Morning. Would you turn, uh, to Exodus
chapter two, we're staying in first Samuel, but, uh, I would
like to read this passage from Exodus chapter two. Beginning in verse 23. Exodus chapter two, beginning
in verse 23. And it came to pass in process
of time. You know, I love those words. It
came to pass. Everything that happens is a, it came to pass
God controlling everything in the process of time that the
king of Egypt died and the children of Israel side. by reason of
the bondage. Remember, they were making the
pyramids for Pharaoh. And they cried, and their cry
came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their
groaning, and God remembered his covenant
with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon
the children of Israel and God had respect unto them. Let's pray. Lord, we ask that you would look down upon us and have respect to us because
of your remembering of the covenant that you made with your son.
And in making that covenant with him, you made it to Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob and all of your children. And Lord, we ask that
you would hear our sigh, our cry, our groaning, and be merciful
unto us for Christ's sake. Lord, speak to our hearts in
power from your word. Lord, show yourself to us through
your gospel. Forgive us of our many sins.
Lord, we're so thankful that you're on the throne controlling
everything. Be with all your people wherever
they meet together. And Lord, we pray for our leaders of this
nation around the world. We ask for your mercy upon us
that we might lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness
and honesty. And Lord bless us. Speak to us
in power for Christ's sake. In his name we pray. Amen. Would you turn to 1 Samuel chapter
12? I'd like to read verses seven
through 10. Now, therefore, stand still that
I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous
acts of the Lord, which he did to you and to your fathers. When
Jacob was come into Egypt and your fathers cried unto the Lord. That's the passage I just read
from Exodus chapter two. Then the Lord sent Moses and
Aaron, which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt and made
them dwell in this place. And when they forgot the Lord,
their God, that's what we considered last week. He sold them into
the hand of Caesarea, captain of the hosts of Hazor and into
the land of the Philistines and into the hand of the king of
Moab. And they fought against them and they cried unto the
Lord. This is the history of Israel.
They would cry, the Lord would deliver, and they would cry again. And they cried unto the Lord
and said, we have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and
have served Balaam and Ashtoreth, but now deliver us out of the
hand of our enemies and we will serve thee. Now, this is something
that we read of over and over again in the history of the children
of Israel. They would cry to the Lord. They
would forget the Lord and they would cry to the Lord again. I want to try to speak upon this
subject of crying to the Lord. Now that's a hard subject to
speak on because it's something you just do. And to try to define it and talk
about it is a difficult thing, but that's what I would like
to try to do this morning is talk about this thing of crying
to the Lord. Now, in our experience as believers,
it's pretty much the same thing when we cry. And that word, cry,
means to shriek out. It's a cry of desperation. It's
not just a, well, Lord, help me. No, it's you feel desperate
and you cry unto the Lord for His help. You really believe
He is the only one who can help you when you cry to the Lord.
You really believe that. Help us, Lord, vain is the help
of man." You know something about that. He's the only one who can
help us and we want to be heard. When we're in deep trouble, we
cry out to Him. Now, notice in verse 10, and
they cried unto the Lord and said, we've sinned. Now, I don't
want to go much past that for a couple of minutes. When we
cry to the Lord, there's some honesty and there's some sincerity. And the only time we're honest
and sincere is when we cry out with some consciousness of our
sinfulness. You won't and I won't cry to
the Lord without this right here that they give, we have sinned. The only time you and I will
ever really cry to the Lord so that he hears is with this cry,
we have sinned. There's an honest confession
of sin. You only cry as a sinner needing
His mercy. And a cry that doesn't come from
a consciousness of sin and need for mercy is not really crying
to the Lord. Do you believe that? That's the
way we cry, with a consciousness of sin and a great need of His
mercy in our trouble. That is when we cry to the Lord. Do you know that the God of heaven
is moved to mercy when he hears people cry from their misery?
That's a part of the character of God. He's moved by this. Let me show you this in the scripture.
