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Ellen White taught: "The sign or seal of God is revealed in the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, the Lord's memorial of creation...The mark of the beast is the opposite - the observance of the first day of the week" (Testimonies for the Church, Vol.8,p.117).

Thus, according to E.White the people who keep Sabbath will receive or, more correctly, already had received the Seal of God. Those, who do not keep Sabbath already had received the Mark of the Beast.

Following E.W's teachings Adventists usually explain: a
seal shows authenticity by (1) giving the name of the one in authority, (2) the title of the one in authority, and (3) the dominion of the one in authority. Adventists show that the Sabbath has all of this information, thus the Sabbath is the seal of God. This probably good human reasoning, but the Bible does not say that the Sabbath is the seal of God.

In Old Testament the Sabbath was called the sign - Ex.31:13,17; Ezek.20:12,20, and more correctly - the sign between God and Israel nation, that only sons of Israel know Who is The Creator of everything. The keeping the Sabbath was a sign of a differentiation between Jews and Gentiles: those who worshiped true God from those who worshiped false gods. Would Sabbath be the same sign for God today? No. Because Christian churches, which worship on Sundays, worship the same God The Creator as Sabbath keeping churches do.

Sabbath was never the sign for a some individual. It was sign of whole Israel nation, which always strictly kept the weekly Sabbath and thus strictly kept the differentiation between Israelites and Gentiles. However Bible gave us an example when God had sealed not all Israelites, but only some people of Israel. Thus, the sign was for all Israelites, but the sealed ones were a some people among the Israel nation.

Ezekiel (ch.8) tells that many Israelites began to worship
idols (:5,6,10,11), although they did it secretly (8:12) by keeping Sabbath in the same time. In fact, they did it so secretly Ezekiel was shocked when in the vision among those who were worshiping idols he saw an acquaintance, who he didn't expect to see in there at all (8:11). He also saw a man with a writer's inkhorn by his side, who set a mark of God upon the foreheads of the men who did not accept idolatry. After that warriors of God killed all of those who didn't have the mark of God.

· The Ezekiel's vision was also about the end of times. As after the sealing of the righteous the man with a writer's inkhorn took coals of fire from between the cherubs, and scattered them over the city (Ezek.10:2), so and after the sealing of the righteous before the opening the 7-th seal the angel will take fire of the altar, and will cast it into the earth (Rev.8:5).

As after the sealing of the righteous in the Ezekiel's vision six God's warriors killed all the unsealed, so and in the last days after the sealing of the righteous those, who will not have the seal of God, will die from the plaques which begin after the sounding of the 6 trumpets (Rev.8,9).

Worshiping the True God on Sundays is the breaking one of commandments (4-th), which is forgivable. Through Jesus the breaking any commandment is forgivable. Worshiping another god by knowing the true One is the crime against the Holy Spirit and is unforgivable sin.

As all Jewish nation today's Christians know Who is the Creator, however as the only Sabbath keeping had not protected Jews from God's anger, so the only those Christians will receive God's seal of protection who will save their faith in the One True God despite of all deceptions the antichrist will produce.

Bible says that God seals His people not with the Sabbath, but with Holy Spirit (saints) and belief of the truth (saints and righteous):

"after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were
sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest
of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory" ( Ephes.1:13-14).

"And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are
sealed unto the day of redemption" (Ephes.4:30).

"God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" 2Thes.2:13.

People who will be not sealed "received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved" ( 2 Thes.2:10).

If the Sabbath would be the seal of God, the Pharisees would be the first sealed people, because they carefully executed every single rule of observing the Sabbath. They were so serious about keeping it they wanted to kill God Himself for breaking the Sabbath (Mat.12:14;Mark 3:6). Nevertheless Jesus said about Pharisees: «Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe ... and have omitted the weightier matters of the law: judgment, mercy, and faith» (Mat.23:23). That means that the observance of the Sabbath was not even most important thing in the Law.

As we saw in previous chapters, the Pharisees did not have love for God (John 5:42), therefore they didn't have the Holy Spirit. They did not have love for people – mercy- either
(Luke 11:42), and their judgment was corrupted. That is why their salvation was very questionable. It's difficult even to imagine that Jesus, Who called such Pharisees «generation of vipers» (Mat.12:34) in His First coming, will seal them in
His Second coming. Hence the seal of God will receive not those (not only those) who will keep Sabbath, but those who love the truth, trust in God with all their lives and live righteously.

Now, lets see, is Sunday worship the mark of the beast?

"And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth (as
it was already considered above, it is the antichrist. See ch.11).. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast
(UN Security Council after the opening of the 6-th seal)...,
and causeth the earth ... to worship the first beast (UN SC)" (Rev.13:11,12).

So, all the power of UN SC will be given to the antichrist. Nobody else there will have any power. Thus, he will indeed cause the people to worship himself: "he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2Thes.2:4).

".. And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth... saying ... that they should make an image to the beast.... And ...as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed" (Rev.13:14). The beast is antichrist, hence the image of the beast will be an image made by order of the antichrist.

Daniel said “He shall not regard the gods of his fathers …or any other god, for he shall magnify himself above all (gods). But in their place he shall honor the god of fortresses; a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold and silver… And he shall deal with the strongest fortresses by the help of a foreign god. Those who acknowledge him he shall magnify with glory and honor” (Dan.11:37,38). So we see, antichrist will declare himself a god and besides that he will honor a god, who nobody knew before. He will make people to worship the image, thus the image of the beast (UN SC) will be the worshiping object, or god also. Who will worship the image will be honored, who will not – will be killed.

