The Lutheran Hour

"Does God Care?"

#77-51
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on August 29, 2010
Guest Speaker: Rev. Dr. Lawrence Acker
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries

Text: Psalm 73:11-14

A very dear friend tells us what he saw in a national park, as he stood one morning drinking in the beauties of a deep canyon. On a jagged crag some six hundred feet below him was an eagle’s nest. From that nest an eagle soared into the sky. But look! The eagle is dropping like a rock. Has it been shot? What is wrong? As the question is asked, those on the edge of the canyon wall see another small bird appearing above the falling bird. It is an eaglet that has been riding on the back of the parent bird and has now been tossed by the parent bird into mid-air. It must either fall or fly. It tries to use its wings, but it does not seem to be able to keep itself afloat in the air. It is falling, falling fast, and it looks as though it will be dashed on the rocks below. And then from nowhere the parent bird suddenly swoops under the falling eaglet, catches it on its own back, and begins to soar once more into the sky. All eyes are now glued on the birds. What will happen? Will the parent bird give the eaglet another lesson in flying? Hardly is the question asked, when the parent bird begins to fall again like a rock, and again the eaglet is tossed into the air and must either fly or fall. And once more it falls, falls rapidly as it tries to fly, and once more the parent bird glides under the falling eaglet just as it seems that the little one will be killed on the rocks below, and catches it on its own back and soars back into the sky. One more lesson is given to the little eagle. Then the parent bird takes the little one back to the nest to rest and safety.

If that eaglet could have spoken, if it could have told us what its thoughts were as it felt itself tossed from the safety and security of the parent’s back into mid-air, what would it have said? I believe it would have told us that its father or mother was not doing for it what was good, was not interested in it, and did not care what happened to it. Be that as it may be. One thing we do know, and that is that many, many persons think that God no longer cares for them when He sends them into the valley of sorrow and suffering. Let them feel that they no longer have underneath them the everlasting wings of God, let troubles and trials engulf them, and it is not unusual to hear them say that God does not care what happens to the people on Earth. They are somewhat ready to agree with the writer of the Seventy-third Psalm when in verse eleven, he says: “How doth God know and is there any knowledge in the Most High?”

Now there are people today who are very frankly and will tell you most assuredly that God does not care for them, they will tell you that they can get along without God. They can get along without a protecting and a sustaining God. According to their way of thinking, man has advanced without God, all the comforts and pleasures he now enjoys are the product of his own mind. One would be foolish to deny that in science, man has advanced very rapidly in the last thirty to fifty years. Today our knowledge of the forces of nature has provided us with the conveniences our forefathers would have believed impossible. Someone has remarked that if our fathers and mothers could arise from their graves and see what we have and what we enjoy, they would not believe that they had returned to the earth. Had someone told our forefathers fifty or sixty years ago that you and I would ride in a horseless carriage and that a little gasoline would cause this horseless carriage to travel faster than sixty miles an hour, they would have believed us insane. Had we told our parents back in nineteen hundred that in nineteen fifty we should have in our home a little box that would pick out of the air music or speeches from Paris or Jerusalem or Rome and that with a slight turn of a dial on that box we could change from the music of Boston to the song of a soloist in Los Angeles and hear all of it as clearly as though the performers were in our own home, they would have laughed and said it just could not be done, that one could not sit in his home and hear the Prime Minister of England speak from London, or one of our Lutheran missionaries speak from Calcutta, India. And I have often wondered what our great grandparents would have said had they been told that once the day would come when a doctor would be able to remove certain parts from the inside of the body, that the skull of man could be bored into and growths removed, that all of this and more could be done on the body of man without his feeling what was being done, and that the man would live after it had been done. Would they not have shaken their head in doubt? Would they not have said that we just did not know what we were talking about?

We have advanced much farther than they did; have gone much farther than they ever thought we could go. But surely we are not going to be so foolish as to say that it was not God who helped us harness the forces of nature to serve us better? It would be silly for us to claim that it was we who found all these hidden forces in nature and that God deserves no credit, that it makes little or no difference to us whether God cares for us, that we can get along without Him, and we have no need of Him. Persons and people who feel they no longer need God have not advanced, have not gone forward; they have gone backward.

Pharaoh was not as wise as he thought he was. He thought he could get along without the God about whom Moses had spoken to him. He even felt that he was stronger that the God of Israel, that he was master not only of the Egyptians, not only of the people of Israel, whom he had made slaves, but also that he was master of the great God of Israel. And so, when Moses came to him and told him that in the name of the great God of Israel he should permit the Israelites to leave Egypt, Pharaoh told Moses that he had gotten along without Israel’s God and that he did not care what the God of Israel ordered, that he was not going to let the Israelites leave Egypt. What a fool Pharaoh was to think that he could get along without God, that he did not need God’s advice and did not have to obey God’s orders! When Pharaoh persisted in his foolish ideas, God showed His power, and Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea.

If time permitted, many similar stories in the Bible could be told. All of them would help to drive home the truth that, when a people or a group of persons no longer care whether or not God cares for them and begin to believe that they can get along without God just as well, if not better than with God, they are going to learn sooner than they think that God is not going to allow them to place themselves alongside of Him, much less above Him. When His hour comes, He will strike hard. Let us, then, not be so foolish as to think because we live in an age when men have drawn from nature many secrets never known before to man that we are not only better than our forefathers but like unto God and then boastfully remark that we don’t care whether God cares for us, that we can get along very well without God.

But we Christians, who know that God rules all things and knows what is happening to us, are we really always convinced that God cares for us? We take a look at the ungodly; we see them prospering in the world; we see them increasing in riches, while we who are striving to walk in the footsteps of Jesus are unable to get on in this world and, like Lazarus, must sometimes eat the crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich. It is then that we often murmur and complain, saying: “If God really cares for us, why does He allow these things to happen to us who love Him? Why does He allow all the wicked people to have the pleasures and joys of life, while we have no end of trouble and sorrow? If God really thought of us, were really interested in us, would He not make miserable the life of the wicked and give unto His children much earthly happiness and remove all sorrow and sadness?” And is it not unusual for the pastor to hear some member say to him: “Pastor, I read my Bible, I come to church often, I attend Holy Communion, I try to live a good life; but just look at all the trouble I have. How can I believe that God cares for me, that He knows everything that is happening and will let only so much come to me as is good for me? I am beginning to doubt that God knows about me; and if this continues, I know I shall begin to believe that God has forgotten all about me and that He is not interested in me.” What is that but saying with the psalmist: “Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning?” Especially in the days in which we live bring to many persons the idea that God does not take care for us. Again and again we hear people say: “If God is a God of love, why does He permit these wars, why does He permit men to slaughter one another, why does He permit lands to be laid waste? If He permits all this, must we not believe that God does not care what happens to us and our country, that He is leaving us go our own way and do as we please?”

Friends, if there is any statement in the Bible assuring you and me, as followers of God, that we are to be exempt from all sorrows and sufferings the moment we become Christians and as long as we remain followers of Jesus Christ? Is there? If there is, I wish you would cite it to me. Our heavenly Father has told us in words that we cannot misunderstand that in this world we shall have much tribulation; that we shall through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God; that, as they persecuted His Son Jesus, so they will persecute those who follow Jesus; that we cannot expect to be followers of Jesus unless we have upon our shoulders the cross He places upon His disciples. Away, then, with the idea that you will never be sick when you are a Christian! Paul had a “thorn in the flesh”, and this was so severe that Paul felt that it interfered with his work as a Christian missionary. So he asked God to take away that affliction, but God ruled otherwise. Away also with the idea that you can lose no property because you are a Christian! Job was a man of God, a person whom God loved. And yet the Bible informs us that Job lost all his property, his camels, his oxen, all his earthly possessions, also all his children. If ever a person had a right to think that God was not caring for him, it was this man, Job. And yet we hear him say: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord forever!” Away, also, with the idea that as Christians, we should not have wars nor expect to hear of rumors of wars! When we become Christians, God does not want us to separate ourselves from the world and go to a place somewhere in this world where only Christians might be found. He tells us to remain in the world, to live among the people of this earth. If that is the Lord’s wish, then you and I must be prepared to endure what the Lord permits to come to this earth, even if it be wars.

