Isaiah 55:1-3 ESV
“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.
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.
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.”
Have you ever noticed before the similarities between Isaiah
55:1-3 and Revelation 3:18?
“I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see” (Revelation 3:18).
Not the same wording exactly, but the same message, I
believe. So, what is the message? For, again, this is one of those passages of
Scriptures which speaks in figurative language, much like in John 6 where Jesus
talked about him being the bread of life and us eating of his flesh and
drinking of his blood. The message there was to be taken symbolically of
something else, and not literally. And here in Isaiah 55 this is not about us
eating physical bread, nor is it speaking of us drinking literal water. These
are symbols.
Well, in John 6 we learned that Jesus Christ is the bread of
life, the bread that came down from heaven, which we are to eat of. And another
word for eat is “partake”, which means to participate, share in, contribute to,
join in with, involve yourself in. So there we learned that this means that we
are to take part in, to participate with Jesus Christ and in what he did for us
as we join in with him in the very purpose for which he died on that cross. So
it involves us dying with him to sin and living to him and to his
righteousness.
[1 Peter 2:24; 2 Corinthians 5:15; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Romans
6:1-23]
So, what are water, milk, and wine symbols of? Well, when I
think of water, I think of how we are born of water physically, when our
mothers give birth to us, and how Jesus explained to Nicodemus that we must be
born both of water (of woman, physically) and of the Spirit (of God,
spiritually). And then when I think of milk, I think of how a baby drinks milk
from the breast of the mother and how the Scriptures speak of the Word of God
as our spiritual milk that we must drink of in order for us to grow to maturity
in Christ.
And when I think of bread and wine I think of the symbols of
Jesus as the bread and of the bread being a symbol of his body, and of him
dying on that cross for our sins, and the wine being the symbol of his blood
which was shed on that cross in order to buy us back for God (to redeem us) out
of our lives of living in slavery to sin so that we can now honor God with our
bodies, so that we can now follow him in obedience and no longer walk in sin,
by the grace of God, in the power and wisdom of God.
And why are these without price for us? Because Jesus Christ
died on that cross, taking our sins upon himself, and paid the penalty of our
sins so that we can now be delivered out of our lives of slavery to sin and so
that we can now walk in holiness and righteousness and in obedience to our
Lord. Now this is not teaching that the Christian life is not without any cost
to us. But it’s true that Jesus paid the price for our salvation, and we do
nothing to earn or to deserve our own salvation. So it is his gift to us.
But the gift is not freedom to continue in deliberate and
habitual sin thinking that all is covered and so our sins don’t matter anymore.
The gift is deliverance from bondage to sin and it is empowerment of the Spirit
to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus, no longer as slaves to sin, but now
as slaves to God and to his righteousness. And the cost is that we must surrender
our lives to Christ, die with Christ to sin, and now live to him and to his
righteousness, but which is only made possible for us to do because Jesus paid
the price so we can go free, and only by his grace, through faith.
So what is the message to us in Isaiah 55 and in Revelation
3? It is that we are to stop spending our time and resources and gifts and
talents and passions on what is of this world and not on or in neglect of what
is of God. We are not to be worldly people, in other words, who are all caught
up in the world and what is of the world and what is of the flesh of humans,
especially as it regards us neglecting God and his word and his mission for our
lives. But our lives are to be dedicated to the Lord and to serving him.
For those who are professing faith in Jesus Christ but who
are living for the passions of the world and of the flesh, instead, this is a
matter of life and death. For if we live for the flesh, and not for the Spirit,
and if we walk in sin, and not in holiness and righteousness, and if our minds
are set on the things of this world and not on the things of God, and if what
we are obeying is sin and not God and not his commands under the New Covenant,
then we don’t have the life of Christ within us, and we don’t have eternal
life.
But even those of us who are walking according to the Spirit
and not according to the flesh may sometimes start to go toward what is more
worldly and need to be reminded of God that that is not where he wants us to
go, and so we have to back away. I had to do that today, in fact. For I joined
a couple of groups on Facebook which are not bad, but where people talk about
memories of places they have lived, so fairly innocuous, but still, getting on
there can consume time I should rather be spending with God.
So, just saying here that no matter how closely we are
walking with the Lord we need to have our guard up all the time and we need to
be wise and discerning about whatever we involve ourselves in. For, even if it
is innocuous in nature, it may rob us of time that could be better spent on
what is of God and not of this world. And I am definitely not saying that we
can’t talk with the people of this world about everyday kinds of stuff where we
live, but we need to be sensitive to the Spirit’s voice in these matters.
Seek the Lord
An Original Work / July 20, 2012
Based off Isaiah 55
“Come to Me all you
who thirst; come to waters.
Listen to Me, and
eat what’s good today,
And your soul will
delight in richest of fare.
Give ear to Me, and
you will live.
I have made an
eternal covenant with you.
Wash in the blood of
the Lamb.”
Seek the Lord while
He may be found; call on Him.
Let the wicked
forsake his way, in truth.
Let him turn to the
Lord, and he will receive mercy.
Freely, God pardons
him.
“For My thoughts are
not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My
ways,”
declares the Lord,
our God.
“My word that goes
out of My mouth is truthful.
It will not return
to Me unfulfilled.
My word will
accomplish all that I desire,
And achieve the goal
I intend.
You will go in joy
and be led forth in peace.
The mountains will
burst into song… before you,
And all of the trees
clap their hands.”
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