Supplement 9 — For Lessons 17 & 18

Supplement Nine

For Lessons Seventeen and Eighteen

These last two lessons complete “Part II: The Historical Dealings of God With Man.” We have now studied many general subjects of the Bible, the Holy Scriptures and how to interpret them, the truth about God, the original creations of God, Satan and the spirit-world, the rebellion and overthrow of the first social system, the story of re-creation, and the Dispensations of Innocence, Conscience, Human Government Promise, and Law. We have also studied the plan of God for the needs of man, why the needs of man are not realized, the Old Testament Church, divine healing and health, and asking and receiving from God.

You should by now have a clear conception of these subjects and how to attain to the material, physical, and spiritual blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. All the studies of the historical past will serve as a firm foundation for our future studies on the present and future dealings of God with man. The richest studies of your life are yet to come. Lesson after lesson will grow richer and clearer concerning God’s Universal Plan for Creation. You will be able to conform more and more to the total will of God until you become hid with Christ in God and be able to exercise full authority as a son of God with power.

Satanic Opposition Must Be Understood

As we proceed with our lessons we must not only reveal truths that are new to you, but we must also warn you of old errors that have been hindrances in the progress of Christians for centuries. One of the greatest errors in the Christian world today is to accept any opposition to answered prayer or any delay in answers to prayer as the will of God and as God’s answer to us that it is not His will to grant what was asked. For example, I received a letter recently from a woman saying that she knew it was not the will of God to heal her insane boy because she believed God and He did not heal the boy. She said that she knew that God answered her prayer, but His answer was, “No.” In other words, because her prayer was not granted she believed that it was the will of God not to heal her boy.

There is not one scriptural word to justify this kind of argument. This case is a plain deception of a woman by the devil in making her believe that it is not the will of God to heal her boy and that she should be satisfied that it was not God’s will because the boy was not healed. The devil not only has robbed God of glory that He would get from such a healing, but he has kept his victim insane and deceived a mother into thinking that this is the way God answers prayer. The fact is that it is the will of God to heal this boy and deliver this mother from such slanderous concepts of God. This plainly accuses God of being a liar, of not answering prayer in the right way as He has promised, of being an unmerciful, hard-hearted person with no sympathy for mother or child, of sending Jesus to die to bring such deliverance and then deliberately refusing to do for men those things for which He died, and of not meeting the faith of His children according to what He has promised.

You can believe these fallacies if you desire, but we warn that these are some of the reasons why prayer is not answered. As long as the devil can deceive people in this way he can hold them in bondage and rob them of the benefits for which Christ died. If we are ever to get to the place where we can receive answers to prayer, we may as well learn what to do and intelligently proceed according to our knowledge.

The devil knows the individual disposition of each person, and he will wage spiritual war against each one according to what he knows and thinks will be the best way to keep that person from getting what he wants from God. Satan will stop at nothing to gain his end. He has no righteous principle about him and no respect for God or any man. He is out to defeat both God and man, and he has a distinct advantage in some respects in that men are born in sin and spiritually dead and sons of the devil by choice and life. Man is born with a natural tendency to live in sin and selfishness and doubt and unbelief.

The Bible declares that God’s way and thoughts are higher than man’s as the Heaven is higher than the Earth Isaiah 55:9; so naturally man who is born in sin contrary to these ways will have some difficulty in conforming wholly to them. The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be Romans 8:7-8. The new birth is necessary to enable one to conform by nature to the ways of God John 3:3-52 Corinthians 5:17. It can be seen why natural men, who are more in harmony with Satan and sin by birth than they are with God and His ways, would have some conflict with spiritual things. It can also be seen why there should be a natural conflict between God and Satan and between God and natural man. It should not be expected that anyone and everyone will learn the ways of God by nature or get prayers answered without opposition from Satan. It should not be expected that there will be no conflict with carnal desires, unbelief, and doubts in the process of getting prayers answered from God.

Paul speaks of being “hindered” many times by Satan in his spiritual work 1 Thessalonians 2:18. Peter speaks of prayers being “hindered” even by wrong living on the part of those who pray 1 Peter 3:7. If this be true, then it is much more true that Satan and supernatural evil spirits can and do hinder prayers.

