word of life - Isaiah 55

THE PANORAMA OF THE KINGDOM
Five Meditations on Isaiah 55
4 - GOD'S HIGH THOUGHTS AND WAYS
(Verses 8-11)
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"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."
Isaiah 55:8-11
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ALL OF us as we have grown up have had an idea of what God is like. This has changed as time has passed. It changed even more when we became Christians. Even so our view of God is still coloured by all our past thoughts and ideas. Our view of God is mainly concerned in how he acts towards us, and how we feature in his thoughts. Therefore we are concerned in our view of God with God's thoughts and ways as they relate to ourselves.

It is the great purpose of this section of this great chapter to show us how different are the thoughts and ways of God to the ones we attribute to him; and how much more wonderful the truth about the ways and thoughts of God are, than our thoughts of him.

What we do is to attribute to God the way we think and act, though we heighten these thoughts and acts to a higher level which we feel is suitable for God. In fact our thoughts and ways are governed by the fall of humanity into sin, and the corruption of all our human processes because of this fact. Thus we have no proper view of God, but only a distorted one. It is a fact that we find it very difficult to reform our view of God to God's revelation in the Bible. We still allow our old thoughts to colour what is revealed.

Paul speaks about the same thing as these verses before us from Isaiah. He speaks of it in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 and is summed up by Paul in verses 25, "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."

This distortion in our thoughts and ways is illustrated in the way these verses before us in Isaiah 55 are taken out their context and given a meaning which is so much less than the glorious revelation of God which these verses reveal.

PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION

In thinking how to get across the tremendous revelation in these verses, my thoughts turned to two events very prominent in the news at the time I was meditating on this revelation of God. The events were the trial of Rosemary West for murder, and the death of the young girl who took an ecstasy tablet at her birthday party and died later. I realised how different my thoughts and ways are from God's as I thought how I would feel as a juror at the trial of Rosemary West. I feel I would have been ready to pronounce her guilty regardless, because of all the awful things revealed in the trial and before about her. Also when on Television the parents of the girl who died from taking an ecstasy tablet confronted the drug sellers, I identified so closely with the father of the girl who said he was ready to pull the rope that hanged them, if they were sentenced to death, which he thought they should be.

In human thoughts and ways there is no forgiveness or mercy for the likes of what Rosemary West seemed to be, or of such people who destroy others by selling drugs. This revelation of God in Isaiah tells us that in God there is mercy and forgiveness.

THE REASON FOR THIS REVELATION

These words of revelation of the thoughts and ways of God are given here so that we may have absolute confidence in the word and actions of God which have been told in the previous verses.

The invitation in verse one and two goes beyond any human imagining. We do not give an invitation to all, regardless of worth or condition. We don't give an invitation without any strings attached. We don't offer so much. We don't offer so much and ask no return or reward.

If we are ready to give or to forgive, we can't do it because we can't really deliver. We could not offer forgiveness to Rosemary West or those Drug Dealers, or to anyone else for that matter, because sin can't go unpunished, and we cannot in anyway pay the debt which the sins of these people have incurred. Even if we could we would not be prepared to do so, because the cost would be too great.

Anyway, we would feel that why should we suffer when these people had brought all their punishment on themselves, and brought such suffering on others. We are not ready to sacrifice much for others. Paul expresses this in Romans 5:7-8 and how different is the way and thought of God revealed here to human thought. Paul says, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us."

GOD'S HIGH WAYS AND THOUGHTS

We are told two things about God in verses 8 and 9. Firstly that his thoughts and ways are different to ours, and secondly that his thoughts and ways are higher than ours.

If we are to ask in what way this is so, we will find the answer in all that has gone before. In all that God has promised in free forgiveness and grace, and what he has offered in blessing and love, are all quite beyond human comprehension and experience. We do not find it easy to forgive. Our forgiveness is almost non-existent even for small misdemeanours, but God, who has been injured so greatly by us and all humanity, is ready to love us and forgive us and freely pardon us. How open are the arms of God to all, even the deepest of sinners - Come ... Come ... Come ... Come ... is the repeated cry in verses one and two of the chapter. So open are his arms to us that there are no conditions which would make it difficult for us to come, and no cost which would exclude us.

