Look to Me and be Saved

"Look to Me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth; 
for I am God, and there is no other."
Isaiah 45:22

Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth: This simple but powerful statement shows the plan of salvation.

1) It shows the simplicity of salvation: all we must do is look. “One can read may books on theology which expound all kinds of things in an attempt to show how man can reach God, but these theories are far from the truth. The Holy Spirit needs exactly four letters, two of them the same, to tell us what to do: l-o-o-k. That is all. It is the simplest, basic thing any person can do, yet the most difficult to do in daily living.” (Redpath)

2) It shows the focus of salvation: we must look to God, and never to ourselves or to anything else of man. “Look unto ME, is His Word, which means looking away from the church because that will save nobody; away from the preacher because he can disappoint and disillusion you; away from all outward form and ceremony. You must look off from all this to the throne and there, in your heart, see the risen, reigning Lord Jesus Christ.” (Redpath)

3) It shows the love behind salvation: God pleads with man, “Look to Me.”

4) It shows the assurance of salvation: and be saved.

5) It shows the extent of God’s saving love: all you ends of the earth!

Look to Me: In Numbers 21, the people of Israel were stricken by deadly snake bites, and Moses lifted up the image of a bronze serpent, raised on a pole, and the people who looked to it lived. The people were saved not by doing anything, but by simply looking to the bronze serpent. They had to trust that something as seemingly foolish as looking at such a thing would be sufficient to save them, and surely, some perished because they thought it too foolish to do such a thing!

So it says here in Isaiah: Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! We might be willing to do a hundred things to earn our salvation, but God commands us to only trust in Him – to look to Him!

On Sunday, January 6, 1850, a young man not quite sixteen years of age was walked through a village street in a little town some fifty miles from London, England. On the bitterly cold day the snow fell heavily; but he was more concerned to find a church, because he was deeply conscious of his need of God, and of the breakdown, sin, and failure of his life even at that young age. As he made his way through the street with the snow falling, he felt it was too far to go to the church which he had intended to visit, so he walked down a back lane and entered a little Methodist chapel. He sat down on a seat near the back, and it was as cold inside as it was out! There were only about thirteen people there.

Five minutes after the service was due to begin at eleven o’clock, the regular preacher for the morning hadn’t come. He had been delayed by the weather. So one of the deacons came to the rescue and began conducting the service, and after a little while 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.’ The deacon didn’t know much, so he only spoke for about ten minutes.

Charles Spurgeon himself tells what happened: “I had been wandering about, seeking rest, and finding none, till a plain, unlettered, lay preacher among the Primitive Methodists stood up in the pulpit, and gave out this passage as his text: ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’ He had not much to say, thank God, for that compelled him to keep on repeating his text, and there was nothing needed – by me, at any rate, – except his text. I remember how he said, ‘It is Christ that speaks. “I am in the garden in an agony, pouring out my soul unto death; I am on the tree, dying for sinners; look unto me! Look unto me!” That is all you have to do. A child can look. One who is almost an idiot can look. However weak, or however poor, a man may be, he can look; and if he looks, the promise is that he shall live.’ Then, stopping, he pointed to where I was sitting under the gallery, and he said, ‘That young man there looks very miserable.’ I expect I did, for that is how I felt. Then he said, ‘There is no hope for you, young man, or any chance of getting rid of your sin, but by looking to Jesus;’ and he shouted, as I think only a Primitive Methodist can, ‘Look! Look, young man! Look now!’ And I did look; and when they sang a hallelujah before they went home, in their own earnest way, I am sure I joined in it. It happened to be a day when the snow was lying deep and more was falling; so, as I went home, those words of David kept ringing through my heart, ‘Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow;’ and it seemed as if all nature was in accord with that blessed deliverance from sin which I had found in a single moment by looking to Jesus Christ.”

Somehow in a very strange and amazing way that young man looked from the depths of his soul into the very heart of God. He went out from the church, and he tells that as he walked through the streets, his burden had been lifted, never to return again. He walked with a new spring in his step, a new joy in his face, a new sense of peace in his heart. He had looked and lived.

Taken from the online Bible commentary of David Guzik at Enduring Word