Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 125th episode. In this episode I want to study Isaiah chapter 55. This chapter brings us to the covenant of grace made with us in Christ. Chapter 53 gave us a front row exhibition to the suffering of Christ. Chapter 54 showed us the consequence of Christ’s sacrifice for the Church. The grace of God is here referred to as the sure mercies of David. God’s promises are applied to us in the New Testament as benefits which are sealed by the resurrection of Christ. Undoubtedly Isaiah’s prophecy had the additional purpose of comforting the Israelites while they were in Babylonian captivity. But the primary purpose is targeted at the faithful in Christ – which means us today. This chapter shows us a free and gracious invitation for all people to come and partake in the benefits of God’s grace. This is followed by prescient reasoning as to why you should accept the invitation. We also see God’s declaration that His gospel will be successful in the Gentile world. There is great encouragement to repent and reform, followed by assurances that God will indeed pardon those who do. All of these claims and promises are then ratified by the efficacy of the Word of God. The salvation of the Jews from their captivity functions as a sign that God will accomplish His other promises as well.
Many people reference this chapter for the verses which declare God’s ways are essentially alien to our own ways. His thoughts and actions are so infinitely higher than our own that sometimes we can’t even recognize them – let alone understand why He did it. When you hear people say, God works in mysterious ways, almost always they are misquoting this particular chapter. I call it a misquote because that phrase is not actually in Scripture. But it’s not an incorrect misquote because it basically paraphrases what this chapter does lay out. Let’s begin with verses 1-5:
Isa 55:1 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Isa 55:2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
Isa 55:3 Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
Isa 55:4 Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples.
Isa 55:5 Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
This passage opens with an invitation for all of us to come and partake in the benefits of God’s grace given to us through the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord that we talked about at the end of the previous episode. It’s God working in you all that is good about you. Initially God chose Israel as His people and lifted them out of a pagan world into a more sophisticated civilization. But after Christ this invitation has been extended to everyone – the poor, the maimed, the blind, and all manner of lowly sinner as well. All of us are invited to this marriage supper. One of the principle factors that drives exclusivity is scarcity. People are very hesitant to share their material wealth if they believe their material wealth is scarce. The fact that all people everywhere on earth are invited to partake in Jesus proves that there is no scarcity in Jesus. In Christ there is enough for all and enough for each. As Christians we need to remember this, because it’s our mission to extend a general offer of life and salvation to all people. The gospel excludes none who do not exclude themselves.
The only qualification Isaiah identifies for those who are invited is that they must thirst. This points out the that although every person is welcome to the gospel, the gospel must in fact be welcome to them. A good example of a person who does not thirst is a person who seeks full and complete satisfaction in the material world. This person ignores their need for transcendental fulfillment. This person relies entirely on his or her own efforts at righteousness. A person who does not thirst sees no need for a Savior. They believe they are the epitome of perfection just the way they are. Consequently, they will not lower themselves to accept Christ as their Lord. This is one of the reasons why I think the doctrine of speaking your opinions as truth or loving yourself exactly as you are is so dangerous.
The truth is all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The culture has taught us that we as individuals cannot be wrong because there is no such thing as right. So if there’s something wrong with us, instead of working to fix it, we demand that society change itself to accommodate our issues. But this doesn’t work because even if we believe with all our hearts that our issues are not wrong – they are still in fact wrong and lead to inevitable breakdown. The only way you can be okay just the way you are is if you have a Savior who loves you and forgives you just the way you are. And I think you actually need that forgiveness in order to even look at yourself honestly. Otherwise your guilt is too severe and the temptation to generate a fiction about yourself overwhelms you. This is why people either lie about their sins or attempt to normalize them.
