 "Come
eat and drink"
Rev. David Lee
Isaiah 55:1-5
Introduction
Isaiah opens this chapter with a call to
the thirsty. We do not tend to think of thirst as a huge problem
in the Bay Area. Water is easy to find around here, especially
between February and April. But thirst was a major problem for
the people of Israel in the Old Testament. In fact, it was a
life-threatening problem. They lived in the desert.
In fact, for Israel, thirst was
not only a problem, it was a curse. So right before the people
renew their covenant with God, Moses warns them of the
consequences of their disobedience saying:
“Because you did
not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of
heart, because of the abundance of all things,
therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send
against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking
everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he
has destroyed you.” (Deuteronomy
28:47-48)
Israel was a desert land covered with
mountains and valleys. There was one large river, the Jordan
River, on the eastern part of the country. But it was not easily
accessible to most of the cities of Israel because it was
surrounded by mountains. Where then did the people of Israel get
their water? They looked up to the sky for God to provide water
from the rain. When they kept and obeyed God’s covenant, God would
bring rain to grow a large harvest and they would enjoy plenty
from the land. But when they broke God’s covenant, God would
stop the rain and bring a famine, like He did in the time of the
Judges and the time of King Ahab. Their thirst was a reminder of
the sin they had committed against God.
As Isaiah calls out to the
thirsty, we can imagine how the people of Israel, who were about
to suffer exile, the ultimate curse of the covenant, must have
identified with that desperate feeling of thirst that their
forefathers had experienced in times of their disobedience
against God. Friends have you experienced that feeling of
helpless desperation before God? Is your life a dry and thirsty
land, where hope is just something you can not afford? Whoever
you are, wherever you come from, whatever you have gone through
is there an emptiness in your heart that won’t go away?
God calls out to ALL who
thirst, and says to them, COME to the waters! But perhaps you
are afraid that it will cost you too much to come to God. Perhaps
you are thinking, “It will cost me too much time!” or “It will
cost me too much fun!” or “It will cost me too many of my
friends!” or “It will cost me too many of my pleasures!” or “It
will cost me too much of my property or my money!” Are you afraid
that it will cost too much to come to God? Would you rather live
with your thirst than pay the price to come to the waters?
Well, here is the deal breaker.
God declares there is no price! “He who has no money, come, buy
and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without
price.”
OUR MONEY IS NO GOOD WITH GOD
It makes no difference whether
we have nothing or we have much; our money is no good with God.
We can not win God over by how much we have. We can’t win God
over with how much we’ve done.
So Isaiah asks, “Why do you
spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for
that which does not satisfy?” (v. 2). Our money and our labor
can buy things that leave us unsatisfied, but it can not buy
God. Have you tried to buy satisfaction from the things of this
world? Have you found it?
I must confess that there are
moments when I look at my family and I am tempted to think that
I have found satisfaction. There are moments when I look at my
daughter’s smile, or feel my wife hold my hand, and I think I’ve
found satisfaction.
There are moments when I look
at my accomplishments and think that I have found satisfaction.
There are moments when someone comes up to me and thanks me for
a sermon or Bible study, compliments me on something I have
written, tells me that in some indirect way that I am a good
pastor, and I think I’ve found satisfaction.
Oh but these are fleeting
moments. They are good moments. These moments are from the Lord,
to be enjoyed and to produce thanksgiving within our hearts. But
there are also moments when my daughter squirms out of my arms
and cries because I won’t let her eat the pieces of paper on the
floor. There are also those moments when I don’t want to look
anyone in the eye after preaching a sermon that I feel was
unclear.
None of the good things in this
world are true bread. None of the things we can accomplish in
this life can really satisfy us forever. After drinking and
eating from the things of this world, we always get thirsty and
hungry again don’t we?
Whether we have a lot of money
or no money, whether we’ve done many things with our lives, or
nothing with our lives, we can not buy true bread in this world
or find true satisfaction from any of our accomplishments. Our
money and our work are no good with God.
Money and accomplishments are
nothing to God because they can not compare with true food and
true satisfaction. The best things of this life are mixed with
bitterness, sadness, and tragedy. But the food that God gives to
the hungry is simply good (v. 2). This is not the good
mingled with bad that we are so familiar with in this life, but
pure unadulterated good! The best things of this life will leave
us hungry and unsatisfied. But the food that God gives inspires
delight in our souls because of its richness (v.
2). The word for richness here is literally, “fatness”
(KJV). Think marbled steak, or fatty sushi, or the richest, most
tender piece of meat you’ve ever eaten or dreamed of eating; or
for you vegetarians, the most buttery, delicate yet hearty dish
you’ve ever eaten or dreamed of eating.
We can not afford to buy this
good and richest food that delights our
souls from God with our meager riches or our meager
accomplishments. God is Holy, He is perfect, what could we ever
possibly offer Him for this richest of good food except
perfectly holy obedience?
We’ve seen the
crooks who pose as preachers on television and promise desperate
people that all their problems will go away if they send money
to their “ministries.” We know that we can’t buy God’s blessings
with money.
But have you tried
to buy God’s blessings with church attendance? Have you tried to
buy God’s blessings by living a moral life? Have you tried to
buy God’s blessings by trying to be as emotional as you can be
when you worship Him?
No, not all our
money or all our works or even all our efforts to obey God’s law
could be enough to buy this food. The best we can give God will
always be good mingled with bad. What’s more, nothing that our
money and accomplishments can buy are anything compared
with the food that God gives us. Our money and our works are no
good with God.
But there is
another reason that our money is no good with God. We can not
buy this food and drink with our money or our labor because God
has already paid the price. If God has paid the price, there is
nothing we can add to it.
