What is the mark of the beast?
It is not a literal mark any more that those with God’s name written on them in {Rev 3:12} will receive a tattoo.
To be “marked†by either God or satan is a metaphor of servitude, it is the ‘brand’ (spiritually) of whom they serve. In the Old Testament days slaves where branded with the mark of their master, this was a ‘type’ (similitude, example) of the mark of servitude in the end-times to satan OR to God depending on which side you fall on. Let’s look at two “marks†or names of ownership written, one bad, one good. Understand that these are symbolic, they are not actually names literally tattooed on, they are spiritual identifiers:
Rev 17:5
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. (KJV)
Rev 3:12
12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. (KJV)
The mark of the beast is not a tattoo, bar code, computer chip,... It is a metaphor for servitude to a master. It is a mark (spiritually) of slavemanship. I’m sure that you have heard a phase in our English language: “He has the mark of Cain†when referring to a murderer or evil person. It’s just an metaphor meaning that the guy is a murderer or just a rotten dude.
The mark is IN your forehead, not on it. What is in your forehead? Your brain, your center on reason and choice.
Rev 13:16
16 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 (KJV)
Rev 14:9
9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand (KJV)
The mark 'in the right hand' is a Hebrew metaphor meaning the work you do. The right hand is the power hand, the hand that does most tasks. Jesus is seated at the RIGHT hand of God, He is the power and salvation of God.
You will have received the mark of the beast at thet time when antichrist is here on earth if, with your heart (mind), you worship him as the the false messiah antichrist and you help him with his ungodly plans by the work ‘of your own hands’ (unwitting in most cases due to deception and false teaching). This does not mean that those deceived will go strait to hell, they who DID NOT HAVE A FAIR CHANCE (and only them) to know the truth will be taught in the Millennium of (Rev chpt. 20).
Understand that satan could not very well come here as the false messiah, the false christ, the antichrist and go around trying to tattooing 666's on Christians foreheads, that would deceive nobody, and any Christian would immediately identify him as the antichrist and flee from him. Satan is a lot smarter and subtler than that!
Never underestimate your enemy, for: “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made... †{Gen 3:1}. Satan cannot MAKE you take his mark, he must cause you to TAKE it yourself either by choice or by deceiving you, tricking you. Satan is a supernatural being possessing supernatural powers beyond our comprehension. If God allowed him to physically and horribly torture a human being or his/her children into taking the Mark (which God most certainly will not allow, and promised as much), most any and every human being would do exactly what antichrist told them to do - period!
But submitting in that fashion means nothing to your soul, God made these central nervous systems, He knows how they work: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.†{Matt 26:41}.
And under such duress as torture, where they would submit under intense pain quite insane with agony, it would not be binding, the person will not willingly have chosen satan over God; and it is all about choices, serve God or serve satan, go to hell or go to Heaven, each person must decide for himself.
So should satan expose whom he is by running around killing people, he would have wasted his efforts, exposed himself as the antichrist and lost any chance to draw in Christians through subtle means and deceptions. Also, if he does kill someone, anyone, the ‘game’ for him is over, as when he kills the Two Witnesses in (Rev chpt.11), you notice it is then that Jesus comes back for His Second Advent and promptly deposits satan into the bottomless pit {Rev 20:3}.
But while satan and his fallen angels (the locust army of {Rev 9:1-5} cannot kill anyone, man still can, and times will certainly be dangerous for Christians who know that satan is the false christ standing in Jerusalem and not the true Jesus Christ that he shall be telling the world that he is. Christians shall be killed by men, because, just as during the Catholic inquisitions during the dark ages, men will think that they God a service by killing those who do not worship he (antichrist) whom the world will think is the true messiah of God. So be careful for sure!:
John 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. (KJV)
It might be a comfort to one if they understood through prophecy that satan ultimately fails to deceive the world, while at first he succeeds for a short while. But God has it all laid out, God has a plan to conquer, and in the end it is the testimony of the Elect whom are seized and put on trial by the deceived men of the world, which shall sway the conscience of the world, for it is the Holy Spirit that speaks through these Elect at that time {Mark 13:10-11}.
It is then in desperation that satan kills the Two Witnesses, which he was strictly forbade to do by God. This of course is his undoing, and once he crosses that line, the cataclysmic sequence of Second Advent events play out in rapid fire succession: Armageddon fougt by God against the wicked of the world, all flesh transformed into spirit form, all the wrath of God type stuff written about the “end of the world†as commonly mis-referred to as.
But not one of these events nor the wrath of God harms the faithful. God isn’t mad at them, in fact, it is for them that He terminates this dispensation. The faithful are transformed into their spiritual bodies as Jesus returns destroying, in the most violent fashion, the wicked: “It is a fearful ting to fall into the hands of the living God.†{Heb 10:31}.
Satan has parameters that he must work within, and he is totally subject to the will of God. God is in ultimate control,