Rick Warta

“The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from them that love Him” (Psalm 84:11).

I think I heard someone say that all life and energy on earth comes from the sun. Whether true or not, I know it is true of the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ our Lord, our great God and Savior (Mal. 4:2; Col. 1:16; John 1:1-3; Heb. 1:1-3, 8-11; Titus 1:3-4; 2:13; 3:4, 6). Without doubt, therefore, scripture emphatically says “the Lord [our] God is a sun and shield.” Moreover, “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). If the Lord our God did not hold us in His thoughts, we would not only cease to exist, but we would cease to have any record of any existence. Only because God actively wills our existence and upholds our being do we have one.

In body and soul, this is true of all men. But what is not true of all men is that the Lord gives grace and glory. It is not true that the Lord our God will not withhold any good thing from all men. From Psalm 84:11, He will not withhold any good thing from those that love Him. Not all men love Him. Those that do love Him, love Him because He first loved them (1 John 4:19). “Without Me,” said our all-sufficient Savior, “you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

If the Lord our God will not withhold any good thing from us, then He will give us faith and love in Christ. He will give all good things to us. He emphatically states this is so. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3; 2:8-9). To His purchased, gathered people He therefore says, “All things are yours” (1 Cor. 3:21-23; Eph. 1:22-23). He will not withhold any good thing from those that love Him. Should we not therefore be embolden to ask Him to do as He has said, and give to us all good things in Christ? And is there any good thing to be found in all of this vast universe that is not in Christ Jesus? Is there anything lacking in Christ (Col. 2:9-10)?! To ask is to answer.

Two things are joined to make the case of God’s blessings to His people complete. First, He will not withhold any good thing from us. Second, He will work all things together for our good, whether those things are good or bad in themselves, He will turn all evil to our good!! He pronounced creation “very good” in the beginning. By our sin that creation is now cursed. All men obviously benefit from creation. But to turn the most egregious intent and malicious motives and pernicious words and devious actions of men and devils for our good, that is to “more than conquer” our enemies (Rom. 8:37)! It is to make the hostile intents, words and actions of men and devils to redound to the glory of God and the salvation and good of His people (Psa. 76:10; Psa. 46:1-3)! He will withhold nothing good from us. He will work all things together for our good. But not for all men: only for those that love God, those which are “the called” according to His purpose.

This is the key and spring and certainty of all: “His purpose.” In Psalm 84:11 and Romans 8:28-39 the action is all God’s. It is all God’s design. It is all God’s purpose. We are the objects of His saving mercy, grace and blessing. This is why we love Him.

Someone once said “There are two kinds of people in this world: the righteous and the wicked. The righteous all think they are wicked; the wicked all think they are righteous.” I believe that is so (Matt. 25:37-40, 44; Luke 18:9-14). And I believe to keep trembling souls from becoming self-absorbed, wondering if they are among those that love God, and to glorify His name in our salvation, the next verse, Romans 8:29-30, immediately directs our attention to the purpose of God from eternity and the work of God in time. “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29-30). The purpose is God’s. The word and promise is God’s. The work is God’s. His name is at stake: He staked Himself to it all. He will do all His pleasure, all His thoughts, all His will (Isa. 14:24; Psa. 33:11; 115:3; 135:6; Dan. 4:35; Isa. 46:9-11). If we love God, it is because He first loved us. This is one of the good things He has not withheld from us. Or rather, if God loved us, He will therefore draw us with life-giving, enabling grace to believe and love Him (1 John 4:19; Jer. 31:3; John 15:5, 16).

​Now, can we trust our great God and Father, who, when we were enemies, reconciled us to Himself by the death of His Son (Rom. 5:10)? Can we  trust our great God and Savior, who, when we were yet sinners, died for us (Rom. 5:6-9; Gal. 2:20; Rev. 1:5)? Can we trust the Holy Spirit of God and of Christ, that when we were dead in sins, for His great love wherewith He loved us, raised us from spiritual death to life? When we were dead in sins, Christ came to dwell in us (Eph. 2:4)! He gave us life with every grace to believe and hope in Him, even to love Him. Do I live? I live by the faith of the Son of God who so loved me that He gave Himself for me (Gal. 2:20)?! Do I have any warrant to think and believe so? Yes! He came to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:13-15)! He died the just for the unjust (1 Pet. 3:18)! He justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5)! Only ungodly sinners need this Savior!!! With life-giving power, He Himself entreats sinners to look to Him (Isa. 45:22), come to Him (John 6:37; Matt. 20:28), to find their rest in Him! To deny that I am a sinner is to think as a reprobate. It is to disqualify myself from this Savior! Yet even this faith and trust and hope in Him who is all-sufficient to save the vilest sort of sinner -- even and especially these graces come from Him! Therefore, “I will arise and go to Jesus” (from the Hymn, 'Come Ye Sinners'). This is our God (Isa. 25:9)! This is our Lord (John 20:28)! He is our Savior. He will not withhold one good thing from them that love Him. And He will work all things, whether good or bad, for our good. I must trust Him! O, Lord, Giver of all grace and glory and all good things, give me this precious faith in your Son, to love Him!

