Mark of the Beast - the core issue is Religious Liberty

[LoveGodsWord]

Jesus was see to be risen from the tomb, on the first day of the week. That is what is written in the word of God.

Matthew 28:1
Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the tomb.

See folks, the first day was celebrated as the day of the resurrection.

Church tradition also supports what the scripture clearly states.

Jesus was seen by the apostles on the first day. That is the testimony we follow, the apostles witnessed the risen Christ on Sunday.

So easy.

Please forgive me David, I am just trying to follow your logic here. Where does it say in Matthew 28:1 that Gods' 4th commandment has now been abolished and we are now commanded to keep Sunday or the first day of the week as a holy day as a memorial of the resurrection of Jesus? According to Jesus in Matthew 15:3-9 if we follow man-made teachings and traditions that lead us to break the commandments of God we are not worshiping God. So if we there is no scripture that show us that Sunday worship is a replacement for disregarding God's 4th commandment of the 10 commandments that give us a knowledge of what sin is when broken who should we believe and follow; the teachings and traditions of men or the Word of God *Romans 3:4; Acts of the Apostles 5:29?

 

[BobRyan]

if you say the mark of the beast will introduce a law which will violate a commandment (in this case 'love your neighbor/religious liberty), I still don't get the point of it

well.. you already admitted this.

Mugen said: ↑
denying religious liberty is not a form of love. yes! I agree.

And we have these other irrefutable details

1. Rev 13 points to a sin problem involving severe infringement of religious liberty in its description of the beast, image to the beast, mark of the beast - obviously
2. Sin is defined as transgression of the Law 1 John3:4
3. The fact that denying religious liberty to someone is not a form of "loving your neighbor as yourself" -- is not even debatable that I have seen so far.
4. Everyone already agrees that to deny someone the religious liberty to worship on Sunday or Saturday or Tuesday or whatever their conscience dictates .. is wrong.

it seems as if you are trying to proof the mark of the beast is a bad thing and use a connection between rel. liberty/love yout neighbor to do so.
the thing is, neither I nor prolly anyone else ever considered the mark or the beast a good thing.

True - my argument here is not "there is great objection to these irrefutable points" listed above.

if some greater power restricts rel. liberty than I cant do much about it, can I? and if that rel. liberty restriction which THEY impose comes at a price of sin (love your neighbor) then its a) on them and b) who cares about the beast - that entity isnt interested in a life free of sin nor does it want to facilitate a sinfree life for anyone else.

Agreed. all we need to do is "not join the beast" in that work and instead stay true to the Word of God.

tbt - I have never come across the subject from this perspective, where someone was pointing out sinful behavior on the side of the beast. isnt the devil the father of all lies and the orriginator of sin?

My point is not simply that the beast is on the side of rebellion... it is that we must not join in it or approve of it when it happens.

 

[Mugen]

Hi Mugen nice to meet you. Well I am only someone different but I am trying to understand your argument or the question your asking only if it might be helpful. Can you explain your argument to me to save some time? Are you saying that if the mark of the beast does not effect loving your neighbor as yourself then no one will receive the mark of the beast? Genuine question I do not what to have a misunderstanding of what your saying before I respond so I thought I would ask you for clarification first. Nice to meet you once more.

God bless

absolutely not my point!

the thing is, once people start worshipping the image of the beast does it matter if they can or cannot love their neighbor?

 

[LoveGodsWord]

absolutely not my point!

the thing is, once people start worshipping the image of the beast does it matter if they can or cannot love their neighbor?

Perhaps you have a misunderstanding. I was asking you what your point was. I was not stating what your point was. I was asking so that I do not have a misunderstanding of what your saying and to better understand what your trying to say before responding to you if I am able to be of any help. Anyhow in answer to your question according to Jesus in Matthew 22:36-40; Paul in Romans 13:8-10; James in James 2:8-10 and John in 1 John 2:3-4; 1 John 3:4-9; 1 John 5:2-3; Revelation 12:17; Revelation 14:12 and Revelation 22:14, the two great commandments that Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 in Matthew 22:36-40 is summing up obedience to God's 10 commandments from the heart (see Romans 13:8-10) which of course is God's new covenant promise in those who have been born of the Spirit to believe and follow what Gods' Word says (John 3:3-7; 1 John 3:4-9; Hebrews 8:10-12 from Jeremiah 31:31-36 and Ezekiel 36:24-27).

