Look to my right and see; no one attends to me. There is no refuge for me; no one cares for my soul. Sermons
I. IS THE ASSERTION TRUE? 1. It often seems so. How many there are to whom no one ever speaks, for whom no one makes any direct effort to win them for God! They are just let alone. And it is not because they would resent such endeavor. Often they greatly desire that some one would speak to them; for they know they are wrong, and need help to be other than they are. But it seems as if no one cared. 2. But, strictly speaking, it is not universally true. For there have never been any periods of time when there were not some faithful workers for God, and earnest intercessors for sinful men. And often it has been that, unknown to the soul that thinks itself uneared for, fervent prayers have been going up to God for that soul. And if not specially for that soul, yet for all such souls, that God would have mercy upon them, and lead them into the way of truth, for that they have erred and are deceived. When do God's people ever gather together without such prayers being offered? 3. Still, it is far too largely true. The neglect of souls on the part of those who should care for them is a terrible and distressing fact. II. WHO ARE TO BLAME? 1. All Christians generally. For if we be saved by the compassion and grace of God ourselves, we are bound by every motive to try and get others saved likewise. If we do thus try, prayerfully and earnestly - let men call us by any ill name they please - the consciousness of Christ's approval and benediction will become surer and fuller of holy joy and help every day we live. If we make no such endeavor, the salvation we have will dwindle and starve, and, ere long, utterly disappear, and our last state will be worse than the first. 2. But more especially those who are nearest to such souls, and who have, therefore, most influence over them. Fathers and mothers first and chief of all. As they are, so the children will be. Then teachers, especially teachers in Sunday schools. What is the good of such schools if the teachers do not, above everything else, care for the souls of those they teach? And ministers: theirs, beyond most others, is the cure of souls. How awful, if they to whom this charge has been especially given, should be found faithless! What will such answer, when asked by the "chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls," as they will be asked, what they have done with those entrusted to their care? III. HOW COMES THERE TO BE SUCH NEGLECT? The causes are many. 1. With some it is unbelief. They doubt almost every truth which the Church teaches. Some actually deny, others do not more than half believe. 2. With others it is misbelief. They pervert the doctrine of the sacraments, of the eternal mercy of God, of final perseverance, and, on such grounds, say, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. 3. With more it is that they are not saved themselves. Their belief, whatever it is, does nothing for them, gives them neither peace, purity, strength, nor joy. They profess, but do not possess, and therefore cannot impart to others what is not their own. 4. Fear of man. How many, who should be directly and avowedly caring for souls, are ensnared here! And they salve their consciences by thinking that such work belongs to the clergy or the ministers - not to such as they. We shall never do anything until we are willing to be thought "fools for Christ's sake." 5. Dread of doing harm rather than good. But duty is ours, not consequences; and if God, by his Spirit, prompt, and bids us speak for him, as he very often does, all we have to do is to obey. He will take care of the consequences. Such are some of the causes of this sad lack of care for souls. IV. THE EVIL OF IT. 1. The glory due from us to Christ is not reordered. The martyrs whom St. John saw overcame "by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony." Christ claims our confession of him. 2. Men are hardened in sin. They say, "If these people believed what they profess, they would not leave us alone as they do. They don't believe it, and we won't." 3. Our own souls perish; for we are guilty of our brother's blood. V. HOW IS IT TO BE REMEDIED? What is involved in the caring for souls? 1. Belief in the existence of the soul. In its worth; its peril; in the willingness of God to save it. 2. Solicitude for its salvation. 3. Open, active, and definite endeavor to secure this. 4. Be sure that we are saved ourselves. CONCLUSION. To those who bring the charge, "No man careth for my soul," we would say: 1. Mothers do not care, see to it that you care yourself. It is your concern, after all. 2. If others care ever so much, and you do not, you will be only worse off titan before. 3. But if you care, then, whether others care or not, you will certainly be saved. - S.C.