Rick Warta

God is impartial. He does not make a difference in judgment or mercy because of what He finds in any man. In judgment, He judges all men equally, strictly according to His law, strictly by what He finds in them (Rom. 2:11; 6:23; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; 1 Pet. 1:7). If God condemns us, it will be for what we have done. But if He justifies us, it will be for what Christ has done. In giving mercy, God is gracious because of what He is in Himself (Ex. 34:7). He shows mercy out of His own sovereign will, without respect to us in any way (Rom. 9:11-16). If God gives us eternal life, it will not be for what we have done, but for what Christ has done as one man for “the many” given to Christ in eternal election (Rom. 5:19, 21; Eph. 1:4).

Therefore, if God punishes me or you in hell, it will be for our own sin. But if He gives us eternal life, making Himself known to us in Christ, and receiving us to eternal glory, it will be because of His own righteousness, for the obedience and death of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one for the many, given to us out of sheer grace (Rom. 5:17-21; 6:23; Php. 2:6-8; Heb. 10:7-14). The righteousness of God is the only righteousness by which God justifies ungodly sinners. God’s righteousness is the obedience of Christ in His life and sufferings and death (Heb. 2:10; 5:7-9; Php. 2:6-8; Rom. 10:4; 2 Cor. 5:21). God gives Christ’s righteousness to us by His grace alone, without any regard to what He finds in us, either good or bad (Rom. 5:17-19; 9:11-13; Eph. 2:1-9). It is an act of sovereign crediting to us what Christ has done, because from eternity He made Christ our Head and made us His own (Eph. 1:4).

Thus, we are saved, humbled and overjoyed before God. We deserve wrath. Yet, for Christ’s sake, we are received by God as He receives Christ, with all of the blessings God has given to Him (2 Cor. 1:20; Gal. 3:16, 19, 29; 4:28; Eph. 1:3; 1 Cor. 3:21-23; Rom. 8:17, 32; Eph. 4:32). “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:21-22).

At his first cry, the crowd rebuked Bartimaeus. Isn’t it ironic that in all of that large crowd of seeing people who followed Jesus, there were none who cried to Him for mercy except this unclean, blind beggar? Why did none in the faceless crowd cry? Wasn’t it because they did not see their blindness (John 9:39-41)? Why didn’t they want to hear the cries of a blind sinner? Wasn’t it because they never knew his need? They did not fellowship in the burden of the anguish of his soul. When we find Christ to be our all, we have fellowship with those rescued from the same sinking ship who have found Christ to be their only Rock and salvation (Psalm 62:1-2)! We ache for others to see their need, to cry to Christ and find Him to be their all! And we want to talk about it to them. But the crowd seemed to know nothing of a need for mercy, nothing of eyes of darkness opened to see the light. With the Psalmist, Bartimaeus could say, “I cried unto the LORD with my voice...I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul” (Ps. 142:1-4).

Though the crowd scolded him to hold his peace, “he cried the more a great deal” (Mark 10:48)! Oh, see here the work of the Spirit of Christ in this needy sinner! “As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice” (Ps. 55:16-17)! By God’s grace, Bartimaeus could find no rest until Christ gave Him sight to rest in Him!

The crowd rebuked Bartimaeus at his crying, but Jesus stood still! See this miracle of grace! The LORD said that when the sun and moon stood still at Joshua’s command, there was never a day like it before or since that God hearkened to a man (Joshua 10:12-14). But here is a much greater miracle! It was not noble Joshua who cried out here, but an unclean, blind beggar: a sinner! He cried out of his emptiness! Jesus came to do the eternal will of God (Heb. 10:7). He set His face like a flint to keep that eternal appointment (Isa. 50:5-7). He would not be deterred or kept back. His chief business from eternity was to give Himself a ransom for many and bring them to God. And He was about to accomplish that work (John 12:27; Matt. 20:28)! But see a great miracle of mercy here! A sinner cries to the Sun of Righteousness out of the depths, and the Lord of glory hears his cry and stands still (Ps. 130:1)!

