Wednesday: The Mark of the Beast
Read Revelation 14:9 and compare it to Revelation 14:12. Where is the mark of the beast placed? (See Deuteronomy 6:8, Deuteronomy 11:18.) What two characteristics contrast God’s people from those who receive the mark of the beast?
One group worships the beast, and one keeps the commandments of God (which included the fourth, the one commandment the beast power thought to change) and has the faith of Jesus. That’s the contrast. Working through the sea and land beasts, the devil attempts to undermine God’s authority by attacking the heart of worship, namely, the Sabbath. The mark of the beast is placed either in the forehead or the hand. The forehead is a symbol of the mind, where conscience, reason, and judgment are located; the hand, in contrast, is a symbol of actions and deeds.
Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com
The day is coming, and possibly sooner than we think, that laws will be passed restricting our religious liberty. Those who conscientiously follow the Word of God and keep the true Sabbath of the Lord will be labeled as opposing unity and the good of society.
“Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They will be accused of disaffection toward the government.” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 592.
The church of Rome claims that Sunday is the “mark” of its ecclesiastical authority. “Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. … And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters.” — The American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883.
Revelation predicts that in the future, at a time of international crisis, our world is going to face some kind of radical political, social, religious, and moral transformation, in which Sunday-keeping will be enforced and then will become “the mark of the beast.” Again, how all this unfolds we have not been told. Scripture gives us only broad outlines, but enough to show us that the great controversy is going to climax around the issue of worshiping either the beast or the Creator and that the seventh-day Sabbath will play a central role.
| In what ways has humanity always been divided along the lines of being on either God’s side or on Satan’s? Why can there be no middle ground? How can we know, for sure, just whose side we really are on? |
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While we are on the topic of the papacy, we should not forget that the Roman Catholic Church is made up of people. It is easy for us to criticise the papacy as a faceless entity, particularly in the past and in the future. But I think we need a reminder that we live in the present, and there is a job to do.
The events of the last decade or so, particularly concerning sexual abuse and the shady finances of the Vatican, have only accelerated the exit of members from the Church. The Church is seen as out of date, misogynistic, and largely out of touch with the problems of the real world. You can read their blogs and websites and there is no doubt that many faithful Catholics are hurting deeply.
A number of you have mentioned the Papal encyclical, "Laudato Si" published in 2015. It makes an interesting read. When you take off your anti-Catholic glasses you see that it is an attempt to bring the church clergy up to date, particularly in the areas of environment and treatment of the poor and needy. Given the state of Vatican politics, I am surprised it was published at all.
Compared with the 1798 "deadly wound", The Catholic Church has cut an artery and is breading profusely during the last 50 years.
Amidst the confusion and uncertainty, there are faithful Catholics who are looking for Christian love, fellowship and acceptance. They do not need to hear more condemnation; the press screams that at them every day. They need to know that there are Christians who love them deeply.
In some respects, the second angel's message:
is being broadcast by the media. We do not need to rub it in. It would be a sad thing indeed if, while we are discussing 666 and the identity of the beast, we missed the opportunity to share the Gospel of love with those who are hurting. Our best witness is our love for one another. That is our challenge now.
Maurice:
Thank you so very much for this reply. You have shown kindness and love in your reply which will bring more focus upon Christ's word to Catholics. As a former Catholic, the Church was my shelter from so much "outside condemnation." Not one could convince me otherwise of my belonging. Opportunities abound for many -- not only Catholics but also for Jehovah's Witnesses who need to hear the aspiring WORD. Remember all here -- The Word is never void -- and if planted well it will bear fruit...I truly am one in whom that seed was planted, and I hope it grows more...
Thank you.
What an excellent time to show the Catholic people, as well as others, where their salvation is! God loves the Catholic people, there's no question about that. He is calling them out of the system they are trapped in, which they thought was truth.
Interesting that you say the "media" is laying open the sins of the papal system. God uses ways to alert people that we didn't expect. But the media does not give truth and the gospel, thus it definitely is NOT giving the three angel's message.
I do question your statement that the papacy is seen as "largely out of touch with the problems of the real world". I suppose it depends on what issues one is looking at. From what I've read, people from all over the world are looking to the pope for leadership. Especially as all this confusion in the world is creating uncertainty and fear.
In 1798 his power was reduced to being the spiritual leader of his church -- the Catholic church.
How is he regarded now in 2023? The pope is engaged in politics all over the world! No other religious leader has anything even close to approaching this level of formal engagement in the diplomatic realm, and the papacy holds a pretty high profile in global political affairs.
No other religious leader has special non-member status in the United Nations, for example.
