GOD’S GREAT THOUGHTS
David A Smith
Isaiah 55: 6-11
Luke 15: 17-24
Ephesians 1: 3-8, 13-14
I have been thinking, beloved brethren, in relation to this occasion, as to God’s thoughts in the glad tidings, in view of the salvation of the sinner and of the blessing of the sinner, and how great those thoughts are. I do not know what thoughts were in each of our minds as we came to the preaching - various thoughts enter into people’s minds. No doubt the thoughts of the brethren were that we might have some word as to the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who is the One who came here in lowly grace and went to the cross, and shed His precious blood that we might be saved from our sins, saved also from judgment to come, and through grace saved from this present evil world. God’s thoughts are very glorious and great. I trust that God in His grace might touch our hearts with the sense of the glory and wonder of His thoughts in blessing and mercy.
We read a scripture in Micah 4: 12-13 at home this week and it impressed me. God was speaking to His people in all their sinful ways: “But they know not the thoughts of Jehovah, neither understand they his counsel”. Their thoughts had been darkened as to God and His great thoughts and purpose, and God grieves over such thoughts of men. It says in Romans that “they did not think good to have God in their knowledge” (chap 1: 28); this is the heart of man away from God. It speaks as to this in Genesis; it says that God repented even that He had made man, Gen 6: 6. “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually (v 5): that is the heart and mind of the natural man as away from God, under the influence of Satan. What a sorry picture it is; there are no glad tidings, of course, in that.
But Jeremiah speaks differently; he speaks of the thoughts of God. In chapter 29, we read of God speaking in relation to His people and in relation to all that they were going to come under. God speaks to them of how He would work with them in His saving grace. He says in verse 11 that He will bring them back: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Jehovah”. How blessed that is, as we consider all the thoughts and imaginations of our hearts, and all our wanderings and willfulness. Each one of us knows something of that, though we may have been preserved from much in our actions. I know that for myself, and God knows it too; He feels it and He has His thoughts about it. The glad tidings of course would bring His thoughts to us - “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Jehovah, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you in your latter end a hope.” What a God He is; what a way He has taken to secure the desires of His heart, in blessing, in relation to sinful man. Think of the movements of divine love, providing a Saviour in our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider the counsel and forethought of God in relation to the provision of a Saviour. In Peter’s first epistle it tells us of His being “foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world”, 1 Pet 1: 20. God was not taken by surprise, speaking reverently, but He knew in His own mind and heart, in His thoughts of love and blessing, that there was to be a Saviour of His providing for sinful man. What a blessed wonder that is. We spoke of it this morning; our brother referred to it at the Supper, as to the wonder of the incarnation, the wonder that One so great and glorious, God Himself in the Person of His beloved Son, should Himself come into the world to suffer and die and shed His precious blood. What thoughts were in the mind of God! He was bringing in His own thoughts, the desires of His heart, desires of the heart of God, in relation to His sinful creature. We are lost through Satan’s activity and man’s disobedience as fallen into sin and the ways of sin. God deeply felt what He had lost; He had created man for His pleasure, we are told, and God will have man for His pleasure too. He has one Man for His pleasure in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, a glorious, blessed Man, unique, of course, in all the perfection of His manhood, God manifest in flesh.
How wonderful that God has taken such a lowly way to approach the sinner, manifesting as He did here, in all His wonderful grace, the love of God towards man. The Lord Jesus was perfect in His way, perfect in His movements, glorifying God in every step of His path, in Himself sinless, perfect. We have all of us many times grieved God. Here was One who never grieved Him, ever gave Him pleasure, perfect, sinless and holy. Such a One was delivered up for us as guilty sinners, “the just for the unjust”, 1 Pet 3: 18. Why? That He might bring us to God.
That is the wonder of God’s thoughts of grace. The Lord Jesus is presented to us as a Saviour, a Saviour of sinners. How much we all need Him. There is not a man, woman or child alive in this world who does not need Jesus. Therefore we pray for the gospel; we pray that it may be blessed, not just to some but to all. God “desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2: 4): “all men”, He says, “should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”. The truth is that His perfect work has been completed at the cross. The judgment of our sins has been borne by Jesus. He was sinless and bore the sins for those who put their trust in Him. How much it cost the Lord Jesus. We read about it in the earlier chapter, in Isaiah 53. It speaks there of Jesus bearing our sins. How lightly we sometimes think about them; how lightly we may sometimes think about sin itself. Consider what it meant to the holy soul of Jesus; “he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; and we, we did regard him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But 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. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all”, v 4-6. What was laid upon Him, upon the Lord Jesus, “who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Pet 2: 24! The weight of it all, the whole question of sin and sins, was dealt with by Jesus at the cross. I suppose it is quite impossible for us to have an apprehension of what that must have meant to Him. Think of the whole weight of sin and sins, from Adam onward. God has been glorified in the whole matter. Jesus has borne the judgment of sin, exhausted the judgment of a holy and righteous God. What that judgment must have been; the holy wrath of God against sin, Jesus bearing it there in His body on the tree. What a matter it is! The work is completed, His blood was shed: the soldier “pierced his side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water”, John 19: 34. Without the shedding of blood, the scripture says, “there is no remission”, Heb 9: 22. That life had to be given up. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek 18: 20), God says the life is forfeit. Think of Jesus bearing the whole penalty of sin and sins and His life given up, His blood shed for sinners such as you and me. May it affect our hearts increasingly.