So according to the scriptures the first four commandments of God's 10 commandments are summed up in loving our neighbor as our selves and the second great commandment is summed up according to Paul in Romans 13:8-10 as loving out neighbor as our self. This is why in Matthew 22:36-40 Jesus says on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets and Paul says if we love our neighbor we will obey those laws in God's 10 commandments that show our duty of love to our fellow man.

So let's put all this back into context of the Mark of the Beast. There is not a single scripture in all of God's Word that says Gods 4th commandment which is our duty of love to God has now been abolished and we are now commanded to keep Sunday as a holy day of rest in honor of the resurrection of Jesus. Sunday worship is a man-made teaching and tradition that is not supported in the scriptures. Jesus warns us in Matthew 15:3-9 that if we follow man-made teachings and traditions that lead us away from God and His Word to break the commandments of God we are not worshiping God. So the question of enforced Sunday worship being the mark of the Beast is not over loving thy neighbor as thy self it is over love the Lord thy God with all thy soul heart and mind which according to Jesus is the first great commandment in Matthew 22:36-40.

So the mark of the Beast will be over who we worship. Do we worship God in Spirit and in truth or do we worship the teachings and traditions of men that lead us away from God and His Word to break the commandments of God. According to the scriptures God's 4th commandment is a sign that Gods' true people worship the God of creation and love God with all our soul heart and mind. Don't misunderstand me here though. According to the scriptures God's people are in every Church living up to all the light of God's Word that he reveals to them and many are breaking God's commandments out of ignorance and in times of ignorance God winks at. God is calling all his people to come out from following man-made teachings and traditions to worship Him in Spirit and in truth back to the pure Word of God. So simply the mark of the beast is not over the 2nd great commandment of loving our neighbor as ourselves but over the first great commandment of loving and worshiping God. Does this help to better answer your question? Can you give me some feedback.

God bless.

 

[HARK!]

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[Mugen]

Perhaps you have a misunderstanding. I was asking you what your point was. I was not stating what your point was. I was asking so that I do not have a misunderstanding of what your saying and to better understand what your trying to say before responding to you if I am able to be of any help. Anyhow in answer to your question according to Jesus in Matthew 22:36-40; Paul in Romans 13:8-10; James in James 2:8-10 and John in 1 John 2:3-4; 1 John 3:4-9; 1 John 5:2-3; Revelation 12:17; Revelation 14:12 and Revelation 22:14, the two great commandments that Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 in Matthew 22:36-40 is summing up obedience to God's 10 commandments from the heart (see Romans 13:8-10) which of course is God's new covenant promise in those who have been born of the Spirit to believe and follow what Gods' Word says (John 3:3-7; 1 John 3:4-9; Hebrews 8:10-12 from Jeremiah 31:31-36 and Ezekiel 36:24-27).

So according to the scriptures the first four commandments of God's 10 commandments are summed up in loving our neighbor as our selves and the second great commandment is summed up according to Paul in Romans 13:8-10 as loving out neighbor as our self. This is why in Matthew 22:36-40 Jesus says on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets and Paul says if we love our neighbor we will obey those laws in God's 10 commandments that show our duty of love to our fellow man.

So let's put all this back into context of the Mark of the Beast. There is not a single scripture in all of God's Word that says Gods 4th commandment which is our duty of love to God has now been abolished and we are now commanded to keep Sunday as a holy day of rest in honor of the resurrection of Jesus. Sunday worship is a man-made teaching and tradition that is not supported in the scriptures. Jesus warns us in Matthew 15:3-9 that if we follow man-made teachings and traditions that lead us away from God and His Word to break the commandments of God we are not worshiping God. So the question of enforced Sunday worship being the mark of the Beast is not over loving thy neighbor as thy self it is over love the Lord thy God with all thy soul heart and mind which according to Jesus is the first great commandment in Matthew 22:36-40.

