As Brother Fulton reminded us last week, Christ and His Gospel can be found throughout the Old Testament. There are over three hundred prophecies Old Testament of Christ, some of which preceded their fulfilment by a 1000 years. And even the passages which aren’t as clear as Psalm 22 or Isaiah 53, multitudes still indirectly point to the Saviour, describing the Passover, the Exodus, sacrifices, construction of the Tabernacle, etc. Then beyond these, we need to see the severity of God in the Old Testament in order to understand our need of the Saviour and His grace which are more clearly delineated in the New Testament.
This morning, I would like to preach a New Testament message by looking at this Old Testament scripture. I tried to come up with a nice three point outline, so you might have something ear-catching and simple. But after fifteen minutes with my rhyming dictionary and thesaurus, I gave up. You could say we have a 6 point outline along with a conclusion – verse 20, verse 21, verse 22, etc.
Obviously, there is no way that I could ever improve on the revelation of the inspired word of God. This holy man of God, Isaiah, spake “as He was moved by the Holy Ghost” – these were not his ideas. But now, it is my commission to explain, perhaps to illustrate, and to apply what God hath said. May the Lord bless His words to our hearts.
Verse 20: “Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations…”
The people to whom Isaiah was originally speaking had a distinct advantage over many others. These people were escapees. They were no longer captives. They were not refugee; they were free. They were not fugitives as was Cain after he had been ordered away from the doorway to Eden. They were escapees. Of course, Isaiah was a prophet of God to the people of Israel and Judah. The ancestors of this audience, had originally escaped from Egypt and slavery there. They had taken the underground railroad through the Red Sea and escaped to the freedom of Canaan. And as a nation they had other exciting escapes from various enemy kings and armies.
But that was NOT the escape to which Isaiah was referring. He was speaking and writing to people who had escaped a far more dangerous enemy – the worship of idols. “Gather around, you who have obeyed the gospel and have fled from idolatry.” “Let us draw near together, because we need the strength of fellowship and of mutual victories.” “The temptations of our old lives are still out there, and we need on-going help.”
“They have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.” In order to understand how important this statement is, we have to define idolatry. At its most basic roots, idolatry is anything which comes between us and the Creator-God, Jehovah. Idolatry can be almost anything, and it is alive and well in the 21st century. When we put our children or our spouse, our jobs or our recreation before the Lord, we are idolaters. When we put our education, our intellect or our governments before God, we are idolaters. As Paul said to the Colossians, “kill or stiffle within yourself those things such as” – “fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and COVETOUSNESS, which is idolatry.” This tells us that idolatry includes covetousness – OR it could refer to all these things. Any desire, which the Lord has not put in your heart – whether fornication, inordinate affection or lustful covetousness – these are all idols. Applying something said generations earlier: “Ye have chosen this day whom ye will serve; not the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but for us – for you, and me, and my house – we will serve Jehovah.”
Isaiah refers specifically to prayer to WOODEN idols – something which is rare in our country these days. Neither we, nor our neighbors, would stoop to bow to a wooden idol. However, many of our religious neighbors bow to plastic idols, marble idols and others made from other stones or precious metals. But far more – they bow before governments, engineers, and scientists to answer their prayers. America is a nation full of emotional idols, ideological idols, and intellectual idols.
“Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are ESCAPED of the nations.” Lift your voices in praise to the Lord if you have been enabled to “turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God” as some in Thessalonica had done.
Verse 21: “Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together.” Let’s bring all the followers of idolatry together in a huge convention, so they can compare notes. Let them pick their best proponents and speakers to defend their anti-Jehovah worship and prayer-lives. Let them choose which impotent idol they prefer above the rest. Has there ever been a wooden god, a marble god, a governmental god, who has answered a single prayer of any kind, or who saved a soul or a nation? There has not. What king, president or governor has slowed the Santa Anna winds, a tornado or hurricane? FEMA isn’t going to meet your needs. Nor is Homeland Security or Border Patrol going to protect you. People’s prayers to those pretended gods are a waste of time.
Some forms of idolatry, like depending on armies and nuclear weapons to keep us safe, may make a bit of sense. But look back and consider the rise of that kind of secular faith. Why do people turn to these rather tan to the Lord? Where and how did depending on anything besides Jehovah, our Creator, begin? It began in rebellion with Cain, the murderer of Abel; it began with Nimrod and the people at Babel.
Speaking through Isaiah, God goes on – “who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD?” From the very beginning Jehovah has warned about the dangers of idolatry and its judgments. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image… Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God…” Then He added, “the reason you have these idol gods is because you hate me” – Exodus 20:5. Cain hated Jehovah – especially after he was made a fugitive and vagabond. It might be argued that from him came this tsunami of idolatry.
Then the Spirit told Isaiah to say, “there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.” This statement takes us right into the heart of the New Testament gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father (God) but by me” – John 14:6. And Paul added, “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time” – I Timothy 2:5-6.
Verse 22: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.” “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” – Acts 4:12. I will come back to this verse in a few minutes, but for a moment lets move on.
Verse 23: The Lord says, “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto ME every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.” Have you ever heard or read where some man, when trying to declare his honesty, has said something like: “I swear to you on my mother’s grave…” “I swear on the life of my son, this is the truth.” To declare their honesty, some people appeal to something they think is higher than themselves. It is common in swearing to tell the truth, to put a hand on the Bible, suggesting – “just as this book is true, I promise to tell the truth.” The writer of the Book of Hebrews brings up this sort of thing, saying, “When God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself.” Some people will swear on the Bible, but not our current president.
