A Word in Season: Satisfaction (Isaiah 55:1–2)

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Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy and eat.

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Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?

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Listen carefully to me and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.

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Those words come through the prophet Isaiah in chapter 55 and verses 1 and 2 of the book that he wrote, but the words come from God himself.

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He is truly the speaker. The invitations, the offers, the promises, they are all his, and they come from a heart of divine mercy and compassion.

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They come to those who are thirsty and those who are poor, those who have an eager longing and yet no way of satisfying themselves.

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Come to the waters, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

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And then the language develops. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?

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Why do you take the little that you have and invest it in stuff that is ultimately vain and empty?

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Listen carefully to me, says the Lord, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.

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So it's clear that the Lord God is speaking not primarily of physical thirst and hunger, but of spiritual appetites.

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God knows that in this world, the best that it has to offer apart from him is not going to satisfy our souls.

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We talk about the passing pleasures of sin in the Bible. We recognize that sin has some pleasure in it.

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It offers much. It gives perhaps a temporary stimulation of some kind, but the pleasure passes.

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It doesn't last. The lusts of this world are fading away. Even the best that this world has to offer will not stand.

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And if we rest upon it, if we're relying on it, then it will collapse underneath us and it will expose us.

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And yet we keep investing. We give our time, we give our money, we give our energy, we invest our resources of body and soul, that the stuff that's in our hands for what does not ultimately satisfy.

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And sometimes we become almost obsessed with finding something that brings real peace and joy and we keep going after it and we're hoping that ultimately if we give enough to it, then it will finally satisfy us.

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And the Lord says to those who are empty, those who have nothing and are in desperate need, listen carefully to me and eat what is good and let your soul delight itself in abundance.

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You see the mercy of God here. Not just have something, not just even really have enough, but have more than enough overflowing and ever flowing goodness to bless your soul and to satisfy the deepest desires of your heart.

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What is God talking about? Well he goes on to speak of the everlasting covenant, the sure mercies of David.

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David was the great king of Israel to whom God had made a promise that he would raise up someone after him from his line to sit on his throne forever and forever, to gather and to watch over and to shepherd his true people,

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God's own people. The prophecy referred to the Lord Jesus Christ and in the

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Old Testament it was the son of David to whom the people of Israel were looking forward.

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And when Jesus Christ came into the world as great David's greatest son, it was to him that all people must now look in order to find

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God's own salvation. And so the Lord says through Isaiah, turn from the vanities and the emptinesses of this world.

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Stop pursuing what will never satisfy. Listen to my good news, says the

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Lord. Come to my beloved son, my anointed king, trust in him and in him you will find what is truly good and what will everlastingly satisfy your soul.

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If you are hungry, if you are thirsty, if you are empty, it is God and God alone who in his gospel can satisfy the deepest needs of your heart and bless you not just with enough, but more than enough, the everlasting covenant that God has made, the overflowing and ever flowing blessings of life in Jesus Christ.