But then the prophet says earlier in Isaiah 53, “Who hath believed our report?”, v 1. The report goes out, the work completed. The question of sin and sins has been met for those who have put their trust in the Lord Jesus. I trust you have. Are you among those who have believed in Jesus, the Saviour of sinners, who is proclaimed in the gospel? Isaiah says, “Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed?”. The scripture says, “Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found”. There is opportunity in the day in which we are to be amongst the saved. Well, beloved friend, seek Him now. Maybe someone here is seeking Him. Do you have an exercise of heart, maybe a guilty conscience, a felt need, a desire to seek after God? Well, He is near. The scripture says, “Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near”. What a wonderful, glorious day of grace it is! We can say that God is near, Jesus is near. It has often been said that He comes to every preaching; His presence is here. Of course, Satan comes too, to take the word away if he could. But the word is near. What an opportunity there is when the gospel is being preached; the word is, “call ye upon him while he is near”. Call upon that name, as the man did in Luke 18: 13, “O God, have compassion on me, the sinner”. A simple call, is it not? How simple the gospel is, “The word is near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart”, Rom 10: 8. Call upon Him while He is near.
A time will come when He will not be found, not be near. The day of grace is going to close at some point; that time may be very near. If somebody is seeking God, call upon Him now. And then it says, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts”. How easily we hold wrong thoughts about God. God has His own precious thoughts and calls us to put our faith and trust in Christ. Many are the unrighteous thoughts of man: let him forsake them, let him receive God’s word in the gospel, “let him return unto Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him”. That is the basis of the gospel, and all that will call upon Him, will find mercy. God is not imputing trespasses to the sinner; He desires that the sinner should be saved, and God is merciful; He is a merciful and gracious God. What a wonderful way of salvation He has provided in His beloved Son. And so it says, “he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”. His ways are glorious ways, ways of mercy and grace. Man’s thoughts are earthly, bounded by earth. His blessed thoughts of mercy and grace come from the very heart of God Himself.
I just want to refer briefly to the scripture in Luke. Here was a man who knew something of God. Typically, I suppose, he represents a back-sliding Christian. Many of us have been like that too - back-sliding Christians. It is a sorrowful thing when we get away from God, a very sad thing. The point I wanted to note about this man is his thoughts. Typically, he knows God, he has some apprehension of God in His goodness and His mercy; and that he can count upon it. But what his thoughts rise to is just some low place within the door - some low place How poor our hearts are, as if we believe that God would be satisfied with that, that He would have His returning son as a servant - some low place within the door! So the son here rises up and goes to his father and he thinks he will say, “make me as one of thy hired servants”. The thought in his heart was that his father would be content with that. God could not be content with anything less than His own glorious thoughts that He has centred in His beloved Son. So this man returns just as he is. What is in the father’s heart is the fulness of blessing and the glorious thoughts for the repentant sinner, who can be justified in the faith of Christ’s shed blood; and that he should be clothed in all the precious worth of Christ, and be before God as a son. Nothing less is in the mind and heart of God. The father here rejoices at all these things that he has at his disposal, to clothe the returning son with everything that is in his heart for him. He represents a man as justified, justified by faith in Christ and set up before Him in all His precious worth. What a place for a forgiven sinner! Justified by faith in the blood, clothed in all the precious worth of Christ, so that he can be free in his Father’s presence. God will display the wonders of His mercy and grace throughout the eternal day, every son there according to His own thoughts, clothed in the precious worth of His beloved Son, at liberty in His house and responsive to Himself. How wonderful, how glorious is the grace of God! The son has a ring on his hand, - sometimes it has been spoken of as the encirclement of divine love, a wonderful thing.
Well, these are glorious thoughts; may we rise to them; may we appreciate them, beloved friends and brethren. How often my thoughts drop below the glory and grandeur of God’s thoughts in mercy and grace. Ephesians tells us He has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”, not ‘some,’ not ‘most’, but “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. And it is all “according to the riches of his grace”. How the Lord would have our hearts respond to the riches of His grace. God has clothed us too with the Holy Spirit: it says, in verse 13, “the glad tidings of your salvation; in whom also, having believed ye have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” - a divine possession, redeemed by precious blood, sealed by the gift of “the Holy Spirit who is the earnest of our inheritance”. Well, we have a heavenly inheritance. What a wonderful thing that is, to be enjoyed in measure now while we wait for the Lord to come. For myself, I feel how feebly I enter into the thoughts of the blessings of God. We see “through a dim window obscurely” (1 Cor 13: 12), but we do see the glory of His beloved Son, and know the God who has redeemed us through the precious blood of Christ, clothed us in His precious worth and given us of His Holy Spirit.
These are just some simple impressions I had as to the great thoughts of God, and they are available to every man, woman and child that will come to Him. Come to Him in simple repentance, seek Him, call upon Him, and find in Him a Saviour God. There is the divine putting forth: God’s word goes forth out of His mouth and will not return unto him void. It will accomplish that for which He sent it, and the myriads in the eternal day will give witness to it, that His word has not been void. It has been received in the hearts of repenting sinners. May it be received fully into our own hearts. May no one miss the greatness and glory of God’s thoughts in the glad tidings.
May it be so. For His Name’s sake.
Buckhurst Hill
24th October 2021