Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): The Bible is your sword, your weapon in the spiritual battle. But are you using it? Today, Jill Briscoe shares the second part of her message, "Chariots of Fire," and she begins in just a moment.

In their new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces, Stuart and Jill show you straight from God's word how you can stand strong against your spiritual enemy and live victoriously in Christ. We'll send you a copy of this resource as our thanks for your support today to help others experience the life of abundance God wants them to have in Jesus.

So call today to request your copy of Fighting Unseen Forces at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, with the second part of her message, "Chariots of Fire," here's Jill Briscoe.

Jill Briscoe: Now, what do we have to do to get our eyes opened? Open her eyes. That's what Jesus is praying. You know Jesus is praying for us. I told you that. What is he praying for us? Have you ever wondered? I get a little worried, actually, when I try and figure out what he's praying for us. You can figure it out if you go into John 17 because he was praying for us then.

He's praying things like, don't take them out of the world, just keep them there, just keep them from the evil one. Just keep them internally safe. He never promises to keep us externally safe. But he does promise always and ever eternally to keep us internally safe. The peace of God is going to garrison our heart and mind, whatever happens to our bodies. The peace of God will garrison, the word is, put little spiritual soldiers round our heart and mind in the middle of things that happen to us.

And we need our eyes opened to that. What do we need to see? Well, Ephesians says, Paul praying for people, open the eyes of their hearts that they may know the hope to which we've been called, that we may understand our inheritance as Christians, and that we may know the incomparable power of the one that we trust in.

What sort of power? The power that raised him from the dead. And Paul says, the power I'm talking about that's available to you to fight the battles of life is the power that raised Christ from the dead. That sort of power. That's part of your inheritance as a Christian given to you by the Spirit when you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. You have the power of God. Incredible.

Now when our eyes are open to that, we're ready to do battle with the enemy. Now the counterpart of this is that people are blinded to this. There is so much ignorance. Jesus said the blind lead the blind and they're both falling into ditches. The god of this world has blinded the minds of those that believe not. Look at all these soldiers. They had their eyes blinded to the truth. This was Elisha. They were blinded in that sense. God worked the miracle.

But the devil works the miracle of blinding the minds of people that don't believe so that they don't believe in Jesus. They don't believe he's the only way. They believe he's one way. There is so much confusion. So we're living in this post-Christian society that is blinded to the gospel truth, the glorious light of God by his Spirit that will open eyes to truth.

And as our Bible has to be involved as we pray and our Bible has to be involved as part of that equipment not only to protect us from error but also our Bible has to be the sword of the spirit so we can use it offensively as well as defensively. Let me give you just four little words that might help you as you take your Bible into your prayer time and begin to use it as a weapon as we battle for the souls of men.

So Arthur Blackwell, who is a Christian writer, summed up the Christians' relationship to the Bible in four great words. Number one, admit. Open your whole being to let it be flooded with light. Let the truth in. Study the Bible sympathetically and lovingly. Let it be God's voice to you direct. Admit it, give it access.

Secondly, submit. Let the truth grip you that it may govern you. Let the plain declarations of God's word be the end of all controversy. Whenever we raise an issue with God, all growth and all blessing must stop until that issue is settled. Submit to the truth that you've admitted. Believe it.

Number three, commit. Grip the truth by hiding it in your heart. Let today's message be articulated to yesterday's so that a chain is forged that is a veritable anchor to your soul in times of temptation and trouble and trial. Commit. Grip the truth by hiding it in your heart. Commit it to memory. Remember Mary treasured these things in her heart. Lay them up.

Transmit. Don't be a pool, be a stream. I love that. Don't be a pool, be a stream. Don't hoard your riches, share the bounties of the Lord's table with another. Make every truth tenfold your own by passing it on. Missionary A possessed some strawberry plants which he shared with missionary B who came to live beside him.

