Turn To The Lord And Be Saved
Text: Isaiah 45:22-25
22 Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
23 I have sworn by myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not return, that to me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear.
24 One will say about me, “Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength.” To him men will come. But all who were angry with him will be ashamed.
25 In the Lord all the descendants of Israel will be righteous and will glory.
Sermon:
Two men were caught in the path of an on-coming storm. One accepted a flight in a helicopter to safety and his life was saved. The other rejected the offer and perished. Which was wise and which was foolish? Wasn’t the one who accepted the flight and had his life saved wise? Wasn’t the one who rejected the offer and perished foolish?
There are two courses a person can take: the path of wisdom or the path of foolishness; the way of life or the way of death. One of two paths lies before us as well -- the path of wisdom and the way of life, or the path of foolishness and the way of death. Either we turn to Christ to be saved, or we reject him to be condemned.
The Lord says: “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” If someone sent you a card that said: “Come to our wedding reception to rejoice with us over dinner and in dancing,” what would you call that? Or, what would you call the offer made to the two men to climb on board the helicopter to fly to safety? Wouldn’t you call it an invitation? What, then, is the Lord’s Word, “Turn to me and be saved?” Isn’t this an invitation as well?
The Lord extends this invitation to “all the ends of the earth,” to everyone in the world. He closes his invitation by saying to all, “For I am God, and there is no other.” We might compare the Lord’s disclosure of his identity at the end of his invitation to the signature at the end of a wedding invitation that was signed, “The President of the United States,” or “The Governor of the State of Wisconsin.” Such a signature says, “Hey! This invitation is from a very special, distinguished person, who desires your presence and whom you cannot afford to offend.” Likewise, the Lord’s invitation impresses upon us that we cannot afford to ignore it, because it comes from the Lord, the Almighty God of heaven and earth himself.
The Lord invites us all to turn to him to be saved. What does it mean to turn to him? How did Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ? How did Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons, turn to him? How did the prostitutes and those who were called “sinners” turn to the Lord Jesus? They all repented of their sins and believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins and eternal salvation. In like manner, the Lord’s invitation to turn to him and be saved invites us to repent of our sins and to believe in him for our forgiveness and eternal salvation.
To his invitation to turn to him the Lord attaches the promise of being saved. Saved from what? From what the rich man in Jesus' story ended up suffering in hell -- torment, agony, and a horrible thirst in the burning fires. No pity was shown to him. He was left to suffer the torments of hell forever afterward. Such a horrible state of suffering is what the Lord promises he will save us from when we turn to him with penitent, believing hearts.
Like that rich man, don’t we also deserve to suffer the torments of hell? Have we not failed to love the Lord above all at all times and to make him and his Word first in our hearts, as he has commanded us to do? Have we not, as the Lord’s Word states, gone astray, each of us in our own way, turning from the Lord to pursue our own evil desires? If we don’t think so, we need only recall the last time our tongue lashed out against someone in our own family. Or, we need only recall the last time we passed by the opportunity to help the poor on our way to spend money on ourselves to obtain the desires of our heart. Since the Lord has said in Psalm 5 that he hates the sinner and no one who does evil can dwell with him, he is saying that because of our sins we cannot dwell with him in heaven but we must be condemned to hell with the rich man.
So let’s take the path of wisdom and the way of life by turning to the Lord, for he promises to save us. To save us is why Christ, the Lord, was born into this world. Consider what Hebrews 2: 14, 15 tell us: “Since, then, the children have shared in and continue to share in flesh and blood, he himself also in just the same way partook of the same human characteristics, in order that by means of death he might deprive of his power the one who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and release all those who were subject to slavery by the fear of death throughout all their lives.” Jesus had to become like us in every way, in order that he might become our merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that being such, he might make atonement for our sins with his death. Having been born into this world, Christ our Lord went to the cross, where he gave his life as the sacrifice to redeem us, and he shed his blood to cover our sins, in order to calm God’s intense anger against us and our sins. So let’s turn to him, the Lord Jesus Christ, with penitent, believing hearts that we may be saved from the torments of hell.
There are but two kinds of responses that can be given to the Lord’s invitation to turn to him and be saved: acceptance or rejection. Acceptance is the path of wisdom and the way of life. Rejection is the path of foolishness and the way of death. There are, then, but two kinds of people in this world. The wise and the foolish. The living and the dead. The converted believer and the unconverted unbeliever.
Both kinds will face the Lord in the day of judgment. The Lord says: “I have sworn by myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not return, that to me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear.” On the day of judgment all people will swear with a conviction of heart that the Lord is God. All will acknowledge Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
On that day of judgment the converted, who did turn to the Lord with penitent, believing hearts will say: “Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength.” By nature and in deed the converted are sinners, who have no righteousness of their own. In the Lord, however, they have a righteousness that delivers them from hell and enables them to enter heaven. They have the righteousness that Paul spoke of, who wrote there is “a righteousness from God by means of faith in Jesus Christ, for all those who believe.” The Book of Romans states that our faith is credited to us as righteousness and that God credits righteousness to all who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. This being true, we would do well to follow the path of wisdom and the way of life, which is believing in the Lord Jesus, so we also have righteousness and salvation from God in Jesus.
