Telling the Truth

Guest (Female): Do you ever feel lost in your walk with the Lord? Like somewhere along the way, things just got off track. Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe reminds you of God's great power and magic and how you can sing with joy in any circumstance. But first, building a consistent prayer life can be a challenge. That's why we want to let you know about a special opportunity to soak in Stuart and Jill's wisdom on prayer through a newly curated collection of their messages called Powerful and Effective Prayer.

Guest (Male): This resource is our thanks for your gift today to help others experience life in Christ through the global ministry of Telling the Truth. But this offer ends this week, so call today to request your copy of this special collection. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org.

Guest (Female): Now, here's Jill with her message, Rejoicing in God.

Jill Briscoe: If you turn over to Isaiah 40 towards the end of the chapter and also find Psalm 137, which is the context of this marvelous sermon that Isaiah preached, then you'll be in the right place of scripture. I suppose Isaiah 40 is one of the most famous passages of scripture from the book of Isaiah. It begins, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," and that's what we've been thinking about, how God is able to do that. He is not a God who is a deity, who is fierce and unapproachable. He is immanent. That means he's here as well as eminent, which means everywhere else. He's able to do both.

The end of the chapter of Isaiah 40 says this in verse 25. God says, "To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?" says the Holy One. "Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name." Not only does he know the roses and have his own name for them, he knows each star and has a name for them because of his great power and mighty strength. Not one of them is missing.

I put in the margin of my Bible: He never loses anything. He never loses his keys. Isn't it wonderful? I have lost my keys again. I'm blaming my grandchildren, but this time I think it's me, not the grandchildren. But I'm always losing things, and God never loses anything. He calls each of his stars. He always knows exactly where he put them. They come out every night and he knows where they are and he calls them by name. He has this interest in the little things, like you and like me.

"Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God'? Don't you know? Haven't you heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Now, as we know, this is written or this was preached to the people who were in Babylon. And if you turn back to Psalm 137, this is the context of Isaiah 40. "By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars, or the willow trees, we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!' How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy. Remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. 'Tear it down,' they cried, 'tear it down to its foundations!' O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us—he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks."

Now then, we're going to talk about joy. Joy when it's the last thing you could conceive of in a particular situation that you might find yourself in. "Sing us one of the songs of Zion," their tormentors, their captors said. "Go on, sing us a song. What about a chorus or a hymn? You're supposed to be rejoicing even in trouble, aren't you?" "How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?" These people were supposed to know the joy of the Lord. Joy, hope, strength, they all go together. The joy of the Lord is my strength. But they'd lost it.

Now, there's a man called Teilhard de Chardin, and he wrote this: "Joy is the most infallible proof of the presence of God." Joy is the most infallible proof of the presence of God. And there is no question about it. There is joy in knowing God. When Christ is living in your heart by his Spirit, the infallible proof of that is a joy. Joy when things are all wrong on the outside because everything's right on the inside. And yet it is true that people of God lose their joy. I'm not always joyful. You're not always joyful, if we're honest.

Why? Where does it go? What does it take to chase the joy of God away from our lives? We can lose our joy, and these people had lost their joy. They had not lost their God. They had lost their joy. Now, let's just get the picture. God's people, refugees by coercion, slaves of cruel masters, far away from home, with only bad memories for company. Fortunately, however, their pastor was with them. Now, he was far away from home too. He was sitting by the waters of Babylon along with the rest of them. But there was a difference.

If we look carefully, every tree in sight was festooned with harps, except the one under which Pastor Isaiah was resting after a hard day's slave labor. There he was, harp in hand, singing a song. It was a message from God for his discouraged people, and it started with the words, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," and it ended with the words, "those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, soar on wings like eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint." It was a beautiful song. It was a God song. It was a song of Zion.

And the Babylonians who were around must have thought they'd never heard such a beautiful song in all of their lives, and it made them yearn for something, and they didn't know quite what. Something this man, this holy man among the captives of Israel had that they didn't have and the rest of the Israelites didn't appear to be enjoying. Now, we know what that was, don't we? We know that Israel had lost touch with the source of life, joy, God himself. Yet Pastor Isaiah had come close enough to be forgiven and stayed close enough to be comforted and strengthened. He'd learned to wait. He'd learned to wait on the Lord for all that he needed to be a blessing to his hurting world, believers and non-believers alike, Israelites and Babylonians alike.

