The Message Depends On Circumstance
I can only
imagine how these words would have sounded throughout the Hebrew history from
when Isaiah wrote them. Historically at
the time of the writing, these are a people who have just come through the
Assyrian assault. They don’t realize it
yet, but they are headed into Babylonian captivity. But then there will be a faithful remnant
that reads these words in the light of being allowed to return to
Jerusalem. Then there will be those who
read these words under the Greek occupation and especially the blasphemies
under Antiochus Epiphanes IV. Then there
will be those who read this under Roman occupation. Then there are those who read this through
the light that Jesus sheds upon it. Then
there are us, who read them now in the light of Christ’s crucifixion and
resurrection.
Listen to
these words of incredible promise: “Come! Everyone who thirsts, come to the
waters! He who has no money, come, buy
and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without
money and without price!” Imagine how
these words affect all kinds of people in a vast multitude of
circumstances. Imagine the hope and the
peace that these words can bring upon a world thrown into the chaos that
humanity establishes upon it.
Challenge In The Midst Of Compassion
But as only
God can adequately do, do you hear the challenge that comes through the
declaration of peace? Note that there is
always a challenge when God speaks – even, perhaps especially, when God speaks
words of peace. Look at verse 2. “Why do you spend your money for that which
cannot sustain you and why do you labor for that which does not ever satisfy?”
Wow. Talk about a line written almost three
millennia ago that can still shatter the cultural mindset of today! When I read these words, I cannot help but be
rocked to the ground. How much of my own
life is spent pursuing things that can neither sustain me nor satisfy me? How much of my life is spent fighting off the
ways of this world and its death grip upon my ability to find true joy and
happiness? God has made each of us
relational people sent to proclaim Him to the world. How much time do I spend doing anything but
that!
Talk about a
time to need to hear verse 3. “Hear,
that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting
covenant.” Of course, this verse is not
just spoken to the individual hearer but also to the communal hearing. God is calling us as a community to incline
our ear to Him. God is calling us as a
community that we might collectively as His church have an everlasting
covenant. He is calling us collectively
to come and enjoy His food which does satisfy and sustain. This is a collective call for us to come
together and base ourselves in Him.
Seek The Lord
In verse 6
we get another very famous passage.
“Seek the Lord while He may be found.”
I love the double-edged nature of this line. First, there is the edge of
encouragement. We are encouraged to find
the Lord! We are encouraged to come to
Him and turn our lives to Him! But then
there is also the edge of warning. We
are to seek Him while He may be found.
This implies that there will be a time when it is too late for us to
find Him. If we waste enough of our
lives, we might just end up in a place where we can no longer find God. If we ignore God our entire life, we may find
ourselves in the place of the dead awaiting our time to stand before a God that
we never took time to know. What a sad
and tragic reality that would be!
So I join
with the prophet Isaiah and exhort you now, seek the Lord while He may be
found!
How do we do
this? Well, let’s take the words that
end this chapter seriously. Let us
forsake our wicked ways. Let us leave
our unrighteous thoughts. Let us seek
repentance so that the Lord may have compassion upon us. The first step to seeking the Lord is humble
repentance.
We Are Not The Lord
Then we
arrive to verse 8. Oh, how I love the
absolute brutal honesty of verse 8. “For
my thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are my ways your ways.” Seeking the Lord involves acknowledging that
God is absolutely foreign to us. We are
not little gods. Our culture would have
us believe that because we are a part of creation we all naturally contain a
little essence of God within us. What a
load of … rubbish.
Absolute
rubbish! We contain no essence of God
within us on our own! We were made in
the image of God, yes. But our sinful
nature separates us from God! It utterly
and completely separates us from God.
However,
when we acknowledge that His ways are not our ways and that His thoughts are
not our thoughts then we can repent. We
can cast away ourselves. As Paul says in
Galatians 2:19-20, we can crucify ourselves with Christ so that it is no longer
we who live but He – the crucified Christ – who lives within us. We can put aside this immortality and God can
send His blessed Holy Spirit within us.
Then – and only then – can we say that we have the spark of God within
us! We can indeed have a relationship
with the Creator of this world, but it must come through the valley of
repentance. We can have God within us,
but not naturally. We can have God
within us once we have received His Holy Spirit.
Again, seek
the Lord while He may be found! Repent
and receive the Holy Spirit!
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