Page 53 - The Mark of the Beast

Revelation reveals that a majority of the church will fall short of the will of God in these
things. We have read of the church in the last days being depicted as a harlot riding upon
a beast. This harlot is described with words that indicate that she is materially focused when
she should instead have a pure devotion to Christ in her heart. We read of this harlot:

Revelation 17:4
The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious
stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the
unclean things of her immorality...

Revelation 18:7
To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give
her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, “I sit as a queen and I am not
a widow, and will never see mourning.”

Some of the outstanding things that mark this harlot are her sensuous living, her
emphasis on self, and her great attention to the way she is adorned with the wealth of the
world. She spares no effort or expense for self, choosing to lavish herself with everything
she desires, and she abhors the suffering of the cross. She desires to avoid all mourning, all
suffering, all pain, seeking to spend her days in comfort and ease.
James saw the danger of the church entering into harlotry with the world in his day,
and he spoke strongly to admonish the saints.

James 4:3-4
You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may
spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with
the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the
world makes himself an enemy of God.

All it takes to qualify as an enemy of the cross is to be devoted to the pursuit of
pleasure, comfort, or ease. Many are the saints who will be caught up in a pursuit of worldly
things when Christ returns.

Luke 17:26-30
And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son
of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being
given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and
destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating,
they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they
were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and
brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day
that the Son of Man is revealed.

There was much debauchery in Sodom, even as Paul listed the sins of homosexuality,
stealing, adultery and fornication among the things that would keep men and women from
the kingdom of heaven. Yet Luke quotes the Lord as saying that Sodom was focused upon
eating and drinking and buying and selling and planting and building. Are these things evil?