How wonderful is God, that he has made it possible for our sin to be forgiven without any injustice or denial of his holiness or law. We cannot conceive such high thoughts and ways. How much higher than our thoughts and ways is this eternal covenant spoken of in verse 3, which was God pledging himself to die in our place in the person of his Son, and suffer all our deserved pain. Christ when he went to the cross did not count the cost but set his face firmly to go to Jerusalem. He did the will of the Father without any question even though the cost was an eternity of Hell that he had to suffer.

How high and wonderful is God's actions that in this way he made himself near to us and able to be found (v.6) and so full of mercy and pardon to all who seek him. How wonderful is God's way that to seek the Lord is to find him, because he is ready to be found and is near.

There is nothing in the wisdom of man that could conceive such sure and complete means of blessing; and nothing in the heart of mankind that could conceive such blessing and love; and there is nothing in the will of man that could act in such self-sacrificing love.

GOD'S ASSURED WORD

The revelation goes on to illustrate so vividly how sure we are that this revelation of love and declaration of love is true. When God speaks or determines to act it is like the rain. Rain must fall and it can do no other than accomplish the purpose of it being sent. It must soak into the ground and water the earth, providing drink for the plants and all mankind, so causing creation to flourish. Rain can do no other. It has to be so.

We are told that God's word declared in this chapter and throughout the Bible is as sure as this. God has said there is an open invitation to be blessed by him so that we may delight in the richest of life. This word of God is like the rain. It must be accomplished. So that it will be accomplished and not fail, God declared by his word that he would make and everlasting covenant of unfailing kindness. As the rain must fall and water the earth, this word of God could not fail, so we read "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full right of sons" (Galatians 4:4,5).

"He who did not spare his only Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things." So argues the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:32. Isn't this the certainty of Gods word that he will save and freely pardon.

Is this not a revelation of the highness of the ways and thoughts of God. We make promises we do not keep. We make promises we are unable to keep, because we have not the power to keep them. We make promises that we do not sufficiently think through concerning the implications, and so we renegade on them. We can't make very great promises because we are devoid of much power to perform anything that we do promise.

God's promises that he makes by his word here are so gigantic and immense. The promise of the payment for the debt of the sin of all the world in all its blackness. The promise of the payment of the debt due to him. God promises in his word here to love and bestow rich life on all who will come to him. He has promised not to ask any charge or condition, because he has promised to bear the cost and charge himself. This word of promise is unfailingly true as is described in this illustration of the rain.

APPLICATION

Our false views of God rob us of the fullness of the comfort of this revelation of God, and cause us to speak in such a fashion that we rob others also of this comfort.

Although Rosemary West and the drug dealers who caused the death of the teenage girl can't escape in time the temporal punishment for their crimes, because for the safety and protection of society, God, in common grace, has ordained it so, and given authority into the hands of the judiciary for this purpose. Yet there is in the heart of God forgiveness and eternal life for such as these, if they will respond to his free and open invitation of love in Christ. This is the way of God which is so different to our ways. We think it hard to even think of forgiveness, and do not feel it just. God instead visits the punishment upon himself in the person of his one and only well-beloved Son, so that forgiveness free and full may be offered to sinners such as these and to all sinners.

Let us throw off all our preconceived views of God. Let us take to heart this revelation of the very heart of love that is in God. However hard it is to believe and hold on to, let us remember that God's thoughts and ways are higher than ours and higher as the heavens are above the earth. When we remember that space is infinite, we can see how much higher and greater is God's thoughts and ways of love and forgiveness than ours.

Let this revelation so envelope us and soak like rain into the soil of our hearts, that out of our hearts may grow the lush vegetation of confidence in the forgiving love of God, and that coming to him in Christ we may know that we have nothing to fear, and all to receive and be blessed by.