Verse of the Day 11/15

Isaiah 45:22  "Turn to me and be saved,

    all the ends of the earth!
    For I am God, and there is no other.  English Standard Version (ESV)

   

As we considered yesterday, where we turn in times of trouble will show who peoples "gods" are.  We believe in the one true God and as Isaiah affirms here and Peter and John affirm in Acts 4:12, " nor is there salvation in any other , for there is no other name, given among men by which we must be saved".   Through the ages, these verses have led to the salvation of many.

Carl Sagan, probably most famous for the show "Cosmos" had said,"the cosmos is all that is or was, or ever will be."   Long before Sagan came along, Charles Spurgeon was struck by this verse in Isaiah.  In a sermon on this passage he related it back to Genesis, to creation and the God who created all things.  "There was a season when as yet the sun had never run his race, nor commenced flinging his golden rays across space, to gladden the earth.  There was an era when no stars sparkled in the firmament, for there was no sea of azure in which they might float. There was a time when all that we behold now of God's great universe was yet unborn, slumbering within the mind of  God, as yet uncreated and nonexistent, yet there was God, and He was "overall and blessed forever".

In 1882 Nietsche wrote and others have espoused the the statement that god is dead and that within 100 years the Bible would be irrelevant and fade from existence.  Yet today, God's Word is more powerful, more known and more published than ever.  To take a few words from the Newsboys "God's not dead, He's surely alive, He's living on the inside roaring like a lion."

He roared like a lion from Spurgeon's sermons, He roars today from pulpits and huts across the world today calling "turn to me and be saved", and He is saving.

One thing that we as Christians know for sure that God was, God is and God ever will be.  Read the passage from The Message below, and then consider which viewpoint that you will hold to.  "So tell me what you think. Look at the evidence.   Put your heads together. Make your case."  The Message

--   In Christ,  Mike    Folllow the Verse of the Day blog at http://mikesvotd.blogspot.com  Ephesians 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,  in accordance with the riches of God's grace.  NIV    

Isaiah 45:22-24The Message (MSG)

^18-24 God, Creator of the heavens—
    he is, remember, God.
Maker of earth—
    he put it on its foundations, built it from scratch.
He didn't go to all that trouble
    to just leave it empty, nothing in it.
    He made it to be lived in.
    This God says:

"I am God,
    the one and only.
I don't just talk to myself
    or mumble under my breath.
I never told Jacob,
    'Seek me in emptiness, in dark nothingness.'
I am God. I work out in the open,
    saying what's right, setting things right.
So gather around, come on in,
    all you refugees and castoffs.
They don't seem to know much, do they—
    those who carry around their no-god blocks of wood,
    praying for help to a dead stick?
So tell me what you think. Look at the evidence.
    Put your heads together. Make your case.
Who told you, and a long time ago, what's going on here?
    Who made sense of things for you?
Wasn't I the one? God?
    It had to be me. I'm the only God there is—
The only God who does things right
    and knows how to help.
So turn to me and be helped—saved!—
    everyone, whoever and wherever you are.
I am God,
    the only God there is, the one and only.
I promise in my own name:
    Every word out of my mouth does what it says.
    I never take back what I say.
Everyone is going to end up kneeling before me.
    Everyone is going to end up saying of me,
    'Yes! Salvation and strength are in God!'"