Do Not Take The Mark Of The Beast

The poetic inconsistency of an English translation still haunts me today. It is a liberal practice to keep changing the choice of semantic meanings of the manuscript language. Case in point, one receives Christ to inherit as an heir to eternal life in John 1. One does not “accept” Christ in the same sense that a man does not “accept” the woman in a wedding to be his legally wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in death. He takes her to be his Mrs.

I think that is clear. So when we receive Christ as our Savior and Lord, it is binding. No one cares about someone accepting a fact, a notion or an ideology.

The Right To Eternal Life

Today we will point out that a person cannot receive both the right to eternal life in Messiah and the mark of the beast.

“Mark”: Gk. caragma, /xáragma (“brand-mark”) was originally any impress on a coin or a seal, in the ancient world currencies. It was used by an engraver on a die (stamp, branding iron). A coin that bears the image, that is the mark of caragma, is marked by that sovereignty. Y’shua says this to settle ownership.

And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.  – Mark 12

If a person’s soul has the caragma, guess what, render to the image that he is branded by the beast to the beast. It is that simple from Gospel principle. You go to where you belong. Your act of will is all that is needed to approve of your ownership.

So, how reversible do you think that is?

To help us understand the caragma “mark”, we need to take one step back to look into another word in the Gospel: Receive. There is an important word in John 1| 12 that properly says: 📍Receive (Gk. lambano). This manuscript word lambano is an active form to taking something. It is done consciously and willingly by the individual, not by a family, not by a village, not by a country and certainly not by a religion identification. It is not a passive sense of being handed something. The Gospel instructs us to make that action in our will. It takes you and me to purposefully take it.

For instance, if you are raising kids, you will get this. You leave a bowl of colorful popsicles on the kitchen counter. It looks tempting. No one is guarding the candy jar. The kid goes to get one. That is a lambano example.

With Christ, our action is to lambano, receive Him. And His part is to grant the right to be heirs of God.

With the beast, our action would require the same purpose and will put to work. One has to take the mark and the privilege of radical life extension will be granted to the individual. There is no congratulations to pass for that transaction. But today, with the advance of AI and medical science, genes can be changed with a therapeutic procedure where “faulty genese” can be fixed by specialists. They promise the patient he will never be the same again. There is a market for this because our environment has been compromised. The average man is a walking pharmacy depending on healthcare to prolong his days.

The human DNA is an intrinsic property to our species. We learn of how similar our DNA is to other mammals. A few changes to the DNA and you have a different species. The new identity of the altered human is un-classified for now. The patient still behaves mostly as before except that certain diseases common to the population will no longer recognize the individual and thereby will not harm him.

The creation of mankind is specific and it was narrated in Genesis chapter 1. What God has created let no man meddle with. And if it was permitted to be meddled with, then accept the responsibility as well as the consequence.

Did Esav look or behave differently after he sold his birthright to his brother Jacob? Before his dad, Jacob, got rich, he did not care about his “useless” birthright. And God hates someone who despises what He gave as a right to him. God is also the One who gives the right of inheritance to eternal life. In Beresheet 25, we find this tragic narrative.

²⁹ Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. ³⁰ And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.^[a]) ³¹ Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” ³² Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” ³³ Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. ³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Esav cannot measure or weigh that birthright that he got from Rebekkah his mother as the firstborn ahead of Jacob. He laughed and mocked it. In the next chapter, Jacob was blessed by God and got rich from Abimelech. Then the value of Esav’s inheritance was tangible but only until then. In the following chapter, Jacob told his firstborn the mistake that he made.

³⁴ As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me, even me also, O my father!” ³⁵ But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.” ³⁶ Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob?^[a] For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?” ³⁷ Isaac answered and said to Esau, “Behold, I have made him lord over you, and all his brothers I have given to him for servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?” ³⁸ Esau said to his father, “Have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

There will no one to wipe away the tears of the worshiper of the beast after the caragma mark is branded on him. So take heed today.

The Harm Of The Mark

It is the same with the right to be born a human and die as a human. But on that day, long before Esav summoned his birthright, he let it go. Later, he summoned Jacob for his inheritance in a blessing, he was already disqualified from receiving it from Jacob. We learn a lesson from Esav. If you have received the right to eternal life from Messiah, then you will have to sell it with the mark and buy radical life extension or other enticing temporal benefits from the beast. You will end up worshiping the beast and his image.

Revelation 14
⁹ And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, ¹⁰ he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. ¹¹ And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”

¹² Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

The saint will endure even unto death and reject the mark of the beast to trade away eternal life. It is as simple as that.