However, we Christians should also bear in mind that all the troubles and trials that befall us do not come to us because the heavenly Father hates us. God in heaven is not angry with us. For the sake of Jesus Christ He has forgiven us all our sins and has declared that we are His children and He is our Father. Because Jesus Christ suffered and died for us He loves us. Now, the Bible says that the Lord chasteneth whom He loveth. The troubles and trials that besiege us, the sorrows and sufferings pressing upon us, are not to be regarded by us as a punishment from God, but as a chastening of the Lord. By means of them the heavenly Father is trying us, removing wickedness from us, urging and assisting us to walk closer with Him, increasing our love towards our fellow man, strengthening our faith in Jesus as our Savior from all sin. God has good intentions when He sends trials and tribulations. He is seeking only our welfare. And when you and I begin to understand better the truth that God is seeking only our good when He allows troubles and trials to surround us, we will joyfully confess that the Lord does care for us. Should anyone, then, ask us: “Does God know? Does God care for us?” We should answer: “Surely, God cares. All this has come to me for my good. God means well with me.” And, by the way, it is unnatural for God to discipline us with sorrows and sufferings? Is it? Does not a father discipline his child? And why? Why do you often compel your children to do what they do not like to do, even though it is sometimes very, very not likable to your children? Sometimes they must think that you are angry with them? Is it not because you are seeking their welfare? You desire that your children have only what is good for them and that everything hurtful to them be removed. That same desire God has towards His children. He is interested in them, in us, who are His children, interested so much that He sends us anything and everything that is good for us. Let us, then, always remember that the thoughts God thinks towards us are thoughts of peace and not of evil.

Did I hear someone ask, “Does God care for me?” You who ask this question, you are not alone. In the minds of some persons there is doubt whether God can take care of each and every person on earth. They sometimes compare God with the president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and remark that he cannot know, nor do we expect him to know, the needs of the thousands working for him, because he is so busy with the great work of managing the company. In an Omaha hospital a patient once said to me that God was busier than the president of the Union Pacific Railway, regulating sun, moon, and stars in the heavens, supplying the earth with food and drink, guiding the affairs of nations; that God would not have any time to think of the needs and troubles of each and every person living on earth. Now and then I meet a person who, when I try to persuade him to believe that God is interested in him, replies: “What? You want me to believe that God thinks of me? Why should He care about me? What am I worth? I don’t amount to anything. He may know the needs of great men in the Church but I am of such little worth that it would be time lost for God to think about me.”

Friends, you have often sung that beautiful hymn “The Lord My Shepherd Is.” You need not be told that this hymn is based upon the words of the Twenty-third Psalm. Many of you have recited that psalm with your pastor as troubles engulfed you, and you received comfort from it. As pastor, I often wondered why so many persons like this psalm. I learned the reason one day in a hospital when a patient said to me, “I like this psalm because it is written in the singular.” In the singular? Yes, that is true. The psalm does not read: “The Lord is our shepherd; we shall not want. He maketh us to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth us beside the still waters.” No, the psalm reads: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters.” And so throughout all six verses of that psalm the singular is used. I believe the Lord did that on purpose. By means of that singular pronoun in this psalm He is bringing home to us the truth that He is going to take time off from His important work of managing the world and use it to help you, John, in the problems you have and to assist you, Mary, in the troubles that you have. He’s going to use it to help each and every one of us.

Do you think I am putting a thought into the Twenty-third Psalm that it does not contain? Listen. I want to remind you of one happening in the life of Jesus. One day Jesus came to Jacob’s Well. Out to this well came a woman to draw water. Jesus was tired and hungry; besides, the Jews and the Samaritans had nothing in common. One would think that Jesus, Who came into the world to save the world from sins, would not have bothered Himself with just one heathen woman. However, Jesus was not so busy with the saving of the world as to neglect an opportunity to speak to one woman about the Water of Life and to assure her that, if she drank of it, she would never thirst again. If, now, God’s Son with a great work to do could spend much time to talk to one woman about the needs of her life, why should He not be willing to do so for you? By the ravens God brought food to Elijah, God heard Daniel’s prayer and shut the lion’s mouth, God heard the pleading cry of the mother whose daughter was vexed with a devil and restored the child to health, God heard the prayer of the thief on the cross and promised him Paradise. God will hear your prayer. It just cannot be otherwise.

Is there still a doubt in your mind? Take your Bible and read the twentieth verse in the second chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. There Paul says, “Jesus loved me and gave Himself for me.” Often Paul speaks about Jesus dying for the world, giving his life for us. But this time he says that Jesus died for him. He singles himself out and says that everything Jesus did was done especially for him to save him from sin, to save him from death, to save him from the power of the devil.

In The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that if God gives food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field and clothes the lilies of the field with garments more beautiful that Solomon ever wore, He will not forget us. We are of more worth to Him than many sparrows. He has made us in His likeness; He loved us so dearly that He gave His only Son for us.

