“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God.” (Isaiah 44:6)
The Lord, the King of Israel, is the one God, the one Lord. He alone is the First and the Last. The gods of the nations are idols, the very teachings of demons. It is the Sovereign Lord alone who is the Beginning and the End. He, and no other, is the living God, the One who created the heavens and the earth. He declares Himself to be the First and the Last. As the Lord Himself says:
“Who has performed and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? ‘I, the Lord, am the First; and with the Last I am He.’ ” (Isaiah 41:4)
And also,
“Listen to Me, O Jacob, and Israel, My called [one]: I am He, I am the First, I am also the Last.” (Isaiah 48:12)
We want to know the almighty God. We, as trembling mortals, weak and made from the dust, are desperate to know our Creator. The Prophet Isaiah tells us that we must know Him as the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. The work of creation began with Him. At the last, it shall end with Him. Therefore, all human work is done in vain, in utter meaninglessness, even by sweat, by disciplined labor, and by our utmost exertions, if it does not begin in God (that is, by faith in His great and precious promises), advance in God (that is, by growing in holiness in its relation to Jesus Christ), and end in the love of God (which is to say, that the love of God in Christ is our only fixed end). The endeavors of every man shall be judged by fire, and all of those endeavors which shall be judged to have been pursued without the immutable truth of God and the everlasting glorification of God as their desired end shall be consumed in the fire. For, every man must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and, therefore, we, who know the terror of the Lord, seek to persuade all men [2 Corinthians 5:9-11].
My fellow pilgrims, precious saints of the churches of God, do not fear the fiery trials that are coming upon you. The world hates you, even as it first hated our Lord Jesus, but your offspring shall yet spring up as the grass, like willows by the watercourses [Isaiah 44:4]. For in your redeemed soul, Christ has been your Beginning. Therefore, after all of these purifying fires are finished, and your many labors of carrying your crosses for the sake of His name have reached their completion, Christ shall be your End. The world judges your work as poor. It derides you in your sufferings, even as it exalts those who bless themselves and praises those who do well for themselves. Yet in the end, all things shall be judged according to their relation to the eternal God, and thus the afflicted in Christ shall be blessed, but the rich shall be accursed, even as the first shall be last, and the last first.
God, the Lord, must be known as He who is the First and the Last. In this knowing of Him, we must come to know Him as He who alone possesses perfect knowledge of the ancient past, and exhaustive knowledge of the distant future:
“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God. And who can proclaim as I do? Then let him declare it and set it in order for Me, since I appointed the ancient people. And the things that are coming and shall come, let them show these to them. Do not fear, nor be afraid; have I not told you from that time, and declared it? You are My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me? Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one.’ ” Those who make an image, all of them are useless, and their precious things shall not profit; they are their own witnesses; they neither see nor know, that they may be ashamed. (Isaiah 44:6–9)
God is jealous for His own glory, and will not give His praise to wicked idols. He proves His glory, proving it against the lifeless idols of the world, by His immutable Word. The Word of our God is a living miracle, full of working power. It speaks truthfully of the most ancient past, recording the righteous preaching of Noah just prior to the destruction of all living creatures on the earth in the global flood, and telling us the true account of Moses confronting Pharaoh king of Egypt with the plagues of the God of Israel, and recounting the miracle in which the Prophet Samuel prayed for thunder and rain on the day of the wheat harvest, and the Lord sent a fear-invoking storm of thunder and rain that very day.
The Word of God also foretells the most distant future. It named Cyrus king of Persia well over a century before he was born, and foretold the piercing of Christ’s hands and feet almost a thousand years before He was crucified. Our Lord Jesus Himself foretold the destruction of Jerusalem under the Romans a full generation prior to when that great prophecy was fulfilled in true history, even as His Apostles have foretold the increase of wickedness on the earth, and the power of the saints of God being broken, just prior to the coming of the risen Lord Jesus on the clouds, with the holy angels, to judge the world in wrath, and in truth. For, the Father has appointed the Son to be the Judge of all men.
What other god can declare such truths? What idols of the nations have proclaimed such Words of divine power? Show us the carved images that have foretold such events hundreds of years in advance! Are not the idols—even today’s false gods of Buddhism and Hinduism, and the blasphemies of Islam, together with the Global-Babylonian gods of Secularism and Humanism—mere lifeless things? They are silver and gold. They are paper and ink, and theory and machine. They are icon and ideology, the work of men’s hands. “They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes they have, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear; nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them” (Psalm 135:15–18).
O dear Children of the Heavenly Kingdom, watch your souls carefully, and guard them from the deceiving signs and wonders of Antichrist. For, the world worships such a teeming multitude of idols today that they are almost too many to identify—idols of the mind, the electronic screen, the stadium, the university, the theater, the occult, the mark (even the perverse and blasphemous rainbow mark), and especially the dollar. All of these seek to blind you to the holiness of God by putting the love of the world and the fear of man between you and Christ. Yet the Lord is jealous for His own glory. Therefore, precious Children, put no trust in the false gods.
Who, then, is the true King of Israel? Who is the First and the Last, besides whom there is no other God? The preaching of the Lord Jesus began with, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Matthew 4:17). It shall end with loud voices in Heaven shouting, “The kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ! And He shall reign forever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15). At the beginning of His ministry on earth, He turned water into wine at a certain wedding feast. In the end, He shall host the whole of His redeemed saints at the great marriage supper of the Lamb. This is He, Christ Jesus, who says, at the beginning of the Apocalypse, “Do not be afraid! I am the First and the Last” (Revelation 1:17), and, then, who says, at the very end of the Apocalypse, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last” (Revelation 22:13).
O holy Church! Your Christ is the First, and He is the Last! They mocked Him and spat upon His bleeding face, when He wore those cursed thorns as His crown and was crucified in your stead. Yet He shall be glorified on earth, when He comes, even as He is glorified in Heaven. Therefore, bow before Him with joyful fear at the thought of His coming glory. For, He is First, and He shall be the Last, and besides Him, in the longings of your souls, there can be no other gods.
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
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