If We Cry Out… - Proverbs 2:3
Intro.: We have focused on the first “if” of Proverbs 2: Receiving, Treasuring, Inclining & Applying. Now we’re ready to move on to the second “if”. We’ll find that this 2nd level is more aggressive. 1st we were called to “silence”. Now, we’re commanded to “cry out” & “lift up our voices”. Our silence before God captures His attention & brings Him pleasure in response to obedience. “Crying out” stirs something up in the heart of God. It moves God to action on our behalf. 100’s of times throughout the Psalms, David cried out to God & called the people to do the same. READ: Psalm 18:6-7
Hunger to be filled with Holiness, Holy thoughts and Holy Spirit
Man has is both physical and spiritual part, wise people make relentless defeatless efforts to grow their spirits in Truth and Righteousness in preparation for eternal Life. You make so much effort growing the ephemeral physical part of you; you got admitted into the university because you hungered for education, you work to make money, strive to find Love. Yet, do you sincerely thirst and hunger to grow your spiritual eternal part (the physical is dead without it)
A. Spiritual hunger is the currency of heaven
1. Salvation is a completely free gift
2. It is based entirely on what Jesus did and it cannot be earned
B. Spiritual hunger is key to receiving deep things of the Kingdom
1. I am NOT saying that we can earn intimacy with God
2. But receiving deep knowledge requires a certain heart posture
3. Building a relationship requires both time and effort
a. It also requires both giving and receiving
NOTE: As in any relationship, a level of trustworthiness must be achieved before God will release to us the deep things of His heart. A desire for information won’t achieve this. We must long to know what moves the heart of God so that we might bring Him pleasure.
QUOTE: John G. Lake wrote, “God’s purposes come to pass when your heart and mine gets the real God cry, and the real God prayer comes into our spirit and the real God yearning gets in to our nature. Something is going to happen then… It becomes the supreme desire of your soul, the paramount issue – all the powers and energies of your spirit, of your souls and of your body are reaching out and crying to God for the answer. It is going to come, it is going to come, it is going to come.”
C. Have you ever seen hungry people or ever been hungry yourself
1. Real hunger turns people into savages
2. Hunger makes us unreasonable, dangerous and miserable…
3. Yet, hunger also makes us completely focused & determined
NOTE: Jesus said that people who are hungry should be envied, because their cry will be answered, their hunger will be satisfied.
II. God’s Response to Hunger
NOTE: The people in the following Bible references were desperate. They were starving for God. They did not have a plan “B” when they came to Jesus. They were truly hungry.
A. The Canaanite Woman – Matthew 15:22-28
1. A gentile women, desperate for her daughter’s healing
2. She repeatedly cries out to Jesus and His disciples
3. Three separate times she pressed Jesus for a miracle
4. Even when the door seemed shut, she kept knocking
5. Jesus tested & proved her genuine hunger
a. First, He ignored her
b. Then He told her He was sent to the Jews, not the Gentiles

See what the Mighty Creator (the eternal Owner and Controller) of Heaven and Earth emphatically says in Matthew 5:6

God bless you for this