Now, if God supplied the animals with what they need to live, why should He forget us, care nothing about us for whose salvation He spared not His own Son? It is unreasonable to believe that God does not care for us; it is unscriptural to believe that God is not interested in us. God does care for us. He does care for each and every one of us. His thoughts may not always be our thoughts, but of this we can be assured, that whatever happens to us, it will be for our good and to the glory and honor of God.
Let us, then, go the way He leads us, confidently believing that God is with us and will always take care of us. Amen.

LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for August 29, 2010
Topic: Sinners Who Don’t Need To Repent

Announcer: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus responds to questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer.

Klaus: Hi, Mark.

Announcer: Today’s question was prompted by one of your Daily Devotions.

Klaus: I should mention these Daily Devotions are offered free of charge. They come to your email in both text and audio versions. A person can sign up for them at www.lhm.org.

Announcer: Again, that’s www.lhm.org. And, I must say, they are a great way to start the day.

Klaus: So, we’ve got a question generated by the Daily Devotions.

Announcer: And, in this particular devotion, you quoted from the Bible where it says “there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 persons who do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7). And, that word “need” is the main focus here. What does it mean when it talks about “sinners who don’t need to repent?” We’ve been saying all along that everyone needs to repent.

Klaus: Yeah, it’s a good question. Right before that statement, Jesus was talking about the Good Shepherd who goes out looking for a lost sheep… how He searches until He finds it. Then, when He’s rescued that lost sheep, he brings it back to the fold and invites his friends to join him in celebration. Then Jesus concludes the story by talking about the sinners who don’t need to repent.

Announcer: And, that’s the point of confusion here. Hasn’t everyone broken God’s law? Even the best of people? The Bible says ‘we’re ‘conceived in sin’; it says ‘there is not a just man on earth who does good and never sins.’ So, it seems to me that if we’re all sinners, we all need to repent.

Klaus: Absolutely, Mark. Everybody needs to show their sorrow and regret for sin since every single one of us is a sinner.

Announcer: So, how do you explain the apparent contradiction here?

Klaus: Well, in order to find the answer to the question, we are going to have to go to the opening verses of the chapter.

Announcer: In other words, we need to see this in context.

Klaus: Exactly. You have to see it in context. Let me explain. The chapter begins with sinners coming to hear Jesus.

Announcer; And, we’re talking here about the obvious sinners.

Klaus: Yes, we’re talking about the people whom everybody back then considered to be Grade A, government-inspected, first-class, A#1 sinners. Well, when those first-class sinners came to Jesus, after they’d heard Him, many of them realized the errors of their ways, and all the things they had been doing wrong. For them, the next step was to repent and be brought to faith and salvation.

Announcer: No problem so far.
Klaus: There isn’t, but the text continues by telling us there was another group, another faction there that day…
Announcer: I’m guessing, the Pharisees.

Klaus: Yeah. These were the guys who felt pretty sure that they had been following God’s law absolutely perfectly. In fact, they did God one better and added a few laws of their own along the way.

Announcer: So, when these guys would look in the mirror, they imagined everything exactly perfect. Everything the way it should be.

Klaus: Absolutely right. Those Pharisees felt they had no serious sins, so they had no serious sins, you have no serious need of a Savior. In the text, Jesus pointed out that when it comes to the reaction of heaven, the angels were a whole lot happier over one of those sinners who knew they needed to repent than they were over the 99 very smug Pharisees who thought they could earn heaven all on their own.

Announcer: So, would the passage make more sense, then, if we included the words “Who do not FEEL as if they need to repent”?

Klaus: Yeah, I think that would really be quite accurate, but I also have to say, in the context, that is, the people who were there at that time, who were listening that day, and in that situation, as Jesus was speaking, that’s really how they would have understood what He was saying.

Announcer: OK. So, how would you sum this up for us today?

Klaus: I’d say we are all sinners who need a Savior. When that Savior finds us and brings us back to the flock, heaven is going to say, “Mark or Ken is back. Let’s party!”
On the other hand, those same angels are terribly sad when people go off on an ego trip and think they’re too good to need a Savior. The angels are sad because they know that, without a Savior, Judgment Day for these folks is going to be a disaster.

Announcer: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.

Music Selections for this program:

“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC

“O Jesus, King Most Wonderful” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.

“On What Has Now Been Sown” From Every Voice a Song (© 1995 Concordia Publishing House)

“Praise to the Lord” arr. John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House