In Revelation 13 a beast rises from the sea and a second beast rises from the earth. The second beast causes everyone to receive the mark of the first beast in their hand or forehead (Rev. 13:1&2, 11&16).
However in Revelation 7 and 14 the servants of God have the fathers name/seal in their foreheads.
These marks are opposite to each other.
Therefore the first step in understanding the mark of the beast would be to understand the mark/seal of God.
That’s what we’ll do in this article and we’ll do so by exploring another theme that runs throughout the whole bible.
That of good and bad seed.
In Genesis chapter one God made the sea, earth and sky. He made sea creatures, fowls of the air, beasts of the field.
The serpent was the most subtle beast of the field.
He caused Eve to doubt and disobey God’s commandment.
As a result Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden of Eden.
The ground was CURSED with THORNS and THISTLES.
Genesis 3
17…cursed is the ground for thy sake…
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee…
Furthermore God said that the SEED of Eve and the SEED of the serpent would be at enmity with each other but Eve’s seed would eventually bruise the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15).
Cain killed Abel.
Cain represents the serpent’s seed. The bad seed.
In Contrast Eve’s third son, Seth, was the good seed (Gen. 4:25&26).
The descendants of Seth can be traced all the way through to Jesus Christ, the ultimate good seed.
In Genesis chapter six the “sons of God” had sexual relations with the “daughters of men”.
Genesis 6
2…the sons of God saw -- the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
13 And God said unto Noah…the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
This has nothing to do with angels coming down from heaven.
The “sons of God” were the descendants of Seth (good seed) that mixed with the descendants of Cain (bad seed).
As a result the whole land was filled with violence so God brought judgement on them with a “flood”.
Only Noah and his family found grace in God’s eyes.
After the flood, Noah’s three sons were allocated seperate portions of land.
However Ham uncovered his father’s nakedness (incest Lev. 20) and for this his son Canaan was cursed.
Genesis 9
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
Therefore Canaan and the people groups descended from him, represent the continuation of the serpent’s seed (Gen. 10:15-18).
In contrast, Noah’s third son Shem continued the good seed.
Shem’s lineage can be traced through to Abraham who came from Mesopotamia.
By faith Abraham travelled to the land of Canaan and was told that he and his seed would inherit that land.
Genesis 17
8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee… all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
Abraham fathered Isaac.
Isaac was not to marry a Canaanite, so Abraham sent his servant to source a wife for him from Mesopotamia.
Isaac fathered Jacob and Esau.
Again Jacob was not to marry a Canaanite. He married his cousin from Mesopotamia.
Jacob’s name was changed to Israel and he fathered twelve sons, representing the twelve tribes of Israel.
After about 400 years in Egypt God used Moses to deliver them from bondage.
At Mount Sinai God gave Israel the ten commandments.
Deuteronomy chapter five lists the ten commandments.
In the next chapter, Deuteronomy six, Israel were told to bind these commandments as a sign (mark) אוֹת ’ôṯ upon their hand and between their eyes (forehead).
Deut. 6
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children…
8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
God wanted them to REMEMBER how he’d delivered them from bondage and DO his commandments as they entered the “promised land”.
Forehead= Remember
Hand= Do
Deuteronomy chapters 27&28 describe the blessings and cursings that would result from obeying or disobeying God’s commandments.
If they obeyed his commandments they would be safe from their enemies, they’d receive rain for their crops, their women and cattle would be fruitful, they would generally thrive in the “promised land”.
However if they disobeyed his commandments the rain would stop, the crops would fail or be consumed by pests, their children and cattle would die, they’d be defeated and taken captive by their enemies, they’d be diseased and generally miserable.
When entering the promised land God told Israel to drive out ALL the Canaanites.
If they did not, the Canannites would become THORNS in their eyes.
Numbers 33
55 But if ye will not drive out -- the inhabitants of the land…those which ye let remain…shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides…
Just as God cursed the ground with THORNS and THISTLES in Genesis chapter three, cursed people (serpent’s seed) are synonymous with THORNS, THISTLES and even TARES (Matt. 13).
Any plant unable to produce good fruit.
Besides being told to drive the Canaanites out from the land, Israel were warned not to marry them.
Joshua 23
12…if ye…make marriages with them…
13…the LORD your God will no more drive out any of -- these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes…
Eventually King Solomon built a grand temple in Jerusalem to house the Ark of the Covenant.
Solomon had amazing wisdom yet he married many women from the surrounding nations.
These wives turned his heart away from God and towards their gods (1 Kings 11:4&5).
For this, Israel was divided into two kingdoms.
The norther kingdom retained the title of Israel, whilst the southern kingdom was called Judah.
