May we bow together for prayer a moment.
Heavenly Father we thank thee that the Lord
Jesus said, he that hath seen me hath
seen the Father.
We would indeed turn our eyes upon Jesus
and look full in his wonderful face and
the things of earth shall grow strangely dim
in the light of his glory and grace.
We ask it for thy name's sake.
Amen.
Will you turn with me dear friends this
morning for our meditation to the prophecy of
Isaiah and the 45th chapter.
Isaiah chapter 45 and I read to you
from verse 22.
Look unto me and be ye saved all
the ends of the earth for I am
God and there is none else.
On Sunday January the 6th 1850 a young
lad not quite 16 years of age was
walking through a village street in a little
town some 50 miles from London, England.
It was a bitterly cold day and the
snow was falling heavily.
He was going to find the house of
God.
Deeply conscious of his need of God, conscious
of the failure and breakdown and sin of
his own life even at that comparatively young
age.
And as he made his way through the
street somehow as the snow fell so heavily
he felt that it was too far to
go to the church which he had intended
to go.
So he just walked down the little back
lane and entered a little Methodist chapel.
He sat down in a seat near the
back.
It was as cold inside the chapel as
it was out.
The congregation mustered about 12 or 13 people.
Five minutes after the service was due to
begin at 11 o'clock the preacher announced
for the morning had not made his appearance.
He had been delayed by the weather.
And so one of the deacons came to
the rescue and began conducting the service.
And after a little while he announced his
text.
Look unto me and be ye saved all
the ends of the earth for I am
God and there is none else.
After 10 minutes he had said all he
knew about his text.
And the service was terminating when suddenly the
deacon noticing this miserable looking young man at
the back of the church said to him
aloud in the presence of the 13 other
people young man you look very miserable this
morning.
You need to look to Jesus and be
saved young man look look to Jesus.
And somehow in a very strange amazing way
that man that young man looked from the
depth of his soul into the very heart
of God.
And he went out from that church and
he tells that as he walked through the
street his burden had been lifted.
Never to return again he walked with a
new light in his step and a new
joy in his face and a new sense
of peace in his heart.
He had looked and lived.
That young man as many of you probably
know was Charles Haddon Spurgeon who for another
40 years 43 years to be exact lived
to become one of the greatest preachers of
his generation.
And it all began when as a young
man scarcely 16 years of age he looked
and lived.
It could well be that here at Moody
church today there is someone like that or
if not actually in the church someone listening
by radio and possibly both.
Who have come to this place this morning
and you've lived for quite a while under
the atmosphere of religion and Christianity.
But you've never really looked or if you
did at one time look somehow your eyes
have been taken away from the Savior.
And you're burdened this morning with a sense
of deep need and the consciousness that you
are far from God even though you may
be within geographically the area of Christian things.
And it is my privilege and responsibility this
morning to ask you to turn your heart
to the one where you may find life.
We have been reminded in song about him
already today.
I want you to notice with me in
this chapter as we turn to this simple
verse and this wonderful verse of scripture.
I want you to notice a repetition of
a phrase that occurs over and over again
in this portion of God's word.
When the Holy Spirit repeats himself it's well
for us to give special attention.
For when he repeats himself it is because
it is this upon which he wishes to
stress and to concentrate our thinking.
Verse 5 of this chapter says, I am
the Lord and there is none else, there
is no God beside me.
Verse 6 in the last little sentence, I
am the Lord and there is none else.
In the last verse words of verse 14,
there is none else, there is no God.
Similarly in verse 18, I am the Lord
and there is none else.
And in verse 21, there is no God
else beside me, a just God and a
Savior, there is none beside me.
And in our text, I am God and
there is none else.
I wonder if in your mind this morning
if it would be possible for us to
take a flight of imagination.
Could you imagine a moment when this world
never existed, when this universe as much of
it as we know was not in existence,
when there were no stars and no sun
and no moon, no heavens, no earth as
we know them and see them, when there
was none of this, but there was God.
And he was from everlasting and to everlasting.
He had no beginning and will have no
ending.
And in that moment this universe as we
see it was, so to speak, just slumbering.
In his mind it was there in embryo,
but there was God in a vast canopy
of space with no universe, no stars, no
people to worship him or to love him,
but God.
And the only light in all that vast
canopy of space was the glory of his
countenance.
God, the great, holy, majestic, omnipotent, the God
with no beginning and no ending, God.
And in the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth.
There came a moment when the mind of
God began to take action and to put
into action that which had been there, that
which had been merely slumbering within his heart.
