"My God will hear me."—Micah 7:7.

HAT a charming sentence! Can you say it? Only five words, but what meaning! Huge volumes of poetry have appeared from Chaucer even to Tennyson; but it seems to me that the essence of poetry lies hid in a marvellously condensed form within these few words. It shall take you many an hour to suck out all their sweetness. There is an almost inconceivable depth of meaning in them: and of richness of assured experience and of sweet conclusions of a hallowed faith they are full to the brim.
"My God will hear me." There is more eloquence in that sentence than in all the orations of Demosthenes. He that can speak thus can say more than if he were able to declare truthfully that all worlds were his own; for he grasps God himself, and holds the present and the future in the hollow of his hand.
"My God will hear me." It is prophetic; but the prophet has taken upon himself no unusual power, neither does he intend his prophecy to be true of himself alone. He puts this divine sentence into the mouth of every believer; every child of God may dare to say that his God will hear him, for he may dare to say the truth. I feel as if I could not preach from the text, and did not want to do so. It needs no aid of wit or words; for myself I would be well content to exhibit this diamond with many facets by merely holding it up and letting the light fall on it, and flash back from it in variety of brilliance.
"My God will hear me." It is a choice song for a lone harp, which is half afraid of the choir of musicians, and loves to have its strings touched in solitude. I feel as I repeat it that I want to sit down and quietly enjoy it. As I see the cows lie in the meadow quietly chewing the cud, so would I ruminate on these few but precious words. Let me hear the sounds again and again, till my tongue, learning their rhythmic melody, repeats as matter of habitual delight the assurance "My God will hear me."
A charming sentence, as I have said; but in what a queer place we find it! Just as they find gold in the dark mine, and as we see stars in the black night, so do we find these rich words in the midst of floods of grief and woe. The man of God is pricked and torn by the briars of the age in which he travels; he is vexed and wearied with the bribery and corruption all around him; he cannot find peace either at home or abroad,—nay, not even in the bosom of her whom he loves. He is everywhere disquieted and driven to and fro; and yet it is just at that time that he cries, "My God will hear me." From this I gather—and I gather it not from this alone, but from my own personal experience—that it is generally when things are at the worst that we know most about the best. When we are disappointed of men, then become we most contented with our God. When earth-born springs are dry, then the eternal fountain-heads flow more freely than ever, and as we drink of them our soul is more satisfied than ever it had been before. God is good when goods are fewest. Heaven is warmest when earth is coldest. It is a great blessing for you, dear friend, that, you can say, "My God will hear me." I do not mind much about your surroundings; they may be grievous and trying; but if they have helped to bring you to this pass, that you have a solid confidence that God will hear you, I congratulate you upon the priceless consequences, even though I may condole with you for the sufferings that have brought them to you. We do not weep over the mud which bespatters the gold-digger when he finds his nugget, neither will we fret over the affliction which makes God to be more precious to our friend.
Again, come back to the short and sweet sentence of the text, and may it be inexpressibly delightful to our hearts while we meditate upon it for a while. "My God will hear me."
I. The first thing I shall note at this time is THE TITLE. This is the bottom of the whole text really, the true foundation of the confidence which is expressed in it. The title is "my God": it is not God alone, but God in covenant with me, to whom I look for help. I shall be heard by "my God."
I am afraid that some of you will have to draw back a little from the text at the very commencement. As I remarked the other day, to say there is a God is not much. It is the same as to say, there is a bank; but there may be a bank, and you may be miserably poor. There certainly is a God, but that God may be no source of comfort to you. The joy of the whole thing lies in that word "my." "My God will hear me."
Begin then with the enquiry, put to your own soul,—Can I truly think of God, and call him "my God"? If so, that means election and selection. There were many gods in the day of the prophet Micah; at least, men spoke as if there were. Men talked of this god, and of that, and each nation had its own peculiar deity, and each man walked in the name of his god, and gloried in it. But the prophet in effect says of Jehovah, the one living and true God, the God that made heaven and earth—"This God is my God. Others may worship gods of wood, or of stone, or of silver, or of gold; but as for me, my heart shall only worship the great Invisible, whom none hath seen, to whom none can approach. The eternal Creator alone will I adore."
Now every man at this present time has a god. Alas, how many make their belly their god! The golden calf is never without its crowds of devoted worshippers. Gods to-day are as numerous in England as in any heathen country: let me then ask,—have you taken the God who is your Maker, your Preserver, your Redeemer to be the great object of your life? That is your god which rules your nature—that which is your motive power—that for which you live. Do you live for Jehovah as your God, or are you only living for yourself or for some temporary end and purpose? Will the object of your life die with your dying, and be buried in your grave? Or can you say unto the living God, "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee. Thou art my God for ever and ever: thou shalt be my guide even unto death!" If so, it supposes your election of this God beyond every other; and I put it to you—is this election made? and made once for all? Can you cry with Joshua, "As for me and my house we will serve Jehovah"? Is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ your God for all time? Be it so; you shall never regret the choice.
