Morning, June, 27

Only ye shall not go very far away.

Exodus 8:28

This is a crafty word from the lip of the arch-tyrant Pharaoh. If the poor bondaged Israelites must needs go out of Egypt, then he bargains with them that it shall not be very far away; not too far for them to escape the terror of his arms, and the observation of his spies. After the same fashion, the world loves not the non-conformity of nonconformity, or the dissidence of dissent; it would have us be more charitable and not carry matters with too severe a hand. Death to the world, and burial with Christ, are experiences which carnal minds treat with ridicule, and hence the ordinance which sets them forth is almost universally neglected, and even condemned.

Worldly wisdom recommends the path of compromise, and talks of “moderation.” According to this carnal policy, purity is admitted to be very desirable, but we are warned against being too precise; truth is of course to be followed, but error is not to be severely denounced. “Yes,” says the world, “be spiritually minded by all means, but do not deny yourself a little gay society, an occasional ball, and a Christmas visit to a theatre. What’s the good of crying down a thing when it is so fashionable, and everybody does it?” Multitudes of professors yield to this cunning advice, to their own eternal ruin. If we would follow the Lord wholly, we must go right away into the wilderness of separation, and leave the Egypt of the carnal world behind us. We must leave its maxims, its pleasures, and its religion too, and go far away to the place where the Lord calls his sanctified ones. When the town is on fire, our house cannot be too far from the flames. When the plague is abroad, a man cannot be too far from its haunts. The further from a viper the better, and the further from worldly conformity the better. To all true believers let the trumpet-call be sounded, “Come ye out from among them, be ye separate.”

My take on this:

Allow me to illustrate: Many Christians believe how the government and corporations mandated the masks, vaccines, QR codes, vaccine passports etc, was done in a manifestly unjust manner, riding over the rights of people, but more importantly, their obligations to live before God in obedience to the commands of God. This is widely recognised there were gross injustices done against their own people. Yet, they are unwilling to call the perpetrators to account, or to denounce their ungodly practices. There were notable exceptions in Australia, such as the Ezekiel Declaration and Caldron Pool. However, even there, there is a reluctance to suggest that this might be the Mark of the Beast.

I could be wrong about this being the Mark of the Beast, but I think a strong discussion needs to take place, and it is completely absent in the Church. Some have argued that the digital currencies may be the Mark, but the Church is silent and not developing a response to this fundamental change of how society will function and its relationship to government.

There is not a single argument presented to me about a possible future Mark, or a symbolic Mark, that is not true of the Vax/Mask/QR Code etc. Some arguments rest on whether the statements such as “cannot buy or sell” are absolute. And while opponents agree that Revelation is highly symbolic and non-literal, they stake their flag that this is not only literal, it is enforced absolutely and consistently around the world. This hyper literalism is inconsistent with Scripture, but that had not bothered them.

They counsel me “not to go too far away” from mainstream thought. But the danger here is that if the Vax is the Mark, Christians don’t just need to repent on taking it if they were deceived, they need to repent on how they treated their fellow believers who refused to disobey their conscience.