“Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.”, John 6:27

"And he wrote in the king Ahasuerus' name, and sealed it with the king's ring, and sent letters by posts on horseback, and riders on mules, camels, and young dromedaries:", Esther 8:10

"So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth.", 1Kings 21:9

A seal signifies the authority of the one who owns and applies the seal. (1Kings 21:8; Esther 8:8). God the Father sealed Christ. There is no greater signification of Christ’s authority. The Father’s seal signifies the authority of Christ’s words and works. The Father’s seal signifies that the words of Christ and the works of Christ are the words and works of the Father. The Father sent Christ. He anointed Him with His Spirit at His baptism. The Father spoke of Christ from heaven, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” By Him, Christ went about healing and raising the dead. All of the prophets before Christ, including John the Baptist, and all that followed after, especially the apostles, were sent of God and spoke of Christ. God raised Him from the dead. The Spirit of God is the seal.  These things evidence that God the Father sealed the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, with His own Spirit so that He spoke and did all that God required of Him by the Spirit of His Father.

The Lord Jesus Christ must be heard because of the seal that He bears – it is the seal of Almighty God, the Father’s seal, and is the highest testimony to the authority of Christ as the Son of Man. Jesus Christ is the express image of the Father (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus told His disciples, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” And again, “I and my Father are one.” Hence, if you have seen Christ, you have seen the Father. Likewise, if you have not seen Christ, you have not seen the Father; you do not know God. If you honor Christ, you honor the Father that sent Him – because He bears His seal. If you believe, worship, and obey the Lord Jesus Christ, you believe, worship, and obey God the Father. On the other hand, if you do not believe, do not worship, and do not obey the Lord Jesus, then you do not believe, worship, or obey the Father. If you do not love Christ, you do not love God.

The Son of God bears the signet ring of Heaven’s throne (the book of Esther is an historical allegory of this fact). Therefore, we should hear Him. With Him, God is well pleased. The seal signifies that He has the Father’s favor and approval. He commands the worship of heaven’s host. “What and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?!”, John 6:62

-- Pastor Rick Warta

"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame." -- SSol8:6

One signification of a seal is a bond of love, which cannot be known in full for its depth. The seal points to all that lies within. Example: the ring on a man’s finger signifies the bond of love between him and his wife: ‘With this ring, I thee wed, and with all my earthly goods I thee endow.’

S. Sol 8:6 records words, as from the Bride (Church), to the Bridegroom (Christ), which are bold in that they ask Christ to do for them what is already in His heart. He puts the words in her mouth, as it were, framing them according to His determined purpose and will and thereby revealing both the eternal disposition of His own heart and also His work for her, which words place on Him an obligation of love unto death, when the scripture says, “Set me [Bride of Christ] as a seal upon Thine [Christ, Bridegroom] heart, as a seal upon Thine arm.”

The heart of a man is what he is: it is what he thinks, his affection, his will. Christ says through the Spirit of God on behalf of His Bride, “Set me as a seal… upon your heart and arm.” What is the heart of Christ? To look up on His heart you would see His most ardent desire, all His mind, and all His will. And what, by the Holy Ghost, would we find were we to gaze upon His inmost being? From eternity, now, and forever, we would find His Bride. Would you know what moves Him to spill His life’s blood, to bear the curse, to make Himself of no reputation, to take upon Himself the form of a servant, “I love my Master, I love my wife, I love my children and I will not go out free (Ex 21).” What would move Him to suffer mocking, slander, pain and rejection? Look at the seal – it is His Bride! She portends all that lies within, that mysteriously leads Him to death and the grave. Not His heart only, but His arm.  His arm is a love that works! Love that accomplishes! Victorious love! A heart that’s big enough, and an arm that’s strong enough, and wisdom that He can’t do wrong! The seal on the heart and arm is much more than a ring on the finger – a seal upon His heart, a banner of love so that all would know why He ran the gospel race. Christ loved His people more than He loved His own life. He loved the church and would rather die than go on without her. See also Isaiah 49:16.  Lord Jesus, do all that is within your heart!  Set me as a seal upon Thine arm!  Acknowledge me before the world, before angels, before your Father!  Lord, remember me!  And let me ever speak of your glory before men! 

