"...no Man Cared For My Soul”

For example, in the case of Psalm 142, David pours out his heart to God.

Once David was king, he had many good experiences as ruler over God’s people, but for a while before he became king, he had some experiences that could be classified as downright abusive. Many times he had to flee for his life. Psalm 142 is his outcry during one of those times.

King Saul had been so Jealous of David that at one point he threw his javelin at David and tried to pin him to the wall.

At the time of this writing we find David hiding in a cave.

We are told that there were two caves David could have been hiding in:

• One was the cave of Engedi. This was the cave Saul had slept in one time when David sneaked in and cut off a piece of his garment, then later let Saul know he could have killed him, but that he would not touch God’s anointed.

• Or he could have been hiding in the cave of Adullam. It is thought this was the most likely hiding place at the time of his writing psalm 142.

At this time David was very sad and discouraged. In that cave he came to the sad conclusion, “...no man cared for my soul.”

That was sad then, and it is sad today. It is sad to live in a world filled with people and still come to the conclusion, “No one really cares if I live or die!”

Many of us, to some degree, can relate to what David was feeling. It is a sad thing to...

Attend public school and feel that no one really cares about you personally. You are just a student, that the government spends thousands of dollars to support, in the public school system.

• It is a sad thing when citizens feel the politicians we elect to represent us in Washington, D.C. do not care about our needs. All they care about is their own profit.

• It is a sad thing to attend a Sunday school class and feel the teacher really does not care about you personally. You are just a number to be reported to the church office.

• It is a sad thing for a child to grow up recognizing that his parents do not really love him.

Let me show you two things from this passage about what David felt that each of us can relate to.

I. NO MAN CARES!

Yes, David felt abandoned; as if he had not a friend in this world. He had loved Saul and Jonathan (I Sam. 19-20). When Saul became jealous and turned on David, David became a fugitive, so in the cave he cried out to God, “...no man cared for my soul.” His soldiers were around him, but evidently he needed more.

Illus: Pastors know the feeling David felt. So often the only time a pastor is wanted is when someone wants something. For example, a family who had only attended church a few times over the years, still would call the preacher when one of them wanted to get married, or if there was a death. All of a sudden the pastor was the best friend that family had. Why? Because they wanted something.

David had done many kind deeds and helped many people, yet when he was writing this psalm he felt as if he did not have a friend in the world. Look at verse 4. We read, “I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.” We need to be aware that there are two kind of friends.

A. FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS.

These call themselves our friends, but actually are not true friends at all.

Illus: When David became king and sat on that royal throne, he probably looked on his right and could see multitudes of men who wanted to be his right-hand men. But, then, in that cave, during that very stressful time in David’s life, he felt he had no one who wanted to be his right-hand man. Those were “fair weather” friends.

Illus: Did you know that you may feel all alone, then if someone knocked on your door and announced that you had just won the ten-million-dollar-Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes, you would soon discover you had ten-million friends. Where were all those people before you had that money???

We all have “fair weather” friends who claim to love us and care about us when things are going good, but many of those same people will turn on us when things start going wrong.

Illus: When President Bill Clinton’s popularity was high, we heard the democrats defend him over and over again. But, when they saw that his misconduct with a twenty-one-year-old intern was going to affect them in a negative way those “fair-weather friends” began to disassociate themselves from him, one by one, as fast as they could.