SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/24/2018
10:41 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “God’s Seal”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
1:13b-14a
Message of the
verses: “you were sealed with the
Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance.”
We began in our last SD to look at the main section
entitled “The Guarantee of Our Inheritance,” and this section covers the verses
mentioned above. After doing the
introduction we began to look at the first sub-section under this main section
entitled “God’s Seal” and we continue looking at this sub-section in our SD for
today. We promised to continue to look
at the sealing of the Holy Spirit in our SD for today.
We have mentioned that once a person becomes a believer
then at that very moment the Spirit of God takes up residence in their
life. We have continued to mention from
this very long sentence in the Greek (Eph. 1:3-14) that we are in Christ, and
life in Christ is different than life before coming to Christ, and that
difference is because of having the Holy Spirit in our life. The Spirit of God is there to empower us, and
to equip us for the ministry, and function through the gifts He has given to us
as believers. The Holy Spirit is also
our Helper and Advocate. He also protects
and gives us encouragement. Another
thing He does is to guarantee our inheritance in Jesus Christ as seen in Romans
8:16-17 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children
of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” He (The Spirit of God) is our securing force,
and our guarantee.
John MacArthur writes “The sealing of which Paul speaks
here refers to an official mark of identification that was placed on a letter,
contract, or other important document.
The seal usually was made from hot wax, which was placed on the document
and then impressed with a signet ring.
The document was thereby officially identified with and under the
authority of the person to whom the signet belonged.
“That is the idea behind our being sealed in Him [Christ]
with ‘the Holy Spirit of promise.’ The
seal of God’s Spirit in the believer signifies four primary things: security, authenticity, ownership, and
authority.” I want to briefly look at
four primary things that are provided by the sealing of the Holy Spirit.
Security: This has to do with ancient times when the
seal of a king, prince, or a noble represented security and inviolability. An example from the OT is seen in the sixth
chapter of the book of Daniel when Daniel was thrown into the Lion’s den and
King Darius along with his nobles, placed their seal on the stone placed over
the entrance to the den, “so that nothing might be changed in regard to Daniel”
as seen in Daniel 6:17. We can be
assured that if anyone would have tampered with that seal would have probably lost
their life. This was also seen on the
tomb where Jesus’ body laid as Pilate had his seal placed there as seen in
Matthew 27:62-66.
“In an infinitely greater
way, the Holy Spirit secures each believer, making him with His own unchallengeable
seal.”
Authenticity:
The example from the OT is
about the story of King Ahab wanting the vineyard of Naboth. His wife Jezebel then wrote letters to
various nobles who lived in Naboth’s city, demanding that they arranged false
accusations of blasphemy and treason against him and then she sealed them with
the king’s seal making them as if the king signed them.
“When God gives us His Holy
Spirit, it is as if He stamps us with a seal that reads, “This person belongs
to Me and is an authentic citizen of My divine kingdom and member of My divine
family.”
Ownership: The example from the OT is the story of when
Jeremiah bought some land from his cousin that was about to be taken over by
the Babylonians. Now he did this because
it was a promise from God that one day that land would again be taken over by
Israel. This story is found in Jeremiah
chapter thirty-two and verse ten gives the agreement.
“When the Holy Spirit seal
believes, He marks them as God’s divine possessions, who from that moment on
entirely and eternally belong to Him.
The Spirit’s seal declares the transaction of salvation as divinely official
and final.”
Authority: This OT story comes from the book of
Ester. The law that the king signed or
sealed which allowed the people of his kingdom to kill the Jews and to take
their possession could not be revoked, and so at Ester’s encouragement he made another
law which allowed the Jews to defend themselves. (Ester 8:8-12).
“When Christians are sealed
with the Holy Spirit they are delegated to proclaim, teach, minister, and
defend God’s Word and His gospel with the Lord’s own authority.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: It is interesting
that as I am preparing for my Sunday school class for tomorrow that a part of
this comes from the first five verses in Revelation chapter 14 where we read
about how God has sealed the 144,000 Jewish evangelists and so this actually
fits right into what I am teaching. (A
God Thing for sure!)
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Trust the Lord to help me remember
these four things that the Spirit of God does for me because He has sealed me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Sin.”
Today’s Bible
question: “After denying Jesus three
times, what did Peter do when he heard the roster crow?
Answer in our next SD.
11/24/2018 11:33 AM
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