I shouldn’t skip Isaiah 55. It’s the last of Eugene Peterson’s “Comfort” chapters.

• Judgment: 1 – 39
• Comfort: 40 – 55
• Hope 56 – 66

I’ve memorized a good bit of Isaiah 55. A highlight reel of gems:

We’ve talked about the benefits of obedience, and the beginning echoes that theme…

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live… (Isaiah 55.1 – 3, ESV)

…including a call for repentance:

Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55.5, 6, ESV)

Do you have trouble understanding God…or his Word? There’s a verse for that.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55.8, 9, ESV)

And there’s a promise for those of us who speak his Word. I had claimed it for a sermon on John 9 (“once I was blind but now I see)” I was supposed to preach on March 15. Unfortunately, we got snowed out, canceling the service for icy roads.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55.10, 11, ESV)

I was able to share parts of the sermon with a young Vietnamese man on the Friday before. He promised to read the New Testament that I gave him. Pray for Eli, who describes himself as “spiritual but not religious.”

The chapter ends on a high note:

For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Isaiah 55.12, 13, ESV)