THE FALSE PROPHET: PART TWO

There is quite a bit of irony in Revelation 13:10, in that the antichrist is given a mortal head wound with a sword (13:14), and yet he authorizes perhaps millions to be decapitated for refusing to worship him (13:15). Then, of course, when Christ returns, He is described as having a sword coming out from His mouth (19:15, 21). In Ephesians 6:17, the Apostle Paul defines the sword of the Lord: "And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Just as Jesus spoke and the worlds were formed (Jn. 1:1-3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:1-2), He will, with the same voice, destroy His enemies.

The false prophet deceives by performing miracles and "great wonders" (13:13-14), just as the first Beast did before him (2 Thes. 2:9). He causes those deceived by him to create an idol in the image of the first Beast, and he has the power to "give life unto the Beast" (13:13-14). Mankind will then be forced to worship the image or be killed (13:15). Apparently, when a person bows to the image, they will then receive the infamous "mark of the Beast," and will be permitted to conduct business transactions (13:16-17). There have been innumerable guesses as to what the mark is, but the only thing we know for sure is that it is not the name of the Beast, nor is it the number of his name (13:17). Notice the person must have "the mark," OR "the name of the Beast," OR "the number of his name." The "mark" is identified in the following verse as being "the number of a man," and the man's number is 666 (13:18). In biblical numerology, man has the number six due to the fact he was created on the sixth day (Gen. 1:26-31).

I have a theory as to what the "mark" might be, but I emphasize it is only a theory. In the Hebrew alphabet, each letter also represents a number. For instance, aleph equals one, beth equals two, etc., and the number six in Hebrew is vav. So, 666 would be vav, vav, vav. Because the Hebrew alphabet does not have the letter "w," English speaking translators usually, but not always, write "w" for the letter vav instead of "v." An exception is the word "Jehovah" which in the Hebrew is yod, he, vav, he (pronounced yode, hay, vav, hay). These four letters are the name of God as given in Exodus 3:14, and are known as the "Tetragrammaton" (from Greek τετραγράμματον, meaning "a word having four letters").

Because the letter "w" has been so widely accepted as the English for vav, the number 666 has been thought by many to be the number version of "www," or the World Wide Web. In other words, it is a computer system capable of identifying every individual on the planet. Today, science has created "The 666 Microchip," which can be implanted under a man’s skin. This small microchip can be used:

…as a tracking device to locate people, just like a tracking device used in animals.
…as an identification id, to identify terrorists, and to track criminals.
…As a medium of transaction, can be used for financial transactions.

According to Jack Van Impe, the Bilderberg's, an elitist think-tank, plans to microchip every human on the planet by the year 2017. If they are able to succeed, that would mean the Second Coming of Christ for the Church could occur at any moment. Microchipping would be finished within six years! And since it doesn't really get used to control the world until after the middle of the Tribulation, that means the Tribulation could easily begin within two and one half years!

More on the false prophet tomorrow, Lord permitting.