Accept God’s invitation to his banquet and worship him not yourself
by Julian Mann, TCW:
To get the force of the invitation which the living Lord God gives to people through his prophet Isaiah we need to exercise a bit of imagination.
It is difficult to imagine why anybody would want to go on a safari through the Sahara Desert but imagine you were on one. And you’re in a convoy of Land Rovers and you get lost. The Land Rovers run out of petrol, you’re stranded, your water runs out, your food runs out. It’s getting desperate.
But then a cheery chap in a British embassy bus turns up. He looks a bit like the quintessential British comic actor of the 1950s, Terry-Thomas, with his handlebar moustache and toothy grin. ‘Hop in,’ he says. ‘We’d heard you were lost. It’s been all over the news. It’s actually not that far to a 5-star hotel a few sand dunes away where there are water fountains and plenty of nosh and champagne on ice. All on the HM revenue. Glad we’ve managed to track you down. We’ve going to have a bit of a party.’
It may be the stuff of fantasy but what would be your emotion at that point? How would you feel to get an invitation like that under those circumstances?
‘Oh. whatever. I might get round to thinking about it.’ ‘I might come if there’s nothing better to do.’ ‘No, actually I’m not coming because I’m building a new patio.’ Or, ‘Go away – I’m going to get out of this myself.’ Such reactions to such an invitation would be inconceivable, surely, under such desperate circumstances.
The people to whom the living God issues his wonderful invitation in Isaiah 55 are in desperate need – they are thirsty, hungry and broke. Please look at verses 1&2: ‘Come, all you who are thirsty, 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 spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare’ (NIV).
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