1093
THE KING’S BUSINESS
their meaning and tried to blind the eyes of their dupes by dodging the issue and bringing in questions that have nothing to do with the point at issue. What is meant in Revelation by the Beast and mark of the Beast “and the number six hundred three score and six?” About this would say that we shall be able to decide more definitely about the beast after we have seen him than we can now. We always need to be cautious about interpreting prophecy. But this may . be confidently said, that the Beast is beyond question a mighty man who is to exercise power in this world. He will not be mani fested and exercise his power until after the church has been caught up to meet the Lord in 1 the air (2 Thess. 2:6-8), but tfis power will be manifested before the Lbrd comes back with His church to earth. The number 666 ,is his name, that is to say, in Greek figures are expressed by letters and some letters that Correspond to the figures, 666 , will spell his name. His mark will be an actual mark which he requires people to wear as a sign of their subjection to him. Of course many Seventh Day Adventists teach that keeping the first day of the week instead of the seventh day of the week is the mark of the Beast, but such teaching is absolutely nonsensical. His mark will not be any ceremony, neither first day Sabbath keeping or any other cer emony ; it will be an actual mark which his people are compelled by him to wear, “in their right hands, or in their foreheads” (Rev. 13:16). Furthermore, as the Beast is not yet manifested “the mark of the beast” does not and cannot yet exist. If you read the entire 13th chapter of Revela tion, you will see that there are to be two Beasts, one a supreme Beast and the other a subordinate Beast who exercises the authority -of the first Beast, that is there are to be two great men of great authority and power manifested here in the world, working terrible things in the days which are to come.
day after we work the six. But the com mandment does not say what seventh day it is to be, whether the first day of the week or the seventh day of the week, it simply says, “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh (not the seventh day of the week, but the sev enth day after these six days of work) is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God (in the Hebrew as in the Revised Version it says, is a Sabbath of the Lord thy God) : In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger, that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Now it is very plain that all that is com manded here is that there shall be six days of labor followed by a seventh day of rest. It simply says work six days and rest the seventh. It does not say, rest the seventh day of the week. It is true that the Jews did keep the seventh day of the week in commemoration of the completion of the old creation, but the commandment does not' bid that. The church after the resur rection of Jesus Christ from the dead kept the first day of the week in commemoration of the new creation, the “Lord’s Day" (Acts 20:7;. 1 Cor. 16:1, 2; Rev. 1:10). Christ appeared to his disciples after the resurrection on the first day o f'the week. It was the day He especially honored after His resurrection. Into the whole subject of Sabbath keeping I go at length in my little pamphlet, “Ought Christians to Keep .the Sabbath.” In regard to the Seventh Day. Adventists, let me say that they twist and pervert scripture and also history. Their statements as to when the keeping of the first day of the week .began are altogether unreliable and historically incor rect. They have tried to answer my pamph let, “Ought Christians to Keep the Sab bath,” but they have distorted what I say in their attempt to answer, have taken words out of their context, and perverted
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