Even if we are beheaded, we believe in Jesus and not going to take any mark.
Morning Lanolin!
Based on everything scripture has to say, I am confident that the church will not be here during the time of the mark, which will become the only valid form of electronic buying and selling and that taking place around the middle of the seven years. For during that same time God's wrath will have been in operation via the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments, which believers are not appointed to suffer. That time period of God's wrath, also known as "the day of the Lord" and "the hour of trial" will be directed at who will have continued to reject Christ, the prideful and arrogant, those living according to the sinful nature. Therefore, the church must be removed prior to said wrath.
It is paramount to understanding that there is a big difference between the trials and tribulations that Jesus said believers would have vs. God's tribulation of wrath. The former comes at the hands of men and the powers of darkness, while the latter will be unprecedented and will come directly from God. This coming wrath will affect the entire world, decimating the majority of the population and dismantling all human government.
We are going to be sealed with the name of God on our foreheads, not the mark of the beast.
Scripture makes it very clear, that those who will be sealed will be 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel, 12,000 from each tribe, which are listed per tribe right there in the scripture. The 144,000 is not a figurative group representing the church, which will have already been removed from the earth. In fact if you will notice, the word ekklesia/church is used 18 times throughout chapters 1 thru 3 of Revelation. Within those same chapters you will not see the word saints.
After chapter 4 first used at 5:8, the word hagios/saints is used and we never see the word ekklesia/church again within the narrative of God's wrath. God is making a distinction here and providing us with a clue. The saints who are being referred to are those who are introduced in Rev.7:9-17 who are that group in white robes which no man can count. The very fact that the elder is asking John who they are, demonstrates that this group is not the church, but is another group. Another proof that this group is not the church, is that the elder asks John who they are, but he says that he doesn't know. The elder then tells John that this group are those who have come out of the great tribulation, which again the church is not appointed to suffer and because it is God's tribulation, not man's or Satan's.
Doesn't get your attention when you read the word "church" over and over throughout chapters 1 thru 3 and then it abruptly stops being used? The reason for this is that I believe that Rev.4:1-2 is a prophetic allusion to where the church is caught up, as represented by John hearing that voice which sounds like a trumpet saying "come up here." I believe that this voice like a trumpet is synonymous with "the trumpet of God" found in 1 Thess.4:16 in Paul's description of the gathering of the church.
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