Isaiah 45:22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
In Great Britain more than 150 years ago, a very troubled young man walked into a church service. A layman was preaching that night from Isaiah 45:22, which says, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” That young man did look that night. He trusted the Lord Jesus to save him, and Charles Spurgeon grew to become a pastor who was greatly influential in Great Britain and in the world.
Charles Spurgeon was saved because he realized there is but one God, that God has given us but one Son, and that there is but one way of salvation. That way is God’s way. Today, if you impress upon the average American their need for the Lord Jesus, they are not as bound to ask for evidence or proof as they are to say, “Well, that is good for you. This is good for me.” Today, everything is true, which means that nothing is true. We want a God that we can limit. We feel that if we can limit God, then we can limit our obligations to Him.
Isaiah 45 is a passage that reminds us that God is transcendent. He is bigger than us and He is beyond us. In verses 9-10 God says, “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!” Striving with our Creator makes about as much sense as a piece of pottery arguing with the potter about what the potter is making. Arguing with God doesn’t make sense because our relationship to Him is creation to Creator. There is a Creator. There is a cause for this universe. God “created it not in vain.” God also did not create Israel in vain. In other words, there was a reason God made this world and a reason God made Israel.
So, God transcends. God transcends time. There is a prophecy that was given many, many years before it was fulfilled of Cyrus, the first great Persian king, who would conquer Babylon. The Bible says, “Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him.” Cyrus did not know God, but God knew Cyrus. Many generations before Cyrus came on the scene, God was prophesying of him and of what would happen because of his reign.
Many times God says, “There is no God beside Me… who hath declared this from ancient time?” In other words, who can prophesy the future before it happens? That refrain is found many times throughout the book of Isaiah, and the answer is that no one but God can do that. He transcends time. God not is old-fashioned or new-fangled; God is timeless.
God transcends our understanding. In verses 3-5 God basically says, “Cyrus doesn’t know Me, but I know him.” He continues, “I am the LORD…there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.” God is saying that, essentially, God knew Cyrus whether or not Cyrus knew or understood God. God transcends our understanding of Him. I don’t understand God, but God thoroughly knows me.
God transcends geography. In verse 6 God says, “That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.” The entire weight of this passage is that God is not just some little providential god ruling some little country. He is the God of the world. He is not merely America’s God or Great Britain’s God. God transcends geography.
God transcends race. In verse 14, God is looking ahead to a time when the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Sabeans, and others would come in submission to Cyrus and they would say, “Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God.” I think this is foreshadowing something greater, but the bottom line is that there is none else, no other God. Whether you are an Egyptian, Ethiopian, Persian, or an American, God Almighty transcends race.
The good thing about this is that God not only has call over my life, He has care of my life. Regardless of what day you live in, how much you understand, where you live, or what your race, God loves you. God sent His ultimate Servant, the Messiah, for you, and God transcends any problem and shortcoming you have because God is transcendant.