Ephesians 1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. And now from verse three all the way to verse 14. is in the original one sentence, one long sentence, even though the King James put some periods in there, it's all one, a doxology that begins in verse three then, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. which is the earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. Wherefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. Far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. So far we read God's holy word. The text for the sermon is the second part of verse 13 and verse 14. So in the middle of verse 13, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory. We love it in the Lord Jesus Christ. We continue tonight to observe Pentecost. As I pointed out this morning, the church order of Dort requires that of the church. And it does so because the Reformed churches understand the importance of the day. That it is a day that commemorates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and it's part of the one saving work of Jesus Christ. The one saving work. Any part of the saving work of Jesus Christ that would be left out, so to speak, if Jesus had not accomplished it, would mean there would be no salvation. Every last thing Jesus has done and is doing is part of his glorious work of saving us from our sin and bringing us to heaven. Pentecost, therefore, is part of that wonder work of salvation and deserves that emphasis and that observation by us. We have seen this morning that the day of Pentecost, on that day, 120 believers were gathered together in one room, men and women, in Jerusalem. It was a Jewish feast day, the feast day of the finished harvest, perhaps the day after, when the Holy Spirit came. And He came with signs to indicate that He was in them, that he had come to the church in Jerusalem. The sound as of a rushing, a violent wind, a mighty wind, the sound of that, that filled the house, coming out of heaven and filling the house. The cloven tongues or dispersed tongues above the head of each one of the people there, like as of fire, and then all of them speaking in tongues, pointing to the fact that the church had become Catholic, universal. The significance of the day is tremendous. It signaled the end of the Old Testament, the old dispensation, and the beginning of the new. The Old Testament, which was a dispensation of types and shadows, a dispensation of promise of things to come, a dispensation where God's people lived as children, tutored by the law that directed them toward Jesus Christ. The new is a remarkable change for the church. Christ poured out the Spirit on the church, and at that moment, the church came of age, grew up, spiritually no longer needed to be governed by laws no longer needed the pictures because the reality had come jesus had accomplished salvation and now all the believers become prophets priests and kings not merely that the office bearers in israel were that but all believers have this office. The text we consider tonight looks at an additional benefit of Pentecost, that the Spirit seals us and that the Spirit is given as an earnest of our salvation. That's what verse 13 says, in whom after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. The idea is not that you believed for a while and then you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, but those two things go together. When the Spirit gives faith, that knowledge, that confidence, as we'll see tonight, is sealing us at the same moment, by faith even, sealing us. And the whole message, especially of this text, is the wonderful assurance of salvation that God gives to us today. in the new dispensation. Beautiful assurance as we are sealed by the spirit and have the spirit as an earnest of our salvation. So let's look at this text under the theme simply the sealed with the spirit of promise sealed with the spirit of promise. Notice in the first place the divine seal Secondly, the reassuring earnest, and finally, the sure praise, because verse 14 says all of this is unto the praise of His glory. The seal is the Spirit. Literally, you have in verse 13 this, sealed by the Spirit of promise, comma, the Holy One. sealed by the spirit of promise. This tells us that the one who has come into the believer to seal him is the third person of the Trinity given to Jesus Christ. It is his own spirit that seals us. That's why he is called the spirit of promise, the spirit of promise, because he was promised to Christ, first of all, We saw that in Acts 2, verse 33. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He, Christ, has shed forth this which ye now see and hear. That was Peter explaining to the people what's going on here, what's happening. This is the fulfillment of Christ giving the spirit of promise to the church. The promise of the Spirit, that is, the Spirit was given to Jesus as promised when Jesus ascended into heaven. That's the Spirit God had promised to give Him. There is no specific record of God promising this to Christ. This is something that involves the life of the Trinity. This is something that involves the very counsel of God But within the life of the Trinity, God promised to Christ that he would give him his own spirit, the spirit that is the third person of the Trinity. That this is the case, that God promised it to Jesus, is something that Jesus made known to his own disciples before he even was crucified. In Luke 24, verse 49, Luke 24, 49, we read this, Jesus to his disciples, behold, I send the promise of the Father upon you. I send the promise of the Father upon you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." I said this is before the cross, it was actually after the cross, but in the 40 days