You can turn in your Bibles with me to Isaiah 55. For those who were with us this morning, we began to look at Isaiah 55, this blessed evangelistic passage, one of the most in the Holy Scriptures, and perhaps the chief evangelistic passage in the entirety of the Old Testament. We got as far as Isaiah 55, three, and specifically 3A. We noted, of course, that this evening we'll continue with that and seek to finish swiftly, though without doing injustice to the glory of the text. as much as is possible.
It's a wonderful, wonderful thing that we have. We noted this morning the gospel summons from verse one to verse 3a, and tonight we'll look at the ground of the gospel summons, the response to that summons, and the guarantee attached to it. So three points. I'm gonna read the text one more time, and then we'll have a look at the remainder of this passage.
Isaiah 55 1, Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come by and eat. Yes, come by 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 righteous 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. Let's pray.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this time now in the preaching of it. Do help us once again. Help us to be faithful to your truth.
Help us to glory in your truth. We pray that Christians tonight would be edified and built up in their most holy faith through this act of preaching, and we pray once again, Lord God, that the act of preaching attended by the Holy Spirit would be unto the salvation of sinners, that newly redeemed tongues would sing your praises, and we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen. Well,
Introduction
moving on then from the stuff of verses 1, 2, and 3a, we noted this morning, just in a very brief review, that this of course speaks to the beneficence, the graciousness, the condescending goodness of God in issuing this invitation in the flavor of a command for sinners to come and not to have to pay price for those things that are good because they never could, but rather with no money, without money and without price to come by the wine and the milk and the water and the bread that is Christ to avail of gospel, to avail of the truth, to avail of the amazing grace of God without money and without price. And this, The squandering madness we sort of closed with there is brought to view here. Why would the sinner spend his or her money on what is not bread and their wages on what does not satisfy when that which is bread and that which does satisfy is offered freely? And we noted that this comes in sort of the analogy of a town crier crying, hear ye, come down to the port, come down to the marketplace, by the water side, and buy from the booth, the divine booth of gospel grace that invites you to enjoy the abundant feast without the provision of silver and gold, but rather with no money at all, because God is a gracious God.
And so then what is, as we move along, What is the ground of that gospel summons? The gospel summons is issued, the invitation goes forth. What is the ground for it? Well, we have that in verses 3B to 5. the ground of the gospel summons.
And just by way of introduction to this section,
Ground of the Gospel Summons
we noted that the introductory word of this chapter is ho, which is the same word as wo, that's used in Isaiah all the way through, Isaiah 5 all the way through to Isaiah 33 and beyond. Here we have that Hebrew word, we could pronounce it as hoy. Here we have a word in the midst of our passage, which is hen, the indeed of verse four, but which is more, which could be better translated as behold. And what I want us to get is that the hen, the behold here, joins together with the hoy, which is the hoe, and this is the thrust, the cry, hoe, that stops the crowd in verse one. is followed up by this hen, the finger that points to that crowd, that points to something that that crowd is to look upon.
In other words, hear ye and look at what is the ground of the invitation or the ground of the summons that I just gave. So there's two sort of key attention grabbing words, the ho or the hear ye, the hey in our modern parlance, followed up by the behold, which is translated indeed at the beginning of verse four. So it's a hey followed by a behold.
The Covenant and the Covenant Champion
This is the blessed condescending provision of God in the freeness of the gospel feast. And behold now, this is the one who is the ground of that gospel feast. The prophets, behold, I have given him, or indeed I have given him, becomes in the new covenant, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And what is the ground of the gospel summons then?
Sure Mercies of David
It is simply the covenant and the covenant champion. Notice the language, incline your ear, verse three, and come to me, here and your soul shall live. And notice covenant, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David. It's interesting language here because what does this have to do with Christ?
Well, hopefully some of your Christian, the Christian wheels are turning in your Christian brains. And you're thinking of 2 Samuel 7, and you can turn there with me. In 2 Samuel 7, we have the Davidic covenant. What are the sure mercies of David?
The sure mercies of David are delivered as such in this covenant made with David. In 2 Samuel 7, at verse 12, we read, when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son.
If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. Notice, but my mercy shall not depart from him, the sure mercies of David. As I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you, and your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you, your throne shall be established forever, According to all these words and according to all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David. So that's known as the Davidic Covenant, which isn't speaking exclusively or pointedly or primarily concerning Solomon.
