Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Let me pray and then we'll begin. Heavenly Father, thank You that every time we come to Your Word, we can know that You will walk off the pages into our life and say something relevant and something significant to us. It doesn't matter where we open Your Word, there You are on the pages, either in image, or in symbol, or in type. Dear Lord, we can go to Genesis and run all the way through to Revelation and see that red thread of redemption running through Your Word.

And Father, even though we're going to be in a book that seems a little bit difficult for a lot of people to understand because it's just written in a way that we're not used to reading and understanding, I pray that Your Spirit will illuminate it, just light it up, God, from within. I pray for help with a tired mind that I might not even notice that or even think about it and that You will bring to my mind the things You want us all to hear, myself included. So with excitement and anticipation we come and we ask You, dear Lord, to open our eyes that we might behold wonderful, wondrous things out of Thy law. We ask it for Thy sake. Amen.

Now if you'd turn to the book of Ecclesiastes, that's where we're going to be. We're not going to stray very far. We talked about searching because people are searching. The whole world is searching because God has put eternity in the hearts of men. That means He's put within their hearts a sense of time and a sense of eternity. We're not just here for now and that's it, and when we're dead we're done with. We are going to a place, a state, another dimension. In fact, the Bible says that eye hasn't seen and ear hasn't heard the things that God has prepared for those that love Him.

So when the Bible describes this incredible life with God where we're going to be forever and ever and ever, it's very difficult for our little tiny minds to grasp it. But if we're thinking of searching, we started with searching for sense, just reason. Why are we here? Is there a purpose? Are we here for something definite? Are we here for a good reason? And then we talked a little bit about searching for serenity because all over the world people are looking for peace of mind, and never more than now. So the world is searching, especially this time, for security and for a sense of inner peace.

We're going to talk about searching for significance first and then we'll talk about searching for a song to sing. You know our hearts know they should be smiling, but they're not, they're frowning. They know they should be smiling and yet they are weeping. So we're going to talk about finding joy, that elusive thing that's deeper than feelings. And the Holy Spirit, by the way, does not come into a believer's life to do His deepest work in the shallowest part of them, which is their emotions. He comes to do His deepest work in our knowings, which is deeper than emotions and it feels different, if you wish. So we're going to talk about searching for significance first and then we'll talk about searching for a song to sing.

Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter four with me if you will. This world of ours thinks that to be significant you have to have a lot, or you have to do a lot, or you have to be a lot of things. And if you read the whole of the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon sought at one point in his life when he was older to find significance, to find that he mattered, that he felt good about himself because he was being what he should be and doing what he should do, in accumulating, in amassing things and people. That's not where it's at. There's a little passage here that talks about how sad it is when relationships are not working in people's lives or people don't have relationships. I haven't met too many people that say I have no relationships in my life. But here we read about a man who was all alone, and I want to begin reading at verse eight here.

There was a man all alone. This is chapter four. 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. "And why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?" This too is meaningless, a miserable business. Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. And a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

So here you have someone who is looking for someone else to help him to feel he matters. To get up in the morning and know that you matter to another human being, or to two little or three little human beings, gives you a sense of significance. Somebody needs me, you say. And that gives you a sense of worth, of significance. But what happens if there's a man like this man who's all alone, who's all alone and it doesn't appear he matters to anyone? Two are better than one, etcetera. And you know something, the strange thing is you can have good relationships, you can have many relationships, but even that in the end doesn't give you a lasting sense of significance. It doesn't do it. There's no man that can ever love you enough, or woman. There's no child that can ever need you enough. There's no friend that can ever befriend you enough. Only God in the end. And you can even be in a crowd of friends and feel very alone, very, very alone. And you don't feel you matter. Does it matter whether I live or die? Some people ask me. Only a few. But their significance is in their relationships.

And so the book of Ecclesiastes is saying it's good to have a close friend, somebody that can help you up when you fall and all of that, but the closest friend is God. And this man who wrote the book who I believe is Solomon—most people believe is Solomon—he had something significant to say. My husband was coming to church one day, walked in the lobby this was a few years ago now, and a little bespectacled boy probably about seven years of age walked up to him and he was dressed for church and he said, "Hello, Stuart. Do you have anything significant to say today?" He was just about this big. It was so cute. Do you have anything significant to say today? Well, we have laughed about that many times. This man has something significant to say today. Yes, he does. And so we need to attend to it.

