God Really Cares - Part 1 of 1

The Baptist Bible Hour now comes to you under the direction of Elder LeSaire Bradley, Jr. O for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer's praise, the praise of my God and King, the triumph of His grace. This is LeSaire Bradley, Jr. inviting you to stay tuned for another message of God's sovereign grace. In shady green pastures so rich and so sweet, God meets His dear children alone. Where the waters will flow with the way everyone speaks, God meets His dear children alone. Some through the waters, some through the flood, Some through the fire brought all through the flood, Some through great sorrow, but God hears a song In the night season and all the day long.

In the night season and all the day long. We're coming now to the end of the year, and at this time many of our listeners have traditionally given a special year-end donation. That's a tremendous help to us in catching up with some of the deficits that have been incurred over the year. I hope that you can think about helping at this time. Pray the Lord to guide you as to what you may be able to give. Our address is Baptist Bible Hour, Box 17037, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217.

And you can make a donation at our website, baptistbiblehour.org. The psalmist David reached the conclusion as he wrote Psalm 142, no man cared for my soul. You may have been in that plight somewhere along the way. You were greatly discouraged. Your heart was heavy. You felt that no one understood, and basically no one cared for your soul. And then I've had people say to me when they were talking about their extreme difficulties, I really don't think God cares.

And then when a person is extremely depressed, they reach the point where they say, I don't care. Everything is in such a mess. I've been so disheartened. Friends have failed me.

My marriage is in a mess. I've tried. I've reached the point. I don't care. Now obviously to be in that frame of mind is terribly detrimental and dishonoring to God. When David said, no man cared for my soul, he then said, thou art my refuge. You're my hiding place. Sometimes it may be assumed that no one cares when that's not really the fact of the case.

But if it were to be true, you're not without a hiding place. Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. Psalm 55 verse 22 says, cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. So the Lord encourages us to cast our burden, whatever that burden may be, no matter how heavy it is, no matter how long we have tried to carry it by ourself. He says to cast the burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee. But sometimes there is a question. When a person has been traveling in the dark for a good while, when the problems of life had continued to mount, that the question is, does God care? There's a sense that God has forgotten me.

But if you have traveled that route or if you're traveling it at the moment, you're not blazing new territory. Let's look at Psalm 77. I'm going to go a little slower. Sometimes we give out a scripture reference and we're moving at a pace that it's hard for you to keep up with it.

But I'm going to go slow enough for you to look at these references that we want to talk about. Psalm 77 and the seventh verse. Will the Lord cast off forever and will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever? Doth his promise fail forevermore? Have God forgotten to be gracious? Have he in anger shut up his tender mercies?

Here then is the question. Looking at my situation, looking at how bleak the scene really is, how I don't see anything changing in a positive direction, has the Lord cast off? Will he never be favorable again?

Is his mercy clean gone? Have God forgotten to be gracious? But then verse 10. And I said, this is my infirmity, but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most high. I will remember the works of the Lord. Surely I will remember thy wonders of old.

I will meditate also of all thy work and talk of all thy doings. So Asaph recognizes that as he has raised these questions, he could not possibly come to the conclusion, yes, in fact, God has forgotten to be gracious. Yes, he has shut up his tender mercies.

He admits, I said this in my infirmity, in my haste. I hadn't thought through it all. I hadn't considered every aspect of the matter. And so we have to recognize that when we raise these questions, when we're in our seasons of doubt, feeling to be overwhelmed by the burdens of life, that to draw the conclusion that God has forgotten and God doesn't care is absolutely incorrect. Sometimes that question is raised just because we do not know what God is doing.

The way seems dark. Our circumstances are so entangled. We say, how could God be in this? We go to the promise that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord to them that love the Lord to them that are called according to his purpose and say, I know that's what it says, but I can't see it. Makes us think of the experience of Jacob. Genesis chapter 42, verse 36.

This is a difficult time. Jacob is under the impression that his well-loved son, Joseph, has been killed by a wild beast. And Jacob their father said unto them, me have ye bereaved of my children. Joseph is not and Simeon is not and you will take Benjamin away. All these things are against me. Certainly according to what he could see and understand, he had drawn a valid conclusion. Joseph is not, he's dead.

