Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Isaiah chapter 55, our first
reading. Isaiah 55, we'll read for our
text from verse six through to verse nine. Four verses. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found, call ye upon him while he is near. 7. 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. Isaiah 55, verses six through
to verse nine. Isaiah lived some 700 years,
before our Lord Jesus Christ came. And yet we have such clear
prophecies of the coming of the Lord, and not just that, but
of the Church and of these Gospel days. There is especially an
order in the chapters around the one that we have our text
in. When we think of chapter 53,
we have there a very clear prophecy of the sufferings of our Lord
Jesus Christ. It speaks of Calvary. It was this chapter that Philip
came to Eunuch, heard him reading, and began at the same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus. where he was reading, All we
like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his
own way. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth. And very clearly in this prophecy
we are told that he was wounded for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was
upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. This is setting
forth Christ's sacrificial death upon Calvary, upon the cross,
how he bore the sins of his people and put those sins away, and
that is the foundation of the message of the Gospel, the good
news of salvation, as the debt has been paid by Christ, that
the wrath of God is extinguished for those for whom Christ has
died, and that this good news is to be proclaimed throughout
all the world. And so then we have in chapter
54, we have the Church of God. And we would remember that the
Church of God doesn't just begin in New Testament times. The Apostle Paul speaks of the
church that was in the wilderness, that is, the typical people of
the children of Israel, and how they drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. There has
always been the church of God. Abel was part of the true church
of God. Noah was. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
All of those that walked by faith, that believed in the promises
of the coming Messiah, the way that sin would be put away, Satan's
head bruised, his heel bruised. And so we have the Church of
God looking forward to these Gospel days, these days after
Christ has come, after sin has been put away at Calvary, We
have the words of Isaiah 54. Sing, O barren, thou that didst
not bear. Break forth into singing and
cry aloud. This is the message to the church
of God. Enlarge the place of thy tent. Let them stretch forth the curtains
of thy inhabitations. So this is speaking of the church. Then we have where our text is. Isaiah 55, it is speaking to
sinners, it's speaking to those in the Church of God, especially
to those that thirst after righteousness, those that feel their sin, feel
their shame, feel their need of the Saviour, feel under the
wrath of God, feel their need of the Gospel, feel their need
of being saved. And so the message in these first
verses in the chapter we have here, ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. He that hath no money, come ye,
buy and eat, yea, come. Buy wine and milk without money
and without price. It's a beautiful gospel invitation
to all of those that feel an aching void that this world cannot
fill, that fear really to hunger after what this world cannot
satisfy and thirst after what this world cannot give. And then there's the question
asked in verse two, wherefore do you spend money for that which
is not bread, labor for that which satisfieth not? When we're
awakened to see we're sinners, The first desire is that we might
put things right ourselves, obey the law, do some charitable works
and make ourselves fit to appear in the presence of God. But that
will never satisfy a living soul. Many will be satisfied with it
and find out at the last God does not accept their works.
For our righteousness is of filthy rags, that's our good works.
We can never trust in our good works. We can never look to ourselves
for salvation. As soon as we begin to speak
anything to recommend ourselves to God, we may have from the
authority of God to be told that we are under condemnation, outside
of the secret, under the wrath of God, and shall never get to
heaven. It is those that come pleading
mercy, Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. There is the salvation in Christ
alone, not in ourselves. If we could save ourselves, there
is no need to the Saviour. And so the message of the Gospel
is to not waste our time with looking for something acceptable
in ourselves, but to, as we have in verse 3, incline our ear and
come unto me, here, and your soul shall live. The promises
and the blessings are in Christ, the sure mercies of David, as
it is spoken here. So the first three verses is
this wonderful invitation and especially to those that have
this hunger, this thirst, this need, this felt need in their
own souls, a need that they might not really understand or be able
to interpret themselves but just know that they have an aching
void, they have a hunger. You ask someone that is hungering
in a natural sense. Can you please explain to me
your hunger? And they say, well, my stomach
rumbles and I just feel I need food. I just need something. And it's very hard to describe
that hunger. Will you try and describe a spiritual
hunger? God says that man shall not live
by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of God. And where that hunger is first
felt is something very new. It's something that's never been
felt before. And yet it is wanted. Something
is wanted that this world doesn't feel. Well, that's what the invitation
here is. And then we have in verse four,
a very clear promise to the Lord Jesus Christ. Behold, I have
given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander
to the people that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we have in
verse five, we have the Gentile nation. Behold, thou shalt call
a nation that thou knewest not, and nations that knew not thee
shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God. This is the
Gentiles, not the Jews only, as it was in Old Testament times,
but in every nation, kindred, and tongue, the Gentiles. And
we see that, we can see it. 2,000 years after Christ, the
Gospel is going out into every nation and the word of the Gospel
is to all people. And so that is then what leads
up to the words of our text, which is a very personal word,
very direct word, to you, to me. Seek ye the Lord while he
may be found, call ye upon him, So with the Lord's help, I desire
to set before you three things in these verses, these four verses. We have firstly an exhortation,
and the exhortation runs like this. 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. That is the exhortation. Secondly,
there is an attached promise to that exhortation. Continuing
on in verse 7, And he will have mercy upon him, and to our God,
for he will abundantly pardon. And then we have thirdly, an
explanation. An explanation for that exhortation
and the attached promise. And the explanation is this.
