Rev. Mangil Lee (하인스빌한인연합감리교회)
Of all the Old Testment characters. I believe David is my favorite. I like him because he is no human. so much like the rest of us. He was never a plaster saint. He was tremendously
human always falling down, yet always geting up and reaching out toward the God he loved and served.
Some days he was a great saint, some days a great sinner.
Some days he was so close to God that he could write the 23rd Psalm. One day he was so forgetful of God that he broke at least four of the Ten Commandments. One day he was in such deep despair that he cried out, " No man cared for my soul." " The Lord is my refuge and my portion."
Yes, David was like the rest of us and we like him for it. We,
too, have our ups and downs, our mountain tops and our valleys, our moments of despair and our moments of glory. But
if we belong to God, through faith, as David did, we will always be reaching out toward God and a better life, We can say with the old spiritual:
I''m sometimes up and sometimes down.
But praise the Lord, I''m heavenward bound.
Now is our text we see that David was in the ditch of despair.
He said that he looked all around him and found that no man
cared for his soul his soul. Surely he had a bad case of the blues.I have known people who felt the same way. I have heard them say, " Nobody cares for me: nobody cares whether I go to hell or not." In this message I will try to show you how badly mistaken you are.
Firstly, God cares for your soul.
God back to the Garden of Eden and you see our first parents falling into sin. And in their fall they caused the virus of sin to enter every one who is born into the world. Now God is a God of justice. When His law is broken His justice says that punishment must follow. What, then, is the punishment for God''s broken law? It is the eternal prison house called hell.
So God looked down on lost men and saw them going to hell.
This moved His great compassionate heart and made Him say,
" I must do someting about this. I must give sinful man a way of escape." Then He looked someone to bwar all the sins of mankind. That one must himself be without sin. Is there one in heaven who meets these requirements? Can Abraham or Moses or Elijah stand the test? No,for every one of them had sinned in some way. Then God''s glance lighted on His only
begothen Son. He was the only One who could stand the test.
the only One without sin. So God said, " Son,will you go to earth and redeem mankind? And Jesus answered, " Yes Father, I''ll go. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his frieds." And when this decision was made the angels in heaven began loudly to voice their protests
" No," they cry. " No, God''s only begottern Son must not go.
He is the Prince of glory; He is the bright and morning star; He
is the fairest among ten thousand, the One altogether lovely.
Why should the sinless Son of God die for sinful men?"
But " God so love the world." So Jesus came to earth and lived among men. He was " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He was mistreated on every side and finally cruel
men took Him out and nailed Him to a cross. And God from heaven looked down upon it all. As the sufferings of Jesus on earth broke the heart of God in heaven, what was God saying to us? He was saying, " I do care for your soul Look to Calvary. I gave my only Son for you."
We remember during World War 11 how a telegram would come to a family, saying, " The War Department regrets to inform you that your son has been killed in action."
These telegrams broke the hearts of many fathers and mothers back in America,far from the firing line. But they didn''t
see how their sons died. They didn''t see how the machine-gun bullets cut them down. They didn''t see the blood streaming from broken bodies. They didn''t hear the agonizing cries. They only knew that a son was dead. But how different it was with God. He saw His Son die, He saw it all. He saw the wounds, the blood. He heard the agonizing cry, "My God,My God, why hast thou forgotten me?" Yes, the heavenly
Father saw it all and it broke His heart. And all the time He was saying, " I love you; I do care for your soul Look what I
gave to save you from hell." Don''t ever say no one cares for your soul. God cares.
Secondly, Christ cares for your soul.
He had the highest place in heven; He was the centralfigure in glory. The angels and archangels ran to do His bidding. Then when He heard the cry of lost men on earth, He turned away from all the glory of heaven and sped down to earth to become the humblest Man in the world and to die for our sakes.
He was born of a virgin. The Holy Spirit reduced Christ in size to one little cell in order that He might come down and be born of a woman.Oh, what condescension ! And all the time
Jesus was saying, " I care for your soul."
