About this sermon
Isaiah 55 opens with a universal invitation: everyone who thirsts may come to the waters and buy wine and milk without money and without price. Sinners receive it free because the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 paid its price, and Jesus fulfills the call when he cries, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” God’s sovereign, electing grace and his sincere offer to all belong together, for the Spirit calls the elect through the outward call of the gospel. Hearing that leads to life means listening diligently and inclining the ear, and through the risen Son of David the call reaches nations that did not know the Lord.
Sermon transcript
for the reading of God’s Word. My sermon text today, as we continue to make our way through select portions of the prophet Isaiah, is Isaiah 55, verses 1 through 5. I’m going to read the entire chapter. It’s a short chapter to fill out the context a bit, but our focus will be on verses 1 through 5 of Isaiah, chapter 55, and you’ll find that on page 731 in your Pew Bibles. Dear friends, this is the Word of God. Hear it with reverence and awe. Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come by 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. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 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. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. 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. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 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, 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. 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. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle, and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for God to bless the preaching of His Word. Lord, we would ask that you would give us a soul thirst for your word this morning. And we ask that by your spirit, through the word, you would satisfy that thirst and cause us to drink deeply of the waters of life. Cause us to drink deeply of Christ, our Savior, that we might be conformed more and more into his image and might be sanctified and built up in him. Lord, bless your word as it goes forth this day, we pray in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this morning is, Are You Thirsty? And I want to encourage the young people to listen for four key words in my sermon today.
Those words are invitation, listen, witness, and nations. Have you ever been thirsty? Of course, Pastor Jeff, everyone’s gotten thirsty. But I’m not talking about ordinary thirst. Not just thirsty in the sense of ordinary, everyday thirst, but really, desperately, deeply thirsty, such as the kind of desperate thirst that is brought on when you reach the borderline of dangerous dehydration. You ever been that thirsty before? Dear ones, as you may know, the impulse of thirst can be exceedingly powerful. And when you experience this kind of burning thirst, the only thing that you can really think about is quenching that thirst as quickly as possible. Now, we’ve all experienced ordinary thirst many times in our lives. Perhaps you’ve even experienced that thirst today. But there was one time in my life when I believe I experienced the kind of desperate, powerful thirst that I have described to you.
I was a boy, probably eight or nine years old, and I was visiting my grandparents in Worcester, Ohio during summer break. And one hot, sunny morning, my grandfather, who enjoyed golfing, decided to invite me along with him as he went to the golf course. So he took me along with him. Foolishly, I had neglected to properly hydrate that morning. and we’d taken no water with us. My grandfather was apparently like a camel for the scorching heat on the golf course didn’t seem to bother him in the least. And as we made our way through the course, I was too embarrassed to admit to my grandfather how desperately thirsty I was becoming. At one point during this long morning on the golf course, I remember that we came across a public water fountain, and my heart leaped for joy, and I rushed over to the public water fountain, and I tried to turn it on, only to discover that it wasn’t working.
The screaming thirst that I experienced during that long, scorching hot summer morning was finally satisfied when we returned home and my kindly grandmother gave me a nice cold glass of orange tang, which I quickly gulped down with great enthusiasm and zeal. And I think she even saw how thirsty I was and gave me another glass. Well, dear ones, in our outer man, we experience physical thirst. But physical thirst is, of course, not the only kind of thirst that human beings experience. God’s Word indicates that there is a spiritual thirst that humanity experiences in its inner man, a spiritual thirst for the transcendent. Scripture reveals that God has created mankind, male and female, after His own image. And He’s created us to enjoy communion with Him, friendship with Him, forever. But sadly, as you know, humanity has fallen into sin and rebellion.
And one of the results of this sin is that in our fallen, rebellious condition, we are separated from God’s friendship, and thus we are separated from living, loving fellowship with our Creator. This has resulted in an inner longing in our hearts, a longing that is comparable in Scripture to thirst and to hunger. But sadly, in our sinfulness and rebellion, we try to satisfy that spiritual thirst and that spiritual hunger with things that don’t really satisfy in the end. We fill our lives with all kinds of idols instead of turning to the true and living God. You know, God’s Word reveals that there is a way for our desperate spiritual thirst to be quenched and for our spiritual hunger to be satisfied. Scripture teaches that the only way our spiritual thirst can ultimately be quenched and our spiritual hunger truly satisfied is by receiving through faith the Lord Jesus Christ as our very own Lord and Savior.
