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The Very Bold Prophecy

11/18/2015

“Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me” (Romans 10:20).

All of God’s prophecies are bold, but the Holy Spirit by Paul draws special attention to this one from Isaiah as a “very bold” prophecy. It is bold, is it not? How so? Because in His word, God commands sinners to seek Him and His promise is that all who seek Him will find Him. Yet it appears in this prophecy, that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Isaiah steps outside the laws of God’s physics! The command and promise is that if we seek Him, we will find Him. The boldness of this prophecy is therefore seen in this: Isaiah foresees a day when those who do not seek the LORD find Him! What?! What grace is this, O my soul?!

Does it surprise you because it is so amazing!? Why does it surprise us? Do seekers take God by surprise? Does God unexpectedly discover seekers by their coming to Him? Does He reward them for their efforts? Isn’t our seeking a God-given grace? Doesn't God surprise us by His grace?! Surely it must be so! Our seeking is the reward of Christ’s obedience, that He might bring God’s sons from afar. It is the work of God’s saving grace to cause us to seek Him (Psalm 22:26; Psalm 27:8; Psalm 110:3; Isaiah 26:12; Philippians 2:13; Ephesians 2:4-5; 10)!

But how do these who do not seek the LORD find Him? What is the means by which they find Him if they are not seeking? Do they accidentally stumble into a glory hole of divine blessing? Is it by the luck of the lottery? Oh no! God forbid! There is only one way that any who seek the LORD find Him. It is the way God ordained from the beginning! These who did not seek the LORD, found Him in the preaching of Christ and Him crucified! We seek for what we’ve lost. We lost access to God in the garden. We were prevented from re-entrance by the flaming sword in the hands of the appointed cherubim, guarding the way to the tree of life. Sin separates us from our God. It confuses and blinds us. We are lost. We grope as blind men, searching for the wall at noonday. We cannot find the way. Our seeking is pitiful. But! On hearing Christ, we hear that He is our access. He is the Way. He is the Truth. We hear that He is the Life. We hear that He has done all and is all. We hear that we are complete in Him. What are we in ourselves? Nothing but sin (Romans. 7:18)! But in our ignorance, we hear that He is our wisdom. In our unrighteousness, we learn that He is our righteousness. In our unfaithfulness, we learn that He is our sanctification. In our lawful imprisoned bondage to sin and the law, we learn that He is our redemption. And it is on hearing of Christ in the gospel of God's grace that we find Him.

God discloses Himself to us in the preaching of Christ. We were not seeking, but He found us. He says to us, “It is Christ that died!” “It is Christ that is risen again!” It is Christ who, having put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, is now seated on the right hand of God! God made Christ our Surety. He received from Him for us, and receives us as Him (Ephesians 4:32; Philemon 1:12,17). To hear the gospel is finding indeed! To hear that Christ has died and is risen again and reigns and intercedes for us before God, and that God has received from Him to our account, and now receives us as Him on His request, this is to find Him indeed! We see, we are persuaded, we embrace and we confess that Christ is our all (Hebrews 11:13)! This is faith. Faith is the finding grace. It sees, it receives, it lays hold, it enters, it raises holy joy in the heart with high praise to God for His mercy and grace in Christ. "They shall praise the LORD that seek him" (Psalm 22:26).

The prophecy is bold because God’s grace is bold. He saves sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). He justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5). He makes those His sons who in their minds and by wicked works were enemies (Colossians 1:21; Ephesians 1:5; 2:3-5). The promise is as bold as God’s grace. He is found of them that sought Him not!

Have you found this to be true in your own case? Did you not find in your experience that the Gospel came to you in power? You were ignorant of God’s electing grace, ignorant of Christ’s redeeming work, ignorant of free justification by His blood and righteousness. It was then, when you were ignorant, that He made Himself known to you in the preaching of the gospel! Can you seek for something when you don’t know what you’re looking for? God has to give us what we do not have, cannot know, and are unable to receive apart from sovereign, irresistible, life-giving grace. And when He gives, He gives by making Christ known. Then we find. Then we know. Then we see. We see that God has forgiven us for Christ’s sake (Ephesians 4:32). We see that Christ has received us to the glory of God (Romans 15:7). We find our righteousness in Him (1 Corinthians 1:30). We discover it was with everlasting love that He loved us (Jeremiah 31:3; Ephesians 1:4). We discover that His eternal love is why He drew us and that our seeking is His drawing. No, I was not seeking salvation by Christ alone! Yet He found me in the misery of my sin and blindness of my unbelief and gave me a look at Christ, and life by Him. And now, I live by the faith of the Son of God (Galatians 2:20). Believers never stop seeking, because this walk of faith is a repeating experience of need, searching, hearing and finding. "When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek" (Psalm 27:8).

Rick Warta

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Seasons of Cold, Comfort and Growth

11/1/2015

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All of the trials we experience in life are trials of faith (1 Peter 1:5-7). In my conscience, there is a balance, a scale. On one side of the scale are God’s commands: “Love your enemies.” “Love not the world.” On this side of the balance there is also the description God gives of His people: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, faith, …”. God’s description of what we are is also on this side of the balance: “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” But on the other side of the scale is me with what I know about my heart and my life.

Why does God thus send His word to fallen men who are dead in sins? Why does He describe what I am by His grace if I am to find only disparity between myself and His description? Can a dead man repent? Can a natural man believe? Can an unbeliever love? Can I, who am carnal, sold under sin (Rom. 7:14), bear fruit to God? Can I know in my experience what this means, “Sin shall not have dominion over you?” Why is there this yawning gap between the word of God and myself?

I believe the answer is this: It is the trying of our faith, which is much more precious than gold that perishes (1 Peter 1:7). If grace teaches us anything, it teaches us to be honest. Grace is only given to the needy. What good is it if I can only pretend to be what God says is certainly true? I cry out, “Lord! save me!”

In all of the ebb and flow of life, truly, we are "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time" (1 Peter 1:5). Were it not for the almighty power of our sovereign Savior, we would be irrecoverably lost. But with each inrush into our souls of guilt, shame, sadness, fear, trouble and grief; there is an outflow from God’s Spirit in the Gospel of comfort, confidence, hope and joy. And this is from the throne of God as He strengthens and renews our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is in Christ. It was accomplished by Him. It will be brought to the end He designed and determined before the world began, and promised in His word. This “outflow” is provided with each “inrush” of trouble, fear and doubt. As the seemingly endless volume and unstoppable force of the ocean threatens the land with each micro surge of waves, even so, our hearts seem to continually experience the threatenings of sin as unbelief assaults our conscience and threatens our peace with God. Yet with each threat we experience, we have the reassurance that comes repeatedly again and again from the Word of God in the Gospel. What is our comfort? It is Christ and Him crucified (Rom. 8:34)! The work of grace points our eyes to Christ alone in the trials of our soul (Rom. 5:1-10). We are reminded and strengthened through repeated seasons of growth that all of our goodness, all of our obedience, all of our acceptance, all of our coming, all of our standing, all of our assurance and all of our expectation is in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself alone. It is Him and His work, not me and my work (Eph. 2:10). It is Him and His worth, not me and my worth. It is His blood and His obedience, not my experience of faith that is my confidence. As with the proud waves of the ocean, it is what God says about Him that commands all threatenings of my soul to subside and prevents them from going any further. It is what God thinks of Christ that determines the boundaries of sin and death and hell and the world that would otherwise engulf and overflow my soul. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” This is my only confidence. “Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, who is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Rom. 8:34). “Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation!” (Psalm 35:3).

In these seemingly endless cycles in God’s working in our lives, we see the faithfulness of our Savior! O, what an all-sufficient grace! O, what a perfect righteousness! O, what an all-wise God! O, what power to keep back those things which, in light of all that we are, would quickly overwhelm and engulf us in destruction. But in each ebb and flow, we are strengthened by looking to Jesus again, with renewed joy and confidence and hope and love, because in looking we find that He is our all! All that Christ is, He is to God for us. All that God is, He is to us in Christ. God has met our every need in Him. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith. As Author, He is the object of our faith and it is He who gives us faith to see and embrace Him. As the Finisher, He perfects our faith and will present us perfect, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing in Himself (Eph. 5:25). What we will be, we are now before Him (1 John 4:17). It is faith that enables us to live in the truth -- not the pretense -- of future realities (Romans 4:17). O precious faith! (2 Peter 1:1). Because of grace, we walk by faith in the word of God, and in so walking, we struggle and strive mightily against sin, and long to know and love our Savior in truth. But we never take confidence in our obedience. Rather, we ascribe all merit to Him. “It is God who is at work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). “Unto Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory, with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen” (Jude 1:24-25).

Rick Warta

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Our One And Only Treasure

11/1/2015

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A man found a treasure in a field. He considered it nothing to spend all that he had to have it. It was a bargain at any price (Matthew 13:44)! Joy overwhelmed his heart and mind to think that he could have such a treasure at so small a cost -- only all that he had?! A merchantman also, seeking goodly pearls, found one pearl of great price, and went and sold all that he had to buy it (Matthew 13:45-46).

