That was a blessing, wasn't it? I thank them for that song, and
an excellent choice for a song, God's Amazing Grace. Beautiful. Well, let's go to Isaiah this
morning, Isaiah chapter 45. Isaiah chapter 45. Ron read to
us, out of the book of Numbers chapter
21. That was the occasion when the
children of Israel had murmured against God and against God's
faithful servant. And the Lord chastised them by
sending fiery serpents that bit them, bit multitudes of There
was no cure for them to be found amongst the pharmacists who were
in Israel. There was no homemade remedy
that could alleviate the fever and the poison. And the people began to cry out
to God. God told Moses, make a serpent
of brass, lift it up on a pole. Then you tell everybody, those
who've been bitten, if you will look, and not just a glance, that word
looketh there, means to fix the eyes upon, fix your attention
upon that brazen serpent. God said if you do, he told Moses
to tell them this, if you do that, you'll be healed. And many were healed. I'm going
to use that as an introduction to my message this morning, and
I wanna begin by reading one verse here from chapter 45, and
if you're observant, and if you have pretty good memory, I preached
from Isaiah 45 last Sunday morning, but I'm gonna go further now,
and I wanna go to verse 22, though I'll consider a couple of verses
before this and a couple of verses after this, in Isaiah 45, And
verse 22, this is what the Savior says to us. Look unto me. Not just a casual glance. Look. Fix the eyes of your soul
on me. Look unto me and be ye saved. Be ye rescued. Be ye delivered. Everybody who looks on me will
be saved, will be delivered from sin and all of its awful consequences. Well, how far does this command
extend? To all the ends of the earth. And I say to you this morning,
if you can in your heart, Look to the Savior, not with physical
eyes. You can't see him physically.
A lot of people saw him physically when he was on this earth 2,000
years ago and were no better for it. This is a soul look. This is a heart look. This is
a sinner who, out of neediness, realizing the very poison of
sin is within you, and there is no cure. There is no cure
that you can come up with. All the religious pharmacists
in the world, they'll prescribe many things for you to cure this
disease of sin, but they can't help you. That one who alone can help you
is the Lord Jesus who was lifted up. He wasn't lifted up upon
a pole, but he's lifted up upon a cross. And all who look to him and to
his work of redemption only for salvation, the Bible says you
will be saved. That's so clear to me. You will
be saved. God says, look unto me. God the
Savior says, look unto me, not look to the church, not look
to the baptistry, not look within yourself. He says, look unto
me. Fix the eyes of your soul on
me. I'm the Savior. I'm the Redeemer,
look unto me and be ye saved. If you look to me, you will be
saved. If you look to Christ, now hear
me, I don't care who you are, I don't care what your past is, whoever you are, if in your heart
right now, You look to the Lord Jesus and
His bloody death for your sin, for that sacrifice that satisfied
God's justice. If you can, from your heart,
fix the eyes of your soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, you have
God's own word for it, you'll be saved. You will be saved. And this extends to all the ends
of the earth. Anybody who believes, Anybody who looks to Him, well, what authority is there
that if I look to Christ alone for salvation, what authority
do I have that I will be saved? Look at the last statement of
verse 22. For I am God. It's not merely
the words of Isaiah, though the words of Isaiah are inspired
just like it is the Word of God. But this is the one who is the
great I Am. This is the one who spoke to
Moses out of the burning bush. And Moses said, you want me to
go and tell the Israelites I'm going to lead them out of Egyptian
captivity? lead them to the land of promise?
Who shall I tell them has sent me? He said, I am. Tell them I am has sent you.
And that's what he says right here. I am God. I'm Jehovah. I'm the eternal God. And there
is none else. I tell you, If God the Spirit
would pull back the curtain for you and enable you to see salvation
is only in Christ, you will look and you will live. Now let me go back a couple of
verses, and I wanna make a few comments. Verses 20 and 21 to
begin with, and then I'll speak a little bit on 23, 24, and 25,
then I'm gonna come right back to verse 22. And obviously the
title of this message is Look to Christ. Look to Christ, look
to Christ and live. And look at verse 20. Assemble yourselves and come."
Now, who's he talking to? He says, draw near together ye
that are escaped of the nations. Who's he talking to? It's very
important to understand who he's talking to. He's talking to people
who have escaped idolatry, heathen religion, A religion that was godless and
graceless, but they have escaped it by the grace of God. He says
to them, assemble yourselves and come and listen to what I've
got to say. Have you escaped the false religion
of this world? Have you been saved by the grace
of God? Have you been called out of heathen
darkness into the marvelous light of the Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ? These have been called. They've
been called out by amazing, powerful, free, and sovereign grace. They've
been brought out of a state of unrighteousness into a state
of righteousness. They've been brought out of a
state of being unsaved, and now they are saved. They've been
brought out of a state of darkness, spiritual darkness, and now there's
for them spiritual light. They've been brought out of a
state of unbelief, and now they're in a state of believing. And
the Lord says, come, assemble yourselves and come, draw near
together, ye that are escaped of the nations." He's speaking to people who know
God. Do you know God? Have you, by
the grace of God, escaped from the darkness of false religion? Has God brought you out of that
darkness into His marvelous light? Well, then listen up, he says.
Listen up. And then he turns his attention
to another group of people who are still in heathen darkness.
Look at the next statement. They have no knowledge that set
up the wood of their graven image and pray unto a God that cannot
save. So there's the first group of
people, they've been brought out of darkness. You understand
that? That's who he's talking to. He's
speaking to them. And now he says, look at these
people who are still in a mess. They're still in unbelief. You
were there, but you're not there anymore. And see, that's true
of all of us who believe the gospel. That was where we were,
but we're not there anymore. We were unsaved, now we're saved. We were unrighteous, now we're
righteous. We were unforgiven, now we're
forgiven. The Lord has done something for
us. He rescued us. That's what salvation is. It's
rescue. It's a divine rescue. And God
says, now come together, listen to what I've got to say. I've
rescued you from perishing. Now look at these people who
are still in the same kind of condition that you were in. You were there. Are you a believer? There was
a time when you were an unbeliever and you worshiped some kind of
idol because every man by nature is idolatrous. And I'll tell
you the main idol that we worship is self. And you know that's
true. And all of us who are believers,
we still have trouble with that bit of idolatry. We think too much of ourselves
and not enough of the Savior. God forgive us for that. But
he says, look, look at these people. And you know, don't get
mad at people who don't believe the gospel. Please don't do that. Don't get upset with them. Don't
get angry with them. Because it's gonna take the same
kind of resurrecting power that raised the Lord Jesus from the
grave. It's the same kind of power that's
gotta raise him from the spiritual grave. You read the end of Ephesians
chapter one. The same energy, the same energy,
divine energy that raised the Savior out of the tomb, raised
His body. That's the kind of power it takes
to raise us out of a spiritual grave, out of a spiritual tomb. I was riding with a fellow one
time and he said, you know, getting saved is as easy as falling off
a log. I said, what in the world are
you talking about? I said, to be saved it took the
eternal purpose of God. To be saved, it took the Lord
Jesus Christ, enduring the sufferings and the horrors of the cross
of Calvary, and bearing the wrath of God in our stead, and then
dying in His blood and in His sweat, suffering the anguish
in His soul of all of the justice of God. It took the death of
the Son of God to save us. That's not falling off a log. And for us to be saved, it's
gonna take the quickening power of the Spirit of God to raise
us, to raise us up from the tomb of spiritual death. Well, Jim,
how will I know if the Lord has raised me? That's when you'll
look and be saved. You'll stop working, you'll stop
striving, and stop looking within. People have told me before, I
just don't think I've seen enough of my sin to be saved yet. You're
never going to see the full extent of your depravity. What are you
talking about? Don't make a God out of that.
Look without. Look without. Look to Christ. That's what I'm trying to say.
Look unto me, the Lord said. Look unto me and be you saved. He says these people, in verse
20 says, they set up the wood of their graven image. They pray to a God that can't
save. We've made several trips to Japan, and the religion over
there is just, it's pitiful. It's full of idolatry. They don't go to church like
folks do here. Used to be everybody went to
church on Sunday, but there's still a lot of people over there
that go to church. Probably don't preach the gospel, but anyway,
they go to church. But over there, they just on
their way to work, they'll stop by and wash in some water and
ring the bell. Some priest comes out, and then
I've seen them several times. I give them some money, put some
money in there, and the priest bows to them and gives them a
cloth, and they wipe off their hand. Then they're on their way.
They've been to church. You say, well, that's foolish,
isn't it? Yes, it is. But that's man's blindness, you
see. That's how ignorant men are of
the God of the Bible. And they pray, they set up wood
for a graven image, and then they pray to a God that can't
save. And this is one of the great
concerns of my heart, is so many people that I know and love and
care about, they pray to a God that can't save, but they pray
in sincerity. They pray in earnestness. They pray meaning business. But
they pray to a God that can't save. Why would you ever pray
to a God that can't save? If God can't save sinners when
and where He wills to save them, what's the use in praying to
the God of the Bible? And what's the use in praying
to an idol? You might as well just go talk to people and back
them in the corner and twist their arms. Are you going to
believe or I'm going to knock you in the head?" Why do you pray to a God that
can't save? Somebody told me the other day,
said, we've got this person who's sick and I told him you'd pray
for him, me. Well, I will pray for them. I'll pray that God save them
by His grace. I'll pray that God give the truth
to them, and if God's pleased to heal them. I find, and perhaps
you have found this to be true as well, I find people who want
me to pray for them, it's not about their soul's salvation. It's because they got cancer,
they got heart disease, they got some other kind of problem.
