What, let me ask, in the political world is analagous to tempestuous storms sweeping over the earth?  What but huge masses of men, excited by fierce passions, precipitating themselves upon the inhabitants of an empire, sweeping everything before them in the fury of their march and spreading desolation on every side?  In the symbols of the next chapter we find that just such hordes of men—­barbarians—­under their angels, or leaders, precipitated themselves upon the Roman empire; and the fearful effects upon the earth, the sea, and the green trees produced thereby, is particularly detailed.  For the present, however, they are held under restraint until the sealing of the servants of God should be accomplished, then they were to go forward in their work of destruction.

The sealing of the servants is not making them the people of God, but rather marking or designating them as such, just as later we find the devotees of a corrupt apostate church specified as having the “mark of the beast.”  Considerable light can be thrown upon the subject of the sealing of God’s servants and of the mark of the beast by consulting Roman history for the origin of such expressions.  The many conquests of the Roman arms furnished so many prisoners that they became a drug in the slave-markets of the world, and were so numerous that in many places they outnumbered the Roman citizens ten to one.  In the first century before Christ it is said that some Sicilian estates were worked by as many as twenty thousand slaves.  “That each owner might know his own, the poor creatures were branded like cattle.”  The “mark of the beast” possessed by the followers of a false communion will be found to consist of an Antichristian spirit by which they are filled with “doctrines of devils.”  So, also, “the seal of the living God” consists of the giving of the Holy Spirit, by which his people are led into all truth.  See John 14:26.  While Sabbatarians vainly try to prove that keeping the seventh day is the seal of God in this dispensation, yet there is not one text of Scripture that hints such a thing, but, on the contrary, the Scriptures are against them.  “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”  Eph. 4:30.  Again, the Word of God says, “Now he which stablished us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” 2 Cor. 1:21, 22.  The time this sealing of the people of God takes place is thus described:  “After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.”  Eph. 1:13.  The winds of heaven were restrained until the work of full salvation could be firmly established in the earth.  When Christ appeared, the Roman empire was in a state of comparative quiet, and the immense hosts of foreign invaders did not appear until the firm establishment of Christianity, being held back by the power of God until his work should be accomplished.