1819. A Sweet Silver Bell Ringing In Each Believer’s Heart

No. 1819-31:37. A Sermon Delivered On Thursday Evening, December 18, 1884, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, February 1, 1885

My God will hear me. {Mic 7:7}

For other sermons on this text:
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1819, “Sweet Silver Bell Ringing in Each Believer’s Heart, A” 1820}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2069, “My Own Personal Holdfast” 2070}
   Exposition on Mic 7 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3239, “Woe and Weal” 3241 @@ "Exposition"}

1. What a charming sentence! Can you say it? Only five words, but what meaning! Huge volumes of poetry have appeared from Chaucer even to Tennyson; but it seems to me that the essence of poetry lies hidden in a marvellously condensed form within these few words. It shall take you many an hour to extract all their sweetness. There is an almost inconceivable depth of meaning in them: and they are full to the brim of richness of assured experience and of sweet conclusions of a hallowed faith.

2. “My God will hear me.” There is more eloquence in that sentence than in all the orations of Demosthenes. {a} He who can speak like this can say more than if he were able to declare truthfully that all worlds were his own; for he grasps God himself, and holds the present and the future in the hollow of his hand.

3. “My God will hear me.” It is prophetic; but the prophet has taken upon himself no unusual power, neither does he intend his prophecy to be true of himself alone. He puts this divine sentence into the mouth of every believer; every child of God may dare to say that his God will hear him, for he may dare to say the truth. I feel as if I could not preach from the text, and did not want to do so. It needs no aid of wit or words; for myself I would be well content to exhibit this diamond with many facets by merely holding it up and letting the light fall on it, and flash back from it in a variety of brilliance.

4. “My God will hear me.” It is a choice song for a lone harp, which is half afraid of the choir of musicians, and loves to have its strings touched in solitude. I feel as I repeat it that I want to sit down and quietly enjoy it. Just as I see the cows lie in the meadow quietly chewing the cud, so I would ruminate on these few but precious words. Let me hear the sounds again and again, until my tongue, learning their rhythmic melody, repeats as a matter of habitual delight the assurance, “My God will hear me.”

5. A charming sentence, as I have said; but in what an unusual place we find it! Just as they find gold in the dark mine, and as we see stars in the black night, so we find these rich words in the midst of floods of grief and woe. The man of God is pricked and torn by the briars of the age in which he travels; he is vexed and wearied with the bribery and corruption all around him; he cannot find peace either at home or abroad, — no, not even in the bosom of the one whom he loves; everywhere he is disturbed and driven to and fro; and yet it is just at that time that he cries, “My God will hear me.” From this I gather — and I gather it not from this alone, but from my own personal experience — that it is generally when things are at the worst that we know most about the best. When we are disappointed by men, then we become most contented with our God. When earth-born springs are dry, then the eternal fountain-heads flow more freely than ever, and as we drink from them our soul is more satisfied than it ever had been before. God is good when goods are fewest. Heaven is warmest when earth is coldest. It is a great blessing for you, dear friend, that, you can say, “My God will hear me.” I do not care much about your surroundings; they may be grievous and trying; but if they have helped to bring you to this impasse, that you have a solid confidence that God will hear you, I congratulate you upon the priceless results, even though I may sympathise with you for the sufferings that have brought them to you. We do not weep over the mud which bespatters the gold-digger when he finds his nugget, neither will we fret over the affliction which makes God to be more precious to our friend.

6. Again, come back to the short and sweet sentence of the text, and may it be inexpressibly delightful to our hearts while we meditate on it for a while. “My God will hear me.”

7. I. The first thing I shall note at this time is THE TITLE. This is the essence of the whole text really, the true foundation of the confidence which is expressed in it. The title is “my God”: it is not God alone, but God in covenant with me, to whom I look for help. I shall be heard by “my God.”

8. I am afraid that some of you will have to draw back a little from the text at the very beginning. As I remarked the other day, to say there is a God is not much. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1813, “Jonah’s Resolve, or Look Again” 1814 @@ "16."} It is the same as to say, there is a bank; but there may be a bank, and you may be miserably poor. There certainly is a God, but that God may be no source of comfort to you. The joy of the whole thing lies in that word “my.” “My God will hear me.”

