The LORD finds us, not in the way of truth, not living by faith on Christ, but going astray. No one can claim they kept the word of the LORD until the LORD afflicted them. The LORD has chosen His people in the furnace of affliction (Isa. 48:10). Though we are dead in sins, salvation begins with chastisement. God’s affliction prepares our hearts. Then His Spirit of grace draws us to Christ crucified by Gospel preaching (John 6:44-45; Rom. 10:16-17). Though we are long plagued, unclean before God’s law, have spent all and suffered much by all of our efforts and the prescriptions of men in false religion -- by the providence of our God and by the operations of His grace, we hear of Jesus (Mark 5:27). Until God’s law convinces us of guilt and helplessness under the law, we are indifferent to the sweet sound of the Gospel of God’s grace in Christ (Ps. 32:3; Matt. 11:28; Luke 4:18-19). By God's affliction on my conscience and by acts of His providence, He makes my heart soft. Under affliction, the Gospel makes Christ altogether lovely to helpless, burdened, lost sinners. To hear Him say, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest...” is to see His face revealed in His grace (2 Cor. 3:18).

I did not start in the truth of Christ. I was not in the way of life until I was afflicted. I was ignorant of Him. I was ignorant of God’s word. I did not believe God or Christ or His word. My way was to go astray. I did not live by faith on Christ. How did the Lord turn me? Affliction is a necessary ingredient. Where was that rod applied? To my heart. What did that accomplish? It made my foolish heart believe His Son when He spoke from the Gospel, that Christ accomplished my salvation, that He was my all. This is the way of God with men. He plows the ground. The heart is made soft by affliction. The word declares Christ to that weary one, long-plagued, long-burdened, sorely helpless, needing to be rescued (Luke 15:14-20; 18:13). Then the glad news of the Gospel of Christ crucified is sent by the messengers of peace (Isa. 52:13)! God looks upon Him for me! He provided, He offered, He accepted Christ for sinners! And He afflicts those for whom Christ died and declares Christ to be the well-pleasing Surety of my soul. Salvation in Christ becomes my song. He is God. He is Man. He reigns on heaven’s throne with all authority and power and honor. He sovereignly calls and brings His own. It seems too good to be true, that God would look to His Son as my Substitute and answer His law in Christ’s answer of Himself. Until I was afflicted I went astray. But now I have believed His Son, I have believed the Gospel. This is God’s work of grace (John 6:29; Acts 18:27; Eph. 2:8-10)!

Rick Warta

Today many say, “Don’t judge me!" So the guilty sinner cries. "It’s wrong to say it’s wrong,” they claim, because man's freedom is paramount, even to the denial of God's sovereign rule. To judge others in this day has become the most intolerable offense (Gen. 19:9). And men quote the Bible to defend their wickedness: “Judge not!” But when Jesus said, "Judge not lest ye be judged," He did mean we are to use His words to defend ourselves. Nor did He mean we are not to decry sin, not point out certain sins. No. The Bible does not say it’s wrong to say it’s wrong. The Bible says it’s wrong not to say it’s wrong (Acts 17:24-31; Romans 1:18-3:19; Titus 3:3; Eph. 2:1-3; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Col. 3:5-9; Eph. 4:17-22; 2 Pet. 2:4-10; Jude 3-16).

Men today claim personal freedom. Liberty, they say, is the one inalienable, God-given right. It is the sacrosanct law that is above all laws. It is a God-given right and therefore, all sinful behavior is above all criticism.

The claim of liberty as an inalienable right is written in the United States Declaration of Independence. “Liberty”, according to that document, is a right that governments must protect. “Liberty”, they say, must not be restrained by human laws, but must be protected by them because God has given it as an inalienable right to men. Personal freedom, they claim, must not be violated. No matter what anyone says, say they, my freedom to do as I please must not be challenged, as long as my liberty does not take away another man’s freedom. So goes the theory. But in practice, wicked men do take away the freedom of others when it affords them more personal liberty. They do this whenever they try to silence the truth that exposes them as evil.

But, to say, as men claim today, that God gives men the right to do whatever they please, is to say no less than what those God condemned did in OT times: “Every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Gen. 18:20; Judges 17:6; Hosea 9:11). They rejected Christ as their Judge and they therefore never sought Him as their Savior.

This claim of personal, God-given liberty is nothing less than idolatry. It places man’s freedom on the throne. It produces lawlessness. God has given the duty to governments to punish evil doers and to protect people from harm inflicted by them, to keep the peace (1 Pet. 2:14). But when man’s laws remove God’s laws, then men are in league as hostile combatants against God, just as those who built Babel and its tower. But the child of God says, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29)!

