INTRODUCTION
If a generation of Christians will have to face the mark of the beast, and they will, they had better understand and study all that the Bible teaches and warns concerning those times. Wild theories and sensational best-sellers that are tickling the ears of present-day Christians will simply not do. The wildly imaginative science-fiction approach of the Salem Kirbans and the Hal Lindseys may provide fascinating entertainment, but will scarcely prepare the Lord's people for the climax of the spiritual struggle of the ages. To stand in that day, in that hour of trial, in that cauldron of affliction, we must be rooted in the word, heeding all the warnings and admonitions of the Head of the Church. Although the Book of the Revelation has long been one of the most misunderstood books of the Bible and still contains many mysteries for the Lord's people, yet I believe that it was written for this generation, and that as these events unfold, the Holy Spirit will give understanding of these truths as the survival of the church requires it. The elect shall not be deceived. It is to that end that this issue of the Pilgrim is directed.

THE MARK OF THE BEAST
The biblical testimony concerning the mark of the beast, that seal of Anti-Christ which has long intrigued Christians and puzzled students of prophecy, can be found in Revelation 13:16-18: "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. "

GOD'S MARK
Everything that Satan does is the reversal of God's design and the counterfeit of God's program. Thus, to rightly understand the mark of the beast it is also necessary to gain an understanding of God's mark. The Passover was one of the great events in the history of the children of Israel. Although they were in a cruel bondage and in the midst of the plagues of God's wrath that were raining down upon the Egyptians, they were not raptured, but providentially preserved and exempted from the surrounding tribulation. When the ultimate plague, the destroying angel of death, was sent throughout the land of Egypt, the manner of their exemption was quite significant. The door posts were marked with blood, but that is not all. In Exodus 13, where the Passover is memorialized, it speaks in verses 9 and 16 of "a SIGN unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes." Not only were their homes marked but here it speaks of they themselves being marked in some manner on their right hands and in their foreheads. In some manner God had marked them as his own. They were not appointed unto wrath, but sealed as God's own. They were branded as God's property, his redeemed, bought with a price and purchased with the blood of the passover lamb. Similarly, in Revelation 7:3, before the vengeful wrath of God rains down upon the ungodly, we have the sealing of God's servants on their forehead. However, perhaps the clearest example of God's sealing his own can be found in Ezekiel 9, where we read:

"And the Lord said unto him, Go 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. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark. "

Thus we see that there is nothing original about the mark of the beast, but rather Satan is merely counterfeiting God's mark as he too, now seals his servants in their right hands and in their foreheads. And here now is insight into that mark. Satan is sealing his reprobate followers as his own. They are given a sealed exemption from the wrath of the Anti-Christ even as he makes war on the saints and on all those that do not have the number of his name. They are branded as his property, as the children of their father the Devil, as those that will spend eternity with him in hell.

SLAVERY
The Old Testament clearly recognized and regulated slavery. However, it was a far cry from the modern misconceptions on the subject, where the slave owner literally owns the slave's body, whipping him at will and treating the female slaves as harlots. Dabney defines slavery, as practiced in the Old South, as a man's property in the involuntary labor of another. This is the Biblical view, and the laws of Moses carefully define the rights of the slave, as do the Ten Commandments, which guarantee the slave a Sabbath of rest. Typical plantation rules in the Old South included prohibitions on smoking and drinking, compulsory attendance at church and Sunday School, the Sunday as a day of rest and one evening a week to go courting at neighboring plantations. The slave's body and soul was his own, and all that could be exacted from him was his labor. There was a mark to signify this kind of slavery, "and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever" (Ex. 21 :6).

The slavery of the children of Israel in Egypt was, by comparison, much worse, not only in that it lacked the divine protections of the rights of the slave, but most of all because it became a cultural and a spiritual bondage. As forty years of rebellious, murmuring and stiff-necked wanderings in the wilderness testified, the problem was far greater than merely a physical deliverance, a bodily exodus from their taskmasters in Egypt. Their constant murmuring for the flesh-pots of Egypt and their perpetual a whoring after her pagan deities testified that their hearts and their faith were still in the land of bondage. And only a chosen few in that generation, who by faith broke that spiritual yoke, were led into the liberty of the promised land. Even so it is with the mark of the beast. It brands men as slaves, but far exceeds the boring of the ear. They now belong to Satan in body, soul, heart, mind, and spirit. They are totally in bondage to lust and vice and sin and to the father of it. They have sold far more than their labor, for they have sold their souls!

THE SIGNIFICANCE
What is the significance of a mark on the right hand and on the forehead? The forehead is representative of the mind. This is the nerve center of the whole being. It is the seat of authority, decision making, and the will, even as the Lord Jesus Christ is termed the Head of the Church. It is there that men think and the intents of the heart are worked out. It is with the control of the mind that brainwashing, and so forth, is concerned and it is with the mind that the "Thought Police" of "1984" are concerned in their prosecution of thought-crime. Similarly, the right hand is representative of one's actions, one's deeds, and works. Thus he that seals you in the right hand and the forehead controls you in body, mind, and soul, in thought, word, and deed. And it is total control. Every time that you use your right hand to execute some action you inescapably see that mark and are reminded of whose you are and whose law and will you are under. Everywhere you go you are publicly identified in your forehead as to whose you are. When you come home to your wife and children you are again inescapably reminded that they are not your own, but belong to the beast. You are reminded that if you waver in your allegiance to the beast they will be compelled to betray you. You are reminded that to survive you must sell even your family to the beast. Even as Christ declared, "He that loveth father or mother…son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me," so does the Anti-Christ exact total allegiance superseding all other loyalties by means of his mark.

HYPOCRISY
While Christ preached to harlots and dined with publicans, he was unsparing in his denunciations of hypocrisy. Today we are still cursed by that middle position, between those who hate Christ and those who love him, between those who deny him and who confess him, those who are lukewarm, halfhearted and hypocritical. In the tribulation, God in his judgment will wipe out hypocrisy, till it shall be no longer, and the instrumentality will be the mark of the beast. In that day men must unequivocally declare their conscience. It will be as in the days of Moses and Joshua, "Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse." No longer will men be able to maintain dual loyalties or vainly strive to serve two masters. They must either pay the full price of loyalty to Christ or they must submit to the mark of the beast and all that accompanies it. In that hour the battle lines will be drawn and focused as never before, and all men will be called on to make a final, irreversible, and irrevocable decision as to which side they shall choose to worship and obey with all their heart, strength, soul, and mind, CHRIST OR ANTI-CHRIST! And it will be final, as the Revelation declares, "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark…The same SHALL drink of the wine of the wrath of God…and HE SHALL be tormented with fire and brimstone." There will be no going back in that day.

THE NATURE OF THE MARK
The nature of the mark of the beast is economic. The totalitarianism of the beast is especially the totalitarianism of the marketplace. As the scripture saith, "And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name" (Rev. 13:17). Here again Marxism reveals itself as the theology of Anti-Christ. Marx postulated the doctrine of "Economic Determinism," that all things in society, its religion, culture, and politics, and all the actions of men in society are totally dictated by the economic environment of that society. For the world this may be somewhat true, as the Bible teaches that "the love of money is the root of all evil," but Christians are exhorted, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." The Bible also teaches that the sovereign, predestinating God of the universe is the first cause of all things. However, for the beast of Anti-Christ, as for Marx, the road to totalitarian control of the minds and bodies of men is through economic dictatorship, the total control of the economic environment. It is to implement this that all are compelled to yield to the mark of the beast. It will be the badge of those who have submitted their lives to the economic control of the beast.

As God is the Creator, all things belong to him. According to his providence God distributes the gifts of his creation and enforces that distribution by the laws of private property. All men are to look to him for their daily bread and for the bounty of his creation, and it is through the operation of private property that God prospers his saints, who then tithe to support the church and a godly social order. However, under the Anti-Christ that dream of communism, the abolition of private property, will be accomplished. No longer will men own, as stewards, the gifts of a faithful Creator but rather now all things will be owned by the Anti-Christ and the worldwide socialist dictatorship that he represents. Now all men must look to him for their daily bread. Now all men must worship him if they are to participate in any economic activity. Now all men must accept his mark or starve—and the Bible says all men, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and bond. In that day, indeed, what shall it profit a man if he have gained the whole world and laid up great possessions? He will still have to either sell his soul or starve.

