Ho! Everyone…

"Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. 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? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in abundance – Isaiah 55v1-2

I certainly don’t understand how God’s sovereignty and man’s free will work together. I just don’t see in my puny little mind how they fit. I don’t fight this battle. As soon as I think I have come to a conclusion I see something else in scripture that makes me think again.

Verses like this are a part of the ‘problem.’ ‘Ho! Everything who thirsts, come to the water…’ ‘Everyone’ that is what catches my eye here. Instead of digging into that old debate I think I will just make the application here.

Street merchants have always been around. Though it has died off quite a bit I remember the old Moore Street Market in Dublin. From all up and down that little street we would hear – ‘Oranges, five for a pound!’ ‘Bananas!’ ‘Apples, six for a pound!’ I also remember a flea market back in Chattanooga when a guy selling egg rolls would yell out – ‘Egg Roll Yummies, good for your tummy. But one get one free, buy two get two free, but six get seven free!’

But here we have a different kind of street market. ‘Ho! Everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters! Even if you don’t have any money come and buy and eat and drink.’ The egg roll yummy guy may have offered buy one get one free, but he never said ‘buy none get one free.’

The key thing about God’s offer in Isaiah, as we will see, is that His offer is free. No one has the money to buy the drink or the food that is necessary for salvation. No one has the money to pay for soul-satisfaction.

But if man comes, and listens to what God has to say he will find that his soul can delight itself in fullness and fatness.

The challenge to me is whether I am doing my part to shout out that free offer to a world that needs salvation. Am I the one standing in the market shouting out ‘Listen, everyone, come and hear about God’s offer of salvation’?