Lesson Study 20 Copy

“He causes all … 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 or the of the beast, or the of his name… Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His is 666.”

Many mistakenly believe the mark of the beast is 666 tattooed either in the hand or forehead. But this is not what the Bible says. Notice the number of the beast is different than the mark. In fact, most translations mention three separate things: “the mark of the beast, or the name of the beast, or number of his name.” Six hundred sixty-six is the number of the beast’s name and not his mark.

“If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark. . . . He shall be with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.”
The most fearful warnings in the Bible are reserved for the mark of the beast. To not understand is to risk receiving it; for how can people avoid something they can’t identify?

“And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous “
In lessons 4 and 5 we saw that the ten identifying marks of the beast-nation indisputably point to only one power in all history—the medieval Roman Church. Please bear in mind the Bible DOES NOT suggest that members of the Roman Church are the beast or have the mark. God has loving, dedicated Christians in every church, including the Roman Church. It is the unbiblical system of worship and the political structure that prophecy focuses upon.
Numbers in Revelation are symbolic. The numeral “7” represents perfection or completion and is God’s number. God completed creation and rested on the seventh-day Sabbath. There are seven trumpets and seven churches in Revelation. Because man was created on the sixth day, the “number of man” is “6”. The triple six (666) represents man exalting himself above the authority of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This insight adds meaning to the fact that one of the pope’s official titles is Vicarius Filii Dei, “Vicar of the Son of God.” (A “vicar” is somebody who acts as a substitute for somebody else.) The Roman numerical value of this Latin name exposes “the number of his name” (Revelation 13:17).

‘”If anyone the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God… Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the of God and the faith of Jesus.”
Revelation portrays two groups of people that emerge during the end time. They both are defined by how they worship. One worships the beast and receives his mark. The other heeds the call to “worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water” (verse 7)—the Creator—and they keep God’s commandments (which must include the fourth), have the faith of Jesus, and the seal of God.

“Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have the servants of our God on their foreheads.”

Each group has its own mark or seal to represent them. God’s loyal people, who worship Him as the Creator, have the seal of God in their foreheads. Those who follow the beast, have his mark. What exactly are these opposing signs?

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their I will write them.”

The mark and seal are not literal tattoos. God forbade putting marks on our skins in Leviticus 19:28. The mark and seal symbolize either the law of the beast or the law of God written in the heart and mind. Those who receive the seal of God do so because they have God’s law written in their mind (Exodus 13:9). Those who follow the beast do it either willingly with their mind or are coerced and led along by the hand (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

“Bind up the testimony, seal the among my disciples.”

Seals make legal documents official and are typically applied to deeds of property, birth certificates, and other important records. Similarly, the Bible says God’s seal is part of a legal document—His holy law. Seals of persons in authority contain their name, official title, and the territory over which they have authority. For example, the seal of the President of the United States of America has three elements: the president’s name; his title (“President”), and the territory over which he has jurisdiction (“United States of America”).

“And he received the of circumcision, a of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised.”

The Bible uses the words “sign” and “seal” interchangeably. For Abraham, circumcision was an outward sign and seal that he had genuine inner faith and had “sealed to His testimony that God is true” (John 3:33 KJV). In ancient days people signed their official documents by stamping them with a signet ring or seal. Similarly, our signatures today authenticate documents. This is our “sign”. When signing official documents for work, we write our name, title, and company’s name. The same three elements of a seal!

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your . In it you shall do no work… For in six days the Lord the heavens and the earth, the sea, and that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

The fourth commandment alone has all three elements of a seal. It tells us the name of who wrote the Ten Commandments (the Lord), His title (Maker and Creator), and His territory (heaven and earth).

Without God’s seal in the fourth commandment, specifying the Creator God, this law could apply to any god. Only the true God claims, “I am the Lord your Creator, and heaven and earth are my possession.”

“Moreover, I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a between them and Me, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them…. Hallow My Sabbaths, and they will be a between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God.”

The Sabbath is an outward sign, or seal, of God’s people. It demonstrates their faith in Jesus as Creator and Savior. God’s children keep the Sabbath because they’ve learned to love, trust, and obey Jesus and have decided to worship in the manner God commands.

“Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven . . . saying with a loud voice,… “ Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water”…Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone the and his image, and receives his mark’… Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”

The three angel’s messages are God’s last effort to give the gospel to the world just prior to Jesus’ return (verses 1, 15). They tell us the issue in our time is over who we worship.

a. The first angel commands us to worship the Creator and quotes the fourth commandment. Verse 7

b. The second angel condemns Babylon as an unfaithful church that breaks God’s law. God’s people separate from Babylon. Revelation 14:8; 18:4, 5; 1 John 3:4

c. The third angel declares the beast has a counterfeit worship that is opposed to God’s seal, the seventh-day Sabbath.

d. Those who worship the Creator also keep His commandments (Revelation 14:7, 12). In order for it to be said they “keep the commandments,” it is necessary for them to keep all ten—including the fourth commandment—”for whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). They are Sabbath keepers who honor Jesus as Creator. Their obedience springs from the genuine “faith of Jesus.” Revelation 14:12; James 2:17, 18.

e. The mark of the beast, therefore, is the opposite of God’s seal of the seventh-day Sabbath.

“He shall speak pompous words against the Most High . . . and shall intend to times and law.”

The Roman Church points to the Sabbath change as the most substantial evidence that it is God’s representative on earth. Notice these official Catholic statements:
“The Bible still teaches that the Sabbath or Saturday should be kept holy. There is no authority in the New Testament for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday. Surely it is an important matter. It stands there in the Bible as one of the Ten Commandments of God. There is no authority in the Bible for abrogating this commandment, or for transferring its observance to another day of the week. [But] For Catholics it is not the slightest difficulty. The Church is above the Bible; and this transference of Sabbath observance from Saturday to Sunday is proof positive of that fact” (The Catholic Record, London, Ontario, September 1, 1923).

“Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the church ever did happened in the first century [sic]. The holy day, the Sabbath was changed from Saturday to Sunday… not from any directions noted in the Scriptures, but from the Church’s sense of its own power. … People who think the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become 7th Day Adventists and keep Saturday holy” (Saint Catherine Catholic Church Sentinel, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995).

“Martin [Luther] went on to dangerous ground. His underlying principle, apparently, was that we are to keep to no doctrine or practice unless it is found on the face of Scripture. If that is the way we decide what to believe, how to act, then Fundamentalists themselves have problems. They would have, for example, not warrant for holding corporate worship on Sunday instead of Saturday. It was the Catholic Church that changed the day in post-New Testament times. To see how unhelpful the New Testament is, when taken alone, consider the Seventh-day Adventists, who, looking solely at the Bible, say worship should be on Saturday, not Sunday.” (Karl Keating, The Usual Suspects: Answering Anti-Catholic Fundamentalists, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000, p. 186.

“Q. Which is the Sabbath day?
A. Saturday is the Sabbath day.
Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” (Peter Geiermann, The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1957 edition, p. 50.)

“But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: ‘We ought to obey rather than ’”.
The decision before us in the last days is a simple one to understand. There is no rationale in the Bible for Sunday worship. The only one who claims to change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday is the papacy. What’s the bottom line? Sunday-keeping is based on pagan traditions that crept into a compromising church that thought to “change times and laws” (Daniel 7:25). The seventh-day Sabbath, however, honors the true God.