Sermon Tone Analysis

We’re continuing our study in Exodus 2:23-25 this morning and we are going to spend the majority of our time today looking at verse 24.

I think it’s important for us to read these verses again before we dive into our discussion this morning.

Moses writes in Exodus 2:23-25

Now last week we talked about the reality of suffering.

No one can look at the world and say that suffering is only a state of mind.

Suffering is everywhere.

If you haven’t suffered yet, all you have to do is live long enough and you will.

However, what we learned last week is that God is often strategic when it comes to suffering, especially when it comes to Christian suffering.

There are many times in our lives and in the lives of the Israelites where God will use pain and suffering to bring us to that which we need the most.

The world is incapable of looking at suffering in the same way that Christians do.

We don’t deny the impact of suffering but we do deny its sovereignty.

God, in His grace, often allows suffering in our lives so that we may possess something that will have eternal value for our lives.

As we heard last week from Samuel Rutherford, “Losses and crosses are the wheels of Christ’s triumphant chariot.”

We saw last week that there is a purpose to what the Israelites were going through in verse 23, just as there is a purpose in what we are going through in our own lives.

Now if the story of Israel was to end in Exodus 2:23, we wouldn’t have a story of Amazing grace and God’s triumph, we would have a heartbreaking horror story.

We would have a story with no happy ending, a story that would push the People of God solely into despair and deafeat.

If we stop at verse 23 we get heartbreak, despair, groaning, and a crying out to a God that is there but doesn’t respond.

A cry out to a God who is there but isn’t interested and this is the God that exists in the minds of many around the world.

Many have no problem with admitting that there is some sort of impersonal force that created and is governing the universe but many of these people cannot fathom the idea that there is a God out there who hears them and not only hears them, but knows them intimately and loves them beyond what we are capable of loving ourselves.

I recently came across a twitter post from an atheist account and it was actually pretty hilarious.

It read, “CHRISTIANITY: Belief that one God created a universe 13.79 billion yrs old, 93 billion light yrs in diameter (1 light yr = approx.6

trillion miles), consisting of over 200 billion galaxies,each containing ave.of 200 billion stars,only to have a personal relationship with you.

Lol.”

I read that and I thought, “Yeah that’s true! Thanks for doing my job for me!”

This account that is designed to bash not just Christianity but all organized religion just told it’s countless followers the kind of God that we serve.

Now does this sound impossible?

Sure!

But that is the reality of what is really going on out there because with God nothing is impossible.

Now I’m not sure if the math in their statement is correct but one thing I do know is that we do not serve some all-powerful force that doesn’t hear us and wants nothing to do with us.

We serve the God who is there and He is not silent but I am getting a little bit ahead of myself.

In Exodus 2:24 we read of these 2 amazing realities: God hears us and He wants to have a relationship with us.

Let’s go to the Lord in prayer and then we will take a look at verse 24 again.

God Hears

Moses writes in Exodus 2:24

The crying, the groaning, the shrieking, the moaning of the Israelites has ascended to the ears of God.

Now I know that we are only a few weeks removed from Pastor Wayne’s series on prayer so I do not want to spend a lot of time rehashing what he said but there are a few things that I want to draw out from what the Word of God reveals to us.

What Does it Mean for God to Hear?

The first thing that I want us to look at is what does it mean for God to hear?

The first half of verse 24 says that God heard the Hebrews groaning so what does that mean exactly?

I think first and foremost, it is a reminder of God’s close proximity and intimacy with His creation.

God hears every cry and every praise.

Nothing escapes His ear.

But it doesn’t just hit His ear, He understands and listens to every single word.

I know that I have been guilty of only half-listening to people but God never does this!

We always have His undivided attention.

God’s hearing isn’t selective and our prayers are not just cries tossed up into nothingness.

The prayers of the people of God aren’t just shooting up into Heaven falling upon deaf ears.

I’ve read that for years, NASA and other organizations have been projecting radio waves, and at one point sent vinyl records, into space in the hopes that something is going to send a message back.

Now this makes me wonder quite a few things.

Are they hoping something out there hears them or are they hoping that something doesn’t?

Because I’ll tell you this I have seen every Alien movie, every Predator movie, Men in Black, Independence Day, Signs, and War of the Worlds and none of the the things that come here seem to want to be our friends so what are we hoping to accomplish by sending these noises into space?

For all the years that they have projected these radiowaves into the cosmos, you want to know what has never happened?

Nothing has ever sent anything back!

They are just sending these sounds out into nothingness.

1 Kings 18:29 is a really heartbreaking verse when you view it through the lens of evangelism and when you consider how this is the reality for many in this day and age. 1 Kings 18:29

1 Kings 18:29 (ESV)

And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice.

No one answered; no one paid attention.

These are the gods of the world.

No voice, no answers, no listening, and no one pays attention.

Can anybody hear me?

Mankind longs to be heard.

We don’t want to be the passing vapor that is never noticed.

All our lives, we long for someone, anyone to hear us, be it God or just another human being.

We want to contribute, we want to know that our voice doesn’t fall upon deaf ears.

Our hearts cry is so very often, “Does anybody hear me?”

While Lora and I were recovering from covid, we spent one Sunday listening to a sermon by Alistair Begg and he used this example: Pink Floyd back in 1979 released an album called The Wall which is a really depressing album to be honest and this is coming from someone who spent a large portion of his high school years being obsessed with Pink Floyd.

On that album they had a song which I’m sure many of you are familiar with called Uncomfortably Numb.

Do you remember how that song starts?

“Hello, hello, hello?

Is there anybody in there?

Just nod if you can hear me.

Is there anybody home?”

David Gilmour and Roger Waters are only making the statement that our hearts have been screaming our entire lives.

Is there anybody home?

Is there anybody out there?

The Gospel is Good News for the Desperate

What we see in Exodus 2:23-24 are the desperate prayers and the desperate pleas of the People of God.

I have heard it put like this: The Gospel is good news but it is only good news to the broken down and desperate man.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I have heard preachers attempt to win people to the Gospel by saying, “God is going to use your grime, your dirt, your talents, your gifts, to make something wonderful out of you.”

That’s a good sentiment but that isn’t the Gospel.

If all I need for salvation is to bring God the best of what is already in me, why should I even bother coming if I have everything I already need?

No, the best thing that we can bring to God are dirty, unrighteous rags and unless God clothes us with the righteousness of Christ, the only thing those rags will earn us is an eternity in hell!

The Gospel is very good news!

But it will only be good news for you if you are truly desperate.

Are you desperate in your prayer life?

Some of the greatest prayers that we can pray are the ones that are signed by our tears.

One does not need to look too far into Scripture to see that suffering is always there and prayers are often soaked in tears and desperation.

Look at the life of Job, look at the prayers of Hannah, look at the life of Joseph, look at the life of David and in the Psalms.

Does the inclusion of suffering in Scripture indicate that God is indifferent or unaware of suffering?

By no means!

Look at David and look at Psalm 39.

Do you know how that Psalm ends?

Psalm 39:12-13 says, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears!

For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers.

Look away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more!”

Do you see what David is saying?

I mentioned it in the second service a little last week, David is saying, “God, leave me alone so that I can have some peace and smile again!”

This is the man that is called a man after God’s own heart!

We don’t even have time to look at Psalm 88 but it is the most depressing Psalm in the entire book.