We are admonished to give no “place to the devil” Ephesians 4:27, “to stand against the wiles of the devil” Ephesians 6:10-18, know “his devices” 2 Corinthians 2:11, and “resist the devil” James 4:71 Peter 5:8. All these facts prove that people who pray to God are to expect opposition and all kinds of hindrances to their prayers. How foolish it is for them to accept such opposition as the will of God and as an indication that God will not grant what is asked of Him according to the promises!

The reason many followers of false religions seem to get great benefits and to do so without opposition is that they are in league with the devil and are deceived by him. Why should the devil oppose and fight the getting of benefits on the part of those whom he already has deceived and who are already safe in his snare and are doomed to Hell with him? That would not be to his advantage. It is wisdom on his part even to help people get some benefits in order to keep them deceived. If he can get anyone to reject the true God and the essentials of salvation through Christ he will gladly cooperate with that person by giving him certain benefits or by taking from him all opposition to certain blessings that come to all men alike by divine providence. He will even heal or take away from people sickness in order to deceive them into thinking some false religion is the true one.

It is only when anyone becomes aggressive against him and turns to God for help that demons will wage war against that one and do all in their power to defeat him in getting the benefits of the gospel. They will work on feelings, hinder faith in God, cause doubt and questioning, and hinder in every conceivable way those that seek God by faith for the benefits promised them in the Word of God. This must be thoroughly understood by the Christian, who must make up his mind to go ahead and get the blessings of God in spite of satanic opposition.

Necessary Steps to Follow When Faith Seems Weak and Victory Seems Lost

1. Recognize the source of the opposition as being of Satan.

2. Be sure that the promises of God cover the thing asked for.

3. Be sure that you are not living in open or secret sin.

4. Be sure that no doubt or unbelief is permitted in the life concerning the promises.

5. Sincerely desire the benefit that you ask of God.

6. Ask of God in faith, nothing wavering, believing that what is asked is yours.

7. Do not tolerate for one single moment a thought to the contrary.

8. Count the thing done that you have asked.

9. Give glory to God even before you receive what you have asked.

10. Act as if you have received what you have asked.

Remember the moment that you doubt, or wonder why God has not answered, or look around for some reason why He did not hear your prayer or begin to accept the delay in the answer as the will of God for you not to have what you have asked, you are defeated because you failed to hold firm in unwavering faith in God for the answer. Never under any circumstance question the will of God in the matter of answered prayer. If He has promised that you can have whatsoever you ask if you do not doubt, then do not for a moment think that it may be God’s will to hold from you that which He has promised and which you have asked for in faith. It is always God’s will for you to ask and get what you will; so do not make the mistake that multiplied thousands are making in always wondering and wavering concerning the will of God in anything that is promised by God. If you will faithfully follow the above listed steps and settle on what is God’s will according to His Word and hold to it through all opposition, you cannot fail to get what you want. In the final analysis the answer to your prayer depends upon you more than it does upon God. for the simple reason that God does not fail or change and there is no possible failure on His part. The only failure that is possible is on your part. Man is so used to living by feelings instead of faith and so used to being swayed by circumstances instead of counting those things that be not as though they were, that he does not always doggedly hold to the practice of the necessary steps in the answer to prayer. You must see to it that you do not fail, and then there cannot be a faint possibility of a failure.

Some Mistaken Ideas Among Christians

Not only does the average Christian miss the mark by failing to understand the laws of answered prayer, or if he knows them, to obey these laws faithfully but the average believer holds more or less to the following fallacies which hinder prayer:

1. 1 That if a person does the best he can, God will not permit harm to befall him. Sometimes the so-called best one can do is not enough to please God or to ward off attacks from demon forces. Man’s performance cannot always be adequate because of his lack of knowledge to conform intelligently to the will of God. People frequently think they are doing their best when they are putting forth all the effort possible to live as they please and be as much like the world as they can and still have a little religion. In other words, the great effort is to hold on to as much religion as they can while living a life of pleasure and selfishness. The best a person can do if he really wants to do his best is to forsake all sin, selfishness, worldliness, and everything displeasing to God and give himself wholly over to the total will of God according to the Scriptures. Until a person has done this he has not done and is not doing the best he can. He merely uses this idea of doing his best as an excuse for his failure to please God according to the light he has received.

