word of life - Isaiah 55

THE PANORAMA OF THE KINGDOM
Five Meditations on Isaiah 55
3 - GOD'S GRACIOUS CALL
(verses 6 & 7)
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"Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
Isaiah 55:6,7
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THE INVITATION of God to all to find real life and satisfaction has been given. The invitation is filled with all the wonderful blessings that God pours out on his people, and was summed up by the Lord with the words "and your soul will delight in the richest of fare".

God then has answered any doubts we may have about the value and truth of the invitation by explaining that it is based on the eternal covenant of God, where the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have bound themselves to do all that is necessary to make this invitation real and true.

As people respond to the invitation and seek to take it up, God begins to work in their hearts. This is the way in the spiritual realm. The soul dissatisfied with the world moves towards the invitation of the Gospel. The Spirit of God then works in the heart to show them how the invitation is to be received, and inclines the heart to respond. This is what we have before us in these two verses.

INSTRUCTION

To the soul that is seeking from the Lord the satisfaction offered, the Lord gives firstly instruction. The instruction is not difficult to understand, for it is simply pointing the way - "Seek the Lord . . . Call on Him." In fact it is pointing to the Lord as the one from whom all the blessings are received. It is the Lord who satisfies the soul. He is the author of salvation and every good thing.

In this instruction is the intelligence that all the problems of the soul are to be found in the fact that we have become separated from God, in whom all blessings are to be found. The instruction points to the fact that we must return to the Lord and be accepted by him, and be in fellowship with him again, for our souls to be delighting in the richest of fare. How difficult our natural mind finds this to accept. The devil's lie is that the Lord takes away all freedom and delight, and binds us with restrictions, but as Jesus pointed out to the Jews in the Gospels - 'he that commits sin is a slave of sin' and 'who the Son sets free is free indeed' (St. John 8:34,36). It is when we think we are free without God that we are really in bondage. We see this plainly, if we are honest, in the habits we can't control. To be in slavery to Jesus is to know the freedom of fulfilling the purpose of our creation.

The instruction includes this wonderful news that the Lord may be found, and that he is near to be found. This is what God has made possible in Christ and his great atonement. When Adam was cast out of Eden, sin separated mankind from God. Now in Christ the Lord has been brought near again, and can be known and found in Christ.

How blessed it is to know this truth. It is the experience of every one born into this fallen world that we find God remote because of sin. Sin separates us from God and alienates God from us. The punishment which Adam received after he had sinned, and passed on to all humanity, was this separation from God, which was made actual in his case when God thrust him out of the Garden of Eden, and placed angels at the entrance to prevent him returning. All joy and life is in God and to be without God is death.

Now our great Redeemer has removed the barrier and brought God near. Now our great loving Saviour has made it possible for God to accept us and be found by us. He did this by bearing in his own person all the separation which our sin deserved, and exhausting it on the cross. This instruction is telling us that God in Christ has made it possible for us to be in fellowship with God again.

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

In this instruction the Spirit is at work. The seeking soul is told to forsake wicked actions and to put away evil thoughts which are the source of the wicked actions. There is no way that any of us can do this unaided. Our fallen nature resists with all its might and main. It is the Spirit who works repentance in the heart so that this instruction is felt to be desirable and the best thing to do. This is a further expression of God's grace. The instruction is not enough. We need God's gracious action to turn us to himself.

How does the Spirit work this work. He does it by making us see the wicked ways and the evil thoughts as they really are. This is the seedbed of repentance. Sin is begun to be seen as God sees it, and a loathing is created in the heart which was never there before. As we seek the Lord and draw near to him, the Spirit shows us the purity and beauty of the Saviour and in contrast we see the vileness and ugliness of the wrong that is within us. A change is begun in our souls by the Spirit which causes us to begin to hate sin and desire to be rid of it.

This does not eradicate sin within. The flesh is still the same, and is able to influence the heart and mind towards evil, but in seeing the Lord, the soul can never view sin any more without concern, and there is a genuine desire to be clean.

Together with this sense of the sinfulness of sin, comes a sense of guilt and the need to be forgiven, and the awful truth that we are undeserving of God's favour and deserving only of his wrath. This work of the Spirit was called by the great reformer Luther 'the Spirit's strange work' because in the seeking of the Lord and drawing near to the Lord, there is this great pain and condemnation because of sin. But it is a necessary work which leads to the blessings of forgiveness. It is a work done in us, for we would not work this in ourselves, because the flesh shrinks away from the pain involved.

