I want to call your attention now to Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55. We're going to consider, by God's grace, verses 8 and 9. Some familiar verses, but some that have been preached on all too rarely. chapter is so wonderful, I cannot resist going back and beginning at verse 1 once again. Isaiah 55, Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not. Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me, hear, and your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God and for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith 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." May the Lord again bless the reading of His Word. It is hard to separate these verses really. Verses 6 through 9, all four verses really come as a package together. They give us the sinner's duty, the duty of all men, for we are all sinners, to repent and believe, to seek the Lord, to forsake our own way and forsake our own thoughts and return unto the Lord. You notice that the words Way and thoughts mentioned there in verse 7 are again mentioned in verses 8 and 9. That is the connecting link here that ties all of these verses together. The same issues are still under consideration here in verses 8 and 9, which we began to consider last time in verse 7. our thoughts and our ways from which we must turn, and God's thoughts and God's ways to which we must turn. And that turning from our own and turning unto Him and His is the very essence of repentance and faith. Now notice what the Lord says. Let's read verses 8 and 9 once again. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith 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. Now, let me state here at the outset what is obvious to us, but it is here in the text, and so I want to state it briefly, and that is we think and act. We have thoughts and we have ways. We've already mentioned that from verse 7 last time. As creatures made in the image of God, we have a rational capacity that animals do not have. We have a capacity to think, to weigh thoughts. We're doing that even now. I trust we're doing that. I trust your mind is engaged and you're thinking. We have thoughts. Our minds are constantly thinking, or at least they have a capacity to constantly think. I sometimes wonder how much we really think. One famous character said once that most people think about once or twice a year. And he said, I've made a name for myself by thinking once or twice a week, and there may be some worldly wisdom to that, but we need to use this capacity. This is something our text addresses very directly here. We are thinking, but the problem is our thoughts are wrong thoughts. We aren't thinking God's thoughts. We're thinking these low, little thoughts. While God thinks high, lofty thoughts, And He calls us to think like Him. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. We think. We have this rational capacity. And we have a moral capacity. As creatures made in the image of God, we have this moral capacity to weigh the good or evil of any action. We are constantly evaluating whether things are good or whether they are bad. As a creature made in the image of God, we would expect us to have these capacities, this capacity to intelligently relate to God, our creator. Theologians usually consider the faculty of the soul as composed of three parts or three elements. First, the intellect. And that's what we're talking about here, the thought capability, thought processes. Intellect and then emotion. which goes beyond bare thinking. It is that which we love, that which we treasure, that which is important personally to us, that of which we are personally convinced. And then there is thirdly, the will, the capacity to make choices and to determine a direction, a way, a course of action. And it's that way that was mentioned in verse 7 which is the result of and the outcropping of our thoughts. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Our thoughts determine our way. Our thoughts determine our course and our actions and our whole direction. And it is therefore here in verse 8 that the Lord informs us that His thoughts are not like our thoughts and his ways, his course, his direction is not like ours. And so we see not only do we think and act, but also God thinks and God acts. He speaks of his own thoughts here in these two verses. And he speaks of his own ways or his own course. Intelligence and wise action is certainly part of God's character and attributes. But his thoughts are infinite thoughts, infinite wisdom, infinite and perfect understanding. as well as infinite power to carry out and to put into action and to make a way and a course of what He has determined to do. Now, creation itself is the most obvious testimony to God's thoughts and God's ways. You look at creation and I think of Mr. Spurgeon, he used illustrations from creation and nature so frequently. One place, probably more than one place, he says, why do the planets not collide with each other and destroy one another? Why is there this order to creation, even under a state of a curse as we see it now? There is still remarkable order. and regularity to it. It is but a testimony to the wisdom of God and the ways of