Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, April 8th. The chaos in the world can leave you feeling helpless and hopeless. If that's where you are, stay with us for solid encouragement that will keep you going even in the toughest situation. When the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane stood there and watched the soldiers take Jesus and haul Him off to Pilots Hall, I believe a sudden sense of fear gripped their hearts. And the thing that made them fear was this. They walked away under the guard of Rome their hope of escape and release and liberty from Roman rule. As they heard and as they watched Him tried by Pilate, a mock trial that was unjust, unfair, and illegal, again all of their hopes were dashed as they heard Him tried and sentenced to be crucified. And then when they heard and when they saw the Romans nail His hands to the cross and lift Him up, sink Him into the earth, and watched Him hang there, I believe the hope of all that they dreamed for suddenly vanished. The women who came on Easter Sunday morning, they came to anoint the body of a dead man. And they were hoping somebody would be around in order to move back a stone which weighed hundreds and hundreds of pounds and order that these little ladies could come in and anoint His body and at least one more time express their love and gratitude to Him. When they came and the stone was rolled away and those women were able to walk in and have the proclamation, He is not here, He is risen for the first time since they saw Him die on the cross, a little flicker of hope began to flicker in their human heart. For their first impression was the stones been rolled away and who has stolen His body? They had all kinds of reactions, but when the angels said to them, do you not remember that He said He would rise, go and tell His disciples? They hastened to tell His disciples and to share with them that Jesus Christ was no longer there. And then of course when Jesus met Mary there in the garden and she went rushing off to say to His disciples, He is alive, He is no longer there. They said on one occasion, you know, it is like an idle tale, but when she said to them, I have seen Him, the scripture says that Peter and John ran to the tomb because before there was no hope, they were hopeless, they knew He was dead. They knew that He was sealed in the tomb and men who die and whose bodies are wrapped in grave clothes and who sprinkle with perfume and the stone sealing the tomb, and some say it was probably, it could have been up to 2,000 pounds in weight, there was no way for Him to get out. But I want to remind you my friend, you know why the stone was rolled away? It wasn't rolled away for Jesus to get out, it was rolled away for the women to get in to see that He wasn't there. So the little flicker of hope began to be a ray of hope, and a ray of hope began to be a whole tremendous avalanche of hope He said He would rise, He's gone, no one stole His body, surely He must be alive. What seemed to be a hopeless, helpless situation turned into a whole lifetime of eternal hope. When Peter wrote this epistle, you know he was writing to, Peter wrote this epistle to people who were undergoing persecution. The God's people have been scattered because of persecution and hardship, and so he begins by calling them people who are scattered abroad, and he says concerning them in this first chapter if you'll notice, he says those who have been scattered abroad elect according to the foreknowledge of God, and then he gives to them the one reason for which they're to hope, even though scattered in foreign countries, even though amidst persecution and hardship and heartache, undergoing circumstances and situations of privation that seem to be absolutely hopeless for them, Peter writing to believers under persecution said to them, Blessed be the God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now listen, there are many, many people today who are living their life without hope. There's some of you sitting here today and so many of you who are out there, and you are living your life and feel some of the same kind of hardship, and notice the phrases he uses here. He says, wherein you greatly rejoice though now for a season, he says, we have a reason to rejoice, but at the present time we're going through a season of what? A season that seems to be one of heaviness in the heart because of our circumstances. Manifold various kinds of temptations and trials and heartaches and circumstances and situations for which there seems to be no real answer, no real solution, no real hope. Many, many people today are in a similar situation. For example, there are many people who are facing circumstances that are heavy upon them. Many of you who are sitting right here knowing your own heart, if somebody could weigh your heart this morning, you said, oh yes, I feel that my heart is burning me down because I cannot survive the circumstances in which I live. I want to tell you, nothing is ever hopeless as long as Jesus Christ is still alive. There is still hope. It makes no difference what your circumstance is. There is still hope as long as Jesus Christ is alive. And as I search this particular passage and begin to visualize in my own heart, the kinds of persecution and the kinds of heartaches and privations and separations and pain these