Ex 2:23, Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. 
We have begun our consideration into the fact that God hears and responds when we call out to Him. He hears us in our trials and He hears us in our worship and praise. This is a tremendous truth that we often forget in our daily walk on this earth. It is a sad indication that, so often in counseling, I am told, by well-meaning Christians, that they have sought the advice of this person or that friend or brought their issues before family members for answers and for help. Yet, in the explanation of what is going on, there will be no mention of crying out to the Lord in prayer and supplication for Him to be the answer and the Savior.
It seems that we are often so much in need of someone to hear our complaints and our frustration that we will talk to anyone around us who will listen to us. Yet, sadly, we do not call out to the Only One Who is the ready and effective means of every excellent and perfect answer. In the course of our need for immediate gratification, we do not take the time or the effort or the energy or have the trust to call out to the Lord. We may even stubbornly refuse to lay our burdens and our cares and our troubles upon Him, along with our heart-felt acknowledgment that He is the One in control of our lives.  
It may well be that, at the core of our trouble and strife, is the idea that we are able to handle everything by ourselves without submitting it to the Hand of God thereby allowing Him the willing freedom to operate effectively. We feel that to do so is to give up the control of our lives and that we stubbornly refuse to do. We practice pride and self-deception in the lie that we can have everything under our control. We refuse to accede to the reality that God is the One Who rules and overrules in all the affairs of mankind, including even our seemingly pitiful and puny complaints and tribulations.
The fact, however, is that God desires for us to call out to Him so that He can help and rescue us from, of all things, our selves. We are our own worst enemies in the every aspect of what this means. We are the ones who know the least about what is good for our lives as they are hid in Jesus Christ. In His loving and kind and merciful response to our cries, He will prove that He does know what is the best and most blessed course of our deliverance. That will always be a complete deliverance from our own sense of self-righteousness and self-will and pride.
It seems evident that we turn to God as our last resort, after we have tried everything else and talked to everyone else who will listen to us. After we have searched out every other course of advice and counsel, and failed miserably, then we will turn to God. We will cry unto Him to do something to get us out of the ever deepening pit of self-pity into which we have willing thrown ourselves.
	Let us, together, continue to encourage ourselves to seek God first and foremost as we look at how He so willingly and effectively responds to the calls of His people as they cry out to Him in their anguish and distress. We pick up this wonderful reality as we read in the Book of Judges. Judg 2:18, And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. 
	The nation of Israel was in the Promised Land, but they had not fully obeyed the Lord in the manner in which they should have completely separated themselves from the nations around them. They were to destroy completely those elements of the inhabitants of the land that were anathema in the sight of God. But, rather than wholeheartedly following the command of God, they took unto themselves what they perceived as the best of the other nations, thus determining that they would have a constant struggle with the people surrounding them. They were continually attacked and abused by those other nations. However, every time they called out to the Lord in their affliction, God would raise up a judge to relieve their pain and anguish. 
	He reminded them of this later in Judg 10:11+12, And the Lord said to the sons of Israel, "Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the sons of Ammon, and the Philistines? "Also when the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you, you cried out to Me, and I delivered you from their hands. God was faithful in hearing all their cries and in responding with His saving grace and deliverance from each of the nations of their oppression. 
	As the period of God’s deliverance through the judges came to an end, the people once more cried out to God, but this time it was for a king. The people’s hearts turned away from God as their ruler and they sought to be just like the other nations of the earth. They rejected God’s sovereignty in favor of the sovereignty of one like as themselves. God heard this cry after being just like the other nations of the earth, and answered that cry with the kingship of Saul. 
	This is recounted in 1 Sam 9:16, when God directed Samuel as to who would become the king of the people’s desire. "About this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over My people Israel; and he shall deliver My people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have regarded My people, because their cry has come to Me." That cry was answered because God was working to establish His eternal kingdom. There would be a vast number of earthly kings, mostly those who were evil in the sight of God until, through the kingly lineage of David, the One would be brought forth Who would become our King, Our Lord, Our Savior for ever and forever. While the people clamored for what they considered to be an earthly ruler, God responded with the One Who rules for eternity in the perfection of the Heart and the Spirit of God.
	The Prophet Nehemiah was given the vision of what God was doing by His so great deliverance as we will read in several passages of Chapter nine. Neh 9:9+10, "Thou didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, And didst hear their cry by the Red Sea. "Then Thou didst perform signs and wonders against Pharaoh, Against all his servants and all the people of his land; For Thou didst know that they acted arrogantly toward them, And didst make a name for Thyself as it is this day. 