It's speaking of David's greater son and David's Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would come in the fullness of the times to redeem his people. Interestingly, on the Isaiah 55 language of the sure mercies of David and the connection to Jesus Christ, you can turn with me to a sermon by the Apostle Peter in Acts 13, by the Apostle Paul, rather, in Acts 13. Notice in Acts 13, and we'll begin reading at, Let's see here, verse 28. Acts 13 verse 28, and they thought, excuse me, and though they found no cause for death in him, they asked Pilate that he should be put to death.
Of course, Paul is speaking of Christ. Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead. He was seen for many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people. and we declare to you glad tidings, that promise which was made to the fathers.
God has fulfilled this for us, their children, in that he has raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second psalm, you are my son, today I have begotten you, and that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken thus, I will give you the sure mercies of David. You see, that language is the exact language because it's a quotation of Isaiah 55. This ground of the gospel summons being the sure mercies of David. It's found wrapped up in and fulfilled in and consummated in and terminating upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfection of his work, and punctuated by the resurrection from the dead.
He was raised up so that it might be declared to you that it was certain the promise of the Lord God in Isaiah 55, I will give you the sure mercies of David. On this language as the covenant of grace, or we could say, of course, the new covenant, John Gill writes, which is to be understood not of the covenant of works, this is the sure mercies of David, nor of the covenant of circumcision, nor of the Sinai covenant, but of the covenant of grace, which is an everlasting one. It is from everlasting, being founded in the everlasting love of God, is according to his eternal purposes. Christ is the mediator of it, who as such was set up from everlasting, and the promises and blessings of it were so early put into his hands.
And it will continue to be everlasting, sure, firm, unalterable, and immovable. This, properly speaking, was made with Christ from all eternity, and His people in Him, and with His people in Him. So Isaiah 55, the ground of the Gospel summons is the sure mercies of David, which is the covenant of grace made with Christ and all the elect in Him. the certain promise that in the fullness of the times God would bring a multitude of sinners from death to life by virtue of the workings and the doings and the dyings of the covenant champion, the Lord Jesus Christ, who indeed, as we see in verse 4, was given to the people as a witness, a leader, and a commander. This is wonderful language.
This is spoken, of course, David was given as a leader and as a commander for the people. But this is spoken and applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. In more than one place in the New Testament, Christ is spoken of as a witness to the people, the faithful witness from the dead. For example, in Revelation, of course, as a leader and a commander before Pilate himself, Christ declares himself to be the king of a kingdom with a people.
Christ is the sure mercies of David or is the covenant champion that secures the sure mercies of David. He is this one who is the witness to the people, the faithful witness, faithful and true according to Revelation 1 and Revelation 19, a leader and a commander for the people who brings those people to everlasting, the everlasting bliss of covenant blessing. This language that we find here in Isaiah 55 5 could go two ways. 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.
This could go two ways or perhaps a little bit of both. That's the John Gill way of doing things. Give you three things, and it's probably all three. But one approach to this particular text is that the you, so surely you shall call a nation you do not know, is God's covenant people.
It's the your ear of verse three. It's the your soul shall live of verse three. It's the covenant with you. So the you of verse three and the you that preceded that is the you of verse five.
So it's the covenant people of God. Another direction to take that some interpreters and commentators take is that now God is speaking to Christ. Surely you, Christ, shall call a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you shall run to you, speaking of the Gentiles, because of the Lord your God and the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified you." That language specifically perhaps being the clincher for those who see this as being spoken to Christ. God, the Father, had glorified the Son in raising Him up from the dead.
That's the stuff of Acts 13, not only Paul's sermon there, but the entire apostolic preaching in the book of Acts where God the Father glorifies the Son in raising Him from the dead because of the perfection of His work that He had rendered on behalf of sinners. And so, all of that to come back to this, that the ground of the gospel summons is Christ. It's interesting here, this language of the sure mercies of David. Did you know that in the Old Testament, we often have passages that God refers to David as the one who will be given to the people But after David has died, when we see that, and even perhaps we could say even before David has died, David being the type of the blessed anti-type Jesus Christ, David is spoken of by Old Testament authors as being Christ himself.