But imagine you were flying on an airplane and something went wrong with the engine. You wouldn’t believe pretending nothing is wrong would actually save you from crashing. You wouldn’t march down the aisle as an activist trying to convince everyone that it’s perfectly okay for the engine to burst into flames because who are you to say an engine shouldn’t do that? The engine is simply expressing its own truth. No, you would understand if that engine doesn’t get fixed like right now then all of us are going to die. The only way you could survive this critical engine failure is if a bigger, better engine kicked on as a redundancy. Here’s the truth for humanity: all of us are flying around in single-engine airplanes that have suffered critical engine failure which cannot be repaired. We need that bigger, better engine to kick on and save us. Christ is that engine and you need Him as your Savior to prevent crashing into the ground.
The people who acknowledge that need are equivalent to those who thirst. Those who thirst are invited to drink the living water that is Jesus. Those who labor and are overburdened are invited to Christ for rest. God will allow your thirst to grow more severe if that’s what it takes for you to seek His grace. The place to which you are invited is likened to a marketplace of foreign goods. Sort of like water-side ports where commodities are brought in. This illustration is meant to show you that God’s grace comes onto you externally. It’s not simply a trick of the mind happening within yourself. Additionally, it shows that God’s grace would have been forever foreign to you had Christ not brought in an everlasting righteousness.
Jesus is the fountain that flows to quench our spiritual thirst. He is the water that comes from the rock as we languish in the desert. Jesus is the water that makes the city of God grow and flourish with life. This infusion of life-giving water might seem a simple thing to be taken for granted. Such is the way we view actual water when it’s in abundance. But those who trust in Christ acknowledge their spiritual thirst and therefore their desperate need for water. To the Christian the water of Christ is infinitely refreshing. Jesus brings us the waters of life, the waters that heal us. In the gospel of John Jesus said, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. The gospel invites us to a place of living waters where foreign goods are given to us free of charge.
Think for a moment about how a salesman treats you. They might wine-and-dine you or perform all manner of courtship in an effort to gain your patronage. But the work God has done to court us far exceeds that of any salesperson – and He’s done it in the context of a transaction where we are the only ones who gain. That is the beauty of self-sacrificial love. The gospel is the greatest bargain you will ever have. You can make it your own today by accepting God’s grace onto yourself. It’s a mystery why every person is not a Christian. But I think a lot of it has to do with the unwillingness to humble oneself. It takes a humble heart to accept that you are not the lord of your own life. Some people might also be suffering under the misapprehension that their guilt is too much for God’s grace to cover. And still others have a lust for power that pits them into rebellion against the One who is truly powerful. But this doesn’t have to be you, you can take the plunge today and never look back.
The illustration moves from simply buying to actually eating. When you eat something you make it your own even more than when you buy it. You establish your relationship with Christ by accepting the gospel not simply to consider it as you would an object outside of yourself. You feast on it and imbibe it so that it nourishes and strengthens your spiritual life. When we take on these necessary provisions for our souls we must be willing to part with anything that competes with them. We must do what we can to part with sin because sin is in opposition to Christ. If you have some treasure that sits on the throne of your heart then you should probably part with it because it’s preventing you from having the graces and comforts of Christ. If we have opinions about what’s right and these opinions conflict with Christ – we must part with our opinions and take on Jesus as the truth. And if the moment becomes so desperate that your only options are to let go of your life or continue on living but without Christ – it is best to let go and pass on into eternity with Him. But I should note that it’s highly unlikely you will ever be in that position. No one, not even Satan himself, can take you away from God if you choose to be with God. This idea of eating what you buy at the foreign marketplace is meant to indicate that you should not deny yourself the comforts that attend the grace of God. Don’t be ashamed of being that Christian who is relaxed and enjoys life because you know that God loves you.
The provision offered by God extends beyond anything this world can offer. No amount of plain, earthly water can quench your spiritual thirst. You need God’s Spirit to revive your own. If you look to the temporal world for your transcendental needs, it will continuously fall short of your expectations. You will have to move from one high to the next and will be left feeling empty and disappointed in between. Christ not only meets our expectations – He goes beyond them. We can seek God because of our spiritual thirst, and when we find Him we discover that not only does He quench this thirst, but He also nourishes us to grow and improve ourselves. Wine and milk were the staple commodities of the tribe of Judah. Milk is used as an illustration to show that our relationship with God through Jesus Christ gives us the spiritual nutrients we need to advance in maturity. Wine illustrates the idea that our relationship with God brings joy and gladness into our hearts. Depending on this world to satisfy our spiritual needs is like drinking stagnant pond water in an effort to quench our thirst. It might feel sufficient in the moment, but ultimately we are poisoning ourselves and forsaking the pure water, the milk, and the wine that is found in Christ Jesus.