He has considerable, of what some call, "soft power". In the middle ages it was more "hard power" with threats and punishment, now it is said he has "soft power". Defining soft power as “an intangible attraction that persuades us to go along... with the application of papal preferences to political dynamics".
Soft power seems harmless, and even very helpful, but if we believe the prophecies we realize where this is leading. As many look favorably on his soft power, it will morph into hard power.
Do you really think the "Laudato Si" had little influence in the Climate Change movement we are now experiencing? Maybe a little research on the Paris Climate Agreement and Laudato Si, would be informative?
But anyway -- there are also other powerful influences that will bring in the "mark of the beast" as well.
Talking about this is not to attack people, it is to expose the deception orchestrated by the dragon which he carries out through human powers to rob Christ of His followers.
Jesus died for all, not wanting any to perish, that's why the warnings are given.
Indeed, we really care for our relatives and friends who are in other belief systems. It really hurts them when we share with them the truth about the mark of the beast, God's word of truth. I felt the same thing when I was studying the Bible before my conversion. But accepting the truth will set you free. We don't create the story, but we just share with them the truth. We love them and we care for them, not to convert them, but to share our concern for them to be with those who are on the Lord's side in the end. As the Bible says, no one knows when the second coming of Jesus will be, but the Adventists study carefully about the signs of the times that are clearly in the word of God. Yes, we should share our love with others, so that as much as possible they will not be hurt too much, but to realise God's presence with everyone. How I wish we should be all instruments of God to share this truth. Even on the social media platforms we can reach out to our dearly loved kinfolk and friends, for the glory of God.
Question. The lesson quotes a Catholic journal saying "the act is a mark of her ... authority" ... but when I tried to find the quote in the original source material I couldn't find it.
Look at this search result for "mark of"
Am I looking at the right journal?
https://archive.org/details/AmeriCatholicQRevV08/page/119/mode/2up?q=%22mark+of%22
Yes, you are looking at the right journal. It has an article The Observance of Sunday, and Civil Laws for its Enforcement.
By John (idmary Shea, LL.D 139. The journal is over 700 pages long and the best way to search it is to download a pdf text version. I should add that the text version has not converted accurately so there are numerous errors in it. Don't download the image scan version as it is readable but you cannot search it.
The article itself is quite informative and reflects the mood of the Catholic church at the time, 1883. And it helps us understand why the issue of Sunday laws featured quite strongly in Seventh-day Adventist literature in the late 1800s.
If the direct quote is in that journal, it is not showing up in a word search, which may not mean that the quotation isn't in there somewhere.
Statements similar to this were in older Catholic catechisms. I don't know of any more recent than 50 years or so ago, so I don't know if there's anything like it in a current catechism.
The state of the text in the given article is not good. Given that it was published in 1883 and that what we see on the Internet is either photographic images of the pages or electronic text conversions from very old printed material, the chances of finding a phrase is somewhat diminished. The parts of that I looked out were filled with scan errors. I have downloaded the whole document and when I have time I will have another look at it.
I have the current catechism, I haven't yet found that sort of quote in there. What I do see is a matter of fact quote, "2030 - It is the Church, in communion with all the baptized, that the Christian fulfills his vocation, From the Church he receives the word of God containing the teachings of the "Law of Christ." Paragraphs 2168-2173 could nearly be written by a Seventh-day Adventist as far as affirming the Biblical Sabbath from creation and Jesus' respect for it. Paragraphs 2174-2176 make matter of fact statements about the transference to Sunday, based upon the famous Justin Martyr quote, Christ's resurrection and the fact that now, "...Sunday fulfills the moral command of the Old Covenant, taking up its weekly rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the Creator and Redeemer of his people."
I've mentioned this before, but I don't really like using a document from 1883 to prove Catholic teachings. That's a long time ago. The Catholic church has changed in some respects (for example services in English, Catholics now being allowed to read the Bible). That doesn't mean that the church has changed on this issue, but if we can't find a recent quote, we should tread carefully. I think of the question from Monday's lesson about treating people the way we want to be treated and I'm not sure we'd like it if people quoted all sorts of things about our church from the 1800s.
I feel we don't need "proof" that the Catholic church considers Sunday its "mark" to recognize the unbiblical teachings in the church. Plus Sabbath is inherently different from Sunday in any form. Perhaps we should emphasize Sabbath and what it says about God's character more than pointing out errors.
I have downloaded the article, corrected the scan errors, and formatted it as a Word document. Furthermore, I have now read it several times. It is an interesting article and is really about the issue of the enforcement of Sunday Laws in New York in the 1880s. Rather than cherry-picking a few quotes, it is better to read the whole article.
It gave me a better understanding of the 1880 situation on church-state relationships and I can understand why, for instance, Ellen White wrote about Sunday Laws in the way she did.