That year, missionary A's plants were all destroyed by insects and missionary B gave back to missionary A half his plants. So all the plants which missionary A possessed were what he gave away. I love it. And I tell you, it's true. As you give it away, you receive it back.

So the Bible is our first line of defense and also our sword of the spirit. And as we use those things, then we transfer all that biblical knowledge and principle to what's happening to us in our lives. I remember a very graphic illustration of this surroundedness feeling as we worked with Sitting on the Fence, which is a little play that my street kids that had come to Christ put together for evangelism.

And we just made a little fence, literally. Sat a kid on it, and I bunched the good guys over here and the bad guys over here, and they all had guitars. And the preacher comes along and he says, "Oh, I've come upon this, I was walking, came upon this maiden perched on the fence," etc., etc. "Why are you sitting on the fence?"

And she says, "Well, I don't want to come down on this side and I don't want to come down on that side, so I'm sitting on the fence." And he points out that you can't sit on the fence. You're on the bad side if you sit on the fence because you're not on the good side. And of course, it's the battle to get her to come down on one of the other sides.

Very simple. And we did it with music and drama and skits. Then we took it out. We took it to the malls. We took it downtown Liverpool. We took it where kids were, anywhere kids were. On the beach, on the shore. Then we went up to Glasgow, very tough area, unbelievably tough area in the shopping mall where there were gang fights and all sorts of things. And we set up our little Sitting on the Fence thing in the shopping mall.

And I well remember the gang coming in, a gang of kids coming in and surrounding our little gal who is valiantly keeping up her singing as this was happening and all of us were getting very nervous. And then one of them just walked right up and pushed the fence and she went right over backwards. Hit her head on the fence was like this and she was up here.

And a fight broke out and all of that. And I always remember my well-trained little gal who'd nearly been knocked out unconscious got up and she was so mad. She was so ticked. And she picked up her Bible and swiped this guy right over the head. No grace. We don't do that. That's not the way. We turn the other cheek.

So anyway, from that great start that morning, we went outside to another venue. It was a parking lot where all the motorbike gangs were. And we set up our little fence again and in the afternoon started our next outreach. Grace was on the fence again. This time we had another experience. They all got on their motorbikes and they started circling us, round and round and round and round.

And these were tough, tough cookies. Well, of course, it was no good singing. You couldn't hear because they were revving up their things. So we just stayed and then they began circling closer and closer and closer. And we just were sort of pushed and huddled until the team was standing very close.

And I remember one of the kids, I can't remember who it was, a boy, got out his Bible and turned to this passage of scripture. And over the din, he shouted to us, "Those that are with us are more than those that are with them! Yea God!" He didn't say "yea God" because he wasn't American, but the equivalent.

And so together we just began to sing the next song, all huddled together, and the motorbikes stopped. The gang leader stopped it and they started to listen. We had one of our best outreach meetings. But I always remember he calmed the sea, he calmed the storm, and he gave us a chance to speak to those kids. "Those that are with us are more than those that are with them." And I saw him use his Bible to fortify himself in that very sticky predicament, dangerous predicament.

Guest (Male): This is Telling the Truth. Today, Jill Briscoe is talking about how to stand strong in prayer and faith in the midst of the spiritual battle. She's back with more in a moment. You can't always see it raging around you, but every day you're locked in a battle that threatens your spiritual, emotional, and relational well-being. Spiritual warfare is very real and you can't afford to sit this fight out. Your spiritual enemy will stop at nothing to keep you from experiencing the abundant and impactful life you're called to in Christ.

But you can stand strong in Jesus and the power of his Spirit. And Stuart and Jill want to show you how straight from God's word by sending you their new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces. We'll send you this encouraging series as thanks for your gift of support to help people around the world hear the message of Jesus through broadcasts like this one today.

Your gift of support helps Telling the Truth carry the message of God's love to people across the globe so they can experience life in Christ. Call today to request your copy of Fighting Unseen Forces when you give at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org/mobileapp.