But the Babylonians were a rough bunch to deal with, just as they are today. And they represent our lost world, the third of our world, so we're told, who have never heard of such a thing as a relationship with a holy God through Christ's redemptive work on their behalf. People who live as the hymn says, "as if no Christ had shed his precious blood, as if they owed no homage to their God." So Israel's Babylonians were a rough bunch and a cruel and cynical bunch. "Go on," they said, "sing us one of the songs of Zion." And they weren't a bit surprised when the Israelites replied bitterly, "How can we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land?"

Now, of course, the Babylonians knew the answer would be just that. They knew all along that no one feels like singing when they've seen their parents murdered, houses pillaged, and infants' brains bashed out on the cobblestones. Who's going to sing a song at a time like that? But then they heard it. A harp and an old man with fire in his eyes singing, singing one of the songs of Zion. It was a beautiful song, a song of comfort, a song of hope, a song about a Shepherd gently leading those with young, a song about eternity and a God who inhabited it, owned it, and was offering to share it with those who would put their faith in him.

Today the Babylonians are listening to us just as surely as they were to Isaiah. And they're watching those of us who profess to be God-lovers. And they see our husbands and wives die, our children rebel. They watch our parents get sick like they get sick. They observe us as we lose our jobs, are displaced, or on welfare, or mistreated. And the way we respond to suffering preaches a more powerful sermon than any religious silver-tongued rhetoric could.

Guest (Female): You're listening to Jill Briscoe on Telling the Truth. She'll return in a moment with more biblical insight about God's greatness from the passage in Isaiah 40. But before we get back to her, okay, let's be honest. Prayer can sometimes feel like a bit of a mystery. Some people feel so confused by how prayer works that they'll just forget it altogether. But scripture paints an exciting picture of what a life of prayer can be and how you can experience it yourself. That's why we want to send you a newly curated collection of messages from Stuart and Jill called Powerful and Effective Prayer.

Guest (Male): These five eye-opening messages will help you push past today's common platitudes on prayer and develop the rich and vibrant prayer life you're longing for. We're excited to send you this one-of-a-kind resource as thanks for your gift today to help keep sharing the life-changing truth of God's love with people around the world through Telling the Truth. This special resource offer ends this week, though, so call today to request Powerful and Effective Prayer when you give. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org.

Guest (Male): For many, our smartphones have become our social connection. But we want to help you make a spiritual connection with the Telling the Truth mobile app. You can listen to daily programs, engage in Bible reading plans, journal, and share your thoughts and prayers on the community wall. Get the Telling the Truth app through your App Store or log on to tellingthetruth.org/mobile-app.

Guest (Female): Let's return to today's message from Jill from her series, Shelter from the Wind.

Jill Briscoe: The Israelites had an incredible opportunity to use the pressure of their circumstance to wait on the Lord, to wait for a song to sing to the Babylonians. But look at their body language, their exhausted faces, their bitter mouths. Their devotions dried up. They're speechless, songless, loveless, hopeless, and harp-less, hapless, hopeless, harp-less harpists. They need comfort and encouragement first and challenge before they can be used to bless and help Babylonians. And the old man with fire in his eyes knows it. And he says, "Have I got a message for you! Wait on the Lord. That's the answer. That's the secret. There's joy in that, joy to be found, strength to be found for everybody."

There's a wonderful song, "In this very room." In this very room, there's quite enough—how does it start? Quite enough love for all the world. In this very room, there's quite enough joy for all our hope for all the world. That I was in a conference and the soloist sang that acapella. It was very moving because it was a meeting of leaders from all over that area. And this girl stood up and sang it acapella, just a beautiful voice, a young voice. And I looked around and I thought, it's true. In this very room, there's quite enough hope, quite enough love, quite enough joy for all the world.