I agree with Christina though, that while the article is interesting from an historical perspective, it would have been more pertinent to use a more recent source. When I asked my students to write a paper, and they used a historic source I always asked the question why they had not chosen a more recent source.
Maurice,
Thanks for the tip!
There are certainly statements from Catholic sources clearly stating that they claim responsibility for the change.
But just to clarify, was the specific quote in the ariticle?
I realize I may sound like I'm being nit-picky, and I apologize - my concern here is that we Sabbath keepers don't unwittingly circulate quotes that end up being inaccurate, and that if we do it by mistake, we correct it. If we are not careful, this will come back to haunt us later.
- Michele
You are right Michele and its not being picky. Statements such as this need to properly cited and not used without due care. The use of quote marks is an unfortunate inclusion that should not have been used.
I should also add that there are other issues with the quote that show the naivety of its use. While the journal is a Catholic journal and the author of the paper is a well-known Catholic Historian, He is not an official of the Church as his statements should be read as a commentary on the church's position.
It is analogous to what I write on Sabbath School Net. While I am a retired employee of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, writing on a blog, supportive on the Church, there is no way that my comments should be regarded as official church positions.
There are quite a few statements in the paper in question that discuss the role of the Roman Catholic church in changing the day, but any reference or citation should have been prefaced with words like this: "John Gilmary Shea, an emminant Catholic Historian, shows that ...".
It is an interesting article in its own right, and I found it particularly informative about attitudes and actions regarding Sunday Laws, in the late 1800s. It also helps me understand why Sunday laws feature so strongly in Seventh-day Adventist literature of the time.
Thank you Maurice,
I appreciate you doing the work of prepping the document, and also your emailing it to me. I did a quick search and didn't find the quote, and if I understand you, you didn't see it either.
But I plan on looking more into this article. It looks like it is still quite useful - Here is one useful quote:
"The Sunday was as purely an ecclesiastical creation as the feasts, but they retained it as the Sabbath." ("They" being Separatists and Puritans, who had set aside other Catholic feasts)
Your idea of referencing this as coming from "John Gilmary Shea, an emminant Catholic Historian" is certainly not a bad suggestion.
I don't fault anyone using a source like this, even if perhaps we decide to change how we attribute it to avoid any misunderstandings.
While perhaps it wasn't an official Vatican statement, I would think an emminant Catholic historian's work would provide a valid, credible data point in a discussion on Catholic theology and thinking on this subject.
Yes it is a credible document, it just needs to be used in an appropriate way.
I noticed that today the illustration has the number 666 on the forehead of a man. I just want to sound a word of caution about some of the information that you will find by doing a Google search for the number and trying to draw conclusions from what you read.
I set about trying to find a bit of history of the use of 666 from non-religious sources. Most of the sources that I found using Google were from Seventh-day Adventists or Jehovah's Witnesses. I was particularly interested in seeing if I could find any evidence that the number was associated with Babylon. A Seventh-day Adventist, R A Anderson (an Australian who spent most of his life in the USA as an evangelist) wrote a book, "Unfolding the Revelation", 1974 Pacific Press in which he traces the origins of 666 back to Babylon. He had photographs of coins or amulets, presumably worn by priests of sun worship, which depicted a magic square of the numbers 1 to 36, arranged in such a way so that each of the 6 rows or 6 columns added up to 111, and of course 6 x 111 = 666.
This of course piqued my interest and I checked up on it. There is an issue and I quote:
My point is this: In our enthusiasm to provide meaning to the symbolism of 666 we need to be careful to do our research. It is very easy to accept an argument when it appears to support our view but when it is based on poor analysis it erodes our credibility.
You’re right, Maurice. We must live out the truth in word and deed. Sometimes we want to prove ourselves right to the other party, but make a mistake by sharing insufficient or incorrect information in the hope that we help others discover the truth. Being a follower of Christ must always be in deed but also in word (dissemination of the right information).
Very interesting, Maurice. I think our readers may also find the article you cited, "THE BABYLONIAN SUN AMULET DUPE" interesting.
I wonder whether the source of R.A. Anderson's material is the book, The Two Babylons: Or, the Papal Worship Proved to Be the Worship of Nimrod, by Alexander Hislop.
I won't go into the details, but it is largely a book of fiction built on anti-Catholic speculation. For example, the author puts historical figures who lived many hundreds of years apart together as husband and wife! In this electronic age, the book has been frequently bundled with Bible concordances, thus demonstrating a degree of respectability that is wholly undeserved. I still see people quoting the book as "authority" when its accuracy has been thoroughly disproven.
The book was originally published in 1853, and I don't doubt that it was used as authority by many in Anderson's time.