9. Begin then with the enquiry, ask your own soul, — “Can I truly think of God, and call him ‘my God?’ ” If so, that means election and selection. There were many gods in the day of the prophet Micah; at least, men spoke as if there were. Men spoke of this god, and of that, and each nation had its own particular deity, and each man walked in the name of his god, and gloried in it. But the prophet in effect says of Jehovah, the one living and true God, the God who made heaven and earth — “This God is my God. Others may worship gods of wood, or of stone, or of silver, or of gold; but as for me, my heart shall only worship the great Invisible, whom no one has seen, to whom no one can approach. I will only adore the eternal Creator.”

10. Now every man at this present time has a god. Alas, how many make their belly their god! The golden calf is never without its crowds of devoted worshippers. Gods today are as numerous in England as in any heathen country: let me then ask, — have you taken the God who is your Maker, your Preserver, your Redeemer to be the great object of your life? That is your god which rules your nature — that which is your motive power — that for which you live. Do you live for Jehovah as your God, or are you only living for yourself or for some temporary end and purpose? Will the object of your life die with your dying, and be buried in your grave? Or can you say to the living God, “Oh God, you are my God; I will seek you early. You are my God for ever and ever: you shall be my guide even to death!” If so, it supposes your election of this God beyond every other; and I ask it of you — is this election made? and made once and for all? Can you cry with Joshua, “As for me and my house we will serve Jehovah?” Is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ your God for all time? May it be so; you shall never regret the choice.

11. “My God,” — that supposes an appropriation by faith. Have you taken Jehovah to be your God? Are you bold enough to take him for your very own? In the covenant of grace God grants to his people himself, and all that he is, and all that he has, by a covenant of salt. Just as the believer becomes God’s portion, so the Lord becomes the believer’s portion. He declares himself to be ours and puts himself at our disposal, exercising a boundless condescension of love in so doing. Our part in it is, that we accept this covenant gift, and by an act of faith say, “This which God gives me, I, unworthy though I am, freely accept. Though I do not deserve it, yet since he has given himself to me, I, with gladness, receive him, to be my God, my portion, world without end.” Well do I remember the joyful day when my heart first took this possession to herself. It had appeared to be like a land of fire and terror, and I did not desire it; but when the Spirit of God had instructed and renewed me, then I perceived that God was like the land of Goshen — indeed, like the land of Canaan, that flows with milk and honey; indeed, as the Beulah land, where the sun never sets, where all is joy, and peace, and love; yes, as heaven itself, for God is the very soul, and centre, and source, and fulness of bliss. My heart annexed this blessed territory with trembling joy; yes, she seemed to have no other possession left except her God. From that hour she grew rich and remained so. What is there more for me except my God? How can I go an inch beyond “my God, my heaven, my all?” Now, beloved hearer, have you appropriated the Eternal God like this to be your own? Can you say today, “First and foremost among my possessions is my God. I will not say that I have this and that, and ever so many other things, but I will sing, ‘My God, you are mine!’ Perhaps I could not say that I have much of this world’s goods, but I have the highest Good. If I do not have all, yet I have the All-in-All, who is more than all, and he is everything to my spirit?” I trust you can say “my God,” first, by your choice of him; and, secondly, by your appropriation of him through faith. Wherever this is the case it is the work of the Spirit of God, and he must have our reverent love for enriching us like this.

12. “My God,” — this means knowledge and acquaintance. Does it not? For unless the words are meaningless, you know of whom you are speaking, and you have had some acquaintance with him, and dealings with him. If I say, “So-and-so is my friend,” I give you to understand that I know him; and if I say, “Jehovah is my God,” I profess that I know him and have fellowship with him. You remember the inscription which Paul discovered upon an altar at Athens, “To the unknown God.” I would not have you worship there, my brother; but I would have you understand that word of the apostle, “After you had known God, or rather were known by God.” There is an intimate knowledge existing between God and his people. “The Lord knows those who are his,” and all his people know him, so that among them no one has need to say to his brother, “Do you know the Lord?” for they all know him, from the least even to the greatest.

