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All Creation Declares the Glory of God

1/13/2018

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Everything in creation, like the voices of a myriad of admiring servants -- all the works of the LORD -- praise Him (Ps. 145:10). “Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard” (Ps. 19:2-3). We see and hear and smell and taste the works of God. We live in them and by them. They are all around us. They all tell of His wisdom and goodness and power.

He who made all things must be eternal (John 1:3). He who called all things out of nothing by His word, according to His eternal will, must be uninfluenced by all outside of Himself, untaught, unadvised, unaided, unimpeded, almighty, all-wise and sovereign over all (Job 38:4; Acts 17:24-25; Rom. 4:17; Heb. 11:3). Light appears at His word. Darkness recedes at His command. He separates light from darkness. By His word, land appears and is divided from the sea. God said. It was done. God saw His works. It was all good. God divided one from the other. God calls things as they are. He called the light Day and called the darkness Night. His will is always done (Isa. 14:24; Ps. 135:6). His word is truth (Ps. 119:142; John 17:17). God cannot lie (Num. 23:29; Heb. 6:18; Titus 1:2). Nothing can prove God’s word, because His word is truth (John 17:17). His word cannot fail because He has exalted His word above His name (Ps. 138:2; Isa. 46:10; Heb. 6:17-18; Matt. 24:35). What He says and does and sees and separates, and what He calls things, is the whole truth about the way things are.

We know what is good because God said it is good. Evil is what God calls evil. May we see that our life is at God’s will, by God’s word, that He brings it to pass, and is as He sees it. May He dispel the darkness and shine His light in us. May He subdue our wretched man by Jesus Christ, the God-man, through His word, out of His grace, by His accomplished work in our salvation. May we see as God sees, agree with all that He says, praise Him for His work and worship Him for His glorious majesty. May all that He calls good be very good to us. May all that He calls evil be very evil to us. And may we praise His glorious name for ever and ever!

By His word, the LORD first revealed His visible and material creation. By His Gospel He has made known the spiritual (1 Cor. 15:46-47). The first Adam is of earth. The last Adam is the Lord from heaven. First the darkness and void. Then light, order, fruitfulness, communion and worship. First creation. Then the new creation. God first tells us that He made out of nothing what we can see and touch and sense (Heb. 11:3). He then tells us what He made that we cannot see and touch, but what physical creation represent and pictures, what we must believe simply because He has told us in scripture. He created all men in Adam (1 Cor. 15:22). He created His elect new in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). If He has told us earthly things and we believe not, how shall we believe if He tells us heavenly things (John 3:12)? May God give us grace to believe His word, and so believing, to believe Him (Gen. 15:6; 2 Chronicles 20:20)! Believe His word. Believe His Son. Believe His Gospel. Believe His goodness. Believe His righteousness (2 Pet. 1:1). All of His works are done in truth.

“14 The LORD upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down. 15 The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season. 16 Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. 17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. 18 The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. 19 He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them. 20 The LORD preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy” (Ps. 145:14-20).

Our great God and Creator is our omnipotent, eternal, sovereign Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Titus 1:3-4; 2:10, 13; 3:4, 6)! This is His message to fallen sinners. "The LORD upholdeth all that fall...is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth...will fulfill the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them" (Ps. 145:14-20; Isa. 40:1-31). This is His assurance to His saints. If He called creation out of nothing by His word, how much more shall He, by His incarnation, life and death, save His people to the uttermost (Rom. 5:10; Heb. 7:25; Isa. 40:1-31)? God comforts His people. He tells us that He, our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, has by Himself defeated our every enemy. He has made satisfaction for all our sins. He has pardoned and cleansed us of all our iniquities. He has created and established our everlasting righteousness (Isa. 40:1-2; 45:8; Dan. 9:24). It is done! Christ accomplished His Father’s eternal will (Heb. 10:7; John 19:30). God now looks upon Christ for His people. He says, “Very good” (Ps. 71:16; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 5:17-21; Eph. 4:32)! Christ’s righteousness is all-sufficient. In Christ, God has justified and sanctified and glorified His people (1 Cor. 1:30; Rom. 3:24; 5:9; 8:30; 10:4; 2 Cor. 5:21; Php. 3:9). According to all His righteousness (Dan. 9:16), for Christ's sake, He now rewards them with everlasting life in Christ (Rom. 5:21). And what do we say to these things?

“If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things” (Rom. 8:31-32)?!!

“Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (Isa. 25:9; Isa. 40:9-10).
Rick Warta
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Christ Is All

1/6/2018

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Christ is the Light of the world (John 8:12). All that is not light is darkness. Therefore, all that is not Christ, is only darkness. Do you tremble when you read scripture, because it exposes and condemns all sinners?! Be of good cheer, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:15)! Christ is that Light; we are that darkness! Oh, dear brother and sister in Christ! Have you so learned Christ? Has this world and all that is in it become a crucified thing to you (Gal. 6:14)? Not only is the world crucified to me, but more significantly I have been crucified with Christ to sin and every enemy! When we fall by looking to ourselves, we find only darkness. We peer into darkness when we look for good within ourselves. But by God’s grace, “I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD: I will make mention of Thy righteousness, even of thine only” (Ps. 71:16)! Unless Christ is “all my vision,” all I see will be darkness. “If thine eye be single (seeing only Christ - 2 Cor. 11:3), thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matt. 6:22).

What do I see if I see Christ? I see Him in all of scripture (Heb. 10:7; 1 Pet. 1:11). I long for Him in my conscience and in all of life. I call on Him. I cry for Him and wait for Him to subdue my sin, that giant enemy over which I have no power, but from which He has delivered me, and promised to yet deliver me (Rom. 5:21; 6:14; Titus 2:14; 2 Cor. 1:10; Heb. 7:25). I cry out for Him in all of my darkness. I wait for Him to come from heaven (1 Thess. 1:10). I hate all that would attempt to take His place in my conscience, affections and especially in teaching and preaching His word. I hate when men claim or try to persuade me that I have another hope but Christ crucified, risen, reigning and interceding (Rom. 8:34). I rejoice that He is all to God for me, and that I can come to God by Him and know that I am accepted in Him alone, even accepted as He is accepted (Col. 2:9-10; Jer. 23:5-6)!

When, by His grace, God lifts our eyes to that one window in the ark above (Gen. 6:16), we look away from ourselves and see Christ in all of scripture (John 5:39, 46; Heb. 10:7), trust Him in all of providence (Rom. 8:28) and ask Him to do all that He has said (Ezek. 36:37; 2 Sam. 7:25). Then we have the light of life. “In thy light we see light” (Ps. 36:9).

Our Savior is the Son of God. He is our great Creator. He is Lord of all. Can He who created all things by His word, fail to save us from every enemy by His death on the cross (Rev. 12:7-11; John 12:31)?! All God requires of us, He provided and found in Christ our Mediator. Christ is all to God for us. And by God-given faith, we ourselves look only to Christ. We see Him and trust Him as our all to God. Oh! To have such a Surety is to have peace with God and life and every blessing from God (Rom. 15:13)! He is therefore all of our confidence (Php. 3:3). He is our only hope (1 Tim. 1:1). He is our eternal life (2 Tim. 1:1; John 5:11-12).

If men and devils point to our evident unworthiness and unrighteousness in an attempt to send us repairing our fallen and corrupt old man, sending us to peer within ourselves, we must return the answer of God’s word that our God has put in our conscience: “I am a great sinner, and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is the full payment and cleansing and perfect covering of all my sin. He is all of my righteousness. He is my all in all” (Micah 7:7-9; Ps. 25:11; Ps. 65:3; 79:8-9; 94:18; 106:4-8; Luke 18:13; Isa. 6:5). And when those same assailants (either without or within) cast doubts on our understanding and what we hold most certain by faith, we do not defend ourselves. We do not point to our intellectual abilities or our own achievements, for we, as they, are ignorant and impotent and barren in ourselves. But we reply to them with our only defense: “Christ crucified is all my wisdom, all of my salvation, all of my righteousness” (1 Cor. 1:24)! When the devil and this world ridicule our weaknesses, they merely describe the natural sinfulness of our mind and will and efforts. We may freely agree with them concerning our own understanding, our own strength, and our own righteousness. We agree with God’s word against ourselves. But we also confidently and joyfully confess: “Christ crucified is all my strength” (1 Cor. 1:24).

When any attack one of Christ’s lambs, especially one of His scrawny, shriveled, limping, whimpering lambs, it is an attack on our Savior (1 Sam. 17:36, 47)! O fiend of my soul, and enemy of Christ’s sheep, you mocked my Savior in the hour of His apparent weakness. You saw Him as foolish and weak and helpless while He hung willingly on the cross, laying down His life for His sheep. But the One you despised, I own as the only Savior of my soul, my great Redeemer, all my righteousness, my great Creator and Sustainer, the King of saints (1 Sam. 16:1; Rev. 15:3), who has conquered all and will complete the work that He started in eternity (2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:1-2; Gen. 1:1-31; 2 Cor. 5:17; Php. 1:6; 1 Thess. 5:23-24; Heb. 13-20-21)! And when His work is done, I will awake in His likeness. Then I shall be satisfied (Ps. 17:15)! Truly, every child of God is taught by God to answer every foe and the filth of his sin with the answer of Christ crucified (Rom. 8:33-34).

“Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved. How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? ye shall be slain all of you: as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence. They only consult to cast him down from his excellency: they delight in lies: they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Selah. My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah” (Ps. 62:1-8).

“Looking for the blessed hope and appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13, LITV).
Rick Warta
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