When Jesus was born Mary laid Him in a manger. Look at that tiny Baabe.Is that the One who made man? Is that the One
who rules the destinies of nations? Yes, it is that''s God''s Son.
But now He is reduced to a tiny baby. He must go through all the temptations and troubles that beset mankind for our sakes.
He is just saying, " I care for your soul."
During His public ministry He was called every evil name under the sun. He was humiliated in every way known to man.
Then one dark night they arrested Him and took Him to Pilate''s court. They pressed the crown of thorns upon His brow; they spat in His face and slapped Him. They took the cat-nine-tails
and beat Him untilblood ran down His back. And when the morning came they laid a heavy cross on His back and led Him down the Via Dolorosa. And He was saying," See, all of
this is for you. I do care for your soul."
When they reached the hill of Golgotha they threw His body down on that cross; they drove great spikes through His hands and feet; they lifted that cross high above theearth with its divine burden on it. Tthere for six long hours in agonizing pain
He life away for you and me. And as He died,crting out, "It is
finished," He was simply saying, " I do care for your soul. All
this is for you. I do this to save you from hell."
See, fromHis hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e''er such love and sorrowmeet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Yes,Jesus cares for your soul.
Thirdly, The Holy Spirit cares for your soul.
Who is the Holy Spirit? He is a person,the third Person of the Godhead. Few Christians have gone deeply enough in their spiritual lives to know much about Him. They know about God the Father and God the Son,but little or nothing about God the Holy Spirit. Yet all the way through the Bible, He is co-equal with the Father and the Son. To put it simply, God the Holy Spirit is the God who works and operates in human hearts today.Before Jesus returned to heaven He said, " I''m going to
send the Holy Spirit to take My place on earth. The first thing He will do will be to convict men of sin and righteousness and
judgement to come."
And this is the first work He is doing now in human hearts. He comes to us and says, " You are not right with God. You
have sinned. And someday you must face judgement and give account for the deeds done in the flesh." After having pointed out our sins. He then points to the only One who can save us from our sins. He says, " You need a Savior. Look, here He is, dying for you on the cross. Turn from your sin and put all your faith in Him and you''ll be saved."
Fourthly, The church cares for your soul.
We do we build churches all over the land? Why do we employ pastors and church staffs? Why do we have the various organizations in the church? Why do we give out tithes and offering ? For one reason only because we want you to be saved.
Some people say that we have churches for one purpose only, to provide a place of worship the Lord. But that is not the only purpose of the church. We are not to shut ourselves up in
ivory tower and just let the rest of the world go by. As we worship God we must remember that there are those who do not know the Savior and we must seek to win them to Christ.
A church is not simply a mass of bricks and stone-it is peole. And we do care for souls. Our highest joy comes when we see someone coming to Christ for savation. Our highest duty is to let men know that we care for their souls.
A young man languished in the death cell of a prison.
A godly woman vivited him and talked to him about salvation.
He said to her," In all my life no one every spoke to me about my soul until I was brought to this terrible place of death. If someone had shown an interest i my soul.
perhaps I never would have been here.? A certain man made three trips around the world. He talked to thousand of people in every walk of life. Only two of them ever said anything to him about his soul. Another man was a railroad conductor for fifteen years. He was asked all kinds of questions about schedules, connections, the weather, his family and a thousand other things. Finally after fifteen years a man asked
him if were a Christian.
Every church ought care for soul. In the last book of the Bible
we read, " The Spirit and the Bride say, come." The bride referred to here is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those of us in the church do care for your soul. We sometimes neglect to manifest our interest, but all we do in our church say to you, " We care for your; we want to see you saved."
Fifthly, The people in heaven care for your soul.
Jesus tells us that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one
sinner who is saved than over ninety-nine who need no repentance. And why do these hosts of heaven rejoice ?
Because they know how wonderful heaven is and they want you to come up and enjoy it.