Turn with me to Judges chapter 10. Grace doesn't have anything to do with
me or you. It's God. God is gracious. That's His nature. He doesn't give you grace because
you need it. He doesn't give you grace because
you ask for it. He gives you grace because He's
gracious. That's who He is. It doesn't have anything to do
with you. But mercy is different. Mercy is God's response to my
misery. That's what mercy is. It's God's
response. This is the nature of God. It's
God's response to my misery. Now look here in Judges chapter
10, beginning in verse 10. And the children of Israel cried
unto the Lord, saying, We have sinned against thee. See, there
it is again. The children of Israel cried
unto the Lord, saying, We have sinned against thee, because
we have forsaken our God and also served Balaam. And the Lord
said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the
Egyptians, and from the Amorites, and from the children of Ammon,
and from the Philistines? The Zidians also, and the Amalekites,
and the Mayonites did oppress you, and you cried to me, and
I delivered you out of their hand. Yet you have forsaken me, and
served other gods. Wherefore, I will deliver you
no more. Go and cry unto the gods which
you have chosen. Let them deliver you in the time
of your tribulation.' And the children of Israel said unto
the Lord, We sinned. Due unto us whatsoever seemeth
good unto thee. Deliver us only, we pray thee,
this day. And they put away the strange
gods from among them, and served the Lord." And look at this next
sentence. His soul was grieved for the
misery of Israel. Now that's our God. His soul,
the soul of God, whatever that means, was grieved when he beheld
the misery of Israel. This is his character. There's
so many examples of this in the scripture. I think of that leper. who came to the Lord, the scripture
says, full of leprosy. And he said, Lord, he was miserable. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. And the scripture says Jesus
moved with compassion. If I come to the Lord like that
leopard did, he is going to be moved with compassion. He reached forth with his hand
and touched him. I love to think about that. When
is the last time you reckon that leper felt a human touch? I suppose
it had been a very long time. And this is the human touch of
the God man. He reached forth his hand and
touched him and said, I will. Be thou clean. The reason we cry is He is a
merciful God. There'd be no point in crying
if that were not the case, but He delights in mercy. So when
you cry and you cry from your misery, remember, He hears. He hears. He's touched. He's
moved. I think of the Lord going through
Jericho And the scripture says in Isaiah that he'd set his face
as a flint. He was going to the cross. This
was the reason he came, to die on the cross. And he set his
face like a flint. He would not be moved from his
mission. There he goes through the streets
of Jericho. All kinds of people are calling
his name at this time. And all of a sudden, there's
a certain particular cry, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy
on me. And the scripture says, Jesus
stood still. That cry stopped him. And it always does. Jesus stood still. You know, when the children of
Israel cried, it was always from the place of bondage. Now, in that passage of Scripture
that I read in Exodus chapter 2, you know the story of Pharaoh
making them serve with rigor. I mean, their entire life was
that of making bricks to build the pyramids. What a miserable
existence. And they sighed by reason of
the bondage. And you only cry out when you're
in bondage. You only cry out when you're
in jail. And the door is shut and locked
and you can't get out. And there's only one thing to
do. It's to cry to the Lord. It's not like you have any other
options. That's the only time you cry when you are in bondage
and you need His help. Now, I think of Peter walking
on the water. I love to think about that. Peter,
oh, what a special man. I'm so thankful for Peter and
how the Lord used him and what Peter shows us. But I think of
the Lord walking on the water and Peter, none of the rest of
them did this, but Peter said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me,
command me to come to thee on the water. And the Lord said,
come. And he came down and walked on the water to go to Jesus.
And the scripture says, when he saw the wind boisterous, Obviously,
he had stopped looking at Christ and started looking at the wind.
He began to seek. And how do you reckon he sounded
when the scripture says, he cried out, save me, Lord, save me? Do you think he said, Lord, save
me? No. He was going down. He was scared to death. And he
cried out, Lord, save me. And the Lord reached forth his
hand and pulled him in. I think about those two blind
men lifting up their voices, the scripture says, crying, Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy on us. What about the Syrophoenician
woman? She said, Jesus, thou son of
David, have mercy on me. My daughter is grievously vexed
with the devil. I can't imitate the way those
people must have sounded when they cried out. But they cried
to the Lord in their misery, in their bondage, knowing there
wasn't anything they could do to help themselves, not a thing
in the world, and knowing the only one who could help them
was Him. David said in 2 Samuel 22 verse
7, in my distress, I cried unto the Lord. In Psalm 34 6, he said,
this poor man cried unto the Lord and he saved him out of
all his troubles. In Psalm 130 verse 1, David said,
out of the depths, Out of the depths. Now, I don't know how
deep those depths are, but they're very, very deep. He said, out
of the depths. And I cried and he, you know,
when you're in the depths, there's only one way to look and it's
up. Turn with me for a moment to Psalm 142. You know, this is something you can
only do privately. This is not something any man
can enter in. This is something you do in your
own heart and in your own soul. You can be crying to the Lord
and nobody even knows it. They may be looking at you and
business as usual, but if you're a believer, this is something
you're doing all the time, really. You're crying to the Lord. Look
in Psalm 142, verse 5. David said, I cried unto thee,
O Lord. I said, thou art my refuge and
my portion in the land of the living. Attend unto my cry, for
I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they're stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison.