Why did Jesus hear this man’s cry and stand still? Why did He have compassion on him? The crowd showed him no mercy. Yet the One whom Bartimaeus had offended by his sin stopped in compassion to grant him mercy! Why does the Lord Jesus show compassion to helpless sinners?! Because He delights in mercy (Micah 7:18). Because He is rich in mercy! Because of His great everlasting love to His people. “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened [made us alive] us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” (Eph. 2:4-5)!

Jesus hears the cry of His own Spirit in the cry of needy sinners. “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he [Christ] that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26-27)! The mind of the Spirit is the will of God for the salvation His elect! “This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). 

Moreover, the Lord Jesus had compassion on this blind man who cried out of his darkness for mercy, because the Lord Jesus Himself cried for mercy out of anguish of soul (Psalm 69:13)! He cried out of the darkness on the cross, “My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring” (Ps. 22:2)! And in Lamentations 3:8, the prophet speaks of Christ when he says, “When I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer” (Lam. 3:8)! 

Does not the Lord Jesus show compassion to sinners because as our Substitute He felt the full burden of our sins in His own body and soul (1 Pet. 2:24)?! He who is all compassion was denied compassion that He might have compassion on His beloved Bride, who were guilty sinners (Isa. 53:3-12; 54:5; Eph. 5:25)! When He was made sin and bore the curse of God in His body and soul on the cross, the sun in the sky did not shine on Him! For salvation’s light to shine on us, the Light of the world bore the darkness of the loss of God’s presence in His own soul! “O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent” (Ps. 22:2)! Is this not God’s glory, that He hears and shows mercy to sinners (Ex. 34:7; 2 Cor. 4:6; John 12:23; 17:1-5; Heb. 1:3)? Jesus came and passed through, and then left Jericho, that cursed city. Just before going to Jericho, He said He came to give His life a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28-29). He paid the ransom of Himself that God demanded to redeem cursed sinners from the curse of His law (Gal. 3:13). But then the Lord Jesus paused on His mission at the urgent cry of a desperate sinner! It was all predetermined. What a blessing of Providence to blind this man, that he might know his need, that he might find himself near as Jesus passed by, and so hearing of Him, find Christ alone to be his all (Mark 10:52)!

Redemption’s work was finished on the cross! But it must be applied to the redeemed! A king may pardon a prisoner from punishment, but that prisoner knows no peace and joy until the news of the pardon is delivered to him. The ransomed must be released! “Through this man is preached the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39). Christ and His redemption is preached because the release earned by His ransom must be preached to the redeemed! When it is thus preached, God’s Spirit gives chosen sinners faith to see and know that liberty (Acts 13:48)! Jesus came and passed through, and left the cursed city. Yet He granted to His redeemed the liberty His ransom purchased: forgiveness of all our sins with the gift of perfect righteousness, and faith to see it all in Him (Rom. 5:17; Eph. 1:7, 13)! This is the Gospel! “By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us…[therefore, shall] the blood of Christ...purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb. 9:12,14). Redemption purchased is now redemption applied! From enslavement to sin, to freedom in our soul that we might serve God with a pure conscience! That’s why Jesus came to Jericho to open the eyes of this blind man! That is why the Spirit of Christ moved him to cry: to obtain the application of the redemption Christ purchased by the offering of Himself to God (Acts 20:28). That is why Christ comes with the Gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation. “For this I will be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them!” As Jesus restored Bartimaeus’ sight, God gives His people faith to see Christ their Redeemer and the redemption that He obtained for them by His own blood!

In Ezekiel 20 and Psalm 106, the LORD recalls the history of His dealings with the nation of Israel. In so doing, He shows them their abominable sin and idolatry. He reminds them that many times He said He would pour out His fury and wrath upon them. But He did not pour it out. Why? The answer is the reason behind our salvation. He did not destroy them “for His name’s sake,” (Psa. 106:6-8), because of His covenant (Psa. 106:44; Ezek. 20:9, 14, 17, 22, 42-44).

The leaders of Israel came to Ezekiel to inquire of the LORD (Ezek. 20:1-4). But the LORD told Ezekiel to show them their abominations (v4). This is always the first and necessary step. We will despise free grace until we know nothing but grace will save us. It is necessary for God to humble us that He might lift us up (1 Sam. 2:6-7). This is the work of God, His operation to produce faith in Christ in the heart of sinners. Jesus told the Pharisees that opposed Him for healing the man born blind, “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind...Some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (John 9:39-41).

If the LORD saves me, if He saves you, He will do it for His name’s sake. The idols to which we hold so dearly are the works of our own hands, the pride of our own will and self. But when the LORD shows us our abominations, we will know that we have no one to plead for us to God but Christ our Savior. Idols need men to save them (Judges 6:31). Idols need men to plead for them. But the LORD saves and pleads for His people (Micah 7:7-9).

If the LORD had destroyed Israel for their sin and unbelief, the heathen could have charged Him with failure, that He was unable to save them, that He did not anticipate what was required, that He could not meet the impossibility of their case. In other words, if God promised to save Israel but then destroyed them, it would have been because, like their idols, He required the help of sinners. But the LORD is the true and living God. He is the alone “just God and a Savior” (Isa. 45:21).

When the LORD saves us, we know that He alone did it. And we will know that He did it for His name’s sake, in spite of our opposition. Our salvation is therefore as certain as God is God, as certain as Christ sits on the throne of glory at His Father’s right hand (Heb. 6:13-20)!

Rick Warta

We ought not to first seek security and safety and comfort for ourselves in this world. Our Lord and Savior in whom we trust has said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33). Therefore, set your eyes on Christ and put your house in order to seek Him first, and trust that He will take care of everything else. Since you confess that Christ and His kingdom is the treasure of your heart, arrange everything in your life to align with your treasure (Mat. 6:21).

Rick Warta

Romans 8 was written to assure the weakest believer that salvation in Christ is eternally certain because it is the work of our triune God. There is no condemnation in Christ (v1). God accomplished in Christ’s life and death what the law by our life and death could never do (vv. 2-4). We died with Christ to sin’s guilt and the curse and bondage of God’s law (Rom. 6:3-11; 7:4). By this we are justified before God. Though in our natural mind we are hostility itself towards God (v7), nevertheless we have been raised in spirit; the Spirit of Christ and of God now lives in us (v10). Our spirit now lives because Christ lives in us and He is our life (Col. 1:27; Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 3:6; Eph. 2:4). He has given and will yet give us all grace to trust and hope in Christ unto the end, to lead us ever onward in this walk of faith until He raises our bodies in the totality of our redemption (vv. 5-11). We are  therefore happy debtors to Christ for His saving grace. We are not slaves under the law. We are not slaves to our flesh. We are glad servants in the grace of Christ, our great God and Savior (vv. 12-13). We are sons of God. This is by the will and predestinating purpose of God our Father (James 1:18; John 1:12-13). This is by the incarnation and redeeming blood of the Son of God in our nature (Heb. 2:9-10; 9:12-15; 10:7; Eph. 1:4-7; Gal. 4:4-5). This is by the indwelling, life-giving Spirit of God (John 3:6-14; Rom. 8:9-10; Gal. 4:6). But though we are now the sons of God, we have not yet received the promised possession of eternal glory; it does not yet appear to our sight what we shall be (1 John 3:1-2; Heb. 10:35-36; 11:8-16; Rom. 4:13-25). Therefore, we both hope and patiently wait for the salvation that is ours in Christ (Lam. 3:22-26; Rom. 5:1-10; Gal. 5:5). Christ has obtained eternal glory for us (Heb. 1:3; 9:12-16). He has taken possession of our inheritance that is ours with Him (Rom. 8:17; Heb. 6:20). By God-given faith in Christ, heaven is our present possession (Heb. 11:1; Acts 18:27). We not only trust Christ by the grace of the Spirit of Christ in us, but we also hope for glory, which is the reward of Christ’s righteousness (Rom. 8:19-25; Col. 1:27; 2 Tim. 2:10). As if that weren’t enough to ensure our victory, the Spirit of Christ also helps our infirmities (vv. 24-25). In all of our weaknesses, He makes intercession for us (v26). He knows the will of God. We are indivisibly joined to Him (1 Cor. 6:17). His intercession and groanings in us causes us to groan in our spirit. Though in ourselves do not know what to pray, His intercession in us perfectly expresses the eternal will of God in every detail of our lives (v. 26). Christ, on His glorious throne of grace, searches the hearts of all men, but especially the hearts of His blood-bought people to know the mind of the Spirit for us. He makes intercession for us at the right hand of God in all the efficacy and glory of His blood and righteousness, which He offered and fulfilled in our behalf (Rev. 19:13). This mysterious operation of God by His Spirit in us, and Christ on the right hand of God for us, is according to the eternal will of God the Father (vv. 27-28). It pleased the Father to save us by Christ as our Substitute. And it pleased our Father that we would come to the completion of this salvation through a life of faith in Christ and the expectancy of hope in Christ, all through the operation of His Holy Spirit in us, and by Christ on the throne for us (v27; Gal. 5:5). Thus, all things in time and life and death and this world and heaven itself, even in hell beneath, work together for our good, to conform us to the image of God’s dear Son (vv. 28-29). There can be no failure in one thing God determined and Christ purchased for His people (v32). This has been His will from eternity (v30). He will make known to the onlooking universe that we are His, that we are Christ’s, that we are the sons of God, that He has justified us, that Christ died for us, that He rose for our justification and is seated in glory to make intercession for us to bring about all that He established and purchased in the blood of His everlasting covenant of grace (vv. 28-34; Heb. 9:12-16; 13:20). He will save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him (Heb. 7:25; Rom. 5:9-10)! The great conclusion is drawn for us in preeminent climax: nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord; He is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth whose will and word and work cannot fail (vv. 35-39)!

