We are now coming to the last point of Look to Jesus. “Look unto me, and be ye saved…for I am God, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:22). 

Pardon of sin realized as a personal blessing is, you see, the only thing which can give life, light, and peace. You will never have any true godliness unless you are “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6); and you can never have a happy soul until you have a consciousness of pardon and acceptance. There is forgiveness with God; and being “with God,” and promised freely, it will be yours for the asking; therefore “seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6). If you go to Him through Christ, confessing your sins, you will find Him faithful and just to for- give you your sins; and from personal experience you will be enabled to say, “O Lord, I will praise thee; though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away and thou comfortest me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song: He also is become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:1-2). 

Cast yourself at Emmanuel’s feet as a poor perishing sinner, crying, Lord, save me; and if you perish there, you will be the first who ever did so. “Him that cometh unto me,” says the loving Jesus, “I will in no wise cast out” (Joh 6:37).

Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy Cross I cling;

Naked, come to Thee for dress, Helpless, look to Thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly, Wash me, Savior, or I die.

[Isaiah 45:22 has been the center of many Bible students’ interest for many years. If we briefly read the immediate context, we can see a huge contrast between idol worship and serving God. 45:20 says, “Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.” People of surrounding nations of Israel trusted in idols for victory. Unfortunately, even the children of Israel often fell into the sin of idolatry. Instead of trusting in God, they followed wooden gods. The Lord spoke to them in 45:21b, “… There is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.” Then, we find verse 22, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” 

Barnes’ Notes on the Whole Bible explains the verse as follows: “This is said in view of the declaration made in the previous verse, that he is a just God and a Saviour. It is because he sustains this character that all are invited to look to him; and the doctrine is, that the fact that God is at the same time just and yet a Saviour, or can save consistently with his justice, is an argument why they should took to him, and confide in him. If he is at the same time just - true to his promises; righteous in his dealings; maintaining the honor of his law and government, and showing his hatred of sin; and also merciful, kind, and forgiving, it is a ground of confidence in him, and we should rejoice in the privilege of looking to him for salvation. The phrase ‘look unto me’ means the same as, direct the attention to as we do to one from whom we expect aid. It denotes a conviction on our part of helplessness - as when a man is drowning, he casts an imploring eye to one on the shore who can help him; or when a man is dying, he casts an imploring eye on a physician for assistance. Thus the direction to look to God for salvation implies a deep conviction of helplessness and of sin; and a deep conviction that he only can save. At the same time it shows the ease of salvation. What is more easy than to look to one for help? What more easy than to cast the eyes toward God the Saviour? What more reasonable than that he should require us to do it? And what more just than that God, if people will not look to him in order that they may be saved, should cast them off forever? Assuredly, if a dying, ruined, and helpless sinner will not do so simple a thing as to look to God for salvation, he ought to be excluded from heaven, and the universe will acquiesce in the decision which consigns him to despair.”

John Calvin explains, “Hitherto he addressed the Jews alone, as if to them alone salvation belonged, but now he extends his discourse farther. He invites the whole world to the hope of salvation, and at the same time brings a charge of ingratitude against all the nations, who, being devoted to their errors, purposely avoided, as it were, the light of life; for what could be more base than to reject deliberately their own salvation? He therefore commands all ‘to look to him,’ and to the precept adds a promise, which gives it greater weight, and confirms it more than if he had made use of a bare command. And ye shall be saved. Thus we have a striking proof of the calling of the Gentiles; because the Lord, after having broken down ‘the partition-wall’ (Ephesians 2:14) which separated the Jews from the Gentiles, invites all without exception to come to him. Besides, we are here reminded also what is the true method of obtaining salvation; that is, when we ‘look to God,’ and tum to him with our whole heart. Now, we must ‘look to him’ with the eye of faith, so as to embrace the salvation which is exhibited to all through Christ; for ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him may not perish.’ (John 3:16).”

We cannot forget the story of Charles Spurgeon’s conversion, which was based on Isaiah 45:22. He said, “SIX years ago to-day, as near as possible at this very hour of the day, I was ‘in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity,’ but had yet, by divine grace, been led to feel the bitterness of that bondage, and to cry out by reason of the soreness of its slavery. Seeking rest, and finding none, I stepped within the house of God, and sat there, afraid to look upward, lest I should be utterly cut off, and lest his fierce wrath should consume me. The minister rose in his pulpit, and, as I have done this morning, read this text, ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.’ I looked that moment; the grace of faith was vouchsafed to me in the self-same instant; and now I think I can say with truth,

‘Ere since by faith I saw the stream

His flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my theme,

And shall be till I die.’

I shall never forget that day, while memory holds its place; nor can I help repeating this text whenever I remember that hour when first I knew the Lord. How strangely gracious! How wonderfully and marvelously kind, that he who heard these words so little time ago for his own soul's profit, should now address you this morning as his hearers from the same text, in the full and confident hope that some poor sinner within these walls may hear the glad tidings of salvation for himself also, and may to-day, on this 6th of January, be ‘turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God!’”

Do you look to Jesus?

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