Page 54 - The Mark of the Beast

Doesn’t man need to eat? Is it wrong for man to live in a house or to plant crops to eat? No,
but many people have the attitude of the man of which Christ spoke in His parable:

Luke 12:16-21
And He told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man was very productive.
And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to
store my crops?’ Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and
build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to
my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease,
eat, drink and be merry.’” But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your soul
is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?” So is the man
who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

The saints may reason that they do not have barns, nor have they built themselves
bigger ones. The goods of the current age may not be placed in barns, but they are placed
in homes. How many saints have purchased a larger home because they surveyed all their
goods and decided they needed more room to store it all? The prophet Ezekiel further
describes the transgression of Sodom with these words:

Ezekiel 16:49-50
Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had
arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.
Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I
removed them when I saw it.

It is very easy to fall into a pattern of selfish living when we are surrounded by a self-
focused society. The excesses of the world around us are everywhere. People are glutting
themselves while turning a blind eye to those in need around them. This should not be true
of the saint of God, for the child of God should have their eyes turned upon the Savior and
a pursuit of Him alone. “The things of earth” should “grow strangely dim in the light of His
glory and grace.”
There is a cross for all saints to bear in the matter of spending, in their acquisitions
and consumption. Our life will either be a manifestation of the beast nature that is focused
upon acquisitions and consumption, or it will be an expression of the divine nature that is
giving and where things of this earth do not have a hold. Consider for a moment what Paul’s
words to the saints in Corinth actually mean. He said, “those who buy, [should be] as
though they did not possess; and those who use the world, as though they did not make full
use of it.”
Let us use a house as an example, for we see houses specifically named in the book of
Acts as one of those things that the saints did not claim ownership of, but which they were
in some cases selling to give the proceeds to the needs of the church, and in other cases
opening up their homes for the benefit of the church and the needs of the saints. What
would it mean to buy a home, but to live as though we do not possess it?
One clear meaning is given in the book of Acts where we are told that no one claimed
that anything they possessed was their own. Such an idea is really foreign to the saints
today. We may think, “I bought this house and it is mine. It is for my personal use and that
of my family. Others do not have the same right to this house as I do.” Does such an attitude