13. Now, what do you know about God? Have you ever spoken with him? Has he spoken to you? Have you told him your secrets? Has he revealed himself to you, as it is written, “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear him, and he will show them his covenant?” Now, I am not talking about fiction. If any of you deem this to be fictional, it is because you are strangers to the covenant of promise; but I am speaking now to a people who know more than I can tell them about what this means. As for myself, I know something about nature, and about the works of God’s hands, but my soul cares little for that knowledge compared with knowing HIM. Willingly and gladly I would forget everything else I know if I might only know more of him; for I am well persuaded that when old age comes on, and memory fails me, what my soul shall hold as with a death-grip, will not be the historical remembrance, classical love, or theological learning, but what she knows by inward experience about the Lord her God. When the veil shall drop upon all mortal shadows, to be raised on eternal realities, then my heart shall care nothing for what she knew about terrestrial things; but she shall value beyond conception what she shall then know about the Immortal, the Invisible, the only wise God, her Saviour. I am sure that I am speaking to many of you who can use the expression, “My God,” and mean by it that the God in whom you live and move and have your being is your friend, and your Father; that he dwells in you by the Holy Spirit, and that in him you dwell as you hide yourselves in the wounds of Christ. Oh happy men and women who can with knowledge and affection say, “My God.” You are unhappy who have neither part nor lot in this matter. Your sorrows shall be multiplied you who hasten after another god, for your vanities will fail you: but as for you who know the Lord, to you joy shall increase even as the growing light of the rising sun.

14. If you have come as far as this, I am sure that you can follow me further by admitting that the title, “My God,” implies an embrace of love. You know God as you know your child; but as you look at your boy, you cry, “My child, my child,” and you mean a great deal by that, because your child is much more yours on account of the affection that you feel for him than any other possession that you have upon the face of the earth. You would lose everything else sooner than lose the darling of your heart. The expression, “My God” has an inexpressible amount of sweet affection wrapped up in it. I delight in that line of our old Psalm:

   “Yea, mine own God is he.”

He is my very own. My God belongs to me as much as if he belonged to no other. My heart has twisted her tendrils all around him as fast and firm as if no other tiny plant had dared to grasp the same stake. The divine Father — oh, what joy lights up the soul when we think of that splendid fatherhood, that infinite relationship of the Divine One to us, whom he has “begotten again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” How have we sometimes sung with David,

   Such pity as a father hath
      Unto his children dear,
   Like pity shows the Lord to such
      As worship him in fear.

We love the Father, and call him “My God.” And as for Jesus, the second person in the Divine Unity, Incarnate God, does not your very heart leap at the sound of his name? Is there not all music condensed into two syllables in that name “Jesus?” I know that it is so for you. He is your very own Christ, your Saviour, for ever and ever. And the blessed Spirit — do we not with equal affection lay hold upon him, the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Quickener, the Illuminator, the best of friends, bearing with our bad behaviour and still remaining in us, making us fit for the eternal kingdom? Yes, beloved, we do love our God. Do not our hearts say in our prayers, “Oh Lord, do not believe our actions, for, disobedient as we are, we do love you. Do not believe our forgetfulness, do not believe the lukewarmness which occasionally creeps over us; for you know all things, you know that we love you?” Such affection makes us cry, “My God.” We cannot comprehend him, but we apprehend him with the grip of hallowed love. We feel that we can never give him up, even as he will never give us up. I am not what I ought to be, but I cannot give up my God. Hard as my heart feels, yet it melts with love for him who has loved me from before the foundation of the world. Who shall separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, my Lord?

15. What a great deal there is in the title! But we have not exhausted it by a long shot — let us have another drink from the well. You feel that now the obedience of your life is rendered to him most cheerfully, for this is a sure outcome of the heart’s crying, “He is my God.” A man cannot call God his God in truth unless he desires to obey him; for God is a name to adore, to reverence, to worship. He who speaks of God but never obeys him is a practical atheist; he has no God. That man who talks about God in the synagogue, but who has no regard for him in the market, makes Jehovah to be no better a deity than the idols of the heathen, who are only gods in their own temples, even if there. The man upon whose heart and hand the Godhead has no kind of influence — such a man is a liar and does not know God, only renders to him lip-service, which is to God’s dishonour, and not for his glory. Yes, beloved, if you are what you profess to be, you can declare, “With all my infirmities and imperfections, I desire that my whole life should be obedient to the divine precept. I wish in all things to do what is right and good, and true and kind, according to the mind of Christ, in which I see the mind of God my Father.” Concerning these things let there be great searchings of heart. Come and look in this mirror and see if you bear the features of “imitators of God as dear children”; for it will go hard with you if you turn out to be pretenders.