Even if the person is fully consecrated he should not become careless and indifferent by taking the attitude that he is eternally safe from all evil and harm. If he truly wants to be kept from such, he must watch and pray and live as he is taught to live in the 91st Psalm. He must bring his body under subjection and crucify the lusts of the flesh 1 Corinthians 9:27Romans 6:1-23Romans 8:1-13Colossians 3:5-7Ephesians 4:22-24. It is folly for anyone to talk about doing the best he can until he has done this and unless he continues to do this. In such a state he can claim the full protection of the promises of God. The minute he goes into sin and rebellion again he cannot claim that no evil shall befall him. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” applies to the saved man as well as to the unsaved. There is no place in God that one can get where he is forced to continue in righteousness and true holiness contrary to his will. God cannot and will not keep one saved who continues in sin. That is one of the most ungodly and unscriptural theories that Satan and his hosts have manufactured to date. God works according to certain fixed laws, and when they are broken the penalties must be paid. Protection is promised only to them that fear the Lord Psalms 34:7-10Psalms 91:1-6.

1. 1 Another fallacy that is common is that God will not allow an honest heart to be deceived. This is in itself a deception, based upon ignorance of the fall of man and a misconception of the workings of both God and the devil. God does not work except by spiritual and natural laws, and they must be understood and obeyed in order to secure His help for us. Eve was as honest as could possibly be; yet she was deceived 1 Timothy 2:14. Other honest people have been deceived through the ages. If God would not permit honest people to be deceived we would not have so many backslidings, divisions, and differences in doctrines as we have today.

1. 1 Another false idea is that if a person is wrong in a doctrine or a manifestation, he will not be used or blessed of God. The fact is that God will bless anyone to the extent of his faith. He will use anyone to the extent of yieldedness to Him. God has used sinners to further His plan and purpose in the Earth. and they were certainly wrong in both doctrine and life. God used Pharaoh in Egypt (Rom. 9), Cyrus in Persia Isaiah 44:28–45, Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon (Dan. 2), and many other sinners to further His plan; so the theory of God’s using men is proof that they are saved and in perfect harmony with Him in life and conduct is wrong. God used even an ass at one time, and we know that it was not saved from its sins or entirely correct in doctrine Numbers 22:22-35. Many good ministers today are used of God in the salvation of souls, and yet they are as ignorant as a loon concerning certain truths of God. Let no one, therefore, be deceived by this fallacy.

1. 1 Another fallacy is that God will not permit the devil to afflict with sickness or cause any harm to a child of God without His giving special permission, and therefore God is the cause of sickness and His children should not rebel against any sickness He sends. The argument used to prove this is the affliction of Job. It must be remembered, however, that then God was in the process of making His written Word, and He used the experience of Job to teach all men of all ages certain truths, such as the cause of sickness, patience on the part of those who are attacked by Satan, and the ways in which God delivers His children from the power of the devil. These and many scores of truths men through the ages have learned from Job’s experience. Naturally God permitted Job to go through this test to purify, humble, and refine him just as God teaches everyone certain lessons in times of trouble, but in spite of this God cannot be charged with causing this trouble or any other troubles that come to men. Job did not have the many promises or revelations of God’s dealings with men and the cause of sickness, as do modern believers, who have the whole Word of God revealing the will of God. Job did not have one book of either Testament to show him the ways of God and to give him assurance of help in time of trouble. Men today not only have the book of Job, but all the rest of the Bible to teach them that Satan is the cause of sickness and that God is the deliverer of His people. The book of Job teaches why men are in trouble. This is clear from the following quotation, “God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night . . . Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man” Job 33:14-30. This passage continues with the fact that man is brought low with sickness because of his waywardness and that when he finds “an interpreter” to show him that God does not desire man to be lost and even be in pain, then God is gracious and delivers him from Satan.

This fallacy is partly true in that God naturally permits men, not only His children, to be afflicted with bodily pain by Satan to hide pride from man, but this permission does not mean that God is the cause of the sickness. The foolishness, sin, and pride of man in breaking some natural or spiritual law is the cause of sickness. The devil is the direct power in executing the law of reaping upon men the ills that they have sown. God permits affliction simply because He does not directly break His own law of sowing and reaping. He permits it simply because He does not definitely act to keep Satan from carrying out his work in men. It is not the will of God that man get into these troubles, and if sin had not entered all men would have remained sinless and healthy. If all men would submit to God, they could be made free from sin and sickness and this is the very truth God is trying to teach men in the story of Job and in all similar examples in Scripture. This is what He had promised in hundreds of promises. This is what He sent Jesus to die for. This is what He will manifest by anyone and everyone who will come to Him through Jesus Christ.

