The Mark of the Beast – Pay Attention to Your Mind
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
2 Thessalonians 2:7-10
I have a few questions: first, how can a physical mark (mark, name, or number of the beast branded onto a human skin) affect your spirit, which is the real person that God is looking at when He looks at you, especially since the human body is not the one that is saved through the salvation of the finished work of Christ, but the soul?
Second, why is it that all that was judged in Babylon, as written in Revelation 18, is about money, commerce, and the global economy?
Third, for the believer, do you know what it means not to be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast? It is very interesting because it is not actually a bad thing. In fact, it is one of the most beautiful things that will happen to God’s people on earth. Not being able to buy and sell because of the lack of the Mark of the Beast is how they will know that God can provide sustenance without money, trade, commerce, or a global economy, just the way He did with the children of Israel in the wilderness. For everything that God destroyed in Egypt, He supernaturally provided in the desert. Think about it.
I asked these questions, especially the first one. not necessarily because I am seeking an answer, but because I want your mind to wander a bit. My point being that, whatever can destroy your body but cannot touch or destroy your soul, has no eternal power or value over you. The same way, you should not be afraid of that (the beast) which can destroy the body but cannot touch the soul, but be in awe of Him (God) who can both destroy the body and the soul.
Therefore, the mark of the beast or the mark of God is not physical branding on the human body, but a knowledge and belief system that one embraces and lives by. Just as the tree of Life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are not physical trees to be eaten, but knowledge systems to be believed and embraced. Remember, to know God and the Christ He sent is ETERNAL LIFE. The Tree of Life is the symbol of ETERNAL LIFE, and the eating of it is a belief and a knowledge system.
Babylon has fallen
Buying and selling are unnatural activities, undertaken by man, which came as proof of his fallen state in the garden. Everything that God made was meant to be enjoyed by man freely, and to be multiplied by spoken words, and not through gains made from commerce or the exchange of goods and services. And that is why no man can buy or sell, in the last days, without the mark of the beast. Because the mark of the beast is not a digital seal on the forehead, but the rise of consciousness of the fallen state of man, and the fullness of the reality of the skin of the animal that he was clothed with after the fall.
Before anything was made that was made, when God decided to project Himself on earth, taking the form of a created being, the lowest He could go was man. Man, that was made from the material of earth but animated by the breath of God. But the drop in the God-consciousness, or death, made possible by man’s disobedience meant God had to go below the state of man to taste of animal consciousness, which is not animated by God’s breath. This is sin. For, until Adam and Eve dropped divine consciousness and embraced the animal consciousness symbolized by the awareness of nakedness, which further expresses itself as worrying about what to eat, what to wear, where to live, and who to mate with, there was no sin. This awareness is the mark of the beast, the pattern of the man of sin.
Therefore, to not be aware that being a born-again because of the finished work of Christ, and therefore a new creation with no memory of the fall, is the mark of the beast that each one must remove from their consciousness. The issue has always been consciousness or the lack thereof. See Hebrews 10:1-3.
The mark of the beast
A mark is defined as an impression (such as a scratch, scar, or stain) made on something, a distinguishing trait, quality, or characteristic. Therefore, the mark of the beast is not necessarily a tattoo but a character trait of the beast ingrained in the mind of a man.
There are two marks that scripture talks about in both Ezekiel 9:4, Revelation 7:3, and Revelation 13. The mark of God, or Christ, the mark of the beast, or Anti-Christ.
I do not think that these marks are literal physical marks that will be put on the foreheads of men like a tattoo or inserted into them like computer chips. And yes, technology has advanced to the point of using chips on man, but this is not what the mark of the beast is. For, in the same way that Nebuchadnezzar was given up to the spirit of the beast in his spirit, soul and body, so shall men who do not retain God in their minds be given up to the reprobate mind of the beast, which, in itself, is the mystery of iniquity coming to its peak; doing things that are against the natural laws of God. This is what the mark of the beast means, and not some 666 physically branded on human foreheads. It’s all about the mind.
The fact remains that every man, born of a woman, from the days of the fall, already has the mark of the beast on them, because of the skin of an animal that God clothed Adam and Eve with. So, the fight is not about not taking the mark of the beast; the fight is about how to remove it. And this can only be done by returning to the divine consciousness of God in the inner man, through the finished work of Christ.
Now, a mark means a brand, sign, proof, indication, or characteristics of a thing. From the day that God put the skin of an animal on man, to cover him after the fall in Genesis 3, man was robed in the garment of the beast. And what do you think the proof of that garment is? The separation from the presence of God, the curse of toiling and eating by the sweat of the brow, to and fro movement on the earth, the knowledge of good and evil, death, buying and selling, money as a means of exchange and the worship of materialism etc. and these are the same things that God destroyed in the age of the endtime according to Revelation 18. Death, being the last enemy that will be destroyed, just as death was the first enemy of man in the beginning.
The mark of the beast is a state of consciousness. For when man fell in the garden, the original natural order of things was truncated, and things became unnatural. Meaning that the way of toiling for food, working for pay, death, shame, sickness, buying and selling, which has become natural with man, was originally unnatural to him before the fall. This is the proof of the clothing of the beast, or if you prefer, the mark of the beast.
All these unnatural tendencies of man from the days of the fall are what together are called the mark of the beast or the proof that man is under the influence of the bestial nature in him. Meaning that the beasts of Revelation 13, which came out of the water (people, nations, and tongues), and the earth (creation itself), are an illustration of the full emergence of that bestial nature in man on earth. But this time, it will no longer be covered, because He who restrains the lawless one would have been removed. See 2 Thessalonians 2:7.
And because men have been changing the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things, God will give them up to debased minds to do unfit things. Men will embrace the mind and consciousness of beasts to make a mockery of themselves as the image of God, just as madness engulfed Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel.
We have proof already in our world of people doing very expensive surgeries to change their bodies to that of animals. That’s an offshoot of a debased mind carrying the consciousness of the beasts. And it’s so minute to what is coming.
The madness of iniquity on earth will get to its extreme peak and, as Jesus said, it will take the grace of God for even the very elect of God not to be deceived by the activities of the days coming. But here is hope, for the Lord Jesus said in Revelation 3:10, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”
Nebuchadnezzar – A type of the Beast-Mind
It is interesting to know that some of the core prophecies about the endtime, as captured in the book of Danel are prophetically tied to Nebuchadnezzar, in a sense. It seems that God tied both good and evil to him so that we can see and learn from him.
Did you notice, in Daniel 7, that the entire playbook of God concerning the workings of the beast was played out in Nebuchadnezzar? And I believe this is what will plague man with in the end times. We are already entering the days of the kingdom of Iron and Clay, or the days of the merging of man and machine. Pay attention to Daniel Chapter 2.
Have you considered that almost every region of the earth have their own version of the movie “Walking Dead”?. There is even breaking news showing the increasing cases of fungus taking control of the brain of their hosts (mostly insects) and making them do things that are not natural. But why is that? What is it connected to?
Nebuchadnezzar, as a picture of Babylon, the head of gold and a symbol of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, became proud before God, and God plagued him with a disease of the mind that made him lose his human reasoning, taking the posture of a beast in spirit, mind, and body. Remember, man was made on the 6th day just like the beasts of the earth were made on the 6th day. Man’s spirit, soul, and body made on the 6th day could also mean the reality of 666.
The Greeks call this disease that plagued Nebuchadnezzar Lycanthropy, wherein the sufferer imagines himself as a beast, and lives out the life of a beast. It is a kind of madness, but more severe.
See what God said about those who will come against His people in the last days. Zechariah 12:4 “In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.”
Horse, in this context, means spiritual movements and systems. The riders and people are those who walk in those movements and systems. And the Israel or people of God spoken of in the above scripture is not necessarily the Israel in the Middle East today, but the Israel of God through faith and belief in the finished work of Christ.
Also, does it not ring a bell that the madness of Nebuchadnezzar lasted for seven years, which looks like the seven years of tribulation that mankind will go through? I also found it quite curious that God did not pass the judgment that brought Nebuchadnezzar to his knees, as it were, but by the watchers or the sons of God. This is really remarkable, as it points directly to our days, in which the spirit of the beast will arise in its fullness in man, and then Babylon will be judged by the sons of God, just as it is written in scriptures that the sons of God will judge the earth and even angels. For the entire creation was subjected to futility in HOPE, till the sons of God would manifest to remove futility from creation.
What must you do?
Renew your mind. Come out from among the system of Babylon and be separate from its influence. Retain the knowledge of God in your mind and be sealed by the Holy Spirit. For the mark of the beast is a state of consciousness, as also the mark of God is a state of awareness, the consciousness of the true meaning of the work of Christ, and then the embrace of God the Father.
Shalom.
