‘Turn to Me and Be Saved’ God Pleads

“Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations!  They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save.  Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together!  Who told this long ago?  Who declared it of old?  Was it not I, the Lord?  And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior, there is none besides me.  Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!  For I am God, and there is no other.  By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return:  To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.”-Isaiah 45:20-23 (ESV).

This compelling  passage in Isaiah is predictive prophecy.  In chapter 45 of Isaiah, the prophet is forthseeing that Cyrus, king of Persia, will conquer Babylon where the Israelites were in bondage and exile.  The prophecy was written years before the actual historical events predicted.  Isaiah began to prophesy in 740 B. C., the year that the honored and aged good King Uzziah died as recorded in Isaiah 6.  Cyrus began to rule in Medio-Persia about 550 B. C.  His famous decree which we read about in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23 and Ezra 1:1-4 set the captives in Babylon free to return to their own countries.  Among them were the exiled Israelites.  By the best computation of history, this restoration occurred in the year 539 B. C.  They had been taken captive in 587 B. C.  The Israelites were allowed to return to rebuild the Temple and the city of Jerusalem.  Cyrus also restored some of the treasures of the Temple taken in exile.  Ironically, some of the Jews, who had fared rather well in Babylonian captivity, did not want to return to war-ravaged Judah.  From those staying in Babylon, Cyrus exacted a tax to help finance the return and the rebuilding.

In today’s focus passage, Isaiah 45: 20-23, Isaiah is consoling his discouraged people in exile.  He first asks them to assemble together to hear the word of the Lord.  It is important for believers to assemble.  Hebrews 10:25 admonishes that we should not “forsake the assembling of ourselves together...and so much so as you see the day (of the Lord) approaching.”Isaiah reminded the exiles that the people who worshiped ‘wooden idols’ had no knowledge of the true God and those they called gods could not save.  “There is none beside me” declares God, “a righteous God and a Savior” (v. 21).  But notice the invitation extended through Isaiah from the one true God:  “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!...To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.” (vv. 22, 23)

Josephus, Jewish historian in his Jewish Antiquities, 11:5-7)  records that when Cyrus the king became cognizant of the prophecy written by Isaiah years before his reign began, he was very strongly impressed to follow the prophecy and fulfill it.  In the providence of God, a pagan emperor became the “shepherd” of the Israelites and allowed them to be restored to their land.  “I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me.  I am the Lord, and there is no other.”  (Isaiah 45:5b-6).  We stand, centuries later, in a troubled time in our own nation.  Many deny the sovereignty of God and want vestiges of “one nation under God,” and “in God we trust” removed from usage.  What hope does the predictive prophecy of Isaiah hold for us today who see our nation departing from its stand as a nation “blessed…whose God is the Lord”? (Psalm 33:12).  As Isaiah of old tried to encourage his people and remind them of God’s promises, so we need a major return to the God who holds all nations within His own power.  We cannot forget God  and His statutes and principles.  In every age and nation they hold true.  We know for surety that one day “every knee shall bow and every tongue swear allegiance” to God.  Until that “terrible day of the Lord” when He pours out His judgment, we still have opportunity to turn to Him in confession and allegiance.  The plea made by Isaiah in his day is a paean cry for our day:  “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!  For I am God, and there is no other”  (Isaiah 45:22).