Simeon is not, he's been left back as a hostage in Egypt and now you want and now you want to take Benjamin. All these things are against me. How many times have you reached that conclusion? This is going wrong, that's going wrong, nothing's going right. All these things are against me. Now what about the fact of the matter? Were all of these things against Jacob?

Obviously not. In the first place, according to his best observation, Joseph was dead. Joseph wasn't dead. Simeon wasn't in any danger, he was in the safekeeping of Joseph. Nothing was falling apart, although it appeared to be God had something in store for Jacob.

I want to move down to Egypt where Joseph is as the prime minister. He's in charge of seeing to it that during the years of plenty that the grain is stored up and he will administer it when the famine comes. What a blessed experience, what a happy reunion when that family was gathered together once more. You see, Jacob was making this statement that all these things are against me just because he didn't have all the facts.

Haven't we sometimes made that mistake? Why did God let this situation touch my life? If God really loved me it looked like he would have spared me, he wouldn't have let this happen to me. And all the while God is at work bringing about something that is beyond our expectation, unable to imagine what God has in store and what he intends to accomplish.

The question is raised, does God really care? When it seems that our prayers are unanswered. You pray about something, you're sincere, you're zealous, you pray about it frequently, and nothing happens. Jeremiah said, book of Lamentations, this was his plight. Lamentations chapter 3 verse 8, also when I cry and shout he shutteth out my prayer.

Have you felt like that sometimes? I've been diligent, I've tried to pray with genuine zeal and fermency and it seems like I'm getting nowhere. Obviously when we start talking about prayer that appears to be unanswered there are a lot of things to look at. One is that what we're praying for may not be in keeping with God's will.

It may not be something that is biblically based. It may be that our sins and iniquities have separated between us and our God that he will not hear. But the fact is we are to pray without ceasing.

We're admonished over and over again. Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Jesus spoke the parable, the purpose of which was to teach men always to pray and not to faint.

But when we go for a long season and it appears that our prayers are not heard, the question may come to our mind, does God really care? And then just the general troubles of life. I'm sure if it was possible and people could share them without hesitation or embarrassment. And we were to ask at a Sunday morning service, let's just go down the aisle one person after another and you share with us your heaviest burdens. Your heaviest burdens. You share with us some of the complexities of your life, some of the troubles that you're encountering.

I think we would be amazed. You know people make the assumption if they're in trouble they feel like nobody else has the trouble like I do. I look at all these people that have come to worship and I sometimes observe their smiling faces and their warm handshake and I assume everything is smooth in their life.

But that often is not the case. So just the day-to-day troubles, frustrations, difficulties, things that others might not imagine would be the trouble that you're encountering. It's a heavy burden. You look at the book of Job.

Job chapter 14 verse 1. Man that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. Time moves rapidly on. Few days they pass so quickly and they're full of trouble. You come through one season of trouble and another quickly follows it. And so when the troubles press you down, you don't see an immediate solution.

You may be worked at trying to resolve some problems and they seem to just linger on and there's no immediate answer. You then ask, does God really care? Now I want us to look at several portions and I'm going to focus just on the Old Testament. Several portions of scripture that reveal to us how God really cares.

Consider the Old Testament references that confirm God cares. We turn to the book of Isaiah. Turn to the book of Isaiah chapter 49 beginning with the 14th verse. This comes when Zion, being represented to the people of God, have a complaint to make. Isaiah 49, 14. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me and my Lord hath forgotten me.

God's own people have reached that conclusion. The Lord has forsaken me. I'm so deep in the valley, I'm so far into the darkness, I just know that God has forsaken me. And then the question is raised, verse 15, can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands and thy walls are continually before me. We're often shocked even though we know it has happened numerous times, but every time you read of it again about a mother forsaking her child. Read of one not long ago where the infant was found in a dumpster, child survived, but you think what kind of a woman could take the child to which she's given birth and throw it away? God says, it's hard for us to conceive of that because the picture that comes to mind of the mother who is nursing her child is so tender that that little child is held close and it feels secure and it's being nourished and it's just a tender scene. So we would say, surely a woman could never forget her nursing child and yet some do. But God says, I will not forget you. I have graven you upon the palms of my hand, a way of depicting the situation so that we can understand there's no way God's going to forget about us. Our name is in His hand.

That's rather amazing to consider, isn't it? Sometimes you may feel that God has forgotten you because you feel to be so insignificant. Say, who am I anyway? Look back over my life and wish that I'd accomplished much more than what I've accomplished.

