Understanding Revelation 13 by the Spirit

[_just me]

So? Probably Albion and others would have ridiculed the symbolic sacrifices during the time of Moses also if they were there.

Huh. Kind of like what you are doing with the sign of the cross. Only you are actually calling is Satanic, I think...or do I misunderstand your interpretation of the meaning of the "mark of the beast?"

[_gdemetz]

That's correct, it is the mark of the beast, or the sign of that kingdom, and definitely the wrong symbol.

[_Franktalk]

So? Probably Albion and others would have ridiculed the symbolic sacrifices during the time of Moses also if they were there.

I don't think so. We are all weak to some degree and we can all hope that we would be on the side of righteousness. I suspect Albion, you, and I would have stoned people instead of loving them. Or if we did not throw stones maybe we would just hold the robes of those who did. To some degree we are all blinded by our passion.

[_gdemetz]

No, I would have severely criticized them, but not stone someone just because they were mixed up.

[_Mike Reed]

That's correct, it is the mark of the beast, or the sign of that kingdom, and definitely the wrong symbol.

Spencer W. Kimball recorded in his journal a personal experience he had in 1943. After being called to serve as an Apostle for the LDS Church. With great feelings of inadequacy, he turned to God in prayer. Kimball wrote a week after being called to the Quorum of the Twelve: “No peace had yet come, though I had prayed for it almost unceasingly these six days and nights. I had no plan or destination. I only knew I must get out in the open, apart, away,” he says. “I dressed quietly and without disturbing the family, I slipped out of the house. I turned toward the hills. I had no objective. I wanted only to be alone.” Kimball then describes the tearful hike he made up the hillside. “I climbed on and on. Never had I prayed before as I now prayed. What I wanted and felt I must have was an assurance that I was acceptable to the Lord. I told Him that I neither wanted nor was worthy of a vision or appearance of angels or any special manifestation. I wanted only the calm peaceful assurance that my offering was accepted. Never before had I been tortured as I was now being tortured. And the assurance did not come.” Finally, Spencer W. Kimball saw a sign that gave him assurance that God was with him: “As I rounded a promontory I saw immediately above me the peak of the mountain and on the peak a huge cross with its arms silhouetted against the blue sky beyond. It was just an ordinary cross made of two large heavy limbs of a tree, but in my frame of mind, and coming on it so unexpectedly, it seemed a sacred omen.” This experience made such an impact on him, that he revisited the place two years later (1945). Kimball recorded in his journal: “I began to re-live my unusual experiences…. I followed my footsteps of that early morning…. Finally at the top of my sacred mountain I found my cross of July ’43 was broken. I found a cross beam and carried it up the hill (remembering the Savior as he carried his cross up Calvary) and fixed it the best I could.”*


* Source: Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball: Twelfth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1977), 192-94; 221-222 [original spelling and punctuation retained].

[Hawkeye]

They all constitute this mark. The emperor Constantine saw a vision in which he saw a bright cross in the sky and was told to follow that mark and conquer, thus becoming the mark or symbol of that empire, and when he handed his power to the Bishop of Rome, then that beast, or kingdom, exercised all the power of Rome, or the beast before it.

Actually, Constantine reportedly saw something more along the lines of a staurogram or Chi Rho--both of which are depicted with the upper end circling in a "P" shaped fashion.



by the way... Christians embraced the symbol of the cross long before Constantine.

[_Mike Reed]

Why did the Church petition the SLC Council in 1916 to erect a cross monument on Ensign Peak, to honor the Mormon pioneers who were then dying off?

[_Mike Reed]

That's correct, it is the mark of the beast, or the sign of that kingdom.

Nonsense.

[_Mike Reed]

No, I would have severely criticized them, but not stone someone just because they were mixed up.

You are the one who is mixed up, silly. Earliest accounts do not say that the heavenly sign Constantine saw was the cross. The association of the cross with the "mark of the beast" is dated anti-Catholic propaganda--the Church has done well to distance itself from overt anti-Catholicism like this over the past few decades. Perhaps you should too.

[_Franktalk]

You are the one who is mixed up, silly. Earliest accounts do not say that the heavenly sign Constantine saw was the cross. The association of the cross with the "mark of the beast" is dated anti-Catholic propaganda--the Church has done well to distance itself from overt anti-Catholicism like this over the past few decades. Perhaps you should too.

There is a lot of truth in what you say. But let me add that the organization / history of the RCC has shown it can and did fall far from the gospel of love. And at this point I don't have much in opposition to the church except condemning infants to hell. And of course their throwing out a bunch of scripture as uninspired. But their history shows me I should not trust the organization. The members are fine, I have not met one I thought was evil. I do believe that as the restrainer leaves the earth the RCC will be back to its old tricks. I suspect that many of its current members will be killed as in times gone by.