All of this provision is offered to us by God free of charge. He instructs us to come and buy without money. Sometimes we think we’re wealthy when really we are wretched and poor concerning what really matters. Jesus knows this about us. In the book of Revelation Christ told the church in Laodicea that although they believe they are rich, prosperous, and need nothing – they are in fact wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Buying the provisions of God without money intimates that God’s provisions are priceless. There is no offer we could make that would measure up to the value of God’s provisions. Wisdom is like this. Wisdom is that which cannot be gotten for gold. It’s also the case that God has no need of us nor anything we can give him. Us buying without money indicates God’s disposition to give freely. But most importantly to buy without money shows us that God’s provision has already been paid for by Jesus. He paid for it with His own blood. A sacrifice made in sinless perfection that goes beyond all monetary value. The truth is that humanity is utterly unworthy of the benefits of God’s provision. Nothing we have and nothing we can do is comparable in value to the free gifts of God. I think when we pass on and come to the full realization that Christ and heaven are given to us – we will see ourselves as forever indebted to God’s grace.
After the content of God’s provision is explicated for us, we see an earnest persuasion to accept this invitation and make God’s grace a good bargain for ourselves. He calls us to pay attention to what He’s proposing and apply it to ourselves. It’s not hard for us to pay attention to the things we find interesting. But what we find interesting is not always what is best for us. It’s a lot easier to pay attention to Netflix than it is to study for your next exam. But studying for your next exam is far more important for your future than watching Netflix. God wants us to pay attention to His word with the same zeal we possess when enjoying our own interests. This is chiefly because His word is of ultimate interest to our future. If our hearts are proud, we should humble them so that we can hear the gospel – which in principle brings us into humility under God. God wants us to bend our focus onto Him in such a way that we listen with attention. But it doesn’t stop there. He also wants us to comply with Him on His terms. We are to accept God’s offers as very advantageous and answer His demands as very fit and reasonable. This is basically saying, God knows what’s good for you better than you do. The essence of faith is taking God’s word for it. So you do what you can to live as closely to Christ as possible, on the faith-based presupposition that doing so will lead to you living your best life.
To neglect the gospel invitation is to do unfathomable harm to ourselves. The question God is proposing is why would you spend your value on sustenance that is not real and will not satisfy? Why toil and labor after things that are empty and vacuous? The things of this world cannot function as food for your soul. Bread has long been considered the staff of life. But Jesus said that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This indicates that your natural appetite is not the only facet to your experience – you have a spiritual appetite as well. If wealth and pleasure were enough to satisfy the soul then human beings would not have a religious impulse. And yet the religious impulse is observed in every human society ever discovered. Eternal truth and eternal good are the only foods suitable for a rational and immortal soul. The number one desire of your soul is reconciliation, union, and communion with God. It’s what you were designed for.
Worldly wealth can’t get you to that level of satisfaction. In fact, worldly wealth hardly satisfies even worldly craving. How many people do you know who would happily disavow ever gaining anything in the future? How many people have enough money? And if they have enough money, do they have enough stuff? Can you think of anyone who isn’t in search of the next better thing? Temporal wealth flatters us but never truly satisfies us. It tempts us but it never delivers. It’s like if you’re starving and you dream of food – you might feel satisfied for a while in the dream, but then you wake up and realize you are empty once again. Searching for contentment in the things of this world can only lead to vanity and vexation. You need transcendental purpose to color your life with meaning. Nothing else can substitute for that.