JESUS CHRIST IS OUR FOOD AND DRINK
Before Isaiah tells those who
thirst to eat what is good and delight themselves in rich food,
he tells them to listen diligently. Literally, Isaiah
uses the same word for hear twice so it would read, “Hear
in hearing, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in
rich food” (v. 2). Then again, he says in verse 3: Incline
your ear, and come to me, hear, that your soul may
live.
The way to eat this food is not by buying
it, or by working for it, but by hearing the one who is
selling it. The way to come to God who offers water,
milk, and wine for the thirsty, and true food for the hungry is
by listening. If we do not listen, we can not come. If we
do not listen, we cannot eat. If we do not listen, we can not
live!
Why is it so important for us
to listen? We must listen because God gives us this bread
and drink in a covenant. This is a different covenant than the
one Israel received on Mount Sinai in the Ten Commandments. When
God gave that covenant to Israel, He told them to listen
and obey:
Hear
therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it
may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the
LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land
flowing with milk and honey. (Deuteronomy 6:3)
But the food and drink that God offers
through Isaiah in this passage today is not food that can be
bought with obedience. If we hear and then also try to buy this
food with our obedience, we have not heard the right covenant.
You see, this is a new covenant.
We can see that Isaiah is
talking about a new covenant because he writes in the future
tense in verse 3. He says, “I will make with you an
everlasting covenant.” The covenant at Mount Sinai was not
an everlasting covenant. The exile and later the destruction of
the second temple by the Romans is proof of that. It was not
everlasting because it depended upon the feeble obedience of a
sinful people. But the hope of Israel and the hope of everyone
who has ever broken the Ten Commandments, is this new
everlasting covenant.
What sort of covenant is this
everlasting covenant? Isaiah connects this new covenant with the
covenant God made with King David. What sort of covenant did God
make with David? We find this covenant in 2 Samuel 7:12-16:
When your days are
fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up
your offspring after you, who shall 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 to him a father, and he
shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will
discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons
of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from
him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.
And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever
before me. Your throne shall be established forever.'"
Isaiah does not promise to establish this
everlasting kingdom through what we do, but through what
David’s Son would do. You see, the Son promised to King David,
is the one who pays the price for the food and drink that
delights our souls.
Isaiah looks upon the thirsty
with no money, and those who have wasted their money for that
which is not bread, and their labor for that which does not
satisfy, and he sees that the Son of David will purchase it.
Who is this Son of David? It is
the Lord Jesus Christ, whom Matthew introduces to us as “the son
of David” and “son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). Jesus is the son of
David who pays the price for true food that satisfies and
delights our soul.
God made Jesus a witness. What
kind of witness? Jesus is the witness of the covenant. This is a
way of saying that He is the guarantee that God will keep His
covenant promises to bless us. Isaiah uses this word in this way
in two other places:
It will be a sign
and a witness to the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt. When
they cry to the LORD because of oppressors, he will send them a
savior and defender, and deliver them. (Isaiah 19:20)
And now, go, write
it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it
may be for the time to come as a witness forever. (Isaiah 30:8)
Jesus guarantees that all the promises of
the new covenant will be fulfilled for all who hear Him and
believe in Him. After all, He will fulfill the covenant Himself
with His perfect righteousness and make atonement for all our
sins on the cross.
When you grow
tired from all your work – work for your family, work for your
job, work for your church, work for your community, work for
your friends, work for your enemies – look to Jesus, the
guarantee that God will nourish you with true drink and true
food that satisfies your soul. When you have nothing left to
give, nothing left to spend, when you are thirsty, hungry, and
broke, look to Jesus.
Jesus is not only the witness
of the covenant, He is also leader and commander of the
covenant, the King who sits on an everlasting throne. In fact,
Isaiah shifts his voice in verse 5 to speak directly to Jesus
Christ. In verse 4 Isaiah tells us about Jesus Christ, then in
verse 5 he speaks to Jesus Christ. Then we discover that
Jesus is the one speaking to us in verses 1-3. Jesus is the one
calling us. He calls people who are strangers to Him. Yet
because it is Him who calls, when we hear Him and believe, we
will run to Him.
Five days after the Day of
Atonement, all of Israel celebrated the Feast of Booths. On the
last day of the Feast of Booths, the people were to present a
food offering to the Lord. It was on that day that John records
this amazing invitation from Jesus Christ:
On the last day of
the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If
anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever
believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart
will flow rivers of living water.'" (John 7:37-38)
Beloved, Jesus is our food offering, our
food and drink, the fulfillment of the Feast of Booths. It is
His body and His blood that we are to eat for our strength. So
when we hear God’s covenant promises that speak to us of how He
will feed us, satisfy us, and delight our souls with the blood and
body of Jesus Christ, we could not ask for a richer feast.
This is the meal that we will
partake in today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. It does not
cost us anything because it cost Jesus everything. In fact, we
can not offer anything to God for this meal without taking away
from what Jesus paid for us. To think that we can do anything to
make ourselves worthy of this meal is to think that the body and
blood of Jesus was not enough. But when we eat the bread and
drink the wine in faith, we have the deepest, richest assurance
that Jesus paid it all.
Have you heard Jesus call to you? Have you run to
Him? Have you believed in Him? Have you seen how the LORD your
God, the Holy One of Israel has glorified Him? Have you
worshipped Him today? Beloved if you have already come to Jesus,
been baptized, and professed your faith, come again today. Eat,
drink, without cost, and satisfy yourself in Him.
But if you have not heard His
call, or if hearing, you have not run to Him, if you have not
believed in Him, will you turn to Him today and believe? There
is no food like this, no satisfaction in this world that
compares with Him. Believe so that when we eat at this table
again you can join us - and taste and see that the Lord is good!
Rev. David Lee
Pastor
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