before Jesus ascended. And again, when Jesus is about to ascend into heaven, in Acts 1, verse 4, we read this, being assembled together with them, He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which said he, ye have heard of me. In John chapter 14, 15 and 16, Jesus went into great detail on the spirit that he would give them. But he calls them in Luke and in Acts 1, the promise of the Father. Jesus promised to give the spirit to them. He calls him in John 14, 15, and 16, the spirit of truth, the one who would guide the church into the truth. He would do that by inspiring men to write the rest of the Bible, the New Testament scriptures. He would guide the church into the truth by filling the believers in the church with understanding and guiding the church down the right path of the truth so that she did not depart. We talked this morning of the dangers of the church having the freedom now to interpret the scriptures. And Jesus said, yes, you'll have freedom, but I will give you the spirit who will guide you into the truth. He is the spirit that would be with the church in tribulation. So that not only would they not fail in tribulation, but they wouldn't even have to think about what to say. The spirit would give them the words to answer those who asked a reason of the hope in them. The spirit is the living water by which they would receive eternal life and never again thirst. But that spirit that Jesus promised could not be given to the church until Jesus had accomplished everything the father sent him to do. In fact, that wasn't necessary to have the spirit because Jesus was there. He had work to do. He taught the people. He showed them the great power of God to save by his miracles. But after he left, there would be no one to guide the church and to teach the church and to preserve the church in the truth. As long as Jesus was on the earth, they didn't need the Spirit. But after Jesus finished the work, and ascended into heaven, his responsibilities increased tremendously. He was given a place at God's right hand and given the power and authority to execute the counsel of God. And as we saw this morning, he needed the spirit for that because he could only be in one place at one time in his body and he needed the spirit to be able to go through all the world and to accomplish the fulfillment of God's counsel. So the spirit of Jesus Christ is poured out on Pentecost. The spirit that lives in every believer. The spirit that is accomplishing the work of salvation in each believer. The work that Christ sends him to do. The one who regenerates. The spirit who gives faith. The spirit who gives forgiveness and justifies and sanctifies. Every blessing that Christ earned on the cross, the Spirit takes and applies it to the people of God in their hearts, especially sanctification. As His name indicates, the Holy One He is, the Holy Spirit is the one who sanctifies God's people. That Spirit seals the believer. That's what the epistle here, what Paul writes, in whom after that ye believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. The idea of a seal is a very beautiful idea, very rich with meaning. The main idea of a seal is to remove any doubt whatsoever. That is the main thought. A seal, children may not understand what I'm talking about, a seal. I'm not talking about the animal, obviously. A seal is something that you can put on a piece of paper. It might be a little ribbon type thing that you can paste on there, but quite often it's more something that you can press into the paper. Press into it and leave a mark there that has an abiding mark. You can't take it away. It's sealed with something. So the Bible uses that idea of seal and says the spirit seals us. We are sealed by him. And what that seal does is, first of all, if it's on a document, it says this document is genuine. You don't have to question that. It's a genuine, valid document. What it says it is, it is. Wicked Queen Jezebel, when she wanted to steal Naboth's vineyard from him, wrote letters in the king's name and sent them to the elders of the city and sealed it, pressed upon it the mark of King Ahab. So when the elders of the city saw this letter with the seal on it, they assumed this was from the king. This is an official document from the king. That's what a seal does. It may be something that the government puts on an official birth certificate. pressed into it. It may be something that's found on a person's passport that is embedded in the paper, but it indicates this is not a fraud. This is authentic, a genuine, official document. That's what a seal does especially. It authenticates. It makes it official. It can also be, as it was in the days of Ahab, the major way of indicating that this was from the person. This was his seal. He didn't have to sign it because his seal was on there. You know it's from the king because it's his seal. So a seal distinguishes everything that is false and spurious from that which is genuine and true. That's what a seal does. There's added ideas with regard to a seal. A seal can also be a mark of ownership, a mark of ownership. The Song of Solomon, chapter eight, verse six, we read this, set me as a seal upon thy heart. ownership in the deepest part of our soul. Set me as a seal upon thy heart that I'm possessed, that you are rather possessed by me. That's how important you are. A seal also protects against tampering and harm. The Jews set a seal upon the tomb in order to be sure that no one tampered with the stone or the body of Jesus that was with inside. And the book of Revelation speaks of God telling the man to seal the 144,000, all the elect people that are on the earth, put my seal on them that will protect them from the violence of the devil. So there's many things that are associated with this idea of a seal. Surely, authenticity. It guarantees that it's true. It indicates from whom. It indicates ownership. It indicates protection. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit. Sealed. The Holy Spirit seals us By faith. That's what he does by faith. He seals us. He takes the truth, the truth that is preached, the truth that is in the Bible, and he presses it as it were upon our souls. He seals us with faith. He makes us to know that the Word of the Gospel is genuine. That it isn't merely some man standing up and telling you some things and you say, well, yeah, maybe, maybe not. And when the man says, but understand, this is the Word of God to you, the Spirit makes you to know it is the Word of God to me. That's an amazing thing if you think about it. Who in the world would believe that a man getting up and preaching is speaking to you the Word of God? Who would believe such a thing? Those who have faith. The Spirit seals that Word upon the souls of God's people so that they have no doubt. It is the Word of God. That's what a seal does. It makes it so there's no doubt about the document. In this case, the Bible or the preached Word to us. It seals, the Spirit seals it to our hearts. He does that by faith because faith is an experiential knowledge. Faith doesn't merely believe that something is true. That is true. It does that. But it believes that something is true because it's my experience. The Holy Spirit causes us to experience the truth of the preaching of the gospel. We come to know forgiveness. We come to know it. I am a forgiven child of God. We come to know life with God. We actually can pray and experience that my prayer is going to God and that I can read the scriptures and have God speak to me. How does that happen? Because the Spirit is making us to experience covenant life with God. He gives us faith that is a sure knowledge of everything that God has revealed in His Word. And then that is not only a knowledge of that, but a hearty confidence. He seals salvation to us with a confidence of faith. We are absolutely sure that we are saved. The Spirit makes us to have that kind of conviction. He does so again by applying the blessings of salvation so that we are experiencing those blessings and we are confident. Salvation is real. Jesus died. Jesus, the very Son of God, come in the flesh, died for sin, died for my sin, arose from the dead, ascended up into heaven. He is a living Savior. You think of all the things that we believe, that the world says, why would anybody believe this stuff? And we say, but I don't have any doubts about it. I'm absolutely sure. that Jesus accomplished all of that and that he accomplished it for me. Why can a person have that kind of assurance? It's because the spirit seals it to us by faith. The other aspects of the seal also are here. We belong to God. We have the mark of God upon us, not something you can see on the outside, but pressed upon our hearts is the seal of God. The spirit says you belong to God. We are his. And we are protected. As all of the 144,000 were sealed so that they would be protected from the terrible assault of the devil. Could not be lost. could not destroy the devil, could not destroy our faith or rob us of the salvation. We know that because we are sealed by the Holy Spirit. Again, think of the difference between what we have being sealed by the Holy Spirit and what the Old Testament saints had. They had faith. There's no question about it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be saved. We are saved by faith. But that faith was always clinging to promises that hadn't been fulfilled yet. It was always a hope that was in the future. They were always looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises. But after the work of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit. Now God puts the promise into the very hearts of God's people and he seals it there and says it's a finished work. What Jesus did is accomplished and your salvation is absolutely sure and realized. We have the reality of that salvation given to us already now. Not saying someday, someday we'll get the salvation, but we have it now. Though, admittedly, we have it in principle. because we do not have the reality yet, not the full reality yet. And that's why the second part of the work of the Spirit is so important, that he not only seals us, but he is an earnest, an earnest. Verse 14, the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. The earnest of our inheritance, right away when you hear that, you think of the fact that we are children of God. An inheritance is the possessions of the parents that are handed down to their children. That's the ordinary way. When the parents die, they give their possessions to their children. The precious things that the parents have, the things that the children have come to love because of their own life with their parents, and they want to have that for themselves. Those are the things that are part of the inheritance. In the Old Testament, Canaan was called the inheritance of Israel. Children have the right to the inheritance. Parents promise the inheritance to them. Sometimes they might say to their children, well, when I die, you may have this. Or simply say, everything I own will be yours when I die. That's the idea of an inheritance. I will give it to you. Unless a child is terribly rebellious and horribly offends the parents and is disowned, every child expects that some of the parents' possessions will be passed on down to him or to her. Children receive the inheritance. For us, we are children of God by adoption. Already in this chapter in Ephesians 1, verse 5, Paul says, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. By