Originally written September 12, 2011. Updated in September 2019
Imagine your next trip to the supermarket. You spend a couple of hours loading your cart up with goodies, you go to check out and your card is declined. How do you feel? Embarrassed? Angry? Especially if you KNEW you had money in the bank.
So next, you excuse yourself real quick and run over to an ATM to withdraw some cash, but the same thing happens, no money and no service. Now what? Maybe you’ll call the bank and give them a good ‘what for,’ or, you’ll just have to go back in there and tell the teller that something came up and you will not be needing the groceries. Either way, you walk out empty-handed.
Now imagine, that you can’t do ANYTHING from filling up your car with gas to paying your bills because your currency is no longer valid. Oh, and by the way, you’re no longer receiving a paycheck from your employer.
What if some new law came out that said that US Dollars were no longer valid anywhere. Rather, you have to have this thing put on your hand or forehead in order to buy, sell, pay bills, buy groceries, hold a job, pay your mortgage, or anything else that requires a financial transaction for goods or services rendered.
That’s what it will be like when this kicks off inside the 70th Week of Daniel (aka…Tribulation).
Men, women, and families, all once of good financial standings (with excellent credit scores to boot) suddenly find themselves the very people they once looked down upon. But there is a fix; all you have to do is put this new mark put on your forehead or hand (painless) and all of your former luxuries will be restored. In fact, what if they threw in some bonus things like credit and identity protection, automatic 5G Wi-Fi connection anywhere on the planet, genetic modification (adding another 20-30 years onto your life), and constant health monitoring. Oh, and by the way, once you do this, you’ll be making the WORST decision in the history of mankind. At best, you’ll be trading in seven years of comfort, for eternity in torment and darkness. At worst, you probably won’t even live out the full seven years and still have eternity to face.
Sounds like a bargain huh?
Well, there is coming a day and age when this will become a reality. Oh, it may not happen tomorrow, but changes are coming. Changes are happening even now. Kind of like how the music industry quit making cassette tapes and moved over to Compact Discs. These changes will be forced upon you.
At some point, all the cassette tapes are relegated to the dust bin and no one is making them anymore. You have NO choice but to buy a new radio that plays CDs. Or like when television left analog and went strictly digital. Did you have any say in it? No.
When the time comes for this ‘new and improved’ way of living/ shopping/ security/freedom comes about, either you get on board or you get left behind. And by left behind, I mean, utterly; left to either starve or be killed by a tyrannical government.
With the body of Christ removed at the Rapture, what semblance of organized “Christianity” that remains, will be both Christ-less and incapable of offering a path to salvation that holds to its ecumenical swaying’s. Previously, I offered up Roman Catholicism, simply because they’re the most global “Christian” organization in the world. They’ve not shown any qualms or regret in the past over killing true believers (e.g., the Crusades, Inquisitions, etc.) or from embracing non-Christian beliefs in order to stay relevant (Paganism/Islam).
Chrislam anyone?
Mormonism may play a prominent role in this time as well, since they share such a striking similarity to Islam, embracing both universalism and to an extent, pantheism and will probably be one of the most organized and intact American religious systems left standing, post-Rapture. Either way, what is left is an empty shell of empty religions that will be used as a tool to prepare the world to worship the satanically indwelt Antichrist himself.
That leaves only the practical matter of enforcement of said worship. The mark is not just a system of worship; it is a system of control. Satan is not God, and at best, can only try to mimic God which is what he attempts to do with the mark. God has and does mark those that belong to Himself (Deut 6:8; Ez 9:4; 2 Cor 1:21-22; Eph 1:13; Rev 7:3).
Satan counters with a system that is emplaced by the Antichrist as a logical, pragmatic choice to many of the world’s problems. The world’s economic systems are currently being dismantled through unmanageable debt and widespread corruption. By the time the Mark is introduced as an alternative, it will leave the Mark as the only practical solution.
How does the world get out of the current financial quagmire that it is in? It is completely unrealistic to think the US could pay off 21 Trillion dollars. Our citizens have become dependent on many of the entitlement programs that have put a majority of the country on life-support.
If the government threatened to:
a) Impose huge cuts to MEDICAID, MEDICARE, Welfare, and Social Security in order to pay down the debt, or
b) Move off the dollar to a new system where no cuts were needed, I believe the US population would overwhelmingly elect the latter.
Athens, Paris, and London are just tiny microcosms of what we could expect in every major city if strict austerity measures were put in place. But it’s not only the US but the entire world that finds itself in the same debt-laden boat. The problem with the US though, is that we are supposed to be the big pole in the tent that holds up the whole show. If we go down, (as witnessed in the 2008 financial collapse) we’ll drag the entire world down with us.
Nations like Brazil, Russia, China, and France have only recently expressed openly, a desire to move away from the dollar into a basket of currencies. Whether it is a digital credit, special drawing rights, or a new currency altogether such as the Phoenix, they will all fail. That is not my opinion on the matter that comes straight out of the Bible. The world ends up in one global system, run by one man, using one currency.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; his number is Six hundred threescore and six. Revelation 13:16-18
The Man
Many theories are out there as to who this man (Antichrist) is and where he comes from. We know that he comes from somewhere within the confines of the boundaries of the Roman Empire, but those boundaries include North Africa, Europe, and parts of the Middle East. We know that he comes in riding a banner of false peace (Rev. 6:1-2), but war, starvation, pestilence, and death follow him. He becomes personally indwelt by Satan at the mid-point, in which he goes from being the man of sin to the son of perdition (2 Thess. 2:3).
