Isaiah 55:6-13 “God is more merciful than you realise”

 

Has anyone ever said to you that ‘God’s thoughts are not our thoughts; God’s ways are not our ways’? 

We tend to say this when things happen in our lives that are not what we would have wanted or expected.  That is true, but it was only when I read Gentle and Lowly that I realised that the context of this truth is actually the mercy of God. 

What Isaiah is saying is, ‘while we struggle to forgive, and sometimes imagine that God is reluctant to forgive, his ways are not our ways, and His mercy exceeds our greatest expectations.’

God is more merciful than any of us can grasp!

1.      It is not to late to come home

‘Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near’ (6). 

You have to realise that the very ability to call on the Lord is a gift from God.  By nature, we run from God’s call.  We are hostile to the idea that we are wicked people whose only hope is God’s abundant mercy.  We would rather prove ourselves worthy than admit that our only hope is Jesus’ taking our guilt on His shoulders.  It is a sign of God at work when we call on Him!

John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, wrote that ‘you can never come too late to Jesus Christ if you truly come.’  Maybe you have resisted a real relationship with him for years.  You have a lifetime of rejecting His offer of grace.  It’s not too late.  But be careful.  It could become too late.  You could drop dead this afternoon and have to face Jesus not as rescuer but as judge.  It could become too late because your heart might become so hard from saying ‘no’ to Christ’s invitation that it reaches a place where it can no longer say ‘yes’.

Come now!  If you have never known him before, come now!  If you have drifted away from Him, come home!  He will welcome you with open arms!  ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the LORD, that he may abundantly pardon.’ (7).  Notice that there is no small print in this promise.  There are no exceptions.  Come and He will embrace you!

2.       God’s welcome has no exceptions

But maybe you have small thoughts of God’s forgiveness.  You fear that He could not forgive you.  Your problem is not that you have exaggerated thoughts of how awful your sins are—they are worse than you realise—but you have too small a view of God’s willingness to show mercy.

In Psalm 103:11-12 we read, ‘for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’  In our passage we God says, ‘as the heavens are higher than the earth, so and my ways greater than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’.  His thoughts are greater than ours because they are rooted in a love that can barely imagine and a forgiveness that is immeasurable.

John Bunyan lived an awful life before he came to Jesus.  He had rejected Jesus many times and had spoken hateful words against God.  He worried that he was too great a sinner to be forgiven.  He writes about it in a book called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.  He came to peace by thinking hard on Jesus’ promise that ‘I will never cast away anyone who comes to me’ (John 6:37).  He wrote a whole book on that verse, it’s called Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ.

‘But you don’t know what I did.  If you knew what I did you would realise that there is no hope for me.’  I don’t need to know what you did!  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’

‘But I strayed very far from Jesus.  I loved Him and left Him.  I denied Him and rejected Him.’  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’

‘But I knew exactly what I was doing.  I sinned against the light.  I knew how evil what I did was.  I willing broke Jesus’ heart’.  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’ 

‘But I think I have committed what the Bible calls the unforgiveable sin.’  Jesus promises, ‘I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.’  If you were guilty of the unforgivable sin you would not have the slightest desire to come to Him.

‘But I can do nothing to make up for what I have done.’  Look at the beginning of this chapter of Isaiah.  ‘Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat …’ (1).  Jesus is the bread of life who wants you to feast for free!

The great Welsh preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that the most common thing people came to him for advice on was ‘that one sin.’  They feared that there was something so terrible in their past that forever excluded them from the love of God.  Lloyd-Jones would point them to the promises of God and then explain that their real problem was not their past sin, which Christ has dealt with, but their unwillingness to take God at His word.

I have noticed that come people who suffer with clinical anxiety—I struggle with O.C.D.—can find it almost impossible to feel secure in Christ’s forgiveness.  Sometimes we need medical help as well as spiritual help.  Sometimes we need the doctor as well as the pastor.  But whatever stops you from taking God at His word battle against it.  We pray with that noble father who cried ‘I do believe, help me in my unbelief’ (Mark 9:24).  Remember that God is merciful with those who doubt (Jude 22).

3.       No how great your sin, God’s mercy is greater

Following on from our reading we read of the refreshing word from God that does not return empty.  This word is a word of mercy, forgiveness and life.  When we accept this word it refreshes our souls.  This word says that we need a new heart and promises that we come to Jesus he will change us from the inside out.  This word says we need to follow a new way of life and promises that when we come to Jesus He will give us new desires.  This word commands us to stand firm and promises that if we fall Jesus will pick us up and restore us.

For you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and hills before you will break forth in singing, and the trees of the of the field shall clap their hands (12).  These words were originally spoken to a nation whose guilt had led them into exile in Babylon.  But God had not given up on them.  They are coming home.  What celebration! 

I have noticed that the most joyful Christians are simply those who marvel in the fact that God has forgiven them.  They don’t try to justify any of their wickedness.  They are truly humble about themselves.  But they have thought God’s thoughts after Him and realised that he abundantly pardons.  They are really confident in God.

Conclusion

John Bunyan was onetime criticised for always going on about the love of God.  The objection came, ‘if you keep going on and on about Jesus’ love people will simply do as they please.’  Bunyan replied, ‘No, if I keep going on and on about the love of Jesus they will do what he pleases.’  Always keep Christ’s love before your eyes.  Love much as you see that you have been forgiven much.  Ask God to bring us to that place where obedience to Him is the source of our greatest joy!