Oh, preacher, pray for me. What about if I prayed for your
never dying soul, would that be all right? People are not very concerned
about going out into eternity and meeting a God of holiness
and justice who demands righteousness. They're not very interested in
that, but they sure would like to get cured of their physical
ailments. Well, I hope you don't have to
suffer. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a hard-hearted, tough guy. But I tell you, people are praying
about the wrong things. They're concerned about the body.
I got news for you. Take all the vitamins you want.
You know what? With packing last night, I said,
Nancy, I got my vitamins packed. I got those packed because I
take a few vitamins, I confess. You say, well, you don't think
it's going to make you live any longer? No, but I just want to
die healthy. That's what I want to do. I think it'd make me feel better.
Maybe ward off some colds and such stuff as that. But you see,
we're so concerned about the body. One of these days, this body,
this tabernacle we've got is going to crumble and fall. but your soul is gonna make an
exit out of your body and go back to meet the God who made
you. And I'm asking you, what then? Huh? What then? I'll tell you something. You
better call on a God that can save, the God who can save. And there's only one who can
save you. His name is the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 21, tell ye. Now he's talking again to these
people who have escaped out of the nations. And he says, you
go tell them something and bring them near to me. You
go tell them to listen to what the Lord has to say. Yea, let them take counsel together,
all of them together. Get as many unbelievers together
as you can who will listen to you. And then tell them this,
who has declared this from ancient time? That is, have any of your
gods, any of your idols ever prophesied anything that ever
came true? See, look at the rest of this
verse. Who hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord? And there is no God else beside
me, a just God and a Savior. There's none beside me. All these false gods that can't
hear people pray to them. Have they ever prophesied anything
that ever came to pass? Well, the David said in the Psalms,
they have mouths, but they speak not. They have hands, but they
can't hold anything. They got feet, but they can't
go anywhere unless you pick them up and carry them. But you see, the God we're talking
about, he says, there's no God else beside me. There's nobody
like our God. He's a just God and a Savior.
He demands justice, and He's the only one who can save sinners,
and He saves sinners by satisfying His own justice through the death
of the Lord Jesus on the cross. And what we want to do, and here's
what the command of God is, tell people who are in darkness, come
and listen. Come and listen to the truth.
The only one who can save you and help you is the God who speaks
of things coming to pass and they're off way in the future. You see, the prophecy of our
Lord Jesus Christ, He's not going to come for hundreds of years
later. But the Bible, God in His Word
in the Old Testament predicts the Son of God is coming. He'd
be born of a virgin, that came to pass, didn't it? He's going
to be born in Bethlehem, Micah said that, that came to pass,
didn't it? He's going to be raised in Galilee,
that came to pass, didn't it? Even when He has a little baby
that's going to take Him into Egypt for protection, that came
to pass, didn't it? He's going to have a forerunner
who's going to prepare the way before Him, say, prepare ye the
way of the Lord, He's coming. John the Baptist, that came to
pass, didn't it? And God predicted, He predicted
His own death. He was wounded for our transgressions
and bruised for our iniquities. Read Isaiah chapter 53 and you'll
read it as if it's already taken place. Whatever God can do that,
where is the God who can say this is going to happen in the
future? You can just bank on it and it'll
come to pass exactly, precisely like he said it would happen. He said, well, that's because
he has a perfect knowledge of all things. It's more than that.
Turn a page or two over to chapter 46. And in my Bible, it's just
right across the page. Look at 46, verse 10. Declaring
the end, this God, this God of the Bible, it declares the end
from the beginning. Is that amazing or what? You
can't even begin to commence to get started wrapping your
mind around that. From the beginning, He declared
things all the way to the end. Every single thing that would
ever happen. How many trillions of things
happen during what we call time? And our God ordained every single
thing and He's bringing it all to pass exactly the way He purposed
it. declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying
my counsel shall stand, I will do all my pleasure, calling a
ravenous bird from the east. Think about them ravens that
fed Elijah or whoever heard such a thing. Well, you just wait. You mean to tell me ravens are
going to drop food so God's preacher can eat food. Yeah, that happened. The man that executed my counsel
from a far country. You know who that is? Cyrus.