It’s true that we need a certain level of goods to survive. It’s true that we need to work and strive for these things or else we will die. But that’s not what’s being addressed here. What’s being addressed is the attempt to set worldly goals as if they have an eternal nature. When you’re shopping for items or cars you tend to look at them as if they will make you happy forever. No one buys a car with the curiosity of what it will look like in the junkyard thirty years from now. Most of us completely block out the fact that one day we will scrap the thing we are about to sacrifice half a decade of our lives to pay off. Again, I know we need cars – if your vehicle is simply a means to an end then you’re not being addressed here. The primary target of this criticism are the ones who view items in such a way as to think: once I have this then I will be satisfied. The far better way of thinking is to seek your satisfaction in Christ alone, and then view whatever items as basic necessities that you utilize as you carry out God’s purpose in your life. That’s how you prevent making idols out of your wealth.
To steer you away from this trap God asks: why do you act against your own interest? Why do you put yourself through the suffering of continual disappointment? We approach these things with reason and allow the reason to show us a holy resolution to labor not for the meat that perishes, but for that which endures to everlasting life. Allow the disappointments of temporal things to drive you closer to the eternal Christ. If you seek satisfaction in Jesus alone then you safeguard yourself against nihilism. You make the foundation of your own certainty secure in God – and God is the only reality who is certain.
But the appeal for you to accept the gospel invitation is argued from a positive perspective as well. You do yourself unspeakable kindness if you accept and comply with the gospel. A relationship with God through Jesus Christ secures to yourself present pleasures and satisfactions. It allows you to consume that which is good, which is both wholesome and pleasant. God’s word is good in itself and is good for you. If you listen diligently and obediently walk with Christ your conscience will be at ease and you will have the comforts of God’s Holy Spirit. Living with God leads to a rich, satisfying, and peaceful spiritual life. God really is showcasing the abundant blessings He has for you because He deeply desires that you have them. It’s the sad state of humanity that we need to be courted and persuaded to partake in our own bliss. Through your relationship with God you secure to yourself lasting joy. The gospel does not simply save your soul from perishing, although it also does that, but it elevates you to a place of eternal blessing in heaven. The words of Jesus Christ are spirit and life. It all seems so easy because it is easy – God is simply calling you to hear Him and trust Him.
It is God who secures everything to us once we come to Him. He establishes the covenant-relations with us and thereby settles the sure mercies of David upon us. If we come to God and choose to serve Him, He will move to do us good and make us joyful. The covenant-relationship between yourself and God was established from everlasting and will continue on into eternity. He has always known about you even before you were born. You were in the mind of Christ as He walked with His cross. God’s provision is extended to us because of His mercy for us. You often hear people use the misery of this world as an attempt to explain away God. But the entire premise of the gospel is predicated on God’s understanding of our miserable condition and His concern for us. God’s mercy is ordered every way in kindness to us. These provisions are called the sure mercies of David to illustrate the point that they belong to the royal line of Jesus Christ. Christ is the Mediator between the Father and humanity. Covenant-mercies belong to Jesus, they are purchased by Him, they are promised in Him, they are treasured up in His hand, and by His hand they are dispensed to us. These mercies are also absolutely certain. God’s covenant is well-ordered in all things. His proposal is real, sincere, serious, and authentic.
The first coming of Christ represented God making good on all of these promises. Humanity was in no place to earn the gift of Jesus, and yet He gave Himself to us freely. Christ was sent to attest to the truth of God’s promises. He is the Word made flesh, a witness that God is willing to receive us into His favor upon gospel terms. We can take Christ at His word because He is a faithful witness. He’s also a competent witness with ultimate credibility because He and the Father are One. Christ embodied and testified the will of God to the world, and to believe is to receive His testimony. Christ sacrificed Himself so that we could meet the terms of God’s invitation and seal it. Without Jesus, we have no way of finding that marketplace of foreign goods which are the provisions of God. We can’t arrive at the living waters on our own. But Jesus is our commander, He shows us what to do and enables us to do it. It’s true that while we are on earth we face a landscape of spiritual enemies. Our peace with God means war with God’s enemies. But Christ is our good Captain – He will tread our enemies under His feet and give us possession of the promised land. Christ is a commander by His precept and a leader by His example. It is always in our best interest to follow Him.
