11 The Free Banquet Most People Refuse (Isaiah 55:1-5)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome and thank you for listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta. Today we'll be looking at Isaiah chapter 55, verses 1 through 5. This is the penultimate and 11th talk in our series on the servant songs from the Old Testament book of Isaiah. You can find lecture notes for today's talk by going to our website, which is wednesdayintheword.com, and then go to slash servant songs11. Thanks so much for joining us. Have you ever won anything free? I mean really free. I won a computer once. I did. I went to one of those business shows where you drop your business card in a hundred little jars and you get on a hundred little mailing lists, and then they draw one lucky card for something free. Well, a couple of weeks after the show, a man called me to tell me that I had won a computer in the drawing. And I said, Great, what size hard drive does it have? And he said, Oh, it doesn't have a hard drive. You won the computer. Just the computer. No keyboard, no mouse, no hard drive, no monitor, just the computer. That's like saying, You want a steering wheel, and now if you'd like a car to go with it, that'll be eighty thousand dollars. So that was my big win. And that's kind of the way the world offers things free, doesn't it? You have to read the fine print to see what it's really gonna cost you. Well, in our text today from the book of Isaiah, we're going to see a very different kind of offer. This is an invitation to a banquet table, and at this feast, the Lord God Himself is the host. He invites all to participate in a life so rich we can barely grasp it, and it is truly free. Let me just review a bit how we got here. We saw through the servant songs that a servant would come who will bear our iniquities and inaugurate a new age through his death and resurrection. And from our point in history, we know that servant to be Jesus Christ. Then Isaiah described the new age, the new covenant, the new seed, the new land, and the new city that the servant would inaugurate through his work. And now in chapter fifty-five, he's sending out an invitation to come and enjoy the richness of this new age. He's using the metaphor of a feast, and in this feast the king has prepared a banquet for his special guests, and he invites us all to participate and pleads with us to enjoy the banquet. And he tells us this feast is free and it will delight your soul. The prophet says the king himself is hosting the banquet, and this king will be the new David. The Lord is now acting to fulfill his covenant with David to raise up a kingdom that will never end. And not only does he invite his guests to eat at the table, he invites them to co-reign with him. And then finally we'll see Isaiah express his grief that anyone would refuse such a great, free, and glorious gift. We're only going to go through verse five today and then we'll finish the chapter next week. So the first thing we're going to look at is verses one and two, which is the motivation to come to the feast. So this is Isaiah fifty five verses one and two. Ho, everyone who thirsts come to the waters, and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance. Three things make this banquet glorious. It's available, it's high quality, and it's free. So first let's look at its availability. Notice everyone can come. There are no requirements demanded before you can attend. Who may come? Everyone, everyone who thirsts. You don't have to go to class first, you don't have to pass a test, there are no rules to obey, no liturgy to memorize, no tradition to follow, there's no dress code you have to fit into, no paper to sign, no levels to work your way through, no entrance requirement, no sacrifice to make, just come. First, it's glorious because it's available. Second, it's glorious because it's high quality. The quality of the food is costly and rich. He talks about waters and wine and milk, which is all language that harkens back to the promised land, a land that was rich in natural resources with an abundant supply of milk and honey. But this feast is even greater. He says, Delight yourself in abundance. Delight is a rare word in the Old Testament. It means to take exquisite pleasure in something because it's this rare luxury. This feast is not common food. It's rare, it's unknown, and it will bring life to your soul. Notice that all the commands here are positive. He says, Come by and eat. Remember the Garden of Eden? This is the same kind of language, only in the garden there was a prohibition. You could eat of any tree but one. Likewise, the Old Testament was filled with prohibitions. There were rules about what was okay and what was not okay, that which actions were right, which actions were wrong, things that you should do and that would bring life and things that you if you did it would bring death. But here there's no prohibition. At this banquet in this garden, there's no evil, no temptation, it's all good. Eat all you want, no cholesterol, no fat, no preservatives, no calories. Everything is good for the soul. So we've seen this banquet is glorious because it's available, because it's high quality, and then also because it's free. How much does it cost to go to this feast? Nothing. He says, Ho everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat, come and buy wine without money and without cost. It is free for us because the host, God himself, picked up the tab. Like the father of the bride at the wedding, he is paying all the bills. There's no hidden cost, there's no check at the end of the meal. This is a gospel banquet that is free to everyone who thirsts. Other tables are empty in comparison. If the availability, the quality, and the cost don't motivate you to come, Isaiah compares this feast to other tables which are empty in comparison. Look at fifty five verse two. Why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Other tables are costly. You weigh out silver for what is not bread, and you sacrifice your wages for things that don't satisfy you. Silver, hard earned wages, and other resources like your family, your relationships, they get consumed by idolatry. Think of all the things we sacrifice to fulfill our selfishness and our greed and our ambitions and our yearning for pleasure. We throw away lives to addictions. We throw away our families and our children to gain a promotion. We sacrifice relationships for vision statements and philosophies. In other words, we sacrifice people to programs weighing out silver for what does not satisfy. And Isaiah is astonished that anyone would weigh out silver for such empty idolatry, for such empty feasts. Jesus echoed this same idea. He fed the five thousand to demonstrate that he was the Messiah, the bread of life, and he was astonished that the people came back the next day looking for more physical bread. He told them in John 6 twenty seven, do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for on him the Father God has set his seal. In nineteen ninety one, Lee Atwater, the retired chairman of the Republican Party, died from cancer. And shortly before he died he wrote an article which appeared in Life magazine and I'd like to quote from it because he makes the same point. He wrote Long before I was struck with cancer, I felt something stirring in American society. It was a sense among the people that something was missing from their lives, something critical. I was trying to position the Republican Party to take advantage of it, but I wasn't exactly sure what it was. My illness helped me see what was missing. The eighties were about acquiring, acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most, but you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can only learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the nineties, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul. I've come a long way since the day I told George Bush that his kindler, gentler theme was a nice thought, but it wouldn't win us any votes. I used to say the president might be kindler and gentler, but I wasn't going to be. How wrong I was. There is nothing more important in life than human beings, nothing sweeter than the human touch. This month marks my fortieth birthday, the deadline I set for achieving my life's goals. I lie here in my bedroom, my face swollen from steroids, my body useless and in pain. I will probably never play the guitar or run again. I can only hope to walk. It's the end of the quote. That's a testimony to the emptiness of other tables. It's been about thirty years since he wrote those words, and I'm not sure American culture or society has learned the lesson he was trying to teach. So we have the glory of this banquet and the emptiness of other tables to motivate us to come, but there's one more factor to motivate us to come to this table, and that's the passion of the host. The host bids you to come. The host longs to have us come and eat at his table, and he expresses this longing three ways. First, the opening word of the passage, the ho. This Hebrew word is usually used before a cry of judgment, but here it's changed to an impassioned cry, a cry touched with empathy and pleading and passion. You see it in the expression why? Why do you weigh out silver for what is bread? Why expresses his grief over their loss. Compare this with Jeremiah two verses eleven through thirteen. Has a nation changed gods when they were not gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens at this, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. So Jeremiah asks the question, Has a nation changed gods when they were not gods? In other words, you don't see that. Nations don't change their gods, they don't go out and just find a new one, and yet his people have done that very thing. They have exchanged their glory for that which does not profit. They have forsaken the fountain of living waters to build themselves broken cisterns that can hold no waters, so they have sacrificed the feast for the empty table. How can you refuse the Lord who looks with pleading and tears in his eyes and grieves over your refusal to come? And if that's not enough, notice the word come is repeated three times in this verse. He says, Come and buy, come and buy, come and eat. There's that I want you there, that plead to come. You see God's persistent invitation throughout the history of Israel. How many prophets did he send to them? And most of them, most of the prophets, like Isaiah, paid for their persistence and their pleading with their blood. Then in an effort to whet the appetite of his people, God gave them four hundred years of prophetic silence, and following that silence he sent the greatest prophet, John the Baptist, but still Israel refused to listen. So next he sent his own son, Jesus Christ, the servant himself, and still Israel refused to listen. And now after the death and resurrection of his own son, the Father is still saying, Come, come and enjoy and eat. He doesn't desire your possessions, your service, your money. He just wants you to come to the banquet. Come and eat, come and be filled and be satisfied. So how do you get in? Well, the way to enter the feast is to listen and believe. Look at fifty five verse two and three. He says, Listen carefully to me and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear to come to me. Listen that you may live. Notice the repetition of the verb listen here. In contrast to idolatrous feasts which appeal to us through the eyes, this host appeals to us through the ear. Think about that for a moment. If we wanted to take someone's guitar and make it glorious, the world would tell us you have to overlay the wood with gold leaf and give it a mother of pearl border and polish it to perfection and so on. All of that would appeal to the eye. It would do nothing to improve its sound, to move our emotions or affect us, because guitars weren't designed to please the eye. What moves us and excites us about a guitar is when someone plays it and the music moves our soul. The soul isn't fed through the eye, it's fed through the ear. If you watch a lot of screens all day, you know what I mean. Listening to the word through a song or a sermon or a conversation and letting its glorious melody penetrate our hearts, that's what feeds our soul. That's why the great commandment to Israel was hear, hear, O Israel, and give ear to my commandments. That's why the servant was taught to speak with the tongue of the learned and give a word to the weary, because the way to feed our soul is through the ear, and the way to the feast is through listening. Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to me, listen that you may live. Now listening is part of it, but it's listening with belief. I don't think Isaiah would advocate, and I'm not advocating either, that you would collect an encyclopedia of facts and information and theological knowledge about God. There's no theological test to pass. What we're advocating is that you listen with understanding and belief, that you let what you hear sink into your soul and change the way you see the world. The host of this feast is not inviting you to be one person at a table of thousands where you only catch a glimpse of him from the far end of the room. This is a personal banquet. The host is inviting you to sit down at a table for two, just you and him. Eternal life is not abstract information that you collect in your brain, it's a relationship with the king himself, the Lord God Himself. So the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords is inviting you to eat with him at a banquet, a table for two, no crowds, nothing to distract you, and this feast is glorious beyond words. So you have this invitation to the feast with the king himself, and what will happen if you come, we get the results of going to the feast in verses three through five. Incline your ear and come to me, listen that you may live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you according to the faithful mercies shown to David. Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and a commander for the peoples. Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation which knows you not will run to you, because of the Lord your God, even the holy one of Israel, for he has glorified you. Partake of the feast and you will have eternal life with the Messiah. Up to this point Isaiah has been speaking in metaphor, but now he switches to reality, and he tells us that by sending the Messianic king, the servant, God is about to fulfill the covenant he made with David. In second Samuel seven, God made an everlasting covenant with David that Israel would never lack a king to sit on David's throne, and that God would establish his throne forever. This is Second Samuel chapter seven, starting in verse twelve. He God is speaking to David and he says, When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. When he commits iniquity I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men. But my loving kindness shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever, your throne shall be established forever. Well we know from history that King Solomon, David's son, built the earthly temple, and that was the first fulfillment of this text, and he is the one who commits iniquity and is corrected, but the ultimate fulfillment is David's greater son, Jesus, who is building a heavenly temple without hands, eternal in the heavens, like we looked at in the last section. Isaiah thus identifies the feast as feeding on the Messiah to come, which results in eternal life, and for those who enter this covenant they will be established forever. Jesus made this same point, this is John six, verse thirty five. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, he who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst. And then later in six forty, for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day. He continues that theme into chapter seven, this is verse thirty seven and thirty-eight. Now on that last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Just as God established David's rule over Israel and the surrounding nations, so God will establish the rule of David's greater son over the hearts of sinful people. God kept his oath in the resurrection of Christ, who now reigns over all the nations. The benefits of the Davidic covenant are offered to the whole nation. Anyone who eats at this banquet will not only have the privilege of eternal life, he will share in the Messiah's glorious reign. So in David's time the king's rule was established by the sword, but when God finally exalts the Messiah and vindicates him, as Isaiah said, God's people will merely call, and a nation they know not will come running. Nations will not be coerced into the kingdom, they will come willingly because of the gloriousness of the feast and the banquet that the Messiah shares with his people. We catch a glimpse of some of this in the New Testament. In John 4, the disciples went into a Samaritan town to buy food, while Jesus remained behind and he spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well. Part of what he said was this in John four thirty-two. But he said to them, I have food that you do not know about. When they returned, Jesus said, I look, I have a feast you know nothing about, and they looked toward the village and they saw this whole town, a nation they didn't know, running to hear what Jesus had to say. You see another glimpse in Philip's conversation with the Ethiopian, although Philip was the one running in that case. He'd never met the man, yet the Lord had already prepared the ground. All Philip had to do was ask. He just asked one question, and the highway was open for this man to accept the Messiah, the truth about who Jesus was and is. It's funny, my own conversion was something like this. I was in high school and I had been asking questions for a couple of years trying to figure out what's the purpose of life, why am I here? What should I do? What's the point of it all? And my Christian friends were doing their best to answer my questions, but they were mostly new and immature believers. They tried to answer my questions, but no one ever asked me if I wanted to accept Christ. Finally, they had their youth leader call me on the phone. I never met that man, and I still haven't met him to this day. And the first thing he asked me was, Do you want to accept Jesus Christ into your heart? And I said, Yes, and it was such a relief. Finally, someone told me what I had to do. Somebody told me what the answer was. I've often wondered what that youth leader thought and what the experience must have been like from his end. And if he ever wondered what happened to me, we've never spoken since. It was the first thing he said to me and almost the last. He lived in another town, so he put me in touch with our local young life leader, who was just a woman. Wonderful influence in my life. But it was just that all you have to do is ask, and they come running, kind of conversion. So we've seen that God is preparing a feast, rich in quality, free of charge, and abundant in measure. The feast not only imparts eternal life to the soul, it allows us to share in the glory of the Messianic King who reigns over all the nations. No wonder Isaiah's astonished that anyone would refuse this feast and turn to empty idols instead. How do we apply this to our life? What are some of the implications of this? Well, first is come and eat in abundance. How can we continue to feast on the empty food of idolatry that destroys our soul when God is offering us in Christ a far richer banquet at no cost to ourselves? So come and eat. Turn from the idols that ensnare you, turn from the gods of money and pleasure and health and wealth and fame and fortune, ambition, greed, whatever it is, turn from that because they only deceive you, and at God's table you will find abundant life. Second, invite others. Having eaten and tasted the gospel and been satisfied, how can you be silent when those around you are starving and thirsty? We should share as freely with others as we ourselves have received. So set the table and invite others to f to the feast. Share the gospel with them. And finally, be expectant. We don't have to market the gospel. We don't have to come up with strategies to make it popular. Just call and the nations will come running because God is preparing their hearts. When I was in college, the university chaplain told me something I've never forgotten, and it was interesting coming from him because he was one of these liberal scholars who didn't believe in the resurrection, so he thought the resurrection didn't really happen. And in fact, there's very little that he and I agreed on theologically. But one day he said, Don't let your fear of teaching heresy keep you from proclaiming the truth. Now, in my opinion, he taught a lot of heresy, which is why that statement is ironic. But we all teach heresy at some point. None of us has impeccable theology, and that's okay because theology doesn't save us. Nowhere in this whole series did you hear Isaiah admonish us to memorize Leviticus or learn Deuteronomy. We are saved because of what the servant has done. As long as we understand the basics of who is Jesus and what did he do for us, the rest doesn't matter as much. Now it's always better to believe the truth than a lie, and we should always strive to continue learning the truth and mature in our understanding. But the point is we all make mistakes. None of us have impeccable doctrine, but we also all have some measure of the truth. We should learn to be able to explain the gospel. You can explain the gospel even if you can't explain the five points of Calvinism. Everybody who's a believer should understand the gospel and be able to proclaim it and then proclaim that truth. Don't let your fear of teaching heresy keep you from proclaiming the truth. You don't need clever speeches, you don't need philosophical arguments, but you also don't want to water down the wine or put preservatives in the bread. The gospel is truth. The gospel delights the soul. It is a feast that is abundant and pure. God will make people interested. All you have to do is proclaim the truth that you know. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure that out. If you've been blessed by this podcast, I'd love to hear your story. You can email me at feedback at wednesdayintheword.com. Also, please subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you get your podcast. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org. I'm Krisan Marotta, and thanks for listening to Wednesday in the Word.