No Joke: Mark Mockery-Lent 21,2022

That whole alliance of evil—the dragon, the first beast, and the second beast—are all about a twisted mimicry and mockery.  Of those actions, none has attracted more attention through the ages than “the mark of the beast.”

The false prophet (second beast) isn’t satisfied with simply tricking people to worship the antichrist, it now engages in downright intimidation on those who refuse to follow the crowd.

Revelation 13:16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

All people. 
Great and small.  Rich and poor.  Free and slave. 
Don’t miss the universality of that
in all the curiosity about what is the mark of the beast. 

There are some who think that their political power will protect them.  It won’t.  There are some who think their money will insulate them from it.  It won’t.  There are those who believe their freedom will be enough to prevent it.  But if COVID has taught us one thing, it’s that plenty of free people will follow the crowd with very little consideration to the long-term dangers.  They fail to see that one step beyond the precipice leads only one way: down.

Christians in our age fear the thought
that they cannot buy or sell unless the receive the mark. 
Their attempts to protect themselves lead them to specialize in acquiring
gold and food storage and ammo. 

I hate to break it to them
but when the End Time to beat all end times is upon us,
Christians can’t outlast it in their own strength,
with their own planning, or with their own stockpiles. 
There is no surviving this storm by having a secret stash.

What Christians truly need to survive is the seal of the Holy Spirit guaranteeing our inheritance.  Ephesians 1:13 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession– to the praise of his glory.”

This is where the mark of the beast is no joke–it’s a mark mockery of that God-given seal.  A mark is a seal of ownership either to the beast (bearing the mark of the beast) …or for those that refused it (empowered by the Holy Spirit’s seal, committing that they belong to God). There’s evil … there’s good … and there’s no place in between. No fence-sitting. No neutrality like Switzerland. You will have a mark. Which will it be?

Thoughts for today:

Revelation 13:18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.

Thinking about mimicry and mockery, in what way does the number of a man (666) display an evil trinity with 6 being one short of holy perfection? 

There’s mockery of the deliverance from slavery.  Exodus 13:3 “Then Moses said to the people, “Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the LORD brought you out of it with a mighty hand….9 This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the LORD is to be on your lips. For the LORD brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand.”

And a mockery of God and His Word. (See Deuteronomy 6, especially verse 13 “Fear the LORD your God, serve him only.) 

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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2022 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

• Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
•  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
• Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
• ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
• Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
• Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
• Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
• Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
• The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.