Christ has always been the Master of His Kingdom. But His desire is to populate it with guests to enjoy the fruits of His provision. The Gentiles were called out of the highways and hedges, from nations previously lost to the Church. These were people who never had prophets sent to them and lived outside the walled garden of Israel. It’s the expansion of God’s promises from His own people to all people. In Galatians Paul said the Gentiles came not only to know God, but to be known by God – a status that is infinitely better than anything they had before. And it’s interesting to note that these Gentile people were ungodly sinners. Perhaps they had spent their entire lives running away from God. But after Christ’s resurrection, they turned and ran toward Him with all the alacrity imaginable. And all of these Gentile sinners being brought into the fold and lifted up out of paganism served as a testimony to attract even more people. It resonated with the Gentiles that Jesus Christ is the Son of God – and that the only way to the Father is through the Son. They understood it. Jesus is the Holy One of Israel and, true to His promises, He was glorified in His resurrection and ascension. This resurrection became the chief argument by which humanity turned their eyes toward the heavens and were brought to life by the true and living God. Let’s read verses 6-13:
Isa 55:6 “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
Isa 55:7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
Isa 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isa 55:10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
Isa 55:11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Isa 55:12 “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Isa 55:13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
This passage further discusses the covenant of grace that we have in Jesus Christ. We see what is required of us as well as what God promises. We see that God’s good will is not limited to Jew or Gentile. His precepts and His promises are made for all people everywhere. Anyone who thirsts may come to Him. God’s gracious offer brings pardon, peace, and all happiness to broken sinners. We are encouraged to pray to God with the understanding that our prayers shall be heard. If you’re in a situation where you’ve revolted against God and abandoned your allegiance to Him – turn back around and seek Him. If you think you’ve provoked God so that He’s withdrawn His favor from you – turn back around and seek Him. Isaiah urges the people to call upon the Lord while He may be found. To seek Him while He is near.
You should turn to God and inquire of His wisdom in all things. It is your portion and your happiness to be reconciled to Him and to be joyful in His favor. If you’ve walked away from God or if you’ve driven a barrier between yourself and God by way of sin – now is the time to feel sorry that you’ve lost Him and turn back around to find Him again. Christ is the way to establishing a relationship with God and Christ is the way back to God if you’ve strayed. He will forgive you and embrace you. The Holy Spirit will be your guide in this work and Scripture will function as your rule. If you need to, call upon Him now and in your prayer ask to be reconciled to Him. But don’t stop there. In your reconciliation continue to pray for all things that you need.
Let’s unpack this idea of calling on God while He is near. The implication is that right now God is near to you and can be found by you. If you truly seek God and call upon Him He will reveal Himself to you. In this moment His patience is waiting on us, His Spirit is working with us, and His word is calling to us. There is no better time than right now to repent and turn to God. The other side of this implication is that a day is coming when God will be far off and when God will not be found. This is the moment His patience is over and His Spirit works with us no more. This sort of thing can happen in your life if your heart is incurably hardened. If your conscience is seared and you’ve completely warped the mechanism by which you orient yourself to God – then I don’t know what the future holds for you. Scripture seems to indicate that at death and judgment the door will be shut for good. That’s why there’s a sense of urgency now. The moment is right now for you to accept Christ as your Lord and Savior and thereby accept His mercy. There will be a day in the future for the wicked where judgment without mercy takes place.
But the good news is that it doesn’t have to come to that for anyone. If you repent and seek to be sanctified by God’s Spirit, all of your sins will be pardoned. This is God’s call to the wicked and the unrighteous. The wicked are those who sin in word, thought, and deed without a second thought toward God. The unrighteous are those who neglect the simple duties of humanity: love, self-sacrifice, provision for your dependents, things like that. This word is given to them as a word of salvation. It’s an assurance that if they come to God as penitent sinners He will move to pardon them.
