Read Revelation 14:9 and compare it to Revelation 14:12. Where is the mark of the beast placed? (See Deut. 6:8, Deut. 11:18.) What two characteristics contrast God’s people from those who receive the mark of the beast?

 One group worships the beast, and one keeps the commandments of God (which included the fourth, the one commandment the beast power thought to change) and has the faith of Jesus. That’s the contrast. Working through the sea and land beasts, the devil attempts to undermine God’s authority by attacking the heart of worship, namely, the Sabbath. The mark of the beast is placed either in the forehead or the hand. The forehead is a symbol of the mind, where conscience, reason, and judgment are located; the hand, in contrast, is a symbol of actions and deeds.

 The day is coming, and possibly sooner than we think, that laws will be passed restricting our religious liberty. Those who conscientiously follow the Word of God and keep the true Sabbath of the Lord will be labeled as opposing unity and the good of society.

 “Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They will be accused of disaffection toward the government.” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy,p. 592.

 The church of Rome claims that Sunday is the “mark” of its ecclesiastical authority. “Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act.... And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters.” — The American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883.

 Revelation predicts that in the future, at a time of international crisis, our world is going to face some kind of radical political, social, religious, and moral transformation, in which Sunday-keeping will be enforced and then will become “the mark of the beast.” Again, how all this unfolds we have not been told. Scripture gives us only broad outlines, but enough to show us that the great controversy is going to climax around the issue of worshiping either the beast or the Creator and that the seventh-day Sabbath will play a central role.