Good morning to everybody, it's good to be in the house of the Lord with you. You can turn in your Bibles with me to Isaiah chapter 55. Isaiah 55, we return as a church to one of the most evangelistic passages in all of Holy Scripture. Certainly the chief evangelistic text of the Old Testament, of the Old Testament, of the Old Covenant.
Evangelism, of course, hopefully as Christians we're familiar with that term. of or pertaining to the proclamation of Christ, the glories of the good news that Jesus Christ came into this world, sinners to save, and particularly the invitation, the summons that attends the proclamation of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are to come, that we are to eat, that we are to drink, that we are to avail of the divine provision in the Christ and therein find our life and our everlastingness. And here we have in Isaiah 55 a blessed single chapter dedicated to that very thing. the setting forth of Jesus Christ, who has beforehand been set forth as the blessed substitute, the one who takes the crushing of the Father in the stead of all who believe in him. And so upon the heels of that, it certainly is fitting, and it's good for us, it's good for the sinner, it's good for the Christian, that a summons based upon the perfection of the work of Christ is issued forth here by the prophet, and in fact, here by, as some would say, even God himself speaking. Of course, when we touch upon the topic of evangelism, I'll read the text in a moment, as confessionally reformed Christians, we don't use evangelistic or the related terminology as something that makes conversion the product of human technique or decisional manipulation or something that supposes the inherent ability of the sinner to respond to the gospel summons.
However, rejecting the misery of a hyper-Calvinism, we rejoice in the free and indiscriminate offer of Christ to all hearers, which is made in the full confidence that the proclaimed message of the Lord Jesus Christ, given by the Word of God, is attended by the sent spirit, attending that Word, to effect the response in those appointed to eternal life. And that's the prayer of every Christian church gathered, every time the Christian church gathers. that the message would land upon the ears and the hearts and the souls of those who have already been brought forth by Christ to everlasting life, but also that in those, as we heard our brother, as we heard our brother's comments on John 4 this morning, that upon those who stand outside of Christ in damning unbelief, the message would be made alive, attended by the Spirit, that those in darkness would come to the light of Christ. And again, the location of this chapter which we'll read now, the location of this chapter should be understood and we should have rolling around in our minds as we work through this passage the stuff of Isaiah 53, the one who was bruised for our iniquities, the one upon whom the judgment of the Lord came that many sons and daughters might know everlasting life. Having proclaimed in Isaiah 53 the glorious work of the mediator Christ, the prophet now issues the summons, the blessed invitation to avail of the covenant abundance of that champion who perfected salvation for his people.
So to the Word of God we go. Isaiah 55, beginning at verse 1, the Word of God.
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 55
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. incline your ear and come to me, here and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David.
Indeed, I have given him as a witness to the people, a leader and commander for the people. Surely you shall call a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God and 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, and he will have mercy on him. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says 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 comes down and the snow from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out with joy and be led out with peace.
The mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree. And it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. Amen.
Well, let's go to God in prayer. Let's pray.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, we rejoice now in this time of worship, the preaching of your word. Do help us in this exercise to honor your most high name, to hallow your name. We pray that you would bless us in this act, that we would know the riches and the excellencies of Jesus Christ, our Savior. that we would know the revelation that you've given to the sons of men to avail of that same Christ and to in Him find life. And we do pray for amazing grace in this place, for strengthening of your saints, for the saving of sinners, and that in everything we do this morning and this evening when we gather again, that all of these things would be unto the praise of our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We pray in the precious name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen. Well,
Introduction
we're gonna look at this passage under four heads, the Lord willing, as we move along. And those four are these. First, the gospel summons. Secondly, the ground of the gospel summons.
Thirdly, the response to the gospel summons. And then, fourthly and lastly, the guarantee attached to the gospel summons. So, the gospel summons first, we see here, costly blessings that are freely given in verses one to 3a. Verses 1 to 3a, we see the gospel summons, and we see the glory of amazing and victorious grace.
My apologies, I've been sick all week, so if I take Kleenex to my nose, you'll forgive the sight and stick with me as we preach along.
