Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.
–Isaiah 45:22 KJV
When the great preacher Charles Spurgeon was a teenager, he wandered into a Methodist chapel one Sunday during a snowstorm. The minister did not show up that day, so a layman got up to preach. The text that day was Isaiah 45:22: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” (KJV).
Spurgeon said the preacher read the scripture, butchering the King’s English, and then began, “This is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pains. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Ay! many on ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me.’”
Then the preacher looked down and saw Spurgeon, who was obviously uncomfortable. Sensing that the teen was going through a spiritual struggle, the preacher said, “Young man, you look very miserable, and you always will be miserable–miserable in life, and miserable in death,–if you don’t obey my text.” And lifting up his hands, the preacher said, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but to look and live.”
Spurgeon says in an instant, he quit looking at himself, and he looked to Christ for his salvation. And in that great accounting room in heaven, God took Spurgeon’s little bit of faith, and He exchanged it for righteousness.
Let me ask you the most important question of all in your life: To whom are you looking for your salvation?
The Old Testament saints looked to a future Messiah for their salvation. They looked not to their own goodness but to Christ, and their faith was exchanged for righteousness. You and I face the same choice today. Are you looking to yourself and your own goodness, or are you looking to Christ? It is one or the other. It cannot be both. Trusting in Christ and Christ alone for salvation is not just a way to be saved; it is the only way to be saved.
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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Abraham the Justified” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2009.
“C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography,” vol. 1, “1834-1854” (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1899), 105-6.
Scripture quotation taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.