No man cared for my soul With normal natures happiness begins with the thought that God has time to care for each life. In a world where no grain of sand escapes Nature's notice, where there are no runaway stars or suns, where a Divine Ruler leads a beautiful world out of darkness, fire-mist, and chaos, man cannot support the thought that there is no place for him in God's loving providence. So momentous are those events named a betrothal, a marriage, the death of babe, or mother, or statesman, that men wish to associate them with a Divine Friend. Indeed, the most bitter cry that ever arises from human lips is this one: "No man cared for my soul." In a world full of conflict, full of labour, whose fruitage is often sorrow, man fulfils his journey across the wilderness towards the promised land, supported by the thought that the angels of God's providence go before him. Standing under the midnight sky, looking into the realm where stars twinkled and suns blazed, Job found it easy to believe that man moves forward under the convoy of an intimate Friend. From the thought that the millions of orbs making up the community of the sky are Divinely controlled, the mind passes easily to the larger thought that God is carrying individual men and nations upward toward a sublime culmination. But if the scholar finds a unifying power in the heavens, the historian finds a providence in the history of nations, in that each country has its special task, each generation its own contribution. For multitudes this great truth of God's overruling cars has been eclipsed by reason of the vastness of the universe. At one time the East stood close beside the West. Now the telescope has crowded back the horizon. In Newton's day the sun was known to be ninety millions of miles away. To-day, in comparison, the distance to the fixed stars, the distance to our sun is like the distance to the threshold of one's next door neighbour. Science has enlarged the universe in space, but it has enlarged the soul of man a thousandfold more. The new science has caused the mind to rise up, clothed with infinite majesty and beauty. Earth knows only one thing vast enough and precious enough to justify an overruling providence and care — the human soul. Can a human mind shape the innumerable threads into one beautiful whole, and the infinite God be unable to control fifteen hundred millions of men, leading them toward one great purpose of happiness and righteousness? The laws of light and heat, the laws of gravity and soil are so delicately related as to encourage the thought that all the mechanism of the starry world is arranged for the embroidering of violets upon the lap of spring. The vastness of Nature does but enlarge the scope of God's providential purpose. The thought, God cares for man, has also suffered injury through the over-emphasis of the reign of law. Science exhibits man as moving forward enmeshed in laws of heat and light and gravity. By law the winter recedes, by law the summer advances, by law the harvests are ripened, by law the clouds are lifted, by law the rivers are filled. Soon men began to spell the word Law with a capital "L," and Force with a capital "F." Gently law and force led the Infinite Being to the edge of the universe, and bowed Him out of existence. Men decided that law could build the world if it was spelled with large letters instead of small. But nothing could have been more foolish than this over-emphasis of law. Merchants do, indeed, have one law, by which the office opens at eight, and another law by which it is closed at six, but if some foolish person should think that these rules which the merchant has enacted have built up his trade so that it is no longer necessary to have a merchant or an inventor, and all the businesses get along by the rules and need no presiding mind, we should have that which would answer precisely with the amazing thought that the laws of nature have done away with the necessity of God. Man has certain habits that are the rules of his life. God's habits are Nature's laws. And but for their stability the universe would be without flexibility. Thus science, that once threatened to do away with Providence, has now, through the reign of law, established providence. For laws are flexible, not alone for God, but for man, who, through them, makes this world a fruitful and beautiful paradise. Now, for the individual life, how unspeakably precious this declaration of God's loving care! In hours of weakness, when baffled and beaten, when man perceives how vast is the sphere in which he is moving, how mighty are the forces whirling about him, he yearns for some power strong enough and wise enough to overrule events, and from defeat lead forth to victory. It is not enough that there is a providence over summer and winter, by which the barn and storehouse are made to overflow. In the midst of the fierce strife man cries out, "No one cares for my soul." Nature has no personal friends. On the battlefield a thousand men may lie in the orchards and thickets, weltering in their life blood, but the boughs heed not the prayers, the trees shed no tears. In the olden times, when the knight went into battle, he carried with him the name and face of his beloved one. One look upon that face armed him for his conflict. Dying, upon that