Telling the Truth

Jill Briscoe: I want to talk about learning what real love is, how it works, how it behaves, and living it. And then a little bit about praying. Praying about your marriage, praying with your spouse, or praying about your spouse, depending which stage you’re at here. And that’s what we’re going to deal with today.

Guest (Male): There are a lot of myths out there about true love, but only God can show us what real love is all about. Today on Telling the Truth, you’ll discover transformational truths as Jill Briscoe reveals what the Bible says about real love. 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 here’s Jill, encouraging you to learn what real love is.

Jill Briscoe: The Bible's a wonderful book on the subject of marriage and family. From Genesis all the way through, there are things that can lighten up problems, that can show us solutions. There are proverbs that talk about family. There are examples of families that work. There are examples of families that don’t.

And there are reasons for all of that. And then, of course, we get into the epistles, which are letters that the Apostle Paul and others wrote to a little tiny infant church where they were struggling with the ideas of marriage. Because in the early church, people were coming to Christ, coming to faith, coming into the Christian life out of paganism and out of models of marriage that were very, very far removed from the model of marriage that God sets down for His people.

And so, as these pagan people who had been in abusive marriages or in marriages where the woman had absolutely no rights—incidentally, neither did the Jewish wife have any rights at all. No right of witness, no right of appeal if she was being treated wrongly. She had no right if her husband divorced her. All he had to say was, "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" three times, and she could be divorced for the most stupid reasons.

If she seasoned the soup in a way that he wasn't happy about, she could be divorced. If she raised her voice so that the neighbors could hear her screaming at the kids, she could be divorced. I wonder how many of us would be married at this point if we had lived in those early days. Now, these are Jewish families. So you take one step away from that, and you think about the pagan families. People were coming out of paganism into marriage.

And a lot needed to be said, a lot needed to be taught to show people that there was now a different relationship between the man and the woman. The woman in God's eyes had dignity. She was equal partner. This was a concept that was totally outside the imagination of anybody that lived in Jesus' day and time. And so Paul wrote most about it—liberating things. A woman could choose to submit. That was a new thought.

She had no choice up to now. Now she could choose. Now she was free in Christ but could choose to respond and react and submit to authority, to the government authority, to the police authority, to the home authority, to the church authority. She could choose. She was no longer under duress and punishment if she didn’t submit; she could choose. Paul liberated women in their marriages.

He liberated them to realize that whether they were a slave or a woman, they were free in Christ. And they serve the Lord God. And that this would affect their marriage, this would affect their home life, this would affect their life. Period. And so he wrote a lot in Ephesians about marriage. You can read about it there in chapter five. He wrote a lot in Colossians about marriage—just really instructions.

And Peter, the Apostle Peter, wrote about marriage in 1 Peter chapter three. Specifically, he wrote about women who are married to people that don’t believe like they do. And how can they behave, and how can they win their husbands to Jesus? And he spoke about people that did believe—believing marriages. That people that came into a Christian union were equal partners before God, were partners together, heirs together of God’s gracious gift of eternal life.

They shared something now before God that could make a difference in their marriage. And there's a lot about what couples like that need to do in Peter. And so the Bible is a very good book on the subject of marriage, from the beginning in Genesis where it's laid out "this is what God had in mind," to the heart of God weeping over marriages that are absolutely destroyed because of sin and the Fall.

And that’s where we live. We live in a period of time called life after the Fall with a sinful nature. And that’s going to affect everything. It’s going to affect our relationship with our spouse, with our children, with our neighbors, with our world. And then, of course, coming into the redemption. On the cross, God rolled back the effects of the Fall.

The effects of the Fall were terrible. In the environment, the whole creation fell when sin entered the universe. And God said, "Now I’m going to help you roll back those effects, and one day I’ll make a new heavens and a new earth altogether." And then the relationships fell in the Fall. The man blamed the woman, and the woman blamed the snake.

And God said, "You're both guilty, and that's that. And now I have to come in Christ to take the punishment you should have and put things right, and I will do that one day." And He gave them a promise right there in the garden that one day He would do that. And when He did, He would roll back the effects of the Fall in relationships: men with women, women with men, the gender relationships, the black and white relationships.

Because in Christ, there's neither Jew nor Greek, bond or free. And what an incredible thing it is that black and white, colors of skin, differences, can become harmonized again if people are committed to Christ. And He is certainly committed to us and to our marriages and families. And so in the book of Corinthians, Paul, speaking to the Corinthians—and let me tell you the background of that, because that’s interesting.

Relationships in Corinth were lived out of what we call Eros, the feeling side of love. It was the city of love. That was the nickname for Corinth. It had a great big port. And if you were doing business with Corinth, a burgeoning city, then the boats would come in and the girls would meet the boats. They were the girls from the temple which is sitting up on the hill.