For the scriptures reveal Jesus Christ to be the living water and to be the bread of life. Jesus Christ, as he is freely offered to us sinners in the gospel, he is the only one capable of being our true soul food. And his gracious gospel alone can bring spiritual sustenance to the parched soul of a sinner. In our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, we find a gracious invitation from God for spiritually thirsty sinners to quench their spiritual thirst with the gospel grace that is offered by the promised Messiah, great David’s greater son, the one whom we know to be our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So as we turn our attention to our text for today, We notice, first of all, the universal invitation of a benevolent God. The universal invitation of a benevolent God.
Verses one through the first part of verse two says this, come everyone who thirsts. Not just come you among my people who thirst, you who are Jews who thirst. No, come everyone who thirsts. Where are we to come to? Come to the waters. And he who has no money, come buy and eat. How can we buy something if we have no money? I’ll talk about that in a few moments, but notice come by wine and milk. These symbols of satisfaction and sustenance come by wine and milk without money and without price. And then he interrogates them with an important question. He says, why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Now friends, it’s important to understand that this portion of Isaiah is well connected with the flow of what has come before it.
Chapter 55 is connected with the revelations given to Isaiah back in chapter 54 and especially chapter 53. And so seeing the literary and thematic connections of these chapters is very important for understanding what our passage for today is teaching us. And so you will recall, brothers and sisters, the famous messianic prophecy of Isaiah chapter 53, a prophecy that had revealed the redeeming work that would be accomplished by the messianic suffering servant of the Lord and the one who would bear the iniquity of many to make atonement for their sins. This prophecy of Isaiah chapter 53, of course, was fulfilled when our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. And the sufferings of Christ on the cross are depicted and prophesied in great detail in that amazing messianic prophecy. chapter 53.
But then as we also discovered in chapter 54, that chapter predicted the missionary expansion of the New Covenant messianic age, as chapter 54 foresaw a time when God’s covenant mercies would extend to the nations of beyond the borders of Israel, drawing in multitudes from among the Gentile nations who would be added to the ranks of God’s people. And of course, we, brothers and sisters, are part of the fulfillment of that prophecy in chapter 54. But here in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning from chapter 55, it goes beyond just the prediction of the Gentile ingathering into God’s covenant people. Here in our passage for this Lord’s Day morning, we have an instance of an Old Testament gospel call. as God graciously calls and invites everyone who thirsts in their souls to come to the waters of life that are offered and provided by the promised Messiah, great David’s greater son, the one to whom he is given, as he says in verse three, my steadfast, sure love for David.
Now Dr. E.J. Young does a good job in reminding us of the historical setting of this passage. He writes, in oriental countries where water is scarce, water is sold by a vendor who calls out, attracting attention to his ware. And so God is compared to such an oriental vendor of water, calling out, crying out for people to come in. But then he goes on to say, it is not physical water, however, of which Isaiah speaks, but like milk and wine, water is a figure of spiritual blessing, the water in particular signifying the spiritual refreshment that is offered. And so we have here, again, a universal invitation. Yahweh the Lord says through His prophet Isaiah, come everyone who thirsts. This is a universal invitation. And brothers and sisters, passages like this one are one of the reasons why we in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church affirm what has been called the free offer of the gospel.
Now, some of our Reformed brethren, especially those who lean in a more hyper-Calvinistic direction, think that there’s a contradiction between, on the one hand, God’s sovereign, electing, predestinating grace, and on the other hand, the universal invitation. And so there are some who would identify as Reformed and Calvinist who would deny that the gospel call goes out to the non-elect. They would say, only the elect get the call. And they would kind of point out some of the limiting language that we find in these calls, such as everyone who thirsts. And they would say, well, not everyone truly thirsts for God, and so forth. But again, when we compare scripture with scripture, and when we look at the thrust of passages like this one, we see that, indeed, this is a genuine invitation given to all of humanity.