David as Type of Christ
David is a name that is frequently given to Christ. We won't go through these passages, but for those who do take notes, Jeremiah 30 verse nine, Ezekiel 34, 23 to 24, and 27, 24 to 26, and also Hosea 3, 5. David is Christ in this language of promises being made by virtue of the covenant champion, Jesus Christ, our Lord. So, very simply, the ground of the gospel summons is Jesus Christ.
And no mystery, but a glorious clarity, glorious truth. The ground of the invitation that God issues is the blessed one, Jesus Christ. And it could only be Christ. The ground, the foundation, of course the majesty and the holiness and the glory and the goodness and the grace of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but that objective, redemptive, soteriological ground, salvific ground, saving ground of the gospel summons, of the gospel invitation, is the perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Response to the Gospel Summons
Which brings us next to the response to the gospel summons. The response to the gospel summons. And just for those who weren't with us this morning, one of the things we opened up by saying in the sermon this morning from Isaiah 55, one to three, is that Isaiah 53 comes before Isaiah 55. Not immediately, because there's a 54 between those two numbers.
But Isaiah 53 is the blessed story, the blessed reality, the blessed proclamational prophecy of the suffering servant, Christ, who would come and be bruised by the Father for the redemption of his people. And so Isaiah 55 follows upon its heels, and rightfully so, with the gospel summons. And so what is the response to that gospel summons? We saw this morning an 11-fold, invitation here at verse verses six and seven
Four Verbs: Seek, Call, Forsake, Return
we see four verbs of the gospel summons reply we see seek call forsake and return there are these four verbs of the gospel summons reply so the the imperatival invitation that is an invitation given in the mood of command is given in verses one through three and then what is the response having been made known the blessed ground or foundation Of that gospel summons, what is the response? It is, as the text says, 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. So we have these four verbs of the gospel reply. Seek, call, forsake, and return.
This is not, these are not the price of the abundant feast that we read of in verses one through three. In other words, the giving of the feast, the giving of divine abundance, isn't dependent upon us seeking, upon us calling, upon us forsaking, and upon us returning. But rather that invitation comes unconditionally to sinners, And it is God by His grace who gives us the new soul wherewithal, the amazing grace, the vantage point, the principle of grace, the habitude of faith, and all of those saving blessings by which we can seek, and by which we can call, by which we can forsake, and by which we can return. And this language of seek doesn't mean, you know, just kinda, just kinda, you know, search a little bit.
It has, it carries the weight of an active and a diligent pursuit. This is what the Christian is to do with the Lord, not just a, not a limp-wristed searching, not just an occasional, you know, every now and then, little searching after snippets of divine stuff, but an active and whole-souled pursuit of the blessings that come from the divine hand, an act of joy-filled pursuit of God, an act of joy-filled pursuit, a whole soul seeking after the Lord while he may be found, while he is still near. The calling is the posture of prayer. that call upon the Lord, the people of Christ, those brought forth to, by grace, to eat of the blessed feast of the money, the wine, the money, the water, the wine, the milk, and the bread of Christ, those called forth to avail of that abundant feast are those who call upon the Lord in prayer, who seek the Lord, who call upon Him, who forsake wickedness, and who come to the Lord or return to the Lord. The time and again in the Old Testament, we have the language of God to apostate Israel, return to me, you backsliders, and I will heal your backsliding.
This language applies to sinners generally to be sure, but there is a pointedness in the context with these apostate covenant people of the old covenant who had left the way of the Lord, who had departed from the good way, where faith and goodness and divine blessing is, and they had sought after all things of irreligion and the gods of the surrounding nations. So seek the Lord.
Seek the Lord While He May Be Found
Notice the governing condition. the present nearness of God. There is a sense where there is a condition, not perhaps in the way that we would see where we must merit this, but for those outside of Christ, for those sinners who have not believed, who are in unbelief, There is a limit to the availableness of the abundant feast that's offered in verses 1-3. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.
Have you ever in your life gone through a thing, enjoyed a particular season of something, or gone through an event, a family event, or a work event, or a vacation, or something like that, and you... On the other side of it, after having God through something that should have been enjoyable, that should have been joy-filled, that should have been happy, you've realized and regretted that you did not avail of the thing, you did not avail of the presence and the reality of the thing while you were there. This analogy falls apart because the sinner never really regrets not choosing God, but that is the unbelieving sinner marked by unbelief, the reprobate opposer to the things of God. But bear with me for a moment.
