In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: The longer you live, here's what you're going to discover: Your true, genuine friends become a treasure in your life. More valuable than any material thing you could possibly own is a godly friend who prays for you, supports you, loves you, holds you up when you're imperfect, when you're weak. The night he needed them most, they were asleep. God forbid that you and I sleep when our friends are hurting and when they need us so desperately.

Guest (Male): Are you experiencing deep hurt or emotional pain? Well, today's edition of In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, will bring you encouragement. He'll be teaching on how to benefit from suffering as we respond properly in these difficult kind of seasons. Stay with us to discover lessons we learn in Gethsemane. Now here's Dr. Stanley's message.

Dr. Charles Stanley: What I want to talk about in this message is simply this, and that is I want to talk about the experience Jesus had, probably the longest, most difficult night of his life. I want to talk about lessons we learn in Gethsemane. Now usually, the night in the garden was a wonderful night, but tonight, it is a night of grief, it is a night of warfare and bloodshed. This is a night of all nights in the life of Christ. No night was so dark, no night was ever so long as this one. So what we have to ask is this: what lessons can you and I learn from the life of Jesus in just this one night of his life?

Well, I believe we can learn several very important lessons because you see the truth is all of us go through our nights of difficulty, hardship, trial, suffering, physical, emotional pain. Now, no one will ever suffer like Jesus suffered. Now, remember this: there are many women out there for their faith who have been martyred, for their faith who have gone through all kinds of pain and whose physical pain may have been equal to Jesus' physical pain of crucifixion because many people have been crucified in the past.

But Jesus was different because along with that crucifixion, he bore the weight of the sin of the world. Men have been boiled in oil, they have been fed to lions, they've been crucified; all kinds of things have happened. Nothing to match the pain of Jesus because he bore your sin and mine. He died as a substitute in your place and my place.

Now when you and I go through difficulty and hardship and pain in our life, we certainly would like to escape from it if at all possible. And yet, God knows what he's up to in our life and as we said in the very beginning, it may be that it is the will of the Father that we go through difficulty in order to prepare us for his purpose in our life. Now remember this: pain and suffering in our life can be very instructive. There are some things that you and I are not going to learn in pleasure, when the times are good, when we have everything we need, everything we want in life.

Pain can be very instructive. What can we sustain? How can we keep moving when everything in us, our whole being cries stop, stop, stop, give up and quit? And yet you and I know better than to do that. So let me ask you a question: how have you been responding in your pain? How have you been responding in your suffering? How have you been responding when people have criticized you or persecuted you?

How have you responded when you have hurt so deeply you did not know what to do next, which way to turn, where to turn? My friend, you want to turn to the living word of God and listen to what he says about his love. You say, "Well, how can I believe that God loves me when he allows all this to happen in my life?" What you have to ask is, "God, what is your goal for this experience in my life?" Because God, listen, being in the will of God does not mean that we will not suffer.

So first of all, I simply say that God's purpose and plan for our life may include the time of Gethsemane in our own life. A second thing I want to say is this: that when God sends us and allows us to go through those Gethsemanes in our life, we too need close friends, even as Jesus did. Now think about this. The scripture says that then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and said to his disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray."

Then he talked about being grieved and he took Peter, James, and John, his most intimate three, and brought them a little closer to him. Then he came and found them sleeping and questioned Peter, "Peter, couldn't you wait one hour?" And he came back a couple of times and there they were asleep. Think about this for a moment. They had seen and felt and touched the very son of the living God. They had eaten with him, they certainly must have laughed with him, they certainly must have enjoyed his presence.

They'd watched miracle after miracle after miracle. They walked literally with the son of the living God. And now, in the most crucial, critical moments of his life—in all those three years in the past as you read the gospels and you begin to look to see what Jesus was doing in this particular time—he was healing and so forth. Jesus was always sufficient, adequate for every circumstance of life.