The trouble today with true Christians who are made sick is that of failure to understand that they are directly attacked by the devil and that they need to have faith in God to heal them. Almost every one of them has no consciousness of any definite sin committed or any rebellion against any part of the will of God. Such sickness is plainly a direct attack of Satan, and all that is needed is a vigorous refusal on the part of the Christian to stay sick and tolerate the work of the devil in his life. If such people would quit laying the blame on God and if they would cooperate with God against Satan by the means of the gospel, they could experience the deliverance of God. God’s permission for them to be sick should not enter into their minds. Their trouble is not so much the idea of His permission as it is their will to be sick. If they want to be healed, then let them do what God tells them to do to get deliverance. Let them rebuke Satan and take a stand against this work of the devil. Let them yield to God and believe the gospel so that God’s work can be manifest in them. Jesus said, “The thief [Satan] cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly” John 10:10.

There is no excuse for defeat on the part of any child of God since Jesus came to give the more abundant life. Let the student review again Lessons Ten, Twelve, and Fourteen which prove that God is the deliverer of the sick, sinful, poor, and needy instead of being their oppressor. With all the truths of God in Scripture written since Job lived, we can all get deliverances from the power of Satan and can live victorious over sin, sickness, poverty, and failure in life.

1. 1 Other misconceptions of truth are seen on every hand in Christendom. The whole Christian world is full of false concepts of God and His truth, as we shall see in our future studies of the doctrines of the Bible. Men who are in error of any kind are hindered in their spiritual growth, and they so often become autocratic, proud, and fanatical in their lives before others and cannot act rightly until some calamity strikes to disillusion them and to dispel their false ideas. Men must, in the beginning of their Christian experience, recognize that demons are real and that they can deceive honest believers. They should understand the methods by which demons work and should know that no place should be given them in life or conduct and that no doctrine should be accepted from them in any form.

The Source of All Christian Opposition

Demons constantly wage war on saints to instill within them false concepts about God and to make them weak, nervous, discouraged, and ruined spiritually, physically, and materially. They do their utmost to keep men in poverty and failure in life in order to bring reproach upon God and His gospel. They must be resisted and rejected once and forever if complete victory over them is to be gained James 4:7Ephesians 4:10-151 Peter 5:8-92 Corinthians 10:4-7.

Christian Duties in View of Satanic Opposition

In the coming lessons we shall try to make real and clear to you the entire truth of God on every subject and enable you rightly to divide the Word of Truth and to detect demon workings and to confute all error. The days ahead of you are rich in blessings according to the knowledge of God. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” John 8:31-32. Constantly affirm your faith in God and vigorously deny all fallacy and demon workings and everything contrary to the plain written Word of God. You have a great part in making yourself free. Your part is to know the truth and cooperate with it in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit that lives and abides in you by faith. Give no place to the devil. If opposition comes when you try to attain to the blessings of the gospel, do not be confused. Recognize this as the work of the devil and as proof that you are on the right path to God and to the wonderful benefits He has promised. Do not fail God, and He will not fail you. Draw nigh to Him, and He will draw nigh to you James 4:6-11. Intelligently follow truth as you learn it, regardless of the opposition to it, and you will be richly rewarded, not only here but in all eternity.

Let us all constantly affirm that we do believe in God and the gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ; that we do know that we are saved from sin and bad habits; that we are healed through faith in Jesus Christ; that we have what we have asked of God; that we are being blessed in material things of this life; that we know that we are having our faith increased according to the knowledge of God; and that we are getting definite results by obedience to the Truth.

If there is any lack of surrender of our lives to God, or any sin in our lives, it must be judged and put under the blood of Jesus Christ. This alone will hinder prayers, as absolute faith in God cannot be exercised when there is known rebellion in the heart. See to it that this is corrected and without any question at all believe and affirm truth from the heart and faith will bring results.