And there came a sun and a moon
and star, and there came a universe, and
into that universe as part of it a
little place that we call the earth which
we inhabit.
And in that worth he put men, men
made in his own image.
And as you think about God, if you
can in that conception of him, if we
can for a moment, immediately we would recognize
that anything that God made must be insignificant
compared with the God who made it.
How small compared with the great, mighty God.
And therefore because that is so, how impudent
of anything or anyone whom God made ever
to imagine that he could set himself against
God.
But that's what Satan did, and that's what
all the inhabitants of this little place, this
earth of ours, have done.
Just little creatures of time that exist for
70 years, a bit more or a bit
less.
And we've set ourselves up in rivalry to
the God who is eternal, who had no
beginning and no ending.
And it has been the great purpose of
God all through history ever since that time,
to teach mankind that there is no God
beside him.
There is none else.
Especially is this true concerning the greatest work
that God has ever done, and that is
the saving of a soul from himself and
his sin.
But before I speak to you of this,
let us think a moment of the ways
in which God has sought through all history
to demonstrate in all sorts of different ways
and to all sorts of different people that
there is no God beside him.
He has sought to teach the idols of
heathen nations that truth.
And you might well ask today, where are
the idols of ancient empires?
They're no longer in existence.
The gods before whom great vast proportion of
this world of ours used to worship are
no longer in existence.
And he sought to teach not only other
gods and idols, but he sought to teach
great empires that there was no God beside
him.
You can only travel a little way today
into the Middle East, and there you will
see the ruins of ancient Greece and Babylon
and Rome.
These great mighty empires which at one time
seemed to be omnipotent, but now they're just
buried beneath ruins.
A testimony to the truth of our text,
that beside our God, there is none else.
And he not only sought to teach empires,
but he sought to teach kings who ruled
over them.
You will recall for instance in the word
of God, Nebuchadnezzar, as he walked through Babylon
and said, behold this great Babylon that I
have builded, a man did I say, did
you say, a king?
I see him in a few moments crawling
on all fours.
I see him with his hair, says the
scripture, like eagle's feathers.
I see him with his fingernails like the
claws of a bird.
A man?
Yes, a man who set himself against God,
and a man to whom God spoke and
whom God humbled and to whom God said,
there is no God beside me.
And I remember Belshazzar, who drank out of
the sacred vessels of the temple, who set
himself up as the king of all the
earth, and who one day saw the writing
on the wall.
And before he knew what was happening, was
dead.
And I think of a man in the
word of God called Herod.
And as people heard him speak, they said,
this is no man, this is a God.
But presently a worm enters his body and
another, and he's eaten of worms and he
died.
And you could go on through history and
you could find men like Alexander and Napoleon,
and if you come to our century, men
like Hitler, and today men like Khrushchev.
And before all of them, God stands and
says, beside me there is no God.
He has spoken that word to empires, and
he's spoken it to men, and he's spoken
it to kings, and he's spoken it to
other gods.
The God who brought the whole universe into
existence, insists that there is no God beside
him.
That the hardest place where God has to
speak that word is to his church.
These are the people redeemed by blood, who
find it so hard to believe that there
is no other God beside him.
That was true in the church, if I
may use the word, of the Old Testament
days, who because of their disobedience, were sent
into captivity in Babylon.
It has been true through all history, that
the church has found it desperately difficult to
acknowledge that the King of Kings, and Lord
of Lords, the Christ of Calvary, and of
resurrection power, and of coming glory, the church
has found it desperately difficult really to believe
that there is no God beside him.
And we've demonstrated that we find it difficult
to believe this, because we don't pray to
him, as we should.
Because our prayer meetings are often so neglected,
and our programs in our churches are so
busily in preparation.
When we have substituted so much before which
we worship, and so many other things that
really demonstrate in point of view and in
practice, that we don't really believe that there
is no God beside him.
Many, many a child of God has come
across days of ease, and days of plenty,
and days of prosperity, and things have gone
well.
And the Christian has found himself worshipping at
the God of materialism, and wealth, and riches,
and plenty, and comfort, and enjoyment.
And God has had to strike him low.
And through chastening, and through affliction, and often
through sorrow, and trouble, through any experience that
God may teach him the lesson that there
is no God beside him.
Ah yes, it's hard for the child of
God really to believe that.
And God has had to teach it sometimes,
teach it drastically to those who minister his
word, who sometimes are put in the place
of God by some people, who sometimes, sometimes
have had to be taught the lesson till
they've seen the simpleness of their own heart.