But now, here's where he is. This is the Lord Jesus whom they had seen. They had seen him stand before blind people and say, "Be healed," and they could see. They had seen him touch lepers and they were made clean. They had seen him just speak and touch and people's lives radically changed physically. They had seen him and heard him say, "Lazarus, come forth," and a dead man walked out of the tomb when they pulled back the stone wrapped in his grave clothes, fully alive.

They had even seen him walk on water. They had watched him simply speak to the waves and they died in their presence and a tumultuous sea became glassy, calm and quiet. And now, this same Jesus is saying, "My soul is grieved unto death. Please stay with us. Please watch with me." What he was saying is this: tonight I need you. That's what he was saying.

Here's Jesus in all of his transparency. Here's the son of God, here's God walking in human flesh, and what is he saying to those men who had been his friends for these three years? "I need you tonight." He'd never said that before. "I need you tonight. I need you to stand with me. I need you to pray for me. I need you to be close by. I need to know that you're there." And he went a little further and began to pray and to cry out to the Father.

Now, he certainly did not say simply quietly, "Heavenly Father." He was crying out to God. The Bible says in Luke 22 he fervently prayed. Here's Peter, James, and John, his most intimate ones. He had chosen them to go with him to the mount of transfiguration and see Moses and Elijah when the three of them met together. They had been in the inner bedroom to watch this girl raised from the dead; they were there.

And now he had chosen those three, his most intimate three, to share with him the longest, most difficult, darkest, crucial, critical, hurtful, painful night of his life. And what are they doing? Sleep. You know why they were sleepy? They were weary, they were tired, they were exhausted. But they were his best friends. And when he needed them, they went to sleep. Physically they went to sleep.

They were asleep to his emotional turmoil. He said, "I'm grieved even unto death." Would that not have been a signal strong enough to stand by his side, stay awake, cry out to the Father for him, reminding the Father of all the good things he had done for them, reminding them that he was the perfect son of God, that they'd never seen him sin, they'd never seen him do a wrong, they'd always seen him compassionate and loving and forgiving?

Could they not by his side, or at least a distance away, cry out in his behalf when he so desperately needed them? No, they were asleep. Let me ask you a question: what kind of friend are you? Are you the kind of friend that can be counted on? When things are tough, things are difficult, things are not popular, when it's hard to stand with, hard to support, when maybe you don't fully understand, what kind of friend are you?

Are you the kind of friend, glad to see you, but when things get tough, you like the disciples scatter? What kind of friend are you? There are a lot of fair-weather friends who are there only when things are fair. But when things get difficult, when things get tough, somehow they find themselves unable to hang in there. I want to say it again: the longer you live, here's what you're going to discover. Your true, genuine friends become a treasure in your life.

More valuable than things, more valuable than any material thing you could possibly own is a godly friend who prays, supports, hangs in there with you and allows God to use you to encourage that person. The night he needed them most, they were asleep. God forbid that you and I sleep when our friends are hurting and when they need us so desperately. Then I think about another principle here that's so interesting and that's this: that in our Gethsemanes, it is natural for us to struggle in our prayers.

Now I want you to watch something here. Jesus is struggling. He's having a very difficult time. He says, "I'm grieved and distressed. My soul," he was talking about his innermost being. He said, "My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch with me." He was hurting. He was feeling the pain and the suffering and the hurt to a degree and to a depth that you and I will never understand on the face of this earth.

And he was struggling. Now, most of the time when you and I are struggling, we're struggling over whether we want to do the will of God or not. Or sometimes we're struggling over what is the will of God. And so it's normal for us to struggle in prayer. But here's what I want to mention to you: sometimes when you and I are hurting and our pain is so intense, it's very difficult to even pray. It's difficult to keep from being distracted by our pain, our hurt, our suffering, or maybe even our anger.

