ARE YOU SATISFIED?
W. S. Chellberg
Are you unsatisfied? Do you have a craving for something in your heart that you cannot identify? Something unsettled in your life? Are you conscious that you are not fully satisfied? Have you tried crafts? Have you tried motorcycles? Automobiles? Have you tried education? Maybe you feel that would satisfy! Have you tried fishing? Has it satisfied you? Have you tried friends, or music? Maybe if you got a better job, or a little more money so that you could buy what you wanted, perhaps some new dresses, or maybe a camper—maybe that would satisfy your heart. Maybe you think that then you would be fully satisfied.
Well, you can read about the wealthiest man in the world (he died a few years ago). I forget how many billion dollars he was worth. He had a yacht larger than the Queen of England’s yacht, with a landing pad for his own helicopter, and he had his own air force. He married what he thought was the prettiest woman in the world. He had a palace and he spent most of his time on his yacht or in his palace—and he was one of the most dissatisfied men in all the world. And if he had had three or four billion dollars more he would just have been more dissatisfied. Why? Because he would have wanted still more money.
I would like to present to you the answer to this problem, an answer that will fill every craving of your heart. The answer is a Man, the Satisfier of men— Jesus. I am happy to be able to announce to you the Satisfier of men, one who can satisfy every longing of every heart in the world. Jesus is the answer to dissatisfaction, and to the empty craving in our hearts. So you can forget the ‘rat race’—that endless turmoil of trying to get more and more, trying to be smarter and smarter, always getting a better house and car. You can forget all of that for you will have the Satisfier in your heart—Jesus. You may say, ‘Well, you sound really sure about what you are saying’. I am sure, because I have tasted it. I have come to know Him and to love Him; and I know that He has satisfied the longings of my heart.
When God created man He created one man and one woman, and from that creation the earth was filled with people. How many millions are there in China? How many millions in the U.S, and Canada? The earth is filled with people. When the first white men came to the North American continent they found Indians, a race they had never had contact with before. They did not have Bibles, they did not have the Koran, they did not have the beliefs of the Buddhists or the Brahmins—and yet they had some kind of religion. They believed in ‘the great spirit’. Have you ever wondered why that was? They did not have contact with Christianity, they did not have contact with Israel and with the ancient Scriptures so as to know about God. Why did they have a religion?
When God created man He created him with
three parts—spirit, soul, and body, and it is the spirit that has a longing for God. Now you have a spirit; whether you like to think of it or not, every person that is alive has a spirit, and it is needing God—and that is what is unsatisfied in your heart. If you do not know Jesus as your Saviour you will go on through your life—it may be many years you will go on and on seeking something, hunting, searching, digging—whatever you see you will try. You are trying to satisfy something that you cannot identify and you do not know what it is, and you have not got the answer to it. I have the answer for it, and I present Him to you today, the Great Satisfier, the Saviour of men, Jesus, Jesus Christ the Son of God.
God presents Him that your heart might be fully satisfied and at rest and at peace. Have you ever wondered, when an older Christian dies, how peacefully they die? It is a traumatic thing for a person to die; they are cut off from everything here, but yet there is a certain peacefulness for one who knows Jesus as his Saviour. Such are at rest and at peace in their hearts. They are not worried. The Christian knows that things are settled between him and God. You can have that assurance today. If you are five years old, or if you are fifty years old, or if you are eighty years old, you can have that rest and peace today. Jesus will give it to you. He is the Saviour. Jesus went to the cross by the will of God; He died as a Sacrifice. It says that “Once in the consummation of the ages he has been manifested for the putting away of sin by his sacrifice” (Hebrews 9: 26), and therefore there is no need for any further sacrifice for sin. There is no person who can stand before God in his sins. If you are in your sins, and have a dissatisfied heart, never having come to Jesus and trusted Him as your Saviour, you can never be near to God in that condition. You will one day stand before the great white throne and be judged for your sins, and be cast into the lake of fire. That will happen! But Jesus is the Sacrifice, the one Sacrifice, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, John 1: 29.
In the Old Testament they sacrificed, again and again. When King Solomon dedicated the temple to Jehovah he sacrificed 120,000 sheep, but that could not expiate your sins. I would stand before God in my sins unless I believed that Jesus died on the cross for me. Oh, what a Saviour Jesus is! He went to the cross, and He died there a sacrifice for sin. His blood covers my sins. Will you believe on Him today? If only you would come to the point where you realize what a sinner you are, and have been, and how great is the efficacy of the blood of that glorious One, and how it can wash away your sins, you would be like a bird let loose. As you trust in Him you will rejoice in Him and you will begin to look to Him for everything.
You will find that He begins to fill those empty spaces in your heart. Jesus, you will find, is the answer. He says, “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened”, Matthew 11: 28.
That is, you have a load that you are carrying and you do not know where you are carrying it.
You do not know what you are carrying it for. You cannot identify it. One of the worst things in our lives, if we do not know the Lord Jesus, is that we have a need we cannot identify. We have this longing and we do not know how to answer it. Jesus is the answer to every longing.
Have you ever read about the woman in John 4? She hardly even knew she had a longing.
She thought things were going quite well. She had had five husbands, and she was living with her next man; things looked like they were going quite well.
She was just a woman of the city; she did anything she pleased; she enjoyed it; she thought she was having a great time. All of a sudden she needed a drink, and the only way she could get a drink was to go to the well. There at the well was the Satisfier of hearts. She never took her drink! She never used her water pot! She got a drink that she did not expect. The water she drank was spiritual—“given to drink of one Spirit”—the Holy Spirit of God. The only power for present satisfaction is the Holy Spirit.
I hope you will get a drink that you did not expect today. I hope you will leave your water pot today! She says, “Is not he the Christ?” Oh, what a Saviour Jesus is! How He can thrill us and fill every longing in our heart! You will not be disturbed any more by what your life is going to be, by what contribution you are going to make to society, or to the environment. All your needs will be satisfied by Jesus, He can take away the need of every heart. “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest”. Rest from it all! Well, I trust that you will get living water from Jesus today. He can satisfy the need of every heart in the entire world, Jesus, the glorious Son of God!
Preaching at Calgary
31 July 1983