Let’s talk a little bit about repentance. Repentance requires that you do two things: leave your sin and return to God. You want to get to the point where you forsake all sin with loathing and abhorrence. We have to stop walking down the false path that will never bring us the joy we aim at. Continuing down that road is dangerous and can only lead to your destruction. You should stop yourself from taking even one more step in that way. In addition to getting off that path, you must also have a change of heart regarding sin. Repentance strikes at the root and washes the heart of wickedness. You must reform your fallen judgments regarding persons and things. You must work to dislodge the corrupt imaginations and quiet the vain pretenses under which your fallen heart shelters itself. Repentance requires that you return to God as your sovereign Lord. We have rebelled against God and it is our chief concern to be reconciled to Him. You must return to the Lord who is the source of life and the fountain of living waters. Humanity has long forsaken the fountain of living waters in exchange for broken cisterns.
I know you’re thinking all of that sounds too difficult. And that’s because it is too difficult. That’s why Christ gave His life on the cross. Our hearts cannot be sanctified and we cannot decisively turn away from our sins without the power of God’s Holy Spirit. We need the Spirit of God to purify us and make us clean. If you allow Him, God will work in you to progressively reshape your thoughts and desires. He will lead the way in transforming your heart so that it seeks the accomplishment of His will. To be fully transformed into the image of Christ is what it means to be fully aligned with ultimate reality. Who God is is good. What God wants is good. Without God our sense of good loses all definition.
In an addition to the comfort that comes with trusting God to sanctify you, we also have tremendous encouragement to repent. We know that God will have mercy on us and He won’t deal with us according to what our sins deserve. People who suffer in misery are the object of God’s mercy. The true and real consequences of sin are to make us miserable. Repentance awakens our senses to this misery and causes us to seek God’s compassionate mercies. As abundantly as humanity offends God, God more abundantly pardons humanity. This means despite the fact our sins are many, despite our past apostasy, and despite our nature that makes us prone to offend in the future – God will patiently repeat His pardon. God has a ready embrace even for apostates who return to Him in sincerity.
If God’s provision, mercy, and pardon are not enough to encourage us to repent – we can also take solace in His omniscience. When we look up to the heavens we see that God’s wisdom is high and transcendent. His thoughts and ways are alien to our own because they are infinitely higher than ours. Wicked people walk by evil ways and evil thoughts. Even decent people who depend fully on themselves are bound by massive ignorance. God urges us to abandon our own ways and comply with His instead. Secular human conversation is limited to the things of this world, but God’s conversation transcends all that we think we know. Imagine trying to teach algebra to a squirrel. That’s how much higher God’s thoughts are than our own. He knows what’s best for us because He designed us. We’re so limited we don’t even know how much we don’t know. If we are going to be true penitent followers of God, then we must set our attention and our affection on His word.
God’s omniscience is also useful to consider when it comes to your own repentance. One of the most common reasons sinners are hesitant to repent is their doubt that God will forgive them. They don’t think such a wicked person could possibly be reconciled to God. But God doesn’t think the way we think. Beyond what He has revealed to us in Scripture, it’s basically useless to make claims that you know God’s will. Again, this would be like a squirrel claiming to understand why you chose a fixed rate mortgage. We can’t understand why God would want to forgive us because His thoughts and His ways are outside our own realm of comprehension. Our sentiments concerning sin, Christ, holiness, this world and the hereafter – much of this is vastly different from God’s own perspective. We tend to graft our own personalities onto God. Idolatry is the ultimate example of this – creating for yourself a god in your own image. Because we think of God in terms of ourselves, we assume that He will only forgive us once and won’t be faithful to us anymore after that. Many human individuals find forgiveness difficult even one time. But God embraces returning sinners with pardoning mercy, He forgives just as freely as He blesses and He does it without upbraiding us. When it comes to your sins, you’re never too far away from God to repent and return to Him. He forgives and He forgets.