Are we to focus our attention and efforts on pointing out the sins of others? No. But we are to declare the Gospel to sinners. And how can we declare the Gospel without pointing out man’s great sin against God?! How can we declare the Gospel to the glory of God without pointing out what God by grace removed from His people at the price of the blood of His only begotten Son? How can we declare the Gospel if we do not declare how God exalted His Son because He gained the victory over sin’s reign unto death if we say nothing about sin (Rom. 5:21; Eph. 1:20-22)? How can we declare the Gospel if we do not declare how Jesus Christ was exalted to give a change of mind to those He saves, giving them a soul-cleansing sight of Christ and Him crucified, risen, reigning and interceding (Acts 5:31; Heb. 9:14)? If we can’t say what sin is, how can we talk about the faithful sayings of the Gospel, how Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief (1 Tim. 1:12-15; Rom. 3:19-20; 1 Cor. 15:1-4)?

We must point out what sin is, and that our sin comes from within us, out of our evil heart (Mark 7:21-23). We must point out that we are full of sin, and that our evident sins affirm this fact in agreement with God’s law. Our problem is that our sins are greatly evil and arise from our evil heart. Both our sins and our heart is against a holy God. We have offended God and are an offense to God (Titus 3:3)! Salvation is great because God in Christ has dealt with the great and many sins of His people in the suffering and death of our one and only great Savior (Ps. 25:11)!

If we deny that sin is sin, then we deny God’s right to be God; we deny His right to judge! If we deny that sin is sin, then we seek to remove God from His throne, because sin is transgression of God’s law, and is therefore against God (1 John 3:4; Ps. 51:4; Luke 15:18). If we deny that sin is sin, then we deny God’s justice under which, and in satisfaction to which, He crucified His Son! To do that is to accuse God of pouring out His wrath upon His Son for nothing! To deny that sin is sin and that we are sinners, is to deny that God is God. If we deny that our sin is sin, we hold ourselves to be righteous apart from Christ and deny our need of a Savior in opposition our own salvation! To claim liberty of God’s rule is to exclude ourselves from God’s salvation in Christ (Luke 15:18; 2 Tim. 2:25).

Neither the constitution of the United States, nor the current interpretation of that constitution defines sin against God. “Liberty” is not an inalienable, God-given right to sinners to do as they please. But our unavoidable personal accountability to the one holy and true God is. Sin, contrary to popular demand, is not violating sinful man’s personal liberty as the one law above all criticism. Claiming personal liberty as the one great protected right of man is opposition to God-given restraint and God's sovereign rule.

Men are presently opposing all prohibitions to publicly do and promote whatever they imagine to do and approve (John 3:20). Like the men of Sodom, they impose the thoughts of their corrupt minds and licentious lifestyles on others. Present laws give corrupt public school educators the right to indoctrinate young children to accept whatever men approve, even though what they approve is offensive to God. The highest courts of our government uphold this wickedness because they promote the lie that offending man is a great offense against God. Imagine that! Men exalt their right to liberty over God's right to be God!

But personal “liberty” is meant to underscore our unavoidable accountability to God. True liberty does not remove our accountability to God and replace it with accountability to man. True liberty is not serving sin. Only Christ by His grace can set us free from our sins and our sin (John 8:32). He sets the lawful captives free from sin, from satan, from death and from the justice and wrath of God by laying the axe of His sin-atoning death to the root: to our sins (Ps. 65:3; Isa. 49:24-25).

​May we be ever thankful for the love of God our heavenly Father that He faithfully afflicts us on the inside, to show us His glory in Christ our only Savior (Luke 2:30; Isa. 45:21; Acts 4:12). We must not resist God’s condemning law. It exposes our guilt. It reveals our corruptions. It tells us the truth about ourselves. We must repair to Christ for salvation from our sins and the judgment we deserve. We must be reconciled to God by His sin-atoning death (Ps. 119:67; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18-21; Luke 15:18; 18:13; Isa. 6:5; 2).

Rick Warta

God told Abraham to offer his son--his only son Isaac, whom he loved--for a burnt offering on the mountain of God’s choosing (v2). Abraham rose up early the next morning. He clave the wood. He set out to go where God told him to offer his son (v3). On the third day, Abraham saw the place afar off (v4). He told his two young servants to stay with the beast of burden. He told them that he and Isaac would go to yonder mountain and worship and return again (v5). Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac (v6). He took the fire and the knife in his hand (v6). Both Abraham and Isaac went together up that mountain (v6). Isaac spoke to his father. He said, “My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering” (v7)? “And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together” (v8). They came to the place God told Abraham to go. Abraham built an altar. He laid the wood on it. He bound his son. He laid his son on top of the wood on the altar (v9). Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to Abraham out of heaven (v11)!

In all that Abraham did and in all that he said in this account, he did and said as God’s prophet (Gen. 20:7). He corresponds to God the Father in all that He purposed and promised and in all that He did when He took His Son and offered Him up for us all, all of His elect (Rom. 8:32-34). Moreover, all that Abraham did with his son Isaac, and in all that Isaac said and did, Isaac corresponds to the Son of God, who in obedience submitted Himself to His Father as the Lamb of God, to offer Himself for our sins (Php. 2:8; John 10:17-18; Heb. 9:12, 14, 25-26; 10:7-12; Rom. 5:6).

