There Is None Else

2006-07-11

“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:22)

God is the God of salvation because He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. God created every atom and the forces that keep them together. And because He created all and sustains all, He is mindful of all, and is in control. This verse, in Isaiah, is an invitation for even the far off parts of the world to trust in Him. The Lord is not a tribal deity as the gods of the ancient Near East were. Since He is creator and Lord of all, the entire creation needs to look to Him in faith.

Therefore, it is no surprise when Jesus tells His disciples that He is the way, the truth, and the life and that He is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). The eternal, invisible God stepped into time showing Himself to the world to fulfill this invitation in Isaiah to trust in Him.

One may ask, “to be saved from what?” We need to be saved from our sin and the judgment God will pronounce on it. God is holy and perfect, and imperfection cannot enter His presence. The phrase, “nobody’s perfect” should remind us of who we are before God; we must look to Him and trust in Him. When we trust in the death of Jesus as payment for our sin and His resurrection from the dead, we can count on His promise of eternal life. Look to Him, and you will be saved, all of you. For Jesus is the only Lord, and there is no one else like Him.

“For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matthew 24:24).

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

When I look back through the years, I have confronted many types of people. Several years ago, I had attempted to share Christ with a professor of biology. In the latter case, he mentioned that he knew a Christian and the major changes he saw in this person since he came to believe. His conclusion, however, was that it was somehow genetic. People come with all kinds of perceptions of who they think Jesus is. Most everyone has come in contact with who Jesus is and has drawn some kind of conclusion about Him. You and I all perceive something about Him.

When I was young, at the age of fifteen, I believed that there was one God and that behind the visible world operated a complex supernatural system. I had some ideas that were confirmed in the Bible, and others that I had fabricated myself. But I had only heard the name Jesus, and remembered only a few things from church when I was little. When people began to share with me who Christ is, I knew there was something special about Him, but Jesus was still not the focus of my faith. I heard sermons on the Strait Gate, and other topics in following years, but Jesus had to show me that He is the only One. I had gone along the smorgasbord of world history to choose various religious doctrines, but I was confronted with a painful reality that I had failed in trying to reach God on my own account in the mid-nineties. Just because I made opinions about who Jesus was (another figure in the pantheon of religious history) does not make those opinions facts. This is a big hurdle for Americans, because we vote for this candidate or that referendum. Opinions are not facts, and the majority rule does not determine Truth. Opinions are what they are: opinions. But here is the Truth: that all of humankind has rebelled against God, and Jesus came to take that sin away by dying on the cross and taking the burden of God’s wrath on His shoulders. He then rose from the dead. Once we trust in Him, we share in the resurrection of the dead at the end of the age, to share eternity with God. This is true because God promised this would happen centuries in advance on a myriad of occasions in the Law and the Prophets.

The truth is I have tried to walk away from Jesus so many times since I came to a saving knowledge of Him. Within a year, I was seeking non-Christian girlfriends and was angry at God because all of them rejected me in a short period of time. I never thought that perhaps God was trying to tell me something in all of this. I was trying to find fulfillment in sports, and later, academic exercise. Over and over again, I thought other things could replace Jesus. As a senior in college, shortly after I had read through the Bible for the first time, I was so filled with myself I threw most people out of my life and tried to be absorbed in my own affairs, only to lose friends I had known for years. Yet it was Jesus who came back to me, over and over again, forgiving me for sins and proclaiming once again: I AM the only One.

Wherever you are, my friends, Jesus is calling you to the next level. If you do not know Jesus as your personal Savior, then you need to trust in Him. If you are a new believer, then He wants you to know Him on a deeper level. If you are burned out and tired of the same routine, than Jesus wants you to go on an adventure of Faith with Him. And the first step is to talk to Jesus and tell Him your need to trust in Him: His work on the cross and His rising from the dead.