Some people think that the saints in heaven know that everything that goes on down here upon the earth. They quote
the Scripture that says "We are not sure that our loved ones in heaven can see all that goes on down here. Some of it might cause sorrow even in heaven. But I do believe it is true that when souls are saved. they know it and rejoice over it.
I can imagine some mother dying and leaving a little boy down here on earth. Then one day after the boy grows up he goes to church and is saved. The angel that has been watching over that boy files to his mother''s mansion and says,
" Your boy has been saved. Now he is a child of God." Then I
can hear that mother shouting all over God''s heaven and saying to everyone up there, " Rejoice with me, my body has been saved and some day he will be up there with Jesus and me." Nobody can filly describe heaven.No tongue can tell of all of its glories,and no mind can even imagine how wonderful it will be. But our friends and loved ones up there know. Thy
know how many good things God has laid for those who love Him. Thy know how sweet it is to be with Jesus. And they want us to share in it all. So I say that those up in heaven care for our soul.
Sixthly, The people in hell care for your soul.
This is a soleman thought but it''s in the Bible. Jesus said that
a rich man died and went to hell. That man cried out and said that he was tormented in the flames of that awful place. Then he looked up and saw Lazarus the beggar and Abraham in heaven. He said to Father Abraham, "I want to ask you one little favor. Send Lazarus down and let him dip the tip of his finger in water and put it on my burning lips." And Abraham replied, " I can''t do that. There''s a great gulf fixed between you and us. We can''t come down there and you can''t come up here." Then the poor rich man said, " Well, if you can''t do that, please send Lazarus to warn my brothers to get right with God,so that they won''t come to this place of torment."
So you can see that those in hell know how awful the place is. They care for your soul; they don''t want you to live without Christ and finally come down to hell.
Therefore, don''t ever say that no one cares for your soul. God
cares,those in heaven care, and those in hell care.
But do you care? Is it ewll with your soul? Are you prepared to meet God? If not, you''ll never find a better time than right now. " Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts."
Jesus gave His all on Calvary that we might have eternal life.
Won''t you take Him as your Savior?
Then you can truly say, " No one ever cared for me like Jesus." A-men.
Of all the Old Testment characters. I believe David is my favorite. I like him because he is no human. so much like the rest of us. He was never a plaster saint. He was tremendously
human always falling down, yet always geting up and reaching out toward the God he loved and served.
Some days he was a great saint, some days a great sinner.
Some days he was so close to God that he could write the 23rd Psalm. One day he was so forgetful of God that he broke at least four of the Ten Commandments. One day he was in such deep despair that he cried out, " No man cared for my soul." " The Lord is my refuge and my portion."
Yes, David was like the rest of us and we like him for it. We,
too, have our ups and downs, our mountain tops and our valleys, our moments of despair and our moments of glory. But
if we belong to God, through faith, as David did, we will always be reaching out toward God and a better life, We can say with the old spiritual:
I''m sometimes up and sometimes down.
But praise the Lord, I''m heavenward bound.
Now is our text we see that David was in the ditch of despair.
He said that he looked all around him and found that no man
cared for his soul his soul. Surely he had a bad case of the blues.I have known people who felt the same way. I have heard them say, " Nobody cares for me: nobody cares whether I go to hell or not." In this message I will try to show you how badly mistaken you are.
Firstly, God cares for your soul.
God back to the Garden of Eden and you see our first parents falling into sin. And in their fall they caused the virus of sin to enter every one who is born into the world. Now God is a God of justice. When His law is broken His justice says that punishment must follow. What, then, is the punishment for God''s broken law? It is the eternal prison house called hell.
So God looked down on lost men and saw them going to hell.
This moved His great compassionate heart and made Him say,
" I must do someting about this. I must give sinful man a way of escape." Then He looked someone to bwar all the sins of mankind. That one must himself be without sin. Is there one in heaven who meets these requirements? Can Abraham or Moses or Elijah stand the test? No,for every one of them had sinned in some way. Then God''s glance lighted on His only
begothen Son. He was the only One who could stand the test.
the only One without sin. So God said, " Son,will you go to earth and redeem mankind? And Jesus answered, " Yes Father, I''ll go. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his frieds." And when this decision was made the angels in heaven began loudly to voice their protests
" No," they cry. " No, God''s only begottern Son must not go.