face his last look fell. It is said that man's name is written upon God's hand. With the coming of each sun comes the loving providence, and after each day's going the great God remains. Happy is the man who feels that God cares for him, that he journeys forward under Divine convoy, that his Father is Regent of universal wisdom and represents the whole commonwealth of love, and commands all nature to serve His child. Such a man is weaponed against every enemy, and is invincible. He who ever carries with him this sense of God's loving providence is fitted to pass through fire, through flood, through all the thunder of life's battle. God cares for you — then you cannot live too long, and you cannot die too soon, for heaven ever lies all about you. God cares for man — then from every storm there is a harbour.(N. D. Hillis.) I. A WRONG social state. Each taken up with himself, and none concerned for his neighbours, is manifestly wrong. 1. It is unnatural. The constitution of our nature, — endowed as we are with social longings and sympathies, and with faculties suited to render service one to another, — proves the unnaturalness of social indifference. What is morally abnormal is morally wrong. 2. It is unrelational. We are all the offspring of the same common Father, all united by the bonds of consanguinity. Indifference, therefore, is manifestly wrong. 3. It is un-Christian. Christ lived and died for our race, and His apostles exhorted us to care for others rather than ourselves. II. A MISERABLE social state. Though there may be much in a man's temperament, character, and procedure to alienate him from others, — he may be unsocial, irascible, and grossly immoral, — all this does not justify his fellows for utterly disregarding him. In truth it forms a strong reason why they should be interested in him. (David Thomas, D. D.) I. CARING FOR SOULS IS NOT THE WORK OF THE WORLD. Caring for one another in all the ranges of the material and the moral is the world's work. Our interest in each other as worldly men and women is limited to physical well-being, social comfort, educational progress, and moral goodness. Not until man is quickened himself with the higher spiritual life is he in the least likely to concern himself about the possibilities of the higher spiritual life for others. There is such a thing as seeking the welfare of the race. There have always been philanthropists moved by "the enthusiasm of humanity." But their efforts do not go beyond the removal of disabilities, and reformation of abuses, and uplifting in the social and intellectual planes. But man is no mere body with a material environment. God has "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." Man has become a "living soul." He is a spirit, and we must find spirit forces if we would deal with his most real necessities. II. CARING FOR SOULS IS THE PROPER WORK OF THE CHURCH. From the Church's point of view men are perishing; they are dying in their sins, and she, and she alone, has the evangel that can save the perishing and quicken the dead. The Church of Christ may do, and ought to do, all that the philanthropist would do; but it must do more. The Church exists to do just what its Divine Lord did, seek and save the lost. Its work is to devise and carry through schemes for the salvation of souls, and whatever form its agencies and efforts may take, this, and nothing less than this, must be at the heart of them. (Robert Tuck, B. A.) : — We are all sympathetic with physical disaster, but how little sympathy for spiritual woes! There are men in this house who have come to mid-life who have never yet been once personally accosted about their eternal welfare.I. UNSATISFIED LONGINGS. You feel as you go out day by day in the tug and jostle of life that it is every man for himself. You can endure the pressure of commercial affairs, and would consider it almost impertinent for any one to ask you whether you are making or losing money. But there have been times when you would have drawn your cheque for thousands of dollars if some one would only help your soul out of its perplexities. There are questions about your higher destiny that ache, and distract, and agonize you at times. You sometimes think till your head aches about great religious subjects. You wonder if the Bible is true, how much of it is literal and how much is figurative law, if Christ be God, if there is anything like retribution, if you are immortal, if a resurrection will ever bake place, what the occupation of your departed kindred is, what you will be 10,000 years from now. With a cultured placidity of countenance you are on fire with agitations of soul. Oh, this solitary anxiety of your whole lifetime. You have passed up and down the aisles of churches with men who knew that you had no hope of heaven, and talked about the weather and about your physical health, and about everything but that concerning which you most wanted to hear them speak — viz. your everlasting spirit. Times without number you have felt in your heart, if you have not uttered it with your lips, "No man cares