Isa 55:3 The Faithful Mercies of David 1/23/2005 ßà
#1. Only Those Who Are Thirsty (Isa 55:1, Rom 3:11,18, Eph 2:3, Matt 5:6, John 4:10, Rom 10:17, John 2:10, 1Pet 2:2)
#2. Only Those Who Are Tired of Works (Isa 55:2, Rom 8:8, Prov 21:4, Eph 1:4, Isa 64:6)
#3. Only Those Who Hear
(Isa 55:3, Eph 2:1-3, Rom 8:30, Acts 2:27,
Please open your Bibles to the Prophecy of Isaiah 45:18 (2X). You find the Prophecy of Isaiah almost in the middle of your Bibles, just past Psalms, Prov, Eccl, and S. o. S. Today I want us to focus on the great forgiveness that God designed into His plan of salvation. And since we have been a great deal in the NT the last few months, I would like us to look for God’s great forgiveness in the OT. The title of our sermon today is “The Faithful Mercies of David” (2X), which is taken from Isa 55:3. But before we get to Isa 55, I would like us first to look at Isa 45:18-22. And there we see again on display:
In this passage that we are going to read God calls to the entire world to heed the call to salvation. Everyone on the earth is in need of salvation, because everyone is born on the way to Hell. Or if I would express it in NT language, everyone is urged to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
Isa 45:18 For thus
saith the LORD (Jehovah) that created the heavens; God himself that formed the
earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he
formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
Isa 45:19 I have not
spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed
of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare
things that are right.
Isa 45:20 ¶ Assemble
yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of
the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven
image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.
Isa 45:21-22 Tell
ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who
hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have
not I the LORD? And there is no God else beside me; a just God and a
Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends
of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
What did God say here? Let us begin with verse 18. When we
read “the LORD”, with all 4 letters capitalized, it stands for “Jehovah”, the
great “I Am”. And since the Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself that He is the
great “I Am”, we understand that Christ is Jehovah, and God the Father is
Jehovah, and God the Holy Spirit is Jehovah. And yet there is only one Jehovah,
because our God is only one God, who manifests Himself in three Persons, God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And so we read in verse 18
that Christ created the heavens and the earth. To the Christian this is no big
surprise, because we remember having read in the Gospel according to John
1:3, “All things were made by him; and without
him was not any thing made that was made”.
And, take note of it, God says that He created the world not in vain; He
created it to be inhabited by man and beast. There are people who believe that
God created the world in vain. They accept the fact that God created the world,
but since God is going to destroy this world anyway, they see this act of God
as something that was done just for a short interlude and then the earth will
be blown to smithereens. It seems as if God created the world “in vain”. But
God insists that He created it not in vain. The creation of this world
fulfils a definite purpose. The purpose is stated in Eph 1:10, “In
order that in the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things
in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth”. And therefore
God says to the seed of Jacob in Isa 45:19, “I said not unto the seed
of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain”. The seed of Jacob is not going to seek the
Lord in vain and not find Him. Every one of the seed of Jacob will find
the Lord Jesus Christ, because God says it here. They will find Christ in the
Bible, because Christ chose to make Himself known unto them. Many people derive
from this verse that in the beginning of the millennium all the Jews will be
saved, and then they will begin to evangelize the world. But that is not taught
here in this verse. Who, in this context, is the seed of Jacob?
Certainly it does not refer to all the physical descendants of Jacob, because
the majority of the Jews today reject the Lord Jesus as their Messiah. If they
die in that condition they will stand for judgment on the last day and be cast
into Hell. They do not belong to the “seed of Jacob” as mentioned here in Isa
45:19. In this context “the seed of Jacob” must refer to all
those who come to know the Lord Jesus Christ, both OT believers as well as NT
believers. Which means that in this context “the seed of Jacob” refers to all
of God’s elect, which are all those whom Christ chose to make Himself known to?
Therefore this is the only interpretation possible without making God a liar. Therefore
God says in verse 20, “Come and draw near together, ye that are
escaped of the nations”. In other words: Come together, and draw near to
God together, in groups, you who have escaped Hell, you whom God has drawn out
of all the nations. They, the nations, have no knowledge of the only true God.
They have set up the wood for the altars before their man made images,
and they pray to these gods that cannot save. But then consider the call from
God to all these nations. God says in verse 21, “Tell ye, and bring them
near”. In other words: “Tell them Who the true God is, and bring them near
to hear the truth. Let them know what things I have said about Cyrus
from the beginning of this chapter (verse 1). Let them know what I said
in verse 7 about Myself, that I am sovereign. “I form the light and
create darkness, I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things”.
Evangelize among them and let them take counsel together to find out who else
could have declared these things so far ahead about Cyrus. There is no one else
like Me, and there is no Savior like Me. You all need a Savior. You all need to
be saved”. And then God made the remarkable statement in verse 22, “Look
unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” Paraphrased God says,
“I will forgive all your trespasses by the mercies of Christ, and I will shower
you with all kinds of “spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ”, but
come now and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”. Now,
do we have to step aside for the stampede of people who take God up on this
offer? It is a very generous offer. It is an offer so generous, it cannot be
matched by anyone of the human race, throughout the existence of time. And so, who
will come? Very few will come. In spite of all the pleading that God has
done, very few believe what God says here in Isa 45:20-22. The only ones
who will come are the seed of Jacob, as defined in verse 19, who are commanded
to preach the Gospel among the heathen. But the rest of the heathen will not
come, no matter how attractive God portrays salvation, and no matter how
terrible God portrays eternal damnation. Please turn now to Isa 55:1
(2X). Isa 55 is a chapter where God shows His love and compassion for sinners. In
this chapter God shows His great forgiveness for sinners. Like in chapter 45,
here in Isa 55 God continues to plead with mankind, and this plea is addressed to
mankind from all the ends of the earth. And that is true. The call of the
Gospel and the call to repent goes out into the entire world, to all mankind.
But who will repent? Who will come to the Lord Jesus Christ? Very few will
come. But then, when we consider God’s Word carefully, we discover that the
effectual call goes out to:
#1. Only Those Who Are Thirsty (Isa 55:1, Rom 3:11,18, Eph 2:3, Matt 5:6, John 4:10, Rom 10:17, John 2:10, 1Pet 2:2)
Isa 55:1 ¶ Ho, every
one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye,
buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Who are those who are thirsty for the Gospel? Can we say
that every human being has a Christ-shaped-void in his soul, and is
restless all his or her life until we have filled this void with the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ? We hear this an awful lot these days, but it is a
bunch of nonsense. This idea is not supported by the Bible at all. God says in Rom
3:11, “There is none that seeketh after God”, and that really means
NONE at all, NO NOT ONE. God says in Rom 3:18, “There is no fear of
God before their eyes”. They are all happy slaves of sin and Satan, and
they do not fear the wrath of God. In fact, God says in Psalm 58:3, “The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as
soon as they be born, speaking lies”. God
does not say this about a few wicked babies. No! God makes this statement about
the whole human race. It is painful to see how much corruption and evil there
is in a young child’s heart, and how soon it begins to bear fruit. Look
at their violent tempers, their self-will, their pride, their envy of other
children’s toys, their moods, and some of them can be very moody, their
idleness when they are a little bit older, their selfishness, their lying and
deceit, their cunningly playing out their parents against each other, their
hypocrisy, their terrible aptness to learn what is bad, their painful slowness
to learn what is good, and a readiness to pretend anything in order to gain
their own ends. All these things we must be prepared to see in our own
children. In little ways they will creep out at a very early age! But you must
not think it a strange and unusual thing that their little hearts are so full
of sin. It is the fallen nature of Adam that we all have inherited when we came
into the world. Never listen to those who tell you that your children are
basically good. Think rather that their hearts are always inflammable as
tinder. At their very best they only need a spark to set their corruptions on
fire.
This does not mean that there are no redeeming
values in our children. Remember, we all were such terrible children at
one time. We all drove our parents mad. We all were at one time
happy slaves of sin and of Satan, and we did not regret it one moment. According
to Eph 2:3, “We all had our conversation in times past in the lusts
of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by
nature the children of wrath, even as others”. We all were at one time
children of the wrath of God. We all were on a slippery slide into Hell. But
God, in His great mercy, reached out to us and snatched us away from this
slippery slide into Hell that all mankind is on. God gave us a knowledge of
sin, and God gave us an awareness that there is retribution for sin, and God
gave us a thirst for a way out, and a thirst for hearing the Gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus said in the Gospel of Matt 5:6, “Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall
be filled”. This is a thirst that was given by God, because of our own self
no one seeks for God, NO NOT ONE. And only those who are this thirsty will come
to the Lord Jesus, and repent of their sins. Only those who are this thirsty
will read Isa 55:1 and say, “Yes! This applies to me!”. “Ho, every
one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters”. In fact, the Hebrew text does
not read the plural “waters”, but it is in the singular, just “water”. What is
this water that this first verse speaks about? It is the living water of the
Gospel that we are thirsting for. It is the living water that the Lord Jesus
spoke about in John 4:10, when He said to the Samaritan woman, “If
thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to
drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living
water”. It is the living water of the Gospel that, accompanied by the Holy
Spirit, gives us faith, for so we read in Rom 10:17, “So then faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. Yes! This is the living water
that we are thirsting for. And how much does it cost? It does not cost us
anything. The Gospel is free; salvation is a free gift from God. We read in Isa
55:1, “he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine
and milk without money and without price”. In this context the wine and the
milk refer to certain elements contained in the Gospel. For example, in John
chapter 2 at a wedding feast the Lord Jesus made an abundance of wine. This was
a wedding feast in anticipation of the great wedding feast that is still to
come in the NH&NE of Christ and His Bride, the body of believers. But
notice what the ruler of the feast said when he tasted the wine, in John
2:10, “Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men
have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good
wine until now”. The meaning is that the content of the Gospel in the NT
tastes better than the content of the Gospel in the OT. Even though the Gospel
is the same in the NT as in the OT, yet the NT is richer and contains more
elements of God’s wonderful mercy and grace than the OT. Likewise in this
context milk also refers to certain desirable elements in the Gospel. God said
through the pen of the Apostle Peter in 1Pet 2:2, “As newborn babes,
desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby”. The sincere
milk of the Word are those elements of the Gospel that are easy to understand,
whereas the wine refers to those elements of the Gospel that are more difficult
to understand. In Isa 55:1 God invites us to partake of water and wine
and milk of the Gospel “without money and without price”.
Please turn in your Bibles to the Epistle to the Ephesians 1:3
(2X). You find Ephesians right after 2Corinthians and after Galatians. It costs
us nothing, but it cost the Lord Jesus Christ everything He had. Even
the salvation of one man cannot be bought by any man, because it costs too
much. Only God is able to make the payment for the salvation of even one soul. Why
is that so? Well, God said in Gen 1:27, “God created man in His own
image”. And thus man became more valuable than anything else on this earth.
The Lord Jesus said in Mark 8:36, “For what shall it profit a man, if
he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” It means that all
the material value of this whole world is of lesser value than one human soul. Therefore
the amount of money our church spends on evangelism is just a mere pittance
compared to the possible return on our investment. In addition, the work anyone
can do for the benefit of someone else’s soul is of much greater value than any
other work he can do. For this reason I am greatly honored by the assignment
God has given me. Think of it. As the undershepherd of this little church God
has put a much more valuable inventory under my wings than the president of the
largest multibillion dollar company on the face of this earth. Therefore it is my
pleasure and my honor to work hard in this job, because I delight to do those
things that are pleasing in the sight of the Lord. But since a human soul is
worth so much, the defilement of a soul by sin is an infinite insult to
God. This is a crime that requires the payment of an eternity in Hell. God is
absolutely fair. God does not impose a penalty that is much greater than the
crime. The penalty that God requires absolutely fits the crime. And God said in
Rom 6:23, “The wages of sin is death”, and the death that God has
in view as the penalty for sin is the 2nd death, which is to spend
an eternity in a place that is called “the
#2. Only Those Who Are Tired of Works (Isa 55:2, Rom 8:8, Prov 21:4, Eph 1:4, Isa 64:6)
Isa 55:2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is
not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken
diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul
delight itself in fatness.
Why did God say, “your labour for that
which satisfieth not”? Is it so
important that the work we do must be satisfying to us? Should we be proud of
the accomplishments we have in our work? What if we end up in a job with a
whole lot of repetitive actions, like putting on a particular screw on a
product passing us on a production line, and then the next one, and then the
next one, and then the next one, and so on. Is this what God is talking about
here in verse 2? Absolutely not! The work we do does not need to be satisfying
to us; it needs to be satisfying to God. Is God satisfied with the
work we do? Well, this question has two sides. If we have not been saved then
nothing that we do is pleasing to God. God says through the pen of the Apostle
Paul in Rom 8:8, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please
God’. Those that are in the flesh are those who have not been saved. A
reprobate is in the flesh all the time. And God says of them in Prov 21:4,
“An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is
sin”. Even the secular job of the wicked plowing his field is a sin in the
eyes of God. There is nothing that a reprobate person can do that is free from
sin. Even one of God’s elect before the moment of his salvation is still
full of sin, and is still in bondage to sin and Satan. His actions are always
sin in the eyes of God, and that is because all his works are not done for God,
but they are done for Satan. But then, God saves him in an instant. How does
God then view our works? Why did we read in Eph 1:4, “that we should
be holy and without blame before him”? Have our works suddenly become
blameless? We have to face ourselves honestly. We still live in our
sinful flesh. The actions of the reprobate are altogether abomination in the
sight of God. But how do we view the actions of the saved elect?