You see, in Scripture, my friends, the truth of God’s sovereign, particular, electing grace on the one hand, and the truth of God’s universal benevolence toward all, which moves Him to freely and sincerely offer gospel grace to everyone on the other hand, these truths, though they are distinct, they are presented in Scripture as compatible, not contradictory truths. You see, in God’s Word, sovereign particular grace on the one hand, and the universal invitation of the gospel on the other hand, these things go together, even if we can’t figure out how to hold these biblical truths together in our own limited, finite minds. In fact, my friends, while it’s hard for us as finite creatures to understand it, remember that it is through the gospel call that God calls his elect to faith in Christ. The effectual call of sovereign grace comes by means of the universal call, the gospel call, the outward call.
And so these truths are indeed not contrary, but they are compatible to one another. And we see this language inviting those who thirst to come. We see this kind of language in many places in scripture. Just to give you one New Testament example that I’m sure is very familiar to you folks. In Matthew chapter 11, 28 to 30, the Lord Jesus says this, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle. and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” So we have here a universal gospel invitation to everyone who thirsts. But this invitation, this offer, is grounded in God’s free grace.
And that is also underscored by the language and imagery of this passage. It says, come everyone who thirsts, come to the water. And he who has no money, no resources, no claim upon this water, this spiritual water, this refreshment that is offering, he who has no money, come buy and eat. We have this imagery of eating and drinking and of a purchase taking place, and yet those who are without money can make this purchase. How is that possible? It’s possible because of Jesus. God’s offer is grounded in His free grace. It is without money, without price, not because it is valueless, but because of Jesus. It is free to us sinners, free to us who thirst and hunger. Why? Because, as the hymn writer puts it, Jesus paid it all. Dr. Young writes, but how can one buy without money?
The language is evidently designed to point out that the water, wine, and milk are obtained not by human purchase, but by divine grace, the free gifts of God. Nevertheless, it may be that the form of expression chosen is also for the purpose of emphasizing the legitimacy of the transaction. Indeed, there was a price paid that man might have water, wine, and milk, And that price consisted in the fact that the chastisement of our peace was upon the servant of the Lord. What about these figures, though, of water, wine, and milk? What appropriate pictures of the spiritual sustenance provided in the Gospel of Jesus Christ? You know, oftentimes in the Word of God, God uses illustrations from the natural world and from human everyday life to underscore and to illustrate the spiritual truths that are parallel to them.
And so again, to quote from Dr. Young, as water signified the refreshment offered, so wine points to exhilaration and enjoyment and milk to nourishment. The water of life offered by Christ in the gospel not only provides us with the refreshment of salvation, forgiveness of sins, the gift of eternal life, but it also gives us peace of conscience. It gives us joy in the Holy Spirit. It gives us great satisfaction. And again, this is one of the reasons why our catechism begins with that wonderful question, what is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever. God’s purpose is our joy. But there is also here in this universal invitation an implied warning not to seek soul satisfaction in the wrong things or in the wrong places. As it says in verse 2, Isaiah, or the Holy Spirit through Isaiah the prophet, raises this question.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Now, some scholars and commentators believe that Isaiah has in the back of his mind, he has in view those who were taken into Babylonian exile. You know, not all of the Jews who went into Babylonian exile returned after that exile was over. Many of them, they sunk down their roots in Babylon. They got comfortable there. They were prosperous there. They built homes. They felt at home there. And so they didn’t really want to pick up roots and go back. to Jerusalem and Judea when it was made possible for them to return to the promised land. So perhaps Isaiah has some of these folks in mind in the immediate historical setting that look, yes you’re prosperous, you’re physically and materially prosperous, but that’s not going to satisfy your soul.
Go back to where, to your roots. Go back to Israel, to the promised land. But whether or not that’s in the background of Isaiah’s thinking here, this does indeed apply to everyone who is tempted to reject the Lord, to reject the waters of life and to seek satisfaction elsewhere. Because again, why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? You see, whatever it is that you pursue in place of gospel grace, whatever you think is going to replace Jesus in your life and bring satisfaction that only Christ can bring, That idol, whatever it is, whatever form it takes, will fail you and leave you empty in the end. So this is a warning not to seek soul satisfaction in the wrong things. Reminds me of what our Lord Jesus said in his call to his disciples to deny themselves, to take up their cross and to follow him.
