What About the Mark? by Greg Laurie for Harvest
He required everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. ~Revelation 13:16 NLT
Alarming trends in tech today have caused some people to ask, “Is this going to be the mark of the Beast?”
With all of our track–and–trace technology, online commerce, and the rise of globalism, we can see the foreshocks of it. The Bible tells us the Antichrist will establish global control through a cashless society.
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Revelation 13:17–18 says, “And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name...Let the one with understanding solve the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666” (NLT).
Just about everyone knows of this number, which is the mark of the Beast.
Here’s what the Bible is saying: The Antichrist will introduce a cashless society, which will require people to take a mark. No one will be able to buy or sell without this mark. It will be a visible, literal mark that people will have on their right hands or foreheads, and they will have to declare their allegiance to the Antichrist to receive it.
People won’t get this mark accidentally. In fact, Revelation tells us that an angel will warn
people not to take the mark of the Beast (see Revelation 14:9–11).
Let me emphasize, however, that these are future events. They’re not in our past, and they’renot yet in our present. Everything will build up during the time of the Great Tribulation (which lasts for seven years) to the Battle of Armageddon.