persecuted believers were going through 2,000 years ago and thinking about the kind of difficult and heartache that people face every day. I begin to think about what is the message of hope that Peter is speaking of here. He says it is a living hope. Now, when all hope is gone, it's dead. Here, for example, in the hospital, there may be some of you lying there this morning, and you have heard the doctor say, I'm sorry, you have an incurable disease. He's named it, and he said to you, there is nothing else I can do. And what you heard, listen, you heard him say with your physical ears, I'm sorry, there is nothing else I can do. What you really heard him say in your emotions is this. You heard him say, there is no hope. And I want to tell you, my friend, that's not what he said. No doctor has the prerogative of announcing to you there is no hope. As long as Jesus Christ is alive, there is hope. Even if you die in this life, Jesus says, he that believe it in me, though he experiences death, yet shall he live. There is not only hope in this life, but there is hope beyond this life, and there's something better than living in this life, and that's living everlasting and eternally in that life. So when somebody says to you, there's no hope, forget it. There is no such thing as no hope for the believer. And listen to what Peter said to these Christians here. He says, Blessed be the God and Father, by the Lord Jesus Christ, which is to praise the Father. He said, Blessed be the God and Father, by the Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his what? Abundant mercy has brought about a new creation, a new birth in your heart and my heart, whereby he says, we have a living hope that is based on what? On the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now I begin to think about how do you and I relate the resurrection to times of difficulty and heartache that you and I go through, and all of us have been through valleys, and all of us are going through valleys and add on the deserts, spiritual and our life. What is it that the resurrection of Jesus Christ says to us that is the very basis and foundation of all of our hope? Let's think about it for a moment. When you and I going through difficulty, there are at least four things we want to be absolutely assured of. And the first one is this, that our sins are pardoned. We want to know in our heart that our sins are forgiven. Sometimes is it not true that you can see the valley coming? You know that you're headed toward a difficulty, you're headed toward a heaviness, you're headed toward a trial in your life, and you're not exactly sure how you're going to face it. He says, because Jesus Christ lives, we have a hope. It doesn't make any difference what you're facing as long as you know that you're right with Jesus Christ. He says our sins have been pardoned by what? Death on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our sins have been forgiven. How do I know I'm forgiven? You say, well, because the Bible says you're forgiven. That's not all I know. You see, He says, if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I know that's what it says, but how do I know that works? Jesus Christ said that He would forgive us partners of our sin. How do you know this morning that your sins are forgiven? There's only one way that you know that. Because Jesus Christ rose from the dead, you and I have living eternal proof that God the Father accepted His death on the cross as sufficient payment for our sins and therefore we are forgiven. The only way we know we're forgiven is the Christ who promised forgiveness destroyed the power of death and did what? He made forgiveness a living reality in your heart and my heart. But as I began to think about difficulty in heartache, I thought about something else. What is there a second thing that you and I need to know when we go through valleys of heartache? The second thing is this, that Jesus Christ is going to walk with us every step of the way. Listen, the scripture says what? He says, I will never leave thee nor what? Nor forsake thee. How do I know that? When He said, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give unto you, let not your heart be troubled. How do I know that? What makes His promise real? Now Zori asked the made promises to his followers, Confucius made promises to his followers, Buddha made promises to his followers, you and I can go right down the line of all the great religious leaders in the world. They made tremendous promises, but how do you and I know that Jesus Christ personally will walk with us? Because if Jesus Christ could walk through the stone that sealed him, if Jesus Christ could be resurrected from death that held him, there is no question in my mind that Jesus Christ can walk with me wherever the circumstance and the heartache and the difficulty of life may take us. Do you know in this morning in your heart by reality of experience, can you say Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever? How do I know that? How do you and I know that He's the same yesterday, today and forever? How do we know that the promise of His presence is just as real today as it was then? There's only one thing, and that is the fact that He came up out of the grave a living reality to the supernatural power of God, that Jesus Christ could keep His