I will look unto the Lord (taken with Isaiah 66:2)
The two looks
Man is a creature requiring help.
Where is he to look?
I. Man’s look.
1. Personal--“I.” Whatever it may cost, whoever else will not, I will.
2. Reliance--“unto.” In weakness, confusion, difficulty I will look unto the Lord.
3. Object--“the Lord.” Jehovah. He is able, willing, has promised to help.
II. God’s look.
1. God has promised to look to, i.e., after. “I will.” It is look is one of power, and it means help and protection.
2. Object--poor--needy. “Him that hath no helper” applies both to temporal and spiritual concerns of God’s people.
3. Contrite--repentant. Applies to spiritual condition: one humbled on account of sin; sorrowful, returning one.
4. Trembles at My Word. Not as Felix, but one who has reverence for it, tries to keep it, fears to break it. To Him will I look. Others may despise and disregard Him, but I will look to (after) Him. Let us look to God, and God will look to us (John R. Taft, M. A.)
The Church looking and waiting for the Lord
If you survey the human race you will find among them numberless differences. They differ in their condition, in their complexion, their stature, speech, apparel, manners. Yet there is a great resemblance among them too. The things in which they agree are far more important than those in which they differ. The resemblance regards what is essential in human nature; the variety is what is accidental only. This is an image of the Church of God. Differences in opinions, speculations, discipline, religious usages, forms and ceremonies, only concern the dress of religion; the body is essentially the same. In every ago of the world, under every dispensation of society, God’s people have been the same, their wants the same, their dependence the same, their tastes the same, their principles the same. Resolution rashly formed in our own strength not only fails, but often proves a snare to the soul. Resolution made in reliance on the power of Divine grace will be found serviceable to remind us, to humble us, to stimulate us, and to bind us. Thus resolution will resemble a hedge round a meadow, to keep the cattle from straying; and the hemming of a garment, to keep the threads from ravelling out.
I. To whom does the resolution of this text refer? The Lord. This term, Lord, is characterised by the Church in two ways. The one regards God’s work for them; the other, His relation to them. The Church calls Him “the God of their salvation.” And so He is, in every sense of the word. Every kind of deliverance is from Him. He is the preserver of men. But there is a deliverance that is emphatically called “salvation”; a deliverance from the wrath to come, from the powers of darkness, from the tyranny of the world, from the slavery of sin,--from all its remains and its consequences. Of this salvation, the purpose, the plan, the execution, the application, and the consummation are of God and of grace. The Church also calls Him her God. “My God will hear me.” “This is not too much for any Christian to utter. Every Christian has a much greater propriety in God than he has in anything else; indeed, there is nothing else that is his own. As He is really, so God is to us eternally and unchangeably. The relation between God and us, so as to authorise us to call Him ours, results from two things: donation on our side, and dedication on ours.
II. By what is this resolution excited? “Therefore.” Read the preceding verses. The prophet turned away from creatures, knowing that they were broken cisterns, cisterns that could hold no water. A designed experience this is, and not a casual one (so to speak) on God’s side. God is concerned for our welfare, infinitely more than we are ourselves, and therefore He does not wait for our application, but He excites it. It is a necessary experience on our part. We have a strong propensity to make flesh our arm and earth our home. It is the privilege of the real Christian, that he knows to whom he can go in the hour of distress; that though all be rough under foot, all, when he looks up, is clear overhead.
III. What does the resolution include? Two things--prayer and patience. Looking to Him is seeking Him in prayer. You should look to Him--
1. For explanation under your affliction.
2. For support in your trouble.
3. For sanctification.
4. For deliverance.
And you are to “wait.” Waiting supposes some delay in God’s appearance on the behalf of His people. These delays have always been common.
IV. What is it that sustains this relation? It is confidence in God as the hearer and answerer of prayer. According to some, the success of prayer is confined entirely to its exercise and influence. But we can recognise actual interpositions and benedictions. If a man prays aright, he will believe that God does something in answer to his prayer. (William Jay.)
Faith and hope in God
The Lord Jehovah is a never-failing source of consolation to His believing people. In Him, therefore, they put their trust, and receive ample supplies of mercy and grace in every time of need. In the preceding verses Micah addresses the few who were pious among them by way of caution, against treacherous friendships and creature confidence, and by way of encouragement, to trust solely in the Saviour of Israel for preservation and deliverance. The words of the text announce--
I. The prophet’s resolution. “I will look unto the Lord,” etc. This pious determination was evidently the result of eminent wisdom and prompt decision of character; it discovers a devout and gracious state of mind, and regards both the--
1. Active character of faith. Looking is a vigorous act of the mind. This vital principle includes a full renunciation of self-dependence; an implicit confidence in the Divine perfections and promises; and an entire devotion of the heart and life to His service.