We also know that there is a number associated with the Beast's name (Rev. 13:18) and that somehow, someway, it equals to six-hundred and sixty-six. Because of the wording in Revelation 13, it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the Beast the man, or the Beast the final government system.
Either way, the number is a human-number. All speculation aside, there is only one man named in scriptures whose number adds up to 666, and that is through the number of family members he has.
“The children of Adonikam, six hundred sixty and six.” Ezra 2:13
The other passage (Neh. 7:18) arrives at 667 for the lineage of Adonikam, presumably, it does so by either including him and not just his offspring; or that it was written a hundred years later and the man simply had more offspring by then. Either way, this man’s descendants were among those Jews that had been taken captive by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar and were the remnant who returned to Jerusalem at the end of their captivity. I do not know if one of this man’s descendants will turn out to be the Antichrist or not, but I do know that the Jews would never accept a man as Messiah who was not Jewish.
All we really know is that the Apostle Paul stated that he (the Antichrist) would not be revealed until the Restrainer (the Holy Spirit) is removed (2 Thess 2:7-8). But to point out one last thing, Paul called the Antichrist the ‘Son of Perdition’. The only other person called that in scriptures was Judas Iscariot (John 17:12). It’s not any stretch of the imagination to assume that Paul was familiar with who Judas was (a Jewish disciple), and what he did.
If we are to remain true to the symbolism used in Revelation, we then understand that in Chapter 13, the Beast that rises up out of the sea (sea=gentile nations) is Gentile in nature. The Beast that rises up out of the land (land=Israel) is a Jew (the False Prophet). The Antichrist rises up as a little horn amongst the other horns (Dan. 7:8; 8:9). So he (the Antichrist) could either be a Gentile whose familial lineage comes from within the boundaries of the old Roman Empire (Dan. 9:26), and he publically converts to some form of Judaism, or that his False Prophet is a Jew and leads the Jewish people astray by signs and wonders to direct their allegiance toward the Antichrist (2 Thess. 2:9; Rev. 13:12-13).
Maybe the False Prophet is hailed as the Messiah, but he, in turn, directs worship to the Antichrist who the Jews initially rejected (for not being Jewish) which is why he commits the Abomination of Desolation spoken of in Matthew 24:15 and 2 Thessalonians 2:4 like his much earlier predecessor Antiochus Epiphanes IV (Daniel 11:30-32). But those refusing to worship him will have to suffer death or starvation for not receiving the mark since they will not be able to buy or sell.
In order for that to be a threat, technology first needs to exist to make that possible. We’ve spent the last 40 years being primed for this kind of system. From the gold standard to the fiat system to the use of credit and debit cards, online banking, and now digital crypto-currency. Society is aggressively being desensitized to the idea of using technology that is embedded into the human body by moving society off of cash. We’ve also had the conditioning in place by getting us used to instant (food, service, and solutions) and by marketing and advertisements that continually sell us the notion that we deserve the best, and we deserve it right now.
The mark of the beast will obviously not be labeled as such, nor its consequences, but will be presented as the most logical, reasonable way forward in troubled times. We know that the mark is not used prior to the Tribulation, so whatever technologies are currently out there today (and there are many now that could fit the bill) are just being staged for the right ‘crisis’ to implement when the time is right. Assuming that the Rapture of the Church is the trigger that causes the worldwide chaos, I foresee a couple of possible avenues.
If the Rapture is a standalone event, aside from the immediate effects of wrecks, looting, fires, etc…, it will trigger an economic avalanche of panic in the US due to the sudden removal of millions of consumers, employers, employees, tax/mortgage/bill payers that will put an already fragile economy into panic mode. The government will bypass the constitution and move to join some form of regional, economic union.
If the Rapture is accompanied by some other cataclysmic event (EMP/Solar storm, nuclear or dirty bomb, mega-thrust earthquake, Gog-Magog War), the US may cede control of the government to the EU “temporarily” until the US can get back on its feet.
For those who are not taken up in the Rapture, they can expect to be subjugated to the Wrath of the Lamb and an onslaught of satanic terror here on earth. For those who fall in line and take the mark, they can expect the following:
Is it worth it? Is the worst seven-years of your life worth hell on earth, and even worse, an eternity in hell, if you ‘opt-out’ for a few years of momentary comfort? Would you spend a million dollars on a car that you could only drive for a day? Probably not, so why would you make a deal that is infinitely worse? The technology exists today, the hour is late, and our Lord and Savior is returning just like He said He would.
“And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Revelation 22:12
The Bible is very clear on this subject of the coming 70th Week. It is a future event, and it will be the worst period in all of human history. If a skeptic (Christian or otherwise) tries to tell you-
“The Rapture ain’t going to happen…”
“There is no such thing as a Rapture…”
“The Rapture already happened in the first century…”
or any other lame excuse, do not listen to them. Mark them as a fool and get away quickly. The Bible is very, very, very clear about four things:
Jesus died, was buried, rose again, and is coming back again at an undisclosed point in time in the future. He didn’t come in the first century because we are still here and the world is still seriously messed up. (1st Cor. 15:1-5, 51-56; Matthew 24:36; Rev. 3:3)
Christ said that when (not if) He comes back, He is going to take His bride (the born again Church) back to heaven (the Rapture) with Him to be where He is (John 14:1-3)
When the Rapture happens (harpazo-Greek, catch up-English, Rapture-Latin transliteration), this world will instantaneously be plunged into chaos. Every time a major global crisis happens, someone always rises up to take charge. This time will be no different, except, it will be for the last time. You don’t want to be here on the earth when that happens
DO NOT TAKE THE MARK.
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…
…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, 10 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. 11 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 13:16-17, 14:9-11
Are you ready?