God. His thoughts and His ways speak for themselves in all of creation. Look at your physical body. All these different systems all together in one package, working together to sustain life. We see, moreover, God's thoughts and God's ways and the great height and depth of God's thoughts and ways in redemption. The redemption of fallen creation. There are several scriptures that speak to this, but one of the most marvelous statements as Jeremiah 29, 11, where the Lord says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you. That just fascinates me. God contemplates his own thoughts. He says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord. Thoughts of peace. And not of evil. to give you an expected end or an end that is desired. So man thinks and acts and God thinks and God acts. And so someone might say, well, what's the big deal? We all think we all act. Well, the big deal is this. There is an immeasurable difference between God's thoughts and ours and God's actions and ours. Rather than drawing a comparison and showing how much like God man is in thinking and acting, the text here rather draws the contrast. He says, your thoughts are not mine. Your ways are not mine. And he uses this illustration from creation itself as the heavens are higher than the earth. How much higher are the heavens than the earth? Depends on what heavens you mean. You know, inner space is measurable and they think that they can measure outer space. But if we take it to be the very third heaven, which is God's throne, that to us is an immeasurable distance. And I take it that that is what God is speaking of here, that there is this infinite distance from heaven to earth. And there is this infinite distance, this infinite gulf and gap between God's thoughts, His great thoughts and our little earthly thoughts. This infinite distance between God's ways, His course of action, And our little pitiful courses of action. Imagine a person on a high building, a high rise building. There's one or two around here in Tulsa that I've been to. We've been up to the is it the 37th or something floor on one of those and Up there you get this view of things. And you look down and you see little people, you know, that look like little ants down there crawling around on an anthill or something. And you feel like you're so much above it all. I remember going up into the I think it's the tallest building in Mexico City, the Latin American Tower. And most days you can't see a thing because there's so much smog. But on a clear day, I've been up there a couple of times on a clear day, and you can see the whole valley of Mexico, as they call it. And the city just stretches on and on and on. And it's lost in the distance. And you feel like you have this perspective of things. that nobody else has, at least for those few moments that you're up there looking around. That you have this perspective that those on the ground don't have because they may be looking up. They have no place to look down to, but you're up high and you're looking down on them. But think of what God must see. Think of the perspective that God has in heaven and His thoughts and His knowledge of all things, He sees into the individual heart and soul of every one of us. There's nothing hidden from His sight. Psalm 139 says that God saw you when you were microscopic in your mother's womb. God's vantage point gives Him infinite perspective on all things. He has a view immeasurably greater than our own. His thoughts are superior. His ways are superior. Transcendent. Far above ours. The psalmist declares, O Lord, how great are Thy works and Thy thoughts are very deep. God's thoughts are deep thoughts. We, on the other hand, we have these little shallow thoughts. Oh, we think we've come up with something brilliant and something profound and come to find out somebody already thought that thought a long time ago. I think it was Sir Isaac Newton that declared that all of his lifetime he had just been wading around in the shallows of knowledge. Now there's a man who understood something of Isaiah 55, no doubt. We are so earthbound, time-bound, sense-bound, small, limited, restricted, and therefore inadequate and insufficient for the life that now is and for the life that is to come. And we need God's wisdom. We need God's thoughts. We are not capable of charting our own course and our own way. We need God to chart it for us and that we might follow His will. He sees the whole picture. He knows everything. His perspective is unlimited. His view is perfect. He has the enlarged view of everything. This contrast is drawn in several scriptures that I want to just refer to here. I'll not ask you to turn to, but the very first psalm, the psalm that sort of sets the pace for the whole rest of the Psalter begins this way, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the mind of God, in the law of God. And in his law does he meditate day and night. The godly man thinks God's thoughts. He meditates in God's thoughts and God's law day and night. The very last verse of that psalm again mentions the way as Isaiah does. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. And there is this well-known proverb There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. No, our ways are not God's ways. Our ways are what? Ways of death. Not ways of life. Just back a page from our text in Isaiah 53, we read, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. We think we have all wisdom. We think we've got it all figured out and I'll go my way. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the only remedy for it, the only thing that can bring us back to the right way and the right thoughts, is the last part of the verse. The Lord hath laid on Him, that is Christ, the iniquity of us all. Remember, the Lord near the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount said enter ye in at the straight gate? For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Oh, this is God's way. This is God's course. And it is that one that we must, by His grace, seek and find and follow. It's the way that leads to life. Now, what is true of fallen man? Well, he just thinks his own little thoughts. And I believe it's really accurate to say that most don't even think their own thoughts. They let others think for them. They let the world as a whole, the world as a system, in its worldly wisdom, dictate its thinking, dictate His thinking. That's what man naturally does. We let those around us guide and determine what we think about most everything. matters great and small. A sinful world as a whole dictates our values, our priorities, our beliefs, our morals. That's why the ones who hold the reins of education and the teaching of young people Have such a great responsibility. And such great influence and atheistic education. Man centered education. Is simply a curse that perpetuates. Shallowness of thought. And wrongness of ways. How can a person really be educated who hears nothing and knows nothing about the living God? It's the blind leading the blind, isn't it? And like one blind man leading another blind man, they both fall into the ditch They both fall into the abyss. They both fall into hell at the end. That broad way leads to destruction, the Lord says. Mr. Spurgeon wrote a little tract in which he tried to illustrate this point. And he said, we all know that pigs are not known for going where you want them to go. They're known for going where you don't want them to go. And there was this observer who watched the pigs just walking right straight into the slaughterhouse. And he was trying to figure out how did this farmer train these pigs? And upon a little closer observation, he saw that the farmer simply had a bag of feed and he was dropping out a few kernels along the way into the slaughterhouse. And those swine were just following him right into their own destruction. And Spurgeon says, that's like what it is like with those who are lost in sin, following the broad road to destruction. This world gives them just a few little pitiful kernels, not enough to live on. But man in sin keeps following the worldly path and the worldly course and the worldly way of thinking and follows it right into the slaughterhouse of eternity. I want you to understand this from our text. The distinction that is made between man's natural thoughts and God's thoughts is not a contrast simply in degree. It's not that our thoughts are just not quite as developed as God's thoughts are. It is rather that our thoughts are in conflict with His thoughts. Our ways are opposed to His ways. There is no common ground spoken of here. Nothing but a very radically different thought process and course of action. So then, I've already said it, but let me say it this way this time. Who is right? When man disagrees with God, when man is in conflict with God, when man's thoughts are against God's thoughts and man's ways are against God's ways. Who is right? I think, you know, the answer to that. God is right. It is not for God to change his thoughts so that they conform to ours. is not for God to change His ways so that they conform to ours. It is rather for us to change ours so that they conform to His. What God is saying here in so many words in these two verses of Isaiah 55 is, you should turn from your little thoughts and begin to think My thoughts and turn from your ways and walk in My ways. Your thoughts are not my thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways. Mine are so much higher than yours, he says. But the reality is, in our natural blindness and in our natural pride, we refuse to listen. We refuse to change. We either expect God to change and agree with us, or else we just don't care what God thinks and what God does. And it is this pride that is our greatest enemy within. It is this pride which is the very first sin, it seems, in so many ways. And there is no pride greater than pride of intellect. I believe it is safe to say that you could take the pride of the athletes and what they accomplish with physical strength and the pride of other gifted people and the things that they can accomplish. But none of those measures up to the pride of those who think that they know something that others don't know. I know more. That is the steepest pride that I've ever seen and that I've ever seen. In the mirror, look in the realm of politics and you see it. Oh, these intelligent politicians, they have a