And many, many times of coming to a
pulpit would rather crawl behind a pew, and
feel themselves of being unworthy of being part
even of the congregation.
God has had to teach his ministers this,
that there is no God beside him.
I am not sure that any man get
very far in Christian living until he's come
to say, as the Apostle Paul said unto
me, who am less than the least of
all the saints, is this grace given that
I may make known the unsearchable riches of
Christ.
It's amazing when you think about it, in
the conception of who God is, that all
through history he's been seeking to teach his
people that beside him there is no God.
That's the emphasis of this portion of scripture,
a demonstration of the fact that there is
no rival to our God.
But beloved, as I said a few moments
ago, this is especially true in the greatest
thing that God has ever done, and that
is the salvation of a soul.
The hardest thing for a man ever to
do, as he seeks to grope his way
through intellectual fog and misunderstanding and theological argument
in his search after God, is to come
to a place where he's honestly prepared to
say that beside God there is none else.
You will notice that our text suggests this
in three different ways.
In three different ways God speaks to an
individual, speaks to a person, in order to
show him that there is no God beside
him.
He says, look unto me, there is no
God beside me.
The person to whom I am to look,
look unto me.
The thing that I am to do, to
look.
There's nothing hard in this, so basically absolutely
simple.
But in looking I am admitting that there
is none other God beside him.
I am forsaking every confidence and every idol
and every God.
As for my salvation, I look to him.
Look unto me and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth, around the whole
circle of the globe, says God.
There is no God beside me.
The person to whom I am to look,
look unto him.
The thing that I am to do, in
order that I might find him, just look.
The people who are to look, all the
ends of the earth, for beside him there
is no God.
Therefore I am speaking this morning to somebody
in this audience today, perhaps someone who's quite
surprised because they've been so long under the
sound of the word and in the circle
of Christian things, and yet, yet somehow if
they once looked, it's long since they did
look, and who desperately need again this morning
to turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look unto me.
Let's look for a moment here at this
person, this one to whom we are to
look, in this whole great thing, this great
work of God in salvation.
He says, look unto me.
So difficult to do that, isn't it?
So easy to look to the church, so
easy to look to the preacher, so easy
to look to some form or some ritual
or some ceremony, to look in these directions,
would be quite simple.
Oh no.
God says, these will never save us, they
will never bring us the blessing that we
need of his life and of his power.
I am to look away from all this
to him.
And where am I to look?
I am to look, beloved, at a place
called Calvary.
Not primarily to Bethlehem, though Bethlehem paves the
way for Calvary.
Not primarily to a life that he lived,
about which we read in this book, in
the gospel, because that life paved the way
for the cross.
But I am to look at a cross.
I wonder, I wonder how long it is
since you paused and thought about him.
Have you looked lately?
Have you looked at a head that was
crowned with thorns?
Have you looked at the blood that came
from it?
Have you looked at a head that was
bowed meekly upon his breast in absolute submission
to the will of God, with no rebellion
whatsoever as he meekly bowed to the will
of his Father?
Have you looked at a side that was
torn with a spear, out of which flowed
blood and water?
Have you looked?
Have you looked at feet that were almost
rent in two as they bore the weight
of his body hanging upon a tree?
Have you looked at a pair of hands
that were pierced to a cross?
Have you looked at Jesus?
Look unto me, he said.
Have you looked there?
Really looked?
Have you ever looked and said, Lord Jesus,
that was for me?
Has your faith ever taken you to that
place where you've made that personal and said,
Lord, that was for me?
Have I looked there?
Have I looked at an empty tomb?
Have I looked at him, my great high
priest, whoever liveth to make intercession for me?
For if any man sins, says the scripture,
we have an advocate with the Father, even
Jesus Christ the righteous.
Have I looked at him?
Have I looked at him in my mind
and seen him as the one before whom
every knee shall bow, King of kings and
Lord of lords?
Have I looked at him?
I wonder.
And this is what God asks me to
do, this is what he expects of me,
this God who had no beginning and no
ending, this God who, who put the whole
universe into action, this God who sent Jesus,
that he might be the Savior of the
world.
He says that I must look at him.
I wonder if I have.
Did you this morning before you came to
church, did you look at Jesus?
Oh you say to me for years, perhaps
for months, all this past year I've been
trying to see him.
God doesn't say you've got to see him,
he says you're to look, that's all.
Doesn't say see, just says look.
You look to Jesus, look unto me, that's
his word.