I just want to recap what we said with the word wisdom. I want to use another acrostic: W-I-S-D-O-M. We talked about how wisdom or the wise person searches for the divine purpose for everything in our brief time on earth. It's a wise man that says, is there a purpose to me being here? Is there something God wants from me? Is there something He wants me to do? Am I days to be filled with purpose and meaning? Many of you know that I was in the air on 9/11. And in that rather frightening moment when the pilot came on and said we were making an emergency landing in Gander, Newfoundland, I took my Bible out of my handbag and turned to a very familiar Psalm, which was Psalm 139. And actually, I didn't even read the Psalm, my eye went straight to verse 16: every day ordained for me is written in His book before one of them comes to be. And I remember writing in my prayer journal the same moment, every day, Lord? Every day. Even September the 11th, Lord? Even September the 11th. And I believe it with all my heart. Every day ordained for me is written in His book before one of them comes to be and nothing can happen to the child of God outside the will of God. I believe it with all my heart. Moses was never safer than when he was in the little ark among the crocodiles on the Nile. Never safer.

So, wisdom searches for this divine will and purpose. And wisdom, of course, is the subject of this book. W-I. I. We talked about how wisdom being intelligence. What is wisdom? Well, it's intelligence given to the believer by the Spirit despite our IQ, and that always gives me great comfort and help. Wisdom. Intelligence given to the believer by the Spirit despite IQ. Stuart and I were in Mali. We were in a town of about 2,500 people where not one person could read or write. I have been in many parts of the world where illiteracy is a real problem, but I have never ever been in a whole town where not one person from the police chief to the government to the pastor was literate. And yet bright intelligence shone from those wonderful, wonderful faces. And you don't need to read or write—it sure helps—it sure helps to have spiritual intelligence, being knowledge. Knowledge and intelligence aren't quite the same thing; knowledge you just accumulate facts. Wisdom, spiritual intelligence, is knowing what to do about it. 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 says it's because of Him, God, that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God. And so when we receive Christ, Christ is our wisdom. We have the mind of Christ, the last verse of that chapter tells us.

So wisdom is spiritual intelligence. When we can't figure out life experience or what to do, we can call on the Spirit, we can appropriate what's ours. We can say I don't know what to do, I'm in a dilemma. I don't know what to say, I don't know where to go. I don't know how to get myself out of the mess I've got myself into, or I don't know which job to choose, or whatever it is. You can ask God and He promises to give you that. It's spiritually discerned. It's spiritually discerned. Wisdom's knowing how to live life with skill. That's the idea behind the word. Knowing how to be a skillful mother, knowing how to be a skillful single, knowing how to be a skillful worker, knowing how to be a skillful writer, knowing how to be skillful beyond anything somebody without the Spirit can possibly know. Can possibly know.

W-I-S. Spiritual insight about earthly dilemmas. There was a time in Solomon's life when two women came to him. He'd just become king. God had given him wisdom. He'd come to God and said, "I don't know how to do this. Standing in my father's place, how can I govern all these hundreds and thousands of people? I can't do this." And God had given him wisdom because he didn't ask for health and he didn't ask for wealth, he asked for wisdom. And so he has probably without trying it out received a promise of wisdom from God and suddenly here these two women. They're prostitutes. Both have had babies. They're living together as this family unit. Two women and two newborn infants. And of course, as the manner is, they have the babies in bed with them and one of the women overlies her baby and the baby dies. They come to Solomon with this one live child. And they begin arguing in front of him and they both claim the child. They both claim the child and here's the king, this is his first court case. And he's looking at them, how can he possibly know what to do?

And he says, "Bring me a sword." And the women wonder what's going to happen. And he says, "Divide the child in two and give half to this woman and half to that woman." And the woman whose child it truly is says, "No, no, no, no, don't do that. Give her the child, give her the child." And the woman whose baby it isn't says, "That's a good idea. Let's have half each." And Solomon immediately says, "Well, we can see whose child this is. Give this woman who said 'no, no, no' the baby." And everybody heard about the wisdom of Solomon and that's where the rumors began and it went right to the end of the earth and people came from here and there and everywhere in the world to hear the wisdom of Solomon. So spiritual insight about earthly dilemmas, that's what wisdom is. Many a time in my life I've prayed that prayer of Solomon's, "Give me a sword, Lord. Give me a sword, give me an idea how to do this." Incidentally, that's a wonderful prayer to pray. Give me an idea.

W-I-S-D. D for decides. Deciding to do the right thing despite your own needs and wants. Wisdom does that. Knowledge is just getting all the facts and then what do you do with them? Well, you make good or bad choices. Wisdom makes good choices all the time. And so wisdom orders its life after the God of orders. Deuteronomy 17, we looked at that passage. It's a wonderful passage for kings that God gave Moses to write down and one of the things it says is repeat the law, write it out. Kings have to look at Moses' sayings and what he said and write it out for themselves, carry it around so they'll know what to do. And that's the way we decide. We get this book and we become a man or a woman of this book and we learn it and we read it and we mark it and we inwardly digest it so that it becomes so much part of our thinking that when a choice has to be made, we know what it says. And we take the principle of what it says and we know what to do.

I remember working as Stuart and I did for years with street kids in Europe. And Stuart was away planting the mission in different countries where we were asked to go, and so I had quite a lot of time on my hands, especially my evenings. And I used to do some street work, just get out there and find kids and make friends with them and bring them home if they'd come, and if not, stay out there with them and talk to them about the Lord. There was a guy called Trevor who came to Christ. He was quite an influential young man. And he said to me, "Would you come and meet my pals? They're in the pub at night and if you just come, I try to tell them what you're telling me, Jill, but I don't know the answers and they tie me up in knots." And I said, "I'll think about it. Let me think about it."

I went home and I thought, "I don't want to do this. I do not want to start going into that pub in this little local town because people would see me doing this. And usually, the organist is always there when you go into a pub from the church." And I really became conscious of something, that I was concerned about my reputation. Because I'd got a nice little reputation at that point of this nice lady doing things for street kids and it felt good, I could wear that. And so I was struggling inside to know how to respond to Trevor's request. And so what did I do? I needed wisdom because it did perhaps matter if young people saw me going into those particular places. They wouldn't know why I was going there, would I be a stumbling block and hinder their growth? And so there was a genuine underlying question that I had. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. And so I asked the Lord.

And so I hung my heart and mind over the reading of Scripture as I was going through it and I just kept reading saying, "Lord, enlighten me, give me a principle, give me something that I can adapt and apply to this situation." And I came to the book of Philippians and I read about Jesus who made Himself of no reputation, took that great graph of grace and humbled Himself from heaven's heights to the lowest hell for me. And there was the answer. So I took that principle and I said, "Okay, You made Yourself of no reputation for me, I'll make myself of no reputation for You and take a little tiny graph of grace." And so when I saw Trevor that night, I said, "Okay, when are we going?" And I began to go into the pubs with him and had an absolute ball. They were wonderful, exciting, privileged days. But I got my wisdom from the Word and that's what you have to do. You have to apply the principles. You're not going to open the Bible and say, "Go into the pub." It's not going to say that. And that of course is only one element of guidance. But you decide to do the right thing despite your own needs or wants. You order your life after His wisdom and one way His wisdom is shown in the life of Christ—follow Jesus through the Gospels. Just see how He acts when they say, "Look at him, he's a winebibber. He's a party goer." And see how He dealt with His reputation when things like that happened. That helps. The living Word, the written Word, inner conviction. Wisdom. Lord, show me what to do. So in little things like that and big things, God helps us.

W-I-S-D-O. Own responsibility for your own actions. Solomon did. The wise man doesn't blame someone else for his own sinful choices. Solomon was the tenth son of David. His family was a mess. He had six half-brothers, all from different mothers, all older than him. He was the second son of David and Bathsheba. His mother's husband by a previous marriage was murdered by his father. Now try and unravel all of that. And it would have been very easy for Solomon to blame his background for his own behavior as he fell into sin himself in his later age, but he didn't. He owned responsibility for his own actions.

