ULDAH MINISTRY

No,77　　MARCH. 2002

【THE MARK OF BEAST】

　 And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. …
Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He experienced all the authority of the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honour of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no-one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.
Revelation 13:1~2… :11~18

A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day and night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name." This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labour, for their deeds will follow them."
Revelation 14:9~13

Revelation chapter 13 teaches us a stern fact how manipulatively Satan controls and uses man to accomplish his purposes. Common sense tells us that, as there are no such things as a seven-headed animal, nor a lamb with horns and a sharp tongue of a dragon existing on earth, both pictures of the beasts must be symbols. As in Daniel chapter 7, where beasts are used to convey characteristics of the coming world governments and the lion-like beast symbolises not only the Babylonian Empire but also king Nebuchadnezzar himself, so the beasts in Revelation also seem to represent a specific person and the world government system.
The first beat that arises out of the sea is generally interpreted as being the final antichrist. The sea is the Mediterranean Sea and symbolises the Gentile world. The second beast that comes out of the earth is thought to be the false-prophet. The earth symbolises the Palestine world, which means that the false prophet will probably be a Jew. As Jesus warned His followers of how the enemy would deceive them, 'Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. … every good tree bears good fruit, … Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them. … ' (Matt. 7:15~20), the real nature of the false-prophet will be exposed by his way of speaking and by his words which come from the devil. Therefore, Jesus' followers should not be deceived by his outwardly meek and gentle action and attitudes. These Satan-controlled beasts, the antichrist and the false-prophet will set up their dictatorial regime aiming for their complete dominance of the whole world. After destroying the global ecumenical religious system, which is symbolised in Revelation 17 as the woman sitting on a scarlet beast with the title: 'Mystery Babylon the Great The Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abominations of the Earth', they will establish a new form of religion. The false-prophet will force people to worship a god unknown to his forefathers, i.e., the antichrist, alongside the devil. Paul, foreseeing the terrible days to come, taught, '… the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. … The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.' Thus, the devil and the two beasts will replace the three persons of the Godhead as anti-God, anti-Christ and anti-Spirit, and they will establish the devil's scheme of deception and lawlessness. If by any chance Jesus' followers should be deceived by their display of supernaturalism and follow it, their destination would be no doubt death, i.e., eternal torment. In other words, one of the reasons why God permits the devil to challenge Jesus' followers in such powerful and cunning ways of deception is to test the believers' faith, measured by their faithfulness to Jesus even to death. What is called for most here on the part of the believers during the Tribulation will be patient endurance. During this time, many of those who resist the evil scheme will be relentlessly slain.
The significance of the enduring faithfulness to the Lord even to death and the meaning of trials and hardships had been already explained by God in the days of Moses: 'If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announce to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods," (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; … If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" … Do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him.' (Deuteronomy 13:1~8) It was around 3500 years ago that God, knowing man's weakness, gave such overt instructions of the importance of being on the right track onto salvation, which are still very relevant or more precisely, getting more relevant for us, Jesus' followers today. It will surely not be long before these words ring true to us more and more than ever. However, how and when will such a day of terror materialise on earth when the devilish regime would control the whole world? According to John, the writer of the book of Revelation, at that time, the regime will force people to receive the mark of the beast, i.e., his name or his number on their right hands or on their foreheads to survive. The Scripture seems to predict the coming of the day of authorised trade with a code of a symbolic name or number. Significantly enough, we are, in a broad sense, already living in such a system, in which a highly sophisticated, advanced level of trade has developed globally with the use of point-of -sale commercial transactions, electric-commerce on the Internet, plastic cards with passwords and ID cards and so on. Therefore, it is not so difficult for us, who live in developed countries, to imagine the rigidly controlled economic and social schemes of the last days though the exact date of the regime is unknown.
However, John's enigmatic suggestion, 'If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast,' has caught much attention and many fanciful interpretations have revolved around the meaning of the number 666. Although some manuscripts have the variant reading 616 instead of 666 and also in some manuscripts the number itself, instead of the letters χξζ(chi xi zeta), is written out, 666 has come to be the preferred reading. It is well known that traditionally, Nero was considered likely candidate for being the antichrist because when his name was written in Hebrew characters, the numerical value of his name turned out to be 666. During the days of Martin Luther as well as in the days of the Church Fathers, mystical numerology attracted the attention of scholars as it is so today. One of them, Peter Bungus who wrote a devoted book to the mystical number is understood, of all things, to have found the number 666 equivalent to the name of Luther! Subsequently, it was Luther's reply to such a disgraceful identification that he interpreted 666 as the number of the Papacy (Dantig, Tobias 'Number, The Language of Science'). Indeed, Vicar of the Son of God, i.e., Pope of Rome, Vicarivs Fileii Dei in Latin has the numerical value 666. Pope Leo X, Martin Luther, Trajan Hadrianus, Adolph Hitler, Mussolini and Kissinger are all candidates for the number 666 by defiant calculators. However, the scholars who have tackled biblical numerology with sincerity do not generally accept the ideas that mystical numbers are supposed to carry hidden meanings or theological concepts and also accept that the bible exhibits the use of the alphabet for numerical values though the possible exception can be, the number 666 in Rev.13:18. The reasons of negation against artificial and arbitrary nature of mystical numerology is readily assessed by the simple fact that any sort of identification for the antichrist can be considerable, for example, by an attempt at spelling in different languages, adding or removing or inventing some suitable alphabet to make candidates equivalent to the number of the antichrist. As apparent from the above examples, any-one's name could be interpreted as having the numerical value 666 simply by selective use of spellings and languages, Hebrew, Greek or Latin. Gematria, which is a system for searching the interpretation for hidden meaning through the numerical values of letters was an early Greek innovation, which Jews adopted under Helenistic influence and which the Gnostics, the Gnostic heresies applied to theological truths in the Apostolic and post-Apostolic eras. On the one hand, the number seven appears to clearly symbolise the idea of fullness or completion throughout the Bible and it was also a very common interpretation in contemporary non-biblical inscriptions. On the other hand, it is understood that most of the meanings adopted for the symbolic numbers in the Bible today are derived from the Church Fathers' interpretation under the strong influence by the Gnostic heresies and Pythagorean theories. Anyway, in the context at Re.13:18, the number 666 is without doubt a symbol for the antichrist, whether or not it conveys any theological value. 666 is also the number of man, perpetually falling short of the number seven, i.e., divine perfection.
At the beginning of this year, an idea crossed my mind immediately after I heard the shocking news of 'Disabled birth law' which was legalised in France last year. I felt that the three digits of the imperfect man's number "six" might denote the most wicked, imperfect regime on earth by the unholy trinity of Satan. The broadcast told that although the French parliament had voted to overrule the extraordinary court decision of the new principle that the disabled have a right not to be born, the new law would be endorsed from the Senate. The idea behind this ruling of the principle is a hair-rising presumption that things are supposed to be weighed by not God-ordained law but human-proposed standards. This meant that should a doctor fail to detect a disabled foetus early on and advise abortion, s/he could be sued. This ruling of the French Supreme Court last November was triggered by the case that the damages were awarded to a child with Down's syndrome. Thankfully however, this time much to my relief, the French parliament has overturned the ruling that established such a previously inconceivable right. Something so ethically wrong seems to have come gradually to rule over man's heart and to be legalised without convicting man of any guilty conscience or conscience itself might be being lost. As technological, scientific and medical developments advance, mans' rules have already taken over God's standards and Law in every area of our lives. For example, reproductive technologies, human cloning, genetically modified babies, screening out of faulty embryos by automated chips only to kill, In-vitro-fertilisation, and so on are shaping the world as a matter of course. In other words, not knowingly the New World Order seems to be slipping into controlling our lives, in which new international laws imposed by the beasts' regime would soon completely replace God's Law and rigidly govern the whole world. Being involved in this system to survive or to get benefits from it is, to receive the mark of the beast. We should take the third angel7s stern warning to heart and not receive this mark knowingly or unknowingly because this is more or less equivalent to denying Jesus as Lord and we would be on a straight road to hell. Considering the fact that along with the social trend of lawlessness, liberalisation in every area, moral decline and religious ecumenical tolerances, many unbiblical ideas such as euthanasia are starting to be legalised today, man's conscience has already been deeply contaminated by secular ideologies and desires. This calls for us, Jesus' faithful followers, to have the correct knowledge of the Word of God and His plans so that we may be ready for the worse days to come.

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　　This month a money gift of £ 500 has been sent to IBS to support their out-reach project to Muslims in the Arab World with the Word of God. In the midst of confusion among many Muslims caused by militant Islamic fundamentalists, the fact that an interest in the Word is being reported to be increasing is very encouraging. Pray for precious lives of people in the Middle East and Muslims being touched by the Lord and saved.

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