“Look to Me, and be saved, All the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is none else.”
-Isaiah 45:22
There is a great, world-forming, life-breathing, soul-regenerating, knee-bending, tongue confessing, and everlasting truth and power in these words, brothers and sisters. Yes, these words convey a power and truth that though they appear short and simple, are deep and dire. THAT power is the sovereignty, –THAT truth is the salvation!– that is in the Lord our God, Jesus Christ.
Let us examine the first half of this verse, “Look to Me, and be saved, All the ends of the earth! ”. Now there are several aspects to these words that shine forth great glories about the character of God. But first, we must address two questions: Why do we need to be saved? Secondly, why is God the one we must to look to for salvation? Graciously enough, you don’t have to look beyond a mirror to answer both questions, for there are but two words in this answer… “YOUR. SIN.” You may read that and begin to begrudgingly think to yourself, “Here we go, another message about fire and brimstone for the week!”… But fret not, brothers and sisters, though sin be the cause of our damnation, we are here to focus on something much greater than our sin. We are to examine our SALVATION!
In this age, sin is a word that has lost its bitter taste to the tongues of many. We live in societies that celebrate the fact that we are sinners! And at one point in all of our lives, we would join in such celebration with our unregenerate, unrepentant, and unliving hearts! You see, that is what the enemy intends to do with the sin in our lives; He desires to use it not as a weapon that kills–Remember, we are already dead in our sin!– but as a weapon that blinds. The enemy’s greatest desire is to justify our disobedience and rebellion against God to the point of which sin is “just life.” When in reality, it only prolongs death. However, it is ONLY when the Lord begins His gracious work of salvation, sanctification, justification, and glorification in us that we can begin to taste sin’s bitterness once again, and from its bitterness we have all the more desire to spit it out and send it back to the kitchen of Hell where God casts it out with His instrument of the Cross! This then raises the question, how do we know God has begun this work in us? Well saint, let me answer that by asking, “Have you looked?” It’s a simple question that has eternal consequences! That is all that is required of us here as sinners, to be saved. Look! That is something everyone can do when given the ability to do it! The young kid and the old man, the millionaire and the beggar, the free and the imprisoned, the president and the citizen! For there is one ground that we all as humans have stood, from first to last breath, no matter how “powerful” or how powerless we have become in this life, we were all dead in our sin. Our sin puts us in a depraved position where the only hope we have is Christ and the only work we have is to LOOK to Christ, FOR our works. If we cannot look to the Crucified and Risen Christ, there is no hope for you and me.
The Lord declares, “For I am God, and there is NONE ELSE.” Knowing what we do now makes the Lord’s declaration of power and sovereignty all the more glorious and divinely sweet! He makes it clear, we are not dealing with another king or ruler, but THE King and Ruler, the Creator. The Eternal, all powerful, all holy and righteous God in whose presence, sin WILL NOT stand uncrushed. There is no one like Him, none beside Him, none before or after Him. There is only HIM. Christ, our champion. The greatest thing about all of this is perhaps what God chose to do with His sovereignty. And that is He chose to become our salvation. He could have required an eternity worth of groaning, agonizing, unending labor and pain out of us in order to pay for our sins. But, even then, after an eternity of work, we still would have an eternity to go. But, instead of that. All He requires of us is to “look” unto Him. How do you look? To place your gaze upon Christ is to place everything you have upon Christ. Your faith, your trust, your hope, your sins, your eternity. All on Christ.
Have you looked to my Sole and Sovereign Savior? I pray so.