Right away from the church, because that'll save
nobody.
Right away from the preacher, because he will
always disappoint you and disillusion you.
Right away from all outward form and ceremony
and everything else, that you might look right
off from all of this and right through
to the throne and there see in your
heart Jesus.
But what am I to do?
That's where I am to look for life.
But what am I to do that I
might obtain life?
I am to look.
Now you know all through history people have
wanted a very complicated religion, very complicated.
And they've liked it when they've had priesthood
and all the rest of it, and religion
has really become a complicated thing.
They like it made difficult.
I honestly believe that if I could guarantee
this morning to any of you, that if
you were to walk to New York on
bare feet along the highway and you would
be absolutely sure of making it to heaven,
if you did, I believe there'd be some
people who'd do it.
Just because they would feel by doing this
they'd done something meritorious, something that was worthy,
something that had earned them something, you see.
Oh we like religion to which we attach
personal merit.
But God puts us away from all this
and takes us aside from it and he
says one simple thing, look.
Maybe in your lifetime, indeed in mine, I
have read many books on theology which have
expounded all kinds of things in an attempt
to show me how I may one day
reach God.
And I haven't been convinced by the time
I finish.
The Holy Spirit needs exactly four letters, two
of them the same, to tell me what
I must do.
L-O-O-K.
Look, that's all.
The simplest basic thing that any soul can
do, but the most difficult thing that any
of us find really to do day by
day in our lives and in ours.
Oh we like it to be made complicated,
because this panders to our intellect and our
thinking and our mind.
And God says I only ask that you
do one thing, the thing that I think
is essential, that the Creator should ask of
his creatures that you might look.
What does it mean to look?
Oh beloved, it's not, it's not, it's not
what I see of myself that matters, it's
not my calculation, my rep, my opinion, my,
my ideas or conception of what I am,
but it's my conception of what God in
Jesus Christ is that matters.
It's the objective look to him.
And maybe one of the most difficult things
for any of us to do is to
get our looking away from ourselves, one within
us, and looking right away to our Lord
upon Calvary and upon the throne.
For some people will say well I'm too
bad, or others I'm too good, or others
will say well I'm righteous in myself, and
others will say If only we would look
away from all of ourselves, good or bad,
and look right off to Jesus, just look.
And if you want to know again I
say what it means to look, why it's
the desire after him that matters beloved.
It's a longing after God, it's a hunger
in your heart for him, it's the deep
burden of sin, it's the consciousness of your
failure and your sinfulness, it's hanging upon Christ,
that's what it is to look.
It's hanging upon Jesus until I hang with
all this, all my, my heart and soul
and know I will lift up mine eyes
unto the hill from whence cometh my help,
my help cometh from the Lord, from the
Lord.
And I hang upon him and I trust
in him.
This is what it means to look.
This is the state of hopelessness apart from
a life that is totally and utterly hanging
upon the Christ of power and glory.
Have I looked like that?
That house Charles Haddon Spurgeon was saying as
he went into that little Methodist chapel with
a burden heart, he saw in a simple
flash as the verse was read that what
God wanted from him was just that, that
he might learn to cling and to hang
upon the Lord.
How simple.
Yes, look, it's all I've got to do.
Have I ever really done it?
Have you ever done it?
You're doing it now.
But who are the people that have to
look?
Look unto me and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth.
Of course we interpret that word salvation in
a very narrow sense.
It's a much greater and a vaster and
a bigger thing than we imagine.
It's not merely the salvation and forgiveness of
our soul from sin.
It's a far bigger thing than this.
It's salvation from racial prejudice for one thing.
It's deliverance from that.
It's deliverance from the thinking that because a
man's skin is a different color from mine,
he's an inferior creature.
It's deliverance from racial prejudice.
Salvation from that.
Oh and one day, bless the Lord, there'll
be deliverance from all the social evils of
our race and of our world, because one
day unto me, says verse 23, every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall swear.
Salvation is so vast, but I, I dare
not take time to enter into more of
that this morning, maybe another day.
But who are the people that have to
look?
Look unto me and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth.
You know, just sit a minute, that's overwhelming.
It's tremendous.
It's the word of omnipotence, of authority, all
the ends of the earth.
Of course that means the heathen.
Of course that means the people who today
have never heard.
And somehow as I read that verse in
my own mind and in my own heart,
it kindles a fire and a burden and
a concern and it makes me ask myself,
why do I live like I do when
millions today have never heard about my Jesus?
It makes, it puts, it puts feet to
my praying and it somehow ought to put
sacrifice to my giving.
