Who Will Receive the Mark of the Beast?

Well, good morning and praise God. Thank you for your prayers this morning.

In the middle of my preparation for a sermon for this morning, I was preparing to share something along the line of Christmas and its season and so on, and somehow in the middle I got derailed. It seemed God had another subject He wanted me to look at. So if you want to turn your Bibles with me to Revelation

13.

Instead of talking about the birth of a dear little baby this morning, we're going to talk about a beast all grown. Isn't that exciting? We're going to talk about a beast this morning.

The title of the message is, "Who will receive the mark of the beast?" Let's read chapter 13. "And I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet was as a bear, the bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world wandered after the beast.

And they worshiped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, 'Who is like unto the beast, and who is able to make war with him?' And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies. And power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life, of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

And if any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints." And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed and who doeth great wonders so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth and the sight of men and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, and the image of the beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causes all, both great and 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, and his number is 603 score and six."

Wow, that's a scary story, isn't it?

That's really a scary story. You know, the last verse there says, "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast." You know, when you look down in history and all of my entire growing up years, probably, there were people trying to count this number, and some pretty spooky things have come out of it. I remember when I was fairly young, my friend and I went into a little convenience store, and my friend, whatever, bought a little snack or whatever. The money that he handed to the cashier, the change that she owed him was $6.66, and this caused a real scene.

She was convinced that he doesn't want to take this change and that number. She suggested he buy something else or take something off to make the correct change different, and he said, "No, I'm good. I'm fine with that."

So things like that have come up. So 666 has been this number that men have been trying to count, and today people are trying to count this number. He says there's wisdom here, so the writer here is sort of giving us clues. He says it's the number of a man. He says it's the number of the beast, and he gave us another clue. It's 666. So what is this?

Do we have any counters here this morning that have wisdom and understanding exactly what is this thing? What does it mean? I'm not here this morning to say exactly what it means, but I hope that in this passage we can find out who it is that will receive this name, this number, this mark, and who will not receive it.

You know, in the past we've heard people say, "Well, it's these barcodes or something in a barcode or something in a credit card. Can't buy and sell without it eventually," and then it's the computer chip. And now here more recently, it's, "Is it the COVID mask? Is it the shot that people take for the virus? Is there something in that shot that is an identifier? Is some sort of a mark that is going to mark?" So we back off, and we're scared, and we question, and we're trying to figure out what this passage means.

I guess my warning this morning is, you know, we've been receiving identifiers ever since Jesus ascended, ever since probably the history of man. We've been receiving some sort of marks long before barcodes and credit cards and so on, and I warn us this morning, let's not fall into the trap of saying, "Well, somehow we can still buy and sell, so this must not be it." And we're waiting for that tricky number or that system to come, whatever that might be, and we miss it. Remember the Jewish people, the religious people of Jesus' day? The prophecies were, "There's going to be this coming Messiah." And they were looking for something to be fulfilled, and they completely missed him, many of them.

And I think it's going to be the same way here, and I'll just share my belief, I guess.

I believe there's enough of things already prophesied or come true in the prophecies that I believe Jesus could come tonight. He could return tonight.

Jesus teaches us that as in the days of Noah, things were pretty normal. People were eating. They were drinking. They were marrying. They were given in marriage. He goes on to teach us that the Son of Man's return will be this way, and He will come sort of as a thief in the night when we're not expecting Him. And then He says, "Watch and be ready, for in the day and the hour you know not." So let's not get caught up in the trap of, "What is this thing?" and we look for it somehow, and we simply miss. It could be right here today.

Before we look at the mark so much, let's look at this beast that is described. Before we can understand His mark, maybe we need to understand the beast a little more. Well, John the Revelator, history teaches us, he's one of the few or maybe the only apostle that was not martyred, but understand from history he was taken out on the island, and he dropped off and abandoned. And there in several years' time, he was there by himself on the island, and he wrote the book of Revelation.

There alone with God, God showed him. He gave him visions, and he saw things in heaven and things in earth and things to come and maybe things in the past, things present for our day. He was given to see glimpses that you and I do not have the opportunity to see.

