Abortion, the Mark of the Beast, and Your Future.

On January 11, 48% of Congress refused to acknowledge that pro-life people and babies born alive after a botched abortion should receive equal protection under the law. 2023 is a new chapter in the fight for life. CompassCare now has two jobs: 1) continue helping abortion-determined women have their babies, and 2) protect pro-life pregnancy centers’ place in the public square so goal number 1 can continue.

Abortion is a symptom of a shipwrecked society. Instead of sailing the deep waters of human dignity, valuing all people equally as made in the image of God, the hull is breached in the shallows of 330 million sharp rocks of individual autonomy—everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes.

King David once said, “Reproach has broken my heart” but faith in God’s salvation caused him to yet say, “I will praise the name of God with song” (Ps. 69:20, 30). So, while pro-life people and organizations like CompassCare are being vilified, threatened, violently attacked, and treated like second-class citizens, we mourn not for ourselves but over the abuse of women and the destruction of vulnerable preborn boys and girls.

Is our sorrow over the sin of abortion a good sign? Through the prophet Ezekiel, Scripture says those who mourn over the sins of the nation will receive the mark of God upon their foreheads, saving them from His wrath. God gave orders to a mysterious man saying, “Go through the midst of the city even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst.” But to the other five servants of God in Ezekiel’s vision, he instructed, “Go through the city after him and strike; do not let your eye have pity, and do not spare” (Ez. 9: 4-5). Why? Their wickedness reached a point of no return as God says, “You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire” (Ez. 16:21; see also 20:26, 31; 23:37).

There are only one of two marks a person can have: the mark of God or the mark of the beast.

In Ezekiel, it appears that those who are marked for salvation are so because they grieve over the slaughter of innocent children. In the Bible, a mark upon the forehead symbolizes one’s allegiance. There are only two marks, only one of two allegiances a person can have: the mark of God as described in Ezekiel and elsewhere (Rev. 7:3, 9:4, 14:1) or the mark of the beast (Rev. 13;17; 14:9, 11). The mark of the beast is on the majority, those who forsake God’s ways to obey the organized governance of this world characterized as anti-Christ (Rev. 13:3; 16:2).

And the mark of God rests on the minority (Mt. 7:14). One way to tell if someone is marked by God is if they grieve over the sins of the people as God does. God through Isaiah says of the Savior, “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted . . . to proclaim the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn” (Is. 61:1-2). This kind of sadness sheds new light on that Savior’s beatitude, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Mt. 5:4).

God, through Jesus’ earthly ministry, taught that there was a connection between how we treat children and our salvation. “Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, ‘Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me’” (Mk. 9:36-7).

From Scripture, it seems clear that somehow, someway, our salvation is tied up not just with our mourning over the injustice and oppression of society’s vulnerable, but also our active protection of and provision for them. This would seem to be the message of Jesus’ Parable of the Sheep and the Goats just before He sends the goats into the outer darkness: “…to the extent that you did not [take care of] the least of these, you did not do it to Me” (Mt. 25:45).

God the Father sacrificed His only Son on the cross once for all. In Him alone there is life, life forever, free from sin and death. Abortion is an imposter, promising life, health, wealth, or better relationships, to those who would cause their own sons and daughters to pass through its fires.

This world is not making it any easier to live as Christ, to be pro-life. In fact, Jesus warned that the closer we get to His return the more “lawlessness increases” (Mt. 24:11). It is with that in mind Christ calls us to fellowship with Him in suffering for His kingdom, “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (Jn. 15:20).

“But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved” (Mt. 24:13).