When We Cry Out

How does God respond when his people cry out to Him?

Reasons for crying

Lack of freedom (staff or sin)

family problems

bullying

depression

addictions

Temptation: Why would God hear me out? Why would he respond when I suffer?

Israelites:

Lots of family issues

Became slaves but also addicted to Egypt

The Egyptians abused them and they fell into a deep depression.

BUT they did one thing right they Cry out to the God of their fathers. They remembered that He had promised them a life of abundance.

God called a man

God acts thru humans. The partnership of Gen 1. We are created in his Image.

Context of Moses

40 years thinking “I am the solution”

40 years knowing he has nothing to offer. Only God can do something!!

Exodus 3:1–14 LEB

And Moses was a shepherd with the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the west of the desert, and he came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. And the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush, and he looked, and there was the bush burning with fire, but the bush was not being consumed. And Moses said, “Let me turn aside and see this great sight. Why does the bush not burn up?” And Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see, and God called to him from the midst of the bush, and he said, “Moses, Moses.” And he said, “Here I am.” And he said, “You must not come near to here. Take off your sandals from on your feet, because the place on which you are standing, it is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face because he was afraid of looking at God. And Yahweh said, “Surely I have seen the misery of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry of distress because of their oppressors, for I know their sufferings. And I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from this land to a good and wide land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. And now, look, the cry of distress of the Israelites has come to me, and also I see the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. And now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, and you must bring my people, the Israelites, out from Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out from Egypt?” And he said, “Because I am with you, and this will be the sign for you that I myself have sent you: When you bring the people out from Egypt, you will serve God on this mountain.” But Moses said to God, “Look, if I go to the Israelites and I say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is his name?’ then what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” And he said, “So you must say to the Israelites, ‘I am sent me to you.’ ”

God doesn't like it when we suffer, He wants to respond with compassion. When Jesus saw the multitudes look what it says

The New King James Version Chapter 9

But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.

COMPASSION: to be affected deeply in one’s inner being, especially in that aspect (the bowels) characterized by sympathy and compassion.

How has God met you in the midst of your past suffering? Where do you currently sense a need for his rescue in your life?