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I. GOD AND MAN DIFFER IN THEIR THOUGHTS REGARDING LIFE — the meaning of our present existence, as we live in this world day by day. Man's general conception is that he has been sent into this world endowed with certain powers of body and mind that he may get on, and rise commercially, socially, and in those things which are hemmed in by things seen and temporal. As men are thus employed God looks down upon them with the tender eye of a mother and the pitying heart of a father, and says to His erring children, "Why do ye spend your time and destroy your immortal powers in such a vain pursuit? You have mistaken the meaning of your present life, and the reason I sent you into the world. My thoughts concerning it are not your thoughts, and My ways are not your ways. Your life was given that you might grow in wisdom, experience, and Divine likeness in character, and the earth is a school in which you are to be trained, educated for highest worship and noblest service."

II. GOD AND MAN DIFFER IN THEIR THOUGHTS REGARDING DIFFICULTIES AND SORROWS. The human and natural way of looking at these things is to view them as unmitigated evils, and that either God knows and cares nothing about those who endure them, or that they are manifestations of His ill-will and judicial anger. These are not the thoughts of God. As seen in the light of heaven they are either the result of the violation of the law of love, of selfishness and sin, or are educative agencies to make the soul strong, tender, and true.

III. GOD AND MAN DIFFER IN THEIR THOUGHTS REGARDING THE TREATMENT OF ENEMIES. Hatred has been met by hatred; scorn has been answered by scorn; and for evil rendered evil has been repaid in full measure, pressed down and running over. Far otherwise has it been with God. Regarding treatment of enemies, God says, My thoughts, are. not your thoughts, and My ways are not your ways. Ye would render evil for evil, hate for hate, blow for blow. I love Mine enemies, I seek to bless the greatest sinner, I cause My sun to shine on the unjust, and unthankful, and am ready to take all prodigals into My forgiving embrace.' This has been God's action from the first man till now.

IV. GOD AND MAN DIFFER IN THEIR THOUGHTS REGARDING DEATH. Men's thoughts on the matter are full of sadness, and they beget a melancholy most difficult to bear. But God understands life and He understands death, and if we are filled with His thoughts and walk in His ways, the supposed enemy that seems to be a fiend and the destroyer of our existence shall appear in the glorious position of being the condition of a higher, purer, fuller life, that shall never cease to be, and like the echoes of the soul "shall grow for ever and for ever.'

(W. Adamson, D. D.)

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KJV: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

WEB: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," says Yahweh.