Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2069
“My God will hear me.” Micah 7:7.
OBSERVE that the Prophet has no sort of doubt. He insinuates no “if or “an” or “but” or “perhaps,” but he says it straight out as a fact of which he is infallibly convinced—“My God will hear me.” What a blessed thing it is that the child of God knows and feels that this is true! Wherever he may fail, he will succeed at the Throne! If all other friendly ears are closed, his Friend of friends will hear him. Lose your confidence in the power of prayer and I know not what remains for you. If you are obliged to say, “My God will not hear me”—if that is the language of your unbelieving spirit—your Achilles tendon is cut and you cannot stand with confidence, much less run with delight.
With faith in prayer you have Heaven’s infinite treasures at your disposal. But if you ask waveringly, you find that warning true, “He that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.” You must know with absolute certainty that God is and that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, or you will not be among those whom the Father seeks to worship Him. To be “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” you must be strong upon your knees. “My God will hear me” is a sentence which you must know by heart.
It is a very wide question, that of God’s hearing the prayers of men, and I should need a considerable time to describe particularly whose prayers the Lord will hear and what prayers He will hear and how it is true that He always hears, whatever His answer may be. But it will be a far better thing if, without debate, you can personally say for yourself, “Let others say what they will and judge what they please in this matter, I am persuaded by the Spirit of all Grace that my God will hear me.” If, so far as you yourself are concerned, you have this assurance, your own feet are upon a rock and you need not trouble about the sand and the mire.
This assurance, “My God will hear me,” is better than all the aid of mortal men and a greater wealth than the mines of India could afford you. I desire to preach, not only from these few words but also from their connection. The position of the text in the Sacred Book is highly instructive. May the Author of the Book make it so at this time!
I. I shall try to speak, in the first place, UPON THE RESULTS OF CONFIDENCE IN PRAYER IN BELIEVERS. When they can truly say, “My God will hear me,” the best consequences will come of it. Think of what will happen to them.
To begin with, in the worst of times God is their resort. In reading the chapter we saw that the times were desperate. The nation had become rotten throughout. “The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men.” Justice was openly sold. Bribes were unblushingly taken and even openly demanded. In business all were dishonest. “The best of them is as a briar: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge.” In domestic life there was no trusting friend, or husband, or wife, or son, or daughter.
The whole land had become corrupt. And as the Prophet surveyed it with tears in his eyes, he could see nothing worth the looking upon, and he cried, “Therefore I will look unto the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.” His conviction that God would hear his prayer was his last comfort and it led him to close his eyes upon the spectacle of universal crime and look heavenward and heavenward only. When you have faith in prayer you will, in the cloudy and dark day, find consolation in looking to God who is the blessed sun from whom a brighter day will come.
Instead of being overcome by doubt you will gather up your faith, which otherwise might have been scattered among men, and you will place the whole of it upon God, who still remains true and faithful and holy. Men who have confidence in prayer have perpetual errands at the Throne, for they have abundant trials in the wickedness of men and they look for
more abundant mercies from the Lord. If they are in straitened circumstances they run to their Father in Heaven to ask that their daily bread may be given them. And if they enjoy plenty, with equal earnestness they pray that their abundance may be sanctified.
In any case, the Believer has abundant reasons for praying without ceasing. If a man had no confidence in prayer, would he thus resort to God in the worst of times and in the best of times? Would he seek deliverance from evil things and the consecration of good things? I think not. We resort to God because He bids us do so. We accept His method of granting blessings and prayer because we conceive prayer to be a part of the Divine Decree. The same God that ordains to give a certain blessing has also ordained that we shall pray for it. We do not expect to change the will of God but we believe our prayer to be a part of His will. It is not contrary to predestination for us to pray—it is itself a part of it.