Word of Salvation – Vol.23 No.17 – January 1977
God’s Eyes And Our Cries
Sermon by the Rev. John Goris on Psalm 34:15
Scripture Readings: Psalm 34, Acts 9:1-11
Psalter Hymnal: 299:1,2,3,4; 273:1,2 (law);
491 (creed); 59:1,2,3,4; 434; 488
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Do you pray?
Well, of course you do! But still, you wonder sometimes what the use of prayer is. After all God works out everything according to His plan, and who are we to make Him change His plan?
It is true that God has a plan.
It is also true that He is sovereign and sees every need. And yet……. it is equally true that prayer is absolutely necessary. The Bible makes us aware of that time and again. God’s perfect knowledge of our need never exclude the need for our prayer.
Today we want to hear how the Psalmist brings this truth home to us again. This is how he puts it:
“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous,
and His ears toward their cry.”
Briefly our text speaks about…
“GOD’S EYES AND OUR CRISIS”
This means, first of all:
Relax!
and next, Get busy!
- RELAX!
Have you noticed what a wonderful psalm of praise this is? It is that, exactly because it is also a psalm of prayer. Those two go together. We learn that especially from the book of psalms.
The more prayer, the more praise.
The more praise, the more prayer.
And the less of the one, the less of the other.
It is seeing the reality of the situation and bringing God right into picture.
In other words, it is relating life to God, and God to life.
You see in the opening verses of this psalm how David is full of praise for God, and then he goes on to explain how he was driven to prayer, and how the Lord heard him.
Now what is the particular message of vs 15?
First we are told that nothing escapes the eyes and ears of the Lord. That is a great truth. We are often blind in that respect, and deaf. Or we might see a need and forget about it.
God is not like us. He does not overlook anything. We know that, but in practice we forget that. We can become most anxious, thinking God does not see and does not care.
We believe in the providence of God, His love and care for His creation: sending His rain on the just and on the unjust; and yet, when it comes to our own lives, we can be most worried.
In this psalm David finds great comfort in God’s special care for His people. God’s eyes are toward the RIGHTEOUS, more so than towards any others.
Now who would be one of these righteous?
It is the person who fears the Lord. The whole psalm brings out what is meant by that. The man who fears the Lord wants to live always being conscious of the presence of the Lord. He controls his tongue; he identifies himself with what is good, and shuns evil; he is after peace.
It is a picture of the Old Testament believer who wants to live his life in harmony with the law of God, and who at the same time knows that he depends on God for acceptance, for refuge, for comfort: see vs.18.
In other words, the person who may apply the words of our text to himself is the one who has discovered that God is Who He is. He has met with the God who has taken the trouble to concern Himself with man in a self-giving way. And isn’t that what we see God has done in the Lord Jesus Christ? If God has accepted us for Jesus’ sake, then for Jesus’ sake He will cater for everything in our lives (Rom.8:32).
What more then, do we need for our daily lives but to realise the truth of this verse:
“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous,
and His ears are open to their cry.”
Relax! God knows your need!
He knows also that the afflictions of the righteous are many as David confesses in vs.19.
He knows that our path is not an easy one. There is the strain of many commitments. There is the pressure of a hostile world around us. There is the temptation of our ever-active enemy. There is the weakness of the flesh.
What is it that bothers you?
What is too hard to be explained to others?
What is it that makes you wonder if God has forgotten you?
Think of it!
The eyes and the ears of the Lord are toward you!
The smallest problem: the Lord sees it.
The slightest sigh: the Lord hears it.
O yes, He does not ACT at once. It may seem as if He does NOT care. He tries us to be sure. He asks for patience. He times everything in His way. But He assures us here in His Word, “I know, My child, I have seen you, and I have heard. I am not turning my eye away from you for a moment.”
And when you ask, “How can I know?”, then we must answer, “Look to the Lord Jesus, He is the Guarantee of all God’s love and care.” Without Him you have no certainty, no basis for assurance from scripture:
“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous,
and His ears are open to their cry.”
So take courage, and relax, for He knows.
- GET BUSY
Now let us give these words another look.
Why do the righteous have to cry?
Why pray if God sees and knows all our need,
especially that of those who are dear to Him?
Well, prayer is exactly what God wants. He wants us to pray. Literally it says, “His ears are (bent) in the direction of their cry”. His eyes have seen, they have spotted our predicament, and how His ears are inclined toward us.
Wouldn’t there be times that God may well say, “Why don’t they cry out?” He knows something is the matter. He bends over as it were, putting His hand behind His ear, waiting….. but there is no prayer.
God is waiting to hear our prayers, our cries for help. The CRY of which the psalmist speaks is something that is MEANT TO BE HEARD: it is a communication from someone in need. It is not an exclamation of grief to oneself, neither is it a psychological pep-talk that reaches no higher than the ceiling, nor is it a quiet musing in nursing the pain of some unexplainable event.
It is not SAYING your prayers, but PRAYING..!
Remember the case of Paul of Tarsus when he had come to Damascus, a blind man, arrested by the Lord Himself. Remember how the Lord sends Ananias to visit Paul and adds, “Behold, he is praying!”
Paul had been praying all his life: he prayed and fasted regularly like a good Pharisee. It was a spiritual routine to him, and he was probably “quite good at it”. But when the darkness had literally closed in around him, and he had seen his miserable plight, then he PRAYED, with all his soul.
Or take the case of blind Bartimaeus, who sat at the roadside begging. As soon as he had heard that Jesus of Nazareth was in the crowd passing him, he opened his mouth and cried with all his might, and when they tried to stop him, he cried all the louder: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” In a children’s Bible story booklet there is a graphic picture of Bartimaeus. His face is “all mouth”!
THAT is praying: no, not just that big open mouth, but to gather all your resources and to communicate with God: To take hold of Him, while He is about. Isn’t that what the Bible says in Isaiah 55?
“Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while he is near.”
What great assurance and encouragement He gives us here!
What great reason there is, all the more, to be moved to pray, when you know, that…
The eyes of the Lord are on you,
and His ears are open toward you!
God has opened the communication line toward you.
He has spoken to us in His Son Jesus Christ.
He has gone out of His way to reach you and me
in the deepest need of our lives: to be right with our God.
He has placed Himself WITHIN REACH! (Romans 10:8).
Now then, CRY..! CRY..!
You have no need to cry?
If only we would see our need, how deep and wide it is.
Is there no need to cry,
when we are tempted ceaselessly by the Evil One?
when we discover what wisdom we need to walk wisely?
when we see the shallowness of our lives?
when we feel our strong attachment to and love for this world?
when we see our children drifting away from the Lord?
when we are made aware of our responsibilities in church and society?
when we realise how often we grieve the Holy Spirit of God?
when we see our need for humble teachableness?
Is there no need to cry, to get busy seeking the Lord’s face when it is turned to you?
Praying is keeping the window to God’s presence open. It means looking out of it at the cross and realising that, “God so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten Son”, and that if He did that, there is no doubt (as the Bible assures us) that He will “freely give us all things” (Rom.8:32).
It could not be better, child of your heavenly Father!
Battling Christian, look what promise is held out to you!
Runaway sinner-man, remember how the Father in the parable
has His eyes and ears open to the prodigal who is returning!
He sees and knows more than we realise:
Relax and get busy!
Pray!
Pray without ceasing!
God is waiting for you to bless you: if only you would cry out.
Shall we pray…!
Amen.