He Knows And Cares | Rev Dr Taiye Adeola

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TEXT: MARK 4: 25 -41

For some time now, the world has been confronted with an unpleasant situation of COVID – 19 pandemics leading to the demise of many. Different countries are taking steps to contain it, this is the current challenge confronting the whole world.  Many people are beginning to raise questions.

Life’s challenges make us raise all manners of questions which we don’t ask when things are going well with us. How many people really stop to ask questions like God Why? Why? Why?… why are you blessing me; or God where are you? At moments that joyous things happen to us, we naturally think that God is with us when things are fine. We, however, think otherwise when things go wrong.

Sometimes, we draw wrong conclusions about God, his power, his love and care. When we are confronted and overwhelmed with situations that we do not expect to happen to us or faced with the reality of circumstances that others go through that in our own judgement ought not to be, we ask why? We say things that often amount to errors or sin by falsely accusing God or doubting his love and care. Questions like, where is God? Why did God allow this? God should have considered this or that and so on.

This was the situation with the disciples when they face turbulence on the sea; they were terrified to the point of accusing Jesus that he did not care if they perish (Mark 4:38). What a wrong assumption that brought about a wrong conclusion leading to a wrong allegation. At times we think that God is so far away and he does not know what we are passing through but we are wrong.  We are wrong to think he does not know; wrong to think he does not care; we are wrong to think he is not doing or will not do anything.

Beloved, God knows what you are going through and he cares so much about you, he feels your pain because he is the high priest that can be touched with the feelings of your infirmity. Hebrews 4:14 -15 says “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin”

1Peter 5:7 –“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you”.

Let us be careful not to accuse God or speak against him because we are going through hard times or we have to bear some pains. God is God of all times and seasons; God of the good times is still God in the bad times, He is God on the mountain and same God in the valley; where he was when things are good and right with us is where he is when things go wrong. We must learn never to doubt his love, we must never lose our courage and must not give up our hope in him, Keep trusting, keep hoping, hold on, your miracle is on the way for HE KNOWS AND CARES

WHY DO WE RAISE SUCH QUESTIONS OR FEEL HE DOES NOT CARE

1. WE SEE THE STORM/ THE PROBLEMS AND NOTHING MORE
2. WE FORGET THAT HE IS IN THE SHIP
3. WE FORGET HOW MUCH HE CARES ABOUT US
4. WE DO NOT KNOW OR WE DOUBT HIS ABILITY
5. WE ARE FEARFUL AND FAITHLESS

We must not forget that God is God and will act as God and not as a man no matter how difficult the situation becomes. It is important that we bear this in mind:

1. HE IS ALWAYS WITH YOU
2. HE WILL NOT LOSE SLEEP
3. HE IS NOT TROUBLED BY THE STORM BUT CONCERNED ABOUT YOU
4. HE IS IN CONTROL OF ALL SITUATIONS

Jesus is able to command peace over every stormy situation of life; he can restore your joy and peace no matter how bad the situation has become.  Go to him, not in fear but in faith, not to accuse him but to ask him for the help that you need. In Jeremiah 33:3, the Bible says “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not”.

I close with the story of a woman by the name Mary Ann Baker (1831 – 1921). Events in Baker’s life mirrored the turbulence of the scripture passage. According to a passage in the book Our Latter-day Hymns: The Stories and the Messages, by Karen Lynn Davidson, “Mary Ann Baker was left an orphan when her parents died of tuberculosis. She and her sister and brother lived together in Chicago. When her brother was stricken with the same disease that had killed their parents, the two sisters gathered together the little money they had and sent him to Florida to recover. But within a few weeks, he died, and the sisters did not have sufficient money to travel to Florida for his funeral nor to bring his body back to Chicago.”

Of this trial, Baker said, “I became wickedly rebellious at this dispensation of divine providence. I said in my heart that God did not care for me or mine. But the Master’s own voice stilled the tempest in my unsanctified heart, and brought it to the calm of deeper faith and more perfect trust.”

In 1874, Dr. H. R. Palmer requested several songs of Baker for Sunday School lessons under the theme for the year, which was “Christ stilling the tempest.” “Master, the Tempest Is Raging” is a hymn based on Mark 4:36–41. The hymn’s text, written by Mary Ann Baker, After Baker completed the text, Palmer set it to music and published it in his Songs of Love for the Bible School during the same year.

 

1. Master, the tempest is raging!
   The billows are tossing high!
   The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness.
   No shelter or help is nigh.
   Carest thou not that we perish?
   How canst thou lie asleep
   When each moment so madly is threat’ning
   A grave in the angry deep?

(Chorus)
The winds and the waves shall obey thy will:
Peace, be still.
Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea
Or demons or men or whatever it be,
No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean and earth and skies.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will:
Peace, be still; peace, be still.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will:
Peace, peace, be still.

2. Master, with anguish of spirit
   I bow in my grief today.
   The depths of my sad heart are troubled.
   Oh, waken and save, I pray!
   Torrents of sin and of anguish
   Sweep o’er my sinking soul,
   And I perish! I perish! dear Master.
   Oh, hasten and take control!

(Chorus)

3. Master, the terror is over.
   The elements sweetly rest.
   Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored,
   And heaven’s within my breast.
   Linger, O blessed Redeemer!
   Leave me alone no more,
   And with joy I shall make the blest harbor
   And rest on the blissful shore.

(Chorus)

Have you asked the same question? Master, Don’t you care if we perish. I hear the master say to you. Why are you fearful, why don’t you have faith? I care and I will calm the storm for you. Whatever the storm is, he will command his peace and there will be quietness in Jesus name.