Posted by Circe [circe] on November 18, 1999 at 14:58:43 {KEdmzBXaT64XKFgq2rgk1f0.a//UGw}:
IF THE BIBLE WERE TRUE
by Robert L. Johnson (Quoted in part, with permission)
Your children are hungry. It's been over two days since you were able to find food for them or for yourself. Since your home was seized by the new global government the only shelter you could find was under viaducts and in doorways. Trying to count your blessings, you realize how fortunate you are not to have been in California when a quake hit earlier in the month and sent the entire west coast into the sea.
Tuning your short-wave radio into the Christian underground radio network for inspiration and news updates, you notice your youngest child is developing a cough similar to the one that tragically took the life of your toddler and his mother only six weeks before. You wonder, "Is it worth it?" in a barely audible voice.
Is it worth watching your family die one by one simply because you refuse to get the global government's ID number bar-coded in infrared on your right hand? After all, that is surely the Mark of the Beast the Bible warned you about, for the total numerical value of the name of the President of the One World Government equals the sum of 666. And it was his idea concerning the bar-coding of the ID number. Sure, the new government says it needs to use such a draconian identification method to insure bandits don't steal more traditional methods of ID. For ever since the economic and political collapse of the traditional national governments around the world, chaos has reigned. Street gangs rule the cities while homeless and hungry citizens huddle together in makeshift refugee centers around the country and around the world.
Surely Jesus will come soon.
As you begin to focus on the Reverend's voice speaking to you from your short-wave you can't believe his message. Apparently, there has been an error. Church leaders have decided at an emergency conference held in Virginia Beach, Virginia that the Latin version, and not the Hebrew version, Bibles are correct in reference to the Mark of the Beast. And the number of the dreaded Mark of the Beast in Latin is 616, not 666.
Relief rushes over you as you realize you can once again buy and sell and live a normal life. You can even seek medical attention for your remaining children. REMAINING CHILDREN!?
The result of your superstition has brought the reality of your decision to blindly follow man-made religion tearing and clawing at your soul. Your innocent trusting child and wife are dead. Your own flesh and blood! And for what? Some preacher's interpretation of ancient Judeo-Christian mythology???
This story made me think of Jehovah's Witnesses stand on blood. But it can definitely apply elsewhere.
KC