It interferes with holding a job and buying and selling.
(4) It is POSSIBLE to avoid this mark. You may be persecuted and suffer for it, but NO MAN can
force you to work on Saturday! Pressure you, yes – and they will! But know this, NO POWER ON
EARTH CAN FORCE YOU!
(5) People who keep Sunday don’t KNOW they are serving the ancient Roman sun-god! They are
DECEIVED! They honestly believe this day was to commemorate Jesus’ resurrection, or some similar
unscriptural DECEPTION!
(6) It was the false prophet (the Pope) who caused this deception; NOT the beast itself. It was the
Papacy and its minions who passed off this deception, and “met Paganism half-way” and created a
“baptized Paganism” and called it Christianity. And
(7) It was that CHURCH who CAUSED the true saints – those who kept the Sabbath as God
commanded – to be killed by the torturers of the beast state.
Sunday observance was a mark of the original Roman Empire (it was from pagan Sun-worship) but it
was the CHURCH (Pope Sylvester) who changed the title of the first day of the week to “the Lord’s
Day”! And it was the Church council that declared Sabbath-keepers heretics, and CAUSED the beast to
slaughter them by the millions!
Remember from the last lessons that the Sabbath is the “rest” of God. Paul said that Israel didn’t enter
into God’s rest because of unbelief. Well, the wicked won’t have rest! Isaiah 57:20. Because the
wicked didn’t keep the Sabbath! Likewise those with the mark of the beast have no rest, day or night!
(Revelation 14:11). Of course not – because, to have the mark of the beast, they rejected the rest God
offered them!
FALSE PROTESTANTS
Any time God speaks of the daughter of Babylon, or Babylon in any religious sense, He is talking
about the Catholic Church and the people whom she deceives. But she is not the only descendant of
Babylon! For she was a great harlot, and mother of harlots (Revelation 17:5).
So ask yourself, who could the daughters of the whore, granddaughters of Babylon, be? Since they’re
female, they must be churches; and since the great whore is the Catholic Church, it can only be the
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churches who were spawned by her! The churches who protested against her, but ultimately
followed most of her doctrines and helped her to deceive the saints of God!
Did you know that God prophesied the Protestant Reformation 2,000 years before it happened? Isaiah
47:8-9. God said she (Catholicism) would lose her husband (her strong military support) and her
children (the Protestant churches) at the same time, and that’s exactly what happened! In the 1500s, the
Protestant Reformation spawned many rebellious “daughters” of the great whore.
And they were on the right track, but they all had one fatal flaw! They all retained at least ONE
doctrine from her – and it only takes one false doctrine to make a false church! The one doctrine most
kept was Sunday observance. There was a tiny minority in the Protestant Reformation who kept the
Sabbath, but they were drowned by the majority led by Luther, Calvin, and Wesley – who started the
Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist religions, respectively.
And so the whore had daughters – rebellious daughters it is true, but daughters who nonetheless had
their mother’s lying eyes and adulterous ways. These daughters still cavorted with the devil’s doctrines
by worshiping on the day of the sun; by teaching heaven and hell, the trinity, the antichrist doctrine
about the inhuman nature of Jesus, and many other things.
And above all, they all carry the same stamp of evil – they all, in one way or another, do away with the
law of God. Just like their mother did (Psalms 119:126). And this mystery of iniquity is in every single
mainstream church.
Most don’t even try to keep the law of God; and even of the best of them, every single one departs from
the Bible in some key point of doctrine. Even those few who keep the Sabbath have at least one
doctrine borrowed from paganism, and one is enough.
Eve only had to eat ONE fruit, break ONE commandment, believe ONE LIE FROM THE
DEVIL to be kicked out of the Garden! Read James 2:10. If you knowingly keep even one doctrine
of the antichrist church, you are guilty of all her sins.
Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, COME OUT OF HER, my people,
that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
We are surrounded today by a false Christianity. Every Sunday millions of people get together,
believing themselves to be Christians, and sing praises to Jesus, all the while rejecting the message He
brought and believing instead the very first lie, “thou shalt not surely die”. They are drunk with the
wine of the great whore.
Which is not to say they are bad people – just deceived. A deceived man doesn’t know he is deceived.
If he did, it wouldn’t be deception, but rebellion. These false churches are filled with people who know
no better – just as you yourself knew no better until recently – just as once I, too, was ignorant of many
of these things.
Just because God has showed this to you and me, and not to them, doesn’t mean they are more wicked
than we (Luke 13:1-5). In fact, it’s likely to be the other way around – God calls the unrighteous (Luke
5:32), not the wise, mighty, or noble (1 Corinthians 1:26). Why? 1 Corinthians 1:27-29.