In the same way, grace makes Christ our one and only treasure. Grace produces a longing for Christ. And grace gives us satisfaction with Christ. Grace enables us to let go of all that we have, that we might have Him who is worth infinitely more than the sum of all our living. What does it mean to “have Christ?” It means to be found in Him. It means to be His. If we are “in Christ,” then we are Christ’s beloved and He is our Beloved. “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine” (Song 6:3). Grace makes Christ such a treasure to us that any price to have Him is a bargain. We are overjoyed to relinquish all to have Him. We will gladly renounce all confidences to trust the Lord Jesus Christ alone. We will consider personal loss to be gain to have and be found in Him. As Moses, the reproach of Christ will be greater riches to us than all the treasures of this world (Hebrews 11:26).

What must we give to have Christ? We must give up thinking there’s something we can give. We must never think we can purchase the gift of God (Acts 8:20). Unlike the treasures of the world, Christ gives Himself and all things freely. Salvation and faith to believe Him are alike gifts of God’s unearned and unearnable favor.

Believers know they cannot buy God’s grace. We cannot buy God’s love. We cannot purchase God’s Son! When we find Christ as all-sufficient, we also find that all that we are and all that we have is worth less than nothing. With Paul, we say, “v7) What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. v8) Yea doubtless, and I count all things [but] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them [but] dung, that I may win Christ, v9) And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:7-9).

The hardest thing a man can do is to renounce his own goodness. What must we give to have Christ? We must own that we are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. We must own that we have nothing and need everything. And we must own that everything we need is found only in Him (Revelation 3:17; Colossians 2:9-10). We must relinquish all hope of ever finding in ourselves what God requires and demands, and rest in knowing that He has already provided and found it in His Son. We must see and be persuaded and embrace this fact: God gives out of His own free and sovereign grace, to His glory. And all of God’s blessings are singularly found in Christ alone. Our best deeds must be discovered to us, and owned by us, as loathsome and as worthless as dung (Philippians 3:8). It is not only the hardest thing a man can do to relinquish his own goodness, but with men this is impossible (Mark 10:27). But when Christ and His work is all to us, then our work and worth will become nothing to us. And He -- not we -- will be our confidence, our worship and our boast (Philippians 3:3).

The world offers treasures at a high cost. It says, “Agree with me. Seek me. Trust me. Rejoice with me. Honor me. Love me.” The world not only demands these, but demands them in unrivaled devotion. The only thing the world cannot tolerate is intolerance of itself. The world requires singular devotion. Our Lord teaches men that we can serve only one master. The world makes promises it cannot keep: promises of health, wealth, beauty, honor, satisfaction, life, love. Men spend their lives and their labors to have them. But the world lies. It cannot give one thing of all that it promises. In the end, its promises will pass away along with it.

Unlike the world, Christ gives freely. Truly, all spiritual and eternal blessings in Christ are without cost to us: “Come, buy milk and wine without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1-3). If we thought to give all the substance of our house as barter to gain the blessings freely given us out of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, it would utterly be contemned (Song of Solomon 8:7). Nevertheless, to have Christ, we must abandon all that we have, all that we are, and all that we hope to be in ourselves. We must enter in at the narrow gate. We must be stripped, utterly naked, helpless and in ourselves hopeless. We must find our all in Him, and finding our all in Him will mean that we find all that is in us, and all that is in the world, to be valueless, worth nothing, worth less than nothing. All that we have in ourselves and all that the world has to offer means less to us than the influence of a spider’s web on the downward course and speed of a falling anvil.

The world cannot give what we need. It cannot give life. It cannot give love: its ‘love’ is mutable and conditioned on payback. The world does not, will not and cannot honor Him to whom all honor and glory are due. The world cannot do justly. The world cannot do right. The world cannot satisfy God’s justice. It cannot fulfill His law. The world cannot make peace with God. The world cannot know God, which is eternal life. The world does not know and cannot love the Lord Jesus Christ. The world is passing away. But Christ is all. Having Him, we have all things. If I have Christ, all things are mine, whether the world or life or death or things present or things to come. (Gen. 33:9-11 -- Jacob’s enough means ‘all things’; 1 Cor. 1:30; Col. 2:9-10; 1 Cor. 3:21-23).

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).

Rick Warta

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The Very Bold Prophecy

Seasons of Cold, Comfort and Growth

Our One And Only Treasure

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