Revelation 14 is a very intense and tragic section of the book of Revelation, and yet a very important one as we examine it. We have already gone through the first eight verses. Let me review quickly. There is an angel in Revelation 14:6 that shows up and he proclaims the eternal gospel. This an unusual event. Angels do not normally proclaim any kind of gospel. They have other ministries. They do not proclaim the gospel, but this one does. So, it is kind of like a last invitation to the world. Here is the gospel, worship the Lord, repent of your sin, and avoid the judgment that is to come. The second angel in verse Revelation 14:8 shows up and he starts to talk about the judgment that is coming saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great.” Babylon is perhaps a literal city here, but it also represents the world system in opposition to God. That system is just about to fall. As a matter of fact, at this point in the Tribulation Period, that system is failing, it is beginning to fall. We will see the details in Revelation 16, 17 & 18. Now we have this one angel giving the eternal gospel message, another that is warning of the falling of the world system in opposition to God.
Now in Revelation 14:9, we a have a third angel, who says, “Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand’” This third angel then is basically saying that if you ignore the gospel invitation of the first angel, and if you ignore the warning of judgment to come of the second angel, then here is what is going to happen as the third angel proclaims that. He is talking about this mark of the beast. Almost everybody knows something about the mark of the beast even if they, do not understand what we are seeing here. We find this mark of the beast connected with the worship of the antichrist, or the beast. I want to say a couple things about that. In our age right now, there is a lot of fear, conspiracy theories, and people get really upset wondering about this mark, and even confused that perhaps they are inadvertently taking the mark of the beast by maybe putting a chip into their system. With our technology today, more and more chips of various kinds are being implanted, and there are chips that perhaps in the future could be used for tracking and other such purposes. In fact, some tracking chips already exist. My point here is, there are people that are concerned that if they do use something like this, they could inadvertently be taking the mark of the beast and therefore condemned as this passage will say. I want to show you here that this is not the case whatsoever. The mark of the beast is an intentional allegiance to the beast – the antichrist. It is basically saying, “I am a follower of the antichrist.” There is nothing accidental or inadvertent going on. This is an INTENTIONAL act. Notice it says, “if anyone worships the beast or his image and receives the mark on his forehead or his hand.” So, this is an act not only of allegiance but also of worship. So, whomever is taking the mark of the beast is saying, “I am a follower of the antichrist and I worship him as if he is God.” So, they see him as God, and they worship him as such . . .
