Last week we began to address how the judgment of God begins with His own people (see I Peter 4:17). He could not judge the world for the things that His own people are doing, so there must be a purging and cleansing of His people. The Lord promised that He would remove the tares from among His people. Of this we can be assured.

As we are told in Ephesians 5:27, He will cleanse His bride with His word so “that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having...

Last week we discussed how the primary way we will escape from the mark of the beast is to take the mark of God by becoming a true bond-servant of Christ. One of the principles of the last days that we have not yet discussed is how the judgment of God will come forth. A fundamental aspect of His judgment is to simply let us reap what we sow. In Galatians 6:7-8, we are warned about this:

Last week we learned that because of the root of evil (the love of money), and the coming of the beast and his mark (an economic mark), understanding and living by Christian economics is going to become one of the important issues of our time.

Christians are called to be “in the world but not of it.” As we progress toward the end of this age, and the beginning of the next, we must extract ourselves from the systems of this present evil age and build our lives on the kingdom of God that is coming. To serve the Lord...

Last week, we began our study of the beast, and the “mark of the beast” (Revelation 16:2). As stated, because this beast comes “up out of the earth” (Revelation 13:11) this speaks of it being borne out of humanism, or earthly mindedness. We also know that the “mark of the beast” is an economic mark that enables one to “buy, sell, or trade.” Therefore, we can expect the economic systems of this earth to become more and more humanistic, and demanding more...

And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth... (Revelation 13:11).

As we covered last week, Cain was “a tiller of the ground” (Genesis 4:2), which speaks of the earthly mindedness of the seed of Cain. Here we see that the beast comes up “out of the earth,” which is the result of the earthly mindedness of fallen mankind. Let us read the last part of this chapter, verses 16-18, where we see the ultimate result of this earthly mindedness: