Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Dear Lord, thank you for your patience with us. Thank you that you put up with us, Lord. It's such a bunch of squabbling children you have to deal with. And we just spend so much time trying to get our own lives sorted out in this brief, brief time we have, that we don't have eyes to see our other family, those who belong to us, living all over the world in trouble.

And thank you that Solomon is concerned about this, and we should be too. Teach us how to have eyes to see. And also call us to responsibility that you will evaluate our lives one day. And part of that evaluation will be as much as we did it unto one of these, we did it unto thee. So challenge us at this point. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.

If you turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 4, now he's looking. His eyes have been distracted. He's just been looking at things that can help himself, satisfy himself, be fun, be pleasure, et cetera, et cetera. And in chapter 4, he is now looking and seeing that outside his palace gates and all his surplus, there are people who are oppressed.

So he looked and he saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun. He saw the tears of the oppressed, that they had no comforter. Power was on the side of their oppressors. They had no comforter. And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

And I saw all their labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. The fool folds his hands and ruins himself. Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. Again, I saw something meaningless under the sun. There was a man all alone. He had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.

"For whom am I toiling?" he asked. "Why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?" This too is meaningless, a miserable business. Then he goes into this very well-known passage: "Two are better than one." And he's talking about the loneliness and the aloneness that people suffer in this period of time, remember, called life after the fall, lived with a sinful nature.

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. Pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up." And he's talking about community. He's talking about God's answer to a fallen, fragmenting society is a community of believers, who can support each other and help each other.

And look around and see if they can do anything about graft in the marketplace, violence in the streets, and the things that he's been talking about. And so joy is found in doing justly and loving mercy and walking humbly with our God. And Solomon is sharing his own life experience. I said to myself, "It's silly to be laughing all the time. What good does it do to seek only pleasure?"

Now, there is joy in the simple things of life. That's one of the themes of Ecclesiastes. And God gives us eating, drinking, labor, the simple things of life, and gives us the gift along with them to enjoy them. And that's all part of the message here. However, what good does it do to seek only pleasure? And that's the thing. That's a good question.

Our culture is a feel good, look good only culture. And God says, "You're missing the point." A God culture is a be good, do good, see good is done to others culture. So joy is found in doing justice and loving mercy and in walking humbly with our God. Doesn't sound like much. How would you find joy giving your life away, helping those less fortunate than yourself?

But joy comes through knowing the living God and his heart. And God has a heart for the poor. And what I wanted to do was to just help you look at the scriptures and see what he says about these things. I have got dozens and dozens of references to how God will judge every single one of us and evaluate our lives one day in this regard.

What did you do for the poor? What did you do for those who were not getting justice? What did you do for the hungry? What did you do for the naked? What did you do for the prisoners? And I don't know how evangelicals just read right over that, but we do. And we think, "No, we're into the spiritual. We'll let the social services look after that. And the liberal church, they're into social work," et cetera, et cetera.

Jesus has a lot of things to say about this. Years and years ago, I was so convicted about this that I looked around for a service agency to serve, and that's how I got involved with World Relief. And my Christian life has been expanded and deepened, absolutely no question, because I've tried to put into everything else I was doing some element of what I saw God demanding of me as his child, that I have two families.

I have two families. And that my responsibility is to do my little bit, and it's only a little bit. Injustice in the courts, Ecclesiastes 8:14 and 3:16. There's something else meaningless that occurs on the earth. Righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. It should kill us!

But it doesn't. We're too busy trying to fathom out our own problems. God will bring to justice both the righteous and the wicked. There will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed to be evaluated. And so you and I, who profess to know the Lord, are to live rightly in a wrongly world, to shine as lights in darkness.

And that's one way we can make a statement of the Christian faith. I remember a missionary telling me not long ago that in the hardship places in the world, there are Christians. There are Christian hospitals, there are Christian doctors, there are Christian missionaries. And it's as if all the other religions in the world stop on the edge of the desert, and they stop on the edge of the jungle.

But in the hardest places in the world, and it's because the Christian is driven beyond mere pity to doing what they can do about it, and to taking their families into hardship posts. Not too many religions go beyond the edge of the desert and the edge of the jungle. And that's because it's part of what God tells us to do.

So, in other words, Solomon says what a lot of heartache there is in our world. And he observed all the oppression that took place in the world. He saw the tears of the oppressed, that they had no comforter. Twice I read that. They have no comforter. They have no one to comfort them. And I think that's the thing that gets to me so often when I travel the world and I can't communicate in another language.

And I see people's pain, and I see their incredible poverty, and know that they will live all their lives never, ever knowing what it is not to feel hungry. All their lives. They will live in an eternal fast. About a third of the world. And to allow that to do something to you is what God requires. In other words, what can I do?

"Violence." I turn my attention to all the outrageous violence is the word that takes place on this planet. Ecclesiastes 4:1. I remember my brother-in-law is a judge, and he was on the panel when that little four-year-old was taken in a shopping mall, tortured under a railway arch to death by two 12-year-olds.

And it was my brother-in-law that had to decide if two 12-year-olds knew and were culpable of what they were doing, when they had been conditioned through their atrocious handling of people that had handled them all their growing days. Were they responsible? And I had some of the best talks I've ever had with my brother-in-law over this case.

And it was absolutely horrendous. Those boys have been released from prison. They're hidden. Their identities have been changed. It was just a nightmare. Incredible, incredible nightmare. What a lot of heartache there is in our world. Outrageous violence. Outrageous violence. If I didn't believe that the judge of all the earth will do right one day, and wrongs as atrocious and outrageous as this will be righted, then I couldn't think as I do about my God.

"Power was on the side of the oppressors." The oppressors have great power, and the victims are helpless. And you only have to go outside the confines of the United States of America, or pick up your paper and see what happens within our own country sometimes, to see that power is often on the side of the oppressors. Of the man that comes into a house and takes a little girl out of her bed and rapes her and murders her.

It happens here. In fact, in one of the verses in Proverbs, in a modern translation, it says, "They have climbed in through our windows and stolen our children." It was happening in that day and age. And God says, "I want you to care about this. I want you to read the paper and then switch the sports channel. I want you to get down on your knees in front of the television and say, 'Can I do anything about this?'"

"Is there absolutely anything? Could I write a letter to the editor? Could I make a statement? Could I see what's going on in my city so that this never happens here?" Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And yet the devil keeps whispering, "Don't worry about that. You can't do anything about it. Have an apple. I'll help you climb the tree. Let's just forget about it."

And yet significance comes in saying to God, "How can I change my world?" One person at a time. One situation at a time. One challenge at a time. When I talked to that lady today in the hospital, and she asked me if this was my family, and I said, "Yes." During the conversation, I said, "You know, I have a sister in Asia, in a slum. I have a mother in a refugee camp in Thailand. I have a son in Kuwait, waiting to fight a war, please God, that won't happen, but probably will."

"I have a daughter who lives in Squala in India. I have a father in prison in Cambodia. I have a sister-in-law in Bethlehem who's been under curfew for seven whole months. Children not at school, no food left. I have a granddaughter who hasn't been to school ever and never will, in South America."

"I have people all over the world. And they are my family. And they're yours too. That's what Ecclesiastes teaches. And God says, 'Good, Solomon, you're getting around to using the influence you have.'" And think of the influence he had to clean up the courts, to do something about the violence, and to get his act together.

"Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves." And what we need to do is to look at the community of the church and say, "What can we do as an individual, but what can we do as a group? How can we lift the person up that falls? How can we get down and dirty in the ditch and get our arms around the person who's been robbed and mugged by life itself?"

"Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves." And a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. So, we're searching for sense, we're searching for satisfaction, we're searching for serenity, and lastly, we're searching for security. We're searching for security. I took a message after 9/11 called "The New Normal."

It was the new normal that we live in, that alerts us to the fact that people are searching for security. They want to be safe. We are now supposed to have a plan for our family to meet. You remember after 9/11, everyone wanted to go home, wanted to go home, wanted to go home. Now we can have a plan because that is an unspoken need.

"I want to go home. I need to gather the family. I need to run to the safe place. I need my mother to put her arms around me and kiss it better. I need family. I want to go home. I want to be safe. I want somebody to say this isn't happening. This isn't going to happen." And the theme of death, which some of you said you read the Book of Ecclesiastes for the theme of joy, you can read it for the theme of good works that you've just had a look at, helping the poor and the needy and the oppressed, et cetera, et cetera.

But you can read it for the theme of death. And death is an evangelist as surely as joy is. As surely as joy is. And once more, in this particular situation, with the planes full instead of empty at this point, on my trip out and in this week, I talked with my seatmate about death. It's in everybody's mind.

And we once more have an incredible opportunity to speak Christ into this situation. And death is an evangelist. Ecclesiastes 7:2. "Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man. The living should take this to heart. Death is the destiny of every man. The living should take this to heart."

"And you need to be ready to die," I told my two companions. And we talked about it. There was no argument. "That's right. You need to be ready to die." But what does that mean? What does that mean? "Well, God will do the best for me. You know, I've tried my best. I'm a bit better than him, and I'm not as good as them. But, you know, God will do the right thing by me."

That's what I usually get from somebody that doesn't really know their Bible. If you're going to be ready to die, then you need the sin question dealt with. And the question we need to be asking people is, do you know you're forgiven? Because only forgiven people will go to heaven. Only forgiven people. Only sinners will go to heaven, but sinners who've been forgiven.

There's no good people on their own up there that are good on their own. It's the sinner who's been forgiven. Only sinners who've been forgiven. Have you been forgiven? That's a very simple question. You can ask people. When you get into this very easy conversation these days, because death is an evangelist. Death is inevitable. The living should take this to heart. And death wonderfully focuses the attention.

When I was at Cambridge and was given C.S. Lewis's book, The Weight of Glory, that made heaven believable for me, I read this quote in it. "At present, we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see, but all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in."

What a quote. All the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor. Isn't that fabulous? Rustling with what rumor? That it will not always be so, that we will not always be on the outside of the door, that one day, knowing Christ, we shall get in. We shall get in. And you know, this image of being on this side of the door is a very helpful one for me.

Outside the front door. In fact, I'm just writing a book called The Front Door, my conversations with God. And I was thinking about my mother's dying. That was very hard for me. But God, in his grace, allowed me to be there when she got in. When she got in. And I wrote a little bit about that, talking about my conversation with Jesus as I sat by my mother's bedside as she was dying.

And saying to the Lord, "She's got in, hasn't she?" And he said, "Yes, I opened the door. I opened the door." And I said to him, "I know you did. I felt your breath in the room." He said, "That was angel's wings." And I knew it was. One day we shall get in. Yes, we shall. Do we believe that?

And what will happen when we do get in? I wrote a little poem the day my mother died. "What place is this where rivers flow and flowers bud and grasses grow? Where birds compete to praise God's Son? Where prayers are answered, everyone? What place is this where minds at rest from Earth's oppressive battles rest? Where constant joy is all I know? Where God is everywhere I go? Where I am overwhelmed to see the face of him who died for me?"

"What place is this where tears are dried by hands of Jesus crucified? Where broken dreams are dreamt anew, and come to pass for me, for you? What place? What place? But home to him, who will make me what I might have been? Then I, like Christ, at last will grace, the one I worship on my face." One day we will get in, you see.

One day we will get in. And if we know Christ, we will not be asked to leave. All of us will get in. But a huge part of the human race will be asked to leave. "Depart from me. I never knew you," Judge Jesus will say. It's a very important question we have to be asking people at the moment.

Stuart and I spent wonderful ten days with 250 families from the American bases in Europe. They're so young. 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds, a couple of kids, babies around the place. Women being left. And on one or two occasions, the women going and the men being left in that situation.

And they were believers, most of them that came to that conference that we had. And I cannot tell you the difference between the attitude of the believers and the few non-believers we had in that conference as they looked at what was ahead for them and their families. Unbelievable. And the hope that the believers had.

Death is an evangelist. That's for sure. And it wonderfully focuses the attention. So let me ask you a very significant question. Are you ready to die? That is not a dramatic question, it is a factual question. Is everybody listening to me ready to die? If it happened tonight, on the way home, you get in the car and you meet me on the freeway and you have an accident.

God forbid. But are you ready? Will you get in? And if you do, and everybody does initially, will you be asked to leave? God forbid. God forbid. And if you're searching for security, you need to answer that question. Solomon could answer it. "The spirit returns to the God who gave it." The spirit returns to the God who gave it.

I have my little piece of poetry given to me by my husband. "Safety," found on Rupert Brooke's body in World War I, who died in the trenches. Rupert Brooke was a British poet. "Safe shall be my going, secretly armed against all death's endeavor. Safe, though all safety's lost. Safe when fall. And if these poor limbs die, safest of all."

I've started sharing this on the plane with people. They like it. They really do, even if they're nowhere with God. They say, "That's neat. Can I write that down?" And they write it down. So death puts all people on the same page. It's a great leveler. "Man goes to his long home," Ecclesiastes 12:5 says.

In the famous English cathedral in London, there are two graves next to each other, Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth. And Mary Queen of Scots was put in the bloody tower and kept there till she was executed by Queen Elizabeth because she was her rival for the British throne. Amazing thing is, in this beautiful cathedral, their tombs are side by side.

The one who killed and the one who was killed. Death is a great leveler. The ground is level in the graveyard, have you noticed? Man shares a common destiny. That's what Ecclesiastes teaches. The ungodly view is, "Well, death's a given, aging's inevitable." And you can read chapter 12 to figure that one out. "Therefore, eat, drink and be merry."

"And if there's no accounting, because we don't believe in anything after life, then it doesn't matter how we live, or how we treat the poor, or whether we do anything about the outrageous violence. It doesn't matter because we don't have to answer to anyone but ourselves." "Death is a given, death is grim." So we have to ignore it, dress it up as if it never happened.

"And death is governable. And if little, tiny, dust men think they're God, then they figure it out. We can manage death. Science will look after this. Culture says we can conquer all." And there is a man called Alan Harrington, who is cited in an article called "Wisdom Against the Power of Death." He's a scientist, and he says this:

"Death is an imposition on the human race and is no longer acceptable." Do you understand that? "Man has all but lost his ability to accommodate himself to personal extinction. He must now proceed to physically overcome it. In short, to kill death, to put an end to his own immortality as a consequence to being born." Now, this man is supposed to be bright.

But death is an evangelist. And the godly view is, "Okay, try and play God if you like and see where it'll get you. You cannot keep yourself alive. And death is not a consequence of being born," according to the revelation of God in Genesis 3. "It's a consequence of sin entering the human race. So God has the power of life and death, not man, and we should stand in awe of him."

Ecclesiastes 5, that's where we began this whole study last week. "So we're not to fear him who has power to kill the body, but we're to fear him who has power to cast both body and soul into hell." And that's not the devil. The Bible teaches God has the power. And God has the keys of life and death and hell and heaven, not the devil.

Not the devil. Don't give him that much. God said, "I can create a child." "So can I," sneered the man. "I can make a baby from a sperm and an egg in a test tube." God said, "I cause flocks and herds to multiply on the earth." "I can clone a sheep and a pig and a cow," the man said proudly. "I cause the clouds to form, to gather rain, to bless the dry earth," says God.

