The Seal of God and Mark of the Beast: Part 1
Lesson 11, 2nd Quarter June 3-9, 2023.
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Sabbath Afternoon - June 3
Memory Text:
“And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. KJV — Revelation 7:2, 3
“All are now deciding their eternal destiny. Men need to be aroused to realize the solemnity of the time, the nearness of the day when human probation shall be ended. Decided efforts should be made to bring the message for this time prominently before the people. The third angel is to go forth with great power. Let none ignore this work or treat it as of little importance. 6T 16.4
“The light we have received upon the third angel's message is the true light. The mark of the beast is exactly what it has been proclaimed to be. Not all in regard to this matter is yet understood, nor will it be understood until the unrolling of the scroll; but a most solemn work is to be accomplished in our world. The Lord's command to His servants is: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Isaiah 58:1.” 6T 17.1
Sunday - June 4
Steadfast Endurance
Read Revelation 14:12. What two characteristics do we discover in this passage about God’s last-day people? Why are both important?
The warning against receiving the mark (Rev. 14:9-11), along with the call to come out will be repeated with an exceeding loud cry throughout Babylon’s dominion.
Both those who find themselves in her dominion, and those who find themselves out of it, must then immediately decide to receive the seal of God instead of the mark of the beast if they want to escape the wrath of God. To do this, the former class must come out of her, and the latter class must stay out of her. Despite the death penalty for taking such a stand (Rev. 13:15), there must be no hesitancy or indecision on the part of either class.
Those who are in Babylon must heed the Voice which says: “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” Rev. 18:4. And those who are out, must carefully heed the warning: “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.” Rev. 14:9, 10.
The light on this subject will spread as fire in stubble until it finally illuminates the whole earth (Rev. 18:1), and all who walk in its blaze will have their names placed in the Lamb’s Book of Life. They will find deliverance from the Enemy’s last determined effort to plunge the world into the bottomless pit of eternal ruin. For them, said the angel, “shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people…and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” Dan. 12:1.
Read Romans 8:1–4, Ephesians 2:8–10, and Colossians 1:29. What do these passages teach us about the result of living by faith?
“The worshipers of God will be especially distinguished by their regard for the fourth commandment, since this is the sign of God's creative power and the witness to His claim upon man's reverence and homage. The wicked will be distinguished by their efforts to tear down the Creator's memorial and to exalt the institution of Rome. In the issue of the conflict all Christendom will be divided into two great classes, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and those who worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark. Although church and state will unite their power to compel all, “both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,” to receive the mark of the beast, yet the people of God will not receive it. Revelation 13:16. The prophet of Patmos beholds “them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God,” and singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Revelation 15:2.” CCh 39.6
Monday - June 5
The Cosmic Struggle
Read Matthew 27:45–50. What does this teach us about what Christ experienced on the cross? What did Jesus mean by asking God why He had forsaken Him, and how does this scene help us understand what it means to have “the faith of Jesus”?
“Heaven beheld the Victim betrayed into the hands of the murderous mob, and with mockery and violence hurried from one tribunal to another. It heard the sneers of His persecutors because of His lowly birth. It heard the denial with cursing and swearing by one of His best-loved disciples. It saw the frenzied work of Satan, and his power over the hearts of men. Oh, fearful scene! the Saviour seized at midnight in Gethsemane, dragged to and fro from palace to judgment hall, arraigned twice before the priests, twice before the Sanhedrin, twice before Pilate, and once before Herod, mocked, scourged, condemned, and led out to be crucified, bearing the heavy burden of the cross, amid the wailing of the daughters of Jerusalem and the jeering of the rabble. DA 760.1
“Heaven viewed with grief and amazement Christ hanging upon the cross, blood flowing from His wounded temples, and sweat tinged with blood standing upon His brow. From His hands and feet the blood fell, drop by drop, upon the rock drilled for the foot of the cross. The wounds made by the nails gaped as the weight of His body dragged upon His hands. His labored breath grew quick and deep, as His soul panted under the burden of the sins of the world. All heaven was filled with wonder when the prayer of Christ was offered in the midst of His terrible suffering,—“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34. Yet there stood men, formed in the image of God, joining to crush out the life of His only-begotten Son. What a sight for the heavenly universe!” DA 760.2
“Could one sin have been found in Christ, had He in one particular yielded to Satan to escape the terrible torture, the enemy of God and man would have triumphed. Christ bowed His head and died, but He held fast His faith and His submission to God. “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.” Revelation 12:10.” DA 761.1
Tuesday - June 6
The Ungodly Chain
“As the storm approaches, a large class who have professed faith in the third angel's message, but have not been sanctified through obedience to the truth, abandon their position and join the ranks of the opposition. By uniting with the world and partaking of its spirit, they have come to view matters in nearly the same light; and when the test is brought, they are prepared to choose the easy, popular side. Men of talent and pleasing address, who once rejoiced in the truth, employ their powers to deceive and mislead souls. They become the most bitter enemies of their former brethren. When Sabbath keepers are brought before the courts to answer for their faith, these apostates are the most efficient agents of Satan to misrepresent and accuse them, and by false reports and insinuations to stir up the rulers against them.” GC 608.2
Read Revelation 13:15–17. What will God’s end-time people face in the final crisis?
When the beast’s decree is passed that no one can buy or sell, and should be killed for non-conformity, then God only can protect His people, the people whose names are written in “The Book.” Such is His faithful promise: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the Book.” Dan. 12:1.