On the other hand, I have also seen the equally harmful error of accepting current religious or secular "authorities" at face value. Jesus told us to be "wise as serpents and harmless as doves." I think that means that we need to be distrustful both of self and of the "authorities" in this world and earnestly ask for discernment and wisdom that only God can give.
Many years ago, there was a pastor here in Yuba City, named William Ludwig. He passed away in Redlands, California about 25 years ago. In his final days, he was in the Catholic hospital in that area for a period of time. A much older nun came into his room to ask him a question.
She asked “Pastor, I have been a Catholic all my life, over 50 years. I have relatives who converted to Seventh day Adventists. They say there will be no Catholics in heaven. Is that true?”
He replied “I am just Bill. I am a retired pastor, and any opinion I give you will be mine and mine alone. However, your Seventh-day Adventist friends are correct that there will be no Catholics in heaven. But you can tell them, there will be no Seventh-day Adventists in heaven either, only forgiven sinners.”
Keep the faith…
Royce
YES, thank you for that wonderful story, Brother Royce!!
When Jesus comes, there will be no more "ism" or "ist", no more religions. There will be only "the Bridegroom (Jesus)" and His Bride (the redeemed children of God). This is what I told my class last Sabbath.
Yes, please continue to worship and fellowship in a Bible-based church, such as the Seventh-day Adventist church, that teaches the entire Bible. But don't get so caught up in any religion; or you will be disappointed as well.
Jesus does not care about all these religions; He only cares about saving sinners.
Follow Jesus, become His disciple. And please listen to Jesus' voice over all others, and He will give you the power to stand in the last days, whether it is the mark of the beast or just everyday problems and situations.
God bless us all!
Grace and peace! Could you tell me on what page of the American Quarterly Review I may find it?
"Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. … And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters."
Pages 139-152
Thank you, Peter. That whole section is entitled, "The Observance of Sunday and Civil Laws for Its Enforcement." I haven't had time to read the whole section, but on p. 139, I read, "Strange as it may seem, the State, in passing laws for the due sanctification of Sunday, is unwittingly acknowledging the authority of the Catholic Church, and carrying out more or less faithfully its prescriptions." https://archive.org/details/AmeriCatholicQRevV08/page/139/mode/2up
Back in 1998 Pope John Paul II published a Pastoral Letter, Dies Domini in which he strongly appeals to the moral imperative of the Sabbath commandment.
I remember reading the letter and was quite surprised at the pope's reasoning why and how Sunday should be observed. It sounded an awful lot like what our writers publish concerning the joys and reasons for keeping Saturday. He was looking to the Sabbath commandment, as well as all the texts concerning the seventh day Sabbath, as the basis for keeping Sunday.
This document, as well as other more modern Catholic documents on "the sabbath" represent a significant departure from the traditional way the Vatican presented Sunday in the past.
For example, early Catholic writers like Thomas of Aquinas, wrote:
In other words, in the past the concept was that Sunday is a new Christian observance that has nothing to do with the Jewish, Judaizing of their day or the fourth commandment.
We can still find this concept on Catholic Answers:
But we do see a shift in their thinking:
Do they, or do they not, believe Sunday carries the same moral imperatives as the command to keep the seventh-day Saturday?
But in his letter, Pope John Paul speaks eloquently of the Sabbath from its setting apart and rest at the end of creation in Genesis, to the rest from the bondage of Egypt and of sin, and of redemption in Christ, but links Sunday as a fulfilment of the Sabbath.
In his letter, John Paul was seeking to make Sunday keeping a moral imperative and he tries to accomplish this by rooting the day in the Sabbath commandment itself!
But this cannot be done! Sunday is NOT the Sabbath that God hallowed, set apart and blessed.
As a God of love, He has left hints about the future; thus, we won't be surprised. What do we have to do with this prophecy information? Indeed not to despair, but prepare. Now is the time to claim the true wisdom from God, His Holy Spirit, so we can win our battles today because tomorrow is already guaranteed.
Several have asked for more modern official quotes:
So here is the present position from their current catechism, posted on the Vatican Website.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (Latin: Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae; commonly called the Catechism or the CCC) is a catechism promulgated for the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II 1992.
Part three, Section Two: the ten commandments, Chapter One, Article three: the third commandment.
Quotes Exodus 20:8-10 and Mark 2:27-28
This is followed by 27 statements. Here is a sample
From what I can see here -- this is a statement tailored so all former Protestant churches can agree and ecumenical unity can progress. According to this view; The Saturday Sabbath was for the Jews, asserting that since the cross a new law is instituted for Christians in which Sunday is now the day of supreme worship.
So we are back to old covenant/new covenant arguments and that somehow the Sabbath was transferred, though no new command or confirmation is given in scripture.