Ten Questions For Supplement Nine. Do You Know:

• That the Antichrist will never be assassinated? Many Bible teachers say that the head on the beast in Rev. 13:3 being wounded to death and healed symbolizes the assassination of the personal Antichrist. They believe that he will remain dead for three days and that Satan will resurrect him and incarnate himself in him, thus imitating the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. For some unknown reason without any scriptural authority whatsoever, they make the Antichrist the opposite of Christ in almost every detail. This is not necessary in order to believe in the Antichrist to come, as the word itself simply means “against Christ.” There is no need to manufacture theories in order to have something to say about him. There is sufficient prophecy concerning him that will give us all we need to know about him without all this. The head wounded to death simply refers to the destruction of an empire and its being revived again as the eighth and last empire to oppose Jesus Christ at His second advent. The seven heads on the beast are explained to be seven kingdoms: five had fallen before John’s day; one was in his day; the seventh was to come after his day, made up of ten kingdoms inside the Roman Empire, but that seas not the beast itself, for it is explained to be “the eighth” of the eight kingdoms symbolized by the beast itself and its seven heads Revelation 17:8-17Daniel 7:23-24. If the heads symbolize kingdoms and not personal kings, then the head wounded to death does not refer to the assassination of the Antichrist, but to the destruction of one of the seven kingdoms and its revival again as the eighth. According to Dan. 7:11; Isa. 11:4; 2 Thess. 2:8-9 the Antichrist will be a mortal man up to the very day that Christ comes to the Earth, for he is to be killed at that time. This disproves all the above stated theory of the Antichrist being killed and resurrected as an immortal man during the last 3½ years before Christ comes, as would be required if he were the head wounded to death and were healed.

• That Antichrist will never reign from Rome or any great capital of the present world? According to Isa. 13:6, 9-13; 14:1-11; Zech. 5:5-11; Rev. 16:17-21; 18:1-24 and other passages the city of Babylon will be rebuilt and will be the capital of the Antichrist during the first 3½ years of Daniel’s Seventieth Week. In the middle of that week he will break his covenant with the Jews and enter into Palestine and make Jerusalem his capital for most of the last half of the Week Daniel 9:27Daniel 11:40-452 Thessalonians 2:3-4. We have already proven in Supplement Eight, Questions 9 and 10, that that Antichrist will come from Syria. Therefore, his capital will be the capital of Syria in the days of the future fulfillment of these prophecies. This capital will be Babylon, as is proven in the above passages.

• That Antichrist will never be an incarnation of Satan? This is not taught in Scripture anywhere. Satan is a separate person from the Antichrist and merely gives his power to him 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12Daniel 11:35-39Revelation 13:1-4. The dragon (Satan), the beast out of the sea (Antichrist), and the beast out of the Earth (the false prophet), are always seen as three separate persons throughout the book of Revelation from the time they are mentioned Revelation 12:1-17Revelation 13:1-18Revelation 19:19-21Revelation 20:1-10. Satan is never incarnated in anyone and does not need to be in order to dominate any one person. Therefore, to teach that Antichrist is an incarnation of Satan is unscriptural. Such would be impossible, for Satan, who is an angel with a real spirit-body, cannot get on the inside of any man bodily. This would mean that if he did he could not exist as a separate person outside of that body in which he became incarnate. Because he is always a separate person from any man who has ever lived or who will ever live, it would be best to forget such a theory of his being incarnated in any man.

• That the personal Antichrist will never come from the bottomless pit? This is clear from the fact that he will be a mortal man up to the time of the second coming of Christ, as proven in Point I above. No mortal man could live in the bottomless pit. It is not even the place for departed human spirits as is clear wherever it is mentioned in Scripture. The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit is an angelic being and a supernatural spirit which will work with the human Antichrist and cause him to get power over the ten kingdoms that will yet be formed inside the Roman empire Daniel 7:23-24Revelation 17:8-17. According to Dan. 10:11-21 there are angelic beings ruling every kingdom of this world. There are three things symbolized in the one symbol, the beast of Revelation: first, the spirit of the Antichrist out of the abyss Revelation 11:7Revelation 17:8; second, the human Antichrist, a man Revelation 13:18; third, the kingdom of the human Antichrist and the spirit out of the pit, the eighth kingdom of Rev. 17:8-17. It is the angelic spirit that backs the rise of the Antichrist to power that will come out of the pit and not the personal, human Antichrist. See Lesson Forty-seven.

