The Mark Of The Beast Found In Revelation 13 Is Further Proof For A Pretribulation Rapture Of The Church

The Bible declares in two separate places in Revelation 14 and 20 that there will be no forgiveness for taking the Mark, and it doesn’t matter why you took it.

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38,39 (KJV)

One of the most amazing things about be born again in the Church Age is that God has given us eternal security by faith in Jesus Christ. When we accepted His payment on the cross as the payment for our sin personally, and put our trust and faith in His death, burial and resurrection, God forgave all of our sins past, present and future. Certainly, we could sin after salvation and temporarily break our fellowship with the Lord, but never for a single second would our salvation be in jeopardy. The apostle John gives us the remedy for restoring our fellowship with Him when the Holy Spirit had him write this:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 (KJV)

John was writing not to lost people in that passage, but to saved people, and the context is fellowship and not salvation. Eternal security is never a ‘license to sin’, and sin and backsliding should always be repented of, but the doctrine to the Church Age Christian is quite clear. There is nothing we can say or do to lose our salvation because not only did we not work to get it, and not work to keep it, there is also a third aspect to why we can never lose it. Here it is:

“That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:12-14 (KJV)

At the moment of salvation, the Holy Spirit SEALED US IN by the power of God, and Paul declares that that ‘seal’ will remain INTACT until either we are 1). taken up in the Rapture of the Church, or 2). die and go to be with the Lord.

“Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 (KJV)

So now you’re probably wondering what eternal security for Christians in the Church Age has to do with the Mark of the Beast in the time of Jacob’s trouble. Well, the answer is quite simply and wonderfully revealing. In the time of Jacob’s trouble, unlike the Church Age, God says there will be a sin that He will in no wise forgive.

And that’s taking the Mark Of The Beast!

The Bible declares in two separate places in Revelation 14 and 20 that there will be no forgiveness for taking the Mark, and it doesn’t matter why you took it. Maybe it’s a young mom who is watching her kids starve to death because she didn’t take the Mark, and now she is unable to buy food to feed them. So she takes the Mark for the sole purpose of feeding her starving kids thinking God will forgive that, but she would be wrong. God won’t.

“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, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” Revelation 14:9-11 (KJV)

A near identical passage is found in Revelation 20 which repeats what 14 says and adds even more ‘meat’ to the bones as well:

“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4 (KJV)

Proof that the Church cannot go through the time of Jacob’s trouble

I have always said that the main reason why the Church will not spend even a single day in the time of Jacob’s trouble is because, well, it’s called the time of JACOB’S trouble. It has nothing to do with the Church!

“For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30:5-7 (KJV)

But the taking of the Mark of the Beast is yet more proof that Christians will not be exposed to it. Since the Bible clearly declares in Revelation that God will not forgive anyone who takes it, and Paul clearly declares in dozens and dozens of passages that Christians have eternal security, we know that the rapture of the Church must take place before the time of Jacob’s trouble where Antichrist will force his mark on humanity.

We know this because it is certainly true that if saved Laodicean Christians were faced with taking the mark, many would ‘jump ship’ and take it because they would not have the guts to die a martyr’s death at the guillotine of Antichrist. So if even one born again Christian were to take the Mark, there would be an immediate problem. God could not send that person to Hell as it says He will in Revelation 14 and 20 because He had already promised the born again Christian in the writings of Paul that nothing could separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Both those things cannot be true at the same time.

Fortunately, by applying Paul’s command in 2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV) to ‘rightly divide’ the scriptures, we clearly see that the Rapture of the Church removes born again Christians before the start of the time of Jacob’s trouble and thus it never becomes a problem. Here are just a few verses proving a Pretribulation Rapture of the Church:

• NOT APPOINTED TO WRATH: Our apostle Paul tells us that born again Christians will not be here to face the wrath of God, otherwise known as the time of Jacob’s trouble. God’s wrath begins on DAY ONE after the Rapture of the Church with the opening of the FIRST SEAL by Jesus Christ and the ushering in of the ‘strong delusion’.  “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Thessalonians 5:9 (KJV)
• EXCUSED FROM THE HOUR OF TEMPTATION: Born again Christians have seen plenty of persecution over the past 2,000 years, not the least of which being the Spanish Inquisition where the Roman Catholic Church slaughtered millions of Christians for defying the pope and owning a Bible for themselves. Christians were promised they would have troubles like that, but that is not anything like the ‘hour of temptation’ contained in the time of Jacob’s trouble. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” Revelation 3:10 (KJV)
• CAUGHT UP IN THE CLOUDS: In Matthew 24, we see a rapture of Tribulation Saints conducted by an angel, but it is markedly different from the Rapture of the Church that Paul teaches us about. In Matthew 24, the remaining Saints are gathered on the earth by angels blowing a trumpet. But in the Rapture of the Church, it is Jesus Himself who calls us up to be with Him in the clouds with no trumpet. In Matthew 24, there are no ‘dead in Christ’ rising first, but there is in 1 Thessalonians, and the list goes on and on. Things that are different are not the same. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 (KJV)
• LOOKING FOR JESUS: Curiously absent in the writings of our apostle Paul is any and all instruction on how to deal with living under Antichrist. In fact, Paul never mentions it one time. Why not? Because Paul gives us the doctrine of the Pretribulation Rapture of the Church instead. “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJV)
• JOHN AS A TYPE OF THE CHURCH GETS RAPTURED: John was the disciple that ‘Jesus loved’, the Bible declares. Furthermore, he was the longest-living apostle and the only one who was never killed for his faith. In Revelation 4, John hears the words ‘come up hither’ and in the ‘blink of an eye’ and with the ‘voice as a trumpet’ from 1 Corinthians 15. he finds himself in the throne room of God. This is a type picture of Christians in the rapture of the Church. “After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.” Revelation 4:1 (KJV)

The Old Testament saints of Psalm 148 are not the same as the Church Age saints in Romans 15, and the Church Age saints are not the same as the Tribulation saints found in Daniel 7 and Revelation 8. And while there is no forgiveness for taking the Mark, that is something that a Church Age Christian will never be faced with because we won’t be here.

The one good thing about the Mark of the Beast, yea the only good thing, is that it’s further proof of a Pretribulation Rapture of the Church.

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