This work takes different forms. In some it is a very violent work, bringing grief and great fear of judgement. In others it is a more gradual and calm work. But it happens in all that seek the Lord. In some it is a general sense of sin and unworthiness. In others some particular failing is particularly highlighted. In others it is not so much particular sins, but the sinfulness and corruption of the mind and heart which overwhelms them.

ASSURANCE

Together with this instruction comes great and comforting assurance from God - "The Lord will have mercy on him ... Our God will freely pardon". It is the assurance of mercy and pardon. The assurance is in the certainty of the mercy. It is not that perhaps God will show mercy, but that he will and does show mercy. The assurance of pardon has no conditions, but is freely given. Those coming to the Lord seeking forgiveness and pardon shall always know that their quest will not be in vain. This is the assured promise of God. I will have mercy on you and my pardon is free.

This is the wonder of the everlasting covenant of God in Christ which we considered in the last meditation. Mercy is not an easy thing to show. However much God wanted to show mercy and to bestow pardon, he could not do it if he failed to uphold his holiness and justice. God could not be merciful by forgetting sin. God could not pardon if sin was not dealt with and atonement made. God could not be merciful at the expense of his law.

This is the wonder of this assurance from God of certain mercy and pardon, that God has found a way in Christ, at such infinite cost to himself, that he can justly freely pardon and bestow unconditional mercy. How greatly God must have loved you and me to bear our sin and all its condemnation completely and exhaust it, so that he may say that mercy is ready and free, and pardon of all our sins ready to be bestowed.

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

When the great reformer Luther spoke of 'the Spirit's strange work' in bringing conviction of sin, he also spoke of 'the Spirit's proper work' to lead people to the Saviour.

Mercy from God whom we have so grievously offended; pardon from God which is totally free; these are hard to comprehend and believe. The Spirit opens the mind and the heart of the burdened soul to the Saviour dying and bleeding for them. The Spirit opens their eyes to see their sins placed upon Jesus as he is dying on the Cross. The Spirit shows the seeking and convicted soul that it is God who has laid on his beloved Son the iniquity of us all, and it is God who has made Him a propitiation for our sins (Isaiah 53:6 and 1 John 2:2). The Spirit causes us to see the love in the face of Jesus hanging their on the cross, and as like the Tax Collector in the temple we pray, "Lord me merciful to me a sinner", we also by the Spirit hear the gracious words of the Saviour "Your sins are forgiven you, go in peace" and an assurance of our guilt being removed is given to our souls.

By the Spirit and through the Word, we are enabled to see how this mercy is there and this pardon so free. God is merciful and can be merciful to us, because his Son has met the demands of his justice on our behalf, and met it in full, so there is nothing to pay. So pardon comes to us, who caused the debt, totally free, without money and without cost. And that free pardon is so sure, because it is based on this perfect all-sufficient death of the Christ.

It is the Spirit that opens the heart and soul to all this which God has accomplished in Christ. Without the Spirit's strange work we would not desire mercy or feel any need for Christ to die for us. Without the Spirit doing his proper work of revealing Jesus as Saviour, we would not see any relevance in his dying, or feel and know he was dying personally for us.

THE RESULT

The result is the experience of the soul delighting in the richest of fare. What joy when the burden of guilt is lifted. This rich fare is described by the apostle Paul in the beginning of Romans chapter 5. The apostle is not instructing us here so much as outlining the blessings we experience in our souls. What delight it is to have deep peace in our hearts that God is our friend and that we are beloved, and there is no accusation against us and no condemnation.

There is also the delight which the apostle calls 'the grace in which we now stand'. This is the assurance that God is our God; that we are under his care; that our future is secure; that he is our guard from all the assaults of the evil one; that he will feed us and provide for us and guide us; above all that he will always deal with us in grace for Christ's sake.

There is the delight of the assured hope of glory. The future is rosy and golden, because we know that in Christ heaven is our home and Christ is in heaven now preparing a place for us, so that where he is, we may be also.

There is the peace and assurance that though life will have its suffering, we can rejoice in such suffering because in it God is working a good work in us to mould us into the image of Christ.

There is the tremendous joy of the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom God has given us. The spirit dwells within us. God has made his home with us. We have the sense of God's constant love, which is enhanced as the Spirit opens to our minds and understanding more perfectly all the love that went into our redemption.

CONCLUSION

How wonderful was the time when we were led by the Spirit to Seek the Lord, and the time when the Lord came near us to savingly bless us. At that time God became our God and we his people. Let us now stand in the blessing of this salvation, ever-more deeply entering into the heart of love which God has for us in Christ.