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Our nature yearns for sympathy.

I. HOW CHEERING IS THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE TEXT.

1. It is not a mere man who says this, but God — the Creator, the Lord of life and death, the Redeemer, the Comforter.

2. When we remember that the Speaker is the Omnipresent and Omniscient God, we remember also that His knowledge is something more than man's mere knowledge of the fact. He sees the beginning and the end of an event at once; He knows all about our sorrows — whence they came, how, when, why.

3. It greatly raises our thoughts of God's condescension if we consider who these people were, and what their sorrows.

(1) They were God's people; but in men's eyes they were but a poor band of slaves, toiling day and night under hard taskmasters.

(2) Their sorrows were those which poverty and hard labour bring.

4. As God knew His people's sorrows then, so He knows ours now, however infinitely various they may be — however great, however small-whether of body, mind, or soul. The Lord Jesus knows by experience, toil, fatigue, pain, weeping, anxiety, desolation.

II. LESSONS OF COMFORT.

1. If our Lord knows our sorrows thus intimately, we may go and lay the whole before Him, assured of sympathy (Matthew 14:12).

2. If our Lord knows our sorrows, we may be sure that these sorrows are well ordered.

3. If our Lord knows our sorrows, we may be sure that He will help us in due time, and that although He seem to tarry long, He only tarries for our good.

III. LESSONS OF INSTRUCTION.

1. If God, who is love and power, knows our sorrows and permits them, though He does not willingly afflict, He must mean something by them; there is a voice in them which we should listen to. Let us ask, what does my heavenly Father mean by this affliction? What sins most beset me? What graces are most lacking in me?

2. By afflicting us, our Father means not only to correct our shortcomings, but to purify our faith.

3. God tries our patience by sorrow, for the example of others. How does the sight of a Christian sufferer cheer and strengthen his fellow-travellers on the Christian course I Let us take care that, in our time of suffering, we glorify God by our —

(1)  Calmness,

(2)  Confidence,

(3)  Patience,

(4)  Thankfulness.

4. Not only may our suffering affliction be a blessing to others as an example, but as calling forth their sympathy and love.

(S. P. C. K. Sermons.)

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KJV: And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

WEB: Yahweh said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.