Have you ever not fully enjoyed a particular season, only to come out the other side and realize that, man, while I was in that, I really should have paid attention. I really should have been in it. I really should have been on. I really should have been with the others, my friends, my family, whomever it might have been in that time because that was a time where there was blessing.
That was a time where there was joy to be had, where there was gladness of heart to be availed of. I don't know how to properly articulate the horror that it will be when the Lord may not be found and when the Lord is not near. If you're here tonight and you're an unbeliever, you're outside of Christ, know that God is still here to be found and that God is still near. Why?
Because you're in a church, you're in a Christian church, and there's a Christian preacher yelling at you from the pulpit. God is near. God can be found right now. There will be a time coming where he will not be found and where he will not be near.
Now, this isn't to say that God somehow abstracts himself from a place. God is everywhere. Hell is hell because God is there. It's the absence of the goodness of the divine.
It's the absence of the one who is most good, most condescending in his blessedness. The horror to be found in a time where God is absent in that regard. He'll be wholly present in the hotness of his justice, wholly present in the hotness of his anger, in his most holiness, in his righteous antipathy and opposition to all that is not God, to all that is unholy that is not God. While God is near, while He may be found, call upon Him and seek Him.
Don't, as it's often been said in this church, today is the day of salvation, not tomorrow, not when you go home. You don't know what your future holds. The gospel summons comes, and to use the language that's in our text, why would you, in your posture of rejecting the divine, spend money and waste your wages on those things that do not satisfy when the God of satisfaction now may be found and the God of satisfaction is near? Don't forsake him, but rather own the blessings that he gives you in condescended grace.
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come, buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. And notice the divine posture that we have in the text. Verse seven, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the Lord, notice, and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.
God Who Abundantly Pardons
The one who provides an abundant feast is the one who abundantly pardons. And as all of us can reflect upon our abundant sins, Isn't it glorious to have our minds then move to one who abundantly pardons those sins? If we could only truly know the weight of our sins, we forget 99% of our sins. We sin daily.
There are some sins that we don't even know are sins because We're sinful, and we think we're more polished, and we think that we're more holy than we are. We have abundantly sinned against a God who is abundant, though, in his pardoning, and abundant in this feast of provision that he gives us, the water, the wine, the milk, and the bread of Christ our Lord. The posture of God to those who respond to the Gospel summons by grace is one of abundant pardon. What a great God that we have.
And notice,
Guarantee Attached to the Gospel Summons
that brings us to close with this, the guarantee attached to the Gospel summons. And this is a longer section, verses 8-13. The guarantee attached the gospel summons. Notice first that
Divine Wisdom: Thoughts Higher Than Ours
we have the divine wisdom, verses 8 and 9. 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. Now, I don't wanna say a mistake, but as we can often do, we can very often pull things out of their context and not appreciate the weight and the bent that the words actually have in their context.
For example, this passage can often be isolated from its context and used in discussions of God's unsearchable providential ways. You know, We're going to say that God's unsearchable providential ways are exactly that. We should have discussions about God's unsearchable providences. The secret things are of the Lord.
But this passage is often, you know, my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my way, says the Lord. Oh, God's providences are unknown to us. And that's true. But here it is not the mystery of providence in view, but the height of his mercy.
Notice what came immediately before these two verses. He will abundantly pardon. What is the metric and the arithmetic of men? It is a merit-based calculation.
You know, man thinks, and man, you know, rightly thinks, I think, in this lower world, where a meritocracy is a good thing. There's no such thing as a free lunch. We ought to work diligently as those made in the image of God, and we ought to earn things. We ought not to demand, we ought not to have this posture of entitlement that everything, all things are rights and we should have all things even though I don't work.
I should have a meal on my table, I should have a house, I should have medical support, medical aid, and I should have everything because I'm so fantastic. We rightly operate according to a meritocracy in horizontal relationships in the ethnic, in the sphere, in the universe, in the economy of mankind. The idea here though is that very often man can bring that metric or that arithmetic of merit calculation into the divine and into the realm of redemption. For he will abundantly pardon.
The question could be asked by those who don't understand. How can the wicked simply return and be lavishly pardoned? 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.
Man's arithmetic is one of merit calculation. We might say to ourselves and say to our own souls or to others, I am too far gone. Pardon, this free cannot be real. There must be a catch.