Notice: Abraham clave the wood. Abraham led his son. He took Isaac to the mountain to offer him as a burnt offering. He took his only son Isaac, whom he loved. Notice: he went with his son to the place of God’s appointing. Notice: he saw that place afar off. Notice: he took the wood there; he laid the wood on Isaac to carry it up the mountain. Notice: Abraham took the fire in his hand; he took the knife in his hand. He built the altar. He laid the wood that would consume his son upon that altar. Notice: he bound his son; he laid his son on that wood upon that altar. Notice: Abraham stretched forth his hand to take the knife to slay his son. In Abraham we see God the Father. Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work” (John 5:17). This is the work of God the Father. He slew His Son (John 10:17-18; Zech. 13:7; Ps. 88:7; Rom. 8:32)!

As sinners, we are anxious to find warrant to trust Christ and find our refuge in Him. But here we see that it was God’s will and His purpose of grace to offer His Son. The offering of Abraham’s son was made to God. In all of this, we have a lesson that causes us both to tremble and endears our heavenly Father to us for His eternal grace! God offered His Son for sinners (2 Cor. 5:18-21)! He Himself offered Him. He offered Him to make atonement. He made Him the ransom for indebted prisoners to magnify His truth and grace, to bring us to Himself according to His eternal will (Eph. 1:4-7). It was He who purposed, He who promised, He who provided, He who offered, He who accepted His only begotten Son for sinners. It was His doing. Therefore, to remain indifferent or distant as if some change in me would give me confidence to come to Christ, or to think that by something other than Christ crucified I can worship God, is evidence of horrid unbelief, evidence that I do not know God. To know the true and living God is eternal life (John 17:3). To see His will and work in Christ, to know that by all that is holy and good He offered His Son to save sinners, is to know the work and character and mind and heart of God. The work of God the Father to offer His Son is every sinner’s warrant to look upon and look to Christ and worship God by Him (John 4:22-24).

“On the third day he lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.” The place afar off is the eternal will of God. God saw His eternal will fulfilled in Christ’s obedience in the offering of His Son as our Mediator (Heb. 10:7; John 17:4; 19:30). The wood laid on Isaac to carry up that mountain is God laying the cross on His Son, even the curse we earned by our sins against God (John 19:17; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13). Abraham bound Isaac. God bound His Son. He nailed His Son to the cross (Acts 2:23). Isaac asked, My father, behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the burnt offering for the sacrifice. When Abraham answered, Isaac did not protest. Thus, Christ prayed, “Not my will, but thine be done” (Matt. 26:39-42). Abraham took the fire and the knife. God took the fire of His wrath and the knife of His justice and plunged it into the body and soul of His Son. He afflicted Him with all that His justice required to spare sinners. Abraham stretched forth his hand to slay his son. God the Father stretched forth His hand against His Son (Zech. 13:7; Acts 4:28). God commanded His Son to lay down His life for the sheep (John 10:17-18). It was the Father who bruised His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ (Isa. 53:4-10). Isaac made no protest. Christ was oppressed and afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth (Isa. 53:7). The Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior “...poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12). Abraham and Isaac went both together up that mountain. The Son of God, our precious Savior, did not go to the cross alone; His Father was with Him (John 16:32). He came to do His Father’s will (Heb. 10:5-18). The two servants came along to bear witness. Throughout scripture the law and the prophets bear witness to Christ crucified (1 Pet. 1:10-11; Luke 24:26-27).

This was God’s will. He promised Abraham that in his Seed (Christ), all nations of the world would be blessed (Gen. 22:18; Gal. 3:7-19). This is how God fulfilled His promise. He provided Himself a Lamb for the burnt offering (v8). The Word was made flesh (John 1:14): Emmanuel, God with us (Matt. 1:23). He who died is rightly called “the mighty God, the prince of peace, the everlasting Father” (Isa. 9:6). "Behold the Lamb of God" (John 1:29)! The Father took the Son of His love, His only begotten Son, and delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32). The revelation of His will to Abraham or to us did not come all at once. But it did come (Eph. 3:5-11). And it is now repeated over and over and over again throughout scripture, reverberating by the Spirit of God in the hearts of chosen sinners! This is the message of all of scripture: Christ, the Lamb of God, chosen, appointed, provided and offered by God the Father, received as a sweet-smelling sacrifice by which God saves sinners by His infinite, incomprehensible grace, and brings them to Himself (Eph. 1:4-7; 5:2)! This is the heart of God. This was on His mind from eternity. This is His doing. This is His great glory (Ex. 33:18-19; 34:6-7; 2 Cor. 4:6; John 17:1-4).

