Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, February 20th.

Today's podcast looks at the life of the Apostle Paul.

His example shows us that the faithful presence of the Lord will sustain us, even when others fail us.

The passage of scripture I want us to deal with deals with the Apostle Paul in the season of time

when he feels and has felt very deserted by his friends.

So in this passage of Scripture, I want you to think about yourself and think about your

friendships and how you relate.

Think about the people that you think are your friends,

or maybe you'd have to think, as all of us do at times, people that you thought were your friends,

but they weren't. People who move from being dedicated to disappointing you and finally

deserting you, and you may feel a little pain this morning. You may feel a little hurt as you go

back and recall some of the people who've been in your life that you really thought were true

genuine friends. And how they just walked off and deserted you. And they never said why? They just

disappeared. We've all had that. And I think any pastor will tell you there have been

those in his life, and I can think in my own life, fellows that I've genuinely loved, given of

myself to them, helped them in any way I possibly could, gave them time, and gave them things

that I thought would be of help to them. Walk away and totally disappoint you, not because you needed something, but because

you believed in them and because you really and truly, sincerely wanted to be a friend.

So what you may recall in the midst of this message is a little bit of pain yourself.

So what I want to talk about here is to think about the Apostle Paul, how do we deal with

this and what can we expect?

So if you'll turn to Second Timothy, well, let me say first of all the Apostle Paul

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