There must be a catch. No, my thoughts are not your thoughts. You think in the realm of redemption, like all untouched by grace have always thought that I must earn my standing with God. I must merit my salvation.
I must earn divine favor. God has already said to you, come and buy without money. Come and buy without price the wine and the milk and the bread of blessed sustenance. Come and avail of gospel truths without money and without price.
And so God says, because he had just said, you seek me, you call me, you forsake your wickednesses, and you return to me, and I will have mercy on you. If you come to me, I will abundantly pardon you. And against man's proclivities to rail against such an economy, he says, because my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your. Praise God that God's thoughts are not our thoughts and that God's ways are not our ways.
Thank God for God. You know, this passage does speak to his transcendent otherness. God is not, you know, simply just a superman or a super angel, or as one man has called him, speaking to the air, an uber Santa Claus. He is the one who is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in all of his glorious perfections, high above, not as though separated, but higher and removed in a sense from the lowliness of his creation in the highness of his creaturehood.
And here we have the blessed truth that he condescends in abundance to abundantly pardon those who are marked by abundant sin. Notice as well, we have the certainty, so we have the divine wisdom,
Certainty of the Redemptive Word
we also have the certainty of the redemptive work. Notice verses 10 and 11, the certainty of the redemptive work. There's an analogy brought to nature, to God's provision of rain and snow. touching upon the agricultural. 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 in bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater." So God's using language that, well, all of these should have known.
And while not all of us here are farmers, We have brains and we know how things work to a certain degree. Rain and snow, moisture comes down and it provides good things for the earth and good things for the seeds that have been put into the earth. And the rain and the snow don't descend back to earth, but rather the fruit of the harvest avails and comes forth from the earth. the rain and the snow having blessed it. Well, that analogy is used here, verse 11, 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. the certainty of the ground of this gospel summons, the certainty of the redemption that will take place because of the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The word, now, there are two things that we could probably see here, and I would wanna say that it's probably both of them. And I'll tell you why. This is the two concentric circles, if you will, of the use of the word that goes forth from the mouth of the Lord here. In the first place, the word is the promissory content of the chapter, the promise language of the chapter.
Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. You who have no money, come buy and eat. I will abundantly provide this priceless feast to you without money and without price. So the promissory content of the chapter, the summons, the covenant pledge that we've noted, and the abundant pardon of verse seven, that is the word that goes forth from the mouth of God that shall not return to him void.
And this is a blessed truth. Note that this is regardless of whether or not one believes in the word proclaimed, in the promise, in the gospel summons issued or not. When the gospel is preached, wherever the gospel is preached, There, the gospel has been successfully preached. The success of the gospel proclaimed does not depend upon the response to the gospel proclaimed.
It doesn't return to the Lord God void if nobody believes. Why? Because the blessed promissory content of judgment upon those who reject the gospel summons comes true. It bears forth.
It is a reality. Whether it's the proclamation of the word unto salvation, or the proclamation of the word unto damnation, that is the success of the word proclaimed. Because by that same word, which is a double-edged sword, some believe when it is cut to the heart, others reject and gnash their teeth when it cuts to the heart. But in both instances, whether in grace, for grace, or for judgment, the word has not returned void.
In the second place, the word can be seen here as the sent son. So the word is the promissory content of the chapter, but the word is also the sent son. We could say that the efficaciousness, the efficacy of the promissory word is intimately connected to the efficacy of the person of the Word, who is the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, being very an eternal God, the brightness of the Father's glory of one substance with Him. And so the Word is promissory content, the Word as the sent Son, how might we arrive at that?
Is that just, okay, yeah, Christ is called the Word, that's interesting, that's just a preacher, having his gloss or his little way with the word. Well, in Isaiah 53, which remember is foundational for this passage, notice in verse 10. It's the only place in Isaiah where these two words are brought together and in both places. Well, in the first place, it's speaking of Christ.
In the second place, it's in Isaiah 55, and we would wanna say it's speaking of Christ. Notice in Isaiah 53 10, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, he has put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and notice, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Verse 55. and it shall prosper, that is the word, in the thing for which I sent it." We don't have time to go through all the passages, but notice some of these texts, if you're taking note, and simply if you're listening, Christ as the word here in Isaiah 55, 11, John 8.42, Christ comes forth from God, just like the rain and the snow.