You see all these things in his cry to the Lord? Turn with me
to 2 Chronicles chapter 13. Second Chronicles, chapter 13,
I enjoyed thinking about Hezekiah or, I mean, Jehosh, verse 13. Wasn't Hezekiah, excuse me, but
look at verse 13. But Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come
about behind them, so they were before Judah, and the ambush
was behind them. Now, they're in a place where
their enemies are before them and behind them, and there's
not anything they could do. Nothing. And when Judah looked
back, behold, the battle was before and behind, and they cried
unto the Lord. That's the only thing you can
do then, isn't it? They cried to the Lord, and the priests
sounded with the trumpet. You'll cry to the Lord when there's
nowhere else to turn. And I want us to think about
this. Crying to the Lord praises Him. David said in Psalm 66,
17, I cried unto the Lord with my mouth, and He was extolled
by my tongue." Now we glorify Him when we cry out to Him. We say who He is when we cry
out to Him. When the Pharisees asked the
Lord to rebuke his disciples for what they were crying out
when they were crying out Hosea or Hosanna, the Lord said, I
tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones
would immediately cry out. You see, there's something about
crying out to the Lord that glorifies and honors and exalts him as
the God of glory, as the only one who can help. Salvation is
of the Lord, isn't it? And that's what we say when we
cry out. Salvation is of the Lord. Now,
we cry out to Him because we really believe salvation is of
the Lord. When that blind man came crying
to the Lord in Matthew chapter 9, he came crying to the Lord. The Lord said to him, do you
believe that I am able to do this? You know what his answer was?
Yay, Lord. That's why I came to you in the
first place. I believe you're able. I don't
know if you're willing, but I believe you're able, and I'm placing
myself at your feet. I know you're the only one who
can do anything for me. Same thing the leper said. We
really believe when we cry out to the Lord. And like I said,
this is something you do in your heart. I don't even know what
words you use. Don't even know if you use words.
This is something you do in your heart because you believe that
He is the only one who is able to help you. And if we cry, I
like this, if we cry, it's a continual cry. We never stop. Now, we have
several beautiful examples of this in the New Testament. I
brought up Bartimaeus. Do you remember when Bartimaeus
began to cry, they said, hold your peace, Bartimaeus. You know
what the scripture said he did? He cried the more. A great deal. You see, if you really believe
salvation is of the Lord, if you really believe He is who
He says He is in His Word, nothing can stop you from crying. What
about this Syrophoenician woman? When she came crying to the Lord,
the Lord ignored her. He didn't even look her way. As far as she could see, He didn't
even know she existed. But you know what she did? She
continued to cry because she knew He's the only one who could
do anything for her. And then the disciples said,
send her away. She cries after us. They were very... She wasn't
crying after them. I can assure you that. But she
was crying after Him. She would not Stop. And then the Lord said, I'm not
sent but of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I only came
to save the elect. Did that stop her? No. The scripture
says, Then came she and worshipped him. Lord, help me. Now that's a cry. Lord, help
me if you don't help me. I won't be helped." And you see,
this is the mark of being a child, really. When we talk about crying
to the Lord, we read in the Scripture where God's people cry, Abba,
Father, I'm crying to my Father. And I know the only way He is
my Father is through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And God
is my Father because Christ is my Savior. And I come to God
as my Father, not just as a judge. I'm crying, Abba, Father, help
me. Turn with me to the book of Nehemiah,
chapter 9. It would be a blessing if the
Lord enables us to read this ninth chapter of Nehemiah, where
Nehemiah gives the history of the children of Israel. It'll
just be meaningless to us if we just read it in our own power,
but if God the Holy Spirit gives us the grace to read this chapter,
what a blessing it is. But look what Nehemiah says in
verse 27. Therefore thou delivers them into the hand of their enemies
who vexed them. and in the time of their trouble. This is Nehemiah chapter 9 verse
27. And in the time of their trouble
when they cried unto thee. And like I said, I looked that
word up and that word simply means they shrieked. They shrieked. Thou heardest them from heaven,
and according to Thy manifold mercies, Thou gavest them saviors,
who saved them out of the hand of their enemies. But after they
had rest, when everything was going well, they did evil again
before Thee. Therefore leftest Thou them in
the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over
them. Yet when they returned and cried out unto thee. Thou heardest them from heaven,
and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies."
Now, two words that really stand out to me in that passage of
scripture. First, the word, but. But, after they had rest, but
then they did evil. And the next word is yet. Yet. Yet, when they cried out, the
Lord heard them. So cry so as to be heard, and
cry so as to be helped. And cry in faith, believing that
the Lord, because of who He is, He hears your cry. Psalm 34 15 says the eyes of
the Lord are open to the righteous. Now who are the righteous? Everyone
who has the righteousness of Jesus Christ as their personal
righteousness before God. That's who the righteous are.
I'm looking at some righteous people. I'm looking at some people
God himself says they're righteous because we have the righteousness
of his dear son. Now The eyes of the Lord are
upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. That's God's promise. So may
the Lord enable us all to cry unto the Lord. His ears are open.