• That Antichrist will not reign over America or be a worldwide dictator? This is proven by the following facts:

(1) He will reign over only ten kingdoms that will yet be formed inside the old Roman Empire Daniel 7:23-24. Only these ten kingdoms will give their power and kingdom to him Revelation 13:1Revelation 17:12-17.

(2) Certain countries will escape his rule Daniel 11:40-44.

(3) Certain countries will make war on him at the very time he is supposed to be ruling the whole world Daniel 11:40-44.

(4) Because he will reign only over ten countries inside the Roman Empire territory and because America never was inside that territory and will never be, and because certain countries escape him we can scripturally conclude that he will not rule America or be a worldwide ruler. See Lesson Forty-eight, Point III.

• That multitudes of people of many nations will never take the mark of the beast and they will never be killed by the Antichrist for not doing so? It has been proven in the point above that many nations will not be under the Antichrist. Naturally they will not have to take his mark, and they will not be killed because they will not be ruled by him. The Bible speaks of many peoples of all nations that are left after the reign of the Antichrist, people who will be alive in the Millennium and will go up yearly to worship God Zechariah 14:16-21. This further limits the kingdom of the Antichrist to part of the world and also limits his ability to kill everyone who does not take the mark even in his own empire. According to Rev. 14:9-11 no one who has taken the mark will go into the Millennium, but will be sent to eternal Hell. That multitudes go into the Millennium proves they have not taken the mark of the beast and have not been killed, as is taught by many Bible students. If Antichrist kills every person on Earth who does not take his mark and the Lord sends to eternal Hell every one who does take his mark, then there would not be left one person to enter the Millennium. This would be contrary to Zech. 14:16-21; Mt. 25:31-46; Isa. 2:1-4 and many other Scriptures.

• That many nations of the Earth will be able to buy and sell and yet not be killed for not taking the mark of the beast? The old theory that every person in every nation of the world will not be able to buy or sell unless they take the mark of the beast is false, as proven by the facts and Scriptures in the last two points above. The law that men will not be able to buy or sell applies only to the kindreds, tongues, and nations that are inside the ten kingdoms of the future that will be formed inside the old Roman Empire. If the Antichrist reigns over only these countries, then it is clear that all nations outside of his ten kingdoms will be able to buy and sell and that they will not be affected by any law that he makes in his kingdom.

• That multitudes of people living on the Earth will never even know that Antichrist has been on the Earth until he has come and gone? It is a known fact that over half of the people on Earth today have never heard of the name of Jesus Christ or His gospel. It is also well-known that multitudes of peoples in the interior of Africa, South America, Australia, India, Tibet, and many parts of the Earth do not know that there have been two world wars in a generation. It will be equally true that these people out of touch with so-called civilization will never get to know that there has been an Antichrist and a great tribulation on the Earth until Christ has come and the resurrected saints of all ages extend the kingdom of Christ from Jerusalem to the ends of the Earth in the Millennium. It is utter folly to teach that a human being called the Antichrist ruling over only ten kingdoms inside the Roman Empire territory can take over every part of the Earth and literally kill everybody who does not take his mark. This would be teaching that one human being is going to do more in forty-two months or 1,260 literal days in establishing his religion in every person living on Earth than God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and the whole Church have done in over nineteen centuries to get the gospel out. Are we going to believe that the Antichrist as a man is greater than God and all the other men who have ever lived? The sensible thing to believe in view of all this is that Antichrist will be a mere man limited in his rule to only a part of the Earth and that he cannot make laws that will affect anyone outside of his kingdom.

• That the mark of the beast is not to be 666? There are three brands men will have a choice of taking in the days of the Antichrist inside his kingdom. They are his name, his mark, and the number of his name Revelation 13:16-18. The name and mark of this man is not given in any Scripture; so no one will know what they are until he comes and men get to know what his name will be and what mark he will choose to put upon his followers. The only one of these three brands that is given is the number of his name, and that is stated as being 666 in Rev. 13:18. So 666 is not the name or the mark of the beast. It is the number of the beast.

• That at this time no man knows who the Antichrist will be? This is true because he is coming “after” the ten kingdoms are formed inside the old Roman Empire territory Daniel 7:23-24 and “after” the rapture of the Church, or “after” the hinderer of lawlessness has been removed from the Earth 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8.