It’s perhaps a little hard to believe but this is the last Sunday before Advent. Next Sunday is the beginning of the Advent season and so we are wrapping up this short series looking at the subject of revival, although we will return to the theme in other ways in the new year. And rather than looking at some additional aspect of the subject that we’ve not addressed so far, I thought it important before we move on from the subject of awakening and revival, to hear the direct call of God to come to Him to be revived and to be renewed and to be delivered.
And so to that end, would you take your Bibles, your own Bibles in hand, and turn with me to Isaiah 55. Or if you don’t have your copy of the Scriptures with you, you can find the passage printed in the bulletins. Isaiah 55. As we consider the teaching of what I suspect will be a familiar chapter to many of you, I want you to see four things with me. First of all, an urgent invitation. You can see it in verses 1 through 3 and in verses 6 and 7. God summons us to come to Him or to come back to Him. An urgent invitation. Then secondly, a precious promise – verses 2 through 5; verses 7 through 9. It’s the promise of a full and free and comprehensive salvation. An urgent invitation. A precious promise. Thirdly, a mighty method that God will use to accomplish His work in our hearts in verses 10 and 11. How will He fulfill His promise? By what means will He bring us into possession of it? He will do it by His effective Word. An urgent invitation. A precious promise. A mighty method. Finally, verses 12 and 13, the glorious destiny into which God will draw His people one day.
Okay, so there’s the outline. Do you see it? An urgent invitation. A precious promise. A mighty method. A glorious destiny. Before we get into all of that, let’s pause and pray and then we’ll consider the Word of God together. Let us pray.
O God, there are so many voices clamoring for our attention, within and without. Give us now ears to hear what Your Spirit is saying to the Church, for Jesus’ sake we pray. Amen.
Isaiah 55 at verse 1. This is the Word of Almighty God:
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy and inerrant Word.
An Urgent Invitation
Let’s think first of all about the urgent invitation with which our passage opens. Look at verses 1 through 3. “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” The threefold repetition of the invitation from God to “come” is a device used to build intensity. This is a pressing summons, a pressing invitation. At the end of verse 2 and in verse 3, the invitation is repeated three more times, though the imperative this time is to “listen” or “incline your ear” or “hear.” Actually, scholars think Isaiah is mimicking the cries of street vendors in these opening verses to “come” and to “buy.”
I remember as a teenager being on vacation with my family in Barcelona in Spain one summer evening, walking down Las Ramblas, this beautiful tree-lined boulevard, and I had to fend off a veritable army of street vendors. They were all hawking their wares. They were not shy, reserved, introverted types, you know, with a gentle smile in a stall and an invitation and they stayed behind their tables. Not at all. They were in your face, pushing arms filled with fake Rolexes and bootleg CDs, telling you how cheap and excellent their wares were. And they were most insistent.
In Isaiah’s oracle here, God is speaking to us in the voice of a street vendor, only He’s not selling cheap, imitation luxuries. He’s actually selling vital, daily necessities. Isn’t He? Do you see that in the text? In the hot, dusty climate of Isaiah’s place and time, vendors actually would sell clean, cool water; they would sell wine and milk. And of course the difference between those vendors and the living God is that the vendors on the street corners are motivated by self-interest, by a concern to make a profit. That’s what gave their cries urgency and insistence. But God is motivated by His interest for our eternal welfare. And all His urgency is shaped by that one overriding concern. But there is still this same pleading, urgent, insistent tone in these verses. Isn’t there? “Come, come, listen to Me. Incline your ear; hear Me.” Actually the verb in verse 3 translated “incline your ear,” is picturesque; it’s colorful. It means, literally, “stretch your ear.” It evokes this sense of straining to hear because the message is so urgent you don’t want to miss a single syllable of it.
And the problem God is addressing with this urgent invitation, the reason it’s so urgent, is clear enough to see in the passage, isn’t it? Look at verse 2. “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” Isn’t that exactly how we all live, even when we know better sometimes? We still default to this, don’t we? We have this basic, hard to shake notion that soul satisfaction, living water, is something we can obtain by our own ingenuity. We turn to romance and then to family, and to money and to reputation, and then to sinful passions, and then and then and then only to find that the sex and the greed and the power and the attempts to keep up appearances and all of the things we thought would satisfy us are nothing more than spiritual junk food. They will fill you up for a while, but they will spoil your appetite and shatter the health of your soul. Where’s the logic in that? That’s what’s behind the question of verse 2. Where is your logic in that? What are you doing? Why are you pouring yourself – your time, your money, your labor – to get all that stuff? Some of it’s good in itself, some of it is elicit and sinful in itself, but none of it can save you. None of it can satisfy you. So often we’re like hamsters in a wheel, aren’t we – chasing what we could never catch. “What possible logic do you have,” God is asking, “for choosing sin that can never nourish nor satisfy?” And yet we keep doing it, don’t we? We keep pursuing it.
But look at the text. In contrast, the offer that God is making is wonderful. Notice, first of all, God’s offer is free. Verse 1, “He who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” The repetition of the call to buy is intriguing there, isn’t it? How do you buy without money and without price? How do you buy what costs nothing? Listen to Alec Motyer and his commentary on the passage. This, I think, is absolutely right on. He says this. “The thought of purchase is not set aside, even though the gift is free. The thought of purchase is not set aside. This is no soup kitchen, even if the clients are beggars. There is a purchase and a price, though not theirs to pay. They bring their poverty to a transaction already completed.” They bring their poverty to a transaction already completed. In the context, in chapters 54 and 55, these two chapters are designed to spell out the consequences of chapter 53. And you know what chapter 53 is, of course. It focuses on the work of God’s suffering servant, the Lord Jesus Christ.
There’s a Starbucks near my house and I’ll often go there to pick up coffee. I don’t drink coffee, but my wife does, and I’ll pick up coffee for her from time to time. And a couple of times recently when I’ve pulled up to the drive-thru window I’ve discovered that the person in the car in front has paid for my order. Has that happened to you sometimes? It’s lovely when it happens. There’s still a transaction, still a price to be paid, but not by me. I buy without money and without price.
So here’s the point. I hope you can see it. The Gospel is not free. Pardon is not free. Soul satisfaction is not free. But in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has already paid in advance in full at the cross in the suffering of His Son. He has purchased everything, everything your heart needs. It’s free to you now because it costs Him everything. The spiritual junk food on which we spend our labor trying to glut our heart hunger – that will cost us, Isaiah says. If we’re not careful, it will cost us our never-dying souls. But the Gospel offers satisfaction, rest, mercy, for free; without money and without price. Stop running after what you can only find in Jesus Christ. That’s Isaiah’s argument. “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest,” Jesus says. “Come, by wine and milk, without money and without price,” God says. You’ve been looking everywhere else, perhaps, pursuing everything else, perhaps. Nothing else will satisfy. Only Jesus. Come to Him. That’s a free offer.
Notice it’s also a universal offer. Who is invited to come? What does the text say? “Come, everyone who thirsts.” Now a little bit of caution is in order at this point. Isaiah is not saying only the thirsty are allowed to come. God is not saying here, “I’m only talking to the thirsty and that is only some of you.” When Jesus said, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” He wasn’t saying, “Only those who feel sufficiently deeply the weariness and heaviness of life without Me are warranted or entitled to come to Me.” That’s not the message. Neither Isaiah nor Christ are imposing conditions upon us as if we had to qualify in order to come to believe in Jesus by feeling deeply enough a desperate soul thirst or a profound world weariness. No, Isaiah is saying, rather, Jesus is saying, rather, everyone is thirsty whether they realize it about themselves or not. “So come and drink what you most desperately need by coming to Me.” Jesus is saying, “Everyone is weary and heavy laden, whether they understand it or not, so come and find your rest in Me.” Sin will leave your soul parched and dry. Sin will burden your soul, burden your heart. You are weary and heavy laden. That is the universal human experience. So the offer, the invitation to come find relief, is equally universal. The prophet is telling us that all sinners have a right to come to Christ. All sinners are entitled to come. All sinners are called and invited to come.
Are you a sinner? Put your hand up if you’re excluded from that class and category of human being – sinner. If you’re a sinner, you have a right, you are entitled, you are invited, you must come to Christ. You are being called. So come and eat. Come and drink Him in. Come and be satisfied. Come and rest. Come and live.
