Where to Turn in Time of Need - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, November 21st. The prophet Isaiah wrote, The Lord will guide you always, and He will satisfy your needs.

Today's podcast directs you to the one and only reliable place to go when you're in need. Everybody has needs in life. Some of those needs could be material or physical, or they could be emotional needs or spiritual needs. When you have a need, where do you go for the answer? Well, many people go to different avenues for answers to their needs. And oftentimes those avenues leave them exactly where they were in the beginning. They don't get their needs met.

Because there are many very deceptive attitudes and very deceptive avenues to walk in order for a person to get their needs met. And especially is that true in the area of people's emotional needs or spiritual needs, but it's true also in physical and material. Where do you go when you have a need in your life? Is there a place?

Are there many places? For example, when you have some emotional need, where do you go for that? When you have a spiritual need, where do you go for that? Whatever the need may be, you have some place you attempt to go or some way that you attempt to fulfill that need. What I'd like to do in this message is to give you one place you can go that I can guarantee you without a shadow of a doubt.

You will get your need met. Now, when I tell you what it is, you're going to say, oh, it couldn't be that simple. That's not the way it is. Well, just listen carefully. So, I want you to simply ask the Lord to speak to your heart and to show you that maybe you have some need and needs in your life that you've been trying to meet. And somehow it's just not working right.

I want to show you how it can work right. So, if you'll turn to Hebrews chapter four, and I want us to read just a few verses of this chapter. And while you're turning there, I want to look at the twelfth verse just to give you a word to preface our regular Scripture we're going to read. He says in the twelfth verse, For the word of God, the Bible, is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart, which is His way of saying, when you open the Word of God and you begin to read the Word of God, what you'll do is this. You will discover God's perspective and His view of what your real thoughts are, what you really feel, what your real desires are, the secret desires, the open desires, what hurts your pains.

In other words, what the Word of God does, it helps us to understand and to see ourselves as God sees us. So, in light of that, then here's what He says, beginning in verse thirteen, And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are opened and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. But we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us and our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So, look what He says in this thirteenth verse, because He makes it so crystal clear that Jesus knows all about our needs. We think we do sometimes. We think, for example, that we know exactly what our needs are and, Lord, here's what I want You to do.

Sometimes we don't know what they are. So, notice what He said. He said in this particular passage, and He says in different ways, but He says, There is no creature hidden from His sight. That is, God sees every single person. He knows all about us. No creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and, listen, laid bare.

That means uncovered to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do, which means the one to whom we are accountable. He sees every single thing. He knows every need we have every day and every hour of the day and every moment of it. He knows it. So, you say, Well, why do you say go to Jesus?

Well, let me ask you this. Who else knows you so perfectly? He is the only person in existence that knows everything about us, inside, outside, what we think, how we think, why we do what we do, our actions, our motives, our desires, the secret sins of our life, the open things that go on. He's the only one who knows.

So, why would I not come to Him? He knows, for example, He says in Matthew chapter six in the Sermon on the Mountain, you remember what He says in the sixth chapter and eighth verse, He says, Do not be like them, that is the unbeliever, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. The reason we come to Him is because He is the only one who perfectly knows everything there is of us. He said, Nothing's covered from His eyes, every single thing. No secrets with God. You and I can fool each other maybe or somebody else, but the Father knows it all. Jesus is the one to whom we should go for all of our needs, no matter who and what the need may be.

Now, there's a second thing I want you to notice here, and that's this. He mentions here, Jesus is our High Priest before the throne of God. Now, what does that have to do with God meeting my needs? Simply this, the Bible says, For all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Listen very carefully. All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The Scripture says that our sins have separated us from God. So therefore, the truth about our relationship to Him before there is a salvation experience is that we are sinners, that we've sinned against God, we live as we please, we do as we want to do, and our sins have separated us from God. And so, we have to ask the question.

Now, listen carefully because I'm going to repeat something about four or five times. Ask yourself this question. All of us know that we've sinned against Him. Upon what basis can you go to a holy God who has no sin in His presence?

God is light, there is no darkness in Him at all, the Scripture says. On what basis can you go to God the Father and pray and expect God to hear and answer your prayer? On what basis can you go to a holy God? When Jesus came, He came as the great High Priest. When Jesus came, He came as the Father's final and ultimate sacrifice for the sin of all mankind. When Jesus Christ went to the cross, He went to the cross as a Lamb, the Lamb of God. He came into this world not just to teach and preach and heal, though He did those things. He came primarily in order to die and shed His blood at Calvary. And the shedding of His blood at Calvary atoned for, paid the sin debt of all mankind in full in one act and one moment of time.

So that you and I would have access to holy God. Now, that's how we have access, because now our sins have been atoned for. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that covers our sin. This is how you and I, sinful human beings, can approach holy God and be accepted in His sight and heard by Him to answer our needs because our sins have been atoned for, forgiven.

That is, we've been pardoned. Now, when you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, what you do is you do this. You reject the only thing that covers your sin. When you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, you reject the only way that has access to God the Father. When you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, you reject His blood as a waste.

His crucifixion was a waste. Because you're saying that you can go to the Father without Him. And what you're saying is there's something in you, sinful human being, having been separated from God by your sins, that somehow there is something in you that's good enough to be made acceptable in the eyes of God.

And there's not a single verse in the Scripture to prove that or to defend that. He says, not by works of righteousness which we've done, but by His mercy, His grace, His love, and the shedding of His blood that we are saved. So, why do you go to Jesus?

Because He's on the way. And people say, well, I pray and these things happen. There may be some things that happen about which you pray, but isn't God answering your prayer? When you reject the only access to a holy, righteous God, Jehovah God of the Bible, you have no other access. Now the devil will do everything in his power to get you to doubt that. But one thing for certain, you cannot prove it any other way in the Word of God. This is why Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me. He knew that His death would atone for all of our sin.