for my soul." II. MAN'S EXTREMITY. There have been times when you were especially pliable on the great subject of religion. It was so, for instance, after you had lost your property. Everything seems to be against you. The bank against you. Your creditors against you. Your friends suddenly become critical against you. All the past against you. All the future against you. You make reproachful outcry: "No man cares for my scull" There was another occasion when all the doors of your heart swung open for sacred influences. A bright light went out in your household. Within three or four days there were compassed sickness, death obsequies. A few formal, perfunctory words of consolation were uttered on the stairs before you went to the grave; but you wanted some one to come and talk over the whole matter, and recite the alleviations, and decipher the lessons of the dark bereavement. No one came. Many a time you could not sleep until two or three o'clock in the morning, and then your sleep was a troubled dream, in which were re-enacted all the scene of sickness, and parting, and dissolution. Oh, what days and nights they were! No man seemed to care for your soul. There was another occasion when your heart was very susceptible. There was a great awakening. There were hundreds of people who pressed into the Kingdom of God; some of them acquaintances, some business associates, yes, perhaps some members of your own family were baptized by sprinkling or immersion. Christian people thought of you, and they called at your store, but you were out on business. They stopped at your house; you had gone around to spend the evening. They sent a kindly message to you; somehow, by accident, you did not get it. The lifeboat of the Gospel swept through the surf, and everybody seemed to get in but you. Everything seemed to escape you. One touch of personal sympathy would have pushed you into the Kingdom of God. III. A STARTLING REVELATION. Instead of this total indifference all about you in regard to your soul, I have to tell you that heaven, earth, and hell are after your immortal spirit — earth to cheat it, hell to destroy it, heaven to redeem it. Although you may be a stranger to the Christians in this house, their faces would glow and their hearts would bound if they saw you make one step heavenward. No one cares for your scull Why, in all the ages there have been men whose entire business was soul saving. In this work Munson went down under the knives of the cannibals whom he had come to save, and Robert McCheyne preached himself to death by thirty years of age, and John Bunyan was thrown into a dungeon in Bedfordshire, and Jehudi Ashman endured all the malarias of the African jungle; and there are hundreds and thousands of Christian men and women now who are praying, preaching, living, dying to save souls. IV. A STUPENDOUS INTERVENTION. No one cares for your scull Have you heard how Christ feels about it? I know it was only five or six miles from Bethlehem to Calvary, the birthplace and the deathplace of Christ; but who can tell how many miles it was from the throne to the manger? From the first infant step to the last step of manhood on the sharp spike of Calvary a journey for you. Oh, how He cared for your scull V. THE FATHER'S PATIENCE. A young man might as well go off from home and give his father and mother no intimation as to where he has gone, and, crossing the seas, sitting down in some foreign country, cold, sick, and hungry, and lonely, saying: "My father and mother don't care anything about me." Do not care anything about him! Why, that father's hair has turned grey since his son went off. He has written to all the consuls in the foreign ports, asking about that son. Does not the mother care anything about him? He has broken her heart. She has never smiled since he went away. All day long, and almost all night, she keeps asking: "Where is he? Where can he be?" Oh, do not his father and mother care for him? You go away from your heavenly Father, and you think He does not care for you because you will not even read the letters by which He invites you to come back, while all heaven is waiting, and waiting, and waiting for you to return. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons. I. WHAT IT IS TO CARE FOR THE SOULS OF OTHERS.1. A deep and heartfelt conviction of its worth. The soul is spiritual in its nature, noble in its capacities, and eternal in its duration. 2. A deep and thorough sense of the danger to which it is exposed. 3. Tender solicitude for its welfare. 4. Zealous exertion for their salvation. II. ON WHOM THIS DUTY DEVOLVES. 1. On the heads of families. 2. On all the members of the Church. 3. Pre-eminently on ministers. III. THE GREAT EVIL OF NEGLECTING THIS DUTY. 1. It is cruel. A man would be considered cruel who saw one of the "beasts that perish" in danger, and did not attempt its rescue. He is cruel who, having it in his power to relieve the necessitous, or save the perishing, does not do it. But the cruelty of the man who, knowing the danger of souls, does not care for them, is beyond expression. 