Abraham told his servants, “I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you” (v5). Every sinner so given eyes of faith to see Christ crucified as God’s offering and justifying grace for ungodly sinners will worship here. There is no other altar than the altar God has built and on which He offered His Son, even the altar of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. 13:10; Matt. 23:19).
​
Tremble in awe as you look here. Stand in awe at our great God and Savior. Do not leave this place. See the heart of the everlasting God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Know the heart and eternal purpose and incomprehensible provision God made in His Son. Consider that God did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for sinners (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18-21). In so looking, come to God by Him! This is God’s doing. Stand still and see the salvation of the LORD. This is the ark of the testimony opened in heaven (Rev. 15:5). This is your warrant to come to God. Draw from this well of salvation (Isa. 12:3). To neglect this so great salvation is the unpardonable sin (Heb. 2:3). Agree with God’s law. You are guilty. Your sin is all your fault. You deserve God’s wrath. And you will not and cannot do anything about it (Rom. 1:18-3:20). Then, while paralyzed in that state, look here: see the heart and will and promise and provision and work of the everlasting God in offering up His Son! Worship God only here. Worship Him here only. This is the altar and the offering by which sinners are accepted. Take from Christ here. As a sinner needing mercy, find your all in Him (Col. 2:9-10; Heb. 4:3, 10; Isa. 45:21-25)! May God in His sovereign grace so give you and me to do so, both now and forever (Col. 2:6).

"Upon a life I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die;
Another's life, Another's death,
​I stake my whole eternity" -- Horatius Bonar

Rick Warta

“All the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. 13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. 14 And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. 15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. 16 And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. 17 And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts” (Mark 5:12-17).

When the man possessed with a legion of devils was under the bondage of satan and when the pig herders watched their pigs feeding contentedly, those pig overseers were at peace. But when the devils entered the pigs, causing them to run and choke themselves in the sea, and the man who had been possessed sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed, in his right mind, peacefully resting in the presence of the Son of God, the pig herders were afraid and begged Jesus to leave them.

The pig farmers were content when the man was possessed. But they were afraid of Jesus and begged Him to leave them when the man was freed from satan and the pigs perished. They valued pigs more than men. They were concerned when pigs perished but were unperturbed when a man was captive to satan. They were afraid of Jesus. They begged Him to leave them.

What can we learn from this?
- First, devils are stronger than men. They took possession of the man. They controlled him. They tormented him. The dwelling place of the possessed man was with the dead. Night and day he cried and cut himself with stones in the mountains and among the tombs. Though men had often bound him with chains and fetters, he had plucked the chains off and broken the fetters in pieces. No man could tame him. Men gave him up as hopeless. His was an impossible case for man. He is a picture of every man by nature.
All men are captive to satan by nature. Captivity to satan is the result of sin. Satan kept his goods (the man possessed of devils) in peace in his castle until a stronger than he came (Christ, Luke 11:20-22). Until Christ overcame the strong man, the man was in bondage, fearful, uncontrollable and out of his mind. But when Christ came, he ran and worshipped Him. When Christ commanded the devils to depart, he sat in his right mind. This is a perfect picture of an uncontrollable sinner subdued by grace.
- Only Christ can deliver men who are bound by satan. Though no man could tame the man, the devils obeyed Christ. Christ has power over the unseen powers of darkness and evil (1 Pet. 3:22; Matt. 28:18). Devils are subject to His word (Luke 10:17; 1 John 4:4; Rev. 12:11; 1 Pet. 5:9-9).
- The Lord Jesus gave the devils leave to enter pigs. Pigs are unclean animals. They represent reprobate man. Sheep cannot live on what pigs eat. Believers cannot live on works religion. Believers can only live on Christ. But pigs return to their wallowing in the mire of their own works.
- That Jesus gave leave to the devils to enter pigs shows that He is the Judge. He gives life to men at His will, and brings judgment on others because of their sins (John 5:22-23). If we are subject to satan’s control, it is because Christ allowed that control to satan. The devil takes men captive at his will because of God’s judgment against us for our sin. "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are, to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you" (Rom. 6:16-17). It is just for God to judge us at the hand of our enemy. But our Judge must be our Savior! He who afflicts us for our foolishness, must save us by His grace (Ps. 107). May God grant us repentance unto life (2 Tim. 2:24-26)! We obey the Gospel of Christ from the heart, and so obey and worship Christ from the heart, by God-given faith, when we rely on God's grace to us in Christ, that by His obedience in death, we are cleansed, freed and made righteous before God (Rom. 1:5; 10:16-17; 16:25-26; 1 Pet. 1:21-22; Rom. 3:24-26; 5:9-10).
- Those Christ frees from satan sit in His presence, clothed, in their right mind, at rest and in quiet submission at the feet and in the presence of the Son of God! Salvation is deliverance from captivity to satan (Col. 1:13; Heb. 2:14). Salvation always puts us in our right mind, at peace and in rest before the Son of God, worshipping Christ. A right mind is faith in Christ: faith that sees the truth of salvation in Christ, faith that lives upon Christ, depending on His saving grace and work, and hoping in His promises of eternal life that we will appear before Him in His own righteousness (Ps. 17:15; 1 John 3:2; Gal. 5:5).
- Those who love unclean pigs more than Christ’s sheep are afraid of Christ. Fear of Christ is the only reasonable response of a sinner in the presence of the almighty Judge of men and angels, to whom the darkness and the light are both alike (Ps. 139:12). Christ sees the darkness inside of us as the noonday sun. Sin produces terror before the all-seeing eye of the One who loves righteousness and hates iniquity. Only grace can give us a sight of Christ to see that though we are sinners, He is the almighty Savior of sinners! We are saved by His grace (Mark 5:33-34; Eph. 2:8-9).
- ​With a God-given sight of Christ as our just God and Savior, we hear His life-giving, soul-calming words to come to Him, to look, to call, to take, to eat and drink, to draw from the wells of His salvation (Isa. 12:3; Ps. 116:13). Seeing Christ as the One who honored God in His law and justice, and who made known His grace to sinners-- forgiving our sins for Christ’s sake (Eph. 4:32) and giving to us His justifying righteousness by grace (Rom. 5:17-19)--we are irresistibly drawn to Him (John 1:17; 6:44-45; Matt. 11:28-30; Acts 13:39).

