Sermon # 189            Series: Isaiah

 

Title:  God’s Thoughts and Your Thoughts

Text:  Isaiah 55:7-9

Subject:  A Contrast Between God’s Thoughts and Man’s Thoughts

Date:  Sunday Evening – September 18, 1994

 

Introduction:

 

Our text is talking about thoughts, God’s Thoughts and Your Thoughts; and that is my subject tonight.  Unlike all other earthly creatures, man was created in the image of God.  As a creature in the image of God, he was given the ability to think.  Man was created to think.  When men do not think, the degrade themselves and behave as brute beasts.  Thoughtless souls move across the earth like animals, looking for nothing more than temporary things, food, and drink, and shelter.  Thoughtful men and women rise above the mundane, the earthly, and the temporal.  They lift their eyes toward heaven.  They seek things that cannot be found upon this ball of clay.  They know themselves to be immortal souls.  Therefore they seek immortality and immortal things.  But there is a problem.  Fallen man’s highest, noblest thoughts are but the thoughts of fallen man.  Man’s thinking cap is warped.  His thought process is perverse.  Consequently, whenever man thinks about immortal, spiritual, heavenly things, his thoughts are always wrong.  So at the outset of my message, I want you to understand three things.

 

  1. Natural man has no ability to understand spiritual things.
  2. In order for man to know the things of God, he must have a Word of Revelation from God – And we must submit our thoughts to God’s thoughts in all things (II Tim. 3:16).
  3. If we are to understand God’s Word of Revelation in Holy Scripture, we must be taught by the Spirit of God – (I Cor. 2:11-14).

 

Proposition:  In our text we are told that specifically in the area of redemption, grace, salvation, and the forgiveness of sins, God’s thoughts and man’s thoughts are poles apart.

 

I.  God’s Thoughts about Creation are Higher than Your Thoughts.

 

Man thinks the world is somehow out of sector, a little rough, unbalanced.  But it is not so.  God made everything, gave order to it, and pronounced that it was very good, and gave it to man, his noblest creature (Gen. 1:1, 29-31).

 

Whether you look at God’s creation with your own eyes, through a telescope, or through a microscope, unless your mind has been perverted by the accumulated thoughts of men, you cannot fail to see that there is a tremendous to this vast universe in which we live.

 

Take the finest needle a man ever made, and put it under a microscope.  It looks like a rough, ragged piece of iron.  Then put a drop of water, or a drop of blood on a slide, and look at it through the same microscope.  Multiply it 10,000 times, 100,000 times.  The more you magnify it, the more precisely orderly it appears.

 

Now, understand that this whole universe is the result of God’s thought!  Yes, the Almighty thought it into being.

 

II.  God’s Thoughts About Providence Are Higher Than Our Thoughts.

 

Everything in time marches in one direction and is ordered by one all-wise purpose (Rom. 11:36; 8:28-29).

 

III.  God’s Thoughts Regarding The Future Are As High Above Man’s Thoughts As The Heavens Are Above The Earth.

 

 

I have said all that because I want to elevate your thoughts of God.  I want you to see that God is not a man.  He does not have any of the limitations of a man.  And his thoughts are not the thoughts of a man.

 

IV.  Particularly, God’s Thoughts About Salvation and Grace Are Not Your Thoughts.

 

Read Isaiah 55 one more time and understand how high God’s thoughts are above ours.

 

  1. Man thinks grace can be bought, or earned – God says it is free (vv. 1-2)
  2. Man thinks that God’s grace is niggardly – God  says it is abundant – “Fatness.”
  3. Man thinks that grace is conditional – God’s says it is sure, covenant mercy (v. 3).
  4. Man thinks that grace is to be obtained by some process – God says it is to be had now! (v. 6).
  5. We think our labor is vain if it is not immediately productive – God’s says his word will accomplish his purpose in his time (vv. 10-12).
  6. We think Christianity is a dark chamber of sad experiences – God says it’s experiences are joy, peace, and singing, and clapping (v. 1).
  7. Man thinks God will give him what he deserves – God promises to give every believer what Christ deserves (v. 13).

 

V.  Now, let me conclude this message by pointedly showing you what the text itself is designed to teach us – God’s Thoughts About The Pardon and Forgiveness of Sin Are Not Our Thoughts.

 

      Illus:  Noeman – “I Thought”

                 The Rich Young Ruler

 

  1. We are slow to forgive – God is quick!
  2. Our forgiveness has its limits – God’s is infinite!
  3. We find it hard to forgive some things – God never does!
  4. We forgive, but cannot forget – When God forgives, he cannot remember.
  5. We forgive, and yet retain some anger again – God has no anger toward forgiven sinners.  “Fury is not in me!”
  6. We may be persuaded to forgive – But God is ready to forgive.
  7. Where is the man who plans, and plots, and schemes so that he may find a way to forgive?  God did!
  8. Where is the man who is willing to suffer all that his enemies deserve that he might be able to forgive?  Christ did!
  9. Where is the man who will not only forgive offenses of the gravest kind, but then take the offender into his house and make him a son – Our God does!  (I John 3:1).

 

Application:  Illus:  The Disfigured Mother.