1083. Cast All Your Care On Him pt. 2

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform. Today on The Daily Platform, we'll hear a sermon preached at the Bob Jones University Bible Conference.

Dr. Morris Gleiser, an evangelist from Dallas, Texas, will be continuing his sermon from yesterday titled, Cast All Your Care on Him. So I stood here two years ago and I knew something was wrong with me physically, but I didn't know what it was. I left here. I'd had some tests run and it led to further MRIs and scans and bone marrow biopsy which nobody ever wants to, I'm telling you, pray for the rapture if they ever do that when it comes for you, I'm telling you. And the doctor looked at me and my wife and he said, you have multiple myeloma.

I'd never heard those words in my life. I said, what do you mean multiple? Can I just have one? And he said, it's multiple. I said, doctor, is it cancer?

He said, yes. And my world changed. I mean, the old proverb of the rug being pulled out from under you was, it's just so obvious. I mean, my, my life completely altered and all I could think about was, you know, I got a schedule to keep. I got churches to preach at.

I got camps to go to in the summer. I said, and I looked at him and I said, well, can we fix it? I mean, I've heard the word cancer in other people's lives and I know that it can be fatal.

I didn't even want to adventure, adventure off into that world of conversation. And I know it takes time to fight it. And so I simply said, can we, can we deal with this quickly? How long is it going to take? He said, several months.

Yeah, he was right. It took a whole year battling it. And I discovered that the bitterness of something that interrupted my life brought a bitterness to my Christianity that I didn't even know I needed.

I needed a sabbatical. And I don't want to ever go through that experience again. Never. And I may have to, it's the kind that wants to lift its ugly head up again.

I don't want to ever go through it again, but I wouldn't take anything in the world for what I've gone through and what I've learned. Can I, can I just lay some things on your heart? First of all, he's, he's teaching us the inevitable reality. It's inevitable.

What's that? Come on. You're going to have cares.

Look at it. Casting all your care or cares is in the plural. And he doesn't say there. Some of you reading this letter are going to go through some anxious moments. Some of you are going to go through some real difficult times. Now, some of you are just hearing this and you need to have pity and mercy on those people who are going to go through this.

That's not what he's saying. He is talking to all of us, all of us included. And he says, all of you are going to have cares.

Now I'm beating a drum here, but you all know it to be true. You've had cares and it comes in various forms. Some of you are financially worried.

How am I going to pay off this semester? What am I going to, how am I going to get through this? And it's a load on you.

And I get it. Some of you it's in a relational anxiety and maybe you've just gone through a recent struggle of a relationship that's broken your heart and it's deep seated and it hurts. Maybe something's going on with the family back home. Maybe there's a divorce that has already taken place or it's about to take place. And, and your heart is aching and breaking and it's your yearning to do it, be something to be a part of it. Maybe your home church is going through something that is disturbing you.

Maybe, maybe there's a, there's something else that is a, a job, an employment issue that a circumstance, maybe there's some project you're in the midst of that you're saying, I really don't know how I'm going to get all this done. And you're overwhelmed by care. Would you just put the brakes on for a moment and listen to the Scriptures? It's inevitable.

You're going to have them. There's not, there's no door out. I mean, if, if the Lord sent an angel to us at night and he says, the Lord has scheduled a car accident for you tomorrow afternoon, we've got it down for about three 30. Is that going to work for you?

We would say, oh, let me think about that. No, I don't think that's going to work. That doesn't fit the schedule.

Can we put that off till the year 2932? I mean, I mean, put it off away. I don't have time for that, but we're not in charge of when cares are going to come. We're not in charge of the storms. As brother Carey said the other day, that you're on board a ship and all of a sudden the high winds come blowing in on us. You're not in charge. And neither am I, but they're going to come.

It's an inevitable thing. Now folks, the word care is another word for the word anxiety. Look at the word.

He says, casting all your care. You could put the word worry there. You could put the word, a severe hurting emotion.