2. The patient exercise of hope. “I will wait for the God of my salvation.” Genuine faith is invariably productive of practical piety. If we believe in God we shall delight in waiting upon Him in fervent devotion, and waiting for Him in earnest expectation. Waiting for the Lord is not a suspension of mental activity, nor a cessation of personal exertion; it is a lively exercise of the mind, ardently desiring and diligently seeking the blessings of salvation in all the duties and ordinances of the Gospel. We must wait for God humbly, believingly, faithfully, patiently, and perseveringly, in all the means of His appointment.
II. The prophet’s confidence. “My God, the God of my salvation.” This is the language of humble assurance. Genuine religion is its own evidence. It is attended with an internal witness of its personal enjoyment.
1. The inestimable portion claimed--“My God.” It is the distinguishing promise of the new covenant, “I will be your God, and ye shall be My people.” This is happily realised in the experience of all the saints. God is not only theirs in the natural relations of creation and preservation; but He is also theirs by the special engagements of His covenant and the benefits of salvation.
2. The unspeakable privilege enjoyed. “The God of my salvation.” The prophet had obtained mercy of the Lord, and was a partaker of His saving influence. But he still believingly waited for the progressive and perfect accomplishment of the work which He had already begun. Thus all the righteous are subjects of present salvation, and heirs of eternal life.
III. The prophet’s encouragement. “My God will hear me.” This persuasion afforded him inexpressible consolation. The rebellious Jews rejected his message; but he rejoiced to know that his God would propitiously hear and answer his pious devotions. He was encouraged by--
1. His communion with God. Fellowship with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ, is the exalted privilege of all His people. They not only deem it their bounden duty, but they also esteem it their highest honour, to address the God of all grace.
2. His expectation from God. “My God will hear me.” He was not presumptuous in his confidence, nor enthusiastic in his anticipation. He relied on Scripture promises. He had the evidence of experience. The promises and goodness of God should excite our confidence, and promote gratitude and praise. Let us, then, consider the folly of trusting in the world for happiness, and the necessity of looking to God for salvation. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Looking unto God, and waiting for Him
Here is a general ground of encouragement.
1. The Lord makes use of troublesome and declining times to drive His people the more to their duty and thrift.
2. There is in God sufficient matter of encouragement to counterbalance any difficulty or discouragement that His people meet with in the world. Looking unto the Lord is an all-sufficient remedy to keep them from being carried away in a declining time, and from discouragement in a sad time.
3. In declining and sad times the people of God ought to be most earnest in dealing with Him, defending on Him, and expecting His help. Lukewarm dealing with God, however it may please fools in a calm day, yet will not bear out in a time of public defection.
4. In the reeling and turning upside down of things here below the people of God are not so much to look to these uncertainties as unto the immutability of God in what He is to His people.
5. With our faith and ardency in expecting God’s help, patient waiting is also to be conjoined, by keeping His way, notwithstanding difficulties or delays of deliverance, and resolving to have faith exercised before it get the victory.
6. In all the waiting of the people of God upon Him there is still hope and confidence, though it be not always seen to the waiter; for the same word in the original signifies both waiting and hoping. (George Hutcheson.)
Pious’ resolves
1. These are the words of one who was saddened, and chafed, and perplexed. The depravities of society, its treacheries, its selfishness, and its furious lust overpowered all faith but faith in God, and compelled, through a terrible discipline, and yet a gracious one, to that Christlike attitude of perfect resignation and perfect devotion and perfect hope depicted by the text. The feeling expressed is one of personal devotion and social separation.
2. When the oppressions of sin beat down the soul, and the burden on the conscience is heavy; when convictions lacerate and fears overwhelm, and the heart is agonised with the apprehension of the wrath of an angry God; when man is wearied and distracted with the world and sin, wondrous is the change to purity, freedom, and peace, when the vow of the prophet can formulate the soul’s aspirations as in the text.
3. When man is converted and saved, the spiritual occupation of his new life is a looking, a waiting, and a praying; that occupation is permeated with hope and perpetuated by faith, and the certainties of a glorious issue illumine the path and lighten the soul.
4. No one can say “My God” who cannot also say “My God will hear me.” Every saved soul prays. There is a necessary connection, in virtue of an essential law of the spiritual life, between the “receiving of the atonement” and the offering up of our desires unto God.
5. Those who are saved were, in the language of Scripture, “lost.” Their salvation is the work of the Lord. Their Redeemer is the Deity.