But there are other seeds that fell in other parts of the field in the parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. The seed – the Gospel – never took root to establish substance in the lives of many who have been exposed to the Gospel. They are at risk in the age of the beast. Messiah said everything that we needed to hear and to follow instructions to be received by Him. The word lambano is once more used in the Gathering of the elect in Matthew 24.

He said this, thus in red letters:

²⁹ “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰ Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Willful & Legal

Why the mention of the mark at all? Because everything to do with etenal life or eternal death is a matter of legal binding transactions.

It is in this sense that the word lambano is used to describe the cursed soul that purposefully receives the mark of the beast with a motive that is counterproductive in the long run, if we know, and an immediate appeal in order to “solve” a problem with a quick fix. This is the most prevalent form today of gene therapy. This is a pitch that I found on the www.

“Helping Cancer Patients Outperform with Powerful Treatment Options Tailored to Your Needs.”

Gene therapy holds promise for treating a wide range of diseases, such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, diabetes, hemophilia and AIDS. Researchers are still studying how and when to use gene therapy. Currently, in the United States, gene therapy is available only as part of a clinical trial. (As of the end of 2017.)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved only a limited number of gene therapy products for sale in the United States. (As of August 2020.)

Mayo Clinic

They are not talking about conventional, nasty chemo and radiation. E.g. a breast cancer patient is offered a gene therapy on an experimental or trail run for the good of human health. What the patient hears is this is her hope outside of God to cure her of cancer. She signs a form and she allows her genes to be changed to a DNA that the cancer will not attack in her. She is apparently cured of cancer, if they want to pitch it this way, but in fact she became immune. But she is no longer the birthed human that she used to be. The health challenges that she faces will be uncommon to the rest of the human race. She will be on a special pill for the rest of her life.

There will be other examples. Scientists are working toward the radical life extension technology as we read and speak. They are looking into AI to have a human thoughts, memory and genetic identity replicated to a cloud.What is radical life extension?

Radical life extension is the science of anti-aging. The idea is to extend personal and average life expectancy beyond what we would consider to be “normal”.

Scientists are redefining human mortality by bending the rules with technological augmentation using AI. Ai in Hebrew incidentally means destruction. Coincidence?

The curse of sin is in death. The antidote to death is in eternal life, which the Messiah brokered for those who follow Him to enjoy eternally. The curse of sickness, impairment and death can only be completely resolved by the Messiah. If one finds an alternative, then acknowledge it is an alternative to the Messiah. There is something in the Holy Bible that is just more advanced then modern day science and medicine. Changing genes was a field of expertise when the Watchers came to invade the earth in Genesis 6. As in the days of Noah, Messiah will come visit the earth again.

Paul wrote, 1 Corinthians 15|54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:“Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

You cannot have the cake and eat it too by radically extending your life on earth by human means. That does not make ‘you’ the overcomer. You got help. The overcomer in Revelation 2 – 3 overcome by obedience in Christ and by staying in faith. The one who cheated is done. If he still hopes to inherit eternal life without trusting God for doing what He is doing, including in sickness and in health, he is not worthy. Give up a privilege to lambano something in preference. But if a person wants to go around that, just know that eternal life is not a bank deposit that is waiting for him when he swipes right. That right is said clearly below. It is to be granted.

Exhibit A – John 1 |12 But to all who did 📍receive (lambano) him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

Exhibit B – Revelation 14| 9 “If anyone worships the beast and its image and 📍receives (lambano) a mark on his forehead or on his hand,

Did you notice the manuscript uses the same word, lambano? Both are required elements of an individual covenant between a human being and a spiritual entity. The “mark” is spiritual. The caragma grants a spiritual change. God’s caragma gives life. The beast’s caragma gives punitive consequence.

The action of lambano is an act of the will. The agent of the transaction will lead to a procedure, an operation, an intravenous injection or other means afforded by 21st century medical and genetic science. You may have eaten a bag of chips made with GMO but you wouldn’t tell the difference from your palette. Your guts may distinguish GMO when it sends gluten protein to your brain and scars the tissues. It is the same with an h+ being who has been meddled with in the DNA. Unless he dies, he, the violator, won’t feel the gravity of that negative promise in Revelation 14.

Finally this question begs an answer. Messiah says, heaven and earth will pass away but My words will never pass away. Why are there people who treat the words of Christ anyway less than a matter of life and death?

And it is in that attitude that many will lose their life for saving it.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.