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/mobileapp. Remember, you can also give to support Telling the Truth on our mobile app. Let's hear more now from Jill.

Jill Briscoe: So Satan attacks our prayer life how? Well, first of all, he attacks our body. He attacks our body. We just find it difficult to get out of bed, we just are lazy, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Always remember sleep deprivation is better than God deprivation. There is a battle for your body going on. But don't fear those that can kill the body. Fear him who can cast both body and soul into hell, and that's not the devil, that's God.

I always used to think when I read that passage it meant the devil has that power. No. You read it. And so we fear God who can save us or who can honor our choice not to be saved and allow us to go to destruction. The devil is a murderer from the beginning. He wants to kill the bodies of men. He's also out to destroy the mind. He's also out to destroy the heart. And he will attack us on all these levels. And it's prayer work to narrow our interests to this battle for the souls of men. It really is.

You know, we're living in an age that aims to rob religion of its inflammatory torch, someone has said. It's a life on fire which kindles another. There's one thing necessary for every soul, and it's to catch his master's passion. The battle for the heart, our heart for other people, that's what the devil attacks. And he diverts us from this prayer work for the souls of men.

I heard a definition of compassion the other day. Your hurt in my heart. Your hurt in my heart. That's compassion. And God will work that in us as we pray. And then there's a battle for our will. We've got to stay on our knees, we've got to stay on the cross, and we've got to stay on the spirit, keeping in step with the spirit if you like.

Personal Gethsemane, stay on our knees, thy will not mine be done. Personal Calvary, dying to myself, staying on the cross, taking up my cross and following him. Personal Pentecost, keeping in step with the spirit, drawing on that power we've been talking about to fight the battle with the weapons that God has given us, the weapons of our warfare. And then going out into battle in prayer to do battle for the souls of men.

Let me finish with an illustration again from the war. I bought a video that I watched on PBS this year. It was the story of Dunkirk and it follows the story of three men that escaped. One of them said it was chance. One of them said it was the brilliance and ingenuity and effort of incredibly brave, brilliant men that made Dunkirk happen. And one of them said it was God. And they kept weaving the stories of these three men in and out. It is a fascinating video.

But the thing that struck me when I was thinking of an illustration to end this talk was it's such a marvelous illustration. You know the whole of the British army was on that Dunkirk beachhead. We didn't have one soldier left in Britain. And as you know the story, we were retreating, we were beaten at that point, and the German forces hemmed us in on Dunkirk so the entire British army were sitting ducks out on the beaches.

And Hitler said, we've got them. All we have to do is just keep sending the planes over with bombs and strafe them and just wipe them out. They can't go anywhere. They've got their backs to the water. Meanwhile Churchill called a day of prayer in England and England went to its knees. The only time I think ever that every man, woman, and child was kneeling on the concrete outside church buildings because you couldn't get in them. And I remember that day. Remember my mother taking me to see that down the road and kneeling myself with my mother on the pavement.

And you can only attribute this to God and the answer to that prayer that Hitler had a twist of mind and decided to wait and regroup and retool his army that was about to annihilate us. And he gave us breathing space. But he did send legions of planes and bombs just to keep chipping away at it while everybody else had some R&R, believe it or not. R&R before they did us in, which gave us space.

And a man had a divine idea and he called up every single man and woman along the coast to bring any boat that they possessed or had access to to a certain venue on the coast, to bring their boats. It didn't matter if it was a rowboat, it didn't matter if it was a little cabin cruiser or a sailboat or a bigger boat or a tug or, you know, a passenger boat. Anybody with a boat or access to bring them.

And so there was this great call went out for boats. And of course they came, every type and shape imaginable. And a great big tug got them all in a line. One of those pictures I went back to look at, in fact I was looking for it last night and couldn't find it very late. It's in my mind as this tugboat with these hundreds of boats as he takes them out into deep water, ready to send them over to Dunkirk with their owners driving them. The little sail hats on, you know.