The Gospel Summons
The gospel summons, what we have here set before us is the glorious condescension of God, who owes no man anything. He could have left man in darkness. He could have left man in death. He owes man nothing, but yet condescends and issues this blessed summons, again, based upon the stuff of Isaiah 53, that servant, the suffering servant, who bore the wrath of God in the stead of all who own him as Savior."
The Attention-Grabbing Exclamation 'Ho'
We see first in this, in one single word, we see the glorious exclamation. Notice the first word with an exclamation mark, ho. It's a very interesting thing. We see this in the scriptures though.
It's a common theme. the attention-grabbing nature of a particular word, that's why this is being employed here. It's to arrest our attention. It's to grab us by the souls and direct our souls to something that is about to follow. In the Holy Scriptures, there are a number of words that are like this.
We have words such as Old or New Testament, behold, which is sometimes translated or rendered low, depending upon the translation. We also have woe, which is an attention-grabbing word that usually directs not to blessing, but to judgment. We have alas, the word oh, as in O-H, and also oh, exclamation mark. We have amen, hallelujah, and we have, of course, the hoy or the ho here in our particular passage.
What's very interesting about this word is, is that it's the same word as the word woe. There's no difference in rendering, there's no difference in structure. It's the same word that Isaiah uses in his, I was gonna say epistle, but in his book with regards to the word woe. Turn with me for a moment. to Isaiah 5.
Isaiah 5. It's to see Something interesting that God is doing here in Isaiah 55. In Isaiah 5, notice in a number of places where we have the word woe being issued here, and of course it's issued in the context of judgment. Isaiah is very largely about judgment, not exclusively, and thankfully so, it's not exclusively about judgment.
But notice in Isaiah 5 at verse 8. Woe to those who join house to house, they add field to field, till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land. Verse 11, woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may follow intoxicating drink, who continue until night, till wine inflames them. Notice as well, verse 18, woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as if with a cart rope." Notice as well verse 21 and 22, A and B, woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.
Woe to men mighty at drinking wine. Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink. who justify the wicked for a bribe and take away justice from the righteous man. And notice one last instance here in Isaiah 6, 5, one that we're familiar with. Not that we're unfamiliar with the other ones, but this is, remember, that wonderful pre-incarnate vision of the glorious Christ by the prophet Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died.
He sees the Lord so gloriously represented in this vision that only the hem of the garment fills the temple. He doesn't see the entire manifestation of the monarchical figure. He only sees the hem of the garment. And we see in verse 5, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
So finding our way back to Isaiah 55,
The Inverted Woe of Isaiah 55
there in that last instance, Isaiah calls down upon himself in a measure, judgment from God, almost a self-maledictory curse in a sense, because he's casting his eyes upon a glorious one that the angels themselves can't look at, and knowing all the while that he's a man of unclean lips. dwelling amongst the people who are the same. So back to this word, ho, it's a glorious thing that God is doing here. He's using the same word that is woe, but using it in this attention-grabbing exclamation to arrest the hearts of the hearers so that they might not wallow in their own sin. so that they might not know the weight of divine wholesome severity and judgment, but that they might know the graciousness of God who will send his Christ to redeem these covenant breakers. And so it's a glorious thing.
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. It is an inverted woe. An inverted woe in the midst of the righteous severity of covenant judgment, the promise of salvation is held forth with the same word employed in announcing judgment. The word is retooled to announce the new covenant blessings of redemption found in the covenant champion, Jesus Christ.
And
The Eleven-Fold Imperatival Invitation
we see following after this, an 11-fold invitation. For anyone who would seek to articulate or present to God that is somehow miserly in his offers of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, we would have to say, what Bible are you reading? We have an 11-fold invitation, and what's interesting about this is that it's what we may call an imperatival invitation. It's an invitation issued in the grammatical mood of a command.
It's a command and an invitation joined together by God in order to bring forth many sons to glory through the proclamation of Jesus Christ. Notice this language that we have, and we'll read some of it, but first, the 11-fold invitation is, Buy, eat, come, buy, listen, eat, the combination of let delight, incline, come, and hear. There is actually a 12th come, which is the first one, but it's not issued in the same sort of imperatival, invitational manner. We could say, ho everyone who thirsts, to the waters, and you who have no money come by and eat." But all of that to say, this is a striking grammatical theological reality.