Something going on inside of us that is so—bringing us to such distraughtness—that we can't pray. We hurt too much to pray. Somebody says, "Well, you can't ever hurt too much to pray." Then you have never felt pain. If you've ever felt real, true, deep, abiding, grievous emotional pain, you can know that even while you are praying, you are distracted. That it is difficult to pray when you're hurting badly enough.

It's not a sin to struggle. It's not a sign of weakness that you and I say, "Well, I'm struggling in my prayer." This is why God, listen, this is why he has the church. This is why he has the church family. This is why he says we are to pray for one another, encourage one another, bear each other's burdens, lift up one another. There are so many one-anothers in the New Testament that we are to do for one another, and certainly one of them is to pray and to encourage and to lift up.

And so when you look at the life of Jesus here and you see what's happening and he's struggling, he says, "I'm struggling even to the point of death," crying out fervently, crying out. Remember this: even amidst our cries, our Heavenly Father who will spare no effort, no experience or no pain to get his will and purpose done in our life does not mean when you and I are struggling that he's not listening. It does not mean that he's not answering our prayer.

It does not mean that he's saying no because we want deliverance right now. He's listening carefully. He sees us and listen, one thing you and I know for certain: whatever pain we experience in life, Jesus Christ the Son of God has felt worse, more intense than anything you and I could ever experience. And sometimes we go through those experiences in life when we struggle.

We struggle to talk to God. We struggle because we've told him over and over and over again and we don't see an answer. And sometimes we can feel God, where are you? We can feel estranged. Why? Because the hurt and the pain can be so intense and we don't see any evidence that God's at work. If it could just be for one day or maybe for one night, that's one thing.

But when it goes on night after night, day after day, year after year, then we say, "Well, God, if you really loved us, here's what you would do." And the truth is, God does love us and here's what he does: he allows the pain and the hurt and the suffering to last just as long as is necessary to accomplish his purpose. That's the part we don't like. Doesn't the Bible say ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you?

Everyone that asketh receiveth, he that seeketh findeth, to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Doesn't it say that? Yes. What it doesn't say is ask and it shall be given to you right now. Seek and you shall find it tomorrow. Knock and it shall be opened unto you in just a moment. Doesn't say that. You know why? Because God and God alone knows how long it takes to give us enough instruction, purify us enough, motivate us enough, and he knows exactly what it'll take to draw us into an intimate relationship with him.

He spares no pain, no experience, and no effort to bring us to himself. All of us have struggled and I can remember times when I've gotten out of the bed at night, got on my knees, crying out to God, struggling. How long do you think I struggled? I struggled until I was willing to say, "Father, not my will but your will. Father, not my time but your time. Father, what you want is what I want."

When you come to that place, here's what you'll discover: struggle is all over. And the struggle is replaced by a sense of peace and contentment that has no human, listen, has no human understanding because the circumstance has not changed. God didn't take anything away or put something there. Nothing's changed. But we struggle until we can come to the place of saying, "Father, not my will but your will. Not my time but your time."

Another principle I want you to notice here that I think is so very important and that's simply this: that our Gethsemanes, our times of suffering and pain, our Gethsemane is no place for blame. Listen, when you go through difficulty, hardship, and pain and suffering in your life and you look any other place for the source—I didn't say it was the will of God, though he let it happen. I didn't say it was the plan of God, though he certainly permitted it.

If you look to any other source than God, you'll blame somebody. You know what blame does in the midst of pain and heartache and suffering? It intensifies the pain, increases the pain and the heartache and the suffering. It does nothing good. There's no profit in blaming. Blame doesn't fit the life of a child of God when you're going through pain and suffering and heartache.

Remember, it only intensifies the pain, increases the confusion and frustration in your life, and brings you greater calamity later on if you don't deal with it. You become resentful, hostile, angry, bitter, and those emotions will destroy you. One last thing I would say about this passage and that's this: here is the key to going through difficulty, hardship, pain, and suffering. No matter what the cause or no matter who you may feel is the cause, here's the ultimate key to get us through it.