The Bible gave us the true example what the worship of the antichrist will be look like. The Book of Daniel ch.3 is telling us that Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold and he declared that people have to worship the golden image, "And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace"(:6). So the antichrist will do the same. He will cause people to worship the image created by his design, and those who will refuse to do so will be killed (Rev.13:15).

"And he causeth all.. to receive a mark on their right hand, or on their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, unless he bears the mark of the name of the beast, or the number of his name...Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666" Rev.13:16-18 (you can check the right translation, a word by word, on the website http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/rev13.pdf ).

So, the Bible says, that the antichrist will cause the people
1) to worship the image made by his order;
2) to receive the mark (stamp, inscription) of his name; or number of his name.
3) the mark and number of his name will be visible or somehow determined during money transactions.

All that will be done by order of the antichrist. Thus nothing of these is available today, and the reason for that is simple: the antichrist has not revealed yet. We haven't seen a someone who " doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men" (Rev.13:13) and does incredible miracles the world never seen before:
" whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders" (2Thes.2:9).

The acceptance of the mark will mean the worshiping of another god, not God the Creator.

An average Adventist usually sure that every pope is the antichrist and we live in the time of his mark. According to
1 John 2:18 we can call popes antichrists, however the true antichrist – (The prince –Dan.9:26; the king –Dan.11:36, which power will continue for 0,5 week) still hasn’t come.

Trying to prove that the antichrist is already here and his mark already in action, thus every Sunday keeping Christian is the lost soul, they usually show the numerical significance of a pope's title “Vicarius Filii Dei”. By adding up the numerical value of the Latin letters used in this word (some Latin letters are used instead of numbers) they prove that
the title have the number –666.

Vicarius=112; Filii=53, Dei=501. (Note: "U" and "V" have the same numerical value. Ignore letters which do not have a numerical value.)

V = 5
I = 1
C = 100
A = 0
R = 0
I = 1
U = 5
S = 0

112 +

F = 0
I = 1
L = 50
I = 1
I = 1

53 +

D = 500
E = 0
I = 1

501 =666

However the title “Vicarius Filii Dei” is not the only pope’s title. In fact his chief title, is “Vicarius Christi”, which is adds up to only 214. Besides that many names and titles of other people can be added up to 666. By using the same technique we can make even Ellen Gould White the antichrist also.

E = 0
L = 50
L = 50
E = 0
N = 0

100 +

G =   0
O =   0
U =   5
L = 50
D = 500

555 +

W = 10
H =   0
I =   1
T =   0
E =   0

11=666

Thus all the manipulations people do in order to find
out the name of antichrist are worthless because his
time hasn’t come yet.

The acceptance of the mark will literally allow to those, who will accept it, to buy or sell. It will be like it was in the time when Hitler's nazi had occupied some
territories and some inhabitants of those places had began to help nazi by turning against their own people. Those betrayers through the accepting Hitler as their master had received an arm band with a swastika on their hand, or a hat with a swastika on their head. Having received these things by treachery they have received the right to plunder their own people and to do everything, what they wanted with the people. Nazi killed the people and preserved lives of the betrayers.

I do not say that it will be exactly the same in the time of the antichrist. Today nobody knows for sure how it will be.
But Bible says that without the mark of antichrist nobody would able to buy or sell. The keeping of any day of worship doesn't leave any mark on any person. May be you think
that in the time of antichrist a cashier in a store will ask you: "What day do you worship, sir? On Saturday? Please, put
all stuff back on shelves and leave. Next! What day do you worship, ma'am?...".

Adventists often tell they believe Christians other denominations will be saved also, nevertheless by
accepting that Sunday worship is the mark of the beast
they contradict themselves: Bible clearly says, that all
those who will accept the mark "shall be tormented with
fire and brimstone"(Rev.14:9,10). So how would Sunday worshiping Christians be saved after all if they will be
tormented with fire and brimstone?

E.White’s followers even do not question the
senselessness of the conclusion of this teaching that if
some people, who at first don’t know about the real
Sabbath and thus had received Mark of the beast, later
will worship at Sabbath and they will receive seal of God.
It can be a different way also: Sabbath, Sunday, Sabbath. Nevertheless Bible says that God will seal His people first, after that the mark of the beast will be. Besides, if the mark
of the beast would be the Sunday worship what would stop
a someone from attending a church on Sundays and on Saturdays? It would mean the acceptance of the seal of
God and the mark of the beast at the same time.

Sabbath - is one commandment out of 10. It wasn't written
by God on a separate tablet. In order to receive the seal of
God it is necessary to follow at least all commandments of
the second tablet (tablet of heart -about it in ch.26).

Bible says, that in the lake of fire will be cast not Sunday worshipers, but the fearful (those, whose fear to loose their
life will be stronger than the fear to loose their salvation),
"the unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars" (Rev.21:8), "whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh
a lie" (Rev.21:27). Thus, if a person steels, lies, offends his neighbor, but strictly observes the Sabbath, he will not
receive the seal of God.

Therefore, according to the Bible a day of worship is not God's seal and not the mark of the beast.

In order to be sealed by God you need to have your name written in the Book of Life.