5-08-05 - “THE MARK OF THE BEAST” Part 2
Victory Ministries International presents:
Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts  
Treasures of awesome truths from God’s Word 
and facts that affect you!

Hello!  This is Richard Vaughn

My brothers and sisters in Jesus, we are studying the most serious warning that God has given in the entire Bible. That is the warning against receiving the mark of the beast. Why is it that you should not receive the mark of the beast? Because if you do, you will have to endure the wrath of God poured out in the seven last plagues. All that will receive the mark of the beast will be lost. This matter is so serious, so don’t miss a single broadcast. 

Before we start today, shall we seek God’s guidance? “Heavenly Father, as we explore deeper into this subject today, we implore you to give us your Holy Spirit to guide us in to all wisdom, knowledge and understanding, in Jesus name, AMEN.”

I am going to repeat my pledge to cry aloud and spare not, to lift up my voice like a trumpet and to show God’s people where they are transgressing God’s law.

Once again let me read you this warning from God’s word about receiving the mark of the beast. It is the most fearful warning in all the Bible and is found in Revelation 14:9-11 “And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 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: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”

Last week we discussed that the mark in the forehead is not a literal mark, rather the forehead is where your frontal lobes of your brain are, in your forehead. This is where you think and reason, it’s where your belief system is established. If you embrace Sunday, you will have the mark of the beast in your forehead. If you embrace God’s seal, which is His seventh day Sabbath, you will receive God’s seal in your forehead.

Very soon, the congress of the United States, by virtue of the image to the beast, which is Apostate Protestantism, is going to pass a National Sunday law that will force obedience to Sunday, fulfilling the prophecy of  Revelation 13:15-17. 

A time of great tribulation is coming upon God’s faithful people. Sunday keeping Christians will join in as persecutors and will believe they are doing right, when they are actually serving Satan.

God knew that there was going to be an antichrist power that would change His seventh day Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. The 58th chapter of Isaiah was written for our time. Verse 1 reads, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression,” God is talking about the transgression His people would be doing, that will one day cause Jesus to tell Christians, “I never knew you.” Here’s what He says in verse 12, “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.”

The breach spoken of here is the fact that the Papacy threw out God’s seventh day Sabbath and replaced it with the first day of the week, the pagan sun-day. He’s calling His people back, restoring the right paths to dwell in, repairing the breach in His law. 

Then verse 13 God says, “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:”

He’s saying get your feet off the Sabbath, stop trampling it. It’s holy time. It’s a 24 hour period of time He has set aside to meet with His people. There are 168 hours in a week and God asks for 1/7th of your time. If you cannot do that now, how will you be able to do it in eternity. The only thing you can take to heaven is your character and if you don’t love Jesus enough to keep His seventh day Sabbath holy, He will say I never knew you.

I believe that this year of 2005, we will see take place in these United States, a great event of a cataclysmic nature. And after it happens, coupled with the sudden increase in natural disasters, many will think God is angry with our country, so to appease God’s wrath, the religious leaders will spearhead a drive to get this country back to Sunday sacredness, and we will see our congress pass a National Sunday law, and President Bush will sign it. It is the law that is prophesied in Revelation 13. 

There are two beasts in Revelation 13. The first thing we need to do is let the Bible interpret itself. In a prophecy, God uses symbolism. Here a beast is not an animal; rather it is a king, kingdom or power. Daniel 7:17 tells us what beasts in prophecy are. “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.” Verse 23 says, “Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth.” So a beast in prophecy is a king, kingdom or nation. Alright now, armed with that information, the first beast of Revelation 13:1-10 is without a doubt the Papacy of Rome and I’m going to prove that conclusively in upcoming broadcasts. Right now I want to concentrate on the second beast in Revelation 13, verses 11-17, because that beast is the United States.

Verse 11 reads, “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” Friends, verse 11 is loaded with much meaning. 
We will study this topic in detail in the weeks ahead; right now we are going to touch it lightly. This beast or nation is one that came up out of the earth. What does that mean? Well in Revelation 13, the first beast rises from the sea or waters. In Daniel 7, the four beasts or kingdoms, came up out of the sea or waters. Now those 4 beasts represent the only 4 kingdoms that ever ruled the world. Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. But they came up out of the waters. What does that mean. Again we must let the Bible interpret itself.
Revelation 17:15 gives us the answer. “And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.”  In other words, these nations arise in populated areas. They come into power where countries already exist.
But this lamblike beast with two horns in Revelation 13:11 comes up out of the earth. That means it is a new nation coming up in a sparsely populated area. There aren’t many people. As I will prove to you in later broadcasts, this nation has to come into power around the time the first beast, the Papacy at Rome, is receiving a deadly wound. That happened in 1798. The United States declared its independence in 1776. And it is according to verse 11, to be lamblike. Who is the lamb of God? Jesus. That means it will be a Christian nation.

Also it says it has two horns. Those two horns are a symbol of the power that makes the United States so great and what this nation was founded on. Civil liberty and Religious liberty. Civil liberty means it would be run by the people, independent of the church. Religious liberty means there will be freedom of religion without government interference.

Now we look at the rest of verse 11. “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” This lamblike beast it says is going to evolve into a beast that speaks as a dragon. Revelation 12:9 says, “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”  

So the dragon is Satan, which means that the United States is going to change from its Christ likeness, into a worldwide superpower that will try to force its beliefs on the world. That’s happening today. We want to turn all nations into democracies.

Now let’s look at what else the United States does. Revelation 13:12   “And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” Who is the first beast before him? It’s the beast in the first 10 verses, the Papacy that received a deadly wound, right on schedule in 1798, exactly as God said he would, after 1260 years of tyranny. 

Revelation 13:3 says, “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” In 1798 Napoleon sent his General Berthier into Rome where he captured the pope and took him to France where he died in exile. The world thought that was the end of the Papacy, however in 1929, Mussolini restored the Papacy to power in Vatican City. Under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, the deadly wound was healed. And the whole world wondered after the beast. That is the way it is today. Even Billy Graham made the statement a few years ago, that the pope is the spiritual leader of the world. God help us.

So looking at verse 12 again, “And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” How does the U.S. cause the earth to worship the first beast? The way a nation gets anyone to do anything is through its laws. The United States is going to pass a law that will cause the nation and eventually the world to worship the Papacy. What law did the Papacy make? It changed Saturday, God’s seventh day Sabbath of the fourth commandment, into Sunday, the first day of the week and the pagan day of worshipping the sun. The whole world is keeping Sunday today. But the United States is going to enforce it by law.

Verses 16 and 17 say, “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.”  

How does a nation cause its people to obey them, by passing laws? Here it is saying that the US will pass a law that will require its people to receive the mark of the first beast, the Papacy, in their foreheads, which are the frontal lobes of their brain. The mark of the first beast is Sunday sacredness. It says no man might buy or sell, unless they have the mark, or obey the law. Violators of the National Sunday law will be persecuted.

That means if you want to obey God and keep His seventh day Sabbath according to the 4th commandment, you will be persecuted for breaking man’s law. In other words you must give your allegiance to the Rome, the Papacy, actually to Satan himself who hates God’s seventh day Sabbath.

Time is up for this week, so be listening to Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts next Sunday at 8:45 am. Tell your friends to listen in.

God bless you friends and study your Bibles daily,

Until next week, Jesus said in John 5:39, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me”. Even so, Come Lord Jesus.