But he saw this beast as an awful-looking beast the way it's described. You know, let's just turn our Bibles to Daniel chapter 7. I'll just read some there, maybe most of the chapter here, to see if we can see some parallel here. So Daniel Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, is ruling here. Daniel had this dream in verse 1 of chapter 7, and he says, "In the visions, his head upon his bed when he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters, Daniel, verse 2 says, 'Daniel spake and said, 'I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea, and four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse from one another.

The first was like a lion and had eagle swings. I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth and made stand upon his feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second like a bear, it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it. And they said thus unto it, 'Arise, devour much flesh.' After this, I beheld, and lo another like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl. The beast had also four heads, and dominion was given to it. After this, I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth.

It devoured and broke in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it, and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and the mouth speaking great things. I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the ancient of days did sit. Whose garment was white as snow and hair of head like pure wool? This throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels as a burning fire, a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him.

Thousand and thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The judgment was set, and the books were opened. And I beheld then because the voice of the great words which the horn spake, I beheld even till the beast was slain and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame. As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season at a time. I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people, nations, and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. Praise the Lord." I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit, in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. Have you ever had a dream like that? I mean, you're dreaming away, and you see these things in your dreams and this and that. Oh, I could take all morning telling you of dreams I had that were just very out of culture and strange and weird, and it seems like here Daniel is experiencing them. What is this all about? I mean, he's troubled, and then it says he comes next to the person, and he asks, "What is this?

What does this mean?

What does this mean?" Where did we stop here? Verse 15, "I came near unto one of them that stood by and asked him the truth of all this." So remember, Daniel interpreted dreams in the past, and now he's saying, "I need help with this dream. I need somebody to interpret this dream and what it means."

These great beasts, so here the interpreter kicks in in verse 17, "These great beasts which are four are four kings which shall arise out of the earth, but the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.

Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast which was diverse from all the others exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron and his nails of brass which devoured, broke in pieces and stamped the residue with his feet. And of the ten horns that were in his head and of the other which came up and before them three fell, even of the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows, I beheld, and the same horn wore with the saints and prevailed against them until the ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom."

Thus he said, "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth which shall be diverse from all kingdoms and shall devour the whole earth and shall tread it down and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise, and another shall rise after them, and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the Most High and shall wear out the saints of the Most High and think to change times and laws, and they shall be given unto his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is foreverlasting.

The everlasting kingdom and all dominion shall serve and obey him." We'll stop there.

Do we see some parallels here? Do we notice that in Revelation 13, it seems there's a condensed version, if I can say it that way, of what Daniel was seeing in his dream? So these beasts have something in common if we describe them a little bit. The beast that Daniel saw, the beast that John the Revelator sees, is like a leopard, it says, his feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion.

And Daniel says he saw one as a lion, one as a bear, one as a leopard, but they were four different beasts or three different beasts at that point, and then the fourth one came along and trumped them all. I mean, it was a picture of ugliness if you notice that. He comes along, and he just subdues. He stamps them out, and he puts away with the three. He rules over the three we get the picture of, but then there's a beautiful one that comes on, and we're going to see this in Daniel, and we're going to see it in Revelation. And this is the courage I take this morning when I started with this chapter.

I'm like, "Is there anything positive in here?" It is. Really, it is because if you see in the end of both Daniel's dream and also in this case, we see that in the end, Satan is going to lose. The big beast, as ugly as he is.

Now, you and I aren't allowed to see this beast the way Daniel saw it. I don't think we could handle it the way Daniel and the way John saw it. I mean, if a beast like this would walk in here this morning, and we would have to describe him, we don't know where to start. I mean, he has—how's he say that? He has seven heads.

He looks like a leopard. He has ten horns. He has bear's feet, and he has ten crowns. He has seven heads and ten crowns. Now, how does that work? Seven heads, and he has ten horns. So somewhere there's heads that have more than a set of horns on them, and there's crowns more than heads.

