The Free Offer Of Mercy & Grace Series

ISAIAH 55: 1-3 -5

THE FREE OFFER OF MERCY AND GRACE

[John 4: 10-14]

People everywhere are called to listen to and receive God’s wonderful new covenant. The gods of this world extract a high price for what eventually turns into dust and ashes. God’ free offer though is a covenant relationship that will never end. This covenant is available to all who will come and partake of it.

The tone of the book of Isaiah has change to one of encouragement and hope. Because of the just announced work of the Servant in chapter 53, inescapable destruction can now be exchanged into a covenant promise of a most glorious future. The arm of the Lord has acted against sin and removed the sin that separated us from Him. The only thing that we must do is accept the Servant and His offering for our sin and receive the gift of God. If we do, we will be enabled to be servants of God in the world (which is what God has been looking for throughout the book of Isaiah).

I. A GRACIOUS INVITATION, 1-2.

II. AN EVERLASTING COVENANT, 3.

III. THE MESSIAH’S MISSION, 4-5.

Verse 1 is a gracious invitation to come to the Lord. "Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

God invites people in need to come to Him. The imperative come occurs four times in verse 1. It is imperative that we come to God. We must come to Him on His terms an not on ours, for there is salvation in no one else. The command to come is a sweeping invitation. The invitation is for everyone, for everyone who realizes they thirst. It is called thirst because it is a necessity and universal to human experience. If the verse had said, every one that breathes, it would not have more completely covered all mankind.

The sole qualification: thirst — that means desire and need. We all have this great need and yearning. None of us carry within our natural self that which is sufficient. We are all dependent upon external things for life and for well-being.

Our thirst though is often misunderstood. We might not know or realize for what we really thirst. Many have been driven by this thirst to many fountains and found what they drank down incapable of satisfying them.

The call of wisdom is also to them who have no resources (no money). For those who realize that what they so desperately need, a relationship with the Lord God, they are informed that it cannot be purchased.

They are also called to come, buy and partake. How can you buy something without money? Anything worth having has its price. By coming they indicate that they are trusting in and relying on the Lord God for salvation and are agreeing to obey His commandments [Walvoord, John & Zuck, Roy: The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983-c1985, S. 1110].

The blessings God gives them are available without cost. Salvation is a free gift of God, [whether it refers to spiritual redemption or physical deliverance.] The Lord asked the people how they could be interested in other things more than Him. For He is the only One who can bring genuine satisfaction. Yet throughout all history people have tried to find satisfaction through many things other than God.

Make no mistake about how to satisfy this basic desire. Some set their desire on money thinking it is the answer to all things, but this satisfaction cannot be purchased with money.

My brother, do you know what it is that you want? It is God. Nothing else, nothing less. ‘My soul thirsts for God, for the Living God’ (Ps. ). The man that knows what it is which he desperately needs, is blessed. The man who only feels dimly that he needs something, and does not know that it is God whom he need, will wander in a dry and thirsty land, where no spiritual water is, and where the heart becomes parched and hardened. Understand your thirst. Interpret your desires correctly. Open your eyes to your need! Be sure of this also, that mountains of money and the clearest insight into intellectual problems, and fame, and love, and wife, and children, and a happy home, and an abundance of all the things that you desire, still will leave a central aching emptiness that nothing and no being but God can ever fill. Oh, that we all would realized what these yearnings of our heart mean.

For what then do we thirst and long? Christ Jesus. He, and not merely some truth about Him and His work. He Himself, in the fulness of His being, in the all-sufficiency of His love, in the reality of His presence, in the power of His sacrifice, as the daily source of refreshing which every heart awaits. We thirst for His life and His Spirit. For He alone is the all-sufficient supply of every thirst of every human soul.