God's Ultimate Invitation

Isaiah 55:1-3: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David."


If ever there has been a chapter that could be called God's blessed, eternal invitation of salvation to humanity, it would be this one. In just the first verse, the word, "come" is presented by the Lord four times; through the sacrifice of Himself (mentioned in Isaiah 53), God is offering forgiveness to all of us for our rebellion against Him, as He in mercy continues to withhold His righteous wrath (Isaiah 48:9). Jonathan Edwards, the great 18th-century pastor of the Great Awakening said it well in his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: "The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher . . . . The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood."


Whereas the full measure of God's dreadful wrath is deserving of us all, what one finds from Isaiah 55 are the immeasurable benefits afforded to those who respond to God's invitation of grace. Even though a person may not be one of privilege in this life, through his surrender to the Lord, he is given the right to buy "wine and milk" without money and cost. "Wine" and "milk" were figurative of a land abundant with animal and plant life. It was used of the promised land . . . a veritable paradise in an otherwise dry, barren, and desolate region. Therefore, what we are seeing is the offering of God's eternal provision (i.e. New Heaven and New Earth) for those who would desire it and would respond to His grace which affords it.


God interjects a calling for the people to listen to Him in order that they might "eat what is good . . . (their) souls delighting in the richest of fare." We know that God has prepared a "feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine-the best of meats and the finest of wines" on His Holy Mountain (Isaiah 25:6). It will be a time so festive and so spectacular that we today in our finite minds cannot comprehend the fullness of the experience. And again, it is "because of the LORD . . . the Holy one of Israel, (that has) endowed (the believer) with splendor" (Isaiah 55:5b).


To receive such a precious offering, we must "forsake our (wicked) ways, turn from our (evil) thoughts, and turn to the LORD" (55:7). God has promised to lavish us with His mercy, and afford to us the blessedness of His eternal kingdom . . . a place of joy and peace . . . where the mountains and the trees break forth in worship to the One True Almighty God! This is amazing love at its finest. Still, the benefits of such Divine mercy will only be afforded to those who would respond to it. Let us yield ourselves to the Lord and receive His Limitless Grace!