6. The words, God of my salvation, My God,” indicate the exercise of that appropriating faith by which we “lay hold on the hope set before us” in the everlasting Gospel. (T. Easton.)
My God will hear me--
Our assuring confidence
Faith is “the victory that overcometh the world.” God is the object of that faith; His Word is the ground upon which it rests, and confidence and peace and assurance forever are its invariable fruits. When confiding in God, the soul intrenches itself in God; it is unassailable from within or from without; it can triumph over the most adverse circumstances, and cling to the everlasting rock amidst the swellings of the angriest sea. Nothing ought at any time to shake our confidence in God. No ground for distrust in God can possibly exist. It is well, when faith’s trial comes, to be prepared with some great standard truth to which we may hold fast under all circumstances. The whole teaching of Scripture assures us that confidence in God cannot be misplaced--cannot be disappointed.
I. The soul’s confidence grounded upon Deity--upon what God is. This is the highest of all grounds for confidence,--what God is in Himself, irrespective of all other considerations whatsoever. There is no deficiency of resources in Him; God is all-sufficiency. No want of inclination in Him; He is all goodness. All His attributes attest Him to be altogether qualified for the supply of our need, and His promises absolutely pledge Him to supply the need of all those who seek unto Him.
II. The soul’s confidence is here grounded on relationship to God. “My God will hear me.” It is the province of faith to appropriate God, as much as it is the province of faith to believe in His existence. The only revelation God gives us of Himself in His Word has reference to the offices He sustains for His people, and the relation He bears to poor sinners.
III. The soul’s confidence is founded also on the promise, “My God will hear me.” It is not a question, Will God hear me? “My God will hear me.” The same word in the Hebrew that signifies God hears, signifies also God answers. Whensoever we call, God will hear. Howsoever we call, God will hear. A look is a prayer; a desire is a prayer. And there is the personal element in the assurance--“the Lord will hear me.” (Marcus Rainsford.)
A sweet silver bell ringing in each believer’s heart
“My God shall hear me.” What a charming sentence! There is more eloquence in that sentence than in all the orations of Demosthenes. It is a choice song for a lone harp.
I. The title. “My God.” It is not God alone, but God in covenant with me, to whom I look for help. To call Him “My God” means election and selection. “My God” supposes an appropriation of faith. “My God” signifies knowledge and acquaintance. “My God” implies an embrace of love. “My God” implies that the obedience of your life is rendered to Him most cheerfully. A man cannot call God his God in truth unless he desires to obey Him. And the phrase “My God” hints at a joy and delight in Him.
II. The argument. The title contains within itself a secret logical force. As surely as He is my God He will hear me. Why?--
1. Because He is God, the living and true God: The oracles of the heathen are but liars. Those who sought unto the false gods did but dote upon falsehoods. You see in what a tone of confidence this prophet speaks; and why should not every child of God speak with the same confidence? There let it stand like a column of brass,--though all things else should fail, God must hear prayer. He may do this, and He may do that, but He must hear prayer.
2. Because He has made Himself my God He will hear me. He has given Himself to be my God.
3. Because my God has heard me so many times. Therefore, be it far from me to doubt His present and future favour.
4. Because in the covenant His hearing prayer is included.
5. Because if He did not hear prayer, He would Himself be a great loser.
III. The favour. “My God will hear me.” It is better for us to have a promise that God will hear us, than a promise that God will always answer us. If it were a matter of absolute fact that God would always answer the prayers of His people as they present them, it would be an awful truth. The text means that He will hear me--
1. As a listener.
2. As a friend, full of sympathy.
3. As a judge patiently hears a case.
4. As a helper.
IV. The person. “My God will hear me.” Will He hear you? Are you cast down under a sense of sin; persecuted; or disappointed? Be sure that God will hear you. If any mall wills to have God to be his God, grace is given him so that He will. If you desire Christ, you may have Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Keep on the outlook
A beautiful little book, entitled “Expectation Corners,” tells of a king who prepared a city for some of his poor subjects. Not far from them were large storehouses where everything they could need was supplied, if they but sent in their requests. But on one condition--they should be on the lookout for the answer, so that when the king’s messengers came with the answer to their petitions they should always be found waiting and ready to receive them. The sad story is told of one desponding one who never expected to get what he asked, because he was too unworthy. One day he was taken to the king’s storehouses, and there, to his amazement, he saw, with his address on them, all the packages that had been made up for him, and sent. There was the garment of praise and the oil of joy and the eye salve, and so much more; they had been to his door, but found it closed; he was not on the outlook. From that time on he learnt the lesson Micah would teach us: “I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” (Andrew Murray.)