Phillip Bowen: I wanted to personally thank you for walking with In Touch Ministries this year. Early in my Christian walk, I was shaped by Dr. Stanley’s teaching. I’m sure many of you remember the first time you heard Dr. Stanley when the Holy Spirit spoke directly to a need in your heart. Maybe you were hurting, maybe you were searching, but in that moment, God used His Word to bring hope, peace, or direction.
Today someone else is hearing for the first time, and God is using that moment to speak life, just like He did with you. Dr. Stanley was fond of saying, “The best is yet to come,” and as we look towards the future, we believe that promise still holds true. God is still speaking, people are still listening, and together we’ll keep sharing His truth quickly, clearly, and irresistibly.
We’re humbled to continue Dr. Stanley’s work and blessed to have you with us. Thank you for making In Touch Ministries possible. male announcer: In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Next on “In Touch,” “The Key to Continuing Peace.” Dr.
Stanley: Is it really possible to have true, genuine peace when the circumstances in your life are all fouled up and messed up? In other words, you’d like to change this and change that and change the other. Is it possible to have real, true peace when things are so uncertain, when you feel sometimes such pain in your body or in your emotions, when things seem to just not be able to– you just can’t straighten them out? How can you have peace in those kind of times? Well, Jesus was in the upper room with his disciples, and Peter had just argued with Jesus about washing his feet.
Judas had gone out to betray Him. He was talking to them about the fact that He was going to leave them and the fact that He was going to be crucified. None of that made a lot of sense to them. And then, to top all that off, here’s what He said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” I’m sure He didn’t say it quite that way, but I think that would have been the most ridiculous thing Jesus could have said.
In the midst of all of that and You tell me don’t have a troubled heart? This is one of those verses– and you might want to turn to John 14 for a moment–this is one of those verses, if you don’t understand what was going on, it doesn’t make any sense at all. And so, even in the midst of this very, very difficult time, Jesus makes this statement, “Let not your heart be troubled.
” He said, “You believe in God, believe also in Me.” Now, what was He saying? Here’s what He was saying. Don’t let your heart be troubled any longer because they were already troubled. I mean, when He said one of you shall betray me, that was troubling. Peter argued with Him about washing His feet, that was trouble.
When He said I’m going away, that was–everything He said to them was very troubling, and yet He said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” What He meant was let not your heart be troubled any longer because I’m going to show you how you can live through all of this. All of us have faced those difficulties and times in our life and situations and circumstances that we thought, “God, where are You? If You were there, why don’t You hear my prayer? Why don’t You provide what I need? Why don’t You heal my body? Why don’t You change my relationship?
Why don’t You bring him or her back into my life?” We’ve all been there for some time or the other. And so, when we talk about peace, what I want to talk about in this message is, listen, talk about the key to continuing peace, not ups and downs, peace today, not so much peaceful tomorrow, but what’s the kind of peace that is continuing? And that’s what I want to talk about in this message.
