MARKED! is the latest book to be written by MINISTRY editor J, R. Spangler. Yes, it deals with God's warning in Revelation 13 against worshiping the "beast" or receiving its "mark."
No, it does not talk of a giant computer in Belgium, laser beams etching mystic symbols into human hands and foreheads, the Trilateral Com mission, the Universal Product Code, a coming world currency, veiled uses of the number 666 in corporate symbols, or insidious plots by the IRS and the Social Security Administration. Readers will search in vain for a single mention of Henry Kissinger!
What's left? How can any self-respecting, conscientious author write on the mark of the beast and fail to alert his readers to such religious rumors and pious speculations? Can we trust a book that never once denounces electronic transfer of funds and the cashless society as the initial step by world bankers to control buying and selling?
Spangler defends himself: "This book deals with the most awesome message in the Bible. . . . There are many wild speculations regarding this topic. But this book will not be dealing in sensationalism. It will focus on what God's Word has to say about the 'beast' and its 'mark,' why God pronounces on the 'beast' and those who receive its mark the most relentless doom, unmitigated with mercy. These solemn pronouncements are not primarily mes sages of destruction but, rightly under stood, speak to us of salvation and God's undying love."
It is this very avoidance of sensational speculations that will, I believe, give this book enduring value long after yet-to-be-devised scenarios and candidates have been proposed and discarded. Rather than dissipate its energies in speculative exercizes, MARKED! attempts to look at God's solemn warning concerning the beast and its mark in the light of what Scripture—not technology—has to say about these things. It places this warning in the context of the book of Revelation, a context that pictures the exciting climax of a great struggle between God and Satan that has gone on unabated since before the beginning of our world. It explores the relationship between this dire warning and the everlasting gospel, both of which are proclaimed in the messages of the three angels of Revelation 14.
In fact, if you read MARKED! you may decide that some issues in this subject are of far greater importance than figuring out who the antichrist might be and how he is going to keep you from buying and selling unless you have his mark. Yet Spangler doesn't "spiritualize" away the reality of what Scripture says. The beast and its mark are very real. MARKED! has just come from the press, and now you can get copies of this 157-page paperback book for only $1.50 postpaid. See page 30 for ordering information.—B.R.H.