Simply this, that the gospel offer comes in the mood of command. God does not softly invite sinners to the feast as if to say, you're welcome to come if you really feel compelled to do so. Not that at all. He commands them to come, but again, the free offer is issued as a summons.
We might think of something as a New Testament parallel here. If we think about Jesus as he's called by his friends, those that he loves, in John 11, to come to the grave of his friend Lazarus, and to be that one for them and for him who is the resurrection and the life. Remember what Lazarus does in that command to Lazarus, which is also an invitation. Lazarus, come forth.
It's not a soft issuing of just a, of an invitation barely speaking as if to anticipate that Lazarus has the wherewithal and the power to actually come forth from out of the grave, but rather it's a command mingled with an invitation, Lazarus come forth. The free offer of life to Lazarus, but the one offering both is the one who issues the offer and the one who instills the power, who imbues the power to come forth. This is what we have. in Isaiah 55, the glory of the divine invitation to enjoy the blessings of Jesus Christ, our precious Savior. And it's significant for a number of reasons.
It enshrines divine authority in the midst of the offer. Again, not a soft command as we might issue ourselves, or rather a soft invitation that we might offer ourselves, but it enshrines the divine authority of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the midst of the graciousness of the offer. It also expresses the urgency of the matter. And as we'll see with the madness of, you know, With the madness of spending money for what isn't bread and the madness of spending wages for what does not satisfy, it comes with the urgency of this gracious command and invitation like, why would you not do it?
It's almost a command because based on the clear sense of what my divine argumentation is to you now through the prophet, why would you not do what I command? Why would you not avail of what I am offering? Why would you not be those who enjoy the gifts that I'm about to provide to you? It also excludes the sinner's excuses.
I didn't know that I should come. I just thought it was a suggestion. If you're so inclined, you may come to the waters. It excludes the sinner's excuses, but it does remain an invitation.
It is not do this and live command. That's not the gospel, do this and live. It's not a do this and live command. The gospel is there is one who has done, Jesus Christ, precious Savior and all who believe on Him in saving faith will have everlasting life." So this 11-fold imperatival invitation that is an invitation mingled with the weight of divine command is issued by God and it comes to those those who as we'll see are thirsting those who are those who are seeking not to be satisfied by the vanities and the emptinesses of the world and anything else that anyone else offers, but rather to avail only of those good drinks and those good foods that divine aid brings to the sons of men.
So the 11-fold invitation,
The Freeness of the Gospel Offer
we see next the freeness of the offer. Notice the language, let's read it again. Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk, notice, without money and without price.
This language of you who have no money doesn't only anticipate the poor, but that's there. And this language of without money and without price, again, isn't simply landing upon the poor as opposed to the rich. Those who have no money at all come and, you know, we'll give you some stuff. This has to do, I think, with three particular and very important things that exalt the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the minds of all who love him, and hopefully striking fear in those who reject and oppose him.
Three Grounds for the Free Offer
First of all, why do we have, why is this a free offer? First, because of the goodness of God. Know that this morning, if you're a Christian, that God is good. Sometimes in the trials of life, in the ebb and flow, when we're carried away by our own worries and our own anxieties and just the waves of life, we can forget to come back to the place of the simple Christian recognition that God is good.
Whatever comes upon us, we have the goodness of our God for us. And if you're here and you're outside of Christ this morning, know that God is good against the wickedness of your own heart, the darkness of your own hearts, the rejections that come from that vantage point. Hopefully you will see that God is good and that by the grace of that good God, you would be brought forth to own the Savior of men. The freeness of the offer is seen because of the goodness of God.
We also see it here because that which is of infinite value cannot be purchased. When we read here, come without money and without price. When we read here, you who have no money come buy and eat. It's not because the things offered have low value as if they're worthless.
