Is 55:8-9 says that God’s thoughts and man’s thoughts are not the same.  The Lord said, “my thoughts are not your thoughts.”  He said, “my thoughts (are higher) than your thoughts.”  When you think about a subject, and you come up with something other than what God thinks, you are wrong.  Until you know what God thinks about a matter, you will stay wrong.  You might win a debate with another man, but with God you lose, every time.

The reason for this is that man’s thoughts are:

Evil – Gen 6:5 – the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  Matt 15:19 says, “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts.”  In Jer 6:19, the Lord said about men with evil thoughts, “I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words.”

Wicked – Ps 10:4 – the wicked… will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts.  And so that you know what God thinks about the thoughts of the wicked, Prov 15:26 says, “The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord.”

Vain – 1 Cor 3:20 – the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.  These are the men and women whom the world calls “wise.”  About them, the Psalmist said, “I hate vain thoughts,” Ps 119:113.

Rebellious – Is 65:2 – a rebellious people, which walketh… after their own thoughts.

Don’t think for a minute that God doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Heb 4:12 says that “the word of God is… a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”  1 Chr 28:9 says, “the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts.” He’s knows exactly what you’re thinking and why you’re thinking that way. 

To all of these evil, wicked, vain, rebellious thinkers, the Lord says, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord,” Is 55:7.  The Lord wants you to quit thinking like men and to start thinking like him.  He wants you to forsake your thoughts and accept his thoughts.  

For instance, before you were saved, you might have thought that you were all right with God and that you had a pretty good shot at getting into heaven when you die.  But then you heard the truth about sin, hell, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And you know what you did?  You forsook your thoughts that you were probably going to make it to heaven.  You accepted his thoughts that you were a sorry sinner on your way to hell who needed to get saved by faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on Calvary.  You forsook your thoughts and your way and turned to the Lord and got saved.

Now that you’re saved and you know it, your thoughts about salvation are right.  You got them from God out of his words.  Prov 12:5 says, “the thoughts of the righteous are right.”  You took him at his words.  You found out that his thoughts that were higher than your thoughts were also better than your thoughts.  

What anyone else thinks about your salvation makes absolutely no difference to you, because you know they are wrong.  Like Mic 4:12 says about people who are wrong, “they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel.”  Ps 33:11, on the other hand, says, “the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.”  You and the Lord are on the same page now.

Now that you’re saved, you’re sure that you know God’s thoughts about salvation.  But do you know God’s thoughts about anything else?  Do you know God’s thoughts about  leading your family and raising your children?  Do you know God’s thoughts about the direction of your life?  Do you know God’s thoughts about how you spend your days?  Do you know God’s thoughts about your thoughts?  Where did you come up with your thoughts?

Pastor David Haveman said, in a recent conversation with several other pastors, “People aren’t thinking; the media and social networking are thinking for them.”  I’m sure that statement is true concerning people in the world.  But I’m concerned that his statement may also be true for God’s people.  I am confident that some of you are spending way too much time gleaning thoughts from the media and facebook and twitter and other internet sites.  Some of you haven’t been reading and studying your Bibles, at all.  And so you don’t have even one clue what God thinks about all of this stuff that’s going on these days.  And some of you, frankly, may not even care.

I want to ask you one question about your thoughts.  Have you been getting your thoughts from God or from the evil, wicked, vain, rebellious men of the world?  Come on now, let’s be honest with each other.  Tell me what the media and the experts and the politicians think about all this stuff going on with the coronavirus.  Now tell me what God thinks about all this.  What’s one significant thought you received directly from the Lord while this stay-at-home order has been in effect?  You don’t know, do you?

Conclusion: By your answer, you know all you need to know. Your thoughts have been framed more by those who hate God than by God himself.  And for a child of God that is an awful testimony.  You should repent of this error tonight and commit to the Lord that you are going to forsake your thoughts and let God give you his thoughts.  If you’ll do that, in just a few days, or weeks at the most, you will thank the Lord that he gave me this message for you tonight.