                                                  -- Pastor Rick

I heard the gospel for the first time again today, and it never sounded better. The gospel is the only truth I've known.  Christ crucified is the only food for my soul. 

Most of the time, which includes most of my life, I have been self-deceived by my own self-righteousness, my ignorance, my arrogance and my willfulness.  This, I am ashamed to admit, but it's true.  If I scan back through the pages of my experience, I can sum up that wasteland in this way:

• I heard what I must do, but learned I couldn't do it.
  
• I heard what I must be, but found I could never become it.
  
• I sought the experience that counts, but never found it.
  
• I heard what decision I must make and the One I must choose, but with all of my natural gifts of will power, I realized it was not my choice at all that made the difference.
  
• I heard I must commit, surrender and make Jesus Lord.  I taught others the same. But fanatic commitment and surrender and measurements of the lordship I gave Him in my life left a fleeting self-created peace.
  
• I heard that a sinner must believe, but I believed the wrong things.
  
• I heard I must be sorry, must know and feel my depravity, must sincerely and earnestly trust no other, must believe with all of my heart, but I could never produce these.
  
• I learned that I am positively evil, and my thoughts instead of being toward God are opposed to His truth and His way.
  

  
I will freely borrow words that describe the full extent of my case from men far better than me: 

      Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief !  - Apostle Paul
      I am a great sinner, and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. - Poor Huckster

Don't celebrate my accomplishments when I am gone; I have none. Do me this honor instead: Hear what Jesus has done.
 
My confidence, my joy, my desire and hope is simply this:

• Before creation's foundation was laid, in love, God chose me.
  
• Before I had an experience, Christ stood before God as Surety for me.
  
• When I was ungodly, Christ died for ungodly me.
  
• When I was without strength, Christ died for impotent me.
  
• Christ took my sin, became sin, and delivered God's wrath from me.
  
• When I was His enemy, by His death, Christ reconciled me to God.
  
• God did not spare His own Son for me.
  
• Christ loved and gave Himself for me.
  
• By Himself, without my participation, thought or help at all, Christ purged my sins from me.
  
• Before I was born, by His blood He justified me.
  
• By the offering of Himself, Christ both sanctified and forever perfected me.
  
• When I was dead in sins, for His great love wherewith He loved Christ, He received Him and loved me.
  
• God never looked for a reason from me to save me.
  
• My cries were never loud, long or earnest enough, but His cries and His offering were heard and accepted for me.
  
• For His name's sake alone, He found reason to save me.
  

 
How do I know that He did this for me?

• Because Christ's experience, and what God thinks of Him is all that matters to me.
  
• My experience never measured up; but Christ's experience did.
  
• My righteousness is not on earth; He is in heaven.
  
• My food and drink is Christ's obedience unto death to fulfill the will of God for me.
  
• Christ reigns over His enemies to bring them under my feet.
  
• His satisfaction for sin satisfied God, and by His grace, it satisfies me.
  
• My commitment or surrender could never influence the Judge of all the earth, but only bring me lower than the grave.  But Christ died for me.
  
• My accepting Jesus didn't make me acceptable to God, but God accepting Him for me did.
  

  We are told to look to Jesus only, to look away from all that we are and look only to Him.  In looking by faith, I am now and shall be satisfied when I awake in His likeness.

                          -- Pastor Rick Warta

Zephaniah 3:17

The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty.  He will save.  He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing.  Zephaniah 3:17

If this had not been written in the Word of God, I would think such a statement as this to be preposterous presumption.  How can God, in honesty - and God cannot lie, He is truth itself - how can He accept me?  How can He embrace me?  How can He have fellowship with me?  How can it be said that He would rejoice with joy over me, a sinner!?

Heaven rejoices more over one sinner that repents than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.  This describes every one God saves.  Christ came not to call the righteous, those who need no repentance, but to call sinners to repentance.  But how can God in truth rejoice and joy over me?!  Wouldn’t God be untrue, even covering up and being dishonest to joy over a sinner, especially a sinner such as I am?!

“If it had not been revealed, it could not have been imagined.” - unknown.

The truth of the gospel is that God in Christ has so thoroughly lifted the unbearable burden of my sin from off me, and bore my sin in His own body on the tree, that I am now dead to sin, by whose stripes I am healed.  1Peter 2:24; Isaiah 53:6.  “God sees no iniquity in Jacob.” Numbers 23:21. “The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for (in that day) and there shall be none!” Jeremiah 50:20.  These promises are to all of God's people, who are in the New Covenant in Christ's blood, all who are born of the Spirit, all who are given faith to look away from their lack, their filth, their shame and their guilt to Christ who took their place before God.  John3:14-15.

Jesus Christ the Son of God took on the body that was prepared for Him by God His Father, by the Holy Spirit, in the womb of the virgin Mary.  In humiliation, He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom8:3), having all of the weakness and consequences that our fallen bodies have: He was tired, weary, thirsty, hungry, faint, and subject to death.  In that nature He willingly gave Himself in obedience unto death - even the death of the cross, cursed under God’s holy law, in the sight of all and at the hands of sinners; as one who was more worthy to die than any man, because He took my sins and the sins of all of His people.

He was made the propitiation for His people's sins.  He removed our sins from us, which were the cause of God’s anger, and made satisfaction to God's justice for them. Because of Him, God is not angry with His people.

Not only is God not angry, but according to Zephaniah 3:17, God is actually well-pleased, and rejoices in and joys over all who are in Christ.  And He will sing for His joy and love over them, and all of this entirely because He is well-pleased with His Son, satisfied in Him, rejoices in Him, is thrilled with and wants nothing more from His people than what Jesus has done.  He looks for nothing more and nothing less and nothing else from me but what He finds in Christ.  And by His grace, He gives me the faith to do the same:  to want nothing more and look for nothing else but what God has done in Christ!  God accepts, God receives, God is well-pleased with me for Jesus' sake.  He looks to me no more for anything, but looks to His Son for everything.

As Pastor Nibert once said, "Do you ever wonder how God could love you?  I wonder that too, but in Christ, I can see how God can love me."  Why not?  In Christ I have done more than the Old Testament law demanded of me for life and satisfied more than it demanded of me for death, and now I am free from that law, having fully satisfied all of its shadowy claims in the super abounding obedience and suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ, who gives eternal, infinite joy to God for His obedience and suffering and love, and all that He is.  Because all that He is, He is for me; and all that God requires and looks for, He finds in Him, and all that I need or want from God, I find in Him too.  What God has done for me in Christ is His joy, and by His grace, what God has done for me in Christ is my joy.

The joy of the LORD is my strength !

                                                                                       Rick Warta, Pastor

Christ is the Message of His Miracles

Jesus turned water to wine. He healed a nobleman's son.  He raised up and made an impotent man whole - a man confined to his bed 38 years, in spite of the man's ignorance of Christ.  He revealed Himself as the Christ of God to a Samaritan - a sinful woman born to a sinful race, in a heathen nation, which worshiped heathen gods.  She was expert in hiding the truth about herself. She went from man to man. She questioned whether Jesus was as great as Jacob. She was ignorant of true worship; she had never worshiped God.  Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, borrowed lunch from a boy and fed 5,000 men plus women and children with it.  He walked on water and calmed the troubled sea.  For a woman caught by men in the very act of adultery, one whom Moses in the law condemned to death, He stood as Advocate, defended and passed upon her the sentence of "Neither do I condemn thee."  He formed clay from dust and mixed it with His own spittle, put it on the eyes of a man born blind, sent him to a pool named "Sent", and told him to wash there, which when he did he came again seeing. He raised from the dead a man who had been buried four days. By these miracles and many more, Jesus displayed the authority and power of the Son of God, of God Himself.

In spiritual blindness, the people who saw these things were impressed with the miracles. But the miracles that Jesus did taught more than physical healing, more than His authority over creation, more than His power over sickness and death.  Miracles in themselves are not the message; Christ is the message of God's miracles.  The message of miracles is the One who did those miracles, and the foundation of justice upon which He showed grace and mercy to ungodly, unrighteous, ignorant, impotent, hell-deserving sinners.

John2: Water made wine was the scriptural testimony that the Eternal Word of God, who is one with the Father, would be made flesh, in the nature of His people, and in His human body and soul would offer Himself to God in shedding of His own blood.  That blood would fulfill and bring into force the New Covenant of God's eternal salvation of His people, and secure to His people all of the promises in that Covenant, which God made with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and which Christ fulfilled by meeting their obligations and bringing the blessings of that covenant into their possession, namely, eternal salvation: cleansing and forgiveness of sins, eternal redemption, everlasting righteousness, eternal inheritance, adoption as sons, in short: eternal life.  Thus, turning water to wine required the shedding of His own blood to the glory of God.

John4: He satisfied the thirst of His own soul by giving Himself up to the curse of the law so that a Samaritan woman, who faced the thirst of the burning condemnation of God's fiery law against her sin, would drink from Him as her salvation.  As the object of His saving grace, she fulfilled His command to her, "Give me to drink."  Giving drink to the woman required the Son of God to taste death for her and give to her the water of salvation flowing to sinners because of that accomplished death, to the glory of God.

John5: The impotent man was ignorant and without strength.  When the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, raised him from his lameness, it was in spite of the man's ignorance of who Jesus was.  The Sovereignty of the Son of God in salvation, in raising whom He will, was demonstrated.  But raising a man from his long-term lameness required more than mere power.  It required that the Lord Jesus Christ take that man's disease to Himself.  It required that the Son of God, in the man's own nature, bear the weakness, the beating and the stripes that the disease of his sin earned from God's justice.  He Himself took our sickness and bore our sorrows, and by His stripes we were healed.  (1Pet2:24; Isaiah53:6).

John6: In feeding 5,000, the Lord Jesus broke His own body and shed His own blood for His people, His sheep, to save them from death in the wilderness of unbelief and sin under the wrath of God, and to give Himself as an offering for them and to them as their life and living.  He gave Himself for them, in order that He might give Himself to them, and bring them to Himself.  He died, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God.  (1Pet3:18).

John6: He calmed the tempestuous waves of the raging sea of God's wrath against all in the ship, rising above the waves and walking on their proud waters, because He Himself was thrown into the waves of judgment as the substitute of those in that ship (Jonah 1-2). When His soul was made an offering for sin, the waves of God's wrath entered into His own soul, and the raging sea of judgment against His people was calmed.  By this victory He was able to speak to those proud waves, "Peace!!  Be still !".

John7: In the last day of the last required feast, under the Old Testament, as recorded in Lev23:1-44, the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stood and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink!" This was a call to believe on Him as the reality, the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament feasts.  On each day of this last feast, several animals of various kinds were offered.  But on the last day, only one offering of each victim was offered.  By this, Christ declared Himself to be the fulfillment of that feast, and all the feasts that preceded it.  He declared Himself to be the true, the reality, the fulfillment of all those feasts required throughout the year.

The Feast of Tabernacles required Israel to dwell in booths, small shelters, as they had when they first came our of Egypt.  In fulfillment, Christ is our dwelling place in all generations (Ps90).  He is our shelter from the heat of the desert of this world, of the emptiness of man's religion, of the fiery darts of the wicked, of the curse of the law.  He fulfills all of these feasts in His own person and work.

If any man attending the feasts that only patterned the true, is left empty, left thirsting, left dying for the reality, discontent with the mere show of religion and the shadow of it, then come to Christ!  Believe Him who accomplished all of the will of God!  Find all your soul's desires, longings, and needs before God and from God in Him and in Him alone.  Come to Christ, take of Him, take Him into yourself, live upon Him, believe Him and so do the work of God, believing that He performed all things that were required in that eternal covenant to actually and really fulfill God's will by Himself, by His own work.  In so drinking, taking and living upon Christ as the Surety and fulfillment of all the revelation of God, He will fill us until an overflowing of Himself with His own Spirit, produces an abundance of life (Jn10:10), an abundance of pardon (Isaiah55:7), an abundance of cleansing (Zech13:1; 1Jn1:7-9; Rev1:5), an abundance of righteousness (Dan9:24), and abundance of thanksgiving and love to God for all that He did.