In Matthew 16, 26, Jesus asks, taking the standpoint of a business transaction, he says, for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Beloved, just like material possessions and financial wealth cannot satisfy an empty soul, so also things like dead ritualism, empty ceremonialism, shallow spiritual emotionalism, vigorous activism, and false religions and ideologies of every kind. These things may give a sense of satisfaction for a time, but they cannot ultimately quench our soul thirst. They cannot ultimately satisfy those who truly hunger and thirst for righteousness. False gospels, false religion, false ideology cannot take the place of the satisfaction that comes from knowing that Jesus has got you. that you are fully, freely forgiven and justified by His grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, apart from your works, that you are clothed in His perfect, everlasting righteousness, that you are an adopted son or daughter of God, that His Spirit abides in you, that Spirit by which you cry, Abba, Father, that Spirit who has sealed you unto the day of redemption, that Spirit who enables you to enjoy peace of conscience, and the joy of the Holy Spirit.
Only that can satisfy. Dear ones, Christ alone can satisfy your thirsty soul and mine with the overflowing river of his abundant grace, for he is the water of life even as he is the bread of life. Jesus alone is true soul food. Jesus alone is our spiritual drink. Jesus himself said so. Just to, I read a passage from Revelation earlier that shows the fulfillment and is connected to our passage here from Isaiah, but think about what Jesus claimed for Himself. Remember, for example, His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. Let’s go to John 4 and look at verses 10 to 14, John chapter 4, verses 10 to 14. in the midst of our Lord’s conversation with the woman at the well, Jesus says this, beginning at verse 10, Jesus answered her, you know, after the woman says, how is it that you, a Jew, are talking to a woman of Samaria like me?
Verse 10, Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? She doesn’t know he’s talking about something more significant than just physical water. And she says, Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself. as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
And of course Jesus is that water. We know that because if you skip ahead just a few chapters to chapter 7, John 7, let me read verses 37 to 39. It says this, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Keep your finger there. Go back to chapter 55 of Isaiah, verse 1. Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. But Jesus doesn’t say, come to the waters. Jesus says, come to me and drink. Verse 38 of John, chapter 7. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. and then john explains what jesus meant now this he said about the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive for as yet the spirit had not been given because jesus was not yet glorified the spirit at that point and not been given in new covenant fullness as it would be after his resurrection from the dead but the point here jesus is the water of life that is the water that we sinners are invited to come and drink of But Jesus is also the bread of life.
If you stay in the Gospel of John, turn to John chapter 6 and let me read verses 35 through 37. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. There’s another I am statement. Jesus claiming to be the I am, claiming to be God. And as God incarnate, he is the bread of life. Jesus says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me.” There’s sovereign grace. The Father has given a people to his Son. All who are given by the Father to the Son will come to him and receive him as the bread of life. But whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.
There’s the free invitation available to all. And here we have gospel grace, sovereign grace, and the free offer in the very same passage. Dear friend, Are you thirsty? Not just thirsty for physical water, but thirsty for true water, the water of life? Well, if so, have you come to Jesus, the water of life? Are you hungry in your soul for soul food? Have you looked to Jesus as the bread of life? But how do I do that? Well, our passage goes on to answer that question of what it means to come to the waters, because it goes on to say in verse 2, at the end of verse 2 and into verse 3, it says, 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.
This brings me to my next point where we are exhorted to listen and live. Now here, Isaiah emphasizes our responsibility to respond to this universal gospel invitation. Other passages emphasize his absolute sovereignty and his transcendent glory, but this passage emphasizes our responsibility to listen And notice the language that Isaiah uses for this listening that he’s speaking of. Clearly, he’s not just talking about casual listening or superficial attention. He’s talking about listening that hones in, listening that is fully engaged. For he says, listen, incline your ear, and hear. Verse two, listen diligently to me. Not just listen casually, listen diligently to me. And then verse three, incline your ear. What a picture, inclining your ear. Perking up, paying attention. Hear that your soul may live. This is not just hearing that fills your mind with information, but hearing that results in new life being born in your soul.
You see, friends, from the perspective of God’s Word, we don’t really hear or listen unless we respond to the message with a heart of faith and with obedient action that flows from and is the fruit of that true and living faith. The Scriptures often exhort us as God’s people to listen to the Lord. And just to give you a few samples, if you go back to Deuteronomy, where Moses addresses the people of Israel as they’re preparing to go in and conquer the promised land. In Deuteronomy 4, verse 1. Moses says to the people, and now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you and do them. Notice the close connection between listening with faith and the action of doing the commandments. Listen to the statutes and the rules that I’m teaching you and do them, that you may live and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. or consider Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 6, the Shema, the famous Shema, where God, through Moses, says to his people, hear, O Israel, which doesn’t just mean listen and cognitively perceive, it means hear, O Israel. and obey by faith.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, and so forth. Again, passages like this one and like our text for today remind me of what the Apostle Paul writes of the gospel in Romans chapter 10, verse 17, that familiar passage where Paul writes, so faith, speaking there of saving faith, justifying faith, the faith by which we are made right with God, faith comes from what? From hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. The Spirit enables us to hear unto salvation. Our Shorter Catechism comments well on this faith-filled hearing in question and answers 89 and 90. If you turn there in the back of your Psalter hymnal, you’ll find them on page 974 and 975.
Question 89 on page 974 of our Shorter Catechism asks this, how is the word made effectual to salvation? Notice it says, the Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation. And so the Word is made effectual by the sovereign grace of God. The Spirit of God uses the reading and preaching of the Word to bring us to faith and to keep us in that faith. And that’s what’s emphasized in the Bible-based answer of question 89. But then question 90 focuses on our responsibility to receive that word carefully, to listen carefully. Question 90, how is the word to be read and heard that it may become effectual to salvation? That the word may become effectual to salvation, we must attend thereunto with what? diligence, preparation, and prayer.
Receive it with faith and love, lay it up in our hearts, and practice it in our lives. This reminds me, brothers and sisters, of a story that one of my seminary professors told me. I went to Gordon Conwell Seminary, which is a more generically evangelical seminary, but we did have a few Reformed professors at that seminary. And one of those professors happened to be a member of the PCA, a minister and member of the Presbyterian Church in America. And I remember this particular professor in one of my classes, and I don’t remember all of the details of the story that he told, so forgive me if I get a few of those details wrong. But he was sharing a story one day in class of a gentleman who had started to attend their church. And this gentleman was not a Christian, but he was interested in the Christian faith, and he was actually interested in becoming a Christian, but he really struggled with doubts.
He really struggled with questions. He came to church. He heard, sat under the preaching of the Word. I believe that my professor said he read his Bible and prayed and participated in the worship of the church, minus the sacraments, of course, because he wasn’t a professing believer at that point. But at one particular point in time, this particular inquirer, this gentleman, asked to meet with the pastor. And he sat down with the pastor, again, if I’m remembering the story correctly, and he said to the pastor, you know what, pastor, I really think I should stop coming to church. I feel like a total hypocrite. Because to be honest, while I wish I could believe, I just can’t. I just can’t buy all of these truths. So maybe I should just kind of back off and stop attending church until I can get my questions sorted out.
My professor shared that his pastor gave this searcher, this inquirer, some very wise advice. The pastor said, you know what, you’re not being a hypocrite by admitting your doubts and your questions. So I would urge you, keep coming to church, keep sitting under the faithful preaching and teaching of God’s word, keep singing the hymns, keep reading your Bible in private, and keep crying out to God to give you greater light and understanding. And this gentleman did decide to do that, and continued attending my professor’s church for a time, for quite some time, actually. And one day, this gentleman, this skeptical gentleman, approached the pastor and said, you know what, pastor? Something amazing has happened. I think I really do believe. I really do believe. Again, his conversion was not some kind of dramatic Damascus Road conversion.
It seems that this particular gentleman that my professor was speaking of was gradually converted over time. But the thing is, he diligently listened. He pursued. Obviously, he didn’t listen diligently in the sense of listening with faith, but he was pursuing faith. And actually, I would argue that the Lord was pursuing this man long before this man was pursuing the Lord. God’s sovereign grace was at work even in his questions and his doubts and his struggles to come to a solid faith in the Lord. So I would urge you, if any of you here today or any of you listening through the internet find yourself in the position of this gentleman, this inquirer that I mentioned here, I would urge you to Give diligent use of the public means of grace. Put yourself in the place where the Lord by his spirit can work in you.