As if, well, they're free to you because they're not really of all that high value. That's not what we're to see here. The freeness of these gifts is because that which is of infinite value cannot be purchased. There is no one, whoever might have the most money in the entirety of the cosmos cannot approach God and buy the wine that he speaks of, the milk that he speaks of, the water that he speaks of, the bread that he speaks of.
These things are beyond value, infinite in value, priceless, and invaluable. And as well, these things are free, the freeness of the offer is seen because a payment, infinite in worth, has already been paid. A payment infinite in worth has already been paid. We cannot buy the milk that we read of, the bread that we read of, the wine that we read of.
We cannot avail of the water that's set forth here by... any sort of price or any sort of amount, but rather it is Christ, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, beforehand set forth by this same prophet, who is the one who has purchased this wine, this milk, this water, this bread, this feast for us. God is good, that which is of infinite value cannot be purchased, and a payment infinite in worth has been paid. That's Christ's payment, a payment infinite in worth. Speaking of the word woe, woe upon any so-called Christian that would set forth some message that Christ is not enough for the salvation of sinners.
A payment of infinite value, a payment infinite in its worth has been paid to secure the blessings of God. And so to say anything such as Christ is good, but you also need a little bit of this. Yes, belief on Christ is good over here, but let's offer up our 1%, our covenant faithfulness as that which at least in part justifies us. Whatever garbage might be proffered by the pseudo-Christian spiritual nonsense of some out there in the so-called world of Christendom, Anything that does not set forth the fact that Christ alone, by the infinite worth of his sacrifice, secures salvation for sinners and nothing else, falls extremely short and falls extremely far from the blessedness of the God of heaven and earth and the blessedness of this invitation.
We see the abundant feast
The Abundant Feast: Water, Wine, Milk, and Bread
Notice the abundant feast that is here. We're not supposed to see here that, okay, the food and drink here is free, so it's just a little snack. Come and avail of some free things that we're giving you as if you're in a marketplace or you're at a flea market or you're going to a grocery store and there's someone there with the little the little paper cup of, you know, something in there. And here's a sample.
Try this. It's free. Just, you know, have this. Here's a little drink of, you know, wine and milk there for you as well.
Our God is not the God of a Save on Foods booth. He's the God of abundant feast. He's the God who provides the freeness of this priceless feast that we get to avail of as Christians in this lower veil of tears. Notice some of the things that we have that constitute this abundant feast.
First, we see this language of come to the waters. come to the waters or ho everyone who thirsts to the waters. Now, this imagery bears perhaps maybe even predominantly a local sense to it. That is that what's in view here is an ancient landscape with a port or a harbor in a town. And the one who is crying, ho, everyone who thirsts, is like a public crier or a town crier.
For those who grew up in the 70s and the early 80s, well even before that, anywhere around my time, 51 years of age now, You'll remember some of those old cartoons, perhaps, where there'd be a town crier or a herald. The king would send, you know, this funny-looking guy into the town, and he'd say, Oyez, Oyez, Oyez. You know, hear thee the words of the king, and then there would be some sort of message given. perhaps it's a marketplace merchant who would come or the town crier appointed to announce the arrival of marketplace merchants. And he'd come into the town and he'd say, listen to me in here.
And that's what's going on here. And the message is come to the water side. The ships have arrived with all of their wares and with all of their provisions. The marketplace is being set up at the docks.
Come to the waterside, come to the waters and see the abundance of provision that is here being made available for you. You think of those ancient landscapes and those ancient marketplaces, perhaps you've seen a movie, you've read a book, you've read through a picture book. Even marketplaces today in third world countries where you see streets lined with vendors. Well, we have it in our own first world. you go to a flea market or a industry show of some sort and there's booths set up with people proffering their wares, selling their goods.
That's what we have here. Come to the water side, come to the port entry, come and see at the docks, these booths set up, and in fact, actually, we may want to say only one booth set up that is offering you the good things, the good things of wine, of milk, of bread, these things of the feast. We don't want to strip the language of the waters, though, of any sort of Christological weight, with water perhaps being the commodity itself, because that the scriptures do set forth. The scripture set forth God as the fountain of living waters.
Christ uses this language of himself in John 4, the passage before the section that we read when we read it last Lord's Day. Christ is that spring of living water that wells up in us unto everlasting life. And so, if you take the particular vantage point of coming to the waters being the fountain of living water, Christ himself, the one who gives us everlasting nourishment, that's a good thing as well. Sometimes the scriptures can bear the weight of more than one thing.
One meeting, but bearing the weight of more than one thing. Come to the waters, a veil of Christ who himself is the personification of not water trapped in cisterns, not a reservoir of water that will be expended or exhausted, but rather the one who is a spring, a fountain, one who provides water in an everlasting fashion. Notice as well, we see this wonderful language regarding the abundant feast in the words, come buy wine and milk. We're still in verse one.
And it's 11.55. Come by and eat. Yes, come by wine and milk. This is the language, again, not of snackery, but of abundant feast.
I want you to turn with me to the book of Psalms. and specifically Psalm 104, just to see the general sustenance nature of this language that we have in Isaiah 55, before we move on to some things more specific. Notice in Psalm 104, verse 14, speaking of God, He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens man's heart. This is the stuff of what we're supposed to have in our minds as we're reading Isaiah 55. Wine as that which exhilarates, it makes glad the heart of man, and later bread, that which strengthens man's heart.
The cat out of the bag, Christ is the wine, and Christ is the bread, and Christ is the milk. If he is the waters, he is everything that the feast is. He is the personification of all of these things. And Christ is to make glad our hearts.
Christ is to exhilarate. I think the human mind can be exhilarated by so many other things than Christ. Even we as Christians, brethren, can be exhilarated by, and lawfully so, our hearts can be brought to cheer over things that are earthly. Any lawful thing that brings cheer to the heart is a good thing.
God has given us those things. But very often the things themselves can eclipse the one who is the thing of things, the blessing of blessings, the exhilaration of exhilarations, the one who truly makes the heart of man glad, the one who truly strengthens the soul of man, and that is the living Christ. You can turn as well with me, You can turn as well with me to back to the book of Isaiah, because what might be largely in view here, we have the general reality. So let's just say that the physical foundation of wine, And this applies to the milk and bread as well, but specifically with wine and view, the physical link, the physical analogy, the referent itself being that it gladdens the heart, it exhilarates, and bread strengthens man.
Now look at back in our book of Isaiah, in Isaiah 25, Notice the spiritual connection, and we would want to say the eschatological connection. When we say that big word with many syllables, we're talking about the end to which Christ's saving work bends and tends and terminates. Christ saved us so that we might enjoy the everlastingness of his blessed kingdom. Christ comes into the world, he lives and he dies and he rises again to do what?
To bring many sons and daughters to glory. Eschatology, the stuff of last things, that blessed consummative terminus to which all the saving work of Christ points. Notice in Isaiah 25 at verse 6. And in this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees.
The eschatological provision of God through the perfection of the work of Christ is in view with this language. We have the same stuff in the book of Amos. You don't have to turn there. Amos 9, right at the end of the book.
Behold, the days are coming, verse 13, says the Lord. When the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, him who sows seed, the mountain shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it. Have you ever thought, and you're right to think this way, first, with regards to John 2 and the turning of the water into wine at that wedding feast, That narrative isn't solely to display, though it gloriously does so, it isn't solely to display the power of the living Christ in his sovereignty over nature and substances and things. He miraculously turns water into wine.
We are to be lawfully and rightfully and wholesomely dazzled there by the power, by the miracle, But remember the father of the bride and the lord of the house saying that this one has reserved the well-refined, the well-aged wine, the best wine until now. We're to move from, not as if from the lesser to the greater, but from one proposition to another, one reality to another. We're to move from glorying in the Christ of the miracle to see that Christ is that well-refined and that well-aged wine. The wine of Isaiah 55, the one who in the fullness of the times, the one who reserved until now, the one late in time, behold him come.