For my thoughts, that is God's 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. So we have an exhortation, an
attached promise, and an explanation. Firstly, the exhortation. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. I want to look at this word as
we come through it in the verse. Seek ye the Lord. That is, seek ye Jehovah. Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, seek unto God. What does that mean? Well, not long ago we had our
neighbour lose their dog and they sought that dog. And it
is very, very evident that they were seeking. We walked the roads,
we drove the roads, we looked in every place, we asked people, It didn't matter how long or
where we went, the whole aim and desire was to find that dog. Now, if you'd have seen them
just sitting at home, you'd say, well, they're definitely not
seeking it. But in looking at them, everything
that they were doing was giving this impression they were seeking
that animal. Now, when I was in my early teens
or coming up in late teens, and I was brought up to attend the
house of God, and outwardly people might have said, well, he's seeking
the Lord. You know, we can be in God's
house, we can be attending God's house, we can even read His Word
and not be seeking the Lord. And certainly in my case, I was
not seeking the Lord. I didn't desire to know Him.
I didn't feel any need of being saved. I didn't have any interest
in the things of God whatsoever. And in my life I have a very,
very stark contrast between the time when I was not seeking the
Lord at all and when I was seeking Him. And it was when God gave
me spiritual life, made me to feel that I was not ready to
stand before God, that I was ignorant of the things of God.
I didn't know them in my heart. It hadn't touched my heart at
all. And then it was very, very different. Instead of wanting to get away
from the house of God, I wanted to attend as often as I could. I wanted to hear the word of
God. That is what I wanted to do,
to read the word of God, to hear it, to understand it, to have
it enter into my heart. I wanted to know the things of
God. It wasn't just wanting to get
through a chapter and say I'd read that chapter, I'd had my
morning or evening readings, I wanted to understand it, I
wanted it in my heart, I wanted to know how that applied to me,
and wanted to know God for myself. And so it affected my attendance
on what we would term the means of grace, the way God teaches
sinners speaks to men is through his word, through the preaching
of the word and through prayer. Call upon me in the day of trouble,
I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me. We seek the
Lord when we seek him in prayer, when we come to him in the word
of God, when we come to the people of God, we think of in the days
of our Lord on the earth, just before he was crucified, And
there was Greeks, Gentiles coming to the apostles and said, sir,
we would see Jesus. They were seeking him. We think
of when our Lord was born. We had these shepherds, and they
were told where to seek him. They were told that he was in
a manger, and where they would find him. And they went. They
didn't just stay on the mountains and say a nice, interesting thing
that's been told us. They went to seek him. We think
of the wise men. those that saw this star in the
east and have come to worship him. And they came seeking him,
seeking the wrong place at first, seeking to Jerusalem. Why, he was a king, so surely
it must be Jerusalem. But no, the scriptures have said
that it should be in Bethlehem. And so even the Jews, they knew
that. And we read that the wise men,
they go to Bethlehem. We don't read of any of the Jews
that followed and sought that same king themselves. But we have these instances of
those that were seeking. And so this is the word that
is here. Seek ye the Lord. And this is
a special message to any that does have that hunger and thirst,
or is unsettled and unsatisfied with this world, that views themselves
as sinners or ignorant of God, far off from God, few to be such
indeed, this is the word, this is the exhortation, seek ye the
Lord. May that be. a description for
us that we be a seeker, a seeker after God, trying to find what
we cannot see now, trying to understand what we don't understand
now, trying to come to one that we don't know where he is, but
we are seeking him. There's such encouragement and
such blessings in the Word. to be such a seeker. But then we have this, while
he may be found. What a question that that is.
