We all enjoy receiving invitations from our friends. Weddings, trips, special events, birthday parties, dinner parties, any parties really! There are some wonderful invitations in the Bible and Isaiah 55 is one of the best! I say ONE of the best. Here in this one chapter there are at least seven invitations.
A. An Invitation to Drink – v. 1
B. An Invitation to Hear and Listen – v. 2
C. An Invitation to Come To God – v. 3
D. An Invitation to Seek the Lord – v. 6
E. An Invitation to Call Upon Him – v. 6
F. An Invitation to Repent – v. 7
G. An Invitation to Return to the Lord – v. 8
And that’s just in the first eight verses! Perhaps we ought to entitle the chapter, “an offer you can’t refuse!”
GOD’S WONDERFUL INVITATION (vv 1-2)
Isaiah 55:1 ¶ “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
The world is full of so many people racing around, looking for something to give their lives meaning and purpose, looking for something that will satisfy, and failing to find it. People living on the junk food of entertainment and consumerism, and buying into the New Age in all its many deceptions.
“People today like to worship their work, work at their play and play at their worship.”
So many people are left dissatisfied, still hungry for the bread of life and thirsty for the living waters. In a world which is only looking for spiritual fast food, here is God’s gracious invitation:-
2 Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
GNB – Isa 55:2 Listen to me and do what I say, and you will enjoy the best food of all!
HERE IS THE BEST FOOD OF ALL! Come and be satisfied – satisfaction guaranteed!
And it’s all without money, without cost – Christ has already paid the bill! Its like one of those restaurants – fixed price, eat all you like – except the fixed price is free!
God’s wonderful invitation. And what is this “best food of all”? It has several parts and the first is
AN EVERLASTING COVENANT (v.3)
3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
All the blessings of covenant relationship with God. Your soul will live! I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly – life in all its fullness. Snatched from death to life, from darkness into light. And what God offers us is everlasting – eternal life. A life that death cannot take away! The happy certainty of heaven!
This earth makes many false promises about what will satisfy, through everything from success and popularity to sex, drugs and rock and roll. But God , and only God, offers the best food of all, which begins in this life but will continue into glory.
Fading is the worldling’s pleasure, All his boasted pomp and show,
Solid joys and lasting treasure None but Zion’s children know.
An everlasting covenant. Made possible by
MERCY AND PARDON (vv 6-7)
6 ¶ Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will
have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
Here is the message we so urgently need to hear. Those of us weighed down by sin. Trapped in selfishness and pride and greed. Cut off from God
Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Here is the best food of all – God will freely pardon, God will abundantly pardon us all.
Are you feeling guilty about anything tonight? Is your sin separating you from God?
Mercy and pardon – and with it:-
GOD’S UNSEARCHABLE WISDOM (vv 8-9)
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
There are so many things in the world we cannot understand. Things our minds cannot grasp. And things which tear our hearts apart: the mysteries of sickness and bereavement, of accident and family crises, of the suffering of innocents. We do not understand these things – but God does. The immortal invisible God only wise who knows everything and has all things in the palm of His hand. WE won’t always understand what God is doing in our lives!! But we can trust Him that He DOES understand. We can trust that the plan of salvation is unfolding according to His perfect wisdom.
Romans 11:33 ¶ Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?” 35 “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be
the glory for ever! Amen.
1 Corinthians 2:6 ¶ We … speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not
the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
7 No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”-
God’s unsearchable wisdom – and also
THE POWER OF THE WORD OF GOD
10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and
bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me
empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
So many of the blessings of the richest of fare God has for us come to us through His word, the Bible.
During World War II when the Nazis occupied a new territory, they immediately placed all Christians in concentration camps if they made public commitments to the Word of God. They had found that those who clung to the Bible would not compromise their faith or yield to the evil edicts of a godless dictator.
When a Soviet official was asked why a study of the Bible was frowned upon in his country, and why those who dared to print and distribute it were severely punished, he replied, “We find that the reading of the Book changes people in a way that is dangerous to our state!”
So we should take every opportunity to receive God’s word, to study it, to meditate on it, to believe and to obey God’s word. That will release the power of God’s word in our lives.
And through all of this God promises us
JOY AND PEACE
12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.”
Here is God’s wonderful invitation to enjoy the best food of all, an everlasting covenant, mercy and pardon, God’s unsearchable wisdom, the power of God’s word, joy and peace.
So how can we enjoy these blessings? In one simple word, COME. “Come”. Somebody has counted 642 personal invitations in the Bible to “Come”. 642 occasions where God invites us to “come”! Three of these occasions in our first verse:-
Isaiah 55:1 ¶ “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
And again in verse 3
3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.
As the Americans would put it, “Ya’all come now!!”
But how should we come to God?
Simply respond to the simple invitation to everybody in any kind of need or distress.
6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.
Whatever difficulties or problems you face tonight – God IS near – call on Him for help.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Seek the Lord! And if we want to receive God’s blessings, we must come in repentance.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts.
We must call upon God acknowledging and bewailing our manifold sins and wickedness. And then we can claim this wonderful promise. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
As we turn to Him, God in his grace promises to give us the things we need more than anything else: mercy and forgiveness and pardon and a new relationship with God,
And we should do this while we have opportunity. This invitation is urgent.
6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.
If you knew for certain that Jesus Christ was going to return in glory tomorrow (as indeed He might!) what would you do tonight?
Remember the message of the risen Christ to the church in Laodicea, lukewarm, complacent and apathetic, spiritually poor and prayerless. Here is God’s gracious invitation:
Rev 3: 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
“Well I’m giving away gifts, you don’t need no money to pay.
Take what you want, if its no good then throw it away.
Don’t pass up the chance of something entirely free.
Open your door and come out and come over to me.”