And let me focus now entirely on the actions of the elect AFTER the
moment of their salvation. We have to see our works from two vantage points:
#1. Are they in fact perfect, or are they imperfect? #2. How does God see our
works: perfect or imperfect? Since we still live on this earth in our sinful
flesh, we are not able to do anything perfect. Look on any work that you have
done in the past. It was not perfect, because if you would do that work today
you would improve on it. It means that all your works done yesterday had sins
cleaving to it, because imperfections are in fact sins. God knew that we would
do those sins, and therefore the Lord Jesus Christ already suffered and died for
those sins about 2000 years ago. By God's mercy, He included those sins into
His marvelous plan for this world. And so, whether we commit small sins or big
sins, all your works are accompanied by sins, even if we have become a saint.
Now consider the second vantage point. How does God see our works? God saved
us. He gave us a perfect and righteous soul in which there is no blemish. He
has come to live in our soul. No sin will ever enter our soul, because God is
there. And so, whatever sin is cleaving to our work, it is immediately erased
because Christ already paid for it. That is why God can say that His saints are
blameless in His sight. In reality, “all our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags”, from Isa 64:6. Which means that even the best works we do are
as good as filthy rags. And therefore, we are not blameless because our works
are so good and so sinless, but because our works have been MADE sinless
in the sight of God.
Let us now turn to the next verse in Isa 55. And then we discover that Isa 55:3 is addressed to:
#3. Only
Those Who Hear (Isa 55:3, Eph 2:1-3,
Rom 8:30, Acts 2:27,
Isa 55:3 Incline your
ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make
an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure (faithful) mercies of
David.
Why does God say now, “hear, and your soul
shall live”? Who is willing to listen to God? This certainly is not
addressed to everyone in the world. “There is NONE that seeketh after God”.
No one of the human race is willing, of his own self, to listen to the Word of
God. Listen to what God says in Eph 2:1-3, “And you (hath
he quickened), who
were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among
whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the
children of wrath, even as others”. These verses speak to the fact that spiritually
before our salvation we were dead in trespasses and sins. We were not willing
and not able to turn to God and listen. We could not hear, because we were
dead. And so, God had to make us alive first, and then we could hear Him speak.
And so, we have discovered that all three verses in Isa 55:1-3
are not addressed to everyone in the world, but they are addressed to the
select group of people whom God chose from before the foundation of the world,
God’s elect. The call to salvation goes out into all the world, and for this
task we must be available, but the effectual call is only to those whom God
elected unto salvation. Therefore God says in Rom 8:30, “Moreover
whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also
justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified”. And those to
whom God extends an effectual call God says here in Isa 55:3, “I will
make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure (faithful) mercies
of David”. God uses the name David, but the Lord Jesus Christ is in view.
Since Christ is a descendant of David, God substitutes the name David for
Christ. Also, the word “sure mercies” could have been better translated
“faithful mercies”. Why did God use the word “faithful”. God did that to let us
know that Christ was faithful in His obedience to the Father, even faithful
unto the death of the cross. And more so, because Christ did not only suffer in
His body, but He suffered in His Soul the equivalent of an eternity in Hell. That
is why we read in Acts 2:27, “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in
hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption”. Christ
was faithful because He knew that His Father would not leave His soul in Hell,
and His Father would not leave His body in the grave. This was the faith of
Christ. These are the faithful mercies of Christ. He speaks of plural
mercies, because He is addressing many. The pronoun “you or ye” refers to many,
whereas the pronoun “thou or thee” refers to one. He is speaking of mercies,
because mercy means God is withholding what we deserve. We deserve Hell, but
Christ has taken the penalty of Hell in our place, and therefore God speaks of the
faithful mercies of Christ. And God will make an everlasting covenant with
us. What does that mean? It means that God will give all that He has to us, to
whom the mercies of Christ have been given. We are the inheritors of everything
God has in the NH & NE. We inherit God.
If God so loved us that He gave His only
begotten Son for us, what love do we show toward God? How great is our
gratitude? Well, if God is our Father, then we desire to serve Him and be
obedient to Him in all things that He commands us. What does He ask from us?
Did you notice that God says in Isa 55:2, “Hearken diligently unto Me”.
Does that not mean that we must be engaged in the reading and studying of the
Word of God? We like to do those things that are pleasing in His sight. What
are those things? Well, we discover what those things are when we study His
Word, and when we talk about these things with others of like mind, and
meditate on these things. But nothing will be done if we do not study His Word.
There is where our gratitude starts. God says through the pen of the Apostle
Paul in Col 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all
wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord”. This is how God will
make known to us what His will is for our lives. AMEN.
Let us turn to the Lord in prayer.