16. Let me only add that this expressive phrase “My God” hints at a joy and delight in him. As men would say — “my love,” “my choice,” “my treasure,” “my delight,” so the prophet says “My God.” The very name awakens all the music of his soul. Just as when the sleeping flowers, being touched by the first beams of the rising sun, open their bright eyes to look on him who is the foster-father of all their beauty, and seem each one to say “My King,” so do our hearts rejoice in the presence of the Lord, and our quickened spirits cry “My God.”

17. So much for the title. May it be written on your hearts by the Holy Spirit.

18. II. The second point in our brief text is THE ARGUMENT, for I believe the title contains within itself a secret logical force. “My God will hear me.” As surely as he is my God he will hear me. Why?

19. Well, he will hear me first because he is God, because he is the living and true God. Those gods of stone cannot hear me, but my God will hear me. The gods that many men choose will not hear them in the day of trouble. To which of them will they call in the hour of their affliction? But my God will hear me. It is his memorial that he hears prayer. The oracles of the heathen were only liars. Those who sought out the false gods only doted upon falsehoods; they were deceivers and deceived. But my God will hear me. As surely as he is God he will answer prayer. If he does not answer prayer, then he is no more a God than Jupiter, or Saturn, or Venus. For us as Christian people and worshippers of the Most High, it is a truth never to be questioned, that Jehovah is the living and true God, whose memorial is that he hears the prayers of his people. “My God will hear me.”

20. You see in what a tone of confidence this prophet speaks, and why should not every child of God speak with the same confidence? The joy of religion lies in a hearty faith in it. You begin handling it with dainty fingers, criticizing it everlastingly, questioning this and questioning that with anxious debate of heart; and the result is that you miss its sweetness. It is nothing to your comfort until it is everything to your faith. You must believe it, and the more thoroughly you believe it the more it will prove itself true to you. The proof of the gospel lies in the testing of it, by which I mean in the practical proving and enjoying of it. Suppose you try to pray, and do not believe in prayer: well, you do not pray. You get nothing by such praying: you work a dry pump. You must have confidence in the mercy seat, if the mercy seat is to be a place of refuge for you. “He who wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Do not let that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord.” “He who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” To my mind it seems the right thing to believe in the living God right up to the hilt — to believe in his promise without stint or limit. His word is either true or false. If it is false, I will never preach it: if it is true, I will never doubt it. There let it stand like a column of brass: — though everything else should fail, God must hear prayer. He may do this and he may do that, but he must hear prayer. My God will hear me because he is a true God, and no liar; and he himself has declared, “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” He has laid it down as an unquestionable fact, “He who seeks finds, he who asks receives, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.” How can he renege on this? Why should I imagine that he will lie or repent?

21. But why am I so sure, as a matter of argument, that God will hear prayer? The answer is in the title again, “My God.” Because he has made himself my God he will hear me. Oh you who are familiar with your God, who can therefore call him by the dear title of “My God,” you will see the overwhelming conclusiveness of this reasoning. To hear a petitioner is a small thing compared to giving yourself over to him. “My God will hear me,” for doubtless, if he has given himself to be my God, he will hear me. He has done the greater thing, he will surely do the less. If, in infinite condescension, he permits me to call him “my God,” and I perceive all through his gospel that he invites me to do so, then, surely he will hear me. He who has said, “They shall be my people, and I will be their God,” will do the much smaller thing: he will, without doubt, hear them when they call upon him. “You, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” “He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Is that not clear enough? He has given us himself, and his Son; how can he shut out our cries? After what he has done for us in the past, we cannot doubt that he will hear us. What, give us cleansing by his blood, and then not hear us? What, give us the new birth, and then not hear us? Did he bless us when we did not seek him, and will he not hear us when we do seek him? What, look after us when we were like stray sheep, deaf to all his calls; seek after us until he restored us; and then not hear us when we become the sheep of his pasture? Impossible! The argument is irresistible: my God will certainly hear me.