Yes, seek to have your questions answered. There’s plenty of wonderful apologetic material out there that can help you if you’re struggling with particular questions of faith. But don’t give up. Use the means of grace. Cry out to God for light, for grace. Cry out for the Lord to regenerate you and give you a heart of faith. And you will find that as you pursue the Lord, you’ll discover that he’s been pursuing you all along. And it is, all of this is grounded in, of course, the everlasting covenant of grace that God made with his son, Jesus. As he goes on to say in verse three, 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. You know, it’s interesting, the New Testament interprets this passage as being fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, and being fulfilled in particular in our Lord’s resurrection from the dead.
Turn to Acts 13 and look at verse 34, Acts chapter 13, verse 34, where the Apostle Paul is preaching the gospel in Antioch and Pisidia, and it says this, Paul writes, or Paul says as he’s preaching here, And as for the fact that he, that God raised him, Christ from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. What’s he quoting from? He’s quoting from Isaiah 55 verse 3. Christ is the one that Isaiah is speaking of. So he’s speaking of the new covenant. He says, I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. It is based on this everlasting covenant of grace that God makes with Christ and in him with his elect people.
Based on that, that’s what gives the gospel power. And that’s what gives power to the gospel, to bring those who hear the word to faith in Christ, for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. So friends, whether we struggle with doubts, or whether the certainty of our faith is firm as a solid rock, let us continue to heed this call, to listen diligently, and to incline our ears to the Word of God. For God’s Word is powerful, and it will accomplish all that which God intends for us to accomplish in His good time. We are assured of that later on in our passage, and I’m not preaching on this today, but look again at verses 10 and 11 of chapter 55. The Lord says, 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, So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.
It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that for which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Friends, God’s Word is powerful. As blessed by the Spirit, His Word is powerful. We see that even in the very beginning of Scripture. Right? In Genesis chapter one, how did God create the universe? Creation out of nothing. How did he do it? He did it by his sovereign creative word. He spoke and it came to be. And likewise, he speaks grace into the souls of his elect through the word, through this gospel invitation. And what makes all this possible, that leads me briefly, To my final point, as we consider what we learn here of the messianic witness to the nations, the messianic witness to the nations. Verse 4, it says, Behold, that means pay attention, I made him, speaking of Christ, great David’s greater son, I made him a witness to the peoples, not just the people of Israel, but to the Gentile peoples as well. a leader and commander for the peoples.
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. Now, since these verses follow immediately after the reference at the end of verse 3 to my steadfast, sure love for David, and since, as we saw, the New Testament interprets this passage as a reference to great David’s greater son, the Messiah Jesus our Lord, then these closing two verses here in our passage must clearly be referring to Christ and to the extension of his kingdom and covenant beyond the borders of Israel to the Gentile nations. And that is what will happen in the new covenant era of Jesus the Messiah, this era of redemptive history in which we now live.
Yes, Isaiah does use Old Covenant language to describe these new covenant realities, that is true. And so do all of the Old Covenant prophets. But that was the only kind of language available to them. After all, Isaiah, like the other Old Testament prophets, was a believer and prophet living under the Old Covenant administration. Of course, he’s going to use Old Covenant language when predicting New Covenant realities. Beloved The Son of God, our Messiah and Lord, is himself a witness to the peoples, as we’re told in verse four, a witness to the everlasting covenant of grace that is spoken of in verse three. In other words, he through the gospel, and as the church fulfills its missionary mandate in the Great Commission, through that the nations of humanity will hear the glad tidings of great joy, the good news of salvation full and free, that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, the salvation which Christ has accomplished for sinners who by grace turn to him.
The nations will be called to turn from the futility of idolatry to the forgiveness and the fullness that are found in God’s chosen, anointed Messiah. And through Him, the living waters will flow, quenching spiritual thirst and bringing eternal hope to the nations. And so once again, I close my sermon with the question I opened it with. Are you thirsty? Are you thirsty for the living water? Well, dear friend, come to Jesus and drink deeply, for he is the water of life. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, sovereign and eternal God, we praise you and thank you, God, that you have provided us with spiritual refreshment and sustenance in and through Christ, the one who is the living water, the bread of life, the wine of the new covenant. Lord, feed our souls this day through the word, through what we’ve heard.
Help us to take these truths to heart. And may we share the bounty with others that you have so richly granted to us in the gospel. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. As we close our time of worship, let’s rise and we’ll sing together number 444, come to the waters, 444.
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