Isaiah 55:1-13--The Compassion of the LORD

Isaiah 55
English Standard Version

The Compassion of the LORD
55 “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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,
    a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 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.

6 “Seek the LORD while he may be found;
    call upon him while he is near;
7 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.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 “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,
11 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.

12 “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.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
    instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the LORD,
    an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

---

Think of the conversation that Jesus had with the woman at the well in John 4--
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.” 11 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? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

The woman imagined Jesus was talking about some kind of spring that gave better water than the stagnant water that came from the well, but Jesus is alluding back to this idea of a spiritual thirst that can only be quenched by the Living Water that comes from the LORD.  Though we are spiritually bankrupt, we are told to come and sell all the worthless items that we have and buy that which we could never afford, but which the LORD will provide to us freely (but we must give up on everything else that has a hold on us).  What do we get in return?  An everlasting, unbreakable covenant of redemption!  We can have the same kind of relationship with God that David did--the one called "A man after God's own heart" because the LORD will put His heart within us.

We should call on the LORD now and seek Him both as our Savior and Lord.  The wicked should repent and turn away from their wickedness and accept the salvation, forgiveness, and transformation that is being offered to them.  This is a limited time offer as we can only accept it during this temporal lifetime, and no one knows exactly how many more years, months, days, hours, minutes, or seconds they have remaining.  "It is appointed man once to die, and after that, the judgment."  There are no second chances.

2 Corinthians 6:2
English Standard Version
2 For he says,

“In a favorable time I listened to you,
    and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Hebrews 4:6-13
English Standard Version
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

God promises that His Word will not return void and will accomplish what it was set out for--like the rain that waters the soil and helps the plants to grow and produce much fruit (though it eventually returns back to the oceans and the sky and starts the process all over again).  The LORD's Word will work to convict and to convert.  We don't know which will happen, but we know that apart from the Word of the LORD, true conversion will never happen--"Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ." (Romans 10:17).

​God promises to eventually reverse the Curse of sin from Genesis 3.  The ground will not produce thorns and thistles for us.  All of creation will once again submit to the authority of Man as the viceroy over God's creation, and Creation will once again join in praising the LORD is Creator (and its Redeemer).  This will be a New Creation in an everlasting state of goodness like the original creation started--there will be no more Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and no more temptation and no more Tempter (he will be cast into the Lake of Fire along with all those who have chosen to be a part of his kingdom).  "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever."