Isaiah 58 reminds us that the house of Jacob was very religious. Unfortunately, they were religious in the same way the surrounding nations were. The house of Jacob used Spiritual disciplines like fasting to try to get God to help them get what they wanted and not because they were genuinely repentant. God wanted them to fast from their wickedness, but they fasted from food. They fasted from food, but they did not give bread to the hungry. Their self-denial was selfish. Sometimes mixed into our motives for doing the religious thing is an effort to manipulate God to do whatever it is that we want. The Christian walk is a life of self-denial, there is nothing wrong then with self-denial, the problem is the heart. Are we denying ourselves because it really would help others or are we doing it so that we can keep on doing our own thing? But thanks be to God that Jesus purifies all of the good things we do from mixed motives.
Isaiah 57:14-21 reminds me of the magnificat of the virgin Mary where it speaks about the humiliation of the proud and the exaltation of the humble. Mother Mary knows best -- she willingly submitted to the will of God for her life and even today we call her blessed. It seems natural for Christian mothers to exemplify being of a contrite and lowly spirit. They encourage their children to repent, they come to church because they humbly depend on God for grace, they are the peacemakers. God does dwell in the high and holy place but He also is with all who are of a contrite and lowly spirit. We all should have mothers in the faith, sometime biological mothers but always Spiritual mothers. And we should rise up and call them blessed. But especially today we should examine ourselves to see if we are truly humble before God.
Isaiah 56:9-57:13 compares the watchmen or elders or shepherds of Israel to sleeping dogs -- thus I combined the metaphors of shepherding and sleeping dogs to say that they are sleeping sheep dogs. Most of the examples of their failures as sheepdogs has to do with the Spiritual condition of the people. The people were worshiping rocks and trees, engaging in ritual prostitution, and sacrificing their children. The watchmen should be sounding the alarm about coming danger for such evils, but they are silent and sleeping. We have modern versions of these sins and modern elders need to sound the alarm -- to tell the bad news that your sins deserve the wrath of God but also the good news that Jesus has taken God's wrath for those who take refuge in Him.
Isaiah 56:1-8 is a prophetic sermon encouraging Israel to keep covenant, represented by Sabbath keeping, while they wait for salvation to come through the suffering servant. Isaiah warns Israel that they should not presume their salvation based on their ancestry but that those who are saved and will be saved are those who keep Sabbath. Therefore, he gives a couple of radical examples: foreigners and eunuchs and he describes what will come for eunuchs and foreigners who keep Sabbath in the new covenant (described using the types of the old covenant). The point is that it does matter how you live. Because salvation was near they should keep justice and do righteousness. Given the emphasis on Sabbath keeping, I stressed the importance of observing the Lord's Day where all nations gather together into the house of prayer on the heavenly Mount Zion.
You knew when you saw the title of this sermon that there must be some kind of catch. And the truth is -- there is. The wine is not really free -- it is very expensive wine and it took a very costly sacrifice in order to purchase it -- the death of Jesus on the cross. So while the wine is not free, it is free to you. This is why Isaiah 55 says you can buy it without price. Now the wine that I have to share with you is not physical wine that will never really satisfy you, but the blood of the new covenant. The word of God will convey this, and the other Spiritual benefits mentioned (water for refreshment, milk for nourishment, food for sustenance), to all who believe without fail. It will not always be immediate, but it will be done.
