In Matthew 1:20–21 kjv, when the mighty archangel Gabriel delivered the message that the Son of God was to be born, he told Joseph, “Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

The name Jesus literally means Savior. Jesus was sent into this world to save the human family—and that includes you and me!

Jesus saves us from sin.

First and most important, Jesus is our mighty Savior from sin—the evil monster from which springs sick­ness, fear, and all other troubles.

Sin is the destroying power that blasts our characters, ruins our souls, and makes us lower than the animals of the field. Sin’s awful power brings hate into our hearts and revenge into our minds. It fills us with in­ner conflicts, frustrations, torments, and fears.

Simply put, sin is the power that turns us against God and against our fellow man. It ruins people, and if it is not dealt with, it sends us to hell.

But Jesus is a mighty Savior from the power of sin! He is the One who can deliver us if we will call upon Him in faith.

Richard Roberts believes that Jesus saves people that nobody else will look at. He picks up people who have fallen. Consider the woman in the Bible who was caught in the act of adultery. (See John 8:1–11.) The religious people didn’t catch her to save her. They wanted to cause trouble, so they brought her to Christ and said, “What do You think we should do with her?”

Jesus said to her accusers, “Which of you is not guilty?” They all slunk away.

Then He said, “Woman, where are your accusers?”

She said, “I know not, Lord.”

He said, “Woman, I don’t condemn you either. Go, and sin no more.”

When she stood up, she was a woman saved by Jesus, as clean as God can make a human. That’s what Jesus does for sinners. He is a mighty Savior!

Jesus saves us from fear.

When John the Baptist was born, the Spirit of God came upon his father, Zacharias, and he gave one of the most beautiful prophecies recorded in the Bible. (See Luke 1:68–79.) Zacharias said, “God will deliver us from our enemies so that we may serve Him with­out fear all the days of our lives.”

Through Jesus, we can live without fear. Nobody can take fear from you, keep you free from it, and enable you to live totally without it, except Jesus.

Richard Roberts remember a woman in a wheelchair who came to one of my meetings. Her face was etched with suf­fering, her hands knotted with arthritis. When I walked up to her, she grabbed my hands and said, “Brother Roberts, six months ago, I was a well and normal woman, but tonight I cannot walk. This is what my fears did to me.”

Richard Roberts was delighted to present to her Jesus, the mighty Savior from fear. That woman was healed. She came out of the wheelchair!

But how was she healed? She was healed by believing Jesus to take fear out of her mind. And Jesus can take fear away from you!

Jesus saves us from diseases.

Matthew 8:17 kjv reminds us that Jesus “took our in­firmities, and bare our sicknesses.” Jesus was whipped for the healing of our diseases.

Acts 10:38 kjv says, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.” Jesus can destroy the sickness in your body. Do you believe it?

The woman in the Bible with the issue of blood be­lieved it. She said in Mark 5:28 kjv, “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” She touched Him and be­lieved. Immediately, healing power went out of Him, and He said, “Who touched Me?”

The disciples said, “Nobody touched You. Everybody is jostling up against You.”

Jesus said, “This was a different touch, for I felt heal­ing virtue go out of Me.” The woman knew she had been found out, so she ran up and said, “Lord, I touched You.”

He said, “Daughter, be of good comfort; your faith has made you whole.”

I want to let you know that Jesus is full of healing virtue! Jesus is brimming with healing power, and to touch Him is to be healed. To have Him touch you is to be healed.

Perhaps you have been healed at some time in your life by Jesus. I have. I was healed of stuttering. I was healed of tuberculosis. I’m healed today.

Friends, it is so very wonderful to know Jesus as your mighty Savior—to know that you are saved by the blood of Christ! It’s good to have a strong body, a clean mind, freedom from fear, and healing from disease. I don’t know anything in the world as won­derful as to be saved by Jesus. Jesus is the sweetest name I know!

We are living in a war-torn age, an age of cold wars and hot wars—when a fresh outbreak is hardly news anymore, other than the fact that a new arrow pierces the hearts of people everywhere.

With the adversary on the other side misinterpreting our intentions, with a world whose mind is full of sus­picion, there is a climate for hot and cold wars in this age. It is also a time of great tragedy. Nearly every day when we pick up our newspapers, we learn of some tragedy of nature: an earthquake, a typhoon, a hur­ricane, a tornado—something of a catastrophic nature that has taken several hundred or more lives.