And in all those people, even though they had gone through so much trauma, there was quite enough love and joy and hope because they had the secret. They knew there was a God who could make the difference. And there was quite enough joy for all the world, but there was only one man singing. One man, an old man, a tired man, a man who was far from home and yet a man whose heart was bursting with the joy that he had to share and the love that he wanted to share. So even though they were waiting in God's waiting room, I often love to say, in God's waiting room, God is waiting for us to wait.

He's waiting for us to wait on the Lord. Not to wait on the answer to our prayers, not to wait in worried knots of not-ness, expecting God to do things before we'll listen to him. Wait on the Lord, not the answer to your prayer. Just go away quietly and wait. Just sit and learn to listen for the wind of the Spirit, which will lift you up above your dreadful days, your mundane days, and you'll help to start to cope with hope. Now, I want you to imagine yourself one of those men or women sitting under your particular weeping willow tree, having hung up your harp, okay? Hung up your joy. We're going to talk about all those different trees. Which tree have you hung up your harp? Where did you lose your joy? Where did you lose your joy?

I remember counseling a girl not too long ago. She'd lost her joy. And she said to me, "I want you to help me to get my joy back." So I said, "Where did you lose it?" She said, "That's not important." I said, "It's probably vital. Where did you lose it?" "Well, it really isn't important, just show me how I can get rid of this guilt and shame and depression and everything else and get my joy back." So after a bit of prodding, I got the story out of her, and she'd moved in with her boyfriend, and that's the day she lost her joy. Who's surprised? That's where you lost it. Then that's where you need to go back. That's where you need to go back to. Sometimes we've just lost our joy on the sin tree. That's all there is to it. That's where it is.

You know, there's a story in the Old Testament about a man in a Bible school, and the Bible school was prospering, and so there wasn't room for people. And so Elisha said, "Well, let's go and build another Bible school." And so they all went out, Elisha, they went out and they began cutting down trees. And as this man with enthusiasm started cutting down the tree with a borrowed axe, the axe head whipped off and fell in a pool of water. And he came running to the prophet and he said, "Alas, master, it was borrowed!" Now, you have to understand that an axe was like a computer in those days. It was the most valuable thing that you could possibly own, a good axe. And he'd borrowed this implement, and now the axe head, the most important part of it, was in the lake.

And the prophet said, "Where did it fall? Come and show me." And he said, "That's where it fell." And the prophet took a stick off a tree, and he threw it in the water just where the axe head had fallen, and the iron swam, came up to the surface. And he said to the man, "Put out your hand and take it to you again." Now, there's a little parable in there. You're going along, you're all enthusiastic, and you're getting the Lord's work done, and suddenly you lose your cutting edge, which is your joy. The cutting edge of the Christian life is your joy. That's the distinctive of a Christian.

And what God wants to do, maybe through somebody else, is take you back to where—where did you lose it? And you've got to say there. I lost it the day I moved in with my boyfriend. I lost it the day this or I lost it the day that. That's where I lost it. And then God applies the stick, the tree, the cross, the blood of God to that place. What he did on the cross has an effect on actions and mending of actions that we do now. And so he applies everything that he worked out for us in our redemption and everything that's involved in knowing him to the place we lost our joy. And the iron swims, and then we have to appropriate it. We have to put out our hand and take it back. We have to take actions. We have to put things right if we can, and then the joy will return.

So it could just be like many of these Israelites that they had hung up their harp on the sin tree, and then you don't sing too many songs. You've forgotten your goal, your focus, which is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Little boy that was doing his catechism once thought that said glorify God and endure him forever. And they had to say, no. And yet that's what some Christians look like when you look at their faces: glorifying God and they're enduring him forever instead of enjoying him forever. The goal tree, if you wish. Lost it right there.

What about the grief tree? These people were in grief. "By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion." This is the weeping willow tree. How can we sing a song of the Lord when we're in grief? Well, you can, if you wait in the waiting room, wait on the Lord, he will give you a song. It will be in minor key, but who said something in minor key isn't beautiful? And if you wait on the Lord, you will find that joy will come in the morning. And after you've wept a long time, you'll have a song to sing.