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Nevertheless God commands us very clearly to be separate from the whore and her daughters. See
2 Corinthians 6:14-16. You cannot be a part of a church that worships that other Jesus, even in
symbol, and also be a part of the true church of God. It simply cannot be done (Luke 16:13).
Ultimately, when you peel back the symbols, the lies, and the deception, and get at the real truth,
comparing these religions to the Bible and it alone, the truth is they all actively teach rebellion
against God. They all actively teach the commandments don’t matter, aren’t binding, can’t be kept,
and to even try to keep them offends Jesus.
And they’re right – keeping the commandments DOES offend Jesus. THEIR Jesus, the false one, who
wants to be worshiped on Sunday. Because the whore and all of her daughters truly worship Satan
the Devil. They don’t know it, because they call him “Jesus”; they are deceived, because to them the
Devil appears as an angel of light. His ministers appear as ministers of righteousness.
But painting the devil white and writing “Jesus” on his forehead doesn’t make him the real Jesus. It just
makes him the best deceiver the world has ever known, one so good that it is possible for him to
deceive the very elect.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
By not working on Saturday, but working on Sunday, you acknowledge that GOD is your leader, not
the traditions of pagan Rome and Egypt. This gives you the SIGN of GOD! Because you keep God’s
commandments – ALL of them! And Satan and his churches will despise you for this, and persecute
you to the limit of their power – thank God it is limited right now!
Read Revelation 12:17. The dragon – Satan – HATES it when you obey God! So he made it EASY to
find those who wouldn’t obey HIS false church by making SUNDAY the day of worship; anyone who
kept Sunday was on HIS side, and anyone who kept the Sabbath was on GOD’S side and needed
persecuted – and OH, how they were persecuted!
And so this became the BRAND of the beast, the MARK that someone accepts the authority of the
Church, admitting they have power to contradict the commands of Almighty God! The same belief the
devil holds – he, too, believes he has the power to contradict the commands of God, and so does this
ecclesiastical empire that looks like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon!
“The Bible says, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’ The Catholic Church says: ‘No. By my
divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.’ And
lo! The entire civilized world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic
Church.” (Father T. Enright, printed in “History of the Sabbath”)
And if this plain historical fact weren’t enough, the Catholic church plainly boasts Sunday observance
is THEIR MARK!
“SUNDAY IS OUR MARK OF AUTHORITY… the church is above the Bible, and this transference
of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact.” (Catholic Record of London, Ontario, September 1, 1923)
Sunday is the MARK Catholicism imposed upon Christianity! It is the mark of THEIR authority, which
they freely admit does NOT come from the Bible! Do YOU want to carry that mark? Do you want to
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WEEK AFTER WEEK acknowledge the mighty power of the great whore to abolish the commands of
God? Is that the brand YOU want stamped on your forehead and hands every single week? Or would
you rather have the sign of God?
“Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observation can be defended only on Catholic
principles… From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the
transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.” (The Catholic Press)
Many millions of deceived Christians go to church Sunday, honestly believing they are serving God,
and worshiping on the day God commanded; if only they knew this simple fact which every studied
Catholic knows!
“Which church does the whole civilized world obey? Protestants call us every horrible name they can
think of, anti-Christ, the scarlet colored beast, Babylon, etc. and at the same time PROFESS great
reverence for the Bible, and yet by their solemn act of keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the power
of the Catholic Church.” (Father T. Enright, Catholic Priest)
Do YOU acknowledge that power? Protestantism was built on the foundation of “Sola Scriptura”, the
“Bible alone”; there is nothing in the Bible about Sunday worship, and everything about Sabbath
worship; yet the reformers didn’t reform enough, and allowed most of the doctrines of the Catholic
Church to stay in their churches!
“The observance of Sunday by Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the
authority of the [Catholic] church.” (Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today, p. 213)
Rather than totally rejecting the authority of Catholicism, they merely weakened it – but they kept the
brand of the mighty beast on their foreheads and hands! AND EVERY SUNDAY THEY
ASSEMBLE FOR WORSHIP, THEY REAFFIRM HER AUTHORITY AS SUPERIOR TO GOD’S!
“Most Christians assume that Sunday is the biblically approved day of worship. The Catholic Church
protests that IT transferred Christian worship from the biblical Sabbath (Saturday) to Sunday, and that
to try to argue that the change was made in the Bible is both dishonest and a denial of Catholic
authority. If Protestantism wants to base its teachings only on the Bible, it should worship on
Saturday.” (Rome’s Challenge)
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Worshiping God by resting on the Sabbath tells God “as for me and my house, we will serve the
LORD” (Joshua 24:15). It tells anyone else who knows their Bible the same thing. Yes, it makes you
stand out! It wouldn’t be a very good SIGN if it didn’t, now would it?