It ought to mean that nothing matters, but
that the ends of the earth shall hear.
Of course you cannot be a child of
God unless, oh unless God opens your eyes
to the truth of this.
Look unto me and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth.
But how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach unless they're sent?
Ah yes beloved, it means that, but it
means something else I think.
And I bring it right home to your
heart and mine.
Do you mean to tell me that the
ends of the earth is something that's geographical?
Not a bit of it.
I believe that it is something very deep
and very personal and very spiritual in the
minds and hearts of people who listen to
my voice this morning.
Beloved, you're in Moody Church today or you're
listening to this service, you're hearing God's message
and he's bidding you look.
But spiritually, though geographically you're here and under
the sound of it spiritually, you're at the
end of the earth in your distance from
God.
Look unto me and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth.
I wonder if you ever looked.
I wonder who I speak to you this
morning, dear soul, and somehow you know today
you're so far away from God the distance
is immeasurable, immeasurable.
And your heart is cold and dry and
dead and your mind doesn't respond to the
truth and God is just millions and millions
of miles away.
The ends of the earth, that's where you
are.
I'm not going to go into why that
is so.
Many reasons may have put you there.
I don't know, possibly rebellion against God, I
don't know.
Possibly some sad tragic circumstance in your home,
I don't know a thing about it.
But that's where some of you are today.
Spiritually, even though actually in person, in body,
here under the sound of the truth, in
your heart and soul at the other end
of the earth from God.
Religion real, church service real, profession real, but
Jesus Christ a glorious tragic unreality in your
life.
The word comes to you, I trust with
the authority of his spirit.
Look, look unto me, all ye at the
very end of the earth, look!
In other words, the terms of salvation are
the same for the man who spiritually is
miles away and the man who of whom
God could say this morning thou art not
far from the kingdom.
Look here, the terms are just the same
for the man who's in the upper bracket
in his income and the man who's in
skid row.
Just the same for the man who's drinking
himself to death and the man who's clothed
with his robe of self-righteousness.
The terms are absolutely universal and are the
simple glorious wonderful truth that today I can
break through the mists of my mind and
intellect, the things that hide God from me
and by his grace I can break through
the tragedy of my sin and breakdown and
I can look to Jesus.
On Monday, was it Monday?
No, Sunday of this week, this past Sunday,
as I retired for the night, the city
in which I was staying, Edinburgh, it was
dirty, it was cold.
Something for me to say that, but it's
true, it was cold.
It was dirty, it was foggy, it was
smelly, it was everything that I could think
was horrible.
Really it was, and I love Scotland.
But oh, it was so cold as I
looked out of my window, I couldn't see
Edinburgh Castle that stood just across the road,
it was shrouded in fog.
And the smell of smoke, no wonder the
Scots call it Old Reekie, it's reeked with
smoke, isn't it?
And I wakened up the next morning and
I drew the blind, and when daylight came,
it was clothed in a robe of spotless
white.
For overnight there had been six inches of
snow, and I never saw such a beautiful
scene as I saw that morning, as the
sun rose, and that place which had been
so dark, and so smoky, and so dirty,
and grimy, was absolutely completely transformed into a
mantle that was so clean, spotless, and immediately
as I saw it, my heart went out
to God, and I found myself saying, O
Lord, O Lord, though this man's sin be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow.
For they shall be as red as crimson,
they shall be white like wool.
Look, just look, just look from the depths
of your heart to the throne of God,
from the impurity and sin, from the religion
and of righteousness, from all this God says
one thing to people who are at the
very ends of the earth today, spiritually and
without hope.
Just look, look right through to Jesus, O
Christian, Christian look.
And people here today, most of all the
preacher, let's look again at Calvary, and let's
remember that his righteousness and strength are ours.
And this God upon whom we may look
today, whose blood was shed for our redemption,
is the God before whom every knee shall
bow and every tongue confess that he's Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Shall we pray?
O God, for Jesus' sake this morning, help
us to turn our eyes afresh upon thee.
We have to acknowledge that we've looked away
to other things, and we've placed our confidence
in other gods, and we think of thee
the great God with no beginning and no
ending, from eternity to eternity, the one who
has created creatures like us, that we might
worship thee and we've worshipped others.
O how desperately we need thy forgiveness.
We would come to thee, O Lord, and
ask that we may, just look, hang upon
Christ today, that we may hurl every burden
at his feet, and look off to Jesus.
O make this true in our heart, for
thy name's sake.
Amen.