I was in Holland in Europe some years ago and an elder in a church said to me, "My daughter has fallen in love with a girl. I have wept until I can weep no more. I lost my joy." It was easy to see where he lost his joy, and it was easy to see why he lost his joy. Up in Canada, I talked to a pastor's wife about my age. She was in tears. She said, "My daughter was having a baby. Now she's had an abortion. I feel like I've had one too." And she'd lost her joy.

Guest (Female): That's Jill Briscoe you're hearing today on Telling the Truth. She's coming right back with some closing thoughts on today's message, but first, you probably hear people talk about prayer all the time. But aside from knowing that you ought to do it, how much do you truly know about prayer? For example, how does God want to use prayer in our lives? Is he listening to every single request? And can prayer really make a difference? We'd love to help shine some much-needed light on the subject of prayer by sending you Stuart and Jill's new five-message collection, Powerful and Effective Prayer.

Guest (Male): This specially curated set of messages is our thanks for your gift to share the life-changing truth of God's word around the world through Telling the Truth. It's only thanks to the support of generous friends like you that broadcasts like this one can keep going out, reaching others with God's love so they can experience life in Christ. So if you haven't given before, please consider a gift today and remember, this is the last week to request Powerful and Effective Prayer, so ask for yours when you call and give. Just call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org.

Guest (Female): Now back to Jill.

Jill Briscoe: There are many, many reasons, not least something happening to one of our children. These people had seen their infants, who were not able to make that terrible journey from Jerusalem to Babylon, just literally picked up by the soldiers and killed against the stones. And when you've seen something like that, it takes a long, long time to work through the grief. Where's the joy? The joy's in God, not in the joy of what's happened.

And I have been with people who have seen that and worse not too long ago. I don't know if we've hung up our harp on the grief tree. Wait on the Lord, and even as you rock back and fro, just nursing your sorrow, he'll give you something to sing, in minor key, but it's how you respond to this particular situation that the Babylonians are watching. Make no doubt about that. When I was lying in a hospital bed, unsaved, and the girl next to me was very, very sick, I was the Babylonian. She was the Israelite. I watched her.

There's a verse in a hymn in England and it says, "Look, they are waiting, looking at you, furtively watching all that you do." And I furtively watched all that believer was doing because I wanted to know what made her tick and what made her sing. Because even though she was desperately ill and in pain, she sang a song. I don't know if any of you remember a lady called Carmen Collins. She was an artist. She drew beautiful roses and flowers and things. She was a dear, dear friend to me. She was an aunt to my children. She was a neighbor. She was the first, one of the first neighbors I met when I came here. She was not a believer then. She came to faith in the women's Bible study, six women in my home. That's where it all started. And one of them was Carmen Collins. And she became a good friend to me.

And I well remember the day that she got cancer or was diagnosed. And I well remember sitting looking at her thinking, no, no, no, I won't believe it. I cannot believe this thing has got a way on her and there's no hope and no help. And that was the situation. And she came and heard our speaker speaking on Daniel, who was in a foreign land. But Daniel sang a song. Daniel loved the Babylonians who had emasculated him. He was a eunuch at their hands. He was a young man. He was taken as a prince and given to Nebuchadnezzar as one of his aides. And what did he do? He loved young Nebuchadnezzar, who was probably about his own age, and he started to try and win him to Christ. And he witnessed to him and he interpreted his dreams and he told him about the God of heaven and Nebuchadnezzar was converted to Jehovah. Very dramatic story. Read about it in Daniel chapter 4. And Daniel set himself through the reign of three kings to love the Babylonians, to stand up for his God, and to sing them a song.

Guest (Female): Thanks so much, Jill. Before we go, we want to remind you that this is the last week to request Stuart and Jill's newly curated five-message collection, Powerful and Effective Prayer. It's our thanks for your gift today to continue sharing God's word through Telling the Truth broadcasts and resources. Don't miss this exciting offer. Request yours when you call and give. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org.

Guest (Male): Thank you for tuning in today. Join us again next time for more biblical insight from God's word. Come back and experience abundant life in Christ tomorrow on Telling the Truth.