The Sabbath is the Seal of God !!
Updated 10/15/00: Aesthetics
This was taken from an earlier discussion on an internet discussion forum. An enemy of the truth started the issue by making the following statement:
The [idea of the] National Sunday Law is based on a mistaken understanding of what the 'Seal of God' is. You and the rest of the conservative SDA side of the church want to say that the Sabbath is the seal, when anybody can pick up a concordance and easily find that the Bible teaches that the "Seal of God' is the Holy Spirit.
I responded by stating:
When I pick up my bible I know and notice that a seal is and has always been an inanimate non-personal object. The Adventist interpretation supersedes every other! It gives dignity and honor to the Third Person of the Godhead.
In Deuteronomy 6 the Children of Israel are told to put the commandments in certain areas of their bodies. It is not understood that these commandments are alive. It says:
Deut. 6:1 Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it:
2 That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.
3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
8 And thou shalt bind them for a SIGN upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
Here we see something important going on the forehead and upon the hand. Going to the Revelation thence we see and notice that the Mark of the Beast is placed either in the forehead or the hand. The Mark of the Beast is also understood to be something inanimate and something impersonal. If this is not the case, how is it that governments, using the law and their powers of enforcement at their disposal are going to FORCE Satan into the people of the world? Are they going to hold witchcraft services, seances or something? How is that done and how would that be done? Then conversely, what is going to FORCE the Holy Spirit to dwell into the hands of the people? We have heard of the Holy Spirit going into the heart. Have we heard of the Holy Spirit going into the forehead? Why wasn't the heart mentioned in the scriptures showing where the seal of God will be placed in contradiction to where is always mentioned that the Holy Spirit lives throughout the scriptures? If we therefore really didn't see scripturally any reference to where the Holy Spirit goes into the forehead, what about the hand? Do we have any such a reference?
Isaiah 8:16 says: Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.
But yet understand also the language of Revelation 12, as it says:
17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
With the language of Isaiah, we see that the words "testimony" and law are right there in the same way they are present with Revelation 12:17.
But what about people who point out that the heart controls the head, or the head controls the heart you might ask?
That is a point that I was looking into: that people will say that the heart controls the brain and all. All scripture references however shows a distinction. In Ezekiel 9, we see the pattern. There is earnest preparation just before a terrible calamity falls upon God's people who are in apostasy. Just the mentioning of a seal, always appears to denote a time of rampant apostasy and danger; a time of impending judgment and disaster ahead.
Connected with the seal is no CELEBRATING. The people are sealed by the angel with the writer's inkhorn. That writer comes out of the Sanctuary. We therefore see that JUDGMENT is connected with and to the terminology. The Holy Spirit exists with God's children always, but it is not always in the earth's history that there is talk about the seal of God. There was talk about it in the days of the Apostles, and the Apostles believed that their day was the last days. They were also surrounded by and in persecution or danger. Let no one therefore bring up the argument that since the Apostles talked about it, its application to danger and judgment does not exist. The Apostles thought that their days were the last days and that the judgment was actually going on in their day.
After God's servants are sealed, then mercy no longer lingers, and the executioner of judgment comes out of the Sanctuary to punish the inhabitants of the earth.
Listen to the language of the prophecy in Revelation 7, so that we can see the difference between the Seal of God and the Holy Spirit:
2
And
I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God:
and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt
the earth and the sea,
3
Saying,
Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the
servants of our God in their foreheads.
4
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.
The prophecy tells us that the earth is not to be hurt until God's servants are sealed in their foreheads. We therefore first notice that they are God's servants, which automatically means that they already have the Holy Spirit, but they have not been sealed yet. The language is showing us that this sealing process is not something that has always been continuous, but that it is done for a special purpose. It prefigures protection just before cataclysmic events involving massive fatalities. This helps to confirm the finalizing nature of the inanimate Seal.
One poster has told us that the sealing here really involves the Gospel being given everywhere to people who never knew Christ, and therefore never had the Holy Spirit. THIS IS FALSE. The imagery came from Ezekiel 9 where there is a message against God's true people in apostasy. The message is there going to people who should know better. It is going to people who already profess to know and serve the Lord.
This message now goes to people in the last days where in the Revelation we see depicted symbolically a woman denoted as a harlot going by the name of Babylon.
Revelation 18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Here we see living proof of what is happening. The words say "Come out of her MY PEOPLE!" Now what are God's people doing in this woman (symbolizing a church?). Could it be that this system called Babylon is Christian? If that is so, how can it be the habitation of devils? How can Christ speak so strongly against fellow Christian brethren? Would that explain where Christ told us that in the last days deception will be so strong till if it were possible it would even take the very elect with it?
The sealing is therefore usually specially connected with the Babylon message. It is a message FOR GOD'S PEOPLE most significantly. It comes before TERRIBLE trouble or destruction. It comes only with earnest preparation and not celebrating. The bible makes a distinction to the circumstances and time frame the seal is referred to in distinction to the presence of the Holy Spirit, and where the seal of God is placed from where it says the Holy Spirit enters. Since it refers to specific times of danger, yes, it is what enemies to Adventism call a "perfectionist" message. IT IS SPECIFICALLY GIVEN TO MAKE THE ANGEL OF DEATH TURN AWAY FROM ANYONE WHO WEARS IT!
It tells us that God is holy and that we must also become holy through His power. It mostly applies to when the Lord Jesus comes back to the earth in flaming fire where He will destroy absolutely everything that offends. Anyone who cannot look into His eyes and live will be destroyed. If they can look in His eyes and live, they will then be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Everyone upon the earth MUST be like the High Priests that went into the Sanctuary on the Day of Atonement while still in sinful flesh.
END