Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today Jill Briscoe continues her message, "Winning the Worry War," and turns to Philippians for some practical guidance for you on how to deal with worry. That's up next. Your generous support keeps broadcasts like this one today going out around the world, so you and others can experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth.

To thank you for your gift today, we'll send you Stuart and Jill's powerful new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces. It's all about how you can live victoriously and win the battles against your spiritual enemy when you stand in Christ and the power of His Spirit. Call today to request your copy: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill with today's message.

Jill Briscoe: When Joshua went round and round and round Jericho, he took the ark with him. He took the Word of God, and that's what you've got to do when you're going round and round your problem. Lord, I'm taking the ark with me. What do You say to me? That day God had said to me from Exodus, Moses' mother, desperately worried about Moses the baby, couldn't hide him any longer. She put him in the ark and let him go among the crocodiles. I said to Margaret, that's what I feel like. I feel that I've got to let her go.

I feel all these nice little boys I thought were so cute at church are like crocodiles. They've turned into these crocodiles. She said, "Well, you've put her in the ark. Put her in Christ. You've got to let her go. But," she said, "I'll be Miriam. I'll stand on the bank, and I'll watch your daughter." She said, "You're no use. You can't pray in this state." I said, "You're right." Where was Moses' mother? It was Miriam, it was the sister that stood on the bank. We can do that for each other.

It was about two weeks later that I got a little present through the mail from Margaret. It was a little rubber crocodile with its mouth tied up. On the ribbon, it just said, "I'm praying. I'm praying." I was so worried about Judy, and I didn't need to be. I wasted all that time going round and round and round Jericho. What happened? Well, she did all right. She did all right. I think one of the biggest fears we have are for our children. Will they love God? Will they make it? Will they choose right?

They do all right. I want to encourage you mothers, they'll be all right. All things being equal, they'll be all right. It doesn't mean that everything will be all right for them, but they'll be all right. What we have to do is not waste our energy going round and round Jericho, but shape our worries into the right shape. Let Him shape our worries into prayers. It doesn't eradicate the problem. Jericho is still there. Jericho still has to be faced. You still have to walk around Jericho, but you're not to fret or worry. Instead of worry, pray.

Let me read to you from the Message, from Philippians 4: "Celebrate God all day, every day. Don't fret or worry. Instead of worry, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. And before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life."

That is one of the best paraphrases of Philippians 4—Rejoice in the Lord always—that I have ever read. Let me read it to you again. "Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in Him. Don't fret or worry. Instead of worry, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. And before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center, the core of your life."

Christ displaces worry at the core of your life. It doesn't mean Jericho's not there. It just means you look at Jericho in a whole other way. So shape your worries into prayers. Make a worry list if it helps you, and then worry your way through it. You're allowed to do it. It's amazing to me as I took my ark round a particular Jericho I have in my life at the moment, one more time, about a year ago. Going round and round and round this problem, I was preparing this message or this series.

I asked God about it, and He said, "Well, don't be terrified. Don't worry. That's a command. Don't sin by worrying. Trust Me." I read the story of them going round once a day. The Lord said to me, "That's what you're allowed to do. Only once a day. Go round once, and then you go back to camp and you get on with your life. Because what happens if you go round and round and round and round and round? You never get back to camp and attend to what you need to be doing, all those other children that are doing all right."

Once a day. It's a command. It's a bit like when you're struggling with infertility and you're in this resolve group, which is a very good group if that's a problem. Those of you that have been through that know about this support group. It's not a Christian group, but it's a very good support group. They have a 20-minute rule. They say worry about it and think about it for 20 minutes every day, and then discipline your mind. Same thing. One round Jericho.

I started to put that principle into action a year ago. I haven't always managed to do it. I mean, there have been some days when at the end of the day, I'm still tramping round the place. I'm exhausted. Of course you will be exhausted. You only have enough strength to go round it once. There are other people in my life. You have to get on with living. You have to attend to the ministry that God has given you, and you have to function. So once a day. Make your worry list, go round it once, and then tear it up and put it in the wastepaper basket.

