Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Whether your marriage is struggling, coasting, or thriving, you'll want to listen to Jill Briscoe's message today on Telling the Truth as she tells how God can always do something wonderful in your relationship. But first, the generosity of friends like you keeps broadcasts like this one going out around the world so you and others can experience life through the biblical teaching and resources of Telling the Truth.

As thanks for your gift today, we'll send you Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, an insightful four-message series from Jill Briscoe about how you can build a long-lasting and fulfilling marriage founded on God's word. So call today to request yours, 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now let's dive right into Jill's message today called Guard Your Heart and Let God Govern Your Marriage.

Jill Briscoe: David is in bed. It is evening. He has not gone out to battle where he should have gone out to battle. He has sent Joab. The chapter opens by saying in the years when the kings went forth to war, David sent Joab. It sounds as if there was a season for war. He couldn't fight in the winter; now it was the summer, so it's the war season.

In the season that Israel went out to war, David stayed at home, which is not like the leader of the commander of the forces that he had been all his life. He's got a bit lazy. In the evening, he gets up and he goes to the flat top of the Middle Eastern house that he's staying on and he looks around. He sees a beautiful woman bathing herself, a naked woman.

David breaks something that is precious to God. He breaks faith. He calls for Bathsheba and she comes. It takes two. He breaks faith with her and she comes. Some people say, well, she had to come; he was the king. No, she didn't have to come. She didn't have to come. But the problem with Bathsheba was she was lonely because her husband was out of town.

When your husband's out of town, you get lonely. I travel with the husbands, and I go into hotel bars, which is the only place you can get a sandwich when you arrive somewhere these days, and I see your husbands who are out of town. I also see the women who are out of town, who are traveling without their husbands. I see what happens day after day after day, and I sit there and I pray. I pray, "Oh no, no, no!" I see it happening before my eyes.

Well, what happened? He didn't get off the roof. The first thought isn't sin; the second one is. You guard your spirit. You guard your spirit. The thing that David did displeased the Lord. Of course it did. So how do we guard our hearts? First of all, you call things by their real names. Psalm 51:6, the Psalm that David wrote after he committed adultery with Bathsheba, says, "What you want is truth from the inside out, truth in the inward parts."

What God wants is for us to be honest. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. If we are meddling, fiddling, if we have our little fingers in something we know we shouldn't have, if we're playing with something for whatever reason and we're going to get burned and it's going to lead to trouble, be honest. Guard your spirit. If your heart is saying "Uh-uh," listen to it. Know your heart. Know yourself.

Be honest. Guard your heart. Never say never, for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, and sexual immorality. Get off the roof and keep your heart pure and clean. There was a time when Israel dug wells. The Philistines came along and bunged them all up with muck and stones. And then Isaac, who is the well-digger or the re-well-digger, came along and unbunged them.

As I read the story of Abraham, it was exciting. Jacob, it was exciting. But when I looked at Isaac, he was a sort of nothing sort of person. I thought, "Well, this isn't a very interesting guy." But when I found out that he spent his entire life unbunging wells, which doesn't seem very clever, I saw the spiritual picture and how important that was because without water you die in that part of the country.

What he did is get down in the muck and the mire with some men and got rid of the muck. As soon as he did, the water sprang up and they had life and health again. So our job is to keep the well clean because Philistines in our lives are going to come and put this muck and stone in our marriages, in the well. What we have is to keep the well clean. Genesis 26, you can read that story.

But Proverbs 4:23 says this: "Guard your heart. It is the wellspring of life." Not only of life for yourself but life in your marriage. So in the spring of the times when kings went off to war, David sent Joab. Mistake A: Laziness. The stone of laziness. One evening David got up from his bed. Mistake B: Lustfulness.

Then David sent messengers—and I hate this—to get her. To get her intentionally, putting yourself in the way of temptation or making that overture in some way that I believe women know very well how to make. In other words, how can I tell him I'm available? David sent messengers to get her, but she had already told him she was available.

So how do you clean the well? I would recommend that you take Psalm 51 to bed with you tonight. That's a good thing to take to bed with you. Just read through the Psalm. That's the Psalm that David used to confess his sin, and it is an incredible, incredible Psalm. God sent a man to him to help him, to confront him, to bring him back to God. His name was Nathan the prophet.

