March 18

Revelation 9:4—Only such men as have not the seal of God on their foreheads. (R.V.)

This reference carries us back to chap. vii., with its sublime description of the angel ascending from the sunrise, having the seal of the living God. He had cried with a great voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea (Revelation 8:3).

The seal of God! Whatever that means in this pictorial or hieroglyphic book, we know what it means throughout the Epistles. The sealed have no doubt about their personal acceptance with God. They have set their seal to God, and He to them. They realize that they belong to Him in bonds of ownership which neither life nor death can dissolve. They bear upon their lives the impression of his image and superscription. They go to and fro about the world under the protecting escort of his high angels, who are commissioned to bring them safely to their Father’s home. They have been anointed as kings and priests.

What a remarkable inference may be derived from the prohibition of the previous chapter, and the immunity accorded to the sealed ones in this! If the hordes of horsemen are withheld from touching the servants of God, whom the Angel sealed, we may infer, when no such caution is uttered about our lives, and no such immunity secured, that God has allowed pain, and sorrow, and death to hurt us for some sufficient reason—one which we shall be able to appreciate when we stand in his light. If He who has power to withhold the power of the adversary does not withhold it, the assaults which make our frail craft tremble from stem to stern must be his appointment and choice for us, and we must dare to look up into his face, and say, It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good.