"That's nothing," replied the man. "I can lace the clouds with chloride and make it rain whenever I want to. Do you not know I have the power to explode a thousand universes?" murmured God. "Paltry tricks," snapped the man. "I've made a weapon of mass destruction. I can blow the human race to smithereens." The man was getting excited.

"Watch this," he shouted, and he pressed a button. A missiles flew to their pre-arranged destinations and radiation killed every living thing. "I can raise the dead," said God. "Please," said the man. "Let me live again." "Why? Who are you?" said God. Death is the destiny of every man. And it should humble us somewhat.

Terrible thing to be forgotten. I have people say all over the place, "Do you remember me?" And I'm awfully bad with names. In fact, I gave up about 10 years ago trying to remember anybody's name, and I just rebaptize everybody when I meet them. But I do remember faces, and I try to remember faces. And I will say, I remember your face.

I don't remember where I saw your face, whether it was in this city or that city, and, you know, or a country, or whatever, but I do remember your face. And their face lights up just because I say I remember their face. It's a terrible thing to be forgotten. And how can I say, "No, I'm sorry. I can't remember who you are, and I don't know where your face is?"

I mean, that's really hurtful to people. And especially when they say, "Well, you stayed in our home for a month." I mean, that's really hurtful. So we have to do a little bit better than that, children. But when I can say to somebody, "I remember you." You have no idea what that does. "I remember you."

And when we get in, and we're not asked to leave, God is going to say, "I remember you. I know your face. I remember you." Terrible thing to be forgotten. To have God say to us, when we've got in through death, and we're wondering if we can stay, and we're hoping we can, because we can see the alternative from the other side of the door.

What a terrible thing to hear God say, "I forget you." Can you imagine what it would be like to be forgotten by God for eternity? "No, no, don't forget me. Please. I'm sorry." "Too late," says God. "Too late. If you want to meet God a Savior, meet him now, and then you won't meet him as Judge when it's too late."

And so this is all determined by our response to the gospel and what we've known and what we've had the chance to know in this wonderful country of ours. So death is an evangelist, reality is his helper. And Jesus died to kill death dead. And he that believes in me will never die. Listen, never die. Never die. Never die.

Still going around the world, telling people it's all true. Those were the words of a 40-year-old who didn't have the rest of her life to tell the world, "This is all true." On her deathbed, I said, "I have a voice and I have a platform. I'll tell them. What do you want me to tell them, Carrie?" And she said, "Just go around, Jill. Tell them it's all true." Her eyes opened. She couldn't see me, she was blind.

20 minutes before she died. "Tell them it's all true!" And it's all true. He makes everything beautiful in its time. Ecclesiastes 3. He makes everything beautiful for the one who trusts him, who looks around and says, "This is the grace place. You've put eternity in my heart. You died to make this possible."

"You died to make this possible. And I want you to forgive me." So pray with me, will you? And maybe you want to climb inside my prayer and make it your own just to make sure that when you get in, you're not going to be asked to leave. So pray with me. Lord God, our hearts are so often hungry, lonely, and hurt, even though we're believers.

And we ask you to make your salvation so real to us as we live in the grace place in this brief, brief time before we get in through the front door. That we can forget our selfish selves, and we can go all out in order that we might write eternity on the hearts of men. In our world, on our pavements, in people's lives, wherever we touch them day by day.

Help us to do our part. And Lord God, if there is any question, I want to say to you, please make me sure I've been forgiven, so that when I get in, you will not ask me to leave. Forgive me, Lord, one more time, as it were. And help me from this moment forth to believe it, that what you say is true.

That if we accept the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, we are forgiven. And you will give us freedom and joy, and power to tell our world what they need to hear, that it's all true, and that you will make everything beautiful in its time. So thank you, Lord, for being with us, and thank you for speaking to us. In Christ's name. Amen.