John8: He stooped twice in defense of a guilty woman, first when He who gave the law from His own finger, was made under that law as man; and second, when He stooped lower than man, as a worm and no man, was made sin for her, enduring the curse of that law against Himself in her place, and fulfilling all of the obligations of that law for her (Ps22:6; Phil2:6-8; 2Cor5:21; Heb10:1-18; Rom5:21; 8:1-4). When He rose from the dead He declared that her sin was no more, it could not be found, though God Himself were to search diligently for it.  He silenced her accusers and when He was alone with her, spoke peace to her conscience. To every believing sinner, He now says, "Who is He that condemneth?  It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us."  Romans 8:34

John9: He was made flesh and blood, as man is made clay from the earth, and put this on and set it before the eyes of the blind man and then sent the blind man to wash in the pool named after His own appointment, the "Sent" One of His Father, with all of the authority and authentication of God His Father.  He was that Sent One, who was sent as the Surety to save His people from their sins, to secure them to God, and secure Himself to them.  He revealed Himself as the Son of God to the man after He opened his eyes.  The man gave the only appropriate response to the work of the the Son of God:  he believed Him, and in believing, He worshipped Him.

John11: Christ purposefully allowed one whom He loved to suffer and die in order that He might make His glory known in his resurrection.  He made it know that the resurrection is not merely an event:  it is a person, "I AM THE RESURRECTION and the LIFE."  We don't need to know the date and time of the last day if we know Him who is the RESURRECTION and the LIFE!  He is the RESURRECTION and LIFE because He died to sin once, and now, sin has no dominion over Him.  All for whom He died now live in and by Him.  (1Peter2:24; Romans6:5-9)

Now, according to John, all of these things were written that you might believe.  Believe what? That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  And that believing, you might have life through His name.  John 20:31.

The greatest miracle of all was the miracle that Jesus accomplished on the cross, and declared when He cried, "It is Finished!"

All of the transgressions and sins and iniquities of His people were ended then.  They were put away and ceased to further accrue or to be, because He took them and bore them in His own body, up to, and on the Tree.

His obedience unto death is the eternal righteousness that became His people's. His suffering and death were sufficient to satisfy God's eternal damnation against His people.  His obedience was of such merit that it was an everlasting righteousness.

He obtained eternal redemption: nothing left uncompensated to justice, nothing unpaid, nothing unremitted.  Full remission was made of the entire debt sin earned from God's justice.  Having remitted their sins once for all, the Spirit of God Himself testifies to it: "Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more."  (Heb10:15-17)

He reconciled His people to God.  He died the Just for the unjust to bring us, who in ourselves were ungodly, to God.

He brought us back. He restored that which He did not take away (Ps69:4). He did not take away God's glory, but He restored it by seeking His Father's glory, not His own, by working out the salvation of His people.  He made satisfaction for sins He did not commit.  He satisfied justice He never injured.  He fulfilled the law He never broke. He brought in righteousness He had not lost. He secured an inheritance greater than that which Adam by his sin took away, and greater than which none could ever earn.

He cried these last words, "It Is Finished!" with a loud voice to show that He had accomplished these things by Himself, and to declare them with power to us.  He cried these words to His Father, and in that cry He was heard.  Salvation depends on His accomplished work alone.  Did God accept Him, the sacrifice?  Did God approve of His righteousness?  Did He really atone for sin, cleanse us from all our sin before the LORD (Leviticus 16:30) and reconcile His people to God?  Did He secure eternal life to them?  This is the only issue.  This is the entire matter.  Either Jesus Christ actually paid for the sins of His people, actually worked out for them everlasting righteousness, actually secured to them eternal inheritance in God, is actually one with them so that all that He is and all that He did, He did before God for them and they are eternally free, or else He is an impostor!  If He is the Son of God, then surely His cry is true.  If God raised Him from the dead, then surely His cry is true, and all of His people, the elect of God, are saved by Him.

                                                                                      Rick Warta, Pastor

When I reach the end of myself and have become discouraged by the discovery, I learn from the gospel that I am to go down further and look up to Christ.  True humility will look to Christ only; all else leaves me in the pride of self-righteous humility. Looking to Christ gives true joy in Him.  Pride prevents joy, because pride finds reason for despondency in the lack it sees in self, thinking that recovery, help and promotion come from what is to be found in me, brought from me or even worked in me.  But faith finds no lack, indeed, faith finds every requirement perfectly and eternally met in its only boast, the Lord Jesus Christ.  How can I be discouraged when Christ is all and He is mine?!

In myself, I am impotent and vile.  The discovery and knowledge of this is painful beyond words. God mercifully reveals it in degrees, because a complete view of my true emptiness and shameful nakedness would be too painful, in my pride, to bear.  There is none righteous, there is none that seek after God, none that doeth good, all are wretched and filthy in their very best state (Rom3:10-19; Ps39:5).  If it is so, and I know that it is by the testimony of scripture, what am I to do?  I thought I was far better, that I had at least something, however small, that could give me hope.  Yet God has said that in my flesh, in my old man, in my natural state, I am nothing but sin: no good whatsoever.  Yet, when experience together with God's word teaches me this at sundry times and in divers manners and in so many areas of my nature, it is painful and unsettling indeed.  But when we are enabled to look away from all that we are not, and all that we mistakenly think ourselves to be, to look away to Christ who is the only righteousness in all the universe (Ps71:16) and to His finished work alone; when we are enabled by God’s grace to glory only in Him, then we receive in our experience that covering that covers our shameful nakedness, that medicine that turns the pain in our conscience to joy, that cleansing that washes our conscience, and joyful confidence that causes us to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus -- by His blood alone -- in spite of our sinfulness, and with no regard to the filthy rags of our self-righteousness.  See Genesis 6:5; Job40:4; Psalm 14:2-3; Luke 5:8; Romans 7; Romans 8:6; John 3:6 with John6:63; Philippians 3:7-9; Heb10:10-23; 1John1:7-10.

Rick Warta, Pastor

With men, talk is cheap; with God, talk is everything

Which is more difficult to say, "'Thy sins be forgiven thee', or 'Rise, take up thy bed and walk'?" Luke 5:23.

Men can say whatever they like, because with men, talk is cheap; they don't have to do what they say, and, indeed, we expect men to fail us.  But not so with God.  "I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it."  Isaiah 46:11.

When Jesus said to the paralytic carried by four friends, "Man, thy sins be forgiven thee.", it angered the Pharisees and gave them the opportunity they were looking for: to accuse Jesus of blasphemy, because to them, He falsely claimed to be the Son of God.

But with God, talk is everything.  If Christ said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee", the man's sins were truly forgiven.  If Jesus says your sins are forgiven, and they are not, then He is not the Son of God!  If the Lord Jesus Christ could say something, yet it be not true or it fail to come to pass, then He is nothing but what every man is by nature, a liar (Romans 3:4).

So, to silence His enemies and to assure and comfort His people, the Master speaks one more word, which would give undeniable evidence that His word was true.  He said, "But that you may know, that the son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, He said unto the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house."  The man immediately rose up before them, and took up his bedding, and did what Jesus had spoken.  So likewise, when God made the worlds, He spoke, and he also fulfilled His word, because the non-existent creation obeyed the Son of God, and all that He said came to pass.  "And God said... and it was so."  (Genesis 1)

With God, talk is everything.  Nowhere is this seen more brightly, to the glory of God, than when our mighty Savior cried, "It is Finished!"  Men did not see anything finished.  All men could see was the mocking, the spitting, the beating, the blood, the shame, the reproach, and the dying of the Lord Jesus.  Something far greater than these was accomplished, however.  When the Lord Jesus cried, "It is Finished!", all of the Old Testament civil and moral law, all of the prophesies, all of the shadowy and typical historical events of recorded scriptural history, and all of the words of the Old Testament were fulfilled.  In that one word of His, "It is Finished", Christ actually, really, literally and finally fulfilled His Father's will.

In that cry, our mighty Savior finished the transgression of His people.  He made an end of their sins, putting all of them away so that they cannot be found.  He cleansed them from all their sins.  He removed the curse of the law and the wrath of God from them. He reconciled them to God.  He established eternal righteousness for them.  For them, He obtained eternal redemption.  He forever sanctified all for whom He died.  He perfected His people. He destroyed all of their enemies: sin, death and the devil. He overcame the world.  (Leviticus 16:30; Daniel 9:24; Jeremiah 23:6; 50:20; John 16:33; Romans 10:4; 1 Corinthians 1:30-31; Galatians 1:4; Hebrews 1:3; 2:14; 9:12; 10:1-14; 1 John 3:8; Matthew 1:21; Romans 11:27).

Which is easier to say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee", or "It is Finished!"?  Both required the Son of God to take on all of the obligations for righteousness and punishment for all of the promised seed of Abraham, that is, the Elect of God.  This required Him to take on their nature, and in that nature receive the sin of His people that God His Father laid upon Him (Isaiah 53:6) and which He as our High Priest also confessed over Himself as our atoning sin offering (Leviticus 16:21), those sins then becoming His own (2 Cor 5:21; Psalm 40:12).  He was cursed under the law in the place of His people (Galatians 3:13). He bore the overwhelming flood of their sins and the consequence of them, enduring the reproach of men and the wrath of God on that cursed tree (Psalm 69:5-10; Jonah 1:12; 2:1-7)

With the Son of God, talk is everything, because He not only says, but He also does all that He says.  In that word, by His death, He finished the salvation of all of His people.  He brought to pass all that He, the Word of God said.  And now, because He died to do what He said, all that He said about you who believe Him is literally true:  you are unblameable, unreproveable, without spot or wrinkle, righteous, perfected and faultless in Him before the presence of God!  Truly, this man was the Son of God!  He not only said, but also did all of the will of God.  Thank God, He brought to pass what His name says He would do, "Save His people from their sins". (Matthew 1:21; Colossians 1:20-23; Ephesians 5:25-27)


                                              Rick Warta, Pastor

Genesis 47:25, “Thou hast saved our lives, let us now find grace in thy sight and we will be Pharaoh’s servants (and by implication thy servants).”

Compare, Ps31:5; Neh1:10; Lam3:58; 1Chr17:21.

Joseph, foreshadowing our Lord Jesus Christ, suffered at the hands of his own brethren. They hated him and delivered him over to their enemies.  Joseph was falsely accused and imprisoned by his owner.  He became a slave in Egypt.  But the Lord was with him even before his brethren made their evil plans.  God prophesied through Joseph's own words that one day he would be exalted to rule over his brethren, over his mother and father.  While imprisoned, the Lord gave Joseph favor in the eyes of the prison-keeper.  He was the doer of everything the prisoners did under his watch.  He was also given understanding by God to interpret the king’s dream.  Because the king favored him, because the Lord favored him, he was exalted as Lord over Egypt.  Joseph’s wisdom enabled him to administer all things under the king’s dominion.

Joseph, no doubt, is a pattern of Christ.  Christ was favored by His Father above His brethren.  Christ was hated by His brethren.  Christ is the One through whom in these last days God has spoken unto us.  And Christ is both the Messenger and the Message that He preached.  Christ was given the book of God to fulfill and interpret; He is the Word of God, and He is the doer of it.  Christ’s obedience and death are counted as the obedience (Rom5:19) and death (1Pet2:24) of His people.  All that they did, He was the doer of it.  Because He was favored by His Father as the Judge of all, because He satisfied justice, and fulfilled the everlasting covenant, His God and Father has highly exalted Him.  God (Eph1:7-11) has made Him administrator, the governor, over the saved and unsaved, over angels and devils, to reconcile all things to God, to restore what He did not take away, to put everything in heaven and earth in its place, and doing all of this through the death that He accomplished.  He accomplished the death that God gave Him to do.  For this, His Father loved Him: "Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life for the sheep."  (John10:17)

The wicked evil design of Joseph’s brethren was used by God to save his brethren alive through the famine, greater than which, there never was seen in Egypt.  Joseph fed them from the granaries of Egypt.  He not only saved Israel, He also saved the Egyptians.  The  Egyptians realized this and gave Joseph this worship: “You have saved our lives.”  They also acknowledged that they could only live by his grace: “Let us now find grace in thy sight.” And finally, they offered themselves to be his willing servants on account of him saving them and on condition that he also be gracious to them: “We will be Pharaoh’s servants.”

Again we see our heavenly Joseph.  But as the reality is so much greater than the pattern, so it is with our Lord Jesus Christ and what we did to Him.  We, as Joseph’s brethren, by wicked hands, with Gentiles and Jews, concluded that the Lord Jesus Christ, more than any man, deserved to die.  Like the crowds then, we preferred Him to die over the guilty, murdering insurrectionist, Barabas.  We hated Him without a cause.  Like the two thieves, we hurled insults and condemnation at Him.  However, though we meant it for evil, God meant it for good.  All that we did in our wickedness was predetermined to bring about the eternal will of God in our salvation.  God knows all of His works from the foundation of the world.  He always does all of His pleasure.  All things in all places will give Him praise according to the good pleasure of His will who works all things after His own counsel.  (Eph1:3-11; Acts4:28; 15:18).  If Christ’s death, the death of God's dear Son, was accomplished by the wicked intentions and works of men,  shall not even the smallest things in life be also ordered by Him?  "Even a sparrow does not fall without your Father."

Thus, it was determined by God the Father that by wickedness Christ would not only suffer as the guilty (He was made sin), but He would actually save us alive. By His sufferings, by His death, in His burial, He purged our sins, made full compensation and answered every obligation in satisfaction to God’s justice and righteousness, established for us everlasting righteousness, obtained for us eternal redemption, secured to us an eternal inheritance, an inheritance which He earned by His conquest over our enemies (our sins, our flesh, the world, Satan, death, the curse of the law) to procure for us eternal salvation as a land of eternal rest and blessedness in Him.  Nothing needed to bring us to God and glory was left undone.  Everything was completed by Him.  All things are now accomplished and ready.  He was the doer of all our righteousness.  He was the restorer of an inheritance we never deserved or earned, but one that we nevertheless lost through transgression when we became debtors and in consequence were lawfully imprisoned under the sentence and condemnation of death.

The Holy Spirit arranged for our reconciliation to God.  In the time of love, He shined Christ into our hearts, giving us faith and persuading us, causing us to confess Him as our only Savior:  "Thou hast saved our lives!"

But not only, these were the confession of Egyptians; not Jews, but Gentiles.  We are Gentiles.  We are Gentiles by birth, Gentiles by nature, Gentiles in our minds and by wicked works, fulfilling both the desires of the mind and our flesh and are by nature children of wrath, even as others.  Yet, He, by Himself, by His death, saved our lives.  When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.  "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ!" (Eph2:4-6) Oh, glorious, wonderful God-wrought task!  For me, what God’s Son hath earned!!

But He not only reconciled us, not only saved us, but He has been gracious to us.  “Thou hast saved our lives, let us now find grace in Thy sight and we will by Thy servants.”  Grace has made us free.  Liberty is being free from debt, free from obligation, freed from fear, free from all that would keep or hinder us in any way from doing what we were created and ought and want to do.  But freedom to do what we want without a new heart is the greatest tyranny under the greatest tyrant:  flesh, sin, death, the devil; all of these are the seven devils worse than the first to which we are given up unless Christ makes us free.  If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed..  When Christ saved us, He freed us from all debt, freed us from all obligations, delivered our lives from death and fear, and He raised us up to newness of life in Christ that we might serve Him without fear, all the days of our lives.

You have saved our lives, let us now find grace in your sight and we will be thy servants (Pharaoh’s ~ God’s). This is freedom:  to serve the King of Love, the King of Grace, the King of Righteousness, the King of Peace, the King of Glory!!

O Blessed Jesus, we have truly found grace in your sight!  You have indeed saved our lives.  We ask that we would find grace in your sight and enable us by your grace to serve you and you only in life, until death, and in eternity before thy throne!  Let us live and die to you, for you have saved our lives.  Give us grace to come to you, to feast on you, to drink of you! Give us yourself, the Bread of life, to us that we might live and serve you all the days of the years of our lives.  Let us never hunger, but continually come and eat and live on Thee!

Remember, Abigail, David’s wife?  After her first husband Nabal died at the hand of the LORD, she understood that service to David (~Christ) was true liberty from her former foolish husband.  Abigail said, "Let me be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord."  Let us, as Christ’s wife, submit ourselves to our own Husband in everything, and live in liberty by so doing.  What could be more delightful?!


                                                                               Rick Warta, Pastor