22. Moreover, my God has heard me so many times; therefore, may it be far from me to doubt his present and future favour. A brother in prayer reminded us just now that we ought to have greater faith than the saints of the olden times, because we have many more centuries of the divine faithfulness to read about and to see. It is so; but I fear that observation seldom acts upon us so forcibly as actual personal experience. What shall I say to my beloved brothers and sisters here who are getting old? They have had such experience. God has heard your prayers many times, my aged brethren, and your faith is confirmed by it. When we first began to pray, we were staggered if objectors questioned us. “You talk about God having heard your prayer.” “Yes,” we said, “he did hear us,” and we stated our case. The sceptic sneered, and said “That was merely a coincidence.” When we heard that remark for the first time, we were somewhat taken aback. We admitted that we could not draw an inference from two or three facts, for, perhaps, in later years there might be thirty facts which would point the other way. But, my veteran brethren, we are not in that condition tonight, for some of us have had thirty or forty years’ experience of God’s hearing prayer, and our facts are as many as the hairs of our heads. Do opponents say that these are coincidences? We do not care to answer such perverse janglings. If they were in our position, they would not wish to answer such remarks. They would laugh; and that is all that they would find in their hearts to do. A man puts on warm clothing and is not touched by the frost; his acquaintance tells him that he does not believe in flannel and broadcloth; he shivers in his unbelief, and tells the well-clad man that his comfort is a mere coincidence. Humorous, is it not? But if the objector gets frozen to death, the wit grows rather grim! When we have not prayed, and have not received a blessing, and have been ready to perish, I suppose our failure has been a coincidence! And when we have gone to our knees, and have cried mightily to God, and pleaded the promises, and God has answered us as visibly as if he had torn the blue heavens, and thrust out his almighty arm to help us, that has been a coincidence! I call such things plain answers to prayer, but those who have never experienced the same think me a fanatic. I will therefore let them use their own terms. We will not wrangle over words, — “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” As for the delivering mercy of God — you shall call it a coincidence if you like, but for us it will always be a blessed proof that the Lord hears prayer.

23. Using this sweet title, containing as it does within itself a whole century of logic, we say, joyfully, “My God will hear me.” What bliss it is to have so sweet an assurance always at hand! It is a sample of heavenly music, — “My God will hear me.” The Lord has entered into covenant with us that he will not turn away from us from doing us good, and in that covenant his hearing prayer is included. He could not be our friend and be deaf to our appeals: he could not be in fellowship with us and shut out our cries. Listen, however, to some of his own covenant words: “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” {Ps 50:15} “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.” {Ps 91:15} “The Lord is near to all those who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. He will fulfil the desire of those who fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.” {Ps 145:18,19} “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.” {Isa 65:24} “Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” {Jer 33:3} Do you need more than this? The Lord has said it, and he will make it good. He has never said to the seed of Jacob, “Seek me in vain.” {Isa 45:19}

24. If the Lord were not to hear prayer, and bear his people through their troubles, he himself would be a great loser. He would lose all that his wisdom has planned, all that his sovereignty has ordained, all that his love has begun, all that his power has accomplished, and all that in which his heart is set. If Jehovah did not hear prayer it would be to him as though a father no more heard the voice of his child: he would lose what charms his fatherly mind, and miss what is a solace to his loving heart. If God does not hear me, he will lose me; and this I feel he will not do, for he has inscribed me on the palms of his hands, so that I may never be forgotten by him. Oh, yes, my God will hear me; his truth and honour cannot be imperilled by a refusal to hear the pleadings of his own child.