Sinners are afraid of an almighty, all-seeing God. But fear of the Savior is the fear of unbelief. Sinners ought to fear God the Judge. He will not clear the guilty. But grace gives faith in Christ as the Savior of our souls from all of our enemies, especially the root enemy: our sin against God. Grace enables us to see that though satan is stronger than we, that though we are by nature the children of wrath even as others, yet by God’s word, though hell-deserving and helpless and hopeless in ourselves, we can and must look to Christ and find Him to be all of our salvation, to the glory of God.

Rick Warta

“Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself” (Php. 3:21).

Do you know why we will receive a glorious body like Christ’s? Because before God we are clothed in His righteousness. We appear before God in His beauty, and by God-given faith, by the Spirit of God in us, we trust His beauty, not our own. He will change our vile body to be like His glorious body because the Spirit of Christ dwells in us (Rom. 8:10). We have a nature created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:24). Though our body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of Christ’s righteousness (Rom. 8:10). The Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in us. Because Christ lives, we shall live (John 14:18-19). He shall therefore raise our body from death (Rom. 8:11).

We are justified before God by the work of Christ alone. Being justified in Christ, the Spirit of Christ has entered us and lives in us. He is God’s holy, incorruptible seed in us, by which we are born of God (1 John 3:9; 1 Pet. 1:23; John 6:63). Our new nature is holy because the Holy Spirit of Christ is in us. We are joined to the Lord by His Spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). We therefore cannot die because we are one with Him who is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25-26). We will not only be raised, but we will be raised incorruptible. God will make His sons known when Christ comes again (Rom. 8:19). He will openly make us appear to be what we truly are in Christ and what we are because Christ is in us.

Christ in us is therefore our hope of glory, our confident expectation that we will receive a glorious body, the possession Christ purchased for us by His own blood (Col. 1:27; Eph. 1:14). When we see Him,  we will be changed; we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). We shall be conformed to His image (Rom. 6:14; 8:29). We will behold His face in righteousness because it is in His righteousness that we are dressed (Ps. 17:15; Isa. 61:10).

Our body must be like His glorious body because we are one with Him. We were one with Him in eternal election (Eph. 1:4; 1 Cor. 1:30). We were one with Him in His representative life (Rom. 5:19). We were one with Him in His substitutionary death (2 Cor. 5:21). We were one with Him in His burial and in His resurrection (Col. 3:1-3). We are one with Him where He is now seated on the right hand of God (Eph. 2:5-6). We are one with Him by His Spirit in us. Even our body is one with Him (1 Cor. 6:15)! We must live by faith in Christ and by the sure persuasion of what we are in Him (Rom. 6:11). We must live out what is true and what we therefore know and stand upon by the word of God alone. That the members of our body are Christ's ought to cause us to tremble in fear and live in hope, as we live out the salvation God has given us and is now working in us (Php. 2:12-13). We shall be glorified together with Him (Rom. 8:17).

If your only hope is that in Christ’s death, you died to sin (Rom. 6:3-11); that in Christ's burial, your sins were forever forgotten  by God out of mind (Ps. 31:12; 88:4-5; Ps. 103:12; Heb. 10:14-19); that when Christ rose, you rose with Him (Eph. 2:6); if by the God-given persuasion of these from the Gospel, Christ is all of your hope before God (Eph. 1:13-14), even all of your life (Col. 3:1-2); then you shall be glorified together with Him. In light of these facts and the sight of them that faith affords, “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things in the world” (Col. 3:1-2).

If Christ is thus your hope, then you are dead to the guilt and condemnation of sin, and your life is hid with Christ in God. You now live upon Him by faith (Col. 3:3; John 6:35-56; Gal. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:24). Therefore, when Christ who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with Him in glory. We shall be changed. Our bodies shall be made like His glorious body! Death’s sting has been removed because, for all who are Christ’s, it lost its sting when it stung our Savior (1 Cor. 15:53-58).

Rick Warta

I would venture to say that nothing makes the truth of Christ’s Gospel more odious to needy, dying sinners, than when it comes from proud lips and a combative, militant heart that seeks to “be right” by argument and dominion over others to its own glory.

But “the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance unto life; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:24-26).