It's just bear feet, body like a leopard, mouth like a lion. How would we describe this thing if we would see it as an actual beast this morning? And I think if he'd enter in these back doors, we would be scared. I think we would try to make an emergency exit over here somewhere. I think that's how scary and frightful this thing would appear to us. Thank God we're spared from him to actually see him in this form.

Let's continue to—but there's one thing that stands out about this. If we would see him this morning, he'd walk in here, and you and I were forced to somehow identify and put a name to him. There's one thing that keeps jumping out here in our passage, and it's right here in the scene of him. It says, "On his—" now, he had seven heads, and somewhere in the midst of these seven heads was written blasphemy.

The name of him was blasphemy. So if he walks in this morning with bear's feet, a body like a leopard, and a mouth of a lion, ten horns, and all these scary things, on the heads is written his name, which is the true identifier of him. It's blasphemy, and that takes us to his nature.

You notice in the end of verse 2, it says, "The dragon gave him his power." If we go back to chapter 12, we see this dragon pictured, and the writer there calls the dragon the serpent of old, referring back to Genesis. The serpent in the Garden of Eden took the devil himself, he calls him. In 12, I believe it's about 12:9, "And the great dragon was cast out. That old serpent"—that's referring back to Genesis—"called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world." So this ugly beast we saw is motivated. He's given his authority. He's given his powers by the way. Daniel tells us that the interpreter tells Daniel these ten horns represent kingship, authority, power, and all of that, representing ten kings, I think he told us, in a particular kingdom.

Ten kings in a kingdom, that sounds scary. The ten horns, each representing a king in a particular kingdom. When you let ten kings loose in one kingdom, what happens? And he said, "The four beasts," Daniel's interpreter said, "The four beasts, they each represent a king." And I think what we see simply, this horn many times refers to power, authority. And here, this beast has ten horns, powerful authority and appearance, but the writer tells us all of that comes from the dragon. And the dragon tells us, we just read it, as the devil, as Satan himself, he took on a form. If Satan could take on the form of a serpent, then he can take on a form of this ugly beast.

Do we believe that? And he's disguising his real colors somewhere behind. I believe this is more the way God sees him than we see him. If we would see him this way, if we would have a glimpse into the spiritual world this morning, and we would see all the powers of darkness and all the rulings of darkness in the form of this beast, I believe we would be scared into another kingdom, and that's not what God wants. He wants us to come voluntarily to that other kingdom, that one that Daniel kept saying has no end, and he says, "The saints are going to possess it." That's the good news of our message this morning. He keeps repeating that.

He says, "There's another kingdom, and that kingdom has a king." I don't think Daniel understood that the way you and I understand it today.

Well, notice here that he has a tremendous appeal in verses 3 and 4. This deadly wound, so it has all these heads, and then one of these—how many heads? Seven heads, I believe. One of these heads appeared to mankind as it was wounded to death, and then it was healed back to life.

I don't know what all this means, but this keeps coming up. If you notice, the second beast that appears is referred to this healing that happened on this first beast. Whatever it was, there's a lot of speculation done on what this could have meant, but whatever it was, it was really impressing to mankind.

So it appeared to be dead, but it was healed back to life. A miracle, some sort of a miracle.

And it says in the end of verse 3, it says that all the world wandered after the beast, all the world, the dwellers of the world, the unsaved, the men of the world, they were so impressed with this healing miracle, they just pushed after it. They wandered with amazement. That word has two meanings there. It has the idea of admiration, and at the same time, they're admiring to the point where they follow after.

You see that? "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places," Ephesians 6. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, "The God of this world hath blinded the mind of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." We see some of that going on right here.

There's a lot of speculation done as to what this could have been, and some of the thoughts is, could this just be a picture of the rising and the falling of kings and kingdoms when this one head is blown down and blown to death, and then it rises to life again? I don't know. When we think of our powers and our authorities today, you think of the presidents coming in and being elected on the campaigning.

I marvel sometimes the promises they make to somehow fix past problems. I mean, they make promises for the future that only God could perform. Do you think this could be part of it? Wow, we're going to get a new king, a new president, and he's going to fix all these things. This looks great. We're going to move forward with this. We're impressed with it. I don't know.