promise, I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee. What did He say to His apostles? And can't you imagine how they must have felt when He said to them, He sent them out two by two, and then on occasion He said to them, you to go to this particular place and you to avoid these, He gave them specific directions. But the last thing He said to them, which was the most encouraging of all is, He said, and lo, I am with you all the way even to the end of this age. Has it ever dawned on you that we are still living in the age that Jesus referred to when He told His apostles, I'll be with you even to the end of this age? I don't know what circumstance, what heartache, what burden, what valley, what difficulty, what barrier you may be facing, but this I know. As long as you know in your heart that you're right with Jesus Christ, as long as you know in your heart that it makes no difference if everybody leaves you, everyone rejects you, everyone turns his back on you that walking by your side is the omnipotent, omniscient presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. If He goes with you, what difference does it matter if you go alone? And you see there's some of you who are watching this morning and the doctors already said to you, and you've interpreted there is no hope and you're already thinking about dying. And you're saying, I'm not really afraid to die, but every once in a while I get gripped with this awful sense of fear. What lies beyond this life? And I want to tell you, the same Christ that lives within your heart has promised, He'll take that next vital, eternal, irrevocable step with you once you pass from this life to next. You see, as long as we feel and are aware of His presence, what difficulty, what hardship, what heartache, what really matters as long as we know that He's there. But there's a third thing that I noticed in this passage when he says in verse 4, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fated not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith and to salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. If I know that I'm pardoned from my sin, and if I know in my heart that Jesus Christ's presence goes with me everywhere, and if I know the third thing that His power is accessible to me in every circumstance, what real difference does it make when He came up out of the grave, what did He do to us, but give us everlasting assurance that the Christ who lives within us has made us accessible to His supernatural power so that you and I will never face a circumstance that we'll ever have to say it is hopeless. You can erase that from your vocabulary. You can remove that from your thought pattern. Nothing is ever again hopeless if Jesus Christ rose from the dead, because with what did He come? He said, all power is given unto me, and I will be with you every step of the way. But there's one more thing that I want to be sure of when I walk through valleys of heartache and difficulty, and I don't know which way or how long or how far, like some of you are going already. I want to know that I'm pardoned, His resurrection affirms that. I want to know I have His presence, His resurrection confirms that. I want to know that I have accessibility to the supernatural power of God, and His resurrection assures me of that. I have confidence about that. There's one last thing I want to be sure of when I walk through valleys of heartache and difficulty, and maybe tempted to believe that things are hopeless. I want to be sure of the promise of life after death, because you see one of these days we're going to die. You say, well, doesn't that bring it all hopeless? No. And you see, if Jesus Christ is living within our heart, our sins are forgiven. We have accessibility to His power, and we know that it doesn't really make any difference whether we die today, tomorrow, next year, 20 years. The thing that really matters is this. Do you have assurance that when your old heart beats its last time and life flows from this body, that that eternal life that has existed within you since the moment you were saved takes over and takes you into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose resurrection gives you hope? You remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the whole chapter about the resurrection he said about Jesus, but now is Christ risen from the dead and has become the, listen, the first fruits of them that slept. Now, what does he mean by that? He means that Jesus Christ is the first person who ever died and was buried and rose again, never to die again. And he says Jesus Christ is the first fruits. And then he says, and those who follow him, which means that every single believer, every single believer has the promise of life everlasting. And I want to ask you something. If Jesus was dead and remained dead, what hope do you have this morning of forgiveness, of His accompanying you? What hope do you have of supernatural power in your life? And what hope do you have of life beyond this one? Hope is defined by the world as desire with expectation. The New Testament word hope means a confidence that supersedes and banishes all doubt and uncertainty. The fact that he's alive banishes all doubt, all uncertainty. Whatever circumstance you and I face, we will never have to say again, it is hopeless. But as long as he lives, there is hope.