He is the Prince of glory; He is the bright and morning star; He
is the fairest among ten thousand, the One altogether lovely.
Why should the sinless Son of God die for sinful men?"
But " God so love the world." So Jesus came to earth and lived among men. He was " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He was mistreated on every side and finally cruel
men took Him out and nailed Him to a cross. And God from heaven looked down upon it all. As the sufferings of Jesus on earth broke the heart of God in heaven, what was God saying to us? He was saying, " I do care for your soul Look to Calvary. I gave my only Son for you."
We remember during World War 11 how a telegram would come to a family, saying, " The War Department regrets to inform you that your son has been killed in action."
These telegrams broke the hearts of many fathers and mothers back in America,far from the firing line. But they didn''t
see how their sons died. They didn''t see how the machine-gun bullets cut them down. They didn''t see the blood streaming from broken bodies. They didn''t hear the agonizing cries. They only knew that a son was dead. But how different it was with God. He saw His Son die, He saw it all. He saw the wounds, the blood. He heard the agonizing cry, "My God,My God, why hast thou forgotten me?" Yes, the heavenly
Father saw it all and it broke His heart. And all the time He was saying, " I love you; I do care for your soul Look what I
gave to save you from hell." Don''t ever say no one cares for your soul. God cares.
Secondly, Christ cares for your soul.
He had the highest place in heven; He was the centralfigure in glory. The angels and archangels ran to do His bidding. Then when He heard the cry of lost men on earth, He turned away from all the glory of heaven and sped down to earth to become the humblest Man in the world and to die for our sakes.
He was born of a virgin. The Holy Spirit reduced Christ in size to one little cell in order that He might come down and be born of a woman.Oh, what condescension ! And all the time
Jesus was saying, " I care for your soul."
When Jesus was born Mary laid Him in a manger. Look at that tiny Baabe.Is that the One who made man? Is that the One
who rules the destinies of nations? Yes, it is that''s God''s Son.
But now He is reduced to a tiny baby. He must go through all the temptations and troubles that beset mankind for our sakes.
He is just saying, " I care for your soul."
During His public ministry He was called every evil name under the sun. He was humiliated in every way known to man.
Then one dark night they arrested Him and took Him to Pilate''s court. They pressed the crown of thorns upon His brow; they spat in His face and slapped Him. They took the cat-nine-tails
and beat Him untilblood ran down His back. And when the morning came they laid a heavy cross on His back and led Him down the Via Dolorosa. And He was saying," See, all of
this is for you. I do care for your soul."
When they reached the hill of Golgotha they threw His body down on that cross; they drove great spikes through His hands and feet; they lifted that cross high above theearth with its divine burden on it. Tthere for six long hours in agonizing pain
He life away for you and me. And as He died,crting out, "It is
finished," He was simply saying, " I do care for your soul. All
this is for you. I do this to save you from hell."
See, fromHis hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e''er such love and sorrowmeet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Yes,Jesus cares for your soul.
Thirdly, The Holy Spirit cares for your soul.
Who is the Holy Spirit? He is a person,the third Person of the Godhead. Few Christians have gone deeply enough in their spiritual lives to know much about Him. They know about God the Father and God the Son,but little or nothing about God the Holy Spirit. Yet all the way through the Bible, He is co-equal with the Father and the Son. To put it simply, God the Holy Spirit is the God who works and operates in human hearts today.Before Jesus returned to heaven He said, " I''m going to
send the Holy Spirit to take My place on earth. The first thing He will do will be to convict men of sin and righteousness and
judgement to come."
And this is the first work He is doing now in human hearts. He comes to us and says, " You are not right with God. You
have sinned. And someday you must face judgement and give account for the deeds done in the flesh." After having pointed out our sins. He then points to the only One who can save us from our sins. He says, " You need a Savior. Look, here He is, dying for you on the cross. Turn from your sin and put all your faith in Him and you''ll be saved."
