Since an economics assignment that I had last week where I discovered that the whole central banking system is a giant fraud and the world is moving to a cashless society using RFID tags, I have been overcome with terror. My blood pressure has shot on high and my heart keeps turning over and over and I sweat a lot. I am getting baptized soon and I often beg God to strike me dead after first communion because I am afraid of the antichrist forcing the mark of the beast on the world. I am disabled and in a family of non-believers, and I think they will take any such mark and force it on me. I have nowhere to run or hide, and I am afraid that my family will force me to take the mark whether I agree or not.
Jesus said to pray to be worthy to escape these things, and I often do. But I am losing the will to live with this looming terror. I want to live with Jesus forever and ever, but I am scared that the Apocalypse is not fulfilled in the past.
When you are baptized, the Church will be granting you life and citizenship in the Kingdom established by God, with Jesus as your King. You will be renouncing other “citizenship” and declaring your belief in this Jesus, His Father, Their Spirt, His Church, the resurrection, and eternal life with this God and his People. Upon hearing your faith, the Church will baptize you. This new citizenship, this God, this Holy Spirt, are then yours and you are one with us in the hope (the knowledge) of Life together.
There are many who say, and have said for centuries, that they know what is the mark of the beast. They are wrong. All kingdoms established by this world have had their marks. In the United States, the mark of your citizenship is your social security card. You cannot get a job without one (so you cannot sell your services without this mark) and without a job, you cannot buy anything.
Why is this mark not the mark of the beast? Because the US, and no other countries today, set themselves up as God (Like the Roman emporers did when the new testament books were written, killing all who would not renounce Jesus). Some may have tried over the centuries, but they failed. The gates of Hell have not prevailed against the Church.
Have no fear of your family - by your joy at being chosen to be one of the Citizens of this Kingdom, you very well could win them to faith also. You will have a King, new brothers and sisters and family and a new hope. You will have a fullness that others only dream of having.
Approach your baptism in joy, expectation. Jesus is saying to you in your storm as he comes to you on the water of baptism, “Don’t be afraid, it’s me”.
Don’t be afraid.
John Martin