Page 60 - The Mark of the Beast

have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep
and oxen, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed."

Many are the saints who pretend to have carried out the will of Yahweh. Yet these
saints have chosen to forget much of God’s will. They come to God and declare, “I have kept
the faith by maintaining my confession of Christ,” yet they have ignored God’s many
admonitions for the saints to be holy, even as He is holy. They have somehow forgotten that
Christ said that all who would follow Him must take up the cross daily, and deny the flesh,
and live for God’s pleasure rather than their own.
What was Saul’s justification for disobeying the command of Yahweh? He declared
that he and the people spared the attractive beasts so that they could be presented to
Yahweh as a sacrifice. This act of disobedience was supposedly done for God. With such
deceit does the church justify her continuance of riding upon the beast today.
The church says, “It is good to love money, for if I have much money I can give more
to God.” The church says, “It is good for me to have a glorious appearance, to promote
myself and tell of my great education and many honors and awards, for then people will
think me wise and listen to me when I tell them of Christ.” The church says, “It is good that
I am satiated with the goods of this world, for then the world will not find me so repulsive,
but rather they will be attracted to my embrace and be brought to Christ.” The church says,
“I must give myself to much entertainment and pleasure, for these things will draw in the
lost.” The church says, “I must have the same type of music as the world, and the same
clothing styles, and I must have as much of the flavor of the world as possible, for in this
way I can draw in more people and bring them to God.”
Yet God sees through the deceit. The church’s decision to spare the beast nature was
not arrived at for the sake of God, but for the sake of self. The church has not failed to
embrace the cross and leave off her pursuit of the world and its pleasures out of concern for
God, or the lost, but because she loves the world and the things of the world. It is a carnal
church that would follow God with half measures, and it is such a church who will have the
kingdom taken from her and given to one who is better than she.
Here now is a great distinction between the overcomers and those who will be rejected
as members of a harlot church. The harlot, like Saul, makes excuses when confronted with
their failure to do the will of God. Those who are overcomers will stumble at times, perhaps
even badly as David did in his sin with the wife of Uriah. Yet when confronted with their
transgressions, the overcomers will respond with quick repentance. When the prophet
Samuel confronted King Saul he was met with excuses and justifications. In stark contrast,
when the prophet Nathan confronted David we read:

II Sam 12:13
Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against Yahweh."

David not only confessed his sin, but he never transgressed in the same way again.
Saul, however, became more willful and stubborn throughout the rest of his reign. His
failure to repent sincerely and completely led to his being given over to greater error. Saul
killed an entire city of priests out of jealousy, and he consulted a medium shortly before his
death.
Today there is a group of saints who are embracing the cross and subduing and ruling
over the beast nature, crucifying their flesh and buffeting their bodies. They are becoming