What do we do? We need a supply of courage. At the beginning of the chapter in Joshua, after God has told him, "Don't worry, don't be terrified, don't be frightened," we come down, and Joshua, after talking to God about all this, orders the officers of the people in verse 10, "Go through the camp and tell the people, 'Get your supplies ready.'" I just saw that two days ago. Get your supplies ready. I thought, that's what we need.

Joshua needed supplies. I mean, he needed swords and he needed uniforms—I don't know what he needed—but if you're going to fight a battle like they did, you need supplies. What he needed more than any of the other physical supplies that he needed was a supply of courage. Where do you get this supply of courage? First of all, we have to ask, what is courage? What is courage? The only way I can answer that for you is to talk about what it isn't first.

Courage isn't a feeling. Courage isn't a feeling. Courage is resolve. First and foremost, courage is resolve, determination, will. That's what courage is. All of us, therefore, have a supply of it. Everybody has a will. You say, "No, my kids have a 'won't.'" Everybody has a will. You don't need to go looking for it. You don't need to say, "Well, I don't have any courage." Courage is will. The will to do what is right. The determination, the resolve, whatever you feel like. For courage is not a feeling, and if we wait for a feeling of courage to do what is right, to say what is right, to address a problem, to go up against our Jericho, we can wait until you're dead.

The feeling will probably never come. I'm not saying that courage isn't always devoid of feeling. Sometimes courage is a feeling. Courage is there. But the courage needs to be a resolve, first and foremost. Don't wait for the feeling.

Guest (Male): What keeps you up at night? Whatever it is, God’s Word has the answers to your worries, and Jill will be right back to tell you more. But first, listen to what Jason wrote in to share: "Glory to God for the gift of Telling the Truth messages. The messages are very insightful and inspire growth through God’s Word. Thanks so much." Thanks so much, Jason. That’s the kind of blessing you can bring into people’s lives through your gift of support today, as you help share God’s Word around the world so more people can experience life through Telling the Truth.

When you give this month, we’d like to bless you with a copy of Stuart and Jill Briscoe’s new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces. Every day, you’re locked in a battle with your spiritual enemy, one that threatens your spiritual, emotional, and relational well-being. But you’re not alone, and you’re not without help. In this powerful series, the Briscoes will show you, straight from God’s Word, how you can live victoriously each day.

You’ll gain confidence in knowing that you’ll never be overpowered in your spiritual battles, as you discover that the fight's not even fair when you have Christ and His Spirit. Fighting Unseen Forces is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you call 1-800-889-5388. That’s 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here’s Jill with more truth for you.

Jill Briscoe: I've often told the story in our youth ministry how I'm a very fearful person as well as being a worrier. I'm racked with fears of everything. I was very frightened of the young people that we were working among. I loved them, but I was frightened of them, and I was right to be frightened of them. They were tough, tough kids. There was a particularly very incredible place called the Floral Hall in a seaside place called Morecambe, and we were trying to do some what we called raw evangelism. Just go out, meet kids, try and get to know them, try and talk to them on the streets in these places.

What we did is we put a great big map up of our environment, and the youth group and we started to pray over this map. Then we sent them out for three months, these kids, just to go out when they were free at night. They're not really free at night in England because they do three hours homework every night, Monday to Friday. But when they could do it, they were to go out on the weekends or whenever and find where the kids were and what they were doing in that part of the map.

We divided the kids up into teams, we divided the map up into teams. After three months, we came back and we kept putting little things on the map. "Well, there's a place here. It's a house. Some parents are always away, and every Saturday night, there is a sex party here and there's probably about 20 or 30 kids go here, and that's in my section. There's also a coffee bar, and of course, I'm also on the beach here. So this is my territory."

Then everybody else was doing the same. Then we had a strategy meeting. How then can we forcefully go out to where these kids are, into these places—maybe to the house to the party or wherever it is—if that's your territory? What do we do when we get there? Can we use music? Can we just turn up? Can we use preaching, teaching, drama, mime, juggling, magic? There's a wonderful team in Europe that have Christian magic that is being used in evangelism. We saw that at this conference we've just come back from.