fix for everything. They know exactly what needs to be done. And they talk down to the rest of us as if we were fools and idiots. Look in the halls of learning and academia. Just sit as an observer on a college campus and you can smell the pride in the air, can you not? And it is this pride of our thoughts that becomes our downfall when we deal with God. I read just the other day words that Dr. Lloyd-Jones spoke to one who was described as an undergraduate snob. Here's what Lloyd-Jones said to him. You are common clay, just like the rest of us, and in as much need of God's salvation as the local crossing sweeper. We might say the local ditch digger. Yes, it is so. We need to be humble. Our pride is our death. Our pride robs us of the lasting, eternal blessings of God. Our self-proclaimed wisdom is really our folly, as we read there earlier in 1 Corinthians 2. What a chapter that is to consider along with these verses in our text. And so I want to urge you, my friend, don't rob yourself of God's great blessings. Don't rob yourself by your own pride of thoughts and your wisdom to direct your own way. Don't rob yourself of the blessings that are lasting and eternal. Rather, submit your mind and submit your course to God's mind, to God's Word, to God's will. Don't let the world do your thinking for you. Let God do your thinking for you. It will be one of those two invariably. And we must submit our thoughts to the thoughts of God. You know, In a way, this is the very first and greatest thing that describes a true Christian. He is one who thinks like God. He is one who has experienced, by the grace of God, a profound revolution in the way that he thinks. A Christian is not just someone who has had this deep emotion. Christianity is not mere emotional ism. There is emotion in religion, undoubtedly, but that is not what comes first and that is not what is foremost and that is not what we are built upon. It is rather the knowledge of the truth of God, the thoughts of God revealed in his word. The last phrase there in first Corinthians two is to describe a Christian. It says we have the mind of Christ. We think as he thinks his truth. We receive. As our guide. The contrast between the two courses, is set forth very plainly here in Romans chapter 8. Just listen to a couple of these verses. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death. Just to think your own thoughts. To let the world dictate your thoughts. He says that's death. Eternal death, but to be spiritually minded, that is, to have the mind of the Spirit of God set forth in his word. He says that is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God. Left to ourselves, our thoughts will never be God's thoughts. They will always oppose him. The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye, he says, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. He speaks over in chapter 12 of Romans again, just listen, you know, these verses by heart, I imagine he speaks of our reasonable service that we owe to God. or literally our intelligent service. What is true of a Christian is this, that he serves God intelligently, thoughtfully, thinking the thoughts that God sets forth, thinking of the truth that God gives in His Word. He goes on and says, And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. What is a Christian? He is one who has had his mind renewed, his mind brought to life, his thoughts enlivened to come into agreement with God's thoughts and God's ways. And therefore, we are exhorted, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. A mind of what? A mind of humble service. Philippians 2. Are you content with your thoughts as they are? Are you content with little, puny, weak, earthbound thoughts Are you content to have your mind occupied with whatever the latest fad is or the latest gadget or latest entertainment? Are you content with the ways that are a dead end? Is there any greater folly than pursuing a dead end road? even though there is marker and sign upon sign along the way that says dead end, dead end, dead end. And you just push the accelerator pedal all the harder. There's no wisdom in that. The world says, oh, that's wise. That's wonderful. Going for broke. Well. It's death. Don't be content with your little thoughts and your little dead end ways. Don't be content with life without God. Don't be content. Oh, you won't be content. In eternity without God. Give up your small meager short term thoughts. And think according to Scripture, large, lofty, great, long term thoughts and then guide your way accordingly. When we talk about God's thoughts, I'm thinking especially of thoughts on redemption, thoughts about our self, our sin, our guilt before God, our condemnation, and thoughts about the Redeemer that He has sent, His only begotten Son, His perfection, His death on the cross for our sins, His resurrection from the grave, His fullness of grace and truth, His power to save forever those who come to God by Him. Oh, beloved, saturate your mind with the thoughts of God. Saturate your mind with Scripture. Here in our text, in the earlier verses, what did He say? Incline your ear. This has been the summons all through Isaiah 55. Listen. Hear. Listen to what