That they may know Me and be saved

The ways of God are hard to grasp sometimes.

Why would he use the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians to punish his people, when these people were just as bad, if not worse than the Israelites?

I don’t know, but perhaps Isaiah and the people of Israel were asking the same thing, because God said to them,

Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.

Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’…

Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands?

It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts. (Isaiah 45:9, 11–12)

In other words, “I created everything. I stretched out the heavens and created all that is in it. What have you done recently? When you’ve done anything to compare, then we can talk.”

We can’t always understand the reasoning of God, but one thing that we can see is that it’s his desire that all would know him and be saved.

He makes that clear when talking about Cyrus. He basically says, “You don’t know me or acknowledge me Cyrus, but I will make you great and nations will fall before you. Why do I do this?”

So that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other…

They (the peoples you conquer) will bow down before you and plead with you, saying, ‘Surely God is with you, and there is no other; there is no other god.’ (6, 14)

By using the Persians to punish and then restore Israel, God was able to make his name great among the nations, particularly when Cyrus himself acknowledged God’s hand in all that he had done. (2 Chronicles 36:23)

And now that God had everyone’s attention, he told them,

Who foretold this long ago, who declared it from the distant past? Was it not I, the Lord?

And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me.

“Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.

By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.” (Isaiah 45:21–23)

What was God’s message to the people?

I am God. There is no other. There is no other Savior. Turn from your gods that are not even gods at all. Turn instead to me and be saved.

God’s message hasn’t changed in thousands of years. He still calls us to turn from the gods of this world, and to turn to him for our salvation.

The day will come when every knee will bow before God and every tongue will swear. What will they swear?

Paul answers that question as he quotes and expands on Isaiah 45 in Philippians 2:10–11.

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Some day everyone will confess Jesus as Lord. Some will do it with heartfelt love and awe. Others will say it grudgingly with clenched teeth. But all will confess it.

So why not confess it now before it’s too late?