nature, we are rebels. By nature, we have no right to any inheritance from God, but God has adopted us in Jesus Christ, adopted us unto himself, and through Jesus, has made that a reality. Jesus who removed the sin and guilt, Jesus who earned a righteousness which is bestowed upon us, we then have the right to eternal life. We have the right to the inheritance. That's what it is. The full salvation from sin and death, living with God in the new heavens and the new earth, and enjoying covenant fellowship with God. That is our inheritance. Really, it's God himself to be able to live with God. That's our inheritance. We have that in principle. We do. The full salvation has been accomplished by Jesus Christ. It is finished, he said on the cross. There's nothing to be added to it. The Holy Spirit applies it to us. We have a salvation that the Old Testament saints did not yet enjoy in their day. And yet we all recognize we do not have the full reality. We do not see God face to face. He promised that, someday we will. Now we look, as it were, through a mirror and we see something of God's face that way by looking in a mirror. But someday, says the Bible, face to face, we still have this old nature, this wretched nature, full of corruption and sin. And that constantly drags us back to iniquity. We've not been delivered totally from the corruption and the power of sin. We still have to die. Our bodies have to go into the ground. The old man of sin has to be put to death entirely. So here we are. In a certain sense, we have the full salvation. And yet from another point of view, it's not complete. We have it in principle. We have the whole of it in principle as, and I like to use the illustration of an acorn, is in principle the oak tree. Because everything that oak tree will become is in that little seed, in that acorn. But it obviously isn't full grown. We have the Salvation in principle, but we do not have the full reality of our salvation. And because of that, doubts can arise. Even though we are sealed by the spirit. The world can laugh at us and taunt us and say, how can you possibly believe this? And yet, you know, and though we would say, I do believe it, I do. Yet there is that old man of sin that says, do you really? Do you really? How can you be so sure that there is another life, that you're on your way to heaven, that you will not be buried in the ground and that's the end of it? How can you be so sure? And the answer is God has given us an earnest of the inheritance an earnest that is given to us until the time of the full redemption so what does that mean the idea of an earnest is is a common word used especially in business dealings it's essentially a down payment The earnest is a down payment. When a sale is made and it's firm, the buyer has agreed to purchase the merchandise or purchase the land. But he doesn't have all the money with him in his pocket, obviously. But the deal is firm, and so he gives an earnest. And that earnest is two things in particular. First of all, it's a down payment on the full possession of the property or the merchandise. It's a down payment on what he has agreed to pay for completely. And secondly, it is a promise. I promise to come back with the whole of it. So it's a down payment on the purchase, and it is a promise to redeem the whole thing. I'll come back with the whole amount of money. This is the most appropriate figure. Our inheritance, remember, is the whole of our salvation, the full salvation. The Holy Spirit is a down payment on that, a down payment. We said that we have salvation and we do because the Spirit is taking what Jesus did and working it in us. We have a down payment. We have the part of our salvation already given to us in principle. Through the Spirit who applies that to us day after day by faith, we have part of salvation. that inheritance, eternal life, deliverance from sin, living with God, we have it now in part a down payment. But the Spirit living in us with that down payment, being a down payment, is also a pledge to us. Someday we'll have the whole Someday God will take us completely out of this world of sin and death, will take us into eternal life and live with God face to face as He promised. God will not renege on His promise. It will not be that someday down the way in our life we fall into such a terrible sin that God says, you know, I wasn't figuring on this. I don't think I want you there anymore. And he lets us go. That will not happen. Or that the attacks of the devil are so strong that to deliver us from the horrible attacks, the chains of Satan, it's not worth the effort. God doesn't bother to try to bring us to heaven any longer. He says, ah, let him go. You can have him. That will not happen. The Holy Spirit is God's promise that that will never happen. He will take us to glory. I will save you to the uttermost. You don't ever have to doubt that. You will have the full salvation without question. That's the assurance. that we have. We have the seal of the Spirit upon our souls confirming everything that the Bible says it's for you. But now besides that the down payment on the salvation and the promise of God in the earnest of the Holy Spirit. That kind of assurance produces sure praise. Sure praise. That's what the point of this all is, according to verse 14, unto the praise of his glory, the praise of his glory. The glory of God is. Is an infinite glory. I would. I would describe the glory of God this way as the shining brightness of all his perfections. the shining brightness of all His perfections. Remember, every perfection of God is infinite. There is no limit to it. And it's absolutely pure, whether it's God's wisdom or His power or His truth or His love or His grace, it doesn't matter. All those