"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."
-EPHESIANS
1:13, 14 [KJV]
Heaven
is a prepared place for a prepared people. Holy are its inhabitants,
holy its employments, holy its enjoyments. Therefore unless we know
something of the teaching, the work, and witness of the Holy Spirit
here, and are made partakers of a new, holy, spiritual, and heavenly
nature we have no pledge or earnest of our interest in the
inheritance of the saints in bliss. A carnal,
unsanctified, unholy, unrenewed heart is utterly incapable of
understanding, entering into, longing after, and loving an
inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. But
every holy desire, heavenly affection, gracious longing, spiritual
enjoyment, and believing, hoping, loving, looking unto and
cleaving to the Lord of life and glory by the power of the Holy
Spirit, are all so many pledges and earnests of an interest in the
glorious inheritance of the saints in light.
The
love, the joy, the peace, the calm tranquillity, and holy
acquiescence in the will of God; the ravishing views of the glory of
Christ which change the soul into the same image, from glory to
glory; the delight felt in Him, and the whole surrender of the heart
and affections to the blessed Lord as the chiefest of ten thousand
and the altogether lovely, are all so many earnests of the
inheritance above, as being heaven begun below.
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)
February
7th, EARS FROM HARVESTED SHEAVES
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