As soon as Nathan came, he confessed his sins. Sin against people is a sin against God. "I've sinned against you." Well, he'd sinned against Bathsheba; that is a sin against God. Any sin against man is a sin against God. And then let God cleanse you. "Cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."

You know what God can do? He can forgive you so thoroughly and so totally that it's just like cleansing a leper. Hyssop was the little plant you find in the Middle East that you dipped in the blood of the sacrifice, the blood of the lamb. It was used by the priest to cleanse lepers. Lepers would come and say, "I think I'm healed."

The priest would examine them like the doctor to make sure they were, and then they would ritually and spiritually cleanse them. They would take the hyssop, dip it in the blood of the lamb, and put it on the man and say, "You're clean." Even a leper. David said, "I'm a leper; I just feel like a leper." Have you ever felt like a leper? Something you've done that you're so ashamed of?

Well, God, because of what he did for us, can cleanse us. David says at the end of that Psalm, "Now I'm going to tell transgressors your way. Now I can be a blessing to my world again." So marriage matters to God and secondly, let Christ govern your marriage. Once you've figured out you're going to guard your heart and never say never and the devil is after your marriage.

Let me tell you something: the devil hates marriage. He hates anything to do with God. All God's ideas are anathema to the devil. Right back there in the beginning of time, he said, "Has God said this, that, and the other? That's not a very good idea, Eve. Did God really say that?" He hates God's ideas.

And so he hates us if we are in a Christian marriage. He hates our children. I want to tell you, he hates our children and he hates our grandchildren. He hates anything that smells of God, and so he's going to be after it. The thing that happens to keep your marriage safe and guarded is as you do your part and God will certainly do his part to assist you in that, and then you let Christ govern your marriage.

Guest (Male): You're hearing today from Jill Briscoe on Telling the Truth. She's coming right back with more biblical truth on letting God lead your marriage. But before she dives back in, let's take a moment to hear from Denise, a listener in Michigan who shares: "Love all of your teachings and your commitment to sharing the gospel. Thank you."

Thank you, Denise. That's the kind of encouragement your support today will bring to more people around the world as you help share the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth so others can experience life in Christ. And we'd like to encourage you this month with a wonderful four-message series from Jill Briscoe called Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, as well as a beautiful printed Bible verse about marriage.

In her series, Jill Briscoe teaches eight biblical keys to a healthy, life-giving marriage and shares her own insights from her 60 years of marriage to Stuart. We'll send you Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work and the Bible verse print as thanks for your gift today to help more people experience life in Christ through the teaching resources of Telling the Truth.

Your support enables countless people across the globe to stand strong in the unchanging truth of scripture. And we're so grateful for friends like you. Request your copy of Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work when you call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Alright, now let's return to Jill and her message, Guard Your Heart and Let God Govern Your Marriage.

Jill Briscoe: The thing that happens to keep your marriage safe and guarded is as you do your part and God will certainly do his part to assist you in that, and then you let Christ govern your marriage. When we got engaged, I wanted an engagement ring with three stones, well, we did. The Lord in the middle, Jesus, and Stuart one side, me the other.

And every time I look at that ring, I am reminded: Christ governs our marriage. What does that mean? Well, in John chapter 2 verses 1 to 10, there is a story, a wonderful story of a wedding. If you ever wonder what God thought about marriage, the first miracle Jesus ever did—and Jesus was God on earth, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

The first thing he ever did when he performed a miracle was at a wedding. He went to a wedding. He blessed a wedding ceremony with his presence. And so that's what God thinks of it. He said, "The first thing I'm going to do on earth when I've lived in Nazareth and I've blessed family for 30 out of my 33 years, I lived in Nazareth with my family. And for three years, I worked on the redemption of the world."

So if you ever wonder what Jesus feels about family, look at 30 years in Nazareth. And if you ever wonder what Jesus, who is God, thinks about weddings and marriages as he intended them to be, look at that first miracle in John chapter 2. It was a wonderful occasion, it was a happy time, it was a wedding.

You've got the bride and the groom and in between them, the governor. It's a little different than what we do, but the governor was responsible for everything that ran in the marriage ceremony. He was probably the most important person there, not the bride or the groom. And something terrible happened in Middle Eastern culture: the wine ran out.

