The Mark of the Beast in Revelation

[Ken]

I helped one of my Amish friends cut wood with a crosscut saw, and I don't see how they stay warm in the winter without a chain saw.

They stay warm by sawing wood, of course. Wood warms you twice: Once when you cut it, and again when you burn it.

But Tennessee/Kentucky is not Manitoba, either.

How many use coal. Or is that not a thing anymore?

I remember coal chutes in the old PA family farmhouse that dated to the early 1800s.

[Soloist]

[

"That no man may buy or sell" is the part that doesn't makes sense to me, which makes it the most interesting part - I would love to hear your ideas:

Rev 13:(17) And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

From what I understand, throughout history, if you had a gold coin, you could walk up to a vendor and buy what he had for sale. The same is true for paper money. A government really cannot control a purchaser of small amounts of goods.

A government might control who can sell items in a public market, like the old guilds, but there has always been a "black market" where vendors can illegally sell items to the public that are banned by the government.

So how would the "no man may buy or sell" be accomplished?:

Wife: So, my husband and I decided we’re not panmillennialists because I guess we do sort of believe that the millennial reign hasn’t happened yet, although we have no idea how that’s supposed to work, but we’re pretty close and wouldn’t claim to have any knowledge about how the end times are going to actually play out. Maybe they should come up with a better term for people like us.

To answer that specific question, though, in certain times past like in the USSR, for example, there were people who could not get jobs if they were found not to agree with communist ideology, and also coupling that with ration cards, it would’ve been pretty hard (not to mention dangerous) to buy or sell, although I don’t know if that includes the black market in that Bible verse. Also, in Nazi controlled areas, ration cards got denied to Jewish and others they didn’t like, and people would have to try forging them, or people in places like France would sometimes do black market goods with a pretty high risk of being found out. Many people who helped sneak food or forge ration cards ended up in concentration camps by the end of the war. It’s possible that also happened in Roman times where you couldn’t conduct transactions without doing pagan customs, but I don’t know if that’s just some commentator’s opinion or not. That kind of stuff could always happen again, although whether or not that would make it the mark of the beast, I don’t know. Probably a smart thing to avoid denying God/compromising conviction regardless of eschatology though.

[JohnHurt]

I’m not a fan of gold either, any more than paper. The Bible explicitly warns about trusting in gold and silver, and how perishable these metals are. Why pile up gold for the day of trouble, when this is what is written?

“They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.” Ezekiel 7:19

“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” James 5:1-3

“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:” 1 Peter 1:6-7

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold,..” 1 Peter 1:18

And of course Matthew address the concept of storing treasures:
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

There is a difference between using gold and silver as the medium of exchange, and hoarding gold and silver.

There is something called "the velocity of money" where a single dollar can be spent 10 different people in the same day, which performs the work of $10 to the movement and exchange of goods. If one person takes every dollar that comes to him, and puts it under his mattress, the velocity of money is zero, and the ability to exchange goods is diminished.

So one person being greedy hurts all of us.

And it is not just "gold" or even "money" that should not be hoarded, it can be produce that is a man's treasure:

Luke 12:(16) And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

(17) And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

(18) And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

(19) And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

(20) But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

(21) So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

If we do have a "mark where no man can buy or sell", we either need an intentional community where necessities can be shared freely, or a medium of exchange, like Bitcoin or metals.

If a community, then you need some way to handle those healthy but lazy people that will not work, or just barely will work

If you have to use a medium of exchange, like gold coins, or even tokens, then the authorities will try to tax you.

Barter can also work, but I believe there is some IRS rule that you should pay taxes on bartered items.

I think it would be a combination of gifts, barter, and maybe a minted coin used by the community to be exchanged as a token to represent a day's work.

[JohnHurt]

[

"That no man may buy or sell" is the part that doesn't makes sense to me, which makes it the most interesting part - I would love to hear your ideas:

Rev 13:(17) And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

From what I understand, throughout history, if you had a gold coin, you could walk up to a vendor and buy what he had for sale. The same is true for paper money. A government really cannot control a purchaser of small amounts of goods.

A government might control who can sell items in a public market, like the old guilds, but there has always been a "black market" where vendors can illegally sell items to the public that are banned by the government.

So how would the "no man may buy or sell" be accomplished?:

Wife: So, my husband and I decided we’re not panmillennialists because I guess we do sort of believe that the millennial reign hasn’t happened yet, although we have no idea how that’s supposed to work, but we’re pretty close and wouldn’t claim to have any knowledge about how the end times are going to actually play out. Maybe they should come up with a better term for people like us.

To answer that specific question, though, in certain times past like in the USSR, for example, there were people who could not get jobs if they were found not to agree with communist ideology, and also coupling that with ration cards, it would’ve been pretty hard (not to mention dangerous) to buy or sell, although I don’t know if that includes the black market in that Bible verse. Also, in Nazi controlled areas, ration cards got denied to Jewish and others they didn’t like, and people would have to try forging them, or people in places like France would sometimes do black market goods with a pretty high risk of being found out. Many people who helped sneak food or forge ration cards ended up in concentration camps by the end of the war. It’s possible that also happened in Roman times where you couldn’t conduct transactions without doing pagan customs, but I don’t know if that’s just some commentator’s opinion or not. That kind of stuff could always happen again, although whether or not that would make it the mark of the beast, I don’t know. Probably a smart thing to avoid denying God/compromising conviction regardless of eschatology though.

