BIG IDEA: A world of satanic systems needs bold believers to be bright lights.
The vision reveals how Satan leverages his limited powers to copycat Jesus, often through trickery. For example, the book of Exodus describes how he used Egyptian magicians to mimic Moses’ miracles. The book of Daniel describes how Babylonian kings expected people to pray to them and worship their statues.
Some of us have an understandable but unreasonable fear of this number after being raised on unscholarly sermons, books, and movies that warned us not to accidently take the mark of the beast by methods like tattoos, barcodes, and vaccines with computer chips! None of that is in the Bible, nor will Saint Peter have special scanners at the pearly gates! Moreover, salvation isn’t based on our ink or our implants.
A world of satanic systems needs bold believers to be bright lights. The question is, “How do we do that today?” Basically, we learn from our spiritual ancestors! For Jesus in the wilderness (cf. Matthew 3-4), it involved trusting God’s promises as Satan was peddling the lies of self-fulfillment.
John said this calls for wisdom and for understanding.