Fourthly, The church cares for your soul.
We do we build churches all over the land? Why do we employ pastors and church staffs? Why do we have the various organizations in the church? Why do we give out tithes and offering ? For one reason only because we want you to be saved.
Some people say that we have churches for one purpose only, to provide a place of worship the Lord. But that is not the only purpose of the church. We are not to shut ourselves up in
ivory tower and just let the rest of the world go by. As we worship God we must remember that there are those who do not know the Savior and we must seek to win them to Christ.
A church is not simply a mass of bricks and stone-it is peole. And we do care for souls. Our highest joy comes when we see someone coming to Christ for savation. Our highest duty is to let men know that we care for their souls.
A young man languished in the death cell of a prison.
A godly woman vivited him and talked to him about salvation.
He said to her," In all my life no one every spoke to me about my soul until I was brought to this terrible place of death. If someone had shown an interest i my soul.
perhaps I never would have been here.? A certain man made three trips around the world. He talked to thousand of people in every walk of life. Only two of them ever said anything to him about his soul. Another man was a railroad conductor for fifteen years. He was asked all kinds of questions about schedules, connections, the weather, his family and a thousand other things. Finally after fifteen years a man asked
him if were a Christian.
Every church ought care for soul. In the last book of the Bible
we read, " The Spirit and the Bride say, come." The bride referred to here is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those of us in the church do care for your soul. We sometimes neglect to manifest our interest, but all we do in our church say to you, " We care for your; we want to see you saved."
Fifthly, The people in heaven care for your soul.
Jesus tells us that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one
sinner who is saved than over ninety-nine who need no repentance. And why do these hosts of heaven rejoice ?
Because they know how wonderful heaven is and they want you to come up and enjoy it.
Some people think that the saints in heaven know that everything that goes on down here upon the earth. They quote
the Scripture that says "We are not sure that our loved ones in heaven can see all that goes on down here. Some of it might cause sorrow even in heaven. But I do believe it is true that when souls are saved. they know it and rejoice over it.
I can imagine some mother dying and leaving a little boy down here on earth. Then one day after the boy grows up he goes to church and is saved. The angel that has been watching over that boy files to his mother''s mansion and says,
" Your boy has been saved. Now he is a child of God." Then I
can hear that mother shouting all over God''s heaven and saying to everyone up there, " Rejoice with me, my body has been saved and some day he will be up there with Jesus and me." Nobody can filly describe heaven.No tongue can tell of all of its glories,and no mind can even imagine how wonderful it will be. But our friends and loved ones up there know. Thy
know how many good things God has laid for those who love Him. Thy know how sweet it is to be with Jesus. And they want us to share in it all. So I say that those up in heaven care for our soul.
Sixthly, The people in hell care for your soul.
This is a soleman thought but it''s in the Bible. Jesus said that
a rich man died and went to hell. That man cried out and said that he was tormented in the flames of that awful place. Then he looked up and saw Lazarus the beggar and Abraham in heaven. He said to Father Abraham, "I want to ask you one little favor. Send Lazarus down and let him dip the tip of his finger in water and put it on my burning lips." And Abraham replied, " I can''t do that. There''s a great gulf fixed between you and us. We can''t come down there and you can''t come up here." Then the poor rich man said, " Well, if you can''t do that, please send Lazarus to warn my brothers to get right with God,so that they won''t come to this place of torment."
So you can see that those in hell know how awful the place is. They care for your soul; they don''t want you to live without Christ and finally come down to hell.
Therefore, don''t ever say that no one cares for your soul. God
cares,those in heaven care, and those in hell care.
But do you care? Is it ewll with your soul? Are you prepared to meet God? If not, you''ll never find a better time than right now. " Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts."
Jesus gave His all on Calvary that we might have eternal life.
Won''t you take Him as your Savior?
Then you can truly say, " No one ever cared for me like Jesus." A-men.