You could put troubles. You could, you could put an anxiousness there, whatever it says, casting all your anxiousness. The word care actually means to be pulled in all kinds of directions. It's like wind blowing at you in every direction. It's like someone pulling on you in various directions and pulling at your clothing and ripping you apart. Like your heart is being ripped apart. He's saying here, take that care, cast it on the Lord. It's inevitable.

You're going to have them. I'm pretty simple minded. I find it falling into kind of three different categories to be real honest with you. First of all, I see, I think sometimes our cares come because of our past. Something happened in our past. Something happened to you in your past. Something that maybe nobody else knows about.

You don't even want to share with anybody. It's something that has been kept inside your heart. Or maybe, maybe it's something you have shared with other people, but it's in your past. Something that's been done to you or something you did. And it just trails you.

It just tracks you everywhere you go. And all the time you're thinking, why did I do that? Why did I hang out with that crowd? Why did I smoke that joint? Why, why did I look at that website? Why, why did I take that drink? What was wrong with me? Why did I, why did I date that guy?

Some girl says, why? And here's the deal. Though in many cases where, where forgiveness was needed to be gained and you sought it and you asked for it and you confessed it, you got forgiven, but you, you pick it right back up and you drag it along and it becomes a daily care. And you, you don't live under the understanding of the goodness and the grace of God's incredible forgiveness. So you live with past cares.

If it's not the past, maybe it's the present. Pretty simple. How am I going to get all this done today?

Bible conference is over with. I got that project scaring me. They just stare me in the face. I got that test coming up. I got this project happening at work. I got, I got these issues and I got to address. I mean, I got all these things going on. I got that conversation.

I mean, how am I going to handle this? There was a woman in the scriptures by the name of Martha. She was real close to Jesus. And she was scurrying about in her kitchen and she was full of care about a present demand. And Jesus said, Martha, Martha, Martha, chill.

You got to really look into Greek to see that one, but I think it's there. Calm down. Would you come over here and sit down like Mary has and understand, be still.

I know that I'm God. Sometimes God makes you still when you weren't expecting Him to still you. Sometimes it's not the past.

It's the present pressures. If it's not past present, it's the possible future. It's what, what if I can't get this done? What if my grades cause me, I, I've, I'll have to repeat this year in college.

Amazing. How can I do this? What if, what if that loved one does go through a divorce? What if, what if I do lose my job?

What if my dad back home dies? What if, what if, and you spend all your time worrying about things that in most cases never happened, but they eat at you and they, they bother you. And they, they, you take tomorrow's burdens and clouds of concern and you pull it over today. God's going to give you grace for that day tomorrow. You just live under His grace today. What He's given you today.

You don't know the answer about tomorrow. Listen to the Psalmist. He said this in Psalm 27, he said, I would have fainted. I would have fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I know my God's in charge. It's inevitable.

You're going to have cares. You ever been on a plane? I've been riding on planes a lot through the years and my wife and I were riding this the other day on a plane. She took a picture of us.

It looks kind of funny, but it's just who we are. My wife loves the aisle and I love the window. And we had this empty seat between us. We really were in sweet fellowship, but we had this division between us and nobody occupied the seat for a change.

And, and so she took a picture. Well, there's a reason why I love the window. I don't know why I can't, I don't like turbulent planes. I mean, I just don't like them.

I just want to look out that window when we're flying. I mean, I'm just telling you the truth. You said, well, good. Is that going to be, I don't know having a clue, but as long as the plane and the ground are parallel, I'm feeling all right. All right.

We're just kind of cruising along and that thing starts hitting turbulence and I'm just, I'm looking at, yeah, there you're still down there about 30,000 feet. Okay, I got you. You know, I just don't want to see it coming to me in a hurry, you know, just not real good at it. And don't come up to me and say, you know, flying on a plane is a lot safer than riding in a car. You can get out of a car wreck and walk.

All right. You're not going to get out of a plane wreck. So don't give me that.

It doesn't help my troubled soul. So you're right on this plane. All of a sudden the pilot comes on and he says, I'm going to ask it all the flight attendants, go ahead and quickly have a seat. Everybody please tighten your seat belt. Everybody get back to your seat. We're about to hit some turbulence. You know what I want to do? I want to hit that little bell and call for the flight attendant and come over and I say, would you, would you go ask the pilot a question for me?