If you go to Corinth today, you come into that port if you're doing it by boat, and you look up on the hill and the ruins of that temple are still there. And that’s what people would have seen. And that’s where Eros was celebrated, the goddess of love. And rather like the way sometimes in some Caribbean countries you get a lei of flowers put round your neck when you arrive on the scene, so the girls would do this and invite the guests coming in, the sailors and the merchantmen off those boats, to come and celebrate love in the temple.

And they celebrated lust, not love. But that’s where it all happened. And you give your body in worship to the priests as you go into that temple. And so Corinth was all about lust. It was all about Eros, the feeling too big for words. They worshipped that sort of love, the city of love. Well, then some people got converted because the Apostle Paul walked into town.

And he started a little church. Actually, he started it in a little shop. That’s where the first church was in Corinth, and the ruins are still there today, and it’s got Christian symbols on the wall. That is where the church first began in Corinth. Now, think about it. Some people who are Corinthian in mind and have no idea what love is except Eros love—if it feels so good, it must be right, so let's do it—suddenly become believers.

And suddenly they begin reading letters from the apostles who are saying this is how Christians now think about love and marriage and family, and this is how Christians are supposed to behave. And so they would sit in this little shop and hear the letter that Paul had written to them. And somebody at the front of the little gathering of new believers would read: "Love is patient, love is kind. It doesn't envy, it doesn't boast, it isn't proud, it isn't rude, it isn't self-seeking, it’s not easily wronged or angered. Keeps no record of wrongs. Love doesn't delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." This was news. And it was certainly news.

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Jill Briscoe today on Telling the Truth. She returns soon with more encouragement to help you love well in your marriage. But first, you’ll want to hear how God is helping listeners like you grow in their faith through this program. Here’s what a listener named Renee shares: "Thank you for your faithfulness in sharing God’s Word to the world. You’ve been a blessing to me."

Thank you for your words, Renee. 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 of support this month 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. Now let’s get back to Jill as she continues her message: "Learn What Real Love Is & Pray About It."

Jill Briscoe: If you can just get yourself into the mindset of some of those women—many of them had come to faith in Christ. He was their savior, the Nazarene who’d come and died on a cross in Jerusalem. They’d heard the Gospel, they’d believed. They’d received the Holy Spirit into their hearts and lives. They were new people. Old things were gone, new things were beginning in their heart and life.

They were converted. But they were married to unbelievers. Their husbands many of them had not yet come to Christ. So what did they do? They were still in a heathen structure of marriage and family. They were treated like slaves and dogs still by their husband. They were owned by their husband. They were part of the property. So if he died, the property and the wife went to the brother because the property passed on in the family, etc., etc.

So here they are, new people trying to struggle to live a new life and think about love in a different way other than lust. And they're the only one in the family. They're the only one. And so no wonder the New Testament writers were busy, not only teaching about marriage and family and a new premise and principle altogether, but would actually travel to these cities to try and spend a week or two weeks trying to counsel and listen and explain all of this.

And because Stuart and I were known as youth evangelists and workers, which we'd done for 14 years full-time in Youth Mission, we began to be invited to do things on college campuses because we weren't known as adult ministers at that point. And so I get this opportunity to go up to the campus, and it's a little tiny group of students who have come to faith in Christ.

And they're very beleaguered because the '70s were very wild. Everyone was marching about issues. They had just blown up the campus up there at Madison, the chemistry campus, forgetting there was a professor inside. He had been killed. There was a lot of violence and a lot of trouble on our campuses right across America. And that’s when we came here. We came in 1970. This was probably about '71.

And so I get up there to Madison, and it’s my first experience to youth in America. I had been working with youth in Europe all these years. And I have a wonderful time with these Christians, try to encourage them. They are certainly very beleaguered and very much on their own in that atmosphere trying to be Christian in a non-Christian world, if you wish.

And when it was over, I packed up, I thought I was going to drive back. And one of them said, "Oh, we forgot to tell you, we’ve got a meeting in the main area where everybody has lunch. And that’s where everybody starts the marches. And they're marching; we march every week to a different issue." And they make banners and they go all around Madison and end up a lot of times in trouble.

And so that’s where the march starts at lunchtime. We rally to get organized. And we put up a notice that we had a speaker coming, a Christian speaker, and she would address the crowd. And your subject is: do Christians believe in sex? I said, "What?" Well, by now we were walking towards the lunch hour, so there was nothing I could do about this.

So I said, "Why did you—what—why did you—?" They said, "We wanted to make sure everyone was there. They’ll be there because they don’t think Christians believe in sex. So they want to know, what do Christians believe? What does the Bible say about sex? They're very interested in sex. So we'll get the place will be packed."

Sure enough, we get there and the place is packed. My heart's just going like that. I'd spent a long time doing open-air work, you know, being in a public place and addressing crowds like a Hyde Park Corner thing in Europe. But this was my first exposure to America. I had no idea the culture, the kids, whether this would work. Plus, to be thrown a subject like that in a situation like that, it was not my thing.