Look back over the way and see places where if I could redo it, I would certainly do it differently. You get frustrated with yourself. Say, if I'm frustrated with myself, what must God be? Does He not just be disgusted with me at times with my repeated failures? So you may say, surely He has forgotten me. But God says, I haven't forgotten it.

Your name is on the palm of my hand. He cares. So, the love of a mother, which is a special, tender love, is laid out before us here as a reminder that God's love is superior to that love, confirming to us that He cares. And then we go to Psalm 103 and find that in this case, He speaks of the love of a father.

While we think of the special tenderness in the love that a mother has for her child, certainly a father also loves his children dearly. He wants the best for them. He provides for them.

He wants to be an example to them. And here in this Psalm, Psalm 103 verse 10, we read, He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him.

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame.

He rememberth that we are dust. A loving father is not going to excuse a rebellious spirit in his children. He's not going to ignore their failures and their acts of disobedience because God says that the loving father will chasten as God chastens His own. But a father certainly has pity upon his children. He knows something about their struggles. He knows that they are weak in themselves. And our heavenly Father knows our frame and remembers that we are dust.

That's a consolation. How that ought to comfort us. When we feel frustrated because of our lack of spiritual progress, because of our failures, because of the times that we've promised the Lord we were going to do better and we haven't. And then to read, He knows that I'm just dust, that I'm weak, that I'm frail.

And He cares just as a father pitieth his children. And notice that He says as far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. This is an area where we sometimes are troubled. We've confessed our sins. We've looked at the promise of God. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But we come away from that confession and we don't feel forgiven. And we think back about our sins. We may have confessed them several times, but we still review them. In another place He says He cast them into the depth of the sea. Now if God has cast our sins into the depths of the sea, we don't need to dive in trying to retrieve them. If God says there's sins and iniquities I will remember no more, we don't have to try to go back in our memory and dredge them all up so that we're thinking about them again. He cares. And one last point of consideration.

We know that He cares because of what we read about in Isaiah chapter 44. Do you know that the biggest problem you have is you? You may sometimes think that it's other people, but it's not. It's you. My problem is me.

Your problem is you. And the biggest problem that each of us have to deal with is our sin. That we're sinners.

But look what He says. Isaiah 44, 22. I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins. Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee. For I have redeemed thee. If you've been redeemed, if you've been purchased, paid for, how blessed you are.

You know that He cares. Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it. Shout, ye lower parts of the earth. Break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forests, and every tree therein, for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified Himself in Israel. God really cares. So in Isaiah 55, 22, He says, cast your care on Him. And of course, that text is repeated in the book of 1 Peter.

So sometimes there's a question. Psalmist said, is His mercy cleaned on forever? Jacob said, I feel like everything's against me, because he didn't understand what was going on. Jeremiah said, I shout and cry, but he shuts out my prayer. In the book of Job, we read about the constant troubles of life. All of these things can press us down and bring us to a point of saying, does God care? But consider these Old Testament confirmations, that His love is superior to that of a woman for her nursing child, superior to that of a father.

He remembers our frame that we are but dust. He's the one that comes when mother and father have forsaken. I've talked to people who were 60 and 70 years old and still disturbed because they'd had a troubled childhood and mother and father had failed them. Think of one lady who was just so troubled. Her father was an alcoholic and it deserted the family and it made life rough. Another who said, I wanted so much one time to hear my father say, I love you.

I guess I'll have to die without ever hearing it. And over and over again, I've had to point people to this promise when my mother and father forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. No matter what disappointment you may have had early in life, as a child of God, you have a heavenly Father who cares about you.

You can say, I am a child of the King. His care is depicted from the standpoint of Him being our shepherd and we, His sheep. It's described as us being under His wing where we are sheltered. We further have confirmation of it when He tells us that He thinks on us and that He delivers those that have a contrite spirit and that He blots out our sin. If you have a time when the burdens are heavy and you get near that point to say, it looks like no man cares for my soul and I really wonder if God does. Go to His word and get the answer.

He cares. Today we have brought you a portion of a message entitled God Really Cares. I hope that you will write us and until next week at this same time, may the Lord richly bless you all.

O one needless thing we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. The Baptist Bible Hour has come to you under the direction of Elder LeSaire Bradley, Jr. Address all mail to the Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. That's the Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. That's the Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45317.