The Book of Revelation has a lot of symbolic language in it, so nobody knows exactly what the mark will be.
Greetings Scotty!
Though we do not know what the mark will eventually evolve into, we do know that the technology for it is here in the form of the RFID chip. We also know that it will be located in/on the hand or the forehead and that without that mark/device, no one will be able to buy or sell. Putting this prophecy in perspective for today, buying and selling would be electronic crediting and debiting. And that mark is what is going to replace the swiping of credit and debit cards. So, during the time of the beasts reign, anyone without the mark/device will not be able to electronically credit or debit their bank accounts, ergo, he forces them.
We do know that Christians will refuse to receive the mark and they will be beheaded for refusing it.
It sounds like God ordained this mark, in order to make it clear to everyone, who His people are and who the reprobate are. The Book of Revelations describes 2 marks, one is for the condemned and one is for His elect. The elect will be marked with the "Seal of God" and the reprobate will have the "Mark of the Best".
The only people who will be sealed during the time of God's wrath, will be the 144,000 who come out of Israel, 12,000 from each tribe. No one else is said to be sealed during that time. Those who do not receive it will be those who become believers in Christ after the church has been removed from the earth. To be clear, the seal of God in the forehead for the 144,000 should not be confused with the sealing of the Holy Spirit which believers receive when they believed.
Satan has to ask God for permission to force people to receive His mark, so we know that God has a good purpose in allowing Satan to be the prince of this world.
No one will physically be forced to receive the mark. That meaning of the false prophet forcing/causing all to receive it, will be because the other methods of buying and selling (cash, checks, credit and debit cards, etc.) will be made obsolete, leaving only that mark. This is why we have been seeing the phasing out of cash and checks. It will be cut and dry. One either receives the mark or rejects it. Those will be the only two options. Those who reject it will not be able perform any type of electronic financial business and that because they will not be able to electronically access their bank accounts.
Currently Sweden leads the way in this technology making all of their purchases via card swiping. However, thousands are now using the RFID chip implant under the skin of the hand to make their purchases. This technology is now here in the US with companies offering their employees the opportunity to be chipped and will continue to spread world-wide. By the time the antichrist is revealed the electronic mark system will already be up and running. I'm sure that at some point his name or the number of his name will be encoded in that device that will go in the hand or the forehead, just like the debit and credit cards which have bank, branch, city and country codes imbedded into the chip . Those who receive it will be aligning themselves with the beast.
God will open the door of hell and let the Devils torment all of those who have the mark of the beast, for 5 months. The Bible says that they will seek death, because of the extreme torture but they won't be able to die.
When reading Revelation, it is paramount in paying attention to the details. The only people during that time who will be exempt from the torment of those demonic beings who will be released from the Abyss, will be those with the seal of God in their foreheads, which would mean that only the 144,000 will be exempt. Scripture doesn't say that anyone else is excluded from this plague of wrath.
"They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree,
but only those who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
"And I heard the number of those who were sealed,
144,000 from all the tribes of Israel"
It's much better to allow the authorities to behead us, than to suffer extreme torture for 5 months and then eternal torture in the lake of fire.
Jesus took upon himself God's wrath that every believer deserves, satisfying it completely. Those who are in Christ are not appointed to suffer God's coming wrath (I Thess.1:10, 5:9). Therefore, the church must be removed prior to the first seal being opened, which initiates God's time of wrath, also known as the tribulation period. Suffice to say, the church will not be on the earth when that mark becomes mandatory for buying and selling. Those who will not worship the beast, his image nor receive his mark, will be those great tribulation saints, who are not the church, but those who will have become believers after the church has been gathered.
If you put the church as being on the earth during the time of God's wrath, then God would be punishing the righteous with the wicked and it is not God's nature to do that. The seals, trumpets and bowl judgment, as well as the plagues that the two witnesses bring, will affect the entire world. There will be nowhere to hide, no ark to get on, no small town to flee to. Therefore, the Lord will keep his promise found in John 14:1-3 and I Thess.4:13-17 prior to the on-set of His wrath, not after it.
Since the technology for the mark of the beast is already here and the church is not appointed to suffer God's wrath, which is when the mark becomes mandatory, then how close are we to the appearing of the Lord and our being gathered to Him? The emergence of this electronic crediting and debiting technology is a marker showing us how close we are to the gathering of the church.