God says. Listen to His truth. Listen to His invitation and His mercy. Incline your ear here and your soul shall live. This is the measure of true success. To think like God. To think his thoughts. To walk with him in his course, in his way, his path of righteousness. to live in a right relationship with God. That, my friend, is what success is. Listen, I don't care how many Ph.D.s a man may hold, how much influence, how much wealth or anything else that he may gain. If he doesn't think like God thinks and walk in God's ways, he is or she is a miserable failure, a miserable failure in time and in eternity. It is not a matter of intelligence, it's not a matter of IQ, it isn't, oh, To think God thought you've got to be, you know, a genius or something like that, if that were so. Then only geniuses would be Christians. And that's not true. I'm a testimony to that, so are most of you. It's often the other way around, isn't it, that the Lord. In his infinite wisdom and way of planning and orchestrating everything, oftentimes sees fit to save those who are far from genius. And he saves those who are lower than average. To whom he delights to reveal his thoughts so as to humble the pride of man. and exalt himself alone as the God of salvation. Now, very quickly, I'm going to draw to a close here. These verses tell us of God's lofty thoughts as contrasted with our own little thoughts. But this is a message ultimately of good news. The loftiness of God's thoughts is truly in our favor. Because if we were left up to our own thoughts, As to a way to devise salvation, we would never come up with it. We couldn't imagine it. We would not begin to devise a way in which God's justice and mercy could both be satisfied. We would rack our brains. And generation after generation of mankind would write books and leave them for future generations to try to build upon. And generation after generation would go to the grave hopeless. Left to our sinful thought patterns, we would never come up with the kind of plans and schemes that God has come up with. It's a good thing that His thoughts are infinitely above our thoughts. It's to our advantage. It's to our favor in redemption. God has plans that exceed our dreams. I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us. By his spirit for the spirit search of all things, yea, the deep things of God, God's plans concerning redemption and glorification for his people. These things exceed our thoughts. Again, the psalmist rejoices. Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are toward us. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. Or think of the doxology that the Apostle Paul gives after saying some very deep things in Romans 11, he says, Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been His counselor. Thank God for his lofty thoughts, his thoughts that are so high and so deep, so broad. Truly, his thoughts are the key to everything. We know nothing as we ought to know if we're not thinking as God thinks. I want to close with a reminder of that parable we read last week of the prodigal son. Just think about a couple of features in that story for a moment. In the beginning of the parable, the prodigal son thought that he knew it all. He was so intelligent. He had it all figured out with this big early inheritance. He could go and do this and that. He had his course, his way all planned. He thought that his father knew nothing. Why? Father's thoughts aren't worth thinking, aren't worth following. But he found himself in the hog pen. And then he began to think, it says he came to himself, literally, he came to, he woke up. His mind began working for the first time, really. And then what did he think? He still didn't understand his father. And he thought to himself, my father could never, never. Take me back as a son. There's no way that he could be that merciful. He might take me back as a hired servant, but he could never take me as a son. At first, he underestimated the wisdom of his father. And in the hog pen, he underestimated the mercy of his father. But once he returned and he came up to his father's way of thinking, he appreciated his wisdom and he appreciated his mercy. And so it is with all who come to Christ. We come realizing that we have underestimated His wisdom. And we've underestimated His mercy. He is able to save. And He is ready to save. And He is willing to save all who come to God by Him. So I urge you this morning, come up to God's thoughts. Come up to God's thoughts. His thoughts are high thoughts, but His thoughts are the only thoughts of salvation. Come to Christ. I heard a man on the tape give his testimony the other day and he said something that I'll leave with you here this morning. He said that In his particular case, in his conversion experience, he came to a point where he said, Lord, I don't know how to come. But I'm coming. And maybe that's your soul here today. You don't know all that you want to know. You don't think you know anything. You don't know how to come. But you know that you must come. Come to him in as much as you understand who he is and what he is, is the savior of sinners. Come, come up to his thoughts. Humble yourself and come up to the thought of God.