It isn't that God wants anybody to be lost or separated from Him. He's made the way. He's paved the way. He wants us to come to Him.

But there is a way. Either I'm coming on my own prideful goodness and works which are unacceptable. He says our sins are like filthy rags in His sight, not by works of righteousness which we've done. According to Him, it's His mercy. And His mercy is what brought about the shedding of His blood and the forgiveness of our sins.

Now, I recognize you work with people and you live around people, maybe somebody in your family. They say, no, no, no, no, no. God isn't, He's not so narrow-minded. Listen, is it narrow-minded that God, holy God, would send His only begotten Son into this world to die for our sins? Is that narrow-minded?

No, it is not. It is an expression of love. Now, one thing that makes this so important is this, and that is turn back to the second chapter. Listen to this, second chapter of Hebrews, and I want us to look at two verses here. Here's what He says, verse seventeen, Therefore He, that is Jesus, watch this, had to be made like us, like His brethren, in all things, that is, He was both God and man. As a man, He's just like any other man as far as His being, flesh and blood and bone and so forth, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation or sacrifice for the sins of the people. He said He had to be made like us in order to be a legitimate, acceptable sacrifice.

Now, let's think about that for a moment. Because we said, where do you get your needs met? Jesus is the one who meets our needs. He knows us perfectly, and He's the one who died for us and paid the price for our sins. Now, the third thing I want you to notice here is this, that the Scripture says that Jesus sympathizes with all of our needs. Look at this passage.

I want to read it a couple of times. Watch this, verse fifteen, For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us. That is, Jesus is one who sympathized. That is, He can feel and sense this.

He experiences this. But one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Now, let's think about that for a moment because that's an awesome statement. We just read in that second chapter in the seventeenth verse what He said. And He said it so clearly. Therefore, He had to be made like us.

That is, the incarnation is that God the Son came in this world in the form of a baby born of the Virgin Mary. He had to be like us growing up as a child, as a teenager, as a young man. And He says here, Therefore He had to be made like His brethren in all things for a reason, so that, what, He might become merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Now, why was that? He says, For since He Himself was tempted in that which He suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.

Now, let's look at this for a moment. When we think about Jesus being tempted, we usually think about Jesus being in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil. Do you think that's the only time He got tempted? He was tempted from the time He was young. He was tempted in those early years. He was tempted in His adult years. He was tempted even to the cross, tried in every way. Some of us say, Now, wait a minute. You mean to tell me that Jesus was tempted in every way just like we are? Well, what does it say? It says He was tempted in all points such as we.

Watch this. This is the reason He says that He sympathizes with us. To sympathize with somebody is to enter into their feelings, their hurt, their pain, their losses, their whatever is going on in their life, that He was tempted in all points as we.

So, whatever you might think. For example, when He began His ministry, people rejected Him. So, He understands what rejection's all about. He was tempted by the devil to become prideful and throw Himself off the temple. He was tempted in every single possible way and He was tried. He had sorrow just like any other man would have sorrow over Judas who betrayed Him and Lazarus, for example, who died.

He certainly felt the pain that His whole nation rejected Him. So, He knows about rejection. He knows about sorrow at Lazarus' tomb. He knows about pain and sorrow about people who were around Him.

And I think about the loneliness He must have felt. The night of His crucifixion, before His crucifixion, all of His disciples left Him. Of all the moments in His life that He needed the assurance and the help, He said to them, look, will you just go up here and pray a little while? And then He went and found them asleep. And He knew all about pain on the cross.

He knew all about, listen, this is the one thing that He knew all about that we forget. Jesus knew all about the weight of guilt. If I should ask you, when you sin against God, do you feel guilty? Amen?

Let me tell you the issue here. If you sin against God and you feel no conviction whatsoever of the Holy Spirit, when we give an invitation, you need to get saved, because the Spirit of God, one of His primary responsibilities is to make us aware of our sin and our guilt. What I want you to see is this, Jesus knows, watch this, He knows exactly what guilt feels like. Listen, not because He sinned, because He didn't. He says in His passage, without sin. The reason He knows what guilt feels like is because He took upon Himself, listen, the guilt of all of your sin in mind and the sin of the whole world.

So, think about something that He would, He was tempted in every way. Listen, the reason He said that was He wants us to understand He understands us. He said He sympathizes. That means that Jesus can sort of get into my emotions and He knows exactly how I feel. When you have fears in your life and when you're worried and anxious about things, does He understand that?

Yes, He does. Did He sin by being worried? No, but He understands. This is why He said in Matthew twice that, that He knows our needs even before we ask Him. He understands why we do what we do. He understood why Judas betrayed Him. Did it hurt Him? Sure, it hurt Him, because He knew what the end result of that was going to be. Listen, not for Himself, but for Judas. When Peter denied Him, just think about Peter, James, and John, His three most intimates, and Peter number one, at least as far as outward expression is concerned. And what did He do?

He denied that He even knew Him on the night before His crucifixion. But He told him, He said, you're going to deny Me. Did it hurt Him? Yes. Did it hurt Him? Yes. Did it hurt Him? Yes. Did it hurt Him?

Yes. Anybody ever reject you? There's no such thing as being rejected without feeling it. Every divorced person, every separated person, every runaway child, they know what rejection, they know what feelings that are hurt, that are painful, they know all about that. The end result's the same.

End result, sin is sin. And He says, what I want you to know is that I understand that I am sympathetic, that I understand that I've taken upon myself the feelings. And when you come to Me weeping and crying, you've been deserted, walked away from, I've lost everything. He says, I know how you feel. Who else can tell you that?

Only Jesus. Thank you for listening to Where to Turn in Time of Need. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.