Isaiah 55:2

Not bread - For those things which can never nourish or satisfy you, such as worldly goods, or pleasures. Eat ye - That which is truly and solidly, and everlastingly good. In fatness - In this pleasant food of gospel-enjoyments.

Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?....

4:8). hearken . . . and eat--When two imperatives are joined, the second expresses the consequence of obeying the command in the first (Ge 42:18). By hearkening ye shall eat. So in Isa 55:1, "buy and eat." By buying, and so making it your own, ye shall eat, that is, experimentally enjoy it (Joh 6:53).

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

How important it is that we should hear God, that we should have an attentive ear to His Word and that it should, through our ears, reach our souls and become to us, consciously, the Living Word of the Living God! The great gate of commerce between Heaven and the town of Mansoul is Ear-Gate. We can see but little of the things of the Kingdom of God, but we can hear much concerning them. We are told, not only to "listen" to God, but to "listen diligently."

How important it is that we should hear God, that we should have an attentive ear to His Word and that it should, through our ears, reach our souls and become to us, consciously, the Living Word of the Living God! The great gate of commerce between Heaven and the town of Mansoul is Ear-Gate. We can see but little of the things of the Kingdom of God, but we can hear much concerning them. We are told, not only to "listen" to God, but to "listen diligently." You cannot have too much hearing of the right kind of truth, nor too much of the right kind of hearing. Some people like few sermons and those very short, but, when a soul is hungry after God and eternal life, it puts another meaning on this exhortation, "Listen diligently." It cannot hear too much! It cannot hear too often! It cannot hear too intensely. Faith comes by hearing and, therefore, Satan tries to block up that gateway of mercy. If he can persuade men not to hear, then he can keep them out of the way of Grace. But the exhortation of our text sets wide open this door of salvation at which the Lord, Himself, stands and cries, "Listen diligently to Me." You, dear Friends, love to hear the Word of the Lord, therefore I need not dwell upon that exhortation. But I do pray that no one may hear in vain. "Take heed what you hear" and "take heed how you hear." Do not be content merely to open Ear-Gate, but rest not satisfied until the King, Himself, comes riding through that gate right up to the very citadel of the town of Mansoul and takes possession of the castle of your heart! With this brief introduction, we will come to the consideration of our main text which follows upon the exhortation. We are to "listen diligently" to this message from the Lord's lips—"Eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." Here are four things. First, the food. Next, the feeding.

ALL life here below needs to be sustained from without by food of some kind or other. We know not how the angels live, yet the Psalmist's expression, "Man did eat angels' food," might lead us to imagine that even the/need to be supplied with nourishment from without, but, certainly, all earthly life requires appropriate nutriment. The physical life of man cannot be sustained unless he has bread to eat. His mental life, too, though that is often forgotten, cannot be in a healthy condition without an adequate supply of understanding and knowledge.

ALL life here below needs to be sustained from without by food of some kind or other. We know not how the angels live, yet the Psalmist's expression, "Man did eat angels' food," might lead us to imagine that even the/need to be supplied with nourishment from without, but, certainly, all earthly life requires appropriate nutriment. The physical life of man cannot be sustained unless he has bread to eat. His mental life, too, though that is often forgotten, cannot be in a healthy condition without an adequate supply of understanding and knowledge. The poor creatures which have been confined in prison cells, year after year, with nothing to read or to think upon, have come forth to liberty as imbeciles— quite unfit to go into society because the mind has wasted away in starvation. You must feed the mental, as well as the physical man, if it is to be in a right and healthy state. And this is pre-eminently true of the spiritual nature which God has implanted within His people at the time of their regeneration. That higher nature must be nourished—God has been pleased to give us an ordinance on purpose to remind us of this great fact. Baptism is the symbol of the entrance upon the new life by passing through death in the type of the Savior's tomb—"buried with Him by baptism into death." And then, when that life is once obtained, there follows the sacred feast of the Lord's Supper wherein, under the emblems of the bread and the wine, we are taught that Jesus Christ must be, in a spiritual sense, both meat and drink to our souls. We derive our life from Him and He must sustain it. We receive spiritual life by hearing concerning Him and that life is to be sustained by our still hearing the truth concerning Him. Our spiritual life must have spiritual food—it cannot possibly do without it.

Wherefore do ye spend - Why should ye be so zealously attached to a doctrine from which your souls derive neither comfort nor nourishment?