The impact of an economic dictatorship has to be considered to be appreciated. There is total nationalization of all land and of all means of production, and there is ONLY ONE EMPLOYER, the beast. All housing is nationalized, as are all means of transportation. If one cannot sell his home, move and purchase a new home; if one cannot use any means of transportation except by the will of the state, then the entire land becomes one gigantic prison. If Ur of the Chaldees had been so organized, Abraham might well have been helpless to heed the call of God. Not only is there only one employer, who demands the mark as a condition of employment, but there is only one storekeeper, who again demands the mark as the condition underlying every sale. Without the mark a man will be jobless and homeless, stripped of every resource, and a hunted refugee from the vengeance of the beast. Christians, once "too spiritual" to defend the biblical doctrines of free enterprise and private property, will discover that without economic liberty, an economic order under God's law, the very practice of their faith becomes a virtual impossibility.

TYPES OF THE MARK
Even as the gospel was prefigured in types and shadows that it might be recognized by the faithful in the fulness of times, even so the mark of the beast comes not suddenly but there is a development towards it. That the great thrust of modern societies is towards socialism, the phasing away of the rights of private property, and regulation of all economic activity by the civil order, is undeniable. As such it of course harbingers the kingdom of the beast. However, we are concerned here not with conspiracy in government as much as the apostasy that is preparing the people to one day accept the mark of the beast. What types of his mark have they already been acclimated to, what types of his mark have they already been conditioned to accept?

The beast demands total economic control over one's life and he seals with his mark those who have yielded to that control. However, what do those who accept his mark expect in return? If they give up total economic control it is because they EXPECT TOTAL ECONOMIC SECURITY in return. For this is that apostate and deluded generation that can no longer pray, "Our Father which art in heaven…give us this day our daily bread." This is that generation that sees in the Anti-Christ not a beast but a savior. The pinch of famines and depressions, the devastations of earthquakes and wars, all these "beginning of sorrows" have more than prepared them to render homage and allegiance to him who comes as a savior and a god to bring order out of chaos. It was in this sense that Americans, after the Great Depression, sold their birthright of a Christian Republic for a mess of pottage as they submitted to the New Deal. They were looking for economic security, and to many, F.D.R. appeared as a god.

ECONOMIC SECURITY
In this sense anything that weans the people away from faith in the Creator and offers economic security here on earth, and anything that stimulates their appetite for worldly security and makes them psychologically dependent on it IS A TYPE OF THE MARK OF THE BEAST! Again, relating to the New Deal, F.D.R.'s Social Security program is a prime example. All men were given a card with a number, and this is important. Thus they accepted it, yielded to the program, and gave it their tacit approval, even as men shall some day willingly accept the mark of the beast and endorse his program. They willingly surrendered their economic liberties, scorning the price that their Christian forefathers by faith had paid for liberty, and demanded slavery if it was a necessary prerequisite for ECONOMIC SECURITY! Their faith was no longer in God but in the state and in that god-like man in the White House who alone could redeem them and who held the key to their plight.

