Whose Mark?

December 8, 2017

The prophet Ezekiel was given an unenviable task of speaking truth to a nation that had rejected the Lord their God. He had to tell them that God was going to destroy them...again. They were already in exile, and hadn’t learned their lesson. But God is fair, and told Ezekiel to place a mark on the forehead of all who were true to him (ch. 9). This mark was a signal to God’s avenging angel that the bearer had kept himself holy by refusing to worship idols. It was a ticket to life.

In the Revelation of St. John (ch. 13), it is the devil who places a mark upon the foreheads of not God’s saints, but on those he claimed for his own. The devil is a plagiarist; he has nothing original, can do nothing original. He takes what God has blessed, twists and perverts it to an ugly caricature of God’s original gift. It is always thus. The devil is incapable of originality because originality is a good thing. He can only take what God has done and distort it to our destruction. Whether it is money, marriage, politics, education, sex, success, or material goods, he twists what God has blessed till it destroys those intended for blessing.

The trick for us mortals is distinguishing the original from the distorted copy. For Ezekiel, the mark was a sign of salvation. For John, the mark was a sign of coercion; the one sets free, the other holds in bondage. People today are looking for signs. Ours is freedom; that of the Enemy is bondage. It’s not always evident at the beginning. The sexual revolution of the ‘60’s was supposed to set people free from the “bondage” of Christian morality. Today we’re seeing men from all walks of life, from Hollywood to DC, fall from the public grace they held. The freedom they thought they had was in fact, a trap. It took awhile to manifest, but their bondage is only beginning. 

Those of us who have hewed to Christian values and morality in the face of decades of ridicule and scorn are finding now that what others took for bondage is proving to be incredibly freeing. We don’t have to worry about being exposed because we’ve been walking in the Light; no innuendo or suggestive comments; no lewd behavior behind closed doors. I am thankful tonight for those who fifty years ago taught me truth. That mark has been, and continues to be our salvation.