That is a good observation. What is written in Revelation probably applies as a warning to every generation.

I like the idea of someone who has the mark providing for someone that doesn't.

[Josh]

You can barter with gold and silver with you want (although some law says you can’t write contracts denominating gold as payment, but you can easily work around that, legally).

[JohnHurt]

You can barter with gold and silver with you want (although some law says you can’t write contracts denominating gold as payment, but you can easily work around that, legally).

One way to get around the "mark" is to barter with "scrip".

A good example is "Canadian Tire Money"



This is a loyalty program "scrip" that is issued by the Canadian Tire company and can be used just like a Canadian dollar to purchase items in their store.

So the way it would work for those outside the system is...

I raise sheep, and I have a 3 month old lamb that is worth $150.00. I want to buy 3 ricks of firewood from you for $150 - and you don't want one of my lambs, so I write you a "scrip" or piece of paper that states that whoever has this paper scrip is entitled to one lamb worth $150.

Then, after I take the firewood, you then use my $150 "lamb scrip" to purchase $150 of vegetable produce from another trading partner - someone that knows me and knows that my scrip is valid and backed by my ability to provide the lamb. That person can trade the lamb scrip to another person, or bring it to me and ask that I make good on the scrip. This is how average people can create their own money.

US Dollars used to be backed by silver, and you could take a US Dollar to the bank and demand the silver behind the paper money. Not any more. It is now all just "funny money".

The US dollar is only backed by someone else's "ability to repay". Our paper money has the same backing as this type of money:



As long as everyone is playing the same "game", then our Federal Reserve Notes are valid. If people lose trust in it, it will crumble.

Gresham's Law is that "Bad money drives out good money.". That is, you will hang on to the gold or silver, or even "lamb scrip", and make your purchases with the hyper inflated Federal Reserve Currency that loses value every day.

You would also hold on to my more valuable "lamb scrip", as it is "actually worth something tangible" that does not change in value. I think it would work.

Voltaire said that "Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero." - that is, paper money not backed by anything but your belief that it is valuable - will die from inflation. Voltaire saw this hyperinflation during the French Revolution - when a bunch of crazy socialists started burning cities and killing people for social justice reasons - a lot like today.

The difference is - my $150 "lamb scrip" will always be valuable, as long as I am in the lamb business. No one would hoard it, since it has undetermined life expectancy - of how long I will have lambs available. So it would probably be swapped a few times, and then be presented back to me in about 2 weeks or so.

In a system like this the production of money is directly tied to the production of goods. Goods that no one wants, like a complete set of the writings of Karl Marx, would generate a scrip that no one wants and could not be exchanged. This monetary system would prevent the writings of Marx from ever happening in the first place.

But to have tires for your car, like from the Canadian Tire Store - that is a necessary item for everyone and a great backing for any scrip.

Scrip is how you beat the socialist beast system, even now.

Start thinking about building a Christian Community - and trade only with your friends.

And let the Socialist eat their own words if they are hungry. Tell them they can chop up and boil their "Das Kapital" and "Rules for Radicals" books and make a soup out of it. Or they could choose to work like the rest of us and try not steal from everyone as part of their ridiculous "social justice" scam.

[Josh]

It turns out that everyone in the entire world prefers Federal Reserve Notes to any other kind of script or barter.

[JohnHurt]

It turns out that everyone in the entire world prefers Federal Reserve Notes to any other kind of script or barter.

Only because the other currencies in the entire world are EVEN WORSE than our US Federal Reserve Notes!

There is a Federal Reserve Bank in every country in the world, except North Korea and Iran. The Federal Reserve "paper money inflation scam" is worldwide, there is no stable currency.

So if I gave you a dollar, which one would you want?

This one:



or this one:



Which one would you put in your piggy bank and hold onto, and which one would you trade away as soon as possible?

You would trade the paper money immediately because it loses value.

That is why paper money is so popular and no one trades in silver.

[Josh]

Actually, most people keep their reserves in U.S. Treasury’s which are considered the most stable store of value in the world.

Very few holdings are kept in gold and silver. People who do want to take risks often invest in real estate, stocks, a business and so forth.

[ken_sylvania]

It turns out that everyone in the entire world prefers Federal Reserve Notes to any other kind of script or barter.

Only because the other currencies in the entire world are EVEN WORSE than our US Federal Reserve Notes!

There is a Federal Reserve Bank in every country in the world, except North Korea and Iran. The Federal Reserve "paper money inflation scam" is worldwide, there is no stable currency.

So if I gave you a dollar, which one would you want?

This one:



or this one:



Which one would you put in your piggy bank and hold onto, and which one would you trade away as soon as possible?

You would trade the paper money immediately because it loses value.

That is why paper money is so popular and no one trades in silver.

Actually, if you gave me a silver dollar the reason I might hold onto it longer than a paper dollar is because of the hassle of exchanging it for its value. If you gave me several silver dollars I would probably sell them and use the money to buy something that I could actually eat, wear, or otherwise use.