Now going back to the illustration of the dog, while he may be found,
there was that question while we were seeking, was the dog
still alive? or had someone stolen him, and
however much we sought, he wasn't just lost, he was gone and couldn't
be found at all. So there is this thought, maybe
it's too late. And the idea here is, while he
may be found, it implies that there is a time that it is too
late, or we won't find him. What is the time that the Lord
is to be found? The time is these Gospel days,
these days that we live in. Now is the day of salvation. It is now, today, if you hear
His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, or as
the children of Israel did through the wilderness. We are to listen
now. not put it off to another day,
because the other aspect of this, while he may be found, is while
we have life, while we are living. As soon as God takes away our
breath and it's too late, where the tree falls, there it will
lie. If we have been found then at
death, unprepared, an unbeliever, unsaved, a stranger to the Lord,
What a solemn thing it will be. It is a message here that belongs
to the living, not to the dead. It's too long. We cannot pray
for the dead. It's too long. The Apostle was
very clear of this, absent from the body, present with the Lord.
Our Lord said to the dying thief, verily, verily, this day shalt
thou be with me in Paradise. Not tomorrow, not another day,
but instantly. As soon as our breath is taken
away, the soul returns to God that gave it, and the flesh shall
return to the dust as it was, and awaits the resurrection of
the just and unjust. And so the message of salvation,
while he may be found. This is an encouragement. These
Gospel days, the Lord is findable. He doesn't bid those to seek
Him and to seek in vain. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. Don't put off. Don't just think,
well, there's always another day. We do not know what a day
nor an hour may bring forth. Then there's the second, exhortation,
call. ye upon him while he is near. Well, we said under the seeking
that in one aspect of seeking is praying or calling upon the
Lord. Call ye upon him while he is
near. Well, if we are to pray upon
him while he is near, how do we know that he is near? The Apostle Paul, when he spoke
to those on Mars Hill, He says, though he be not far from any
one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being.
Those two that were on the way to Emmaus, little did they think
how close the Lord was to them when they were sad and speaking
of the things that had happened at Jerusalem when Christ was
crucified. And this stranger drew near to
them and asked them why they were sad and what they were talking
about. And they said, aren't they a stranger and does not
know the things that have happened in Jerusalem in these days. He
was so close to them, and yet they didn't know. We have Mary
weeping at the grave. They've taken away my Lord. I
know not where they've laid him. And she's speaking to the Lord.
He's there. And there's the encouragement
that we call upon Him. He is near. He is near in the
day of grace, and especially He is near in times of affliction,
times of tribulation, times of need. Call upon Me in the day
of trouble. He is near at such times as that. But there's another way, and
I'll bring it before you again in my own experience. And that is when we feel prompted
to prayer that we are not to put that off. There's an illustration
in the Word that God gave to David when he was to wait until
the right time to rise up to battle with the Philistines.
And he was to watch and see a going in the top of the mulberry trees. And when he saw that, then he
was to arise. Well, there are those times that
we are to know that now is the time to call upon the Lord. And sometimes, and of course
it depends on what circumstances we are in, if we're in the middle
of a meeting or we're in the middle of company, it's a different
thing, that it may be we're alone in the house, and as I used to
be, and maybe sweeping the house or doing something, and it would
just come upon my spirit, go, and call upon the Lord. Now I
wouldn't go as far as saying the Lord was telling me that,
but certainly I felt it very impressed upon my spirit, go
and pray. And the amount of times I went
and I'd try and pray, and I had nothing special, I just tried
to pray to the Lord and seek the Lord, and then I went back
to my working again, And then I'd fear this again, and I'd
go again. And there'd be many times the
Lord has drawn near to me and softened my heart, blessed my
soul through his word, with his love, with a real softened heart. And if you've known what it is
to have a hard, unbelieving, cold, unfeeling heart, far off
from the Lord in our thoughts and affections, perhaps beset
with sin and evil thoughts and desires and affections, then
we know what it is, such a contrast to have our hearts softened and
to feel sorry for our sin and to mourn that our sins so pierced
Him and to find the Lord in such a way. It is a blessed thing
to hear the Spirit prompting us to prayer. And I have proved
many, many times that we are not to resist the Spirit. We
are not to think, well, I must finish this page. I must finish
this essay. I must finish this job. I must
finish this ironing. I must finish this sweeping the
floor. And then I will go and pray.