Because if you read back in chapter 45 of Isaiah, Cyrus is the one
God said, he's my shepherd. He's a picture of Christ. And
he's gonna go and release the Babylonian captives as we studied
in the book of Zechariah. God said, he's gonna execute
my counsel. He's coming from a far country.
This is 200 years before Cyrus was ever born. And Cyrus is a picture of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the shepherd of his sheep. Now watch this. God says, yay, I have spoken
it. I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it. I will also do it. Everything God's purposed, he'll
do it. And he's purposed everything.
So he says, hearken unto me, you stout-hearted that are far
from righteousness. You better listen to me. Better
listen to me. Back there in verse 21 says,
there's no God else beside me, a just God and a savior. You
know, there's several times where the Lord in this 45th chapter
points out the solitariness of himself. He's the only God. Can
I show you that? Look back at verse five, chapter
45 in verse five. He keeps stressing this. And
you know what the reason is? The reason is because he's speaking
primarily right now to Gentiles who were idolatrous. So look at verse five, I am the
Lord. And there is none else. There
is no God beside me. That's what he said. Look at
verse six, the last statement of verse six. I am the Lord. And there is none else. And then
look over at verse 14. At the end of verse 14. Surely
God is in thee, and there is none else, there is no God. He's
the only one there is. That's the solitariness of God.
Verse 18, last statement at verse 18. I am the Lord, and there
is none else. At the end of verse 21. There
is no God else beside me, a just God and a Savior. There's none
beside me, verse 22. Look unto me and be ye saved,
all ye ends of the earth, for I am God, there's none else.
He keeps saying this. He's the only one to look to,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.
No other Savior. No other Redeemer. Nobody else
can help you. Yet that old adage, God helps
those who help themselves. There may be a little bit of
truth in that in some areas. Maybe. But I'll tell you what, it's
not true when it comes to salvation, because you can't help yourself. He helps the helpless. And I'll
tell you, when you will look to Christ, when the Lord gives
you sight. The seeing eye and the hearing
ear, the Lord gives them both. So he says in verse 22, look
unto me and be you saved. All the ends of the earth, for
I am God. I am God. I tell you who can
help you. The Lord Jesus Christ. He helps
the helpless. He saves those that, you say,
well, that's an unsavable wretch. Well, hey, you just described
yourself. That's the way all of us are. He takes the unworthy. You say,
I'm not worthy of the least of his mercies. I know you're not.
There's no argument about that. I'm not gonna pat you on the
back and say, well, you're not as bad as you think you are.
I got news for you, you're worse than you think you are. Isn't that right? You're worse
than you think. You don't have any idea how bad
you are, and I'm sure glad you don't know how bad off I am. We're all in the same mess. So
we look to Christ. Isn't that what we do? We look
to Christ. Look unto me and be ye saved.
And then he says this in verse 23, I've sworn by myself. The
word's gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return. Well, Lord, what have you sworn? That unto me, every knee shall
bow, every tongue shall swear. Now where do you read that in? book of Philippians. Don't you
remember reading that in the book of Philippians chapter two?
You see, our Lord Jesus was obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. Wherefore, God gave him a name
that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he's Lord. He's Lord to the glory of God
the Father. Listen, you will, and me too,
we're all gonna bow to him one day. Either here, bowing before
the majesty of his saving grace, bow and acknowledging that he's
the Lord like that believing thief did. Lord, remember me.
You're going to call Him Lord one of these days and He's going
to mean it either here in salvation or at the judgment when He makes
you say that. I'll tell you what I sure hope
and pray you about now. Jesus Christ the Lord. You say,
well, they beat up on Him so bad and crucified Him. He didn't
look like the Lord then. Let me tell you something. Everything
that happened to him, he was in full control of. When they
whipped him with that Roman whip, the cat-of-nine-tails, when they
whipped him, he was giving them the strength to put the lashes
on his back. That's right, isn't it? And when
those Roman soldiers When Nate laid that cross down and laid
the Lord Jesus down, and he wasn't struggling, he wasn't fighting
to get away, they said, stretch out your arms, he stretched out
his arms. And they began to drive those big spikes through his
hands and then crossed his feet and one through both of his feet.