If he knows that turbulence is about to come, can he fly around it or something? Go above it or below it. I mean, don't go through it. I don't want to go through it. Yes, I'm a Christian.

Yes, I am. But please go get us away from this turbulence. Well, I will tell you something. Turbulence is coming.

I don't know how, I don't know who's the Lord's going to use to bring it in your life. I don't know when and I don't know to what degree, but come on, give me a break. You know, it's true. It's inevitable. It's a reality. Cares are a part of our life.

You may have something on your heart right now today that's heavy. Number one, the inevitable reality. Number two, the instant response. Look at verse seven, the very first word, casting. Hey folks, I don't have time to give you everything here that I want to say to you, but I just want to tell you something. The word casting here is the instant response to care. You say, what is it?

The word casting is the idea of getting rid of something. Are you ready for this? Don't miss this.

Hurriedly, urgently. I love baseball. I mean, I just love baseball.

I love to play in the infield. When I was a kid, I loved to play shortstop and my fear was always that batter. If he hit the ball to me, my fear was that I would not get the ball out of my glove fast enough to fire it over to first base before he got there.

If he was a speedster, I was, Oh, I was very concerned. So whenever that ball came to me, I was concerned about getting quickly casting it away from me. That's what I think of when I see the word casting. Maybe you think of the little game you played as a kid, hot potato or something like that. I don't even remember how we did it.

You know, well, you tossed it around and whenever it came to your hand, you just tossed it to somebody else. That's the word. It's the same word that was used of people who cast their garments and palm branches on the road. When Jesus came in, we call it his passion week into the city of Jerusalem. It was a cast down all their garments on the, on the donkey that he wrote on and on the roads. Why?

Because they wanted to praise him. And I discovered that my praise grows incredibly. So when I cast the cares off of me, I don't have time to carry this.

Are your prayers too much like mine? They're like yo-yos Lord, take this burden. Oh God, I don't, I don't want to carry this burden. Is this thing too heavy for me? God, please take this, this curtain, this concern, this, this anxiety. God, I don't know what I'm going to do. Would you take it off of me and I'm going to leave it with you.

And then you get up and you pick it right back up and you carry it with you. I mean, I stand guilty. Most of us do. That's not what the Bible tells us to do. That's what Peter saying. He's saying, get rid of it. Cast it.

You say Morris easier said than done. I would say that I agree with that. I think it's a process of, of learning. And it's a choice that you make that you say, God, I'm going to think right about what your word has said. And I'm going to anchor.

I'm going to anchor myself to this casting. It's the idea of coming to him and saying, I don't understand. I don't understand why this is happening, but I don't have to understand you're doing something that only you can do.

And so I'm trusting and resting in you. I didn't understand cancer in my life. I didn't understand that. Is that the only burden I've ever carried? No. Are you kidding me?

No. Heartache that keeps you awake at night takes away the desire of eating. It keeps me in my position sometimes so weakened that I've had a hard time to even walk up to a pulpit to preach because of the heart was so heavy with some care in my life. And I've discovered you don't have to understand why God's doing what he's doing. That may be one of the most important things for you to hear. I don't have to, I don't have to understand why I can only rest in his word. I don't have to demand that he gives me an explanation. I just go swimming in his revelation. And so for a full year fighting that crazy multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow and of the blood, except for appointments to see a doctor or an appointment to go get another test run, I had a lot of time.

I read a bunch of books I've been wanting to read for years and I was able to spend a lot of time in the book. And when I was physically able, I'd go outside and weather permitting, I just go walking. I tell my wife, I say, honey, I'm going to go for a long walk.

And she knew what that meant. I was just going to get up. And I got up many a morning early to watch the sunrise. And I just walked around and I, I said, Oh God, you're, you're an incredible creator. Look at the, look at that sign. Look at your creation of flowers. Look at what you've done. Things that I didn't normally look at.

All of a sudden, I just adored him at great length of time. And I didn't have to worry about what time it was. I didn't have to worry about it.

