We continue here our study of how Revelation was given to the Lord to give to His bondservants. In Revelation 7, we are told that the Lord will hold back the four winds of the earth until His bondservants have been sealed. Therefore, only those who have embraced the life of a bondservant can fully understand this vision and are assured of not taking the mark of the beast.

         One question some have is, does the life of a bondservant mean that we never do anything for ourselves? No. On the contrary, there is no greater freedom that...

         We touched on how the “beast” in Revelation is an economic system that determines who can “buy, sell, or trade,” but it is more than that. The beast is also the personification of the worship of man. That is why his mark is 666. In biblical numerology, six is the number of man because man was born on the sixth day. Therefore, this system is an economy that worships man, esteeming man as the god of man, able to solve all of our own problems, and able to pick the winners and losers and distribute the resources.

         There...

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         We recently did a cursory study of the “four winds of the earth” and how they unfolded over history. Next, we will cover how the sealing of the bondservants is taking place at this time, and how they will keep from taking "the mark of the beast."

         First, the Lord assures us that none can be plucked from His hand. Satan cannot steal what God is protecting, and neither can he put his seal over God's seal. The important issue is how we abide in God’s protection, and how we avoid taking the devil’s mark of the beast,...

         We continue this study with Revelation 7:1:

          “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the  earth, so that no wind should blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree.”

         As we touched on last week, the “four winds of the earth” are the earth’s four great powers that can bring sweeping and profound changes to a civilization. These four are: military power, religious power, political power, and economic power.

         We see historically that the first great historical epoch was...