Revelation 7:4-8 And I heard the number of them which were sealed… I. WHO, THEN, ARE THESE 144,000 SEALED ONES? II. THE NATURE OF THE SEALING OF WHICH THESE 144,000 ARE THE SUBJECTS. 1. It is manifest that the transaction takes place on earth, and in the case of people contemporaneously living in the flesh. 2. This sealing involved the impartation of a conspicuous and observable mark. 3. It is something Divine. The seal with which the sealing is done is "a seal of the living God." It so pledges Him, and to Him, that it must be regarded as His own act. 4. The office of this sealing is in the hands of an angel, who comes forth from the sun-rising. He is a high officer from God. He carries a seal of the miracle-working God, and he gives commands to the angels of judgment. Many take him to be the Lord Jesus Himself. There is much to sustain this view. 5. This sealing was, moreover, amoral, and not a mere arbitrary or external thing. Those who receive it are described as "the servants of our God," as contradistinguished from other classes of men. And from what is said of them in the fourteenth chapter they are very eminently God's servants. It is the common law of the Divine proceedings that His special honours are never otherwise conferred than in connection with special dutifulness and fidelity under very special trials and difficulties. 6. And from this we are enabled to get a still deeper glance into the nature of this peculiar sealing. The seal of God is the Spirit of God, particularly in His more unusual gifts. 7. Very various and diverse: hence would also be the outward manifestations of this mark. It would show itself in the doctrines professed by the sealed ones, in the power with which they announce and defend them, in a particularly holy, prayerful, and self-denying life, in a bravery and fearlessness before gainsayers which no earthly powers can daunt, and in a wisdom and heavenliness of demeanour. III. THE INTENT AND EFFECT OF THIS MARVELLOUS SEALING. It is agreed on all hands that it is a merciful and gracious act. Its first effect is to stay the blasts of judgment, and to produce a lull in the work of vengeance. So it is ever. God's people are the salt of the earth. But for them, and God's gracious purposes toward them, judgment and ruin would instantly break over the globe. Governments stand, society exists, the waters flow, the trees live, the sea retains its salubrity, the grasses grow upon the earth, and the death-blasts of the destroying angels are restrained, only because the Lord is engaged taking out from among the nations a people for His name, the number of which must first be made up. But this sealing was more particularly for the comfort, assurance, and security of the sealed ones themselves. As the gift of the Holy Ghost certified and assured the apostles of the Divinity of the cause they had espoused, of their acceptance as God's acknowledged ambassadors; so this sealing with the seal of the living God certified and assured these 144,000 of the unmistakable character of their faith, of their election as a firstfruits of incoming new administrations, and guaranteed unto them not only security amid She blasts of heightening judgment upon earth, but also a peculiar and blessed portion with Jesus in His glory. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. |
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