And they went and they rescued as you know a quarter of a million men under the bombs and under the strafing. And the story is absolutely incredible. And as I thought about that miracle story I thought, you know, prayer is the vehicle that takes us into enemy territory to rescue souls from destruction.

And you've got to believe you've got a boat. You are a boat. All different shapes and sizes. Some of us big, some of us small. All our capacity is different for rescue. But we've all got a boat. And that vehicle that is us, this boat vehicle and prayer, can go into the enemy territory. And if you do you're going to get bombed and there's going to be casualties. Because you cannot take on the devil, even though we know the victory's won. There's no war without casualties. You cannot take him on and be exempt from all of that.

So that's the challenge. We've got a spiritual Dunkirk on our hands. And there are people who are bound for destruction and the enemy is blasting them to bits and they have absolutely, they're helpless. But we can go in prayer with our little boats and we can rescue one or two or three depending on the capacity of the boat and bring them safely home.

Guest (Male): That's Jill Briscoe with her message from the series Fighting Unseen Forces. Coming up, she answers questions about re-engaging if you've stopped fighting and the importance of fighting well with your sword.

Between the pressures of paying bills, taking care of your family, and keeping up with a chaotic calendar, it's easy to feel outnumbered and overmatched. And those are just the visible challenges you face each day. The unseen forces of evil can make life seem even more overwhelming, threatening your spiritual, emotional, and relational well-being. But you're not without help and hope.

In their new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces, Stuart and Jill Briscoe show you how you can live victoriously, knowing that with Christ and his Spirit, you're never alone. This new series is our thanks for your gift of support to help more people experience life through the resources and teaching of Telling the Truth. Generous friends like you keep broadcasts like this one today going, even reaching people in places that are closed to the gospel.

So if you haven't given before, now is a great time to jump in and help keep God's word going out around the world to you and many others. And remember to request your copy of Fighting Unseen Forces when you call and give at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. And now, let's talk with Jill in the studio.

Jill, what happens when a Christian gets tired and stops fighting the enemy? How do they re-engage?

Jill Briscoe: Re-engage. I can't tell you how, but just do it. Just do it. You say, "I can't, I'm just tired fighting." Well, fight when you're tired. Fight when you don't think you can fight anymore. God promises when you think you are out, you've only just begun. And he will give you extra strength to fight to the end. He promises that. He has also overcome the final enemy, which is death. He's already overcome him. And so in his victory, in his power, in his promises, you can stand.

Guest (Male): Jill, you mentioned today that it's important for us as Christians to memorize scripture. Do you have any particular passages you would say are crucial for believers to recall in times of spiritual battle?

Jill Briscoe: I would say the whole Bible. There have been verses in the most obscure parts of the Bible that have been the instrument I've needed to fight the battle at times. From Malachi, now would you find some help in Malachi? Yes. From places that I would never have dreamed of going for help.

So all scripture, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable not only for doctrine but for encouragement, for help in times of need. That's what the Bible claims about itself. You can go anywhere in the scriptures and the Holy Spirit can take the word and encourage you or give you strength or give you an idea or give you help.

I think it's very important to memorize scripture. Have a look at Navigators. They have a system where you can learn scripture verses. I was very fortunate to be given a little packet of verses on the day I was saved and I was told to memorize them. I had nothing else to do but lie there and get well, so I had all the time in the world, I was told, to memorize these 40 or 50 little cards with scripture written on them and their reference. To this day, I did the whole course, 500 verses, I still remember those verses. So look at Navigators or something else that helps you to memorize scripture and start today.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Jill. Before we go, we want to remind you that this month, when you give to support Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one, we'll send you Stuart and Jill Briscoe's five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces. This powerful new series will help you stand strong in Christ and in the power of his Spirit against the enemy, so you can live victoriously each day.

Please request your series when you call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for listening today. Come back next time for more insightful teaching from Stuart and Jill Briscoe. Experience life right here on Telling the Truth.