This power, you see, is to control the world’s markets, too.
This symbolic forecast of the world government to be set up, plainly points out that the coming world government is to be neither the U.N., nor Communism, but an ecclesiastical power. We know that it is not Communism, because Communism is against religion, and the beast is for it.
When this comes to pass, which is no longer beyond the horizon, then those whose names are written in the “Book of Life” shall be delivered, but all others will have received the mark of the beast. There will be no middle ground, or middle class.
We should now decide what to do, so that we will not be caught off guard. For this very cause the light of Truth has come to us now.
Wednesday - June 7
Those Who Follow the Lamb
Read Revelation 13:1, 2. Where does the beast come from, and who gives the beast his authority?
The little horn in the second phase of Daniel’s fourth beast, shows a rise of brutal, tyrannical power, – a power against the people of God. The symbolization of John’s leopard-like beast of chapter 13, which is the continuation of Daniel’s fourth beast, tells what happens to that demon power.
Daniel explains that his four beasts symbolize four world empires, one following the other. And it has long been widely understood that they are Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome. Note that John’s leopard-like beast has the head of a lion (first beast), the feet of a bear (second beast), the body of a leopard (third beast), and ten horns (fourth beast). And so, you see, the leopard-like beast is a composite beast of Daniel’s four beasts, a descendant of them. It must therefore represent the world after the fall of the fourth empire, after Pagan Rome.
Moreover, the ten crownless horns of Daniel’s fourth beast being symbolical of kings that were to arise out of the Roman Empire, the crowns on the leopard-like beast show that the beast represents the period in which the kings took their crowns, the period after the disintegration of the Pagan Roman Empire.
Read Revelation 13:3 and Revelation 14:4. What contrast do you see in these verses?
In the cumulative light focusing to this point the 144,000, “the firstfruits,” stand forth clearly as Christian Jews who are found in the church at the commencement of the harvest. In this respect they are not defiled with women. They have, in other words, from their birth been God’s people (Jews) – not defiled with heathen worship. They “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,” with the result that when He stands on Mt. Zion, they, too, stand there.
And further, the facts that “these are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins,” and that they are “the servants of our God,” clearly imply that they are---To Gather a Class Defiled With Women, A Second Fruits.
Thursday - June 8
Jesus: Our Only Mediator
Read Revelation 13:4, 5. What identifying marks of the beast power do we discover in these verses?
Still further, the leopard-like beast blasphemed God and His tabernacle just as long as did Daniel’s fourth beast in his second phase, Ecclesiastical Rome; that is, “a time and times and the dividing of time” (3 years and 6 months), forty and two months. Plain it is, then, that the leopard-like beast reigned contemporaneously with the non-descript beast in his second phase, the phase of the little horn-head. The deadly wound on the leopard-like therefore represents the deadly blow which it received from the Protestant Reformation. Hence its wounded head represents the horn-head power (an amalgamation of civil and religious powers) of Daniel’s beast divested of his civil power – dehorned.
Now, since the horns of John’s beast symbolize the nations, and his wounded head symbolizes a religious organization divorced from a civil power, and since his seven heads are all alike, save for the wound on one of them, it becomes obvious that the heads, seven in number, portray religious bodies, Christendom in its entirety. The horns, though, ten in number, portray the civil governments in their entirety. Both horns and heads therefore represent the world of today just as each of Daniel’s four beasts respectively, represented the world in their day.
The horns and heads all being on the beast at the same time, not coming up one after another, or in like manner falling off as the horns in Daniel chapters 7 and 8, should forever convince every rational mind that the horns and heads symbolize civil and religious bodies, all existing at the same time, not one following the other.
The blasphemy being over the heads, not over the horns, denotes that the religious bodies portrayed therein do not worship God according to Truth, that they are not wholly what they profess to be. The exact interpretation that Inspiration places on the word “blasphemy” is this: “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not.” Rev. 2:9.
It is better for all of us to acknowledge our failures than to evade the Truth, for it is the Truth that shall make us free.
Moreover, since we admit that the Reformation inflicted the deadly blow and brought forth Protestantism, and since Inspiration says the wound was healed, all these prove something which if we confess, may save our jeopardized lives, and make us as great as did the whole-hearted confessions anciently make David great. What is it that we have to confess? – Just this: If Protestantism wounded the beast by the Reformation, then the healing of the wound shows nothing less that that the Reformation has failed to keep the wound open, that the goal of the reformers has died, and despotism has been revived. Indeed, this symbolism is saying nothing more than what the message to the Laodiceans is saying:
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” Rev. 3:17, 18.
For one to be in such a deplorable condition and at the same time to contend that he has need of nothing, is indeed a blasphemy.
Friday - June 9
Further Thought
Read Revelation 13:15-17
The two-horned beast exercises all the power which the first beast, the leopard-like, exercised, again showing it to be a world power. Indeed, it requires just such a power to compel all the inhabitants of the earth to worship as he commands, and to implement a likeness of a church and state government that is as outdated as are the Middle Ages themselves. Yes, it takes such a power to influence the world, save those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, to bow down to it.
When the beast’s decree is passed that no one can buy or sell, and should be killed for non-conformity, then God only can protect His people, the people whose names are written in “The Book.” Such is His faithful promise: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the Book.” Dan. 12:1.
This power, you see, is to control the world’s markets, too.