On the day of judgment the converted will also swear about the Lord that in him they have strength. What strength have they had in the Lord? Since no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit, clearly they have the strength of the Holy Spirit, whose mighty power had been working faith in their hearts through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit’s working faith in our hearts, we who have been converted to believe in Jesus will swear on the day of judgment: “In the Lord is strength.”
On the day of judgment we converted believers will be found righteous and will glory in the Lord. Not so the unconverted. Their end will be far different. This is what the Lord says about them: “But all who were angry with him will be ashamed.”
The unconverted were angry with the Lord during their lives, like the child who rages and fumes with his parents when he is told to do what he does not want to do and hates doing. The unconverted were angry and raged against the Lord, because their sinful nature is hostile toward God. First Corinthians 2:14 states: “But the man without the Spirit does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually distinguished.” Thus the Lord’s invitation to turn to him and the preaching of Christ for their salvation is foolishness to the unconverted, natural people of this world. Speaking of how the unconverted rage against the Lord, Psalm 2 states: “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his Messiah: ‘Let us tear off their chains, and let us cast away their ropes from us.' He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord mocks at them. Then he will speak to them in his anger, and will terrify them in his wrath.”
In the day of judgment the Lord puts them to shame. They rejected his invitation to turn to him and be saved. They rejected the Lord Jesus Christ who lived and died to save them. They offended the Lord’s generosity and gracious invitation to be saved, so he puts them to shame in turn. He condemns them. He makes them forever bear their personal shame for having rejected his invitation to be saved through Christ their Savior. He makes them remember the opportunity they had to be saved but wasted. He makes them bear the memories of the shameful pursuits they followed during their lives instead of turning to him. He makes them bear seeing from hell the believers being with the Lord and his glorious church in heaven, while they bear the shame of burning with the devil, the demons, murderers, liars, perverts, and every kind of wicked person in the torments of hell. He makes them bear seeing the saints righteous and glorified in heaven while they are confirmed in their sinful state and their bodies bear the disgusting marks of their sins forever.
Surely we do not want to end up being put to shame in hell with the unconverted. Their end was the path of foolishness and the way of death. So now is the time for us to accept the Lord’s invitation to turn to him and be saved. Now is the time for us to take the path of wisdom and the way of life through faith in Christ Jesus, whose teaching summarized the meaning of this text: “The one who believed and was baptized will be saved; but the one who did not believe will be condemned.”
Amen.
22 Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
23 I have sworn by myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not return, that to me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear.
24 One will say about me, “Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength.” To him men will come. But all who were angry with him will be ashamed.
25 In the Lord all the descendants of Israel will be righteous and will glory.
Sermon:
Two men were caught in the path of an on-coming storm. One accepted a flight in a helicopter to safety and his life was saved. The other rejected the offer and perished. Which was wise and which was foolish? Wasn’t the one who accepted the flight and had his life saved wise? Wasn’t the one who rejected the offer and perished foolish?
There are two courses a person can take: the path of wisdom or the path of foolishness; the way of life or the way of death. One of two paths lies before us as well -- the path of wisdom and the way of life, or the path of foolishness and the way of death. Either we turn to Christ to be saved, or we reject him to be condemned.
The Lord says: “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” If someone sent you a card that said: “Come to our wedding reception to rejoice with us over dinner and in dancing,” what would you call that? Or, what would you call the offer made to the two men to climb on board the helicopter to fly to safety? Wouldn’t you call it an invitation? What, then, is the Lord’s Word, “Turn to me and be saved?” Isn’t this an invitation as well?
The Lord extends this invitation to “all the ends of the earth,” to everyone in the world. He closes his invitation by saying to all, “For I am God, and there is no other.” We might compare the Lord’s disclosure of his identity at the end of his invitation to the signature at the end of a wedding invitation that was signed, “The President of the United States,” or “The Governor of the State of Wisconsin.” Such a signature says, “Hey! This invitation is from a very special, distinguished person, who desires your presence and whom you cannot afford to offend.” Likewise, the Lord’s invitation impresses upon us that we cannot afford to ignore it, because it comes from the Lord, the Almighty God of heaven and earth himself.
The Lord invites us all to turn to him to be saved. What does it mean to turn to him? How did Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ? How did Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons, turn to him? How did the prostitutes and those who were called “sinners” turn to the Lord Jesus? They all repented of their sins and believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins and eternal salvation. In like manner, the Lord’s invitation to turn to him and be saved invites us to repent of our sins and to believe in him for our forgiveness and eternal salvation.
To his invitation to turn to him the Lord attaches the promise of being saved. Saved from what? From what the rich man in Jesus' story ended up suffering in hell -- torment, agony, and a horrible thirst in the burning fires. No pity was shown to him. He was left to suffer the torments of hell forever afterward. Such a horrible state of suffering is what the Lord promises he will save us from when we turn to him with penitent, believing hearts.