The present scope of this drive far exceeds a mere Social Security card. In government alone it includes a host of programs offering economic security. After the bank collapses of the thirties, no one would dream of putting his money in a bank where the deposits were not insured by the F.S.L.I.C., or the F.D.I.C. Then there is Unemployment Insurance or Unemployment Compensation and Public Work Programs. If there is not as yet ONE EMPLOYER who will guarantee us employment (on his terms, and there is that mark again), we are at least shielded from the economic effects of that temporary oversight. Because implicit in all these programs is the State's offer of and the public's acceptance of, if not outright demand for, ECONOMIC SECURITY. Then there is welfare and the present dramatic proliferation of the Food Stamp Program. It is not just the ever-increasing portion of the population dependent on these programs as much as the remainder of the population that acquiesces to it. They, in principle, have accepted that the State should provide economic security for all and they have yielded to financing it through their taxes. While a few may fume about welfare cheats and deadbeats, how many would actually abolish the whole system? After all, who then would feed the poor and the starving? After all, it represents THEIR SECURITY TOO! Their conditioning has been too complete. Like the heroin addict, they too are "hooked." In that light George McGovern's logical proposal made perfect sense. It would accomplish in one streamlined swoop what all these programs are designed to accomplish, economic security in a Guaranteed Annual Wage!

UNIONS
The present drive for economic security, whether viewed from the point of an anti-Christ conspiracy that is promoting it or from the view of an apostate people who are demanding it, is scarcely limited to government. The unions are a prime example. Men no longer want to run the risks of independence, liberty, and standing on their own two feet. They prefer the security of collective bargaining. The right to work has been sacrificed to annul the employer's right to fire them. Feeling security in numbers rather than in God, they can now defy their employer to fire the lazy and the incompetent even as they demand the creation of jobs for all their membership, requiring such expensive practices as feather-bedding that contributed to the recent bankruptcy of so many of the railroads. They have accepted communist labor bosses, vicious goon squads, and the expenditure of their union dues for every ungodly purpose. However, they have a UNION CARD; they have unemployment benefits, a strike fund, and a pension plan. They have ECONOMIC SECURITY, and to them that is all that really matters. They, too, are ready for the mark of the beast.

INSURANCE
Few Christians have realized the insidious nature of the insurance companies that have become such a prevalent and prospering part of contemporary society. In fact, chances are that they bought the policy from a "Christian" insurance agent, a member of their own congregation. Insurance companies are a rather recent development and scarcely part of historic Christian civilization. They have prospered with the advance of the apostasy, and are there to economically exploit the drive for security of men who have given up their faith in God. Neither can insurance be passed off as a harmless corollary of the technological age, because there is no connection. It was just as feasible and just as possible to have established the practice in the days of Moses or of the Puritans, However, can you really imagine Apostles or the Pilgrims insuring themselves before they set out on missions at the call of God? As giants of faith they would have scorned to put their "trust in princes," much less in the paper promises of men! They trusted in the living God, and how they knew his faithful deliverance in time of need. Today's "Christians" prefer to walk by sight rather than by faith. They would he shocked at the mere thought of doing without the security of their insurance policies. To them it is simply inconceivable not to have their home, their car, and their life insured. So we have the strange enigma of Christians paying money to the ungodly to insure their homes against fire, theft, and acts of God! Their faith in the Almighty is dead and they have put their trust elsewhere. They know nothing of a sovereign, predestinating God who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will and for the good of his elect. They only know the security of a safety deposit box filled with the paper promises of men. Had they saved their money and tithed it to the living God, has he not promised that he will open the "windows of heaven and pour out . . . a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it"?

At present I know of only one denomination that forbids its ministers to carry any kind of insurance, and discourages it in their members, but a friend of mine whose father ministers in that denomination gave me a wonderful testimony of how the Lord provided over the years, especially in times of sickness, when their was no medical insurance but only a faith that the Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is able. Only that kind of Christian is prepared to face the thrust and the temptation of the mark of the beast. Those who have put their trust in their insurance policies will be spiritually naked and defenseless in that hour. They will be ready to graduate to the security offered by the beast.