I got to hurry up and get this over with because we got to get something else going on. I just had time to be with God. You know something? I was able to be still and know he's God. And I saw God provide, you got to understand the kind of life I live is a life of trusting. I go preach and I get a love offering and that was much my life. I wasn't able to go preach anymore for a full year. And like, like the children of Israel going outside to pick up manna every morning.

And I'm only saying this so that you will know this is our God. It was like every day something would be in the mail, something would be sent to me sitting on our front porch. Some gift, every bill paid, every meal met, every gas tank filled. And the day the doctor said to me, and I want you to know this now, he said to me almost to the day one year after he came into the room and he said, well, you're in remission.

He looked sad. I'm thinking, I thought that was a good word. You know, I love the word redemption and just under it. I liked the word remission. We looked at the nurse and the nurse was smiling and she, she looked at me and my wife.

She said, congratulations. I'm looking at the doctor. I said, don't get a lesson from the nurse man. You're so, I think he was worried about his wallet.

I don't know. But the point is he said, you're, you're in remission. And the moment I had enough strength to go back to do what I'm now doing and I love to do preach, the Lord stopped the supply of funds to pay our bills and to help us live. Just amazing.

Our God is real. There were times in which I'd be sitting up there in my upstairs. I call it my upper room upstairs area of our house and my, my incredible companion of life checked on me nonstop and she'd come upstairs to see if I was okay. And if I needed anything and met so many of my physical needs while going through it, a couple of times she'd come up the staircase and she'd say, what's wrong? What's wrong? Because I'd be doing what I'm doing now. I'd be crying.

I got a real problem with these tears and I just be crying and I just say, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm just worshiping. Can I tell you, hope is not, hope is not found upon, founded upon figuring out why God's doing what he's doing.

Do you hear me? Hope is not founded upon finding out, understanding why God is doing what he's doing. Hope is founded upon trust. He knows what he's doing.

And the word is casting, which simply means, Lord, I don't have time for this. Lord, this is something you brought into my life and I'm bringing it back to you. Let the next doctor's report be a positive. Let us see progress. Lord, let us see something improving. You see the inevitable reality.

You're going to have cares and you've got some maybe today. You see the instant response casting and finally, and I'll close. You see the incredible reason. What is the incredible reason?

We'll look at it. Casting all your care upon him. Why? Why?

Come on, man. Because he cares for you. The word cares I mentioned is in the plural, which means all of them, all of them. It may be something that you think could be simple to somebody else, but it's a burden on your heart.

It's a worry to your life. He says, bring all of those cares to me, coming to me, all you who are laboring and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn of me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Jesus is making the great invitation to people saying, please come, come here. I care for you. Your cares are in the plural, but hang on for he careth for you. Guess what? That's in the singular.

Excuse me. Yeah, that's in the singular person. It's like this. He's saying he cares for you, you, you, you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you put your name there. It's personal. He cares for each individual one who's going through some hardship or heartache and trial. I don't know what you may be going through this morning. I don't know what your family's going through.

I don't know what your, your emotions have been battered about like on a ping pong table. But the fact is he says here, Jesus cares for you. Can I tell you, it just helps to know somebody cares. We were, we were told on Tuesday night that the ministry of comfort occurs in a person's life after they've been comforted of the Lord.

One of the sweetest, greatest ministries. Look folks, you need to, you need to ask God to open the opportunities for you to do this. If he has comforted you, then you be a comfort to other people. Be an encouragement. Look for ways to, to give of yourself sacrificially.

Live for other people. When Jesus asked Peter three times on the, by the sea of Galilee, do you love me? Do you love me?

Do you really love me? At the end of every time he said, then okay, then show me that you love me by feeding my sheep and tending to my lambs. How do I show the Lord I really love him? By caring for other people. And here he says, he cares for you. The letters, the phone calls, your president, other staff and faculty here, people would contact us during those days.

I'm telling you, they were, they were priceless. And the ones who could sometimes have the greatest impact in their words were those who had gone through, well, honestly, every time those who'd gone through cancer, pastor Carey would contact me and he'd just say one little simple statement. And I would just cling to it and say, that's exactly right. The fact is, friends, God makes us suffer so that we can encourage someone else who's going through some hardship and heartache so that when, when your journey is over with, and I know for most of us, we're thinking that's going to be a long time. Yeah, me too.