2. It is ungrateful. If others had not cared for us, we must have perished. 3. It is criminal. 4. It is fatal. Fatal to those who are perishing, and fatal to those who have a name to live; fatal to all genuine piety, fatal to all ardent love to the Saviour's cause, fatal to zealous exertions for ethers, but especially fatal to our own souls. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.) : —I. A STRIKING TESTIMONY. 1. Man has a soul. 2. Man's soul is of priceless worth (Matthew 16:26). 3. Man's soul requires to be cared for. It needs — (1) (2) (3) (4) II. A MOURNFUL COMPLAINT. 1. Want of sympathy (Matthew 27:4; Psalm 69:20; Amos 1:11; Matthew 18:33; Ephesians 4:32). 2. Unbrotherly neglect (Deuteronomy 20; Deuteronomy 3:7; Genesis 4:9; Isaiah 58:7-12; Galatians 6:2; Exodus 3:18). 3. Heart-killing repulse. III. A HEART-TOUCHING APPEAL. 1. To man. Pity. Sympathy. Brotherly help (Acts 16:9). 2. To God. No one cries to God in vain. The poor may look to the rich in vain, but God is the helper of the poor (Psalm 10:14). (W. Forsyth, M. A.) 1. How many a child may say, "My parents cared not for my soul. They were attentive to my body, and to my bodily health and preservation. They sought my temporal comfort; they got me bread to eat and raiment to put on. They felt for me when I lay sick upon my bed; they spared no trouble to do me service and to get me well again: but they cared not for my soul." 2. How many a servant may say this? A servant is as capable of knowledge, of holiness, and of happiness as a master. "God is no respecter of persons." 3. How many a neighbour may say this. If a neighbour meet with some sad accident, or what we usually call a misfortune, what a concern do we all feel for him but who cares for his soul? who feels concerned for that? II. WHY ESPECIALLY IT SHOULD BE CARED FOR. 1. Because it is the noblest part of the creation. It is in what regards the soul that "man is but a little lower than the angels." It is the soul that reasons, hopes, fears, recollects, anticipates. It is the soul that is imperishable: the body returns to the dust again; the spirit to Him who gave it. 2. On account of its vast capabilities. 3. Because of the price paid for its redemption — the blood of Christ. 4. Because if lost it will remain lost and unredeemed for ever. (W. Mudge.) 1. When they are at a loss with respect to soul concerns, and have none to instruct them in difficulties nor advise them (Isaiah 41:28). 2. When they have wandered out of the way, and have none to reprove them. 3. When they are visited with affliction, either in their persons or families, and have none to pray with or for them. As secret, so social prayer is a duty; and intercession is a necessary part of both. 4. When they are under distress and anguish of mind, and have none to comfort them. II. IMPROVEMENT. 1. In passing this censure, let us take care that we be not mistaken. Let us not give way to groundless jealousies, or be suspicious of our friends without a cause. 2. If none care for our welfare, what a mercy is it that God has excited in us a care of our own souls; that we are not in that stupid, insensible state in which we once were, and perhaps continued for many years! If others neglect our souls, it should more and more awaken our serious concern and anxious solicitude about them. 3. What a still greater mercy it is that God cares for our souls. 4. In order to avoid the charge in our text, let us not fall into the contrary extreme; and whilst we are busily concerned about others' souls, let us not neglect our own. (B. Beddome, M. A.) 1. Take the case of some poor child that you know of; a child left to the tender mercies of an ignorant, heartless parent; a child suffered to run at large without even the appearance of control. This neglected child might be brought to Sunday-school and church; might be taught to shun even petty dishonesty as a sin; might be kept from speaking the language of demons; might at least be shielded from the more alluring forms of temptation. 2. You are on friendly and familiar terms with many irreligious people, over whom you might easily exercise some influence for good. They visit often at your.houses, and you chat with them daily on the street. If all of us who claim to be Christians would show by our conduct that we really eared for the souls of those who are living unmindful of their obligations to God, our labour of love would be wonderfully blessed. 3. Even when people have become members of God's family, the Church, they need and long for the kindly sympathy of those who belong to the household of faith. 4. There are those who, having learned by sad experience the folly and wretchedness of a life of sin, would gladly return into better ways if they only knew how to accomplish it. (J. N. Norton, D. D.) (J. Cross, D. D.) (J. Freeman Clarke.) ( J. Flavel.) 5490 refuge 5088 David, character Out of the Deep of Loneliness, Failure, and Disappointment. The Ceaselessness of Prayer The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Question of the Contemplative Life Psalms |
    |