The better aged wine, the best aged wine, the well refined wine, who is the savior of his people. Isaiah is saying, feast on Christ, come and believe on him and you will have everlasting life. Christ is the personification of the best kept wine. Finding our way back to Isaiah 55, we wanna see here also with regards to milk, the prophet, God, by the prophet isn't just saying, isn't just using milk as just another analog or another piece of this picture, another piece of this story, another piece of the imagery or the metaphor, but rather it also bears great and glorious theological weight.
You'll remember what the promises of God were to those in the Old Testament to the nation of Israel. I'm bringing you into a land flowing with milk and honey. The reality of paradise, the reality of the promised land was marked by an abundance of milk. The same language is brought to the fore by Isaiah in Isaiah 66 in verse 10, where we read, rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad with her. all you who mourn for her, that you may feed and notice, be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom, that you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.
For thus says the Lord, behold, I will extend peace to her like a river and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then you shall feed on her sides, feed on her sides shall you be carried and be dandied on her knees." This language of milk as the provision for the weary, for those who were beforehand marked by thirst and hunger, now they are to feast upon the milk which the Lord himself provides. And is it too far to say that Christ himself is the personification of the milk? I don't think so.
Not in some weird way, but as the one who truly satisfies. And we'll see this from John in a moment, but you can turn with me to 1 Peter. In 1 Peter 2, we have the language of milk as it is applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 2. Pardon me, 1 Peter 2 is what I said. 1 Peter 2.
Notice what we find there. Beginning in verse one, therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that, the Lord is gracious. There's a linking of the reality of milk to the food provided by the Lord our God, and that food is Christ, His blessed person, His blessed work, His blessed word. And the language of bread, you can turn back to Isaiah, the language of bread in Isaiah 55 is interesting because it comes by negation, but we're to understand the positive reality of the inverse of that, which is real bread, true bread, positive bread.
Verse two, why do you spend money for what is not bread? Literally, or we could say rendering it and removing the supplied words, why do you meticulously weigh out silver for not bread? Why do you weigh out silver for not bread? In other words, there's something that is bread and you're, Inversely and madly weighing out silver meticulously to purchase that which perhaps you think is bread or in the very least something that will satisfy you. but which is not bread, which is no bread at all.
And so positively speaking here, the invitation this summons is coming and it's with the weight of that commanded invitation, it's calling upon sinners to eat the bread that God provides without money and without price. And on this theme that the water, The wine, the milk, and the bread is Christ. You can turn with me to the Gospel of John. This isn't just a general divine summons.
It's a specific divine summons calling upon the sinner to avail of the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who gave himself for us. The one who gave himself for sinners. Notice in John 6.
First, at verse 27. Notice upon the lips of the Savior, the very application of Isaiah 55 to himself. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. Notice at verse 31.
Our fathers, the Jews say, ate the manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
This language that Isaiah is using of bread is, of course, by virtue of Christ's own interpretation of the whole theology of bread in the Old Covenant, if you will, that this is Christ Himself. The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven. and gives life to the world. And of course, verse 51, I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.
Christ as the Feast Itself
You see how so sweetly the New Testament brings to this perfect clarity of interpretation, the language of Isaiah 55, not just some bare or some general divine invitation, but a specific and gracious divine invitation that sinners would avail of the coming Christ. The one that the prophet has already proclaimed to you in Isaiah 53, the one who is bruised for our iniquities, the one who is crushed by the father in divine wrath and wholesome juridical severity that he might upon Christ judge all those, or judge Christ in the stead of all those who believe in his precious name. Simply, Christ died for sinners. And the invitation goes out to sinners.
And the invitation goes out to sinners with the blessed anticipation and expectation that God in his sovereignty upon all those who are appointed to everlasting life pours out the richness and the abundance of his grace that they might come by and eat without money and without price of the blessed abundant feast that God himself provides. And notice back in Isaiah 55 then, and I think what we'll do perhaps is we'll close after this first portion and pick it up again tonight.
The Squandering Madness of False Substitutes
Notice back in Isaiah 55, we have the abundant feast. And then we have the squandering madness. The squandering madness. You know what squandering means.
It means just to throw away. To take that which is valuable in a measure and to spend it and to waste it and to toss it away on things that have no value. Why do you spend your money, verse two, why do you spend money for not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? the squandering madness of the sinner, of all of those outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we cast our hopefully discerning eyes, we're not perfect angelic creatures, but as Christians, brought forth by amazing and victorious grace to, with our Christian minds, think the thoughts of Christ after him, we can cast our gaze upon a world outside of Christ, all around us, the world that we live in, and we can see the squandering madness. we can see that there are multitudes upon multitudes who spend money for what is not bread and who spend their wages for what does not satisfy, who meticulously, as it were, weigh out silver and gold and all of those things in order to throw those valuable metrics away, those valuable things away on things that, of course, do not satisfy.
He does not call them, God does not, the prophet does not call them lazy, but rather he calls them diligent fools. Diligent fools. That's what we're surrounded, not to puff ourselves up as the great and the holy and the magisterial, But those outside of grace and those outside of Christ are not necessarily all the time lazy. We ourselves can be lazy if you're here and you're in Christ or you're outside of Christ.
You know, we all have times of laziness. That's the human condition, whether in reigning sin or with remaining corruption. The unbelief in the world, the Christless in the world, the irreligious in the world, those outside of saving grace in the world aren't necessarily lazy. They're diligent fools spending their money on what is not true bread and spending their wages on those things that do not satisfy.
Bread in the Scriptures stands for sustenance not bread then of course would be something that perhaps has the appearance of food but that cannot at all provide nourishment. Going back to our our marketplace analogy when The town crier here, God, cries out, ho, hear ye, hear ye, everyone who thirsts, come to the water side to see the provisions that are available to you, and avail of that one booth, which is the Christian booth, which is the divine triune, Christ-filled booth of abundant feast. Returning to that analogy, there would be a number of other booths there too, if we can wrap our minds around a particular picture. We could see the different booths of what the world, the devil and the flesh are offering up to the souls of every man and woman and boy and girl out there in God's created world. the squandering madness of all cosmologies and philosophies which are not Christian.
Whether it's the madness of agnosticism or atheism, whether it's the idle factory of the state imposing upon us the illusory or deceitful comforts of a state-supervised life, Whether it's our own souls speaking to our own souls, saying that we know better and we know what we can truly be satisfied by. I'm gonna count out my silver and I'm gonna go to the marketplace and time and time again go back to a booth that never satisfies. Why do you have to go back? Why do you have to meticulously count out your silver and spend wages upon wages upon things that never satisfy?
Because they never satisfy. You know, we think that something in a bottle and, you know, something off the shelf or, you know, some other wickedness or evil, or perhaps some lawful things which we make unlawful by our idolatrous attachment to them, we think that those things are going to satisfy us. When true and lasting, true and everlasting satisfaction comes only from the one who truly is the bread of life, who truly is the wine of invigoration, who truly is the milk of sustenance, the squandering madness of those, every substitute for God that the human heart purchases and spends way too much time and money on as if they could feed the soul. Not bread is Isaiah's shorthand for the entire economy, of false satisfaction.
I want to stop in about four minutes and 37 seconds. In the immediate context here, we're going to pick up the next three points this evening. In the immediate context, this This seeking after satisfaction in things that provide no satisfaction was seen in the covenant breaking reality of idolatry and in the divinely rejected religious formalism of Israel. Remember, We started the sermon by looking at the woes that are pronounced upon Israel.
And this ho, this inverted woe, this blessed cry of the town crier to issue the divine summons to avail of the abundant feast, this comes upon the heels of those particular woes. Of course, in a more universal meaning, this, as we've already noted, be seen as every misdirected and God excluding human craving. The unconverted soul is always directed at objects that cannot fill it. Augustine wrote something very cutting, very pithy and wise and very easy to remember.