In fact, John 6.38, Christ has come down from heaven to do the divine will. John 4.34, 17.4, and 19.30, Christ accomplishes his work, but I will accomplish what I please. Christ gives seed to the sower in John 12, 24, in the sense that Christ, when he's buried in the earth, when he's died and buried in the earth, brings forth seed that will bear multiple fruit, that will bear much fruit. And John 6, 33, 51, Christ is bread to the eater.
And so Isaiah 55, 11, while we would want to say, yes, that it speaks with regards to the efficacy of the promise of God, that the abundant feast is for all who call upon him, we would also say that it gains its efficacy from the personal word. So the promissory word and the personal word, who is the Christ, the son of the living God, who came into this world. sinners to save. We see next the state of the redeemed in verse 12.
State of the Redeemed: Joy and Peace
Notice the blessed state of the redeemed. 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. For you shall go out with joy and be led out with peace.
This is the twofold state of the redeemed in light of this precious gospel summons, joy and peace. Have you ever thought about joy? I think when we think about joy, we would say, what's joy? You have five seconds to respond.
No, what is joy? You have half a second to respond. It's an emotion that we express. If pressed further, and if asked to spend a little bit of time on what joy is, I think we would arrive at something like this.
Not an emotion produced by our circumstances, but a settled gladness of heart grounded in God himself. That's Christian joy. Not the ebbings and the flowings that our circumstances bring us, not the joy that is the ebb of the circumstances, but rather it is a settled gladness of heart grounded in our precious God. When you think about joy, know that that is what it is, and that's what we ought to have as Christians.
Because of Christ, a settled gladness of heart grounded in God, joy is the soul's condition as it apprehends and rests in God as its chief satisfaction. Why would you spend your money on that which is not bread and waste your wages on that which does not satisfy when true joy comes from the God who is our chief satisfaction and Christ who secures the blessings of abundant pardon. It's rooted, joy is in objective realities and peace. Objective reality is the truth of one's standing in Christ Jesus the Lord.
And peace, similarly, not a feeling necessarily of calm, though you can apply that in certain contexts, not a feeling of calm or the cessation of trouble in the Christian context, but a state of reconciled relationship with God resting on accomplished objective ground. When the angel announces peace to you, in Luke chapter two, peace to you, when Christ uses those words, and when the angelic words are peace on earth and goodwill towards men, peace on earth as far as the cessation of wars is fantastic. The peace that is there in view is the reconciliation that Christ brings sinners to their God. The peace that we have with God by virtue of Christ when we believe on Him and we own Him as our precious Savior.
Peace is a state of a reconciled relationship with God, resting. on accomplished objective ground. Christ, the ground of the gospel, summons the covenant champion, secures that joy, and he secures that peace. And we close with this,
Reversal of the Curse
the language, lastly, of the reversal of the curse. The reversal of the curse. That's exactly what we have. You remember the curse, don't you, of Genesis 3.
Man, It's in a relationship, not in that weird way, with God. God related Adam and Eve to himself through the condescended covenant of works wherein he promised them life upon the keeping of a particular precept, to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They violated that particular precept and in so doing violated every commandment of God that was written upon their hearts and so thrust humanity into sin and depravity and wickedness and then therefore the just judgment for all of those things. Well, here in Isaiah 55, the gospel summons is given, the ground of the gospel summons is given, the intended response is stated, the blessed now guarantee attached to the gospel summons is declared, and part of that comes in the language of the reversal of the Genesis 3 curse.
And so we'll close with this, with two things. First, the curses of the fall into sin are reversed by Christ, the champion of Isaiah 55. Notice, first of all, we have thorns reversed. Thorns reversed.
Notice, instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree. Turn with me to Genesis 3. We won't be much longer, but I want us to close with the blessedness of the curse reversed by our covenant champion, the Lord Jesus Christ. Genesis 3, and keep your finger there as we bounce back and forth from Isaiah 55.
Notice the thorns reverse, Genesis 3. 17, then to Adam he said, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you saying you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth from you. and you shall eat the herb of the field. So back to Isaiah 55, 33, instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, instead of the briar, or instead of the thistles, if you will, shall come up the myrtle tree. It's a reversal of the curse.
Adam failed, thrust humanity into sin. Christ, the perfect succeeding one comes as the second Adam, perfectly obeys the covenant for which he was sent and that he was given. and he brings forth many sons to glory, and in so doing it's marked by a reversal of the curse. No longer thorn, no longer briar, but rather we have cypress and myrtle tree. We also have sorrow reversed.