ATTITUDE
Like the Pharisees of old, many have missed the thrust of the mark of the beast. They have been wrapped up in the physical details of the mark and in attempting to decipher the number of his name, the mystery of the 666, without ever discerning the spiritual nature of the mark. Not only is this a current malady, especially with the dispensationalists, but has occurred throughout church history. The early persecuted church noted that the Emperor Nero's name, Neron Kesar, written in Hebrew letters, had the numerical value 666. Similarly, Christians at the time of the Reformation discerned that the title of the Pope, Vicarius Filii Dei, had the numerical value of 666 in Roman numerals. Needless to say, they were wrong. The mark of the beast is far more than a physical mark or an esoteric number. Spiritually speaking, it is an attitude and a frame of mind which will some day be consummated by a physical seal, a literal mark. It is an attitude that is here today. It is an attitude of trust in government. It is the prayer, the plea that is raised up to the State, "give us this day our daily bread." It is the demand of the kept slave that the State supply all his needs. It is the psychology of those who look for carnal and worldly security here below. It is an attitude of economic dependence, dependence on the state, dependence apart from God. It is far more than an international currency, a computerized banking system, a cashless society and globally centralized credit control. These are but the mechanics and externals of an issue that is spiritual. These are but the logical heritage of those that have forsaken a birthright of faith and liberty.

In this sense many, if not most, of the people have already been branded in their souls, if not yet on their foreheads. I once heard the testimony of two refugees from the Hungarian Revolution. They testified that the tyranny of their existence there was not so much a result of a police state with KGB agents and Soviet soldiers as much as it was the economic regulation. They said anyone could get up on a soap-box and denounce the regime without fearing direct, immediate action from either. However, when they appeared for work they would be dismissed, and when they went to pick up their ration cards, there were no more for them. They concluded that any American who silenced himself for fear of economic consequences, any businessman who refused to publicly oppose socialism because it might be bad for business HAD ALREADY VOLUNTARILY PLACED HIMSELF BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN. Their attitude had already enslaved them. They, too, were ready for the mark of the beast.

FAITH
The antidote to all of the above is clearly faith. In fact, the mark of the beast is nothing less than divine judgment on those who would not walk by faith. Christians, especially, have no excuse for looking for security in all the futile man-made crutches that have been listed above. The Bible declares that "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." Our God is able, for he has said that the cattle on a thousand hills are his. David, filled with faith, could say, "I have been young, and now am old; yet have l not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread" (Ps. 37:25).

The prophet Elijah knew times of trial and he knew famine when there was no food in Israel. However, it was a famine that Elijah had been instrumental in producing. Fearlessly and in faith he had gone to the courts of Samaria and rebuked the idolatrous Ahab and called down this drought as God's judgment upon him. Had he lacked faith that God would preserve him through the logical consequences of his actions, he would scarcely have gone. Is this not quite a contrast to present-day Christians who continue to ask God to bless America in spite of all its apostasy and wickedness, and ask God to prosper this X-rated and adulterous generation because they lack the faith to face the righteous judgments of God on such things? Where is their love of justice, zeal for righteousness, and faith in the Lord's deliverance? Let them read their Bibles and see how the Lord God of Israel dealt with his servant Elijah! Did God forsake his prophet? Was Elijah helpless when there was no food in Israel? Did not the God who is able send him to the brook and COMMAND the ravens to feed him there? Did not the Almighty's Providence overshadow Elijah when, with the widow of Zarephath, "THE BARREL OF MEAL WASTED NOT, NEITHER DID THE CRUSE OF OIL FAIL, ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF THE LORD"? And when even Elijah's faith wavered and his soul was cast down and disquieted within him, did not the Faithful God send his angel to feed him, so that the scriptures declare, "And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights" (I Kings 19:4-8)? It is not a question of divine ability but rather one of faith in the sovereign providence of an Almighty God who can command even the ravens into the service of his elect.

CONCLUSION
The eternal, unchanging God of Elijah is still the God of the Christians today. Not only is he their God but he is their Father, their Father in heaven. That God is still able to sustain his servants even throughout the great tribulation, even throughout the economic dictatorship of the beast. His arm is not shortened that it can no longer save, and what creature of his creation has yet resisted his will? However, do we have the faith to trust our all in the providence of a loving God who knows what is best? Without the faith of an Elijah we really have no alternative to the mark of the beast. The world today is already prepared for that mark. To them it will not come as a cataclysmic event, nor will it seem like the scourge of Attila the Hun. For them, it will be the logical eschatology of their trust in princes, their hope in mankind and their search for security apart from the Living God.