Therefore, since our all-wise and all good God and Father has ordained that we live and are saved in this grace of faith and hope in Christ, “let us have grace that we may serve God in reverence and godly fear” (Heb. 12:28). “Be not weary in well-doing” (2 Thes. 3:13), but “be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58). If nothing is impossible for our God and Father, if He has given His Son up to judgment for us; if He has given us who are the epitome of weakness His Spirit of grace, and revealed to us His eternal purpose and work in Christ; if He has promised to give us all grace in Christ; then we are free as sons of God to embark in every work and endure every trial looking to Christ and hoping to the end as we run this race, knowing we cannot fail because our Rock is Christ (Deut. 32:31). He is immovable and unfailing (2 Tim. 2:10-13; Matt. 7:24-26).

Rick Warta

“Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the LORD will work for us: for there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few” (1 Sam. 14:6).

When I was 16, I undertook rebuilding the six-cylinder engine in my 1964 Chevy pickup. I would have never begun that work with any hope of completing it unless I was confident my father was willing and able to help me if I got into any trouble. I did, and he did.

Believers undertake every task in patient and confident expectancy (hope) because we know that our heavenly Father is able and willing and shall without fail save us to the uttermost by Jesus Christ to His great glory (Heb. 7:25; Php. 1:6; 4:13; 1 Thess. 5:23-24). Thus, though we are weak and unprofitable servants, though there be few of us, we labor in hope; we wait in confident expectancy that God will do as He has said. As Jonathan told his armor bearer, “There is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few” (1 Sam. 14:6). There is no limitation in God because of our infirmities that would prevent Him from saving us to the uttermost and accomplishing His eternal will by Christ. In spite of our weaknesses (Rom. 8:24-27), therefore, let us live in the patience of hope because our God and Father, who cannot lie, promised eternal life to elect sinners in Christ before the world began (Titus 1:1-2; 2 Tim. 1:9; 2 Thess. 2:13-17; Heb. 6:10-12). Though we are unprofitable servants, the Gospel is not an unprofitable work. It is the power of God Almighty to the salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ. God’s grace cannot fail to save His people (Isa. 55:11; Rom. 1:16-17). He made Christ sin for us and so made Him all of our righteousness (Rom. 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:21). His exceeding great power raised us from spiritual death to life and faith in Christ (Eph. 1:19-2:6). If , when we were enemies, He reconciled us to Himself by the death of His Son, how much more now that we are reconciled and justified by Christ's blood, shall He save us by His life (Rom. 5:9-10)? All strength and all success is from God for Christ's sake, all by His grace alone. We therefore may undertake great things, knowing our Father is willing and able and shall without fail fulfill His will to bring us to Himself and glorify His Son for His grace to us who are without strength.

Rick Warta

Christ dwells in believers by His Spirit (John 14:16-8; Rom. 8:2, 9-11; Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 3:6; 1 Cor. 6:15, 19; 2 Cor. 13:5). And we who believe in Christ are also in Christ by His Spirit (Rom. 6:3; 2 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27). We are therefore united to Him, one with Him (John 17:22; 1 Cor. 6:17). The evidence that we are in Christ and that He is in us, is that we live upon Him by faith, who in His substitutionary, sin-atoning death, and justifying righteousness, saved us from our sins and justified us in the sight of God (Gal. 2:20-21). This also is our communion with the Son of God, that we eat and drink by faith from His successful, redeeming work (John 6:56).

Rick Warta

The people Joseph saved asked that they might find grace in his sight, and gladly submitted to his rule. “Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants” (Gen. 47:25). All whom the Lord Jesus Christ saves ask to find grace in His sight and gladly submit to His rule as their only and all-sufficient Savior and sovereign Lord. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:9-10).

Rick Warta