May God subdue this natural, proud, hateful heart by the disclosure of His own self-abasing, sinner-serving, saving grace to this undeserving, hateful man, that I might see the meekness and lowliness of my Lord who became my only Savior. And as I thus behold His face, may I in turn live on Him and tell sinners about Him, that they might see His great glory in His salvation (Mark 5:19-20; 2 Cor. 3:18; Matt. 11:28-30; Ps. 21:5)!

Rick Warta

Joseph was cast into prison by the false charges of his master’s unfaithful wife (Gen. 39:1-20). In fulfillment (John 5:46), Jesus was falsely accused and delivered to Pilate and Herod by unbelieving Israel, the LORD’s unfaithful wife (Hosea 2:2; Gal. 4:25).

But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him mercy (Gen. 39:21). He gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. Though unbelieving Jews and Gentiles rejected Christ, the servant of the Lord, who came to serve and save His sinful people, yet God was with Him and blessed Him (John 16:32). Christ was made under the law with those and for those in that law prison (Gal. 3:22-23; 4:4; Rom. 5:20). He came to save them by His own willing imprisonment. He took their place under their burden and fulfilled all to God in their name. He found favor in the sight of the prison keeper, in the sight of God’s law and justice, in the sight of the LORD Himself. The LORD made all that He did to prosper.

The keeper of the prison put all of the prisoners into Joseph’s hand (Gen. 39:22). God the Father put all of His people in Christ before the foundation of the world by His electing love and predestinating purpose to make them His sons by Jesus Christ (John 17:2). Though His elect people made themselves prisoners under the law by their own sin and unbelief (Gal. 3:22-24), God the Father entrusted all of them to Christ. And “Whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it” (Gen. 39:22). Our Surety was ordained by God to do all in the place and in the name of His people. They are His inheritance (Eph. 1:18; Deut. 32:9). He is their Head. They are His Body. They are one with Him. All that is true of Him is true of them by virtue of this eternal union. They were joined to Him in eternal election. He must have them all. They must also be joined to Him by His Spirit of grace (1 Cor. 12:12-13). But for all that they did by sinning, He made full reparations to God. And all that He did in fulfillment of the righteousness of God’s holy law by His obedience and sin-atoning death, is their doing in Him (Rom. 5:12-21; 10:4; 1 Cor. 1:30-31). Thus, it is fulfilled, that “all that they did there, He was the doer of it.”

“The keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand: because the LORD was with Joseph, and that which he did, the LORD made to prosper” (Gen. 39:23). God the Father committed all of His people to Christ. He gave them to Him to save, to have, to make known Himself to them, to give them eternal life, to bring them, to present them at last in the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, according to His eternal purpose that chose them in Christ to be holy and without blame before Him in love (John 17:2-3; Matt. 11:27; Eph. 1:4; Jude 1:24). Christ fulfilled all for them and in their name. Having fulfilled all by His obedience and blood in the court of heaven, He will let nothing go unfulfilled in them, because He purchased them with His blood (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:14; Heb. 9:15). He gives them His Spirit (Eph. 1:14; Eph. 4:24; Gal. 3:13-14; 4:4-6; Rom. 8:9-10). He conforms them to His own image (Rom. 8:29). He will finish the work He started (Php. 1:6; Eph. 5:25-27). All has been committed to Him in trust (Ps. 2:8; Matt. 11:27; John 3:35). All of the LORD’s people are Christ’s; they are His own inheritance (Eph. 1:22-23; 1 Cor. 3:21-21). He is the Heir of all (Gal. 3:16, 19; Heb. 1:2). The LORD makes all that He does to prosper. This is therefore the prayer of every believing sinner: “Oh, may the LORD make Christ’s work prosper in me!” He is Lord of all (Acts 10:36). He is the only Savior (Acts 4:12). He is all of my righteousness, all of my life, all of my salvation, all of my hope and all of my desire (2 Sam. 23:5; Ps. 27:4).

Rick Warta

As we receive our sin nature at conception from Adam in consequence of his transgression imputed to us (Ps. 51:4; Rom. 5:12-21), so we receive the Seed of the Spirit of Christ at spiritual conception (1 Pet. 1:23; 1 John 3:9). Our new nature is created in righteousness and true holiness, because the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us (Eph. 4:24; Rom. 5:21; 8:1-4, 9-10). Having been justified in heaven’s court by the blood and righteousness of Christ, Christ’s Seed is in us; we live by faith on the Son of God, on the promises of God's word concerning Christ, what we are in Him, what we have by Him. And thus, we are partakers of His divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4; Isa. 55:1-3).

Rick Warta

“If through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many” (Rom. 5:15).

A contrast is made here between the offense by which all men in Adam died, and the grace of God in His gift of righteousness by Jesus Christ that has abounded to many, even all those in Christ by eternal election.

Justice ruled against us. Grace rose up for us. God’s eternal love and grace would not rest until He found a way to satisfy His justice, to clear the way for lavishing the greatest of all possible blessings upon us: the forgiveness of our sins, a perfect righteousness before Him, the Spirit of Christ in us by that righteousness, eternal sonship with eternal inheritance, eternal glory with Christ as joint-heirs with Him, and all spiritual blessings given to us by God’s free grace in Christ before the world began, all grounded on the foundation of Christ’s obedience and satisfaction to God for our sins (2 Cor. 5:18-21; Eph. 1:3-7; Rom. 3:24-25).