25. III. Bear with me while I invite you, in the third place, to notice the FAVOUR ITSELF. “My God will hear me.”

26. You notice that in Scripture we do not often find the expression, “My God will answer me.” We do read that he answers prayer, but more frequently God is said to be the God who hears prayer. It is better for us to have a promise that God will hear us than a promise that God will always answer us. In fact, if it were a matter of absolute fact that God would always answer the prayers of his people as they present them, it would be an awful truth. I should shrink from ever praying again if I were absolutely sure that the Lord would answer my prayer, whatever it might be. I might curse myself seven times deep by a prayer within the next seven minutes, if there were no safeguards and limits to the promise of prayer being answered. It is neither desirable nor possible that all things should be left to our choice: so much do I feel this, that if my Lord should say to me, “From this hour I will always answer your prayer just as you pray it,” the first petition I would offer would be, “Lord, do nothing of the kind.” Because that would be putting the responsibility of my life upon myself, instead of allowing it to remain upon God. It would be, in fact, to make me the master of the house, and to make me my own shepherd: the very first thing I should wish would be to strip myself of such a power. I would cry, “Lord, do as you wish about answering me; I will be well content if you will hear me.” I like that kind of hearing prayer of which Ralph Erskine says:

   I’m heard when answered, soon or late,
   Yea, heard when I no answer get:
   Most kindly answered when refused,
   And treated well when harshly used.

It is enough for a praying heart that it has a hearing God.

27. But notice, “My God will hear me.” It means, first, literally that he will hear me as a listener. A good brother of my acquaintance, a minister of the gospel, going to preach from the text that God will hear prayer, called upon one of his poor people, who said when the visit was over that she had greatly enjoyed his call. He thought to himself, “I have scarcely said a word, and yet she says that I have done her good.” Turning to her, he enquired, “Sister, how can I have done you any good, for I have hardly spoken with you?” “Ah, sir,” she replied, “you have listened so kindly; you have heard all I had to say, and there are very few who will do that.” Just so. People in deep trouble like someone to hear them all through: even little children are comforted by telling mother all about it. We are in such a hurry with poor troubled spirits that we rush them on to the end of the sentence, and try to make them skip the dreary details. But to them this seems unkind, for their story is sacred; and, therefore, they go slowly on with it, until we are quite tired. I have often hurried on a poor despondent creature until I have seen the uselessness of it: it is always best to let them spin on. It does them good. To empty the heart to a patient listener is a great relief for a burdened spirit, and the heart must do it in its own way. Here is a sweet assurance, “My God will hear me.” I may be very bad, and what I say may be very broken, and I may groan a good deal, and I may say the same thing over and over again, and my whole ditty may be very stupid; but, “My God will hear me.” He is in no hurry: he is the God of patience. He will listen to my dreary talk, and endure each gloomy particular. I need not hold him as the Ancient Mariner {b} held the wedding guest who was unwilling to hear his weary rhyme of the sea: my God will willingly listen to me right through, from beginning to end, groans and all. “My God will hear me.”

28. And then the Lord will listen as a friend full of sympathy. Some people listen but do not hear. You tell them your story, but it does not help you a bit, because their minds are no more moved by your case than if they were far away. They are just saying to themselves, “We will hear this poor old lady’s story; it will please her.” But it does not please her, because she perceives that they have no sympathy, no fellow-feeling. The kind of person you like to tell your story to is one who weeps with you — who is really afflicted with your affliction. It is greatly comforting to have a person with you who feels just as you feel, who when you are very stupid, seems to be stupid too, who frets as you fret, and groans in your groaning. “Mother,” said a little girl once, “I cannot figure it out; Mrs. Smith says I do her so much good. Poor Mrs. Smith has lost her husband, mother, and she is very sad. She sits and cries, and I get up and lay my cheek on her cheek, and I cry and say that I love her, and then she says that she loves me, and that I comfort her.” Just so. That is the truest form of consolation: is it not? “Weep with those who weep.” That is how God, my God, will hear me, feeling with me, sympathising with me. “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them.” “I am with you, says the Lord.”

   I feel at my heart all thy sighs and thy groans,
   For thou art most near me, my flesh and my bones.
   In all thy afflictions thy head feels the pain,
   They all are most needful, not one is in vain,

“My God will hear me”; he will listen to me, and he will sympathise with me.