In human societies it can seem like things are incredibly unstable and chaotic. Human beings are many things but certain is not one of them. Unlike us, we see the certainty of God’s word in nature. The seasons come and go according to His design. The amazingly intricate ecological balance of life is maintained by His word. The machinations of physics are so certain that we’ve been able to base laws on them. The natural world has a way of maintaining and ordering itself despite the fickle movements of humanity. God’s creation represents an established order that is so certain and consistent that it tends to fade into the background of our cognition. Only when something disruptive happens do we even think about it. But the truth is that every civilization on earth would collapse into dust if even the slightest measurement was bumped out of calibration. The reason why generations of chaotic humans can come and go while the creation outlives them is because chaotic humans are not the ones governing the creation – God is.
The same is true of Scripture. The Bible has outlasted empires. God’s word has been permeating and impacting the lives of individuals for thousands of years. It is so deeply rooted at the foundation of our society that even those who claim to oppose it implicitly abide by it. You can’t throw out Scripture unless you’re also willing to throw out the world as we know it today. I don’t know very many healthy people who think life is so twisted and backwards that they stand at the ready to dispense with their own. Even those who are critics of the West tend to want to reside there. God’s word never returns to Him void. God’s word always accomplishes exactly what He pleases. God’s word is the declaration of His will according to the counsel by which He works all things. Observing this all around us validates the notion that the promises of God shall all have their full accomplishment in due time. Not one iota or tittle of them shall fail.
God’s mercy and grace effects the souls of believers in the same way rain effects dry ground. It replenishes us and makes us fruitful by sanctifying us and providing us comfort. The word of God is like a sword that cuts straight through to the soul. If it doesn’t convince the conscience and soften the heart, it will sear the conscience and harden the heart. All of that depends on the free will of the listener. One thing is for certain, there is never a moment where God’s word returns to Him void – it will have its effect in one direction or the other. Christ’s first coming into the world was like dew from the heavens and it will not be in vain. When the religious elite refused to be gathered in to Him, the Spirit reached out and gathered the Gentiles who glorified Jesus in their conversion.
This chapter finishes with further discussion of God’s providence for both the Israelites who were exiled in Babylon as well as the Christian Church today. The Jews were delivered from their captivity and led forth to their homeland again. He led them like He led their fathers long ago in the Exodus from Egypt. The Jews would depart Babylon not in fear but in triumph. They wouldn’t feel any regret about leaving their exiled settlements and they wouldn’t fear being recaptured. They would leave with joy and peace. Their journey home over the mountains would be pleasant and they would harbor no ill-will for the countries they passed through. The earth itself would rejoice at their homecoming. They might have expected their homes to be overgrown with thorns and thistles, but they would discover their land had enjoyed its rest. All of this would glorify God and show the surrounding world that the God of Israel is true and alive.
But Isaiah’s prophecy looks even further beyond the deliverance of Israel. The deliverance of Israel was simply an expression of God’s faithfulness in His ultimate deliverance of humanity through the gospel. He’s showing us that we can trust Him. His word and His promises are good. Watching the Israelites return home in joyful liberty is meant to show us the joyful liberty that follows when a believer is set free from bondage to sin and Satan. Christ sets us free in the same way He set free His people from the shackles of exile. This freedom gives hope to those in despair and brings joy to the melancholy. Not only does Christ set us free, but through His Spirit He transforms our character. The Israelites expected to find their land overgrown with thorns and thistles – not useful for anything except hurting and vexing other people. Individuals who are enslaved to sin are like thorns and thistles. But what they found was a land which had enjoyed its Sabbath and was populated with firs and myrtles. The same is true for repentant sinners when they discover how graceful, loving, and useful they can be.
God was glorified when He returned Israel from exile. And He will be glorified when His gospel work comes to full consummation. His family of redeemed sinners will be a living testament to His good name. There is perhaps no better praise to God than a life that has been saved and turned around. When you change one life you radically alter the future of many. This kind of redemption happens in front of our eyes everyday and brings continual encouragement to God’s people. The good things in life are more potent than the bad because they signify the everlasting favor of God. Though God’s favor may seem clouded in a moment – it shall never fade away. God’s grace is a promise He will keep with us for all eternity. The blessings your experience now are the foretaste of the everlasting blessings He has waiting for you on the other side.
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