So the mark of the Beast will be over who we worship. Do we worship God in Spirit and in truth or do we worship the teachings and traditions of men that lead us away from God and His Word to break the commandments of God. According to the scriptures God's 4th commandment is a sign that Gods' true people worship the God of creation and love God with all our soul heart and mind. Don't misunderstand me here though. According to the scriptures God's people are in every Church living up to all the light of God's Word that he reveals to them and many are breaking God's commandments out of ignorance and in times of ignorance God winks at. God is calling all his people to come out from following man-made teachings and traditions to worship Him in Spirit and in truth back to the pure Word of God. So simply the mark of the beast is not over the 2nd great commandment of loving our neighbor as ourselves but over the first great commandment of loving and worshiping God. Does this help to better answer your question? Can you give me some feedback.

God bless.

sorry for the late reply, was occupied with other things and onpy just saw it.
well, the points being made here were a bit confusing and I felt some people just tried to make an elaborate point of something which had no bearing, trying hard to make it fit without real logic, aka that religious liberty case which was somehow linked to loving your neighbor and I just didn't see those two points as a whole.

I guess its hard for us human beings to understand a book like revelation, there is lots of ideas and theories around and personally I am not yet fully convinced of any of them. very often people focus on specific parts of it and create a narrative, and then move on to make other parts fit that narrative.

 

[reddogs]

Almost everyone on this board would agree with something like "I choose to keep such and such a day holy to God ... other people make different choices and that is fine with me. They should be allowed to choose as they wish". so say we all.

I am one of several people on this board that is constantly trying to oppose the anti-sda posts of the form "you believe we have the mark of the beast because we keep sunday".

We don't believe that and for the sake of full disclosure regarding future scenarios -- I might add - that IF in the future the only thing that happened was Sunday Laws prohibited stores from being open on Sunday enacted world wide, and all the entire world except for Sabbath keeping Christians - keeping Sunday , with everyone happy to support religious liberty - that STILL WOULD NOT BE the "mark of the beast" (given the details in Rev 13.)

In such a future scenario Sabbath keeping Christians would make legal arguments that they would like their own businesses open Sunday or something like that - and that religious liberty should always be upheld ... but nothing more. And we all could get along with such a restriction even if such appeals failed.

We have over 2billion sunday keeping Christians today - and it is not the mark of the beast.

We have many billions more (including over 1 billion Catholics) that use images/idols in some fashion in their worship traditions ... that also is not "the mark of the beast".

Our view of the "mark of the beast" is that it crushes religious liberty to a historic unprecedented degree in the full light of a day where all are aware of the importance of religious liberty, freedom of conscience and the word of God.

John makes it very clear that failure to worship the beast and his image - is death, as we saw here - Feb 3, 20

Rev 13:12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.... 15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

Even in the most casual skimming of such a statement one would notice that Christians would be denied religious liberty (in at least some fashion) if put under such a law by government.

There will be a worldwide movement much like the climate change that is being put forward at the events we see today, and then people will have to choose, that will be when the mark will happen..

 

[reddogs]

-- There is an extremely interesting legal history of Sunday legislation in the U.S.

History of Sunday Laws in America
Blue law - Wikipedia
Blue laws in the United States - Wikipedia


From the first link above:

As the decades dawned toward the Twentieth Century, a new effort in Sunday legislation appeared. Instead of calling it a law "in protection of the Lord's Day," it was now called a civil law "in protection of the rights of the workingman," and was declared to be "a legitimate exercise of the police power of the State."

In a 1961 case in which a Sunday law was tacitly approved by the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren stated that Sunday Laws would always remain a violation of the First Amendment whenever it was demonstrated that their objective was "to use the State's coercive power to aid religion." (McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 1961).

The Supreme Court of the United States held in its landmark case, McGowan v. Maryland (1961), that Maryland's blue laws violated neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.[34] It approved the state's blue law restricting commercial activities on Sunday, noting that while such laws originated to encourage attendance at Christian churches, the contemporary Maryland laws were intended to serve "to provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens" on a secular basis and to promote the secular values of "health, safety, recreation, and general well-being" through a common day of rest. That this day coincides with Christian Sabbath is not a bar to the state's secular goals; it neither reduces its effectiveness for secular purposes nor prevents adherents of other religions from observing their own holy days.[35]

McGowan was but one of four Sunday closing cases decided together by the Court in May of 1961.

​

From the second link above

In March 2006, Texas judges upheld the state blue law that requires car dealerships to close either Saturday or Sunday each weekend.​

They would have to include Friday under that state blue law following that logic...