Covid & the mark of the beast

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I’m still strongly pretrib but not convinced all the Rev churches will be raptured.

That was exactly my position, my uncertainty was mainly caused by my conviction that God would not pour out His wrath upon his own, and I thought that the pouring out of the wrath of God would be during the whole period of the great tribulation, therefore I reasoned, the believers had to be raptured or taken away in any way before the great tribulation would start... Also, multitudes of people being taken away in an instance would cause complete chaos in society, so I reasoned that this would be the perfect stepping stone for the anti christ to force his one-world government through. But now with what we see happening with covid around the world, I don't think a "global chaos" is even required to get to this...

Saved, yes, raptured, no. They aren’t the same thing to me.

Indeed these are definitely not the same, but a person needs to be saved in order to be raptured. There are folks who believe the rapture is actually the "taking away" of the UNbelievers and that after that the millenium would start, so than you's actually have to be an UNbeliever to get raptured... But I think the book of revelation is clear that the unbelievers will be destroyed before the millennium will start.

My guess is the mark of the beast is some kind of mindcontrol component/device (frequently studied in underground bases it seems) that forfeits the freewill of people and therefore one forfeits salvation eligibility with no free will.

I found a remarkable parallel with the Tefillin, the Jewish prayer boxes that are attached to the forehead and the right arm and hand. So I would say "forehead" is dead on and "right arm" is good as equal to "right hand". This would indeed implicate that there is some kind of a religious factor involved and definitely a public sign of devotion which is also emphizised in Rev 14:9-11 and Rev 19:20. So it could simply mean that the beast will deceive (Rev 19:20) people that the anti crist is the true messiah and that people will then willingly take the mark of the beast because they are fully conviced and will not repent, thus that Rev 14:9-9-11 connects receiving the mark of the beast to being lost for eternety.