Our heart is restless until it rests in thee, speaking to God. But in the immediate context, there is something going on here with regards to the covenant-breaking reality of idolatry on the part of Israel. going after the nation's gods, going after the vanity of formalism, going after not a heart filled religion, but a religion empty of any heart and soul, where the robbers would go and grab their sacrifices from their neighbors, where they would not offer up the best to the Lord, but they would grab the blind, they would grab the lame, they would grab the scabbed and the wrinkled and the blemish filled and the spot filled. to offer up their sacrifices. And so God, as the town crier, if you will, cries out, ho, and invites those to cast off that madness and avail of that which truly satisfies the answer to which we've already said, but we'll focus more on tonight with regards to the ground of the gospel summons. But hopefully in closing now, if you get anything from just the one point from Isaiah 55, well, I want you to get a couple things.
Well, if you get anything, God is good, Christ is glorious. Those are two things, but I'm gonna call it one. God is good and Christ is glorious. You're to get that God is good.
God does not say, because no one could ever do it, do this and live, because we're so lost, we're so unable, we're so outside of being able to do and live, that we cannot even come close to doing, let alone doing and living thereby. That is to avail of salvation by our own efforts. Talk about that which is not bread. Talk about that which is not wine, that which is not milk, our own so-called righteousnesses, which are filthy rags in the sight of God.
Christ is the one who has secured the abundant feast. We're not invited to come with anything by which, from which, or with which we could purchase the milk that's offered, the wine that's offered, the water and the bread that's offered, these blessed elements of the feast, because the God of heaven and earth is so glorious that, of course, He cannot be bought off by those things which could never purchase the infinite worthfulness of the things which are to be purchased, but rather he condescends by his grace and goodness to offer them freely because there is one, Jesus Christ, who has secured the free and abundant meal. If you're here this morning and you're a Christian, keep availing of the blessed meal. How do we avail of that?
You're here this morning, so that's a blessed start. And in fact, it is one of the chief ways that God feeds his people. through coming to church and by the appointed means availing of the proclamation of the Word, however disorganized it can come by only getting through one of four points. by coming here and availing of the word preached, by coming here and availing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs that all page after page and stanza after stanza and crescendo upon crescendo speak of Christ, the one who is the milk, the wine, the water and the bread. to avail of prayer, to avail of the reading of the scriptures, the reading of scriptures that set forth to us the one who not only offers the feast, but is the feast himself. If you're a sinner here this morning, don't go to those marketplace booths, which offer nothing but dissatisfaction. They might have shiny things on their countertops and on their tables.
But that's just deceitful, the deceitfulness of the vanities of this lower world. Go to the one booth that the town crier points us to, that God points us to, the one booth where we need not money, where we need not meticulously weigh out silver to purchase things which will never satisfy, but where God offers the freeness of a priceless feast. this blessedness of a feast which is Christ himself, the one who came into this lower world, sinners to save. You believe on him and you will avail of the best meal that has ever been offered in the history of mankind, God offering it to weary sinners, pilgrims along the way to avail of as we march towards glory, not by our own strength and not for our own glory, but by the strength of the one who is the meal himself and unto his glory, that he may be magnified, that he may be exalted upon the gathering of this particular assembly. And because it's possible with God alone, we pray that everyone this morning would hear in some measure the crier here, the town crier, the public declarer, the herald of God's truth, that you would have heard of the abundant feast.
Because it's possible with God alone that you would leave these two doors, not thinking about the next vain meal that you'll eat, not thinking about the spending of your wages on things that don't satisfy, but landing upon the freeness of the offered feast. You'll leave here feasting upon Christ, who alone is meal upon meals, who alone is the glorious one who feeds us all the nourishment that we ever need in our march unto Emmanuel's land. Believe on that Christ, and you will know true satisfaction. Don't leave this place without eating of our precious Christ.
Let's pray.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your truth. We rejoice in your goodness to us, disclosing for us this blessed invitation, this blessed command, yet invitation to come buy and eat without money and without price, the blessed things of gospel truth, the blessed things of of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Do go with us. Help us as Christians to avail of the word preached, to avail of the abundant feast.
As we have feasted, let us continue to feast upon our precious Christ, the glories of His salvation, the blessedness of His truth. We pray that no soul would leave this place before having before having closed with Christ. It is possible alone with you, not with men. May you rain down upon all of these here your amazing and victorious grace that each and every tongue would leave these doors singing the praises of so great a Savior.
And it's in his name that we pray. Amen.