	The first thing to realize is that all that God did, in hearing the cries of His People and in His divine deliverance, at the very beginning of the establishment of the nation of His Chosen Ones was to show just how much He loved and regarded them as worthy of His attention. God made it very evident, throughout all His dealings with His people that they were a special nation, peculiar unto Himself. He called them by His own name and dealt with all those nations who oppressed and harassed them. This nation was going forth in the name of God because God put His name upon them and not vice versa. He made them to be known as the people of God because He called them unto Himself.
	Then we read the following in Neh 9:27, "Therefore Thou didst deliver them into the hand of their oppressors who oppressed them, But when they cried to Thee in the time of their distress, Thou didst hear from heaven, and according to Thy great compassion Thou didst give them deliverers who delivered them from the hand of their oppressors. 
	The Prophet is shown the fact that God deals with His people out of His so great compassion for them. No matter what the people did, God was compassionate with them. He dealt with them in the manner in which they would learn that to call out to God would bring His perfect and manifest deliverance into their midst. Many times, it took the oppressors to cause them to seek after the heart of God. They would lose themselves in their misery and distress until they remembered that God was for them and would respond as they sought Him.
	This is the exact thing that took place even as the nation of Israel rejected God as their king. They forgot that He was dealing with them in His righteous compassion and love and they turned away from Him. He still responded and He did so with His complete heart of compassionate love in the eventual giving of His Only Begotten Son. Jesus is our eternal deliverance, not only from our earthly nature of sin and death, but from our own self exaltation and self-righteous endeavors to be as gods unto ourselves which was the core lust of our walk on this earth. God is compassionate beyond measure to show us, in no uncertain terms, that He, Alone, is the One Who is to have that place in our hearts and beings. 
	The Psalmist carries forward in this line of reality in Ps 12:5-7, "Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy, Now I will arise," says the Lord; "I will set him in the safety for which he longs." The words of the Lord are pure words; As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times. Thou, O Lord, wilt keep them; Thou wilt preserve him from this generation forever. 
	There is truth and reality in the evidence of the work of God as He makes Himself known in answer to our calls. He has a heart after those who are afflicted and devastated and needy. He does not disregard those of lowly estate and being, but makes Himself known in ever increasing purity and certainty as He responds to every need. He keeps them and preserves them in His so open and empathetic and kindhearted consideration of the weak and the sick and the poor and the homeless and the barren and the afflicted and the orphan and the widow, to mention but a few of those to whom God’s heart is manifested as they call out to Him.
	The Psalmist knew this place of distress and the manner of God’s attentive response as we read in Ps 18:6. In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears. This is not some longing that God might hear when the Psalmist cried out in his misery and distress. This is a statement of fact and of praise unto God for the verity that these cries of anguish and fear and distress and earnest seeking of help were heard and answered by the Lord God Almighty! This is the declaration that God hears and responds from heaven.
	The Psalmist further declares this magnificent heart of God in Ps 22:5, To Thee they cried out, and were delivered; In Thee they trusted, and were not disappointed. He points out the fact that those who call out to God in earnest need and faith will be heard and never let down, or disappointed, or frustrated, or ignored. God is faithful and true to hear and to save everyone who calls out to Him in earnest desire for His working deliverance. This is valid from the point of beseeching Him for salvation all the way through to the very last breath that we take on this earth. God will never disappoint! 
	He may not answer in the way that we want Him to answer, but He does hear and He does answer every prayer, every call, every cry after His heart! He responds with the perfect means of salvation and comfort and peace as He is compelled to do through His divine essence of faithfulness and lovingkindness. As it often is with us, as with children, He knows what is the best response and manner of answering our every cry unto Him. 
	Going back to the people’s call for a king, what they thought they wanted was met with the evident differences in what an earthly king would accomplish and what the heart of the Lord would do through His Christ. The kingdom of God, with the Lordship of Jesus, is so far beyond the scope of comparison to any earthly sovereign. While God seemingly gave them what they wanted in order to be like the rest of the nations, what He truly gave to His people was an eternally perfect King Who is the very Being of Justice and Truth and Holiness and Peace and Security and everlasting salvation.    
Rev 22:3-5, And there shall no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His bond-servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall no longer be any night; and they shall not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall illumine them; and they shall reign forever and ever. 
	We will never be disappointed as we trust in God to answer our every cry unto Him! As we began this morning with the fact that we are to call out to God in our every time of need and distress, so are we to call out to Him in the expectation and the unshakable knowledge that as He hears our every cry. He will always respond in the manner that is for our best. He will prove His love and His grace and His compassion for us, His beloved. Because He is Omnipotent and Omniscient and Omnipresent, we can fully trust Him to be our every answer in every situation and circumstance in which we find ourselves. So be it!
Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is 2 Cor 13:14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.