Come!
Come! v1-3
God is an inviting God – inviting has two meanings. Firstly He is pleasant and attractive, like those gardens are “an inviting place”. And secondly He also invites you to come.
He invites those who are thirsty and broke. There’s a thirst in your heart for something more to life, but it all seems out of reach. Your busted spiritually but thirsty for something more. God says come. Then in verse 2 the Lord invites the self-sufficient too – those that have all they need, who can spend and work, but find it doesn’t satisfy. The new car gets scratched, the green grass needs mowing and the big house needs cleaning. Come.
What we are offered is wonderful – water, milk and wine. Each an image in its’ own right. Water quenches thirst just like the Psalmist promised in Ps 23:2-3. Milk gives nourishment – it’s what we give babies to grow. Wine is exhilarating – there’s shouting and singing and dancing and playing and skipping and running and jumping. As we come we are rescued with the miracle of life quenching water, the strengthening and nourishing of milk and the exhilarating delight of wine!
In verse 3 we see that coming to Jesus binds us in an everlasting covenant with God – He will never leave you or forsake you and He will pursue you with goodness and mercy all your days.
How do we get that? – we come, we buy (without cost!), we listen, we eat and we delight – all the coming to God verbs in these verses.
Then we call others v4-5
When we come and are delighted in Him, we become a witness v4, and leaders and commanders for the people v4 to call a nation that doesn’t know. We get to be involved in bringing others to Him so they can be satisfied and delighted. The Gateway is multicultural family and we get the honour and joy of making friends, understanding and inviting people from every nation we encounter into this wonderful relationship with Jesus that we have.
Seek and call v6-9
Isaiah urges us to call on God – to pray. We know how to call a waiter over, to call a friend on the phone and to call for help using 999. We talk to the Lord in similar ways.
In verse 7 we forsake evil – we repent and turn away form evil, putting to death temptation and sin that comes towards us.
And we do that because God’s ways are higher than ours – they are a much better way to go v8-9.
Rain and snow v10-11
The words of God come from heaven v10, are a seed that will grow v10 and always achieve the purpose He sent them to have v11. When we are grieved that friends and family are ignoring the Word of God they have been told and shown, take comfort that the Word comes in one of two ways. It comes like rain that can soak into ground straight away. And it comes like snow that sits for a while until it thaws into the ground to do its’ work.
Singing v12-13
The passage ends with joy and going out in peace for those who have responded. Some of this is still future when the curse of the fall in terms of weeds and thorns is fully reversed in the new creation at the end of time as we know it!
But the gospel gives us joy and peace now and that leads to singing!
Andy Moyle