29. “My God will hear me”; that is, he will turn it over and judge in his own mind, and he will not allow me to be condemned by the hurried judgment of men. He will hear me as a judge patiently hears a case. Others will come in and clamour against me, and refuse to listen to a word of explanation; but my God will hear me. That was a splendid utterance of the holy patriarch Job! He went a great deal further than he knew he went when he said it, — “I know that my Redeemer lives.” His unkind friends charged him very terribly and Job spoke up for himself, but he did not succeed. He could not plead his own cause successfully, and therefore, in his desperation, he cried, “I have a God who will yet plead my cause, and if he does not do it while I am alive, yet I know that he lives; and though after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see him, and I shall be cleared from this misrepresentation; I shall be delivered from this suspicion. I know I shall. My God will hear me. He will hear my suit right through and do me justice, and I shall see him whom my eyes shall see for myself and not another.” Job felt assured of being cleared at last. Dear child of God, you may do the same. Your character shall not be injured by malicious tongues. They lie against you; they refuse you a hearing; they wrest your words; they empty the buckets of their contempt upon you; but your God will hear you.

30. Then, after all that, of course, comes the conclusion of every loving heart that, just as God will hear the case right through, so he will certainly hear as a Helper. “My God will hear me.”

31. Now, child of God, go away with this promise in your hand, and in your heart — “My God will hear me”; and then use it like a magic wand. Turn it whichever way you wish and it will clear your path. You are going to preach the gospel in a distant country, perhaps; and your spirit sinks as you sigh, “Who is sufficient for these things?” Lift up your heart to God, and his grace shall be sufficient for you, and his strength shall be made perfect in your weakness, for your God will hear you. Or you have to go home tonight to a house of sickness, and to lose one who is dear to you. You shall be sustained, for in your ear is this word, “My God will hear me.” Or, perhaps, you yourself have to sicken and die. Do you enquire — “What shall I do in the swellings of Jordan?” Here is your happy answer, “My God will hear me.” I shall cry to him, and he will answer me. He will have a desire towards the work of his hands. Yes, though I go down into the valley of the shadow of death my God will hear me; and when I lie in the tomb my God will remember me, and he will call me up with the sound of the trumpet, and my body shall live again. My God shall hear me singing his praises before his throne. My God shall hear me, world without end, as my whole being shall lift up her notes of joy of “Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah” to him who loved me out of the pit, and lifted me up to his own right hand.

32. IV. My only sorrow about this text is my fear that it could not honestly fall from some of your lips: you could not truthfully say, “My God will hear me.” So I close by noting THE PERSON to whom it belongs, — “My God will hear me.” Will he hear you?

33. Dear heart, are you cast down under a sense of sin? Do you seek forgiveness? He will hear you. Are you burdened because you cannot live without sin? Would you be free from all evil? He will hear you. Are you persecuted for righteousness’ sake? Have the men of your household become your foes? He will hear you, and cause you to rejoice in being considered worthy to suffer for Jesus’ sake. Are you assured of the result of prayer? You shall not be disappointed; your God will hear you. Have you been praying for long? Do not cease from persistence, but solace yourself with this sure belief — My God will hear me. Will you now come and cast yourselves into the arms of Jesus, the Crucified? Your God has heard you. Be of good cheer.