Here Jehovah says, “since there is nothing higher or more holy than me,” I declare to you on my own name that “every knee shall one day bow before me, and every tongue will acknowledge that I am God.” This verse has been famously repeated and applied to God the Son in Philippians 2. “God (the Father) also hath highly exacted (Christ Jesus) and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and thing in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
There is a day coming, when every child of Adam – every human being – whether dead or alive, whether they are of the wicked line of Cain or the more godly line of Seth… There is a day coming when each and every human being is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Jehovah. Many will make that confession immediately before they hear Him condemn them to hell.
Verse 24: “Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come…”
Some of those who bow their knees and surrender their tongues to the Lord, will say, “Because of His grace, I have righteousness and strength.” Some will joyfully say, “I have been declared righteous in God’s sight.” They will describe how they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus which delivered (them) from the wrath to come.”
“Even to him shall (all) men come, (BUT) all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.” They shall be put to shame. They will stand before the Lord thoroughly confounded. Under God’s glare, they will have cast aside their education and intellects and their know-it-all attitudes. They will be ashamed that their gaudy religions didn’t break through their pride to bring them to their knees at some point before their deaths.
Verse 25: “In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be JUSTIFIED, and shall glory.” Verse 24 contains the word “righteousness” – “in the Lord I have RIGHTEOUSNESS.” As I have said, we can easily preach the New Testament gospel from Old Testament scriptures. The word “justified” in verse 25 is another form of the Hebrew word translated “righteousness.” That is exactly what is done with similar words in the New Testament Greek language. To be “justified” is to be declared righteous by the soul-saving God – Jehovah our Saviour. All the righteous seed of Israel shall be saved by the will of God, and all the chosen in Christ shall be justified as well.
Not one of those saved souls will fall – or fail to eventually be with their Saviour in glory. In glorified bodies they shall praise and glorify their Saviour. The Lord has sworn by himself – the word is gone of our His mouth in righteous – the believer shall be justified and filled with glory.
Now, having skimmed over this great paragraph, let’s return to apply verse 22.
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.” “Salvation” and “saved” are very important Biblical words – they speak about deliverance. Salvation includes deliverance from idolatry and the PUNISHMENT ordained against it. This salvation includes the forgiveness of murder, adultery, theft, gossip and every other kind of sin. This salvation includes deliverance from every kind of sin YOU have ever committed. But there is only one kind of salvation, and there is only one Saviour. “There is no God else beside me; a just God and a saviour; there is none beside me.”
And this Saviour is available to people throughout the world – even to the ends of the earth. It is declared throughout the Bible, but it is especially clear in the New Testament that “whosoever will may come to this Saviour.” The Jews may have proudly claimed Jehovah as their own national God, and indeed He had chosen to particularly bless that nation. But those people at the ends of earth who bow to the Lord will be saved just as quickly as any Hebrew. If they will repent of their idolatries, their rebellions and their self-centered spiritual independence, they will be delivered, forgiven, blessed in this world and ultimately taken to be forever with their Saviour.
I know that I have shared this before, but the testimony of Charles Spurgeon hinges on this verse, and I’d like to share it once again. When Charles had turned fifteen, he was in the midst of a period of deep conviction for his childish sins. He wasn’t a particularly bad kid, but he was well aware that his sin offended the holy God. He desperately wanted to find a solution – deliverance and forgiveness. Of that period in his life, he later said, “I had rather pass through seven years of the most languishing sickness, than I would ever again pass through the terrible discovery of the evil of (my) sin.” He would pray, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” but every time, the overwhelming majesty of God crushed him, and his heart would fall in agony of spirit, feeling unworthy to even complete his prayer. He attended church after church, often hearing the truth about the salvation of the sovereign God, but no one could tell him how to enjoy the forgiveness of sin.
Then one Sunday morning, as he planned to attend yet another church, a severe snow storm kept him from reaching his intended destination. That was the outworking of the providence of God. In the blizzard, he turned down a side street where he found a Primitive Methodist chapel. He went in. Apparently, the preacher was unable to be there because of the snow, so a thin-looking man, who was obviously not a preacher, took it upon himself to give God’s Word to the few in attendance. Spurgeon later said the man was “really stupid.” All that could do was declare his text, “Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.” He couldn’t even pronounce the words correctly. He said, “this is a very simple text indeed. It says ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just ‘Look.’” He talked about not looking at ourselves, but only looking to Jesus. He went on for only ten minutes before coming to the end of his tether.
Then he saw Charles at the back of the building. He said, “Young man, you look very miserable,” and Spurgeon admitted he was right. He said, “you will always be miserable – miserable in life and miserable in death – if you don’t obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved. Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live.”
Charles later testified, “I saw at once the way of salvation. I had been waiting to DO fifty things, but when I heard that word, ‘Look,’ I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away.” He learned that day to simply “Trust Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” He said, there was no expression, however fantastical, which would have been out of keeping with the joy of that hour. He was born again in a moment of grace. He became a sinner saved by blood, by simply looking in faith to the work which Christ finished on the cross.
This is what salvation is all about. Isaiah knew about it, and so did Saul of Tarsus, Peter the Apostle and the people of Thessalonica. Stop looking to your idols, your church, any religious ordinance or even faith. They can’t deliver you. And stop looking at yourself – your horrible sins or the condition of your emotional, spiritual or fleshly strength. Don’t even look at salvation itself. Look toward Christ Jesus – the One who gave His life while hanging on the cross. The sovereign God has ordained Christ’s sacrifice to be sufficient to save the very worst of sinners. So, “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” “Look unto me, and be ye completely and thoroughly SAVED.” “Look unto CHRIST only, and be ye saved.”
I implore you, this morning, to look in humble faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.