Both kingdoms had a succession of mostly wicked kings that caused the people to worship idols and generally disobey God’s commandments.
Therefore God allowed Israel to be conquered by the Assyrians and absorbed into the nations.
Then he allowed Babylon to conquer Judah and take the Judahites captive for 70 years.
The prophet Ezekiel warned of God’s impending judgement upon Judah/Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 5
5…Jerusalem…
8…I am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations.
Ezekiel nine describes a mark set upon the foreheads of those who’d be spared this judgement.
Ezekiel 9
4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
Here “mark” is the Hebrew word תָּו tāw meaning an identifying mark or signature.
It’s also the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet that basically looked like an X and represented salvation, covenant and protection.
Ezekiel himself was taken into Babylonian captivity, along with the prophet Daniel.
Daniel chapter two describes Nebuchadnezar’s dream in which he saw a statue with four parts representing four ancient world empires- Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome.
In Daniel seven these kingdoms are portrayed as beasts- a lion, bear, leopard and an exceedingly strong beast with iron teeth
When Medo-Persia took over from Babylon, King Cyrus released the Judahites from captivity back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple.
The Judahites seemed to have a spiritual revival at this point.
They even promised God they would seperate themselves from their “strange wives”.
Ezra 9
1…The people of Israel…have not separated themselves from the people of the lands…
2 For they have taken of their daughters for themselves…the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands…
Ezra 10
11 Now therefore…separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives.
12 Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do.
During the 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew, Greece (led by Alexander the Great) took over from Medo-Persia.
This is known as the Hellenistic period.
Jerusalem was Hellenised which means it was heavily influenced by Greek language, thought and culture to the point where some Judahites began worshipping Greek gods and reversing their circumcisions.
It was also around this time that the Pharisees and Sadducees came into being.
https://www.jewishhistory.org/review-of-the-hasmonean-era/
Finally Rome took over as world empire.
If we look closely at the statue described by Daniel in chapter two we see it had feet of iron mixed with clay.
The iron mixed with clay represents mingled/mixed seed.
Daniel 2
43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
As in the days of Noah and Solomon, mixed seed came just prior to God’s judgement.
Judah/Jerusalem were judged again but this time via Rome, not Babylon.
In Matthew 13 Jesus told the parable of the wheat and tares.
24 The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
When the servants offered to pull up the tares the householder said “no”, let them grow together until the harvest. Then they can be properly distinguished from each other.
30…in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
When explaining this parable, Jesus said the “enemy” that sowed the tares was “the devil”, the tares were the “children of the wicked one” and the harvest was the “end of the age” (Matt. 13:38&39).
In the gospel of John the pharisees claimed to be the descendants of Abraham, however Jesus said they were of their father “the devil”.
John 8
39…If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
40 But now ye seek to kill me…
41 Ye do the deeds of your father…
44 Ye are of your father the devil…He was a murderer from the beginning…
Physically the Pharisees were descendants of Abraham but because they wanted to kill Jesus, he identified them as serpents seed.
In Matthew 23 Jesus called them “serpents” and “vipers", furthermore he connected them to Cain, the original serpents seed.
Matthew 23
33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers…
34…behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify…
35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel…
If we look closely at the first beast in Revelation 13:2 it has characteristics of all four beasts in Daniel 7 that are connected to the four ancient kingdoms of Daniel 2- Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome.
These were beastly kingdoms that God used to deal with his people.
The destruction of the second temple by Roman soldiers in 70AD was the end of the Old Covenant age.
In Exodus and Deuteronomy Israel set a mark upon their hand and forehead so they would REMEMBER and DO his commandments as they entered the “promised land”.
forehead= remember
hand= do
What did the most subtle beast of the field tempt Eve to do? Doubt and disobey his commandments.
When it’s all boiled down this must be what the mark of the beast represents.
It represents those who doubt and disobey God’s commandments, those who worship someone or something other than almighty God.
The mark of the beast identified the serpents seed, the thorns, thistles and tares that were separated from the wheat and bundled to be burnt at the end of the age.
Whilst the mark/seal/name of God identified the wheat that was gathered into the barn, gathered into the New Covenant Kingdom of God at the end of the age.
Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians that all those belonging to Christ are counted as Abraham’s seed (good seed) thus “heirs according to the promise”.
Through Jesus Christ you and I can access the New Covenant Kingdom TODAY but only if we repent of all known sin, “put off” our “old man with his deeds” and (by faith) “put on the new man” “created in Christ Jesus” (Col. 3:9, Ephes. 4:24).
God bless as you study to show yourself approved.
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