Rick Warta

May the Spirit of Christ enable us to consider two verses of scripture and personally apply them to our own case. The first is Mark 5:36. Jairus' little and only daughter was gravely ill. She died of her illness. Her death was especially troubling to her father for several reasons. First, because she was his only daughter. Second, because she was young, only about twelve years of age. Third, because she died after Jesus began to go with Jairus to his home where she lay sick, which would cast doubt on Jesus' power over death (John 11:25-26). And fourth, because besides the fears within, Jairus faced the disheartening words of an unbelieving messenger and the hypocritical mourning of unbelieving comforters.

While Jesus journeyed with Jairus, a messenger brought the sad news of his daughter’s death. The messenger’s words seemed especially gruff: "Why troublest thou the Master? Thy daughter is dead." The Lord had just cast a legion of devils out of the tormented, untameable, crying, naked, self-destroying tomb-dwelling man. Shortly thereafter, and just before the dour messenger brought his evil report, virtue went from our Savior to heal the woman who had been plagued for twelve years with an unclean issue of blood. She pressed behind Him in the crowd and touched his clothes. She believed that if she could only touch His clothes, she would be healed. So everyone taught of God believes that to lay hold of Christ as all of my righteousness, is to have eternal life. Jesus spoke to her. He said, “Thy faith hath made thee whole” (Mark 5:34).  But while Jesus spoke to this woman about faith, the messenger from Jairus’ house came bearing the sad news of his daughter’s death. It was an evil report with the evil advice of unbelief: “Why troublest thou the Master?” The Master, Jesus, stood near the ruler when the messenger broke the news to him. That news fell like an anvil of grief and sorrow on the poor father’s heart. Despair must have immediately combined weight to the father’s sorrow to sink his mind and body into shock. Therefore, as soon as the messenger finished speaking, the Master, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, interposed Himself with words to uphold the poor father in his grief (1 Pet. 5:7; Heb. 4:15-16). “He Himself bore our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 54:3; Matt. 8:17)! To lift that weight from off the grieving father and bear it in Himself, Jesus spoke these immeasurably comforting words to him and to us, indeed, to every helpless, hopeless sinner under the reign of sin and death: "Be not afraid; only believe" (Mark 5:36; Rom. 5:21). Jesus’ words ring in my own ears. Do you draw near to God by them? Do you draw comfort from them? Everything seems opposed to my salvation. Everything casts dark forebodings against the promises of God and the success of the Gospel. Yet into this temptation of despair our Master's words are immeasurably soothing, calming, comforting, strengthening: "Be not afraid; only believe!"

In the second scripture, the Spirit of God paints another scene for us. In John 14:1, Peter was about to bear the most bitter grief a man on earth could know: he would betray His beloved Master. All of the disciples were about to face the greatest trial sinners on earth could ever face. Their beloved Master, whom they trusted (John 6:68-69), was about to be taken from them, bound, accused, beaten, crowned with thorns, mocked, hit on the head and in the face, spit upon, stripped, condemned to death, led to die, and hung between thieves. His cross on which they would nail Him was laid upon His own back. They required Him to carry it in shame through the crowd, to publicly bear His curse and die under it by their wicked hands (Gal. 3:13; Acts 2:23; 2 Cor. 5:21). The soldiers pierced his hands and his feet with nails, thinking to hold Him fast to that cross. But He who is the Son of God and Son of Man, could be held by His love alone (Gal. 2:20; 1 John 3:16; 4:9-10). The disciples all forsook Him and fled. The soldiers divided the spoils: His garment at the foot of His cross, as if to make the mockery complete. Their Master, whom they thought would rule over their enemies, now seemed powerless. Did evil triumph? Was wrong on the throne?! The sun refused to shine. The midday sky grew dark over the whole earth. A dolorous cry was heard out of the darkness from the cross, a cry of utmost agony and pain: "My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me!!" It was the fulfillment of the ages, the salvation of God’s elect by the sufferings of our Substitute!

Now, Jesus anticipated the unspeakable trouble His sufferings and cries would cause His disciples. Before He suffered, He thought of them. When soldiers came to take Him, He stood as Surety for them. “If you seek Me; let these go their way” (John 18:8). While He suffered, He prayed for them. What He did, He did to God for them (Heb. 5:1). Before He entered the holiest of all to appear in the presence of God for us, to stand before God as our peacemaking Mediator -- before all of this, He spoke these words to His disciples, even before the trouble began: “Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in Me!”

Here we have it again! Our Master tells the father of the dying daughter and His disciples the same thing when they faced the greatest possible trial of faith: "Only believe; believe also in Me!" Is it any coincidence? Remember Sarah? She heard the LORD Himself speak in promise that she would bear a son within the year. She laughed in unbelief. She considered her lifelong barrenness. She considered her age. She considered what she knew about herself, that it ceased to be with her after the manner of women. But though she laughed in disbelief, The LORD graciously spoke to her, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The LORD said: "Is anything too hard for the LORD" (Gen. 18:14)? She therefore “judged Him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11).