Have you ever heard of Shrek the sheep? Shrek the sheep – have you heard of him? He was a merino sheep from New Zealand who became famous for managing to escape his annual shearing by hiding out in the caves for six straight years in a row. He was determined, apparently, to avoid his shepherds, which he did quite successfully, although he must have been miserable as a result. You see, the average merino sheep’s fleece weighs about ten pounds. When Shrek was finally caught and shorn, his gigantic fleece weighed ten times that. It contained enough wool to make twenty large men’s suits.
Friends, if you have been avoiding Jesus, the Good Shepherd, the weight you are carrying is intolerable. And He says to you this morning, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Isn’t it time to come get rid of your burden?
Well how do I do that? Suppose I see I am being invited to come to Jesus, I know that I need Him and I want Him – how do I get Him? How do I come? Look down at verses 6 and 7. “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him.” Here’s what Isaiah is asking you to do. He wants you to turn to Christ and to turn from sin and self. Seek the Lord. Call on Him. Return to the Lord. Turn to Christ. And “let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts.” Turn from all your foolish attempts to find what you really need anywhere else other than in Him. Repent. That’s what it means. And believe. Trust in Jesus, wholly and without reserve. Entrust yourself to Him. Give up the pursuit of your sinful pleasures. Give up the empty, formal religion you use to salve your conscience. Give up your self-reliance. Give it up. Forsake your way and seek the Lord. Call on Him. That’s what the text says. Cry to Him. Ask Him for mercy.
Have you done that? Have you asked Him for mercy? “Lord Jesus, I’m sorry. I’m guilty and I’m done now pretending before You and pretending, lying to myself, about my sin. I know I can’t fix it; I know I can’t change it. When I try to drown it out and fill my life with worldly pleasures, I’m left more empty at the end that I was at the beginning. O Lord Jesus, forgive me. Fill me. Lord Jesus, satisfy me. Lord Jesus, I need You. Save me!” Have you prayed like that? Have you? If not, today’s the day. Right now; now’s the time. Call on Him. He will have compassion. Drink and live, He says. Believe. Trust Me. I will rescue you. So there’s an urgent invitation, isn’t there?
A Precious Promise
Secondly, there’s a precious promise. It’s expressed in different ways in the text. Verse 2, those who come to Christ eat what is good and delight themselves in rich food. In verse 3, those who hear and come to Christ live. And God, we’re told, will make an everlasting covenant with them. He will lavish on them His steadfast, sure love for David. And that expression, “the sure love of God for David,” is worth pausing over for just a moment. Most scholars agree it’s actually a reference to God’s covenant promise made with King David – 2 Samuel chapter 7 – that his seed, his son, would reign on his throne forever one day. And so they say, the scholars, the commentators, they say verses 4 and 5 are actually talking about David’s heir, David’s son. Verse 4 tells us that God has appointed David’s son to be the King of kings. And verse 5 speaks to David’s son directly, indicating that people from all the nations will one day be drawn to Him. They will run to Him because of the Lord your God, because of His holy one, because He has glorified you. David’s son has been glorified.
