John MacArthur Condemned By Friends & Himself

Without reading into Scripture, the clear and obvious direction is to never take the Mark of the Beast.

It was a warning given to all believers some 2000 years ago and considered more direct and important than even a warning to Jews of the Holocaust.

While I also believe in the doctrine of once saved, always saved, His Revelation speaks volumes regarding the end times.

I suspect the Mark will be associated with 2 way communication and able to intercept or interrupt our soul in action of prayer. The AntiChrist isn’t revealed until the Great Apostasy and the Abomination which makes Desolate.

I suspect the Church with the mark may find themselves in a position where they sin, i.e. step out of fellowship with God, then in order to return to fellowship must face God, repent and confess their sins through faith in Christ to God the Father. If that process is continually interrupted, they remain out of fellowship. While many think a physical temple must be rebuilt in order for the AntiChrist to commit the Blasphemy of blasphemies, it might simply be the case of a soulish/spiritual interception, where the Mark enables the usurper to interrupt the Royal family and our priesthood with God through faith in Christ.

Never accept the Mark of the Beast. God has already provided a way through His Plan, no matter what the adversity.

Sontagged - I apologize for accusing you of slander. When I re-posted, I didn’t realize I was re-posting. I thought I had gotten busy and forgotten to submit the first time, and I had no idea there was something in violation of the rules there. (Mods - it would help to have a link to the rules for various forums on the FR home page.)

I guess the real issue I’m having is following how all the various points where you disagree with MacArthur relate to his teaching on the mark of the beast.

For example, you mentioned that there is family history of involvement with Freemasonry. I don’t know of any evidence that MacArthur himself was a mason, just his grandfather (or possibly his great-grandfather) and then one famous friend of his father. How does that relate to this thread? Is there some Freemason teaching that has an influence?

I understand that you also disagree with MacArthur in regard to the operation of the Holy Spirit. I hope you did see in my post that was pulled where MacArthur talked about his relationship with and respect for Jack Hayford. (If not, I can re-post that part. He had great things to say about Hayford.) He does not paint all Charismatics with a broad brush, although he does disagree with Charismatic doctrine. Again, how does this doctrinal disagreement relate to the teaching on the mark of the beast?

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Sorry for taking a few days to follow up. As I said earlier, your post 166 is very well reasoned and there is much to agree with you there. I will touch on some of the things you addressed.

In order to NOT be, “. . . be tormented with fire and brimstone . . .for ever and ever . . .” you cannot receive the mark. This comment comes after quotes from Rev. 14:9, 14:11, 16:2, 19:20, 20:4 and your suggestion is that this is a completely black and white issue. While I don’t disagree that the more inclusive ‘worship of the beast AND receive the mark’ means that the individual is condemned to Hell, what we are discussing here is whether just the receipt of the mark alone is all that is required for condemnation and this fits ALL scenarios. On that point, I wouldn’t be quite that dogmatic. Satan is the great imitator and it seems to me that the object of imitation here is that Satan is instituting his comparable method of establishing his true followers during the tribulation period…. Let me explain and I use this example in part because it ties into what you said in Post 166 about the use of the word ‘and’. When a person becomes saved, they ask forgiveness for their sins and accept Jesus Christ into their heart. Invitations to sinners are given in churches everywhere and a sinner sitting in a pew can quietly make that decision for him/herself and then walk out the door of the church. Are those people really saved? Well… maybe yes and maybe no. I have no doubt that there are many saved individuals who have whispered the ‘sinner’s prayer’ at a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade… but I think that there are some who whispered the prayer who never really were saved. How is it evident that a person is truly saved? The answer is that the person needs to make a public confession of their faith…. Just to be clear, the public confession isn’t necessary to be saved but this external action in conjunction with the internal belief is the verification that a person is indeed truly saved. That public confession can be by shouting it from the rooftop but the method instituted in the New Testament for how this is done is through the act of baptism which makes it all of course very public. On the other hand, if a person lined up with others to take their turn for a ‘dunk in the pool’ but in their heart had never accepted Christ, they are a fake and never were saved at all regardless of what they said. God knows the heart even more than we ourselves know it. Similarly, just having the mark in and of itself does not make one a ‘beast follower’…. Like baptism, it is an indicator of a true believer but it is not completely definitive in that it doesn’t weed out all the fakes. For the record, another ‘test’ of who a true Christian is can be found in 1 John 3:14 “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.”

So…. Satan as the great imitator has a very similar method. The act of ‘worshipping the beast’ is analogous to saying the ‘sinner’s prayer’ while the act of ‘receiving the mark’ is analogous to the pubic confession of one’s faith or a baptism. The fact that the mark has other attributes that allow one to ‘buy or sell’ is beside the point.

The problem with suggesting that a particular scenario is what occurs 100% of the time is that somebody will argue about specific exceptions to the rule. I don’t want to do that but it does need to be recognized that there will likely be numerous classifications for the people who are alive during the tribulation period. Relative to this issue of the mark, here are some that immediately come to mind:

- Those who had a chance to accept Christ before the rapture but made a conscientious decision to reject the offer of salvation. Do these people still have a chance to accept Christ during the tribulation period? It is the position of many Christians that they don’t and they often use 2 Thessalonians 9-12 to support this view. In reading these verses, I don’t actually think that this position is all that definitive. A bit more about this later…..

- Those who did not have a chance to accept Christ before the rapture because they for whatever reason never had the opportunity to do so.

While there is some question as to whether both of the above two groups can be saved during the tribulation, there becomes many more scenarios and permutations:

- Those who willingly worshipped the beast. And it’s assumed that those who willingly worshipped the beast will also willingly receive the mark. These are clearly the individuals spoken about in Revelation 14:10 who are totally and irretrievably condemned. One thought with this is that ‘worshipping of the beast’ may be synonymous with signing some type of ‘pledge of allegiance’ which one must do before they get a mark which allows them to buy and sell.

- Those who refused to worship the beast and refused to subject themselves to taking the mark and are martyred. No doubt many of these are those mentioned in Revelation 6:9-11 where the ones in ‘white robes’ are discussed…..it should be noted though that in these specific verses, the issue of the mark is not mentioned.

- Those who are physically forced to take the mark but do not worship the beast. There may be a number of possible groups who could fall under this category but the obvious one are babies who are born during the tribulation period. This is where you and I will have to agree to differ… I’m not in alignment with your statement that “ You only get the Mark after worship. It’s like a pre-requisite. Babies for example can’t really form the intent of an active form of ‘worship’ so this would seem to be one group that is excluded from the all-encompassing’ nature of your wording….. or perhaps there are no babies born during the tribulation? Well, we know that this isn’t true based on Mathew 24:19 “And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!”

I think it’s very very dangerous to suggest to unsaved people (let’s face it, it is they who will have to make this decision) that they can take the Mark, yet still be Saved. I have to admit to having a great deal of discomfort with this statement because I don’t believe that this is ever realistically said to people, at least in any kind of serious way. Can you imagine a preacher standing up at the end of a service and giving the invitation to the audience to “come, accept the offer of salvation that is before you….. BUT for those of you who don’t accept the offer now, whatever you do, DON’T take the mark if you are still here after the rapture occurs because that automatically means that you can never be saved.” I simply can’t imagine that and on those grounds, I think the point is moot. People everywhere are told that "NOW is the accepted time, NOW is the day of salvation."2 Corinthians 6:2("For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.") I believe this is your view as well as seen on one of your other posts. The world will be totally totally different after the rapture occurs in ways that we can’t possibly imagine…. The removal of God’s restraining spirit as discussed in 2 Thessalonians 2:6 will make the place unimaginable.