Thus, to every sinner humbled by His grace, to every believer perplexed and troubled, the Master speaks His word, "Be not afraid; only believe." "Let not your heart be troubled; ...believe also in Me."

We believe God. We know He is holy. We know He is sovereign. We know He is eternal. We know He is unchanging, that He is all-knowing, everywhere present and almighty. We know He is unfailing. We know He is the Judge of all the earth and that He is just. But comfort under the crushing weight of sin, and strength in the endless war between our flesh and spirit, comes only when we believe also in Christ our Mediator. "You believe in God; believe also in Me!" Comfort is to be found in our Savior- Mediator. When we believe Him, then we receive comfort from God our Father (2 Cor. 1:3).

Unbelief sees its giant enemies and looks upon itself through their eyes. But faith sees Christ and the promises of God in Him. Faith hears the sentence of heaven’s court that received His obedience and blood, and now receives His intercession as our Advocate (Rom. 8:34; 1 John 2:1-2; Heb. 7:25). Faith sees God in the eyes of our Savior (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6; John 14:9). And faith hears the glad report from our enthroned Savior, "Thou art all fair my love; I see no spot in thee" (Song 4:7; Jer. 50:20; Isa. 43:25; Num. 23:21; Rom. 8:34)!

Therefore, in all of our grief, in every sorrow, in every trouble, in weakness and in strength, "Only believe!" This is my warrant to take virtue from Christ. This is my warrant to come to God by His precious blood (Heb. 78:25; 10:19-23). This is my warrant to trust His obedience and death as all of my righteousness (Rom. 5:9). This is Christ’s promise that I shall behold His face in righteousness (Rom. 10:4; Ps. 17:15; Rom. 5:10; Heb. 7:25; Jude 1:24). “Only believe. Believe also in Me.”

Dear frightful, fainting, sin-burdened, helpless sinner: believe that Christ joyfully took the body His Father prepared for Him and sacrificed Himself for your salvation (Heb. 10:5-23). Believe He became man to save you from so great a death (Heb. 2:9-10; 5:7-9; 2 Cor. 1:10). Believe that your sins were washed from your account before God and are remembered no more because Christ’s sacrifice of Himself was accepted (Heb. 1:3; Lev. 16:29-30). Believe with the full persuasion of faith that His shed blood was accepted in heaven, and all for whom He offered Himself were accepted with Him (Heb. 9:26; 10:5-23). Believe that His obedience in life and death is all of your righteousness. Believe that He fulfilled and put into force the New Covenant by His own blood, and that the sure mercies of that covenant are His and yours in Him (Isa. 55:1-3; 2 Sam. 23:5; Matt. 26:28; Heb. 13:20). Believe that faith in Christ crucified and risen again is the evidence of being born of God, as His son, by His Spirit (John 1:12-13; 3:14-16). Believe that God appointed and hears His Son as our Mediator. Believe that He lives and intercedes at God’s right hand to save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him. Believe that all things work together to conform you to the image of God’s dear Son. Believe that you shall see His face in righteousness, and that when you do, you will be like Him. Believe that it is God who is at work in you both to will and do of His good pleasure. Believe that He will finish the work He started, to save you, to save His people, to bring them, to have them, to present them in the presence of His glory with exceeding great joy (Zep. 3:17). Believe that He will sanctify you wholly because Faithful is He who called you, who also will do it (1 Thess. 5:23-24; Heb. 13:20-21). Believe that every enemy has been conquered and will be despoiled  and subdued (Col. 2:14-15; Rom. 16:20). Believe that Christ will be glorified in His saints, in their salvation and in their lives (Eph. 2:7; Ps. 50:15). It must be so, because He has spoken it and because the work is all His (Isa. 45:17; 46:10-11; Heb. 1:3; Lev. 16:30). The glory must therefore be all His. Believe that we will be with Him. And believe that He is with His people always, even to the end of the age (Ps. 139:1-18; Matt. 28:20; John 14:18; Heb. 13:5). Only believe. This is Christ’s word. He delights in sinners who depend upon Him for all. This is therefore your warrant to believe Him. Look (Isa. 45:22). Call (Joel 2:32; Acts. 2:21; Ps. 50:15). Come (Matt. 11:28; Rev. 22:17). Take (Rev. 22:17). Eat (John 6:35, 37-40). Drink (Jer. 2:13; John 4:10; Rev. 22:17). Live upon His word (Gal. 2:20; Heb. 10:38). Draw virtue from Him; partake of His divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4; Heb. 3:14). Draw the life you need to live from Him by faith (Gal. 2:20). Receive your all from Him that you might return to Him what is His. And know that in every anxious thought, we can and must go to Him with supplications and prayers and thanksgiving, making your requests known to God by Christ. In so doing, He has promised that His peace will keep our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus (Php. 4:5-6; Isa. 26:1-3).