WHEN a document of importance is approved it is signed and sealed. Let me ask the reader, Have you approved God’s record concerning His Son? Have you believed His testimony? Do you believe the Gospel? “He that hath believed his testimony (Christ’s) hath set to his seal that God is true” (John 3:33). Everybody has either believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, or he has not. There can be no neutrality. The reader is therefore either saved or lost now. “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son” (John 5:10). If you believe God’s Word you have fixed your seal to it. The believer is secured by two seals. If a man does not believe God, then he shuts himself outside the door of salvation, he closes heaven against himself, he opens the gates of hell wide, he lays up for himself everlasting wrath. Reader, pause, lest you find yourself in hell!
To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is to set your seal to His testimony. “He that believeth on him hath the witness in himself” (1 John 5:10), and “shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). So that the believer is not only saved now, but has God’s guarantee that he will be saved from coming wrath. “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:9,10). Such a person, by God’s grace, has had his eyes opened, is turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that he might receive the forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified through faith in Christ the Lord. (See Acts 26:18.)
For the believer’s inheritance I would refer you to Ephesians 1, where we learn what the second seal is. First, the word of truth is presented, the Gospel of Salvation, then the believing it, after which, “Ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest (pledge) of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession,” &c. (Eph. 1:13,14). May those who have these two seals, continue to explore that vast inheritance by faith, annex, and enjoy it.
I turn again to the unbelieving, unsaved reader. May your eyes be opened to see that in your present condition, like a dismasted and rudderless vessel, you are drifting on and on, to be finally wrecked and sink into everlasting gloom, forgotten by men, abandoned by God. But listen! the voice of wisdom cries to you amid the din of mirth and revelry, and the accusations of a guilty conscience. “If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it” (Prov. 9:12). The Lord Jesus Christ, once the sin-bearer, now exalted a Prince and a Saviour, wants thee, poor self-engrossed, sin-stained worldling. Oh! how He suffered on Calvary’s cross! Think of His bleeding hands and feet, His thorn-crowned brow. Think of all the scorn men heaped upon Him―of His patient grace―of His soul-consuming agony as sin-offering. Canst thou refuse such love, or despise such grace? See Him there, the Son of God, become man, to die for thee, the sinner! Gaze on Him till thy heart is melted, and owning thy guilt and unworthiness, look up and by faith see Him at God’s right hand in heaven, a proof that God is glorified, that atonement is made. He waits until those who have trusted Him are gathered round Him in yonder glory, and till His enemies are made His footstool. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9).
“Our sins were all laid on Thee,
God’s wrath Thou hast endured;
It was for us Thou sufferedst thus,
And hast our peace secured.
Thou hast bestowed the earnest
Of that we shall inherit;
Till Thou shalt come to take us home,
We’re sealed by God the Spirit.”
J. W.