HisdaughterJen posted in message #177:
And add to that what has been prophecied to come....
Rev 13:16 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,
Rev 13:17 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.
That's right, during the reign of the Antichrist
Christians won't be able to buy or sell anything
because they won't take the mark of the Antichrist
on their hand or forehead (Revelation 13:16-18). So
Christians will have to have stored up 1,335 days
(cf. Daniel 12:11-12) of supplies ahead of time,
before the Antichrist commits the abomination of
desolation and begins His 42-month reign (Revelation
12:5) and institutes the mark.
And Christians won't be able to remain on self-
sufficient Christian farms because they won't be able
to pay the property taxes on those farms. Even if
they pay the property taxes four years in advance,
their names on the property deed in the county
courthouse could still be used on a checklist to see
if everyone in the county has taken the mark. So the
Sheriff could come out to the farm and knock on their
doors and turn them in as traitors to the Antichrist's
"Mark Police" when he sees that they haven't taken
the mark.
(Unless the Christians on that farm have dug secret
tunnels and chambers under the farmhouse and farm
fields in which they can hide when the Sheriff comes
knocking, and which are ventilated well enough and
stocked well enough to stay down there for as long as
necessary to hide from any people searching the farm.
But if the searchers have dogs, the dogs could scent-
out the ventilation tubes which lead to where the
Christians are hiding in caverns underground. One way
to get around this would be to run the ventilation
tubes up through the walls of the farmhouse and out
the top of the roof, where the dogs couldn't get a
sniff at them. Also, the access entrances to the
underground tunnels and caverns would have to be
camouflaged well enough so that the searchers can't
locate them. This was how Saddam Hussein managed to
stay hidden in an underground cavern for so long: the
access hatch was covered with grass so it didn't look
like anything was there. He probably got found
because somebody feeding him turned him in for a
reward. So Christians need to be very wary of who
they trust with the knowledge of their secret
hideouts.)
One thing Christians living together on a self-
sufficient farm don't want to do is get known by
their neighbors as a big "Christian commune", for
such places will be especially focused on by the
Antichrist's police. This will also be why one won't
want to try to avoid property taxes on the farm by
registering it with the government as some sort of
Christian church.
To avoid one's name being on any government list of
property-owners or government-registered churches,
Christians could simply rent a farm from a large
landowner and let him pay the taxes on it. But the
Christians will still have to have places to hide
when the Sheriff comes knocking at the door of the
farmhouse, if he knows that it's being rented.
Another possibility for Christians is, when they see
the abomination of desolation on TV or the internet,
to flee all inhabited areas and let out for true
wilderness places in the mountains or deserts
(Revelation 12:6, Matthew 24:16, Ezekiel 7:16) where
there are no houses for the Sheriff to come and check
on, areas so remote and rugged and uninhabited that
nobody will want to come out there and search for
anyone because they won't think anyone is out there.
Forested areas in remote mountains would be best,
as these would provide some cover from any patrolling
drones which the Antichrist might send out to search
for any "cowardly Christian zealots, traitors".
But because these remote mountains might not contain
enough game to live on, and because shooting and
cooking the game would make noise and smoke that
could attract attention, Christians could go out
before the Antichrist's reign and, during a series of
camping trips, bury a lot of plastic tubs in the
remote mountains, containing all sorts of canned food,
water-containers, plastic tarps, thermal sleeping bags,
and every other necessity to survive in the mountains
for 1,335 days until Jesus returns. There will have
to be some way to mark the location of the tubs so
that they can be found later and dug up when needed,
but not in any way that would attract attention of
anyone not knowing what sign to look for.