Like that rich man, don’t we also deserve to suffer the torments of hell? Have we not failed to love the Lord above all at all times and to make him and his Word first in our hearts, as he has commanded us to do? Have we not, as the Lord’s Word states, gone astray, each of us in our own way, turning from the Lord to pursue our own evil desires? If we don’t think so, we need only recall the last time our tongue lashed out against someone in our own family. Or, we need only recall the last time we passed by the opportunity to help the poor on our way to spend money on ourselves to obtain the desires of our heart. Since the Lord has said in Psalm 5 that he hates the sinner and no one who does evil can dwell with him, he is saying that because of our sins we cannot dwell with him in heaven but we must be condemned to hell with the rich man.
So let’s take the path of wisdom and the way of life by turning to the Lord, for he promises to save us. To save us is why Christ, the Lord, was born into this world. Consider what Hebrews 2: 14, 15 tell us: “Since, then, the children have shared in and continue to share in flesh and blood, he himself also in just the same way partook of the same human characteristics, in order that by means of death he might deprive of his power the one who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and release all those who were subject to slavery by the fear of death throughout all their lives.” Jesus had to become like us in every way, in order that he might become our merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that being such, he might make atonement for our sins with his death. Having been born into this world, Christ our Lord went to the cross, where he gave his life as the sacrifice to redeem us, and he shed his blood to cover our sins, in order to calm God’s intense anger against us and our sins. So let’s turn to him, the Lord Jesus Christ, with penitent, believing hearts that we may be saved from the torments of hell.
There are but two kinds of responses that can be given to the Lord’s invitation to turn to him and be saved: acceptance or rejection. Acceptance is the path of wisdom and the way of life. Rejection is the path of foolishness and the way of death. There are, then, but two kinds of people in this world. The wise and the foolish. The living and the dead. The converted believer and the unconverted unbeliever.
Both kinds will face the Lord in the day of judgment. The Lord says: “I have sworn by myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not return, that to me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear.” On the day of judgment all people will swear with a conviction of heart that the Lord is God. All will acknowledge Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
On that day of judgment the converted, who did turn to the Lord with penitent, believing hearts will say: “Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength.” By nature and in deed the converted are sinners, who have no righteousness of their own. In the Lord, however, they have a righteousness that delivers them from hell and enables them to enter heaven. They have the righteousness that Paul spoke of, who wrote there is “a righteousness from God by means of faith in Jesus Christ, for all those who believe.” The Book of Romans states that our faith is credited to us as righteousness and that God credits righteousness to all who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. This being true, we would do well to follow the path of wisdom and the way of life, which is believing in the Lord Jesus, so we also have righteousness and salvation from God in Jesus.
On the day of judgment the converted will also swear about the Lord that in him they have strength. What strength have they had in the Lord? Since no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit, clearly they have the strength of the Holy Spirit, whose mighty power had been working faith in their hearts through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit’s working faith in our hearts, we who have been converted to believe in Jesus will swear on the day of judgment: “In the Lord is strength.”
On the day of judgment we converted believers will be found righteous and will glory in the Lord. Not so the unconverted. Their end will be far different. This is what the Lord says about them: “But all who were angry with him will be ashamed.”
The unconverted were angry with the Lord during their lives, like the child who rages and fumes with his parents when he is told to do what he does not want to do and hates doing. The unconverted were angry and raged against the Lord, because their sinful nature is hostile toward God. First Corinthians 2:14 states: “But the man without the Spirit does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually distinguished.” Thus the Lord’s invitation to turn to him and the preaching of Christ for their salvation is foolishness to the unconverted, natural people of this world. Speaking of how the unconverted rage against the Lord, Psalm 2 states: “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his Messiah: ‘Let us tear off their chains, and let us cast away their ropes from us.' He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord mocks at them. Then he will speak to them in his anger, and will terrify them in his wrath.”
In the day of judgment the Lord puts them to shame. They rejected his invitation to turn to him and be saved. They rejected the Lord Jesus Christ who lived and died to save them. They offended the Lord’s generosity and gracious invitation to be saved, so he puts them to shame in turn. He condemns them. He makes them forever bear their personal shame for having rejected his invitation to be saved through Christ their Savior. He makes them remember the opportunity they had to be saved but wasted. He makes them bear the memories of the shameful pursuits they followed during their lives instead of turning to him. He makes them bear seeing from hell the believers being with the Lord and his glorious church in heaven, while they bear the shame of burning with the devil, the demons, murderers, liars, perverts, and every kind of wicked person in the torments of hell. He makes them bear seeing the saints righteous and glorified in heaven while they are confirmed in their sinful state and their bodies bear the disgusting marks of their sins forever.
Surely we do not want to end up being put to shame in hell with the unconverted. Their end was the path of foolishness and the way of death. So now is the time for us to accept the Lord’s invitation to turn to him and be saved. Now is the time for us to take the path of wisdom and the way of life through faith in Christ Jesus, whose teaching summarized the meaning of this text: “The one who believed and was baptized will be saved; but the one who did not believe will be condemned.”
Amen.
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