I don't know if that's what could be referring to or picturing or what it is.

Peace, peace when there is no peace. How many peace monuments are in the world representing peace and promising peace to the world? Are we living in peace today? The promises sure have been made. What about—and there's some thought out there also that this is maybe just mimicking or copying, duplicating what Christ has done, God has done when he sent his Son, and he was crucified and put to death and resurrected again. So here's one of these heads that is put to death. Oh, we can do that too, and we can somehow heal it back up and imitating the resurrection of the Lord.

I don't know what this might mean. My interpretation could be something like this. We're looking, when we think of the mark of the beast, we're looking for something ugly maybe at times. I mean, something that people are scared of, and they back away from. But I think of, in our day, I'm thinking of just the technology of our day. Is there anything in history or in your history that you can think of that has impressed men as much and women as much as technology and has taken their awe and their wonder and their amazement and caused people to follow after? It's impressive. I must admit, I'm impressed what technology can do.

I mean, someone told me that there's in the medical system, a doctor can be in another country, and he can sit in his office, and he can do—a surgeon can do surgery, laser surgery on a patient here in the States.

I guess that's true. I mean, that's impressive to me. I really think I could sit and I could go after that. I'm like, how does this work? I mean, imagine sitting here and having surgery done on me from a man in India just off his screen in his office, and we do a life or death laser surgery. Technology, I mean, it's—you know, even the techie people can't keep up with its speed anymore, how fast it's going and how impressive.

Let's think about this. Every time we get a new smartphone, there's some new technology on there that is going to be enabling you to do just another step. I'm going to put out a warning. Could it be some connection here where the whole world is impressed and going after and admiring? If the devil, that old serpent—I mean, that serpent of old, the devil himself—was able to use a serpent, and he's able to use a beast, he's able to use technology as well to transform and to impress, technology being a good tool. But Satan always does that, doesn't he? He takes something that is good, and he perverts it, and he turns it, and he causes men to marvel and admire and to corrupt it.

Just a warning, just a warning. When I go out and about, I guess I'm shocked, and to see how all these phones and its technology just captivate people for hours. You can hardly converse with people face to face anymore or say hi because they're on their phone. They're doing something. I don't know what for sure, always.

You go traveling in the airports, it's—everybody, I'm saying almost everybody—is somehow captivated and glued, and I'm like, where's reality? We're still here. There's still people. You get that feeling sometimes. Maybe I'm the only weird one. I just get that feeling sometimes. I don't know if I've ever seen any other power that has captivated. I'm just bringing that out as a warning. Let's go careful.

Let's go slowly with our technology and be aware of our surroundings.

This is scary when I look at this because these people are so excited about this. They're so passionate about this. You notice what they say? In the end of verse 4, it says, "Who is like unto the beast?" Does that sound familiar?

When Moses and his army made it successfully across the sea, remember they sang the song of Moses, and in there was a phrase just about like that, "Who is like our God?" And here they're saying, "Who is like? Who is like this beast? Who will be powerful like him? Who is able to make war with him?" Verse 4.

David, in his expression, in his spill-out of praise and glory to God, he said that several times, "Oh God, who is like unto thee? Who is so great a God as our God?" Psalm 77:13, and here we see the people of the world are doing that to this horrible-looking beast that is so impressive. Who is like him?

Who would dare to make war with him? That's scary, isn't it, folks?

At this point, the devil finally got what he wanted. You know what is that? There's a whole nation of people that are simply worshiping the beast. It says they're worshiping the dragon and the beast, and that is what he wanted right along. Remember when he tempted Jesus? He showed him all the kingdoms of the world and all its glory, and he said, "I will give you all these things when what? You bow down and worship me." That's what he's getting here. See? All these people are bowing. They're worshiping. They're giving their allegiance.

They're giving their wonder. They're giving their amazement, and he's just scooping it all in. He just loves it. Let's look at his goal, his end goal.