No. You know, how many times you might be doing something
in your home and you hear a knock at the door and you're expecting
the postman or expecting an Amazon delivery or something. And what
do you do? Do you just say, well, I've got
to finish what I'm doing. He can wait at the door and then
I'll go and get it a bit later. Or if you're expecting something,
or someone, you drop what you're doing. Sometimes even you might
be on the telephone. You say to the person, wait,
I've got a caller at the door. And you don't put it off. Why
do we do so when we are prompt to pray or to seek the Lord? We shouldn't. Call ye upon him
while he is near. If we are truly seeking the Lord
and we get some intimation say, with the lost dog, and you're
longing for some information, you're longing to hear something
about him, and you hear a knock on the door, you wouldn't treat
it with indifference, would you? You'd immediately want to go
and see what was there, and see what message there was, or what
news there was. The two really go together. If
you and I are seeking, then our spirit will be tender, and we'll
know of this truth. The Lord has said, no man can
come unto me except the Father which sent me draw him, and I'll
raise him up at the last day. Well, do we not prize that promise
that the Father will draw? If we feel the drawing, don't
resist it. Bless the Lord for it. and go
to the Lord at that time, call upon Him. If you don't find Him
then, then back to your labours and feel prompted again, go again. You know, Elijah, when he was
looking on Mount Carmel for the rain to be sent from heaven,
God had already sent fire from heaven and kindled the sacrifice
at that time that had been a famine for three and a half years. And
he said to his servant, you go look toward the sea. And he goes
and he looks and he says, there is nothing. He says, go again
seven times. And seven times he went and he
looked and there's nothing. But the last time, he said, there
arises a little cloud like a man's hand. And Elijah immediately
recognized it, saws the Lord's coming. And there may be many
of our seeking, our looking, and there is nothing, but then
just a little softening, a little reviving, a little opening up
of the Word of God, a little preciousness felt, a little drawing
to a certain word or passage or a verse. upon him while he is near. We
have a beautiful illustration in the Song of Solomon of the
bride and the bridegroom and him putting his whole hand by
the hole of the door and how she was drawn to rise from her
sleepiness to go and open to him, but he'd gone, but he left
a sweet savour on the door. So that's the thing, to be drawn
to the Lord, drawn to the Word of God, drawn to Christ, brought
to call upon Him and to seek Him. Well, that is not the only
exhortation. We have in verse 7, and then you've gone away from
them. Well really that is the description of man right from
the very beginning. Created in the image of God and
in Adam, we all have turned away from the Lord. We've gone away
from him. It is important to remember that.
We all, we like sheep, have gone astray. We have that in Isaiah
53. We have turned everyone to his
own way. The Lord had laid on him the
iniquity of us all. All of God's children have turned
away from him in Adam. All are found wandering far from
him. All are found lost, but found
by the Lord. And they're described in these
two ways, the wicked and the unrighteous. There are some that
are very openly wicked. The ways that they are walking
are wicked, evil ways. King Manasseh in Judah, he was
such a wicked king. His father was godly, King Hezekiah,
but he was a wicked king. But the Lord blessed him, brought
him in a time of sorrow and taken by his enemies. And in his need
and in his trouble, he called upon the Lord and the Lord delivered
him. And the rest of his life was not wicked. He turned away
from those wicked ways. Well, when God works in the heart,
there'll be a change of life. Let the wicked forsake his way. It holds out hope, doesn't it?
