God’s Thoughts vs. Your Thoughts: The Infinite Gap. | Charles Spurgeon

"Charles Spurgeon’s sermon on Isaiah 55:8–9 explores the ""sublime contrast"" between human limitations and divine infinity. He argues that while man is an intelligent being, human thoughts remain ""weak and fragmentary"" compared to the ""vast and far-reaching"" designs of God.
Spurgeon categorizes this divine superiority into three areas:
• Rebuke: Man’s thoughts are characterized by ""forgetfulness, ingratitude, and hard-heartedness,"" whereas God’s thoughts are ""love, pity, and tenderness"". While man often relies on outward religion and self-merit, God searches the heart and recognizes that man is spiritually ""dead"" until quickened by His word.
• Repentance: The sermon encourages sinners to return to God, for His capacity for ""abundant pardon"" far exceeds human forgiveness. Unlike man, who may harbor resentment, God ""effectually and wholly forgets transgression,"" adopting the offender into His family. Spurgeon notes that ""Grace overtops all things,"" and human invention could never have conceived the mystery of the atonement.
• Expectation: For those who forsake their ways, God’s word is ""unfailing"" and ""immutable"". It acts like rain that fertilizes the earth, leading to a life of joy and peace where ""thorns"" are transformed into ""fur trees"". This mercy is not a temporary gift but an ""everlasting sign"" that will not be cut off.
Ultimately, Spurgeon implores his audience to ""close in"" with God through Christ, accepting a salvation that is ""without money and without price"".
To understand this gap between us and the Divine, consider a miner discovering a massive gold nugget: just as the miner stands in ""mute astonishment"" at a wealth he did not create and cannot fully calculate, the believer gazes upon God’s grace, which is infinitely deeper than any human could ever dig or imagine."