It says he's been given a mouth, verse 5, to speak great things and blasphemies. And power is given unto him to continue 42 months, and he opened his mouth and blasphemed against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and them that dwell in it.

What does that mean for our day? Is that happening today? Do you believe it is? Blasphemy? What does blasphemy mean? I went to several different dictionaries. One Bible dictionary had the idea of just simply defaming, defaming, bringing down. It's taking God's place. He's speaking great things, and I think it's in Isaiah. It says that that was his thrust back then, was to say, "I'm going to rise up to the clouds, and I'm going to be like God."

So he's already speaking these great things with his mouth, clear back as we see in Isaiah. Here we see it again, speaking great things, but his agenda, his goal is this worship feels so good to him, I believe, that he wants to just defame God. He wants to get rid of God. He wants to take God out of the system.

Think of America today. We can talk about the whole world, but let's just focus on us in America today. We take God out of the picture. What happened when we took the Bible out of the schools? That is probably the most important book in the entire school. It's the only curriculum, the only book in the curriculum that has the entire truth written in it.

America takes it out of the school. So what did we do? We took God out of the school. You notice that? We took God out of the schools, and we're teaching these innocent children evolution. That took God out of creation, really. That's what it did.

So we take God out of the school. We take God out of creation. Today, the big thing is this transgender thing.

When God created man, he created a male and female, and he blessed them that way. Now we're saying we don't know what they are. They have to choose that. They don't even know what they are. You know what that's doing? It's taking God out of the very plan and purpose for that young child's life.

You see that?

This is America. This is where we live, and it comes home pretty close, doesn't it?

What about this climate change thing that there's a lot of time and fuss and money spent on? I heard someone said that our president was in Mayfield, Kentucky, giving a speech after the storm, and he said, well, he believed that this was partly due to this climate change thingy.

So we take God's hand off the thermostat, and we say that God isn't in control. The Bible says clearly that God is in control of the climate. As long as this world is going to stand, the Bible says God is going to be in charge of the weather, the weather patterns. Jesus says he causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. He causes the sun to shine.

Who's in charge of the thermostat? We want to take God out of the picture of climate control. It's coming home pretty close, isn't it? I'm not saying that we should just be sloppy and careless and pollute. I think we should be good stewards of this earth, but we can relax.

We really can relax in that, dear Christians, because we know that God's hand is on the thermostat, and he's going—what we're saying when we take it off, we say, "God, you created something you can't control. You created something you can't control." His hand's on the thermostat, and he's going to control it, folks. Let's relax and enjoy life.

Let's relax and enjoy life. But this blasphemous beast is doing that. He's blaspheming God. He says, "God, take you out of the school. Take you out of creation. Take you out of—take you out of—take you out of." What about marriage?

They tell me today, and I don't know, statistics say that broken homes and failed marriages are as real in the Christian circles as the non-Christian circles. That is ridiculous. I think Satan is back there, this big dragon. I think he's behind that beast. He's just laughing.

God, after all, your plan of one man for one woman for life didn't work out the best, did it? You think you can hear Satan, just the devil, this beast, this dragon, just sort of laughing at that?

Your plan didn't work out the best. He's blaspheming God. See what he's doing? He's defaming all his purposes. He's bringing them down. How must God feel? What about this season that we live in? I thought Christmas was supposed to be a special day to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

After all, doesn't the Bible say that unto us this day is born in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord? And the angels all kick in and say, "Glory to the Highest. Glory." When I drive down the road in these communities and I see yards just decked out with Santa Claus and snowman and trees that are all wrapped up and decked out, I'm like, "What in the world does that have to do with the birth of my Savior?"

Nothing, absolutely zero, and I can assure you that behind these trees and these deflatable snowmen that on a windy day they're all doing this, blowing over and falling and wrapping—I was driving on a windy day, and I see this scene, and I'm like, some were deflated, some were inflated, and the wind was just wrapping them around the tree, and it was chaos, and I'm like, "Thank God for a kingdom and a God that has an everlasting that doesn't blow away with every windstorm."