It doesn't say to the wicked, because you've been so wicked,
and your lives have been so terrible, and all what you've done, there's
no hope for you. He doesn't say there's no hope
for you. He says there's hope here for the wicked when they
forsake the way is way. They turn away from that wickedness. And the unrighteous man, his
thoughts, he might not have lived an openly wicked way. He might have even had a semblance
of religion and lived a respectable life, even applauded by many
that are around us. But there's none righteous, no,
not one. And very often it is in the thoughts
and affections, though the outside be kept clean, that they are
so defiled. And God will show that and open
to man and open to his people what they really are. The heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can
know it? Yes, we may think that God only
looks at our lives outward, but God looks at the thoughts, and
the thought of foolishness is sin, and whoso sinneth in one
point is guilty of all. And so where our thoughts, our
evil thoughts, wrong thoughts, vile thoughts, worldly thoughts,
thoughts that do not are to be forsaken as well. Let the wicked forsake his way
and the unrighteous man, implied, forsake his thoughts as well. And let him return unto the Lord. He's not just forsaking our ways
and our thoughts, but he's returning to the Lord. Now the Lord said
to the woman that was taken in adultery, neither do I condemn
thee, go and sin no more. Now we know that we cannot cease
from sin and by our works and by our good lives inherit heaven. But wherever God blots out and
puts away the sin of his people, Wherever he has shed his precious
blood to put away all of their sins, past, present and future,
he will give to that soul repentance. The two things go together. The
Lord Jesus Christ is exalted to give repentance and remission
of sins unto Israel, that is the spiritual Israel and people.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The
scriptures are very clear that if we say that we believe in
God or are saved and love God, but that we continue in an open
way of wickedness and sin, then we lie, we do not the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
save us from our sins and that will be the desire of every awakened
soul, to be saved from the power and dominion of sin. And it will
be our grief and sorrow daily that sin does work in our hearts,
that we are sinners, And it will be a daily turning and repenting. The apostles, they said to the
Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me and turn
and repent? And I forgive him till seven
times. The Lord said, till 70 times,
seven. And we need such mercy and we
need such a blessing to be ever turning to the Lord. And as often
as sin rises and takes us by surprise, as it does, that we
are turning to the Lord in this way. This is the exhortation
then. Seek, call, forsake. Those three things. seeking the
Lord, calling upon Him, forsaking, forsaking wicked ways, wicked
thoughts, returning, returning to the Lord. Oh, how vital that
that is so, that our aim, our object is the Lord, is to come
into His presence, to enjoy His presence, communion, fellowship
with Him, to have the Lord with us. You know, you hear Job in
all his afflictions, O that I knew where I might find him, that
I might come even unto his seat. He desired the Lord, seeking
after the Lord. Now the Lord says of his people,
Father, I will that thou whom thou hast given me be with me
where I am, that they may behold my glory. But here in these gospel
days, He says, Lo, I am with you always, by His Spirit and
by His grace, even unto the end of the world. So we have this
exhortation. Then we have an attached promise. And He, that is the Lord, He
will have mercy upon him and to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon. Now this is what we said is joined. Wherever there is forgiveness
and pardon, there will be repentance. Many of the Lord's people say,
oh that the Lord would have mercy upon me, or oh that the Lord
would tell me my sins are pardoned and forgiven. And yet the Lord
joins these together here. We know that where the Lord will
have mercy upon a soul, where he will abundantly pardon and
forgive the sins of his people. Then he bids them to seek him,
to call upon him, and the grace that he gives them to hate their
sins, to forsake their sins and their thoughts. This is what
he joins with. It is a beautiful It applies this to the heart,
it brings peace, it brings pardon, it brings quietness, it brings
enjoyment of God. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. It doesn't say he might have
mercy upon him. Or he will at some later stage,
but no, he will have mercy upon him. And to our God, why? It already is saying to our God,
our God. It is the God that has already
bid seek, can say to that soul, I am your God. I am he that has
quickened you into life. I am He that has drawn you. I
am He that has shed my precious blood for you. I am He that has
brought the time to bring you into concern and need and to
draw you to myself. This is how that we know that
we are the people of God. He which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day. of Jesus Christ. He will have mercy upon him and
to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Blessed thing to be returning
unto our God and to be pardoned and forgiven. And in the margin
it says multiply to pardon. And we find it there are many,
many sins and sins that we have even after we've been called
worse sins by grace and to be pardoned and forgiven. So we
have this beautiful promise that we have in our Lord speaking
in John 6 and verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me and he that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. What a beautiful word that is. He that cometh to me I will in
no wise cast out. This is the good news of the
gospel to the wicked, to the unrighteous men, to those who
are brought to seek the Lord. The beautiful promises. May we
embrace those promises we have found in this way. what the Lord
has joined to Him. Remind the Lord of these promises. Our Lord spoke of the two going
up to the temple to pray. The Pharisee and the publican.