And of course age does lead to urgency. I don't know if you like birthdays, but the Bible says that we have 120 years, so my husband moved into overtime a little while ago and I'm fast on his heels and I'll be in overtime too. And he never understands my ambivalence about birthdays. He always wakes up on his birthday and says, "How can someone as old as me be as young as this?" And so, you know, those of us that are getting on in age know what all of that means. And I do remember on my 50th birthday, that for some reason was the most difficult for me, he said, "Jill, were you born at the right time?" I said, "Yes." "Have you been growing and living at the right speed?" "Yes." "Then you'll be dead on time," he said. Didn't help. But age lends urgency. Remember your creator in the days of your youth. Remember Him and get on with it before the days come when you're not able to remember anything anymore.

So, W-I-S-D-O. Own responsibility. And then M. Being a wise person makes you a target for the enemy of your soul. And we do have one. He is spiritually intelligent too, motivated of course by a different spirit: evil. But he's clever enough to have figured you out and me. He's clever enough to have figured us out and he knows each of us have an Achilles heel. And don't expect any mercy, and don't expect him to be nice and kind, because he hates you. He hates your children, he hates your parents, he hates your family, and he is going to get you if he can. And being wise makes you a target. He hates wisdom because he's for foolishness. He is the master of illusion and delusion and confusion. Yes, he is. And he knew that Solomon had inherited maybe from his father his penchant for women. And so that's where he attacked him. And Solomon's heart it says clung to his foreign wives. Clung, cleaved. It's that word leave and cleave for marriage. Cleave, stick to, the word means. His heart stuck to the loves of his life that he had brought into the framework of his experience. I remember a Japanese young man giving a little talk at our Bible school on Solomon and he said, "Solomon had 700 wives and 300 cucumbers." No, Tanaka, not cucumbers. Or porcupines as I heard a kid say. He had all of those women in his life and yet he says in this book, which is quite incredible, "I didn't find one worthy woman among a thousand. And I only found one man." And so, disillusioned because people cannot give you what you're looking for. I always wonder what happened to the woman under the tree, you know the Song of Solomon. Even she, think about it, even the love of his life that he wrote the Song of Solomon about, did not come through for him because the heart searches. The heart is hungry, the heart is panting, the Psalms tell us. For peace, for satisfaction, for fulfillment, for direction, for wisdom.

So, the end of his life, the end of the book, Solomon the wise teacher, verse six, imparts his wisdom. Aged wisdom plus experience plus spiritual intelligence begins to teach us some things. And what does he do? Well, he uses words which are weapons for good or ill. I'm a child of the Second World War. Don't tell me about words. The age of six and seven and eight, I listened to Churchill daily on the radio and somehow he gathered a nation which no weapons, no bullets—all we had was guns, empty guns—and waiting for that invasion and he readied us. "We'll fight on the beaches. We'll fight house to house. We'll never surrender." I remember it even now. And he ignited a nation. And we would have done, and we would have fought hand to hand till it was over. We would never, ever surrender. Why? Because he knew the power of words and God had gifted Winston Churchill to be the man of our hour. And the other side, what was happening? Hitler. Have you seen those films on PBS? This man, he had the gift of words, motivated by that other spirit. And remember that the devil, the enemy of our souls, is not as powerful as our God. He's a created being. There are three echelons of beings. There's God, He's alone up there, nobody else. And then the next echelon are angels, all created beings, and that's where Satan belongs. He's a created being. But of course, he's vastly more clever and intelligent and knowledgeable than we are. And he ignites people with words. We see it. We see it in the dictators perhaps in the world even today. But certainly in Hitler, he could do it. How did he do it? He did it with words.

And so here we have this man realizing the power of words. Not only was the teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. How did he do it? He used words as goads and he used them as nails. What's a goad? A goad is that prick on the end of the big stick. You move the old ox from this place to that place. And Solomon was wise enough to start and work with words, and words that don't work don't work. It's work to work with words. And he used words to move people from meaninglessness to meaningfulness, from purposelessness to purposefulness. And that's what you can do with words. Words are such a gift. We need to work at it, at word power.

Not only was the teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered, that means he worried it out. He thought a lot about it. He meditated. He searched out. He set in order. He cataloged many, many proverbs. The teacher searched to find just the right words and what he wrote was upright and true. It was all true. Nothing like the truth. I have seen the truth pierce people's hearts. I have seen the truth that they say they do not believe in turn them inside out. The Bible says that the truth is like a sword. The Word of God is like a sword and people might say, "I don't believe the Word of God," but it's like a sword. Think of a real sword. They might say, "I don't believe in it," but it still pricks them. And they might say, "I don't believe in this," and I think in America, I come back in and out of this country, we've got a failure of nerve in this book. People don't believe it. They don't believe it from the pulpits of this land, some of them. And so they use different things. They don't use this. "People won't listen." I'm told as a writer, "Write at a fifth grade level for adults." I refuse to do it. I think that's an insult to the adults in America. And you can't do a radio program now, they told us three years ago, that's half an hour long because people can't listen that long. Stuff and nonsense. Absolutely stupid. I refuse to do it. In fact, we did, we followed the advice and we cut all our radio programs to 15 minutes. We lost the best spots on some stations by doing that. And within one year, people were begging us to go back to half an hour. And by then we'd lost places because we had followed the advice that people really can't take more than a little talk for 10 minutes and they can't concentrate, etcetera, etcetera. And Solomon says that's not true. It's not true. The words of the wise are like goads, they're collected sayings like firmly embedded nails given by one shepherd.

Do you want your words to work? Then you have to take them from the Shepherd. You have to get on your knees. You have to get in your face. You have to do your homework. Are you facing words that are necessary to talk to somebody who's in trouble? A kid that's playing up? A work person that you have to fire or hire? Are you searching for words? Then get on your knees and say to the Shepherd, "I need words that work." Well, words that work that move people from one position to another are given by one shepherd. It's a capital S in your Bible. Jehovah. Who is Jehovah? Jehovah was the name of God that tells us that God wants to be intimately involved in a personal relationship with us. El is the creator name of God. Jehovah or Yahweh in the Old Testament is talking about the God that walked down the stairway of heaven with a baby in His arms and put Him in a bale of hay and set the world on fire. Jesus. The God that said, "I will not save you from a distance. I will come the way you came. I will come via nine months in a mother's womb." Have you ever seen a baby born? Next time you see a baby born, say, "You did this for me." Have you ever seen someone die? Next time you see someone die, say, "You did this for me." Jehovah. Jehovah. He's the one and He's the one that will give you words. Words of wisdom, knowledge beyond yourself to make a difference in the lives of those that you're trying to witness to, to bring them to Christ, or help them in their marriage, seek to help them when somebody has died. That's a dilemma that we in the ministry and you face too often. And the older you get, the more you face it. What am I going to say? Have you ever stood at the doorstep and just wondered when that door opens what are the words that are going to be out of my mouth and been absolutely overwhelmed, inadequate? Don't need to be. Worship! And as you worship standing there, the Shepherd will give you wisdom, words of wisdom that will be like goads and nails.

Pray with me. Heavenly Father, thank You that wisdom is a wonderful thing. Wisdom is Jesus. He is the personification of wisdom. And when we don't know what to do and when we don't know what to say, for this, we have Jesus. You said we have the mind of Christ if we have Him. And so we don't need to worry and we can lean our inadequacy against the firm shoulder that You offer us in the person of Christ who is our savior and our Lord. And so, dear Lord, I pray that as we unravel this and unpack this a little bit more and as we see what this man of wisdom teaches us about true joy and true happiness, that You will give us the key to living in this world that is literally falling apart with an internal security that knows no limit, whatever's happening outside us. Help us, Lord. And also I pray that You would help us to worship. Help us to go to You when we are absolutely flummoxed, Lord, when we are in a dilemma that we have no idea what to do with. When we need words, when we're beyond words and yet we need them, we need to communicate something to someone, help us to know that words that have worshiped are words that work in people's hearts and lives. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.