I wish my husband was with me. He's a master at this. So I get up there and I look for my hecklers. Number one, when you're doing open-air work, you look for hecklers. Because if you're a good open-air speaker, what you're supposed to do is listen to what they say and turn it on them. Because they will try and interrupt you. And good open-air speakers can work with a heckler.

In fact, in our open-air work in Europe, if there wasn't a heckler, we'd pretend to be one just to get something going. And so, again, I don't think very quickly on my feet. But I did know to look for them, and I found him immediately. He was a football player and he had girls hanging off him in every direction. And he was obviously the big man on campus, and he was right in front of me at the back of the crowd.

And so I began and I defined love. And more or less what I did is tell them that Agape love defined, God's love, is self-giving. It's altruistic. It's other-centered. And it isn't self-centered like Phileo love. Three words used in God's Word, the Bible, in the Scriptures for love. One is to describe the love of God—Agape or Agapé love.

And so that sort of love is demonstrated in a total self-giving of itself to someone who isn't interested in them, like us. We were not and are not interested in God naturally, but God still came and gave His Son for us.

Guest (Male): This is Telling the Truth, and you’re listening to Jill Briscoe. She’ll be right back to answer some questions about today’s message. 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. Jill’s here to answer a couple of questions about today’s message.

Guest (Male): Jill, how does living in the period of time you call "after the Fall" affect our relationships?

Jill Briscoe: Well, the period of time we are all living in is the time after the Fall, before the glory. And it affects everything. We are as a person, and what we are as a person affects all our relationships. And so anger is a result of the Fall—not righteous anger, unrighteous anger. And that affects relationships. Just not being able to control your temper can lead to abuse, can lead to terrible, terrible things.

And the Spirit of God will control your anger. That’s why to know God improves your marriage. To know God living within you with all the power of God within you improves your anger management. I mean, that to me is pretty obvious. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. And one of the things that ruins marriage is people allowing their temper to get out of control.

So after the Fall means we are people of anger, of selfishness. Selfishness ruins marriages. It's the one thing that's at the base of most divorces is sheer selfishness—childish selfishness. Often I see that in myself even now at my ancient age. If I get miffed, if I get annoyed, I immediately know now why. Well, I didn’t get my own way. I didn’t get my own say. It didn’t go my way. You know, all of that.

And so after the Fall affects us as people, makes us selfish, which ruins our marriage; makes us angry. And we don’t want to say sorry. Ruth Bell Graham once said marriage is made up of two good forgivers. And one good forgiver isn’t enough. Both of you have to work at this, and sometimes one does better at it than others saying they're sorry. After the Fall, yes. But one day in glory, we will love as we should love. And we will behave as we shall behave in the new heaven and the new earth. So stick it out and one day look for the hope and the glory ahead.

Guest (Male): Why is it so important to look past the lustful view of love that is so often pushed on us today and view love as God does?

Jill Briscoe: Well, yes, it’s a sex-saturated society that we live in. And I was saying that 30 years ago. And it was 30 years ago a sex-saturated society. Now I think it’s beyond saturation point; it’s endemic. It used to be you could go into a bookstore on an airport and the magazines would be covered—the covers would be covered at the height of a small child. I notice not now.

And so small children are looking at images that are impressed in their memory from a very, very young early age. Lust prostitutes love. It’s what the devil does to love. Lust says, "I have to have the object of my lust. I don’t care how I get it. I’m going to get it. I’ll deal with anyone that gets in my way of getting it." And lust destroys. Love blesses. Love uplifts. Love respects.

So which would you rather have reigning in your partner in marriage: lust or love? The obvious answer is love. But you can’t have love without God, for God is love. Human love doesn’t do it because human love after the Fall lives with the propensity to lust first and struggle to love at all. And what we need to do is learn which voice is speaking to us. Always two voices.

We see a beautiful girl if we're a man. One voice says she's a beautiful girl. The other voice says, "Get her. What's it going to take to have her, to use her? I want her. And I don’t care who else wants her or who has her." So which voice do you then listen to? The battle is in the mind. You mind your mind, and God will mind your heart.

How do we mind our mind? By setting it on things of the Lord. Read Philippians chapter four. Think of these things. What things? Things that are good and pure and right and true. And if you allow your mind to run riot, and if you feed your mind with pictures from the internet that come unbidden so often onto our screens, or bidden, then that’s what you’ll see when you look at a woman.

And those images are incredibly indelibly pasted on our mind. I honestly think only the Spirit of God can deal with someone who has been watching pornography or looking at pornography. It takes the power of God. And I don’t know if it’ll ever be erased, but He will help you handle it if it cannot be erased. You need the Holy Spirit to clean you up. You need the Holy Spirit to empower you to use love in marriage instead of lust.

Guest (Male): Thank you, 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. That’s 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for joining us today on Telling the Truth. Don’t miss tomorrow’s broadcast as Jill Briscoe continues to share from God’s Word on making your marriage work. Listen in and experience life next time on Telling the Truth.