34. Oh, my dear hearer, do you have a God? Strange question, but I press it even with tears, — do you have a God? If you have no God, of course you have no one to hear you when the great water-floods prevail. My dear hearer, if you make the world your God it cannot hear you in the day of your trouble. You may be a very rich man, and have large estates, but I would sooner occupy the place of the poorest believing pauper in the workhouse than take your position without a God and without a throne of grace. How do people live who have no God to go to? If a man were to say to me, “I never get a morsel of bread to eat at all,” I should wonder how he lived. But when a man says, “I never pray, and God never hears me,” I am in equal wonder. How can the poor creature exist? These are hard times for a great many of you. You do not have many worldly comforts; indeed, some of you cannot even find work. What can you do without a God to flee to? I suppose your head aches sometimes, like mine; I suppose cares and troubles eat into your mind as they do into mine; I suppose you have your difficulties, and your knots that you cannot untie, just as I have mine. How do you keep your souls alive without a God? I pray God that I may never live a day without prayer, and without trusting my God. However do you bear up, some of you? I do not wonder that you go and get drunk to drown your thoughts. I do not wonder that you want frivolities and theatrics, and all kinds of childish toys to put your cares out of your minds, for you need something or other to help you to forget the miseries which are coming upon you thick and fast. Yet is it not madness to drive away wise thoughts? What a wretched business it must be to be in dread of your own thoughts! You dare not sit alone in your room for half-an-hour and think, because if you did you would begin to think of dying, and you could not bear to think of that without a God. You might even be driven to think of hell and of a judgment to come; and that you could not endure. If you dare not think of them, how will you bear them? Oh poor souls, poor souls, you are in a sad state, indeed! But you need not remain so. If any man wills to have God to be his own God, grace has given him that will. If you desire Christ, you may have him. What is the price? Nothing at all. Receive him freely. Believe in Jesus Christ; that is, trust yourself with him; and God is your God; and you may go on your way full of joy and thankfulness. May God bless you and comfort you, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Mic 7]
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Conflict and Encouragement — Making God A Refuge” 622}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Spirit of the Psalms — Psalm 99” 99}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Public Worship, Prayer Meetings — Holy Importunity” 981}

{a} Demosthenes (384-322 BC) was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. See Explorer "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosthenes"
{b} The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: See Explorer "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner"

The Christian, Conflict and Encouragement
622 — Making God A Refuge
1 Dear refuge of my weary soul,
      On thee, when sorrows rise,
   On thee, when waves of trouble roll,
      My fainting hope relies.
2 To thee I tell each rising grief,
      For thou alone canst heal;
   Thy word can bring a sweet relief
      For every pain I feel.
3 But oh! when gloomy doubts prevail,
      I fear to call thee mine;
   The springs of comfort seem to fail,
      And all my hopes decline.
4 Yet, gracious god, where shall I flee?
      Thou art my only trust;
   And still my soul would cleave to thee,
      Though prostrate in the dust.
5 Hast thou not bid me seek thy face?
      And shall I seek in vain?
   And can the ear of sovereign grace
      Be deaf when I complain?
6 No, still the ear of sovereign grace
      Attends the mourner’s prayer;
   Oh may I ever find access
      To breathe my sorrows there!
7 Thy mercy seat is open still,
      Here let my soul retreat:
   With humble hope attend thy will,
      And wait beneath thy feet.
                           Anne Steele, 1760.

Spirit of the Psalms
Psalm 99 <7s.>
1 Reigns Jehovah, King supreme,
   Let the nations own his sway!
   Throned between the cherubim,
   Prostrate let the earth obey!
2 High exalt Jehovah’s name,
   Fall in worship at his feet;
   Wide our God’s renown proclaim,
   Holy is Jehovah’s seat.
3 Loud Jehovah’s praise recount,
   Spread his glorious name abroad,
   Worship on his holy mount:
   Holy is Jehovah God.
                     Richard Mant, 1824.

Public Worship, Prayer Meetings
981 — Holy Importunity <7s.>
1 Lord, I cannot let thee go,
   Till a blessing thou bestow;
   Do not turn away thy face,
   Mine’s an urgent pressing case.
2 Dost thou ask me who I am?
   Ah, my Lord, thou know’st my name;
   Yet the question gives a plea
   To support my suit with thee.
3 Thou didst once a wretch behold,
   In rebellion blindly bold,
   Scorn thy grace, thy power defy:
   That poor rebel, Lord, was I.
4 Once a sinner near despair
   Sought thy mercy-seat by prayer;
   Mercy heard and set him free;
   Lord, that mercy came to me.
5 Many days have pass’d since then,
   Many changes I have seen;
   Yet have been upheld till now:
   Who could hold me up but thou?
6 Thou hast help’d in every need,
   This emboldens me to plead;
   After so much mercy past,
   Canst thou let me sink at last?
7 No — I must maintain my hold,
   ‘Tis thy goodness makes me bold;
   I can no denial take,
   When I plead for Jesus’ sake.
                     John Newton, 1779.