MEMORY VERSE: ‘And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.’ Revelation 13:16.
LESSON AIM: To study the mark of the beast, which is to be imposed on all people.
‘When God sends to men warnings so important that they are represented as proclaimed by holy angels flying in the midst of heaven, He requires every person endowed with reasoning powers to heed the message. The fearful judgements denounced against the worship of the beast and his image (Revelation 14:9-11), should lead all to a diligent study of the prophecies to learn what the mark of the beast is, and how they are to avoid receiving it.’ Darkness Before Dawn, page 37.
1. What mark is to be imposed on all people? Revelation 13:16.
NOTE: ‘After the warning against the worship of the beast and his image, the prophecy declares: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” [See Revelation 14:9-12.] Since those who keep God’s commandments are thus placed in contrast with those that worship the beast and his image and receive his mark, it follows that the keeping of God’s law, on the one hand, and its violation, on the other, will make the distinction between the worshipers of God and the worshipers of the beast. The special characteristic of the beast, and therefore of his image, is the breaking of God’s commandments. Says Daniel, of the little horn, the papacy: “He shall think to change times and the law.” Daniel 7:25, R.V. And Paul styled the same power the “man of sin,” who was to exalt himself above God. One prophecy is a complement of the other. Only by changing God’s law could the papacy exalt itself above God; whoever should understandingly keep the law as thus changed would be giving supreme honour to that power by which the change was made. Such an act of obedience to papal laws would be a mark of allegiance to the pope in the place of God.’ Great Controversy, age 446.
2. Who is represented by the beast? Revelation 13:1-2, 5-7.
NOTE: ‘The “beast” received his power, and his seat, and great authority, from “the dragon.” The latter is identified in chapter 12 as “that old serpent, called the devil and Satan.” Verse 9. He it was who sought to devour the man child, Christ, as soon as He was born. The visible agent in this attempt was Herod, who, as the Roman governor of Judea, represented the empire under which he ruled, and back of the pagan empire, wielding its power for his own purposes, was Satan, “the prince of this world,” the real enemy with whom Christ contended. Papal Rome was given the seat of pagan Rome, the “eternal city”, to which power and prestige still adhered; which power and prestige, as the papacy developed, rose to a height which far surpassed that exercised by her pagan predecessor. There was given unto “the beast” “a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.” “Great” indeed, are the claims put forth by Rome: and her spiritual pretensions, such as the “infallibility” of her head, the power to forgive sins [see Mark 2:7], to grant indulgences, to bind the conscience, etc., are blasphemies of the truest sort. “It was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.” Here also papal Rome stands without a rival among earthly powers, as witness the long ages of her relentless warfare upon those whom she counted heretics.’ A. T. Jones: The American Sentinel, October 10, 1895.