It has become clear that anyone who publicly refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of homosexual marriage will be fired from his job or otherwise be incapable of making a living that this issue is a crossroad where people can or must make a choice of whether to follow the narrow road to Christ or the broad path that leads to destruction.
Hence in a symbolic way, or perhaps a literal way caving in on this issue and refusing to stake out a position of moral and biblical clarity in order to please the world is equivalent to taking the Mark of the Beast upon your forehead.
If you speak out against it, you may be fired from your job or your business will be sued into bankruptcy. However if you accept it, then you are accepting as holy that which God has clearly defined as an abomination.
There is a choice to be made. Take the Mark and gain the respect of the world, or refuse the Mark and suffer persecution.
That is why I equate this issue with the Mark of the Beast. You can’t have the Mark of Christ if you have taken the Mark of the Beast. This issue divides the wheat from the tares. It divides the sheep from the wolves in sheep’s clothing.
666
Man worshipping man. One can make a case for it, P-Marlowe. Good catch.
“Can neither buy nor sell without the mark.” Those who refuse are killed rather than held down and tattooed, so it has to be some choice. The forehead or hand are giving one’s mind to the beast and giving one’s labor to the beast.
Almost as if the Apostle John had read the Apostle Paul’s Romans 1
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.