Only Jesus Christ can satisfy the deepest human needs. by Calvin Burrell
Did you ever see a hippopotamus on a binge? Let me tell you about it.
If you came to my house a few years back, you might have heard a loud mixture of girls, marbles, and clanging plastic. I'm speaking of a game with four hippopotamus heads on each side of a plastic board. The upper jaws and face of each hippo was hinge-mounted, allowing it to open wide and gobble white marbles dropped into the center of the playing board.
The name of this game was Hungry, Hungry Hippos. It was well named because these fellows were never full. They just kept right on mouthing up all the marbles our girls put in front of them. They never once gave thanks; their only response was a noisy clatter of gulping all those indigestible spheres.
Hungry spirit
That ridiculous hippopotamus game has something to do, I think, with people in our world today. And I'm not talking about the starving masses of the sub-Sahara or of Calcutta. I'm not even thinking about the Appalachian poor in our nation or those right in our own town who stand in line at the rescue mission for a daily ration of sandwich, coffee, and cot. All these need our help all right, and I hope that we will all care enough to do what we can for them. But that's not my main subject now.
Rather, I'm thinking about a different sort of hunger and thirst that may be acute for many of the well-fed folks who read these words today. This is an appetite, not of the stomach, but of the human spirit. It's the kind Isaiah the prophet tells about when he spoke God's words "Ho! Everyone who thirsts . . ." (Isaiah 55:1).
Hopelessness
It is likely that there has never been a thirstier time in America than these years just on either side of 2000. We live in a dry land, with great disillusionment about the American Dream of a great society. Many people today feel like prisoners to the monstrous problems that have been created in the name of progress.
Years ago some pollsters in Texas found that the number one plague of people was hopelessness -- the fear that there are no real answers to this society's problems. If crime doesn't get us, pollution will. If pollution doesn't, then over-population will. And if over-population doesn't destroy us, then the bomb will!
Yes, there is a famine of hope among our people. Can't we see that when the Lord says, "Ho! Everyone who thirsts . . . ," He's talking our language? There is nothing that people need now more than a cup of cool, clear hope!
Purposelessness
So when the prophet speaks for God, he's up-to-date because multitudes of people these days are famished for some genuine hope and the assurance of a better day. There's more of this Isaiah passage written to our present-day needs, too. Look at verse 2: "Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?"
Evidently there were folks in ancient Israel who attempted to meet their deepest needs in ways that proved pointless, helpless, meaningless. They were spending and laboring, as the text said, but they were not being fulfilled. That's just another way of telling the story of modern America: working and spending, working and spending, working and spending. You get up and go to work each morning. Why? So you can earn money to spend on food. And why do you need food? So you can have strength to get up and go to work in the morning, of course. And the routine goes on.
But the problem is not the routine; it's that insatiable "Why?" that leaves us weary and dissatisfied. The opinion poll in Texas showed the number two plague of people in our day is purposelessness. In a dozen or a hundred ways, folks cry out for meaning to life, for a goal worth living for. It's the simple yet profound "Why?" of human existence.
Inadequate answers
People handle this plague in different ways. Some may deny the yawning chasm inside, or they may stuff it with philosophy. Others, like the hungry hippos, look for a quick fix; they seek fulfillment in a binge: buying or boozing or gambling, even working, eating, or athletics. Many even grope for an emotional religious high that they think will forever thrill.
But none of these proves lastingly adequate. The idols of science and materialism are badly tottering, and a dozen explanations of pop psychology have not filled the gaping hole inside. Sooner or later we will learn that we have spent our money hoping for bread, but we have gotten only rocks! Just as they did in Isaiah's time, the delicacies and delights of the twenty-first century leave us mostly dissatisfied -- and dying.
Filling the vacuum
I think our Maker fashioned us so. It was Augustine who said, "There is a God-shaped vacuum inside each of us, and nothing really ever satisfies until the Lord of life Himself comes in." Isn't that just what God is telling us in Isaiah 55? But the text does more than describe the vacuum; it also promises that the vacuum can be filled. Listen to God's offer to the thirsty soul in verses 1 and 2:
Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price . . . Incline your ear, and come to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.
Here is good news indeed for every thirsty soul! "Come to the waters," a symbol throughout the Bible of the full, satisfying life of faith in God. For those whose taste buds are more demanding, this abundant and eternal life is described not only as waters, but also as milk and wine. There is nourishment in this offer and delight as well.
The price? There is none! God's gracious offer of life is available to all who hunger and thirst, without regard to their financial resources. Just come and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Fatness? Yes, fatness of soul -- just what we've always looked for and longed for and ached for. This is satisfaction of the truest sort.
Missing elements
Verse 3 further amplifies God's offer of lasting satisfaction that we can live with -- and afford:
Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you -- the sure mercies of David.
A quick look into this great verse will locate all the missing elements that we humans have hungered for. There is hope, expressed in the promise "your soul shall live," and the words everlasting covenant. Further, there is purpose with certainty in the "sure mercies of David." This latter phrase clearly refers to the benefits that come to human beings only in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is this gospel and this Jesus that impart to the Christian faith the nutrients that have met the deepest needs of people in every age. Here is what Augustine longed for when he recognized that vacuum within. This is what folks in Texas were missing when they told the pollsters that hopelessness and purposelessness were their worst plagues. And it is the only thing that can really quench our own thirst while we're gobbling great amounts of this world's junk like a hippo gorging on marbles. Only Jesus can satisfy our soul!
My message to you today has been summarized in the last chapter of the Bible:
The spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17).
This article appeared in a past issue of the Bible Advocate print magazine. For a free subscription, contact BibleAdvocate@cog7.org.
Calvin Burrell is editor of the Bible Advocate and pastor of the Houston (English) Church of God (Seventh Day) in Galena Park, TX. Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version.
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© 2000 The General Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day)