I mean, now we get the upper hand, don't we, with our great God on a windy day. They can't even stay upright. Folks, today, how must God feel on Christmas Day? Do you know what? Do you know what my belief is? I think this dragon gets the most attention out of Christmas Day. I bet he looks forward to Christmas season more than any of us because he gets more attention than anybody does.

Think of it. Think of it. This is coming home really close. It's America. It's in a tradition, but you tell me, how in the world the reindeer and the decked-out trees and the sleigh ever made their way into the celebration of my Savior coming to the world?

I don't see it. Let's not have any part of that idolatry. I believe what we're doing is we're grieving God. I believe he dreads Christmas Day in America. I really believe he does because Satan, the beast, the dragon, is getting the attention.

Oh, you say, "Well, not directly." I don't see anybody kneeling down and bowing and praying to Satan or the dragon. How did they worship this beast? We don't see anything that they're kneeling down and having the big festivals do. It's just simply they followed after him. That was their type of worship. When we follow after something, that becomes our life and our passion. Guess what?

We're worshiping that very thing. If that is our next heartbeat, that is what we're worshiping.

And then we notice here that he has the whole world, the men of the world. That means the dwellers of the world, those that do not know God. He has them now wrapped up in worship, and now the next step he takes is he demands of the saints to come and join that army, and that's you and me today. He sets out, and he makes war, if you notice, in those verses. Now he's going to make war, and there's a tremendous warfare going on here.

And my question to you this morning, are we going to engage in this warfare with the weapons that Jesus has given to us to fight the good fight of faith, as Paul said?

Romans 12, I believe it is, about verse 2, it says, "Be not conformed to this world." So we get that picture of the war is being fought, and Satan is jealous over the saints now. He got the rest of the world wrapped up in his worship. Now he goes after us, and he puts us into persecution and a spiritual warfare, and he conforms, and he presses, and he shapes us into that system.

Take courage. That's why the warning in the New Testament is, "Over and over and over, take heed." The apostles knew that this is a real warfare, and it's a spiritual one, and it's a battle we must engage in to fight against.

A good news part of this is we notice the great divide here. He says everyone is going to be worshiping that beast except for this group of people that have their names written in the Book of Life.

Notice who's the owner in verse 8 of the Book of Life. It's the Lamb that has been slain from the foundation of the world. What does that mean? Our concept many times is pretty shallow. My concept is pretty shallow when I think of the death and the resurrection of our Savior. We think of him as going to the cross and hanging there for six hours and dying there for the sins of the whole world.

That is true, but that's only a small picture of it. Isaiah gives us a little bigger picture of it when he was smitten by God, and this picture gives us that this Lamb was slain before the foundation of the earth, of the world.

I don't know what all that means, but it seems it has the picture. It sort of pictures the whole that word slain has the idea in it, slaughter. When I think of slaughter, it's bloodshed. It's Old Testament sacrifices, animal sacrifices.

It's an awful thing that our Lord had to go through to pay, to take the place of all my individual sins and your individual sins. And he died. He gave his life for this Book of Life, and I just picture Jesus pleading with God and saying, "Can I have this Book of Life? I want to write the saints' names one by one into the Book of Life." And folks, today, I can assure you, I don't know again what the mark of the beast is for sure, but I can assure you by these passages that if you have the Lamb's name, the name in the Book of Life written and engraved in that book, that you will not take the mark of the beast.

You will be safe. You're going to be protected right in those pages because the Bible tells us that God knows who are his, and let's keep that name written, bright, and fair in the Book of Life. By the grace of Jesus Christ, let's carry his mark with us daily, and we'll be safe. Remember in John 10, Jesus told the Pharisees, he says, "My sheep are mine," and he said, "No man is going to be able to pluck them out of my hands."

There's safety. There's protection. But the challenge is, are we fighting this great warfare that Jesus fought for us, gave his life? He said, "Here is the foundation." Right here in these verses is where the—can't lay my eyes down—about verse 10.

Verse 10, the end of verse 10, it says, "Right here is the patience and the faith of the saints." This great enemy of ours, that declared warfare with the saints of God, is going to be defeated. You see that in verse 10? He that leadeth, he's the chief commander of this war. He was the one that initiated this war, and now the Bible tells us that he's the one that's going to be led into captivity. He was killing with the sword, and spiritually, he's going to be killed with the sword, and this has an end, and in the end, if you notice, we're going to be the winners with our name written in the Book of Life.

What a great divide between the two folks. The one group has the mark of the Lord Jesus. The other group has the mark of the beast. You see that's very clear.

The other beast, I'm not going to say much about that for the sake of time, but the second beast that rises—now there's a lot of speculation done—is the first beast representing the Gentile nation? Is the second beast representing the Jewish nation? I have one problem with that because the second beast is very supportive of the first beast. You see they're hand in hand. They're unified. Jew and Gentile, there was enmity in their history as we know it, but here these beasts, what the first one says, the second one supports. In fact, it says that the second one causes people to worship the first one. Sounds like an evil trinity copying the trinity. The Holy Spirit teaches us all things, and here this beast comes along and is acting sort of like the spirit of taking that place.

I don't know what all this means. He has an appearance that's different. He has horns like a lamb. He comes out looking sort of innocent, and as we say, the lamb is more the gentle animal, so his appearance is more or less scary, more gentle, but the nature is the same because it says he speaks as a dragon.

His purpose again is to do miracles. He does miracles. He calls down fire from heaven, and he does other miracles here, but the very purpose behind the miracles, if you notice here, is deception. It is causing, again, men to worship that first beast.

So his agenda, his purpose is the same. Are they two different beasts? Pictures that way. Same nature, same goal, same purpose, same mark, blasphemy. Let's talk quickly a little bit about this mark in verse 16.

What about this mark? What is this mark in their right hand or in their foreheads?

If we look at chapter 14 and verse 1, it says, "And I looked, and lo, a lamb stood on the Mount Zion." So if you remember John the Revelator, he sees this first and second beast, and he talks about their mark, and then he right into the next passage in 14:1, he says, "I looked, and lo, a lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 having the Father's name written in their foreheads." He just got done telling us that this other beast is going to require a mark in a person's forehead as well. So when we see chapter 14 of the saints with the foreheads marked, does that mean that's a literal mark with ink or tattoo or some brand mark?

What do we think? Is that how God identifies his people? On the forehead, there's something stamped in there saying the name of their God. Boom. Okay, everybody knows who they belong to.

If we continue to read, he really gives us the identity of these people, and we go down to verse 4. He tells us really who these people are.

It says in the end of verse 4, "These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth."

I like that. You know what? If we do tags and ink and brand marks and numbers, literal numbers, they can be juggled and defiled and misread and misunderstood, and they're not really the true identifiers. What about names? Sometimes we get them mixed up and messed up, but the true identifier of a person happens somewhere. Medical science tells us, I guess, that somewhere in our body there is a—I'm going to call it a room or a spot where we make decisions called choices.

Have you ever done this or seen people when you ask them a question and they say, "Let me think about that"? We never go, "Let me think about that." We think with our knees or with our feet. We say, "Let me think about that." So we have come to the conclusion that somewhere right in here behind the forehead is our capacity to make choices.

When we think about something, what are we doing? We're making a choice, and God has given us the ability to make choices, and that happens as we understand right here behind our forehead.

And we have the ability to make choices here in our forehead that have to do the most important decisions and choices we make in life. The most important things we do or not do happen right here. Somewhere here is where it happens, and we see two groups of people in this passage this morning, in 13 and 14. In 13, if you notice, there was a group of people that wandered, and they followed after the beast and the dragon.

In 14, the writer describes another group of people. It says they also had a mark in their forehead. It was the name of their God, and he says they really—the identifier is who they follow, and that was the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. And I can assure us again, if we have the mark of God, the true identifier as to who we are written in our forehead, we're not going to take on the mark of the beast. That's very clear. If you notice, and we continue to read in the next chapters, in 14, just a couple of verses, notice that what always goes hand in hand with the mark in the forehead.