The promise of life to us was bought and paid for by Jesus Christ, David’s son. And now this same Son reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords, having been raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God, and it is His now to give eternal life to us. The covenant love of God is His to bestow. God’s steadfast, sure love for David. The nail-pierced hands – listen – the nail-pierced hands of our glorified Savior, are the hands that dispense the mercy we need. When verse 7 calls us to repent and turn to the Lord, it says we should do it that He might have compassion on us, that He will abundantly pardon. Here’s how you can know for sure that He will when you come to Him. It is the same Christ you must go to for soul satisfaction who spread the banquet at His own expense. It’s the same Jesus who dispenses the pardon of God for you who died to provide it. The love that nailed Him to the cross is the same love that marks and characterizes His reign from heaven’s throne. Get yourself to Jesus Christ today. He will have compassion. He will abundantly pardon. “Why spend money on what does not satisfy?” Why hang back? Why keep Him at arm’s length? Why delay the loving heart of Christ that was pierced at Calvary for you – now beats incessantly with love for you still. There’s an urgent invitation. There is a precious promise – full, free, pardon and mercy in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
A Mighty Method
Thirdly, notice God uses a mighty method. Verses 10 and 11. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” In the agrarian economy Isaiah inhabited, the image of rain nourishing the soul and producing a harvest and seed for the farmer to sow for next year’s crop, that was an incredibly important image. It was the one vital necessity. And if the rain failed one year, the crops failed. People starved. But when the rains came, a good harvest was assured. “My word is like the rain that falls,” God is saying. “The promise of mercy and pardon and salvation and satisfaction that I am making to you is like that. It will never fail to produce a harvest. It shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and it shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
You’re listening to the reading and the preaching of God’s Word and maybe it’s pulling at you a little. It’s stirring your heart to act, to respond. You’re being drawn to answer the summons and invitation but there’s still a nagging voice in the back of your mind that wonders whether it’s all just talk, just rhetoric, just words. Well here’s the difference. Here’s the difference between the preaching of the Gospel and all the pundits and the politicians and the talking heads out there who are vying every day for your attention, who promise the world and scarcely ever deliver. This is the Word of the living God. It is the voice of Jesus Christ. “He speaks, and listening to His voice, new life the dead receive. The mournful, broken hearts rejoice; the humble poor believe.” He says, “Let there be light,” and there is light. He says, “Lazarus, come forth,” and he comes alive from the tomb. And when He says to you, “Come to me and I’ll give you rest,” He will give you rest. When He says, “Come, buy and eat, without money and without price and be satisfied,” He will nourish your heart; He will satisfy your soul. An urgent invitation. A precious promise. A mighty, reliable, effective method – the Word of God.
A Glorious Destiny
And finally, a glorious destiny. What’s waiting for you if you embrace the call to life here? Suppose you have been wandering away from Jesus and He’s calling you back this morning? Suppose you’ve never really come to Him at all, but today at last you have, as He’s called you. What will the final outcome of that decision to come to Christ really be? Well look at verses 11 and 12. “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” The joy that you will taste here when you believe the Gospel will one day be full. That’s what he’s saying. The peace Jesus will give you here when you believe the Gospel will one day be beyond all disturbance. And the world itself, the very fabric of the world we inhabit, will be renovated. Mountains and hills and trees that were made to display the glory of God will be seen in a new way and in a new fullness make His praise glorious so that you, with them, will together bring praise and honor to the Lord who has redeemed you. They will break forth in Isaiah’s image into singing and into celebration.
And the curse, remember the curse from Genesis 3, the curse that fell upon the world because of sin – “Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.” – the curse, one day, all the dreadful consequences of sin that plague us still all around us, all of it will be undone. “Instead of the thorn, shall come up the cyprus. Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle.” The one who became a curse for us at the cross, will at last on that final, glorious day, will have made His blessings flow “far as the curse is found.” “And in that day, the dwelling of God will be with man. He will dwell with them and they shall be His people and He will be their God. And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things shall have passed away and all things shall have become new.” It’s a new world, a new creation; everything made right at last. A new home forever, at the end of the age.
Who would not want it? Who would not want it? What possible logic can you marshall to defend your resistance to the love of God in Jesus Christ for you? The hope of glory freely offered to you. “Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.” And “He who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” The price has been paid in full, in advance, in the blood of the cross. So come, trust in Jesus. No more delay. No more hesitation. Right now. Trust yourself to Him. He will give you rest.
An urgent invitation. Will you answer it? A precious promise. Will you take hold of it? A mighty method. Will you trust it? A glorious destiny. I wonder, will you inherit it? Let’s pray together.
Lord, You have called us, You have called us to come to You. Please forgive us for running hither and yon, every which way, except back to You; looking for relief, looking for deliverance, looking for peace, looking for satisfaction, looking for hope, looking for answers. “Yes, Yes, Jesus,” we’ve told ourselves. But, but everywhere we’ve turned all we’ve found are broken cisterns where there is no water. So now together, before You, we come back to the One who alone can give us living water to well up within us to everlasting life. We want to come back to Christ and to drink, to drink Him in. Please, please forgive our sins. Please have mercy. Help us, all of us, whether we’ve been walking with the Lord for half a century or whether we’ve yet to take our first steps, help us, all of us, to come in obedience to Your call to buy and eat, without money and without price. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.