It tells the world that you are one of God’s people! And it constantly reminds YOU of WHO God is,
and WHICH God you serve! (1 Corinthians 8:5-6).
On the other hand, worshiping on Sunday tells God “No thanks, I don’t really care what the Bible says;
I’m going to serve the commands of the Catholic Church instead, and trust them for my salvation”. It is
a MARK of who you serve, telling everyone interested “I serve the beast!”
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You are going to accept one mark or the other; and either one you accept will get you persecuted. If
you accept the mark of God and keep the Sabbath, you will have the world sneering at you at best. The
world will be persecuting and killing you at worst, when the beast returns in full power as God has
prophesied it will before His return (Revelation 6:9-11, Matthew 24:21-22).
But if you accept the mark of the beast, you will have God angry at you – and I don’t need to elaborate
on how that will end for you. Read just about any verse in Revelation and you will see the horrible
things in store for those who have the mark of the beast.
If you don’t know how to keep the Sabbath, start by not working on it – sundown Friday night to
sundown Saturday night – and studying your Bible instead. Use the time you would devote to YOUR
labor, and YOUR work, and YOUR life, to doing the things GOD wants done.
If you do that, God will lead you into whatever you need to do, but DO SOMETHING NOW. Don’t do
nothing because you can only do little! If you didn’t do it five lessons ago, DO IT NOW! Don’t make
it worse by waiting another month, another year, or never doing it at all!
REMEMBER how you felt about those credit cards when you “thought” they were the mark of the
beast? They weren’t, but remember how urgently you felt the need to get them out of your house? This
truly IS the mark of the beast, and you should feel the same abhorrence of Sunday-observance as you
did about owning credit cards!
You should be desperate to (metaphorically) chop up your Sunday-mark, burn it, get every reminder of
it out of your house, and BEG God for forgiveness before it’s too late and YOU wind up in fiery
torment with the rest of the branded servants of the devil!
God said He first gave Israel the Sabbath “so that I may put them to the test to see if they will keep my
laws or not” (Exodus 16:4-5, 22-30 BBE). The Sabbath was given to TEST God’s people to see if
they would obey God or not – AND THAT’S WHY GOD IS GIVING IT TO YOU TODAY!
It is a TEST! Will you obey God, or not? Every real objection has been answered in these lessons, and
far, far more than was really necessary to form a good conclusion. You’ve heard dozens of good
reasons to observe the Sabbath from now on, starting THIS WEEK. All that’s left is you. What are
YOU going to do now?
Will you try to forget all of this? Abandon the lessons, find a new teacher, new church, move on with
your life and try to pretend you never read these scriptures? Or will you trust God with your job, house,
family, friends – risking all of them to keep the simple commands of God?
I mentioned earlier God has a sign, but the devil has a mark. God’s sign is voluntary. He isn’t forcing
His religion down your throat today. If you accept it, you will be blessed for it – but you must accept it
BEFORE He rewards you for keeping it! Thus it is a SIGN you must voluntarily WEAR in your hand –
when you work – and in your forehead – when you worship.
But the beast tries to use FORCE to compel men to accept this mark. He passes laws and will do his
absolute best to compel everyone to observe it; but no one can truly FORCE you to work on Saturday –
they can torture you, make you suffer, coerce you in a thousand ways, but no one can MAKE you do it!
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But the devil will bring every force at his disposal to bear; he will make it more and more difficult to
buy and sell without working on Saturday. This is where genuine faith in God will be required. God has
promised He will protect you (Psalms 91, for one of a hundred such scriptures).
But if, when that dark day comes and you never learned to trust God – never practiced trusting Him by
obeying His commands when times were easy, then you will certainly not trust Him when faced with
the certainty of losing everything you own and watching your family starve!
So before that day comes, you had better begin to practice trusting God. Learn to trust Him in small
things where the potential losses are small, like losing a job or someone you thought was your friend.
Trust Him in small things today, and you just might trust Him when your life is on the line later.
The Sabbath is a test command. God is watching to see whether you will obey His law or not, and
your actions will be noticed – which mark will you proudly display in your hand and forehead?
I will close, as usual, with a scripture that sums up everything you’ve learned in these past five lessons.
Do you really want to be close to God? To be blessed by God? Do you want to take delight in God, and
have Him take delight in you? Here’s how:
Isaiah 58:13-14 (ESV) “IF you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my
holy day, and call the Sabbath a DELIGHT and the holy day of the LORD honorable; IF you honor
it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight
in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of
Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
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