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I. THE NOTION THAT GOD CANNOT HEAR OR SEE IS PERNICIOUS. We perceive that men who talked in this godless fashion were proud. Hence the prayer, "Lift up Thyself, Thou Judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud." Pride is very apt to grow great when knowledge is small, and reverence is absent. Proud language usually goes with profane talk and blasphemous ideas; for it comes of the same kindred. "How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves? .... Their tongue walketh through the earth," saith David. No bounds can be set to the evil perambulations of an atheistic tongue. Not even heaven itself is free from the assaults of its pride. They slander God Himself, because they imagine that He does not hear. Nor is this the end of the mischief. When the fear of God is taken away from men, they frequently proceed to persecute His servants. "They break in pieces Thy people, O Lord, and afflict Thine heritage." If they cannot get at the leader, if they cannot smite the shepherd, they will at least worry the flock. "They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless." Take God away, and what a place this world would be! Without religion our earth would soon become a huge Aceldama, a field of blood. A world without God is a world without fear, without law, without order, without hope. Note well, that if we were persuaded that God did not hear, and did not see, there would be an end of worship. Would there not? Could you worship a deaf God? Nor is this all: it seems to me that there is, to a large extent, an end of the moral sense. If there be no God to punish sin, then every man will do as seemeth right in his own eyes; and why should he not?

II. THE NOTION THAT GOD CANNOT SEE AND HEAR IS AN ABSURD NOTION. The very idea of hearing seems to me to necessitate that He who conceived the idea, was Himself able to hear. He could not have borrowed the idea, for there was no other being but Himself in the beginning: whence took He the thought, but from His own Being? He that invented the idea, also planned the way by which hearing would become possible. What an intellect was that which forged the link between matter and mind, so that the movements of particles of air, and the impression made by these upon the drum of the ear should turn into the impressions upon mind and heart! And can you believe that this marvellous instrument for hearing was made by a deaf God, or a dead God, or an impersonal power; or that it came into existence through "a fortuitous concourse of atoms"? But even if you had an ear made — and I suppose that it would be no very great difficulty to fashion, in wax, or some other substance, an exact resemblance to an ear — could you produce hearing then? God alone gives the life which hears. That particular point in which motion is translated into audible sound — where is that? There is a spiritual something — the true man, and this it is which God makes. Do you know yourself? Could you put your finger on yourself? Oh, no; that mystic being, that strange, half Godlike existence, the soul, is not within the range of our senses. He that made the soul, has He no soul? Can He not hear?

III. THAT GOD HEARS HIS OWN MUST BE ESPECIALLY CERTAIN, from the very argument of the text. "Why?" say you. Why, because they have new and spiritual ears, and they have God-given spiritual eyes; and He that planted the spiritual ear, shall He not hear? And He that formed the spiritual eye, shrill He not see? Do you imagine that if God has given us the grace to hear His voice, He will not hear us when we lift up our voices to Him? Rather let us each one say, "I will hear what .God the Lord will speak; for He will speak peace unto His people and to His saints." He has created in the minds of some of you a sense of need, and will He not pity you? You were not hungry for mercy; you were not thirsty for righteousness till His Spirit came and gave you life, and with that life the soul-hunger. Will He not satisfy the hunger He creates? Will He not fulfil the desire He has implanted? In addition to this, He makes us long after holiness; will He not work it in us? Does your child pine to be good, and can you help him to be good, and will you not do so? To the ear which God has enabled to hear His call the Lord will lend His own ear to hear prayer. He that makes us long for purity will work it in us.

IV. A BELIEF WHAT GOD HEARS AND SEES HAS A VERY BENEFICIAL TENDENCY UPON THOSE WHO FIRMLY HOLD IT. It works good in a thousand ways. Time would fail me to recount a tithe of them. It may suffice to take a thought or two, and turn the matter over in our minds. If we feel that God sees and hears, what an incentive it is to do right, and to be valiant for the truth! Soldiers will play the man in the presence of their prince. If our Lord looks on, what will we not do and dare? The same sense of His presence will act as a check to any and every deed of sin. We cannot indulge the thought of evil when the Lord Himself hears that thought. Does the Lord look on, and shall I sin in His Divine presence? It acts grandly as a preservative against the desire of applause and the fear of man. He who knows assuredly that God hears him will speak the truth though all the world should listen, or though no one but God should hear him. The assurance that God sees and hears is a wonderful care-killer. Why should I be anxious? If the Lord knows our soul in adversity, and if His eye is ever upon us, are we not safe? And, oh, how this will tend to promote your fellowship with God! How we love Him who heareth us always! Since He is always seeing us, we learn to see Him.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?

WEB: He who implanted the ear, won't he hear? He who formed the eye, won't he see?