The Pharisee just spoke of all his own good works. The publican,
he couldn't lift up his eyes to heaven but beat upon his breast,
God be merciful to me a sinner. And he went down to his house
justified rather than the other, that is free from guilt. free
from condemnation. He will have mercy upon him. You know, for some, it'd be offensive
to say that God will have mercy upon them. They say, I don't
want mercy. The Lord owes me. I've done lots of charity works.
I've been a good person. The Lord owes me. I deserve heaven. But heaven is for people that
don't deserve it. a people that God has purchased
it for them and had mercy upon them, brought them to repentance,
forgiven their sins, changed their heart, changed their life.
But then we have an explanation in our third point. What is the
explanation of this? 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. Many stumble
at the doctrines and teachings of the Word of God because they
want to understand it in a natural way. Great is the mystery of
godliness, God manifest in the flesh. You know, if we, and sometimes
I've thought this, when I've walked in our local woods and
I've seen an ant mound, and we have lots of them there, some
of them a couple of feet high and several feet round, teeming
with ants. And I look at those ants and
I think, what does that ant know about my life? What does it know
about Something that is one mile away. All the things that concern
me. What does it know about maths
and calculus? Or about literacy or writing
or speaking? What does it know about something
12,000 miles away, the other side of the world? What does
it know about the sun or the moon or the stars? That little
ant. Why would it just say, well,
because I just know what is in my nest and what is round about
it, that none of these other things exist? That there's no
other design or plan? Of course not. And yet we try
to think of God who fills immensity, eternity, who made time, and
bring him down to our thoughts and our ways. If we go out into
space and we keep travelling, where do we get to the end of
it? We cannot think of an end. But we're used to here below
always having a start and an end. But eternity leaves us without
either. And so when we have this concerning
the eternal God, My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither
are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. And what an illustration,
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. What a contrast,
what a difference. Are we this morning trying to
drag God's ways down to ours, constrain Him, Fetter him, hold
him in, make him to run in our lines. Dictate to him like Satan
did, if thou be the Son of God, command these stones that they
may make bread. What worthless worms are we,
how small we are, like that insignificant ant, but we're not, because the
Word of God says that he loves his people, he's formed them,
he'll have them to be with him forever, they're part of his
inheritance. But the Gospel is God's plan,
and he reveals it in the Word of God, and his faith that reads
it, believes it, though it cannot understand it, The Lord said
to his disciples when he'd washed their feet, what I do thou knowest
not now, but thou shalt know hereafter, in heaven, in eternity,
beyond this world, in the new heavens and new earth where end
dwells righteousness. Then shall we see, then shall
we know and understand a little. But here below the apostle Paul,
he says we see through a glass, dark we have here, an explanation
of the gospel that is unfathomed love of God, the eternal love
of God to sinners. God commendeth his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Dear friends, don't be stumbled,
hung up, discouraged by trying to reason and fathom and understand. Yes, the Lord does open, like
he did to his dear disciples in that resurrection morn. Then
opened he their understanding, that they might understand the
Scriptures. But until that time, and the
understanding that he may give enough, enough, savingly enough,
to trust solely in the Lord, to lean upon him alone, The Lord
says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. You know, if we had a child that
was to go from here in Kent to the other side of London, and
you could say to that child, well, here is a map. Here's all
instructions how to get there. That poor child would worry so
much. What if I get it wrong? But if
you said to that child, don't worry, you just stay close to
me and I'll bring you there. That's all the one thing that
that child would need to do. They wouldn't need to know a
single road name or train station or whatever way. All they need
to do is cling close to us. And the Lord says that with his
people, I am the way. He puts forth his sheep, he goes
before them. The apostle says we're to run
the race looking unto Jesus. May we trust solely to him and
look solely to him, lean hard upon him, especially when we
get all the clamour of voices that we cannot understand and
we might cry out with dear Jacob, all these things are against
me. But what an explanation here. My thoughts are not your thoughts.
Jacob had to prove it. Naaman had to prove it when he
came to be healed of his leprosy. I thought the man would do this
and that, but it was different. It wasn't that way at all. How
many times our thoughts are wrong thoughts and we need them corrected. May they be brought into line
with the sacred word of God. and with the will of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So here we have then, and you
may meditate and think upon this word, when we have done this
morning, an exhortation, an attached promise, and an explanation. An exhortation, attached promise,
and explanation.