What can we use to physically put ourselves in that situation? That's the sort of work we were doing. In my territory, with my team, there was this place with a thousand kids dancing and getting drunk. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Herman's Hermits and Pretty Things, all these groups, 17, 18 years of age, were playing. We didn't know who they were. Nobody knew who they were in those days. But that's what was happening.

The kids would—when their idols would come on the stage to sing—it was a concrete floor. Standing there with a thousand kids, they would beat their heads on the floor in ecstasy. They'd have blood all over their faces. These groups would come and let them touch a little bit of them. It was idol worship. It was incredible atmosphere in there. Now, this was in my territory. When I realized that I had to get myself in there and do something, I freaked out. I'm a very fearful person.

So I prayed for courage. "God, give me the courage." And it didn't come. For four weeks, I stood there praying for courage until it dawned on me that God was saying to me, "Jill, will you go in there for Me without the courage? Because it's the right thing to do. Without the feeling." Courage is doing without the courage for Jesus. When I knew it—in principle—I'd forgotten it in my crisis or my terror.

Courage is resolve. I resolved to go in. Courage is willpower. I said to my feet, "Move." And I got myself in without the feelings, I assure you. Once after obedience—doing what I knew to be right, because He said, "Go into all the world," and that was my world and my responsibility and God will hold me accountable for making sure those people have heard that they don't need to go to hell and they can go to heaven—I arrived on the other side of the door. I heard myself say, "Take me to the manager."

I thought, who said that? I knew what to do, I knew what to say. I did it, I said it. He gave me his stage, he gave me—I led him to Christ eventually—the whole thing is just one of those stories. But what happened, the thing that had to happen to me was this terror, this fear, this worry, "what will happen when I get in there?" Superimposing the future on the present and letting it paralyze me, had to be dealt with.

God used pray—you cannot pray and worry at the same time. It's impossible. I tried it this morning. I started to pray about what I was worried about, and I had to stop praying to worry. So of course the thing to do is to keep praying. All day, every day. Celebrate God, revel in Him. Shape your worries into prayers. Let Him do that. Then the peace of God that passes all understanding will garrison your heart and mind. That's put little soldiers, little angels around your heart and your mind.

Courage is resolve. Courage is not only a feeling. Courage is certainly a command. Do not be terrified, and to disobey it is sin. Confess it. Know what to do with sin. Confess it and ask God for the power to overcome, to be strong, to be what you should be, to do, to say what you should do and say. If we're going to win the worry war and fight our fears, then we have to know that courage is resolve, courage is a command, and lastly, courage is fear that has said its prayers.

Courage is fear that has said its prayers. You know the story I'm going to share with you in closing. Stuart and I were invited down to Wycliffe Loma Linda base, where it is surrounded by guerrillas. Just six months previous to our invitation to go for Wycliffe's field conference, they had kidnapped Ray Rising. He happened to be a veteran missionary who was in charge of security. So they kidnapped the security man, which wasn't very encouraging.

It was an impossible task anyway, but he had broken his own rules. You're not supposed to go out if there's only one of you, and he had gone on his motorbike to get supplies from the village where he had worked all his life, known all his life, loved all his life by the folks out there. Coming back at the gate of Loma Linda, they took him, and that was it. We stayed in his house. They had the Christmas star lit, even though it was not Christmas. They said, "It's not going out until he's back."

This was the site that Wycliffe hierarchy chose for their entire conference for all the Americas, all the South Americas. So we were excited to go down there. We have been to many situations like this, not quite so volatile as this, but general danger. Then we got a letter from the people that the missionary societies are asked to use by the government to investigate whether it's safe to do these things. We got a letter from them saying, "We have had a look at this, we have intelligence that tells us that you and Stuart are targeted for kidnapping. So you are not to come, and the conference must not be held because not only are you and Stuart in personal danger, but the head of Wycliffe was going and all the hierarchy, all the big brass from the whole of the organization was due to be there, and they were sent this same letter because they were under the same duress."

I remember saying to Stuart, "Oh, what a shame we won't be going." I remember him looking at me saying, "Huh?" I thought, he's going to go. I know he's going—I mean, it's like a red rag to a bull to my husband. Stuart is where the guerrillas are. I just see him almost as if he's the fighter of the bull and he's got his thing out waving it in the bull's face. I knew he'd go. But the question was, would I?

I knew that he didn't want me to go, but I also knew that he wasn't going to tell me not to go. He said, "No, I'm not going to do that. You'll have to decide. You'll have to find out and you let me know." So we started to pray, we fasted, we asked advice. This went on for months. We got up to one week away and I still could not make up my mind. I was obsessed. I was going round and round and round and round Jericho. What was faith and what was stupidity? What was being sensible? What about our responsibilities here? Just this whole thing.

Of course, with my imagination, I was already sitting in a hut in the jungle, starving, chained to a guard. I superimposed the future onto the present and was having a wonderful time because I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. Stuart said, "Jill, I have to put a deadline on you. Christmas Day. That's one week away. We have to let them know whether we're going or not."

Guest (Male): In a moment, Jill will be back with some closing thoughts on today's message. But before we get to that, spiritual warfare is very real, and it's a war in which every Christian is engaged. The truth is your spiritual enemy will stop at nothing to keep you from experiencing the abundant life God wants you to have in Christ. The good news is that through Christ and the power of His Spirit, you're guaranteed victory.

It's that encouragement that Stuart and Jill are excited to give you with their new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces. This powerful resource will encourage you with the comforting truth that you're not alone when it comes to spiritual warfare. As you grow in God's Word with this series, you'll gain clarity of purpose, courage for battle, and strength for each day.

Fighting Unseen Forces is our way of thanking you for your gift to help more people around the world experience abundant life in Christ through the unchanging truth of God's Word. Simply request your copy of the series when you call today and give a gift to help keep the ministry of Telling the Truth going around the world. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill with the conclusion of her message.

Jill Briscoe: Incidentally, Wycliffe had said, "We do not give in to guerrillas; we still want you to come." That was the situation. "We need you to come. We are hanging on by our fingernails, these missionaries. We need our conference more than we've ever needed it in our life. The last five pastors have canceled on us because of the situation. Please come." So here we were.

Christmas Day he goes off to preach. It was on a Sunday, and I knew I had to tell him. I went upstairs to his study, and he was doing the Family Book of Christian Values, where there's a great big section on faithfulness and love. All these things we had to decide what goes in the book. They were in piles all over the study. There was a pile on courage. I thought, well, I'll just start and read some of this. Maybe I'll get a clue. Of course it didn't help. It was all about martyrs and things like that.

Right at the bottom of the pile, there was a quote, a little quote. On the top, Stuart had scribbled a note: "Give this to Jill," and he had forgotten to give it to me. It was the little poem, and the last two lines say something about "courage is fear that has said its prayers." All these incidents I've shared with you came running back: the Floral Hall and everything. Yes, yes, yes. I knew what was right because we had prayed and sought God's guidance. I knew that I should go. I knew that I should go. I knew that my fear was not a good reason to stay.

So I said my prayers, and I came to church. I remember sending Stuart a little note in between the first and second service. He'd just preached a wonderful sermon about Jesus coming to earth, knowing what would happen to Him. He still came. I'm sure He didn't want to come, but He did because it was the right thing to do. I said, "He came for us. Let's go for Him." So we went.

I went frightened, and I stayed frightened, but I was not obsessed and I functioned. God enabled me to encourage and to minister. We are still getting letters from those people: "Thank you for coming. I can't believe you came. It was such a blessing." Of course, they were such a blessing to us. But courage is doing without the courage. Courage is doing it scared. Courage is doing it when you don't feel like doing it because it's the right thing to do. The incredible thing is, then the power to do what you're doing is there. It comes after you get yourself inside the Floral Hall. You know what to do, you know what to say. You find the adrenaline is there and you find the anointing is there, and that's a powerful combination. God comes through. That's what you do with worry. There is a supply of courage. You have it already. God has given you the will to do His will. Now then, will you do it? That's the question.

Guest (Male): We hope today's message encouraged you. 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 Stuart and Jill Briscoe's new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces, to help you discover how you can live victoriously each day, knowing that with Christ and His Spirit, you're never alone. Call now to give, and remember to request your copy of Fighting Unseen Forces 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 with Stuart and Jill Briscoe. Be sure to come back for more truth from God's Word.