Letter 136 on Assurance and Fighting for Joy
AND an inheritance | Richard Sibbes & the Sealing of the Spirit
Five years ago today I began blogging here, and not long afterwards God put me on a journey I could not have foreseen. I was born again, and I had received forgiveness of sins back in 1982. I knew I was a child of God in some sense, I didn't have any doubts about my final destination – and yet not long after that time I began to be tormented with guilt, depression and doubts about my past and my past sins, and my past sins and failures began to plague, burden, overwhelm and paralyze me.
In the fall of 2008, I was driven to look into the Scriptures (where else could I go? God alone has the words of eternal life!). At that time I wrote a series of posts on dealing with past sins and guilt, in which I reviewed the work of Christ on behalf of the believer (on my behalf!). If you're struggling with assurance that your sins have been forgiven and your guilt has been taken away in Christ, I would encourage you to look at those posts here. Not long after writing those posts, God was gracious to me, and He gave me a felt assurance of forgiveness, which I wrote about several months later in my post my new song: "My soul is clean".
In spite of the firm assurance of forgiveness of sins God had given me at that time, I began to see there was much, much more to the Christian life that I was lacking. For years, I kept saying I wasn't a joyful person, and I read about joy in the Bible, but I patently denied those promises were possible for me. Thank God that He was longsuffering and merciful towards me!
A couple years before that time, I remember reading Psalm 86:4 where the Psalmist is praying, "Rejoice the soul of Your servant," and a seed was planted. I saw there that as much as I tried I couldn't make myself joyful, but joy was a gift I could ask God for. Finally, in the fall of 2009 I began to cry out to God in earnest to give me Habakkuk 3 joy (please see my post the laborer's lamentation & affirmation) – and much to my surprise and delight, less than a week later God imparted to me a sense of joy in Him I didn't think possible. (We must remember that our God is the God who is for us, the God with whom all things are possible, the God who delights to give His children good gifts, and the God who can do exceedingly above all we can ask or think!)
Many of you don't know those things about me. I've been writing about assurance and fighting for joy since that time, and today's post is my 136th post on it. As I mentioned in an Advent post WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might draw near to God | Even a Vapor, I would be the last person I thought would be doing such a thing! But God!
Many of you may read my posts today or read my comments to you, but you don't know the journey God has had me on, so I would encourage you to look back at the way God has led me, so it might serve as an encouragement for you to begin to look at the Scripture, so you might begin to ask hard things of God (for nothing is too hard for Him!), so God's Spirit might open your eyes to see the inheritance God has for you – and then you might be strengthened to enter into that inheritance (enter into Christ!) and enjoy it (enjoy Christ!) beginning today!
If you're only looking at this life as a holding place, if you're only biding your time here looking forward to heaven, know this – you are robbing yourself of the riches of the inheritance Christ died to give you and – and not only that, but you are robbing the lost world of a testimony to the power and goodness of a living God who wants us to be His witnesses here, bubbling up with living water – and not only that, but you are grieving, limiting and quenching the Holy Spirit of God. That was the sin of the Israelites time and again throughout the Old Testament. There are many, many examples to be found, but in particular Psalm 78 tells us how Israel had no real understanding or expectation of what God could do, and so they sinned and rebelled against God as they tested and provoked the Holy One of Israel time and time again.
11 They forgot his works
and the wonders that he had shown them.
12 In the sight of their fathers he performed wonders
in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.
13 He divided the sea and let them pass through it,
and made the waters stand like a heap.
14 In the daytime he led them with a cloud,
and all the night with a fiery light.
15 He split rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
16 He made streams come out of the rock
and caused waters to flow down like rivers.
17 Yet they sinned still more against him,
rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
18 They tested God in their heart
by demanding the food they craved.
19 They spoke against God, saying,
“Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
20 He struck the rock so that water gushed out
and streams overflowed.
Can he also give bread
or provide meat for his people?”
21 Therefore, when the LORD heard, he was full of wrath;
a fire was kindled against Jacob;
his anger rose against Israel,
22 because they did not believe in God
and did not trust his saving power...
40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
and grieved him in the desert!
41 They tested God again and again
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember his power
or the day when he redeemed them from the foe,
43 when he performed his signs in Egypt
and his marvels in the fields of Zoan.
My dear brothers and sisters, let us take heed and learn from their example, so we do not follow in their footsteps! Our God is a God who can spread a table in this wilderness! Let us not be sluggish, let us not be unbelieving, let us not drop as carcasses in the wilderness, but let us press on to enter into in greater and greater measure the inheritance God has given us! Let us travel from grace to grace and from glory to glory. The veil has been torn! Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty! Let us take hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of us! Let us trust that the God who redeemed us wants to do more for us than He did for us at our beginnings! Let us look with anticipation that we might see the light shining brighter and brighter until the final Day! Having carried, seen and tasted the grapes of Eschol, may God be gracious to us and give us that different Spirit that possessed Joshua and Caleb, rather than the complacent spirit that consumed the other 10 spies – and prevented them from crossing over Jordan into the promised land!
In Acts 26, we read Paul's account of His encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ on the Damascus Road, as Jesus commissioned Paul...
18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, AND inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
And in Ephesians 3, Paul wrote:
7 Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ...
I don't write here for fun, profit or profession, but I write because my desire is that God might use my words to open your eyes and turn you from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, so you might receive forgiveness of sins AND an inheritance among those who are being sanctified by faith that is in Jesus Christ. Many of you may already be saved, you may have received forgiveness of sins – but I ask you this: Do you have any real sense of the unsearchable riches of Christ? Have you been given a spiritual sight of your inheritance in the saints?
I consider myself the least of all the saints. I know all that I have I have received by the sovereign grace of God. In His wonderful will (though painful & grievous at the time), God began to hedge up my way, so I might begin to hunger and thirst for Him as I had never done before – and then He began to grace me with glimpses into His glorious inheritance, the unsearchable riches of Christ. Because God's Spirit has begun to open to my eyes to begin to see the unsearchable riches of Christ, I long for your eyes to be opened to these treasures as well. I consider all that God has given me a stewardship, and I want to be found faithful. And not only that, but I want you to know the joy of the Lord in your pilgrimage here on this earth. I know how miserable it is to be unassured, doubting, whining and discontent, and I hate it when I begin to slip and lapse back into that! That is so very far from the abundant life Jesus Christ died to give us!
For years I was like the older son in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15), the son who dutifully stated at home – but his eyes were blinded to the riches of his father's inheritance. Yes, he worked faithfully, but he had no joy. Yes, he labored diligently, but he had no understanding of the love of his father. He had no real understanding of his privileged position, and he was oblivious to the riches that were already available to him:
And he said to him, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours..."
O! This is exactly what our heavenly Father is crying out to each of us through His Holy Spirit – because by faith in Jesus Christ, we enter into a heavenly inheritance with all the saints. May God give us ears to hear Him! God doesn't want us just to be saved from hell fire, but He wants us to enter into full assurance of faith, a living fellowship and a joyful pilgrimage with Him through the Lord Jesus Christ – beginning this very day. Our Lord desired that the church at Laodicea be shaken out of their lukewarmness so she might open the door to Him and sup with Him! But, sad to say, how few of us have any inkling or understanding of these things. We see Christianity as a creed, a philosophy or an obligation – but it is access into the Most Holy Place! Jesus Christ died in our place that we might be brought back to God, that we might have intimate fellowship with the living God through the sacrifice of the body and blood of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The way has been opened to us! O! How pitiful we are! How deceived we are! The Psalmists wrote things like: "One thing I ask... One thing I seek..." What was that one thing? It was fellowship with the living God! They panted, fainted and longed to be with God, to be near to God! They cried out for the living God! Do we? Shouldn't we?! I plead with you not to waste your life here, but to be fervent and zealous to seek to know the riches of your inheritance.
The devil works to keep us out of the Kingdom of God, and even once we're in the Kingdom, he schemes to keep us blinded to the riches of the inheritance that is ours as children of God. He wants to keep us in that position of the older son, or in that position of the man who had some sight, but professed he only saw men as trees walking, not having a clear view of the goodness and love of God and His desire to have fellowship with us. My friends: we are the bride of Christ. God's love for us is jealous and zealous!
Jeremiah 2:2 Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the LORD,
I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.
The devil wants to keep our ears closed to what the Spirit has to say to us. He wants to keep our eyes shut to having a spiritual sight of our inheritance in the saints. Even though we are freed from the power of the devil, our adversary continually prowls and constantly works to fight to keep us in the dark, to keep our eyes closed to the fullness of what God in Christ has for us. The apostle Paul prayed that the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened, and that is my prayer for you.
Ephesians 1:18: 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...
Notice there that Paul was praying for those who were already saints. Implied there: there is much, much more for all of us to know of the riches of the glory of our inheritance! In Ephesians 3:8, a verse I referenced above, Paul talks about the unsearchable riches of Christ. By His love constraining us and by His Spirit strengthening us, may we press on to know Christ and begin to search His unsearchable riches!
* * *
I've written a poem about my desire for you to know Christ's unsearchable riches, and then following that, I've included an excerpt from an article about Richard Sibbes' (1577-1635) teaching on sealing with the Spirit. I would strongly encourage you to go and read the entire article here <http://www.puritansermons.com/banner/beeke01.htm>.
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light (Col. 1:12, KJV),
By the grace of God, blogging to the glory of God so you might begin to enter into the inheritance He has for you, that your joy might be complete,
~ Karen
Acts 26:18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light,
and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins,
AND inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
AND an inheritance
For my sins, He bled and died
This my Savior, Jesus Christ!
Blotted out my transgressions
Covered with His righteousness
A brand plucked from the fire!
The just God became my justifier!
Turned from darkness into the light
With all the saints by faith sanctified
To my Father, all thanks I raise
He qualified us to partake
For all peoples, a feast He prepared
Behold! His Son He did not spare!
Above and beyond that first sight
His Spirit breathes to raise to Zion's height
Exceedingly above all we can ask
God's love all knowledge does surpass
"'It is finished! Winter is past!"
Expect His gaze through the lattice
Over Bether I've seen Him glide
This my Lover, Jesus Christ!
Excels every earthly delight!
This my Bridegroom, Jesus Christ!
Rend the heavens! O! make haste
Pour forth that all the saints might taste
The riches of Your inheritance
Intoxicating and holy trance
Filled with all Your fullness
Whirling, leaping in the dance
Though many may sneer: "Undignified!"
By Michal's heart scorned and despised
Paraclete, descend, come beside
A single glimpse, compelling sight
To heaven's table, celestial flight
Wine on the lees, well refined
Tap the barrels, Spring of Life!
Full of water, mercies wide
To God's children bearing witness
Shining brighter from grace to grace
Sweet incense flowing from above
Aroma of everlasting love
Abounding hope, perfect peace and joy
For every man, woman, girl and boy
On the wings of glory, fly!
Reveal the Beloved – Jesus Christ!
Breathe, O refreshing breeze!
Astonishment, come and seize!
Holy Spirit of God, comfort and seal
The deep things of God take and reveal
Above and beyond the first
Grant us greater hunger and thirst
Be true to Your promises
Do not leave us as orphans
Manifest Your glorious presence
Shine Your face, lift up your countenance!
Having supped, having a taste
How can we stay complacent?
* * *
Richard Sibbes & the Sealing of the Spirit
From Joel R. Beeke's "Richard Sibbes on Entertaining the Holy Spirit":
... Sibbes thought of the Spirit’s sealing in two ways: (1) a one-time sealing, and (2) a sealing that came later as one matured in the Christian life.
The once-and-for-all sealing of salvation is granted when a person first believes in Christ and God’s promises. Sibbes taught that as a king’s image is stamped upon wax, so the Spirit stamps the believer’s soul with the image of Christ from the very moment of believing. Such sealing produces in every believer a lifelong desire to be transformed fully into the image of Christ.
This seal, which every believer possesses, whether he is conscious of it or not, serves as a mark of authenticity. It distinguishes the believer from the world. As merchants mark their wares and herdsman brand their sheep, so God seals His people to declare that they are His rightful property and that He has authority over them, Sibbes said.
The second aspect of Sibbes’s doctrine of sealing is more elusive. Owen argued that Sibbes said sealing had to occur twice in the life of the believer. But Sibbes was not arguing for a second measure of positional assurance, as if to imply that God was not altogether sure of our stance with Him or His stance towards us upon regeneration. Sibbes plainly stated: “Sealing of us by the Spirit is not in regard to God, but ourselves. God knoweth who are His, but we know not that we are His but by sealing. The sealing then is for our benefit exclusively, and not for God.”
So the second kind of sealing Sibbes wrote about was a process. It was the kind of assurance that could increase gradually throughout our lives by means of singular experiences and by daily, spiritual growth. This sealing had degrees; it could grow with spiritual maturity. Sibbes wrote: “The Spirit sealeth by degrees. As our care of pleasing the Spirit increaseth so our comfort increaseth. Our light will increase as the morning light unto the perfect day. Yielding to the Spirit in one holy motion will cause him to lead us to another, and so on forwards, until we be more deeply acquainted with the whole counsel of God concerning our salvation.”
Related:
Links to my series "Dealing with Past Sins & Guilt"
my other posts on assurance and fighting for joy including:
my 3rd Xangaversary: "His grace abounded to this chief of sinners"
why Naphtali?
Advent # 5 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might draw near to God | Even a Vapor (why Naphtali? ~ revisited)
Advent #1 WHY HAS JESUS COME? that we might have life & life more abundantly
Advent # 7 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might be satisfied with Him
learning to run without fear
"The Christian should not just believe the truth, and know it..." | the Father's assurance
update w/ excerpt: Lloyd-Jones' sermons on the role of experience in Christianity
The flags unfurled ... Christ's eternal banner | Lloyd-Jones ~ a third type of assurance
The Father's Inheritance (Eleven days' journey ~ A lamentation & an exhortation)
the door, the sword, the crown ~ through faith & patience (Hebrews 6:11-12)
As a deer pants ... Is your soul panting for God? (Psalms 42 & 43)
"The honeycomb I lift!" ~ Will you join me? I Samuel 14:24-30
Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Emphasis mine.
Work found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RichardSibbes.jpg / CC BY-SA 3.0 / {PD-Art|PD-old-100}
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