I first preached this sermon on March 9, 1997. At that time there was not all of the hype of the year 2000 problem, tabloids declaring the end of the world, other maladies about the end times. At that time Bill Clinton was not being impeached in the Senate. Now times seem to be getting worse, and there is much talk and great concern about the future. Now people are really getting concerned about the rise of the antichrist and the number of his name. Recently, people have been asking me about the year 2000 and what it means concerning Christianity. My response is that it doesn't really matter because the calendar is wrong concerning the birth of Christ. But many are using the hype to generate huge amounts of capital. Many are using the year 2000 problem to scare many into hoarding dry goods and canned food. There are some that are predicting a nuclear holocaust because of the year 2000 problem.

With all of the hype and dramatics going on, now is the the time to reconsider the mark of the beast and the number of his name.

There has been many sermons preached about the mark of the beast and the number of the beast. In the 1980's there were sermons stating that because Ronald Reagan's name has six letters for the first name, six letters for the second name, and six letters for the last name that he was the beast. Also at that time there was great interest in a computer located in Belgium that was called the beast for its huge size. And throughout history there have been preachers stating that this person or another person is the beast.

Revelation 13

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

On Friday February 28, 1997 I was adjusting some device drivers in the /dev/ directory on my Linux system. The command I was using was chmod 666 /dev/dsp.0 which changes the read and write permissions on the file /dev/dsp.0. When I was changing the mode of several device drivers it dawned on me that on all multi user computer systems that the person who has the power to set 666 file permissions is the most powerful user. Now on a worldwide system, that the antichrist will control, the antichrist will have the absolute power to do anything to all of your computer files. He will change your bank files preventing you from withdrawing any money by changing the file permissions. And to prevent you from changing the file back, he will make himself the owner preventing you from access to your own accounts. To understand this concept, I will give you a lesson on system administration.

File Permissions:

On multi user systems like Unix, AIX, Linux, OS2, and etc. there is a method to enable protection of your private data files. On a file that you create, you are the owner and the group that you belong to will normally become the group owner. A long directory listing looks like:

drwxr-xr-x	3 root		root	1024	Jan 24 08:20	var/
-rw-r--r--   	1 root		root	615 	Feb 28 13:48	gold
-rwxr-xr-x	1 root		root	1046	Mar  4 14:07	brass*
-r--------	1 root		root	2596	Jun 29 1995	silver
---x--x--x	1 root		bin	59246	Sep 13 1996	platinum*
    

The first column represents the file permissions. The first letter can either be:

'd'   directory

'l'   symbolic link

'c'   character device

'b'   block device

'-'   normal files
    

The other nine letters of the file permissions column are three sets of attributes for various users. The first set is for the owner of the file. The second is for the group that the file belongs to, like a department in a company will have files belonging to that department. The members of the department will need access to the department files, while those outside the department do not need any access to those files. The third set of three letters represents access permissions for all other users of the system.

The three sets of three letters represent:

'r'   read      Enables users to look at the contents of a file

'w'   write     Allows users to write or change the contents of a file

'x'   execute   If the file is an executable file, this says who has the 
                permission to run the program.
    

As stated above there are three sets of groups of read write and execute, the first being the file owner's permissions, the second being the group owners permission, and the third representing all others. Now these permissions are set with the chmod command. To use the chmod command effectively you need to know binary, for these permissions are actually three numbers.

binary:

The binary number system only has two numbers, either 0 or 1. The way to understand this number system is to look at a table.

The binary number 110 = 4 + 2 = 6

The binary number 110 sets the read and write attribute of a file. Using the chart above, you can convert any number into a binary number or visa versa.

For example to change the number 11, you would take the highest number that 11 is greater than or equal to which would be the 8's column. Place a 1 under the 8. Then calculate 11 - 8 = 3. Find the column that three is greater than or equal to which would be the 2's column. place a 1 under the 2. Now calculate 3 - 2 = 1. Place a 1 under the 1's column.

To check your work, add together the columns that have a 1 under them and you will see that the result is 11 which is the number that you started out with.

Now place 0's under every other column and you will see that 11 = 1011 binary.

Read, Write and Execute:

The r, w, x permission attributes are really binary numbers represented as letters. The permissions that are set really have a value of 1.

The most powerful user of a multi user computer system is the root user. He has the power to change the file permissions of files that he doesn't even own. He can read any file on the system even if the files permission does not allow him to read it.

Normally, only the owner of the file or directory has the permission to change the file permissions of the files that he is the owner. If group access or all others have write access to a file then they are allowed to change the file's permissions. For example, if a file has the permission -rw-rw-rw- then anyone on the system can change the file's permission and even the ownership of the file. But if a file has -rw-r--r-- then only that file's owner can change the file's permission and ownership.

drwxr-xr-x	3 root		root	1024	Jan 24 08:20	var/

-rw-r--r--   	1 root		root	615 	Feb 28 13:48	gold

-rwxr-xr-x	1 root		root	1046	Mar  4 14:07	brass*

-r--------	1 root		root	2596	Jun 29 1995	silver

---x--x--x	1 root		bin	59246	Sep 13 1996	platinum*
  

Let's say if a user named leroy wants to change the file gold, he would get a permission denied for he doesn't have write access to that file. Only root has permission to change the file gold. But if root changes the permission on gold to -rw-rw-rw, then leroy can come along and alter the file.

The way that root would change the gold file is:

chmod 666 gold

The number 666 is the octal number that changes the permissions for gold so that everyone can both read and write to the file.

Every owner has "666" permission to the files that he owns, but on every computer system there is always someone that has "666" permission to every file on the system. Now let's take a world wide computer system that the antichrist will be the one that will wield the "666" power over every file in the system. Those that refuse to take the mark of the beast will have their bank accounts changed. The file will still be there, but you will no longer be the owner of that file. All of your other files that are kept on some corporate computer will be changed that you will no longer have access to them, for your ownership of those files will be changed. The antichrist will have absolute authority over a worldwide computer system. That is why his number will be 666, for he will have 666 authority.

So when the Bible says, "Here is wisdom..." the meaning is for those who are in the computer field to be able to extrapolate the information and understand. When you look at the number and see the power that number wields on a computer system, then you can see why the Lord says, "Here is wisdom."

Revelation 13:18

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.