In other words, they were going to lose face, and that's very important to those people. If it was discovered that the very important component in their rituals and certainly at a wedding, the wine, had run out. And so Mary and the disciples and Jesus have been invited to this wedding, not as the governor of it. Jesus was not the governor; he was the guest.

Most of us have had marriages where probably that's true. You wanted him at your wedding, not as the governor but as the guest. You probably didn't even realize that. You certainly wanted him at your wedding, that's why you had it in a church. But perhaps he was the guest. And what happened when the wine ran out, Jesus took over and became the governor. He became the governor.

He told them to fill the water pots with water and then to pour it into the wine glasses. And those men took their jobs in their hands because he'd never done a miracle. Just imagine if they poured water into the wine glasses. They wouldn't have worked the next wedding; that catering job would have been out of business and bankrupt.

But there was something about this man who had never performed a miracle, some authority, some instinct that made them do what he told them to do. And so they filled the water pots with water and then poured them into the glasses, and God turned the water into wine. The Bible says it was better than anything they'd had before. What a picture.

Marriages that started off with a lot of wine, somehow now they're just water. All the sparkle's gone. They're running out or have run out because Jesus is only the guest and not the governor. And when Jesus was made the governor and not the guest, he turned the water into wine and it was better than anything they had had before. What a wonderful picture.

Let me tell you a story and then I'm through. We came here in 1970. We immigrated to the States in 1970 and there was an usher at Elmbrook Church who was in the Rotary Club. He said to me one day, "Would you come and speak to the Rotary Club?" I said, "Sure. What do I speak to a Rotary Club about?"

He said, "You can bring a spiritual emphasis, a value message in a secular club here in America. They're sort of used to that. We have pastors speak to them and rabbis and religious people." Well, I'd only been here a couple of months and it was in the days where we had those hairpieces. You can't remember this, but your mother would.

That's what hair was like. I see that's coming back again now, but I had got a hairpiece because that's what everybody did. Stuart was at church; it was a Sunday night. He gave me the address and I looked at it and I thought, "Goodness, I don't know where that is." So I found the address on the map and I thought, "Okay, it's up on Capitol Drive, wherever that is."

I was driving on the wrong side of the road because I came from England, and that's never changed. Here I am; I've got to get myself, never driven over here until this night, I've just been there a few weeks, to this meeting, to this Rotary Club and talk to them. Well, it's snowing and it's windy, and we're on a hill in the first parsonage we had.

So I back out the car straight into the ditch and I'm stuck. It is blowing a gale and I get out and my wig is coming apart, and I am unaware of this because I'm panicked and I have to get in the car and go to this meeting. So the neighbor comes and helps me, gets the car out of the ditch. I'm now late and I roar down the street and I get myself to this address and it's a bowling club.

Anyway, I go inside and I say to the man, "Is there a meeting here? A meeting like a Rotary meeting?" "Oh yes," he says, "We have a meeting room and people have it and the Rotary Club is meeting right back at the bowling alley." So I go back and I open the door and the man who has been speaking in front of me has been doing this item thing on wine.

It's a wine tasting that's before I speak. So by the time I get there, everybody is very happy and having a wonderful time and they've been tasting all this wine for about an hour from this bottle and this bottle. So I slip in and I sit there quite unaware of what I must look like. I have not had time to go to the ladies or to do anything else, so I'm looking absolutely wild with my wig over my eyes.

He comes to the end of his talk and he says, "Now there's another speaker here and her name is Jill, Jill Briscoe and you know, I can't really read this, what she's going to talk about here. I think she has a comedy act." This is my introduction. So I walk up with my heart thumping like mad saying, "God, what do we do with this?"

Because I'm just from England, I'm still very English and I put out my hand to shake his hand, which I used to do all the time until I got acclimatized that you don't do that over here. So I put out my hand and he put the bottle of wine in it. So here I am standing at the front of this with the bottle of wine and my hair over my eyes, fitting in perfectly to the whole scene.

I'm saying, "Oh God, help! Give me an idea!" Immediately, of course, the idea came. I looked at the bottle and there was a little tiny bit left and I said, "Look at this. The wine's run out. What a shame." I said, "You know that happened once before, 2,000 years ago in the Middle East." And then I told the story I've just told you.

