Hello. Brother Jack here, with a video about Jesus and the mark of the beast.
The Bible predicts something called the Mark of the Beast.
It says that this mark will be placed on people everywhere in the days before Jesus returns.
The Mark of the Beast is only mentioned in one place in the entire Bible.
Well, in parts of two chapters of the Revelation of Jesus Christ: the final book of the Bible.
It's described in the last few verses of the 13th chapter, and in the first few verses of the 14th chapter.
It is a mark which is placed in the right hand or in the forehead of people all over the world.
Without this mark, according to the prophecy, they cannot buy or sell anything.
The prophecy goes on to say that anyone who accepts that mark will receive the wrath of God without measure.
So, it is considered to be pretty bad!
That phrase, "without measure", means the unmitigated, strongest possible, pure wrath of God.
Accepting that mark is apparently the point of no return for the human soul.
It's pretty scary stuff.
And yet this mark is not referred to anywhere else in the Bible.
Jesus never mentions it once in any of the four gospels. Or does he?
In this video, I'm going to show how the mark of the beast
dovetails in with the ultimate revelation of Jesus Christ
and how that revelation began in the four gospels, and finishes in the last book of the Bible
the one called "The Revelation of Jesus Christ".
But first, let us just forget about the Mark of the Beast
and take a grand overview of God's Revelation of himself to humankind throughout history.
There have been many ways in which God has revealed himself to the human race.
Not least of these is the creation itself: the Universe and all that it contains
right down to the tiniest atoms and molecules.
Modern science has enabled us to appreciate more and more each day just how vast the universe just is
as well as how intricate the tiniest particles are.
As the psalmist says, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made."
But in terms of understanding God's precise will for us as human beings
it is widely recognized that the 66 books of the Christian Bible represent the most comprehensive
and the most reliable evidence of God's plan for His creation.
These many books were written by dozens of authors, spread over thousands of years.
And within those 66 books, the purest revelation of the mind and character of God
comes in the first four books of the New Testament
where we read of the life and hear of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth
the one they call the Christ: God in human form.
In that life and in those teachings are revealed the greatest love
and the greatest wisdom that the world has ever known.
This Christ...this saviour of the world is referred to in several places of the Bible as the Cornerstone
that one piece without which mankind will never achieve his true destiny.
If we zoom in even closer
scrolling through nearly 100 chapters in those four gospels, we discover something called
the Sermon on the Mount.
It is a three chapter condensation of the most significant teachings of Jesus.
This sermon appears in the 5th, 6th and 7th chapters of Matthew's Gospel.
At the end of that great sermon
Jesus says that anyone who hears those teachings and builds his or her life on them
will be building on a rock: nothing, not even death itself, will be able to shake them.
They will find refuge, not from all the trials of life, for we all must go through some testing times.
But they will find refuge from the wrath of God.
And they will find peace...eternal peace, with God, our heavenly Father.
Now, let us move even closer, to the very corner of that cornerstone
the tip of God's purest expression of himself.
Right there, in the middle of the middle chapter of the sermon on the mount, Jesus speaks.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon Earth, where moth and rust corrupts
"and where thieves break through and steal.
"But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven
"where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
"Take no thought for your life: what you shall eat, or what you shall drink
"nor yet for your body: what you shall put on.
"Is not life more than meat, and the body more than raiment?
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they have no jobs, neither do they make cloth.
"And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
Jesus goes on to say that what will make his disciples different from all the nations of the world
is that we do not worry about material needs.
Instead, we learn from him how to do something called 'living by faith'.
This concept of living by faith is the core of Jesus' message to the world.
He said that our creator never intended for us to put our faith in money.
He wants us to put our faith in him...to work for him, and to trust him to provide our material needs.
Yet this simple message of faith has been missed by virtually everyone.
We praise Jesus as supposedly being the son of God
and yet we live our lives as though God doesn't even exist.
As though all that really makes the world go round is money, money, money.
Later, in the 12th chapter of his gospel
Matthew records Jesus lamenting the fact that the world refused to heed his warnings
and to welcome his message.
Hardly anyone was prepared to trust his promise of heavenly provision.
He says, "The queen of the south shall rise up in judgement with this generation
"and she shall condemn them: for she came from the uttermost parts of the Earth
"to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, one greater than Solomon is here."
Notice that in both of these passages
one from the very heart of the sermon on the mount, and one from the 12th chapter of Matthew
Jesus makes reference to king Solomon.
He says that what he has to offer is greater than what Solomon had to offer.
So, what did Solomon have to offer?
Well, he was famous for having built the first temple in Jerusalem.
A structure of great beauty and even greater wealth.
The records show that Solomon had literally tons of gold... tens of tons of gold.
But he is also famous for his wisdom.
He was regarded as being the wisest man ever to have lived.
But Jesus has contrasted Solomon's wealth and Solomon's wisdom
with his own vision of relative poverty, and a dramatically different type of wisdom.
He compares the simplicity and beauty of birds and flowers
with all that Solomon was able to buy or make using silver and gold.
Then he makes this strange reference to the Queen of the South...the Queen of Sheba.
In doing that, he directs our attention to a story which appears twice in the Old Testament
once in the tenth chapter of first kings, and once in the ninth chapter of second chronicles.
In this story, the Queen of Sheba comes to Solomon with more than four tons of gold as a gift
just for the privilege of hearing his great wisdom.
She valued his wisdom that highly.
By comparison, what have we done with the message and wisdom of Jesus?
A message that contrasts so dramatically with Solomon's great wealth.
We have walked on it, trampling it beneath our feet as we continue to seek worldly wealth
and Solomon's inferior wisdom.
Jesus called this simple message of living by faith, 'seeking God's kingdom'
and 'seeking God's righteousness'.
He says that if we would only do that, instead of seeking more and more money
our other basic material needs will be supplied by God, our Creator and Heavenly Father
and, in the process, we will discover peace and happiness as well.
Eternal life...life in all its fullness: this is the essence of the Sermon on the Mount
the essence of the teachings of Jesus, the essence of the Bible
and the essence of God's revelation to mankind.
Ah, but my topic in this video was to have been the mark of the beast
and so far, in what I have observed about Jesus, there's been no mention of this mysterious mark, has there?
So, let's return to the revelation now, for a closer look at what it says about the mark of the beast.
But I just want to remind you that the proper title of that final book of the Bible is this
'The Revelation of Jesus Christ'...so what I'm looking for here
is a link between that ultimate revelation in the Sermon on the Mount
and what it is that this final book of the Bible is trying to tell us.
Here it is, in the thirteenth chapter of the Revelation.
"He", that is, the Antichrist...the Beast...the devil in human form
"...causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive a mark in their right hand
"or in their forehead: and that no one will be able to 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 has understanding count the number of the beast
"for it is the number of a man, and his number is six hundred threescore and six."
"Here is Wisdom". There's that word again, 'wisdom', the same word that Jesus used
when he contrasted himself with Solomon.
We saw that Solomon's wisdom lead to great material wealth
but Jesus started that great Sermon on the Mount with such opposite words.
He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Do you want wisdom...real wisdom?
Jesus says that it is to be found in something that Solomon missed
Jesus' wisdom is the ultimate good side, and the Revelation says to study that number 666
to find out where all the ultimate bad stuff comes from.
The prophecy adds a clue: it says that 666 is the number of a man.
Many years ago, a friend of mine found a huge Bible concordance...the biggest he'd ever seen
and he did a search for that number (666).
It occurred to him that the same number might actually appear somewhere else in the Bible.
In the Revelation, God urges us to study the number to link it with a man if we want to discover true wisdom.
And sure enough, he found that the number 666 appears in two other places in the Bible.
He found it in the 10th chapter of 1st Kings, and he found it in the 9th chapter of 2nd Chronicles.
The very same chapters that Jesus had referred to in the 12th chapter of Matthew
when he contrasted his wisdom with that of Solomon.
Here it is, virtually the same words in both chapters.
"Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold."
That's a lot of gold!
In fact, it's approximately 25 tons of gold.
At today's gold prices that would be well over 8 billion US dollars...in one year!
Which makes Solomon one of the richest men who's ever lived...on a par with Bill Gates.
I believe there will yet arise another great king on the Earth
the letters of whose name will, in Hebrew, add up to 666, according to the numeric value of the letters in it.
But in the meantime, the prototype for that king
is revealed in Scripture to be none other than king Solomon himself.
Jesus was hinting at that, on those two occasions, when he contrasted his wisdom with that of Solomon.
What Jesus says about wisdom, and what the mark of the beast prophecy says about wisdom
both point to the same two chapters of the Bible.
Ah, but you say Solomon was a good man. He was the king of Israel.
He even wrote three books of the Bible: the Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes.
True, but is he the son of God?
Do you see how important is to look beyond good men and beyond the Bible
to the Word made flesh himself, if we want true wisdom?
The prosperity gospel--that curse upon the so-called Christian church around the world today
where did it come from?
Did it not come from the so-called wisdom of Solomon?
They rejected Jesus and His blessings upon the poor to promote their false gospel of materialism.
More and more glitz, more and more shiny toys
all of which only mirror their own spiritual emptiness...a gospel spawned by the demons of hell
and they hold up Solomon as their replacement for Jesus.
They have crucified Jesus that they might be rich.
They have trampled on the Son of God for the ashes of wealth
and their demonic teaching that material gain is proof of godliness.
There is no joy in their superficiality.
There is no peace in their quest for more and more
for they are in the grip of the Beast himself, just waiting for him to give them his mark.
Yes, Jesus predicted the mark of the beast, but he did more than that.
Through his life and through his teachings, he prepared his disciples to live without it.
He calls on us to be content with food and clothing
going into all the world to preach the good news of God's blessings on the poor.
We're getting ready, brothers and sisters...ready for his glorious reappearing.
But first, we must go through the greatest trouble that the world has ever known.
And we will go through it by the power of his might, walking in his wisdom
and building on the solid rock of his teachings.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Amen.