are God's perfections and they are infinite. And they give off a glory because of the greatness and the glory of our God, the brightness of God's infinite perfections. God's glory is so great that he says, no man can look upon me and live. No one. God is jealous for his glory. He's the only God. Everything else is creature, and God is jealous for His glory. His express purpose in creating the heavens and the earth is to reveal His glory, His infinite perfections. All things will do this. No flesh will glory in His presence. On this earth, we can boast and we can exalt ourselves and we can think we're quite something. But when we stand before the presence of God, not one tongue will move to praise self. Not one. No flesh will glory in his presence. God is determined that we will see his glory. all things exist for his glory and therefore everything that a man does even says the bible even when you're eating that should be done to the glory of god everything now that's particularly true in the area of salvation as paul writes elsewhere that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. The abundant grace through the thanksgiving of many will redound to the glory of God. That glory cannot be added to No one will in any way make God more glorious. That's impossible. It's infinite. It's an infinite glory. The text says to the praise of his glory. And the word praise there deliberately is the word that means to commend something, to commend it. The emphasis is not now on just singing to the glory of God. It isn't that, but that something will commend it, will speak well of, will set forth the glory of God. That's the idea. In this doxology that I said starts at verse three, and concludes with verse fourteen in this doxology of praise three times this expression is used verse six to the praise of the glory of his grace now isolating just one of God's perfections his grace to the praise of the glory of his grace verse twelve that we should be to the praise of His glory. And verse 14, unto the praise of His glory. You see how important and the whole of this one sentence is about the work of salvation from predestination to the cross to eternal life. It's all about our salvation to the praise of His glory. That's the purpose of our salvation. That it will reveal His glory, His power, wisdom, might, everything, but understand in a different way than merely the mountains or the stars, that the glory of God would be revealed in His people and through His people. His glory would be revealed. And that's, again, why the Spirit's working in us, not merely taking us as a sculpture and moving us into heaven, but working glory in us is so marvelous and so important for us to understand that this redounds to the glory of God. God's work in us. From those who have the Spirit will erupt the praises of God. They will not be able to say enough about it. Their mouths will show forth the wonders of salvation as the people on Pentecost. What were they doing? They were talking about the wonderful works of God. They couldn't Keep their mouths shut. And now you understand, again, it's not merely that we would behold the glory of God and say, now let me tell you about it, as you might go to the Rocky Mountains and see the beauty of the mountains and say, let me tell you about the mountains. But this is the glory of God that we have experienced in our own soul. We speak of that. There isn't anything that we want to talk about for ourselves. We don't want to talk about what we've done. There isn't anything there about that. It's all about God's glory, every part of it. And our lives reveal that. The lives of those who are sealed by the Spirit reveal it. It's a life of thankfulness. It's a life of obedience, of devotion to God. You see what a blessing it is to have the spirit of promise as a seal that confirms our salvation as part of the enjoyment already of eternal life and the promise that we will have the full down payment, the full payment of our salvation. Much more blessed than the Old Testament. We have the full assurance And if sometimes we lack assurance, we must not blame the spirit. We must not blame the spirit. If we do not have the spirit in us, we would have no assurance of salvation whatsoever. And if we lack assurance, then what do we do? We go to the means that the spirit uses to strengthen our faith so that we have that confidence, so that we have that assurance that is part of faith. But if you have much assurance, thank God for that. And pray that the Spirit will work more and more in you so that from you will come the praises of the glory of our God. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank Thee for the work of salvation accomplished in Jesus Christ and applied by thy spirit. We know it. We pray, Lord, that we may never be guilty of ignoring it, of resisting, of turning away from the spirit, grieving the spirit. But may our lives show forth that wonderful praise for which we have been created and recreated in the image of Jesus. We thank thee for him. and we pray in his name, amen. We sing Psalter number 374. 374. In stanza five, we sing, O church of our God, sing his praises for with you And in you he dwells. With you and in you he dwells. Stanzas 1, 2, 4, and 5. 1, 2, 4, and 5, 374. O praise him, each servant appointed To stand in the house of our God! O praise ye the Lord for his goodness, His people, His chosen and blest, To our praises with gratitude bring. Ye people who worship Jehovah, let's raise His servants and all he hath given, sing praise to his glorious name. As we go again through the stormy sea. Thee hide, and bless the Lord, ye Saints, we know, who in His grace divide. By all His creatures let His name The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.