I'm thinking the same thing. Let it be said of you, you invested your life in comforting and encouraging and strengthening and discipling other people. So this theme is something that's very worthy to be meditated upon and to be studied through. Yeah, I, I'm still going through some stabilization. I'm just two years out of it, one year in remission, but I'm on the, I'm on the great side of things that where my doctor said to me, one of my three doctors said to me just the other day, just last week, he said to me, he said, you're looking great. I said, thank you.

Could you record that? I want to hear that. I'm looking great. He goes, you're looking great. He said, I don't want to see you for a year. And that's just for a checkup just to see that everything's still stable. Another doctor said, I just have to keep an eye on you like every three months.

And he said, eventually that'll, that'll slow down as well. And I give God the praise. It's like, it's like the time when I was a little boy, we thought my mom thought she heard someone breaking into our home. We were there.

Just my mom, my sister and me, my dad was away. And my mom thought she heard someone breaking in the house and it scared her being there with two small children. And she came running through the front living room and grabbed us. And we went across the street and we went over to the neighbor's house. The police came to our home. They went through the house and they came back and they said, well, the back door was unlocked.

I think he said it was a jar. The door, he said, he goes, but there's nobody in the house. And he said, he goes, I think you're good to go. You can go on back home. My mother said, no, no, I, we're going to wait for my husband to get home.

He'll be home in a little bit. And he said, okay. And so dad showed up.

It was dark. Dad showed up. We told him, we called him across the street. He went back through the house and walked through the house and found it to be empty.

And he came back and he said, all right, let's go home. Well, I'm a little five-year-old boy. And I was just clinging to my dad's pant leg, walking across the street. And I said, daddy, daddy, daddy, did you, did you check everywhere? I did, son. I did.

We're good. Daddy, did you check every closet? He remember closets are kind of scary to a little kid. Did you check every closet? And he says, I did. I said, how about, how about moms?

You know, he's got all those shoes and clothes. I said, you know, I mean, did you really look behind dad? He goes, I looked everywhere. So I said, did you, did you look underneath every bed? I did, son.

There's nobody in the house. I said, did you look, did you look inside the vents? I said, it could have been a real skinny man. I said, did you, did you, did you look everywhere? He goes, I did.

He said, we're good. And we got inside the house and my dad said, all right, it's time to go to bed. Time to go to bed? There'll be no sleeping tonight. I was a scared five-year-old boy. I said, we'll all just sit up tonight prepared for anything that may come our way.

No way. I'm not going to sleep. So dad said, son, everything's fine.

Go to bed. So I laid down. My eyes were just bugged out.

I don't even think I blinked. I was afraid to blink because I was afraid that if I blinked in that moment of a blink, somebody right there on me, you know, I'm laying in bed scared. All of a sudden, the quietness of home. I hear someone walking down the hall and then the light comes on and there stands at my hall and my doorway of my room. There stands my dad and he's looking around checking the house out because he knew he had a scared boy inside that room.

It was so good to see dad was awake, but I still didn't go to sleep. He went back down to his room. I don't know, maybe 30 to 45 minutes past and after a bit, here he comes down the hall again. He stands there and he looks around.

He's only doing it because he knows his boy's scared. He walked back down the hall. The third time he came down the hallway, he was carrying a baseball bat. I got to tell you, I had mixed emotions at that point. I thought, I wish somebody would break in now.

Man, I love to see dad tear into him. And then the next thing I knew, it was morning. If dad's going to stay awake, I'm safe. I'm going to sleep. And Peter said, you got to care?

Well, it's inevitable. What should you do with it? Instantly, urgently cast it away because hey, come up close child of God. He cares for you. And I hope that during these days you'll not walk away with a heavy load being reminded, boy, do I have cares. You've got a great God. Who wants to take that burden off of you? You've been listening to a sermon by Dr. Morris Gleiser preached at the 2020 Bob Jones University Bible Conference. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow for another sermon from the Bob Jones University Chapel platform.