He was giving them the energy to do that. And when they hoisted that cross
up and dropped it in the hole, it happened just like he ordained
it. And when that soldier came by
with a spear after our Lord Jesus had died, our God sovereignly controlled
his aim, put it in his side, And there
came out blood and water. Blood to redeem, blood to wash
away our sins, and water to wash us and make us clean. Everything
that happened at the cross, he is in charge of. He's the Lord. And I tell you,
I bow to him now, don't you? I bow in my heart and I give
him as best I can, and I know it's frail and it's pitiful,
but I give him best I can honor and glory and adoration. And I didn't just, I don't cast
a casual look at him. I'm looking at Christ as I see
him revealed in the scriptures. And as it were, I look up to
heaven and I see Him exalted because He accomplished redemption. And I say, there sits my Savior. There sits my King. There sits
my mediator, my advocate, my great high priest, making intercession
for me. And I see Him, I see Him with
the eye of faith, with the eye of faith. I looked to him years ago, I'm
still looking to him now. And verse 24 says, surely shall
one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength. That's exactly
right. I don't have any righteousness in myself, I have it in the Lord.
And I have strength in the Lord too. I have strength to pray,
I've strength to, as God enables me, resist the temptations of
Satan. And it says, even to him shall
men come. Are you coming to him? Peter
says, to whom coming? We're always coming to him, aren't
we? And I'll tell you this, all that
are incensed against him, they're going to be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified, be declared righteous, and someday we're
gonna be glorified. Tell you a true story based on
verse 22. I expect you've all heard Charles
Spurgeon. This was the verse of scripture,
verse 22, that God used in his conversion. He was converted
in a little primitive Methodist chapel. In fact, they put a plaque
up on the pew where he was sitting, and I don't agree with that.
But anyway, some people did that because that's where Charles
Spurgeon was converted. God saved him by his grace. And
he grew up in a Christian home. That's a wonderful blessing. And he had a grandfather who
was a Presbyterian preacher, and if you read the article I
wrote for you in the bulletin, you already know that. And his
grandmother, she was a woman, and his mother loved the Lord. Don't know much about his daddy,
but I know about Charles' mother, and I know about his grandmother.
And he was a very brilliant young man, even as a little boy. He's super sharp. He'd have been
a good student, I guarantee you. His grandmother said, I'll tell
you, Charles, if you'll memorize a song, a hymn, because he read
the Puritans, he read the theologians, he studied the Bible, and he
loved songs. He loved hymns. She said, for
every hymn you memorize, I'll give you a penny. Well, he was memorizing them
right and left. And she said, I'm going to have
to change the rules a little. He said, what's that, Granny?
For every five songs you memorize, I'll give you a penny. Because
he's just memorizing them, coming and going. And he read the Bible. He read
the old Puritan writers. But in his autobiography, he
says, but I didn't know God. It just wasn't real to me. He
said it was kind of a head knowledge I had. But I said it didn't know
God. So he faithfully went to church
every Sunday. And one Sunday, it was a snowstorm,
and he couldn't get to the church he went to. So he ducked into
a primitive Methodist chapel. And it wasn't many people there.
He sat back toward the back, kind of back there. what used
to be called Kemper Corner, set back in the area in this primitive
Methodist chapel. Things were so bad the preacher
couldn't even get there that Sunday. So one of the men of
the church came in, and seeing the preacher wasn't there, he
got And he read this verse of scripture right here, Isaiah
45, 22. Look unto me and be you saved,
all the ends of the earth for I am God and there is none else.
He read that verse of scripture. And Spurgeon said, he looked at me and he said from the pulpit,
young man, you look absolutely miserable. looking right at him. He said, it's like his eyes were
burning holes through me. He said, why don't you look to
the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved? And Spurgeon said, for
the first time in my life, he said, I saw and understood the
light of the gospel. He said, everything was clear
to me. Preachers that I've been listening to they seem to me
they seem to me to make it too complicated Doing this and doing
that and signing you got to sign a church Covenant that you'll
obey and be faithful and tithe and all that stuff He said but
this guy just gave me one command right from the Bible The Lord
Jesus said look into me and be you saved He said, and I looked
and the chains fell off. He said, and in my soul, I knew
I was free. That's it right there. That's
it. Can you look? You can if God gives you sight.
And if God gives you sight, you will look. I'm looking right
now. What about y'all? If you're looking
to Christ Jesus as your only hope of glory, the only Savior,
Christ and His salvation, Christ and His sacrifice upon the cross
of Calvary that put away sin and brought in everlasting righteousness,
if you're looking to Jesus Christ, this Lord's Supper is for you.
And it's for me. To remember our Lord's death
until He comes again. So I'm gonna ask the men to prepare
to serve. They'll serve the bread first,
and the bread's a picture of our Lord Jesus' body. He's the incarnate God, came
down here and lived, suffered, bled, and died to save us. So
they'll serve you the bread after everybody's served. And this
is for believers now. It's for people who look, who
look, and you're still looking to Christ Jesus.