I told them how to get Christ as governor of their life and what a difference it would make to their marriage. At the end, there was a young woman who didn't leave hastily. Everybody else left hastily. And I was left, put the wine bottle down and I went over to this young woman who was in tears and she said, "The wine's run out." And she came to Christ. What an incredible thing. When Christ is governor, it will be better than anything you've had before. We'll go on next time and show how we can make that work in our lives.

Guest (Male): Have you given control of your marriage over to God? That's what Jill Briscoe is challenging us with today on Telling the Truth. She'll be back with more, but first, whether you're already married or plan to get married someday, you'll want to know how to build a marriage that's not only long-lasting but also joy-filled.

That's why we'd love to send you Jill Briscoe's four-message series, Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, as thanks for your gift of support this month. In it, Jill shares timeless truth on marriage from the Bible, along with practical day-to-day advice from her own marriage to Stuart.

You'll find that Jill's wit and wisdom make this series a fun and encouraging listen that's sure to encourage you at whatever stage of marriage you find yourself. And as extra thanks for your gift, we'll also send you a beautifully printed Bible verse about marriage to encourage you each day.

Through your generous gift today, you'll help more people experience abundant life in Christ through the unchanging truth of God's word as you make it possible for Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one to continue going out across the globe. So be sure to request your copy of Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work when you give a gift today. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now let's return to Jill with some closing thoughts on today's message.

Jill, how do we get past something we're ashamed of in our marriage or other relationships?

Jill Briscoe: Well, it's very important that we deal with the hurts of the past because the hurts of the past flow over into the present and spoil everything. They spoil our own personal lives, they spoil the lives of those that are around us. One of the things we do need to do if there is shame and guilt for good reason in our marriage, we should be ashamed and we should be guilty, then it needs dealing with.

Of course, that's what the cross is all about. Sometimes we need help; we need help of a godly pastor or counselor or friend who can take us to the cross and that's where those things should be left to be dealt with. Once they are dealt with in what Christ did for us when he died and rose again for us, then we can know that we're forgiven.

If we live ashamed and guilty, that's not very good for a marriage. It's not very good for ourselves, it's not very good for our children. And so we do need to deal with the hurts of the past. It's just a question of deciding to do it, of putting it on your agenda, of making it a priority. First with God, get to prayer about it, name it, go there.

You know, I've found that I can have a whole prayer time and never mention what needs mentioning, which is the past. I can sort of ignore it, I can pretend it didn't happen. Yet it's a shadow, and the shadows need entering and God's light needs to be brought into the shadows and it needs leaving behind. You need to know you're forgiven and that way, your marriage is going to benefit.

Guest (Male): Why is it so important, Jill, to let Christ govern our marriage instead of trying to make up our own rules?

Jill Briscoe: Well, I used the illustration here of the wedding at Cana and how Jesus was invited as guest and not the governor and how he needs to govern our relationships—not just the marriage relationships, our parent relationships, our friend relationships, our church relationships. All relationships.

It's incredibly important that Christ is not a guest in our life and our relationships but he is a governor. That he gives the rules, that he shows us the obediences that are going to be necessary. And that's what makes a marriage work. If Christ is Lord, and if he isn't Lord of all, he isn't Lord at all, so you need to spend some time with God and say, "Are you Lord of my life?"

That means my life. That means my marriage, that means my singleness, that means whatever state I'm in, my parenting. Are you Lord of my parenting? Are you Lord of my relationship with my husband or my wife? Those questions need to be answered. If we don't know what that means, start with the words.

Get on your knees and say, "I want to make you Lord. I don't really know what that means except it means I need to be obedient." Then you have to figure out what do I need to be obedient to? The imperatives are in the Bible. You need to live a holy life. You need to know what love is; look at 1 Corinthians 13. You need to obey what we read in the scriptures. If we would just obey what we read in the scriptures, all our relationships would benefit, particularly our marriage.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Jill. We hope today's message encouraged you. Before we go, remember that when you give today to help keep Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one going out around the world, we'll send you Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, Jill's four-message series all about how you can build a strong, fulfilling marriage that stands the test of time.

So call now to give and remember to request Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work along with the Bible verse print on marriage with our thanks. 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. We're so glad you've joined us today for Telling the Truth. Don't miss out on our next broadcast for more life-changing truths from God's word. Listen in and experience life next time on Telling the Truth.