"My God,"—that supposes an appropriation by faith. Have you taken Jehovah to be your God? Have you made bold to take him for your very own? In the covenant of grace God gives over to his people himself, and all that he is, and all that he has, by a covenant of salt. As the believer becomes God's portion, so the Lord becomes the believer's portion. He declares himself to be ours and puts himself at our disposal, exercising a boundless condescension of love in so doing. Our part in it is, that we do accept this covenant gift, and by an act of faith say, "This which God gives me, I, unworthy though I be, do freely accept. Though I deserve it not, yet as he has given himself to me, I, with gladness, receive him, to be my God, my portion, world without end." Well do I remember the joyous day when first my heart took this possession to herself. It had appeared to be like a land of fire and terror, and I desired it not; but when the Spirit of God had instructed and renewed me, then I perceived that God was as the land of Goshen—ay, as the land of Canaan, that floweth with milk and honey; ay, as the land Beulah, where the sun goes no more down for ever, where all is joy, and peace, and love; yea, as heaven itself, for God is the very soul, and center, and source, and fullness of bliss. My heart annexed this blessed territory with trembling joy; yea, she seemed to have no other possession left except her God. From that hour she grew rich and remained so. What is there more for me but my God? How can I go an inch beyond "my God, my heaven, my all"? Now, beloved hearer, have you thus appropriated the Eternal God to be your own? Can you say to-day, "First and foremost among my possessions is my God. I will not say that I have this and that, and ever so many other things, but I will sing, 'My God, thou art mine!' Perhaps I could not say that I have much of this world's goods, but I have the highest Good. If I have not all, yet I have the All-in-All, who is more than all, and he is everything to my spirit "? I trust you can say "my God," first, by your choice of him; and, secondly, by your appropriation of him through faith. Wherever this is the case it is the work of the Spirit of God, and he must have our reverent love for thus enriching us.
"My God,"—this signifies knowledge and acquaintance. Does it not? For unless the words are meaningless, you know who it is that you are talking of, and you have had some acquaintance with him, and dealings with him. If I say, "So-and-so is my friend," I give you to understand that I know him; and if I say, "Jehovah is my God," I profess that I know him and have fellowship with him. You remember the inscription which Paul discovered upon an altar at Athens, "To the unknown God." I would not have you worship there, my brother; but I would have you understand that word of the apostle, "After that ye had known God, or rather were known of God." There is an intimate knowledge subsisting between God and his people. "The Lord knoweth them that are his," and all his people know him, so that among them no one has need to say to his brother, Know the Lord, for they all know him, from the least even to the greatest.
Now, what knowest thou of God? Hast thou ever spoken with him? Has he spoken to thee? Hast thou told him thy secrets? Has he revealed himself to thee, as it is written, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant"? Now, I am not talking about fancies. If any of you deem this to be fanciful, it is because you are strangers to the covenant of promise; but I am speaking now to a people who know more than I can tell them of what this means. As for myself, I know something of nature, and of the works of God's hands, but my soul cares little for that knowledge compared with knowing HIM. Willingly and gladly I would forget all else I know if I might but know more of him; for well am I persuaded that when old age comes on, and memory fails me, that which my soul shall hold as with a death grip, will not be historical remembrance, classical love, or theological learning, but what she knows by inward experience of the Lord her God. When the veil shall drop upon all mortal shadows, to be uplifted upon eternal realities, then my heart shall care nothing for what she knew of things terrestrial; but she shall value beyond conception what she shall then know of the Immortal, the Invisible, the only wise God, her Savior. I am sure that I am speaking to many of you who can use the expression, "My God," and mean by it that the God in whom you live and move and have your being is your friend, and your Father; that he dwells in you by the Holy Ghost, and that in him you dwell as you hide yourselves in the wounds of Christ. Oh happy men and women that can with knowledge and affection say, "My God." Unhappy you who have neither part nor lot in this matter. Your sorrows shall be multiplied which hasten after another god, for your vanities will fail you: but as for you that know the Lord, to you shall joy increase even as the growing light of the rising sun.
If you have come as far as this, I am sure that you can follow me farther by admitting that the title, "My God," implies an embrace of love. You know God as you know your child; but as you look at your boy, you cry, "My child, my child," and you mean a great deal by that, because your child is much more yours on account of the affection that you feel for him than any other possession that you have upon the face of the earth. You would lose everything else sooner than lose the darling of your bosom. The expression, "My God" has an inexpressible amount of sweet affection wrapped up in it. I delight in that line of our old Psalm: