The Mark of the Beast, Pt. 1

Announcer: It is time now for Bible Talk. Join our host, Gary Gibbs and John Bradshaw, speakers for the Amazing Facts Ministry as they now open the Bible and discuss themes that affect your life today. Stay tune because the next 15 minutes will deepen your understanding of God's word.

John Bradshaw: Hi and welcome to Bible Talk. I'm John Bradshaw and with me is Gary Gibbs. Hi, Gary.

Gary: John, how are you doing today?

John: I tell you what I am well and I am excited because today we have a great subject. This is the subject when it comes to Bible prophecy. Everybody's asking about wondering about and many people are commenting about. Today we are going to talk about the mark of the beast.

Gary: Well, that ought to make a few people perk up and listen and turn the radio up and plan to stay tune and listen to the whole program.

John: It is a solemn subject as far as we can understand from the Bible. Well, this is the truth. You receive the mark of the beast as no hope that a person can be save so obviously, this mark of the beast represents a break in the relationship and irretrievable break in the relationship with Jesus Christ.

Gary: In fact, I believe it does but you know what? I like to talk about what I hear all the time, John. You pick up a Christian book, you turn on a Christian program and there is one thing that no matter what denomination or background you have. No matter what Bible college you went to, everybody agrees the mark of the beast is 666.

Tattooed in your head? Maybe tattooed in your hand but it is 666. Now, how are we going to spend a whole 15 minutes on this program talking about anything more than that John? That's it, isn't it?

John: According to many people, it is Gary. I just talked to a fellow a couple of days ago and he said to me, "Now, John, I read in my Bible that the mark of the beast is 666 and the anti-Christ is going to have three sixes tattooed right there on the top of his head."

Gary: Which bible is he using John?

John: Well, I asked him if we could find that in the Bible. Then he admitted after a while. Well, truth of the matter is I haven't actually read it in the Bible. But I have read it in on a lot of books. I have heard it on television. I have heard it from pulpits. He had to concede the Bible doesn't say it but everybody believes it anyhow.

Gary: You know what happens...I really believe this because people are not following the Bible anymore. What they are doing is they are following the popular movies and the popular books. And when these writers do these things, they have to sensationalize it a bit and make it a little Hollywood and they come out with this creative license if you will, if you want to be kind about it. But it is not in the scripture.

John: I think it is important to stress that a Christian is a follower of Christ and the Christian is a follower of the Christian scripture. And today, there is so much out there in terms of be at radio, present company excluded of course, television, bestselling books, movies. It is as though you hardly even need to read your own bible anymore because so many people are just spoon feeding it telling you what you are to think.

Gary: Let's tell the people what the word says. Let me just read the bible text to you John. It is 666. The mark of the beast. Everybody listening to me knows that but I keep hearing this doubt in your voice. Well, let me just read you what the Bible says.

John: Yeah, you better read me what the bible says because if you can prove to me from the bible that the mark of the beast is 666, I will eat my hat.

Gary: Well, I am going to do it. Here it is. Revelation 13, last three verses, verses 16 to 18.

John: Make it good Gary.

Gary: "And he calls us all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads."

John.: OK.

Gary: There is your mark.

John: All right.

Gary: "That no man might buy or sell, except he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

John: OK, now.

Gary: Here it comes.

John: Here it is.

Gary: "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 Six hundred sixty six."

John: Right, so just as you read. The mark of the beast is not 666. According to the bible, that is the number of the beast.

Gary: What do you mean? Tell me.

John: It says there right there it is the number of a man. His number is 666.

Gary: Yeah, but that is the number he is imprinting on everybody and that is the number he got tattooed in the back of his head if you part his hair.

John: I know that is what many people are saying but it is not what John, the revelator said when he wrote this down a couple of thousand years ago on that little island in the Aegean sea. Nowhere do you read in the bible that 666 will be tattooed anywhere on anyone. Nowhere does that bible say that it is the mark of anyone at all.

It is the number of a man. His number is 666. Now, it does say that without the mark, people won't be able to buy himself but it doesn't say the mark is 666. You got two distinct clearly different issues right here on this past scripture.

Gary: If it is not 666 then what is he tattooing in the head? Because the mark it says right there. It says, where is it? Verse 16, they have to have a mark in their right hand or in their forehead. So, what is it going to be if it is not 666 tattooed in the forehead?

John: Well, you don't actually read anything about a tattoo in the bible either. But let's talk about this business of having it in the forehead or in the right hand. Now, when we get down there...

Gary: Wait a minute, what do you mean you don't see a tattoo? That is what it says right there.

John: Yeah...

Gary: Every Christian person believes that and that is the way it is preached.

John: Well that is the way it is preached but I know there is multitudes saying today, "Now, wait a minute, I don't believe that because it isn't what the Bible says. It says..."

Gary: Now, if they are like that, they need to call our number that you are going to give at the end of the program because I want to hear from them.

John: Absolutely and I believe after today's topic, a lot of the people will be calling in, getting the bible study material. Friend, be sure to do that and heed that number and make that call. It says it calls the people to receive their mark in their right hand or in their foreheads. You see down here at the close of time. Let us even push it on a little bit further.