This is the way we can endure it, whether it's for a night or a day or years. This is the way we're sustained. This is the way we can persist. This is the way that no matter how deep, how dark, how lonely, how anxious, how fearful, here's the key: "God, I want to thank you. You are in control." Jesus never questioned that the Father was in control of what was happening that night.

And you know what? You and I don't have any reason to doubt that he's in control of our lives. You say, "But if he's in control, why this pain?" Instruction, purification, motivation, intimacy. Think about the value of those four things by which you and I profit from difficulty, hardship, pain, and suffering in our life. When I remember that my Father's in control, I can face most anything in life.

Because I know certain things: that our loving Heavenly Father has a limitation on the intensity of the pain. He has a limitation on the length of the pain. He has a limitation on, listen, the nature of the pain. He has a limitation because he has a purpose and that limitation of whatever he allows us to suffer must fit his purpose for our life. So the question is this: when you go through those difficult, hard, trying times in your life and you have been through probably many of them, how have you been responding?

Have you been blaming somebody else? Have you been saying, "God, if you loved me you wouldn't allow this to happen?" Or have you come to the place in your life to realize that your loving Heavenly Father loves you enough to let you hurt? Remember this in the pain: you do not suffer a moment of pain apart from the presence of the living God on the inside of you to sustain you, help you, love you, care for you, and to bring you through it.

Guest (Male): God is with you in your suffering and he will never abandon you. Dr. Stanley's message on In Touch urged you to reach out to the Lord and find the comfort that only he can bring. You can hear this message again by following the link to today on radio at intouch.org. And look around while you're there to find resources that can help you learn to grow in your reliance on the Lord.

And to order a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message, "Lessons We Learn in Gethsemane", go to our online bookstore. Again log on to intouch.org or call or text us at 1-800-INTOUCH. To write to us, you can address your letter to In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357.

If you've ever asked God, "If you love me, why do you allow me to suffer?" Well, stay with us for today's moment with Charles Stanley. It's coming up. In Touch Plus is streaming on Local Now, featuring all the best of Dr. Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: We're to have strong convictions based on the word of God. He's working out things that you and I would never know about in our future.

Guest (Male): In Touch Plus, your streaming network for quality Christian programming 24/7. Now watch this. In Touch Plus, streaming free on Local Now.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Let your time and your schedule and everything about you revolve around this: that you and I are to develop and continue to develop this ongoing, intimate, wonderful, exciting, satisfying, indescribable, wonderful, incomparable relationship with a personal God.

Guest (Male): Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us get closer to Jesus, as we all want to do. You can learn how at charlesstanleyinstitute.org. You're listening to In Touch. The pain that a follower of Christ endures is not random. Here's a moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Jesus was suffering untold hurt and pain, broken in his heart. Why was he broken in his heart? His nation that he came to save had rejected him. Judas had betrayed him. Peter was going to deny him. His disciples were all going to be scattered and he was going to be left all alone. I don't think any of us can ever possibly conceive of that kind of hurt, that kind of pain, that kind of suffering.

But we do go through ours. And many of you have been through all kinds of suffering, all kinds of pain, and probably one of the things that you've had to deal with above everything else is asking this question: "God, if you love me, if you really and truly loved me, why would you allow this?" And I can tell you what God would answer, how he'd answer that question.

Are you listening? Say amen. Because I do love you, I have allowed this in your life. Because I have a purpose that's greater than your pleasure, greater than your goals, greater than what you desire in life. My purpose is more important to me than your pleasure. We don't like it, but you know what? What you have to ask is this: what is God's purpose? His purpose is always good.

Guest (Male): Christians are not exempt from difficulty. God has a purpose. You'll find help for dealing with disappointment and pain at intouch.org. Next time on In Touch, gain a better understanding of why Jesus was crucified and what can be yours as a result. Join us again for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on the station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.