We’ve never seen so much sickness; for example, so much cancer and so many heart attacks. Disease is rampant in the world. It’s also a time of economic stress and strain. Sometimes people’s homes are torn apart because of it.

We received a telephone call to Richard Roberts and the Abundant Life Prayer Group the other day. A woman said her hus­band had been out of work for over six months. They had seven children. They were unable to make ends meet and she had now become so despondent that she wondered if killing herself was the way out. The prayer partner on the other end of the line talked her into reading the Bible, into taking Christ as the an­swer to her problems. And, thank God, she accepted Christ as her Savior and as her answer!

Richard Roberts have said all these things to point out the fact that, in my opinion, Christ is for this crisis in which we live! Once, the disciples were involved in a great period of stress and strain. Their hearts were filled with fear. And Christ said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” He told them that He was preparing a place for them in Heaven and that soon He would leave them and go there and they would follow Him. And He said, “You know the way.”

One of the men said, “Lord, we don’t know the way. What is the way?” And He answered, “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. I am the answer” (John 14:1-6).

Christ did not come to talk about the way; He is the way. He did not come to talk about life; He is life. Jesus Christ is the answer to the economic stress and strain of our everyday lives.

When Things Go Wrong

Recently I dealt with a very fine Christian man who had abruptly lost his job. This man went to pieces; he panicked. And I spent a great deal of time in prayer and in counsel with this gentleman, trying to show him that as a child of God, he had no right to throw up his hands in despair and panic like a man who did not believe in God. I said to him, “Christ is your an­swer.” I quoted him Philippians 4:19 where Paul said, “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

I said, “God is your job. God is the answer to this great tragedy of yours. God is the One who will take care of you.”

And he said, “But Richard Roberts, this company I have been working for is the one that writes my check. You say Christ will supply my need; I believe that, but this company writes the check.”

I said, “Look, the company you work for is only the instrument. Christ is the answer.” Finally I asked him to hear me out on John 10:10 where Christ said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” I said, “Now, your life—your earthly life—consists of food, shelter, and provision for your wife and your children. Isn’t that right?” He said, “Yes.”

“Christ said, ‘I am come that you might have that life.’ Christ is the answer to your job, your business, your economic stress and strain. Put your mind on God be­cause if your mind is upon God, God will either give you a better job, or He will create a new job, or He will do something for you from an unexpected source.”

I dealt with that man until his faith became strong. That very day, God gave him a new and better job! Christ is the answer.

Prayer Changes Things

If we can only find Christ in this hour, we have found the answer. The key is to believe as Christ said, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove” (Matthew 17:20). You know, the grain of mustard seed is one of the tiniest of all seeds and yet it grows into a tree.

Christ says if you can have just a little faith in your heart and use it, then you can say to these problems— to these moments of stress and strain—“Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea.” And these things will move out of your life. Christ said that. He said that men ought not to faint but to pray because prayer changes things.

Have you forgotten how to pray? Have you not been praying? In this period of stress and strain in your fi­nances, in a time when cancer or heart attack strikes, in an hour when the world is confused and torn with cold wars and hot wars, have you forgotten to pray? Oh, Christ said, men ought not to faint.

Don’t Give Up

David said that men and women who have faith in God should not give up. They should not be beg­gars, because God does not forsake people who put their trust in Him. “Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread,” David said in Psalm 37:25. I believe that men should work, that men should use their hands, that men should put them­selves into this battle of life and have faith.

I believe God will meet the needs of people if they do their part and if they have faith in God. In Philippians 4:19, Paul said, “My God shall supply all your need.” Not the United States Government, not our state, not our boss, not our job, but God.

God may use some of those things as instruments, but God Himself is the One who shall supply our needs.

Christ Is Our Answer

I believe in giving our lives to God. I believe in tith­ing. I believe in taking out our wallets and giving one-tenth of every dollar we have into the service of Christ. I believe if we do that, the Word of God will be fulfilled in our lives. Tithing is one of the answers, because when we give one-tenth of our income to Christ, we are putting our trust in God. We are not hogging it all up ourselves. God only asks one-tenth and He gives us nine-tenths. How great God is!

This is the simple but powerful formula for our pros­perity in an age of economic stress and strain. “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse…said the Lord…and I will open you the windows of heaven. I will pour you out a blessing that there is not room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10).

Pay your tithes. Pray unto God. Refuse to faint. Put your mind on Christ…because Christ is the answer—for you and for me—in our crisis.