You got two powers at the book of Revelation. You have the beast and you have the lamb. Now, we know that the lamb is Jesus. The beast is a counterfeit Christ or a counterfeit Christianity, a counterfeit seeking to take the place of Jesus Christ.

Gary: OK.

John: So, ultimately, people are going to be saved or lost. Some are going to receive the mark of the beast and be lost. Some will receive the seal of God. Different but very much a related subject and they will certainly be saved. Now, there will be those who make a decision in their minds to follow the beast. And there will be those who make a decision in their mind that they are not going to follow the beast.

In your forehead, now if you are like most people, right behind your forehead there is an organ known as your brain. And the part of your brain right behind your forehead is your frontal lobe. Now this is a good science here. Now, the frontal lobe... I am just going to use the biblical description, your forehead. That's where your decisions are made. It is where you reason. It is the seat of the intellect, the judgment and the will.

The frontal lobe of the brain, right behind your forehead. So those people who reason and give their intellect and make decisions for Christ will not receive the mark of the beast.

But those who make decisions in their mind for the beast received the mark of the beast whatever that is now in their foreheads because they have given their mind to the beast.

Gary: OK, John. Then give me a verse for that.

John: I can do that. I want to draw your attention to Deuteronomy six and see if you can pick up what's going on here. In Deuteronomy 6:5 the Bible says, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might." And these words which I command you this day shall be in your ware, in your...you know this verse? In your?

Gary: In your heart.

John: Heart. Now verse seven says, "And you shall teach them diligently to your children and you will talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when they liest down and risest up and thou shall bind them for a sign upon thine hand. They shall be as frontlets between thine eyes." Between your eyes is your what?

Gary: That's your forehead.

John: You can technically say it is the bridge of your nose. But we know the bible is talking about the forehead. So it is talking about the forehead really representing the heart and what is that when the bible is talking about the heart, it is talking about the mind very, very clearly.

Gary: Your whole character, your personality, who you are, what you believe in and think.

John: You got it. Over here in Revelation, you got people who believe, think and their character is given to the beast therefore they receive that thing in their mind.

Gary: That is interesting because if you read down a few verses in Revelation 13, go to chapter 14, it talks about another group of people who have something written in their foreheads. And these are not followers of the beast. These are what you pointed out earlier. They are followers of the lamb.

John: So you've got one group of people who are following the beast, receiving the mark of the beast. I want you to read something from Revelation 14, Gary.

Gary: OK.

John: If you would that paints this picture for us.

Gary: OK. Verse one there. "I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads."

John: And distinction to those who have the mark of the beast on the forehead. Here is a group who has God's name written in their foreheads.

Gary: So, I guess the common wisdom then John would be you'd have everybody in the world would have either 666 written on their forehead or Yahweh or Jehovah or God Almighty.

John: One or the other.

Gary: So these two tattoo parlors are going to do a thriving business there on the end of the earth, are they?

John: If you believe the current vibe of bible prophecy then the business...You would be buying shares in tattoo parlors because they are going to be open 24/7. I'd be given you a sixes or God's name. Clearly, I think there must be very few people who would really believe God's name is going to be stenciled on your forehead.

This is dealing with something else, isn't it? One's mind given to God and God's name we find in the bible is synonymous with his character.

Gary: That is right, John. In fact as I look at this. We are looking right here at Revelation 14:1. It says that God's people have the seal of God in their foreheads which is identified here as the name of God written in their forehead. And that's in contrast to the market of beast written in the foreheads of the devil's people.

John: Absolutely.

Gary: So, the question becomes would God actually literally write his name in their foreheads? Well, that is contrary to what God ordered his people in Leviticus 19:28 says God commands that they should not do tattoos or marks on the body. So obviously, God wouldn't be tattooing his name on the head of his people.

John: Not on a literal sense. You got in Revelation 22:4, it says "They shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads." God's seal, God's name. As a matter of fact, the new covenant contains this thing with God as he has put his laws in there where in their minds. Right in the mind, right in the forehead. No question about it.

Gary: Let me ask you a question. As I am reading this text, there is...Sometimes, the small words that seem the most insignificant are really the most significant.

John: That's true.

Gary: So let me ask you about this little word. You see it here in Revelation 13, it says, "They will receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads." So is there a difference between in their foreheads versus on their foreheads?

John: There are absolutely is and you got it in Revelation 14:9. "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand." The thinking person is going to see that and realize well, clearly God is not referring to something being written right on the outside of your head. It is not like the devil has a branding iron.

And he is waiting to catch people and... You know how they do it with steels and so forth in these big ranches. They are not going to tie folks up and restrain them and seal them with the branding iron with the sixes. The Bible says this mark is going to be put in the forehead and we bring this all the way back to the question of what is in the forehead mean it is referring to the sit of the will, the intellect, the decision making process.

It is the mind. With God, the issues aren't skin deep. They go all the way to the hot.

Gary: What I hear intake from our discussion here in the last few minutes is that we can't believe everything we hear preached on the mark of the beast because when you look at it in the bible. It is quite different than what you see on the movie screen.

John: It really is. And if people would take the time to stop, think, read, pray for themselves you don't have to be a scholar or read too deeply to figure out the right from the wrong in this issue. And next time we hear Gary, we'll get back to the key issue on the subject of the mark of the beast. Thanks for being with us today friend. We will see you next time.

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