Notice, again, in verse 17, we have the sorrow, if you will, that is of Genesis 3, but then we have, of course, the joy that we've already seen of Isaiah 12. We have the hostile ground reversed. Cursed is the ground, again, verse 17 in Genesis 3. Cursed is the ground for your sake.
And in Isaiah 55, At verse 12, B, notice the language, the mountains and the hill, remember the language of Romans 8, that all creation groans under the curse. Well now because of Christ, the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you. No more groaning and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Christ's salvation, Christ's saving work is cosmic.
It saves peculiarly the elect and perfectly the elect and efficaciously and sufficiently the elect, but it has cosmic implications and there's cosmic language being used here, the reversal of the curse. We have this expulsion reverse. Notice in Genesis 3 at verse 23, the language is the same. 323, therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
The key language here is God sent him out and drove out the man. Notice the language that we have here of verse 12a, for you shall go out with joy and be driven or be led out with peace. This isn't just, ah, interesting, it's sort of a vague, ambiguous, sort of murky, but it's kind of their connection of language. This is deliberate language used by God through the prophet to show that by the perfections and the verities and the excellencies and the riches of Christ, the curse is reversed.
Death as well is reversed, Genesis 19, lined up with Isaiah 55, 13. and verse B, and also Isaiah 53, eight, of course, the death curse is reversed. And we would also want to make note, we're not gonna turn here because we're going to close, but not only the curses of the fall into sin, but in the Isaac context with Israel, the reverses of the Deuteronomical curses as well. In Deuteronomy 28 and in Leviticus 26, we see water, Rain is withheld and thirst comes as covenant punishment. We see wine is removed and wine is destroyed and vineyards overtaken by the people of God's enemies.
We see milk is cut off from the land and the people are cut off from the land that flows with milk and honey. And we see bread being affected in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. Those four things, water, wine, milk, and bread, all in our passage here in Isaiah 55 as not being taken away because of broken covenant, but being offered because of kept covenant. Covenant kept by the covenant champion, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so the abundant feast comes, and it comes by the covenant keeper, by virtue of the covenant keeper, the second Adam, who secured salvation, who secured redemption, who secured abundant pardon, who secured our abundant feast for us. What a blessed thing we have in the unrivaled nature of Christianity. Remember what we noted this morning, that marketplace of cosmologies and philosophies in this lower world, when the town crier says, in effect, come to this booth. the Christian booth, because only there do you have the abundance of pardon. Only there do you have the abundance of redemption.
Only there do you have truth. Only there do you have gospel feast. Only there do you have a God who condescends to bless his people by virtue of the work of the God-man, Jesus Christ, the mediator. Only there do you have true and everlasting blessing.
And if you're here this evening and you're a Christian, you are the blessed recipient of the freeness of the priceless feast. If you're outside of Christ, the gospel summons comes to you. We read it and we preached it tonight, this morning, if you're here, and tonight as well. But remember, it's while God is still near and it's while God may still be found.
And so not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, not next year, but tonight. Let tonight be the hour of salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And all of this blessed abundant feast will be yours because of that Christ who is believed upon.
Rest upon Him, own Him as Savior. Rest in Him and not the passing pleasures of a dying world. Why would you, in the words of Isaiah, spend and waste your money and meticulously count your coinage for things that die off, that never satisfy, that never satiate, that never provide any sustenance? In Christ there is sustenance that is elevated above sustenance, and in him all will be saved.
Well, let's pray.
Closing Prayer
God, we thank you for your truth. We rejoice in your word. We thank you for the gospel summons that we have in Isaiah 55. We thank you for the blessedness of salvation in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
We thank you that he reversed the curse and provided a way to everlasting life through his righteousness and through his blood. And we thank you for the precious work of our Christ, we pray that by your grace you would condescend in this place, that you would make alive those presently dead in their trespasses and sins, that they, having formerly rejected the living Christ, would by grace own Him and see Him as their all in all and believe on Him for everlasting life. We thank you for gospel promise. We thank you for gospel certainty.
We thank you for the foundation that secures gospel truth. And we do pray that you'd go with us into this week, that we might glory in our Christ, that we might sing the praises of his most high and holy name, and that in this lower world, we would conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we pray in his precious name, amen.