Telling the Truth

Female Narrator: God wants to walk down the stairway of heaven and right into your heart to make you aware of His personal interest and concern. Hear more from Jill Briscoe in her message, "Wrestling with God." That's coming up today on Telling the Truth.

Right now is one of the most important times of the year for Telling the Truth. As we approach December 31st, generous friends have stepped forward with a special matching grant that will double your gift to help more people experience life in Christ. That means your support will go twice as far to help share God's word around the world through Stuart and Jill's biblical teaching, digital broadcasts, and global partnerships.

So don't miss this powerful opportunity to make an even greater impact before midnight, December 31st, while your gift will be doubled through the special matching grant. Call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648, or give online at TellingtheTruth.org. Now, let's get into the word with Jill.

Jill Briscoe: I want to talk about how to live upside down. It's very important that we live upside down. What do I mean? Well, in the Acts of the Apostles, there's a verse that says, "The early church turned the world upside down." Actually, they turned it right side up. But before you can live right side up, God has to turn you upside down.

Of course, that's Jacob's story. God wrestled him down to the ground one night and turned him upside down, literally. He became a prince with God instead of a pain. I want to investigate how that happens.

If you've ever wrestled with life, if you've ever wrestled with love, if you've ever wrestled with the Lord, this talk is for you. The rest of you can have a little snooze. But that's what it's going to be about. It's going to be about the spiritual wrestling match we have with God, with ourselves, and with other people.

Genesis 28, verse 10. This is not the beginning of the story, but this is where I want to begin. "Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. And when he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. And taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head, and he lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to the heaven, the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And there above it stood the Lord. And he said, 'I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, the God of Isaac, and I will give you and your descendants the land on which you're lying.'"

"Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread over to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and the south. All people on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you, and will watch over you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land, and I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

"When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, 'Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not. This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of Heaven.'"

"Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone he'd placed under his head and set it up as a pillar, and he poured oil on the top of it. And he called that place Bethel. Though the city used to be called Luz. Then Jacob made a vow saying, 'If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I'm taking, will give me food to eat and clothes to wear, so that I return safely to my father's house, then the Lord will be my God. And this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house. And all that you give me, I will give you a tent.'"

In a sense, this man had fallen asleep in church. God had not been able to get his attention while he was awake. And so he walked into his dreams, and he woke him up to some spiritual realities and possibilities that he apparently was not aware of. He's never the same again. It's amazing when you meet God in unexpected places.

God wants to meet you and I just as He met Jacob in life's unexpected places. When you're down to gut, when you're suffering the consequences of your own silly choices, when you're bearing the brunt of somebody's vengeance and anger as Jacob was, when you're a victim, when you feel you're absolutely on your own, when life is not working out as it's planned, that's when He'll turn up. He blessed Jacob.

So, why was Jacob there? He'd been living up to his name, which means deceiver, twister, liar, somebody that's full of guile, portraying that which is false. That's what Jacob means.

At this point of his life, he's 77 years of age. He's 77. He is single, he has no children. He has a brother called Esau. He has a mother and a father called Isaac and Rebekah. And Isaac, of course, is the son of Abraham. So Jacob has grandparents called Abraham and Sarah. He is from this big, important family. Although at this point of biblical history, it's not a big, important family. It's a small family.

Now, he swindled his brother, at the age of 77, out of his brother's birthright and blessing, and I'll explain those in a minute. He's been found out, he's been caught. He has a manipulating, controlling mother, and she has been manipulating him for 77 years, and he has been allowing it to happen because it's to his advantage.

So with her help, he has swindled his brother out of his rights as the elder son in this important family. And Esau is not a happy camper. Esau has just found out about this. It says in the scriptures, he is consoling himself with the thought of killing Jacob.

So, Rebekah goes into Isaac, deceives her husband into thinking that Jacob is going back to their relatives in Padan Aram to find a wife. At the age of 77, it's time to get married. She deceives Isaac into thinking this is why Jacob is leaving, not because Esau is waiting in the wings to kill him.

So Jacob listens to his mother again, and he gets ready to go. Rebekah says to Isaac, "You know, if Jacob takes a wife from among the women from the Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living." Because Esau has married two women, Judith and Basemath, and they are from the Hittites, who are a sort of wild sort of group of people.

When Esau was 40 years old, he married Judith. Then he married Basemath, and they were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah. In fact, Rebekah says, "My life will not be worth living if Jacob marries anybody from around here where we are."

Isaac falls for this. He blesses Jacob, and he sends him on his way. "May God give to you and your descendants the blessing He gave to Abraham so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham." And he prays for him.

Rebekah says to Jacob as she's saying him off, Jacob is her favorite son. Esau is Isaac's favorite son. So here you've got the family dynamics going on behind the scenes here. But she says, "As soon as your father dies and Esau's anger is assuaged, I will send for you and bring you back. Why should I be bereft of both of you in one day?" It's 20 years before Jacob returns. And Rebekah is gone. She doesn't know she'll never see him again, but she sends him on his way, and he runs for his life towards Padan Aram, the land of his uncle Laban, who is the brother of Abraham.

Female Narrator: More teaching from Stuart and Jill Briscoe is coming up, so stay with us. Did you know you can find more life-giving content from the Briscoes at TellingtheTruth.org and on the Telling the Truth app? There, you can sign up for daily devotionals, watch videos, read blogs, and access a variety of other resources to help you experience life.

While you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource as thanks for your gift of support to help share the abundant life Jesus offers with more people around the world. Visit us online or download the app today and experience life with Telling the Truth. Now, let's get back to Jill.

Jill Briscoe: God was there, and he knew it not. There was a shadow over his life. What had happened was Jacob had stolen what we call the birthright. Birth order was very important. Let me remind you if you're not familiar with the story of Jacob, what had happened was Jacob and Esau were twins. Rebekah was not able to have children for years and years and years. Isaac prayed for Rebekah, it says in the Bible, and God blessed with the gift of life, and she found herself pregnant, answered a prayer, with twins.

As the babies were growing in her womb, she was aware of something. She didn't know what it was, and what it was was a wrestling match going on inside of her. Those of us that have had children have a little tiny experience. Those of us that have twins probably understand this very, very well, indeed. That's not all of us, obviously. What was going on was they were wrestling before they were even born. Esau, being stronger and hairier, just bigger, won in the womb. He came out first. But Jacob came out grabbing his heel. They were born within 30 seconds of each other.

30 seconds. I can see Jacob saying, "God, where are you? This isn't really very fair. The whole of my life is affected for 30 seconds because I didn't make it out first? Because he beat me to the post just then at the gate? That's not fair." But then life, of course, isn't fair. We wrestle with the things that happen in life, like birth order. Maybe it doesn't matter here in the West, but it sure matters in the East.

Everything depended on it in this culture. You got double money, you got double land, you got double positions, honor, gifts. You had the authority in the family to make a decision where you'd live, where you'd go. You had all the birthright blessings of that particular culture in those days. For 30 seconds difference, Esau won the match.

Jacob for 77 years struggled to be significant because of this. He just didn't see any significance to his life whatsoever because all the significance in that culture was tied up in the firstborn. So here was Esau, who didn't care a rap, and there of course life isn't very fair either, is it? He didn't care a rap, who got all of this when Jacob wanted it.

Jacob, I do not believe at this point in his life, wanted it for the right reasons. He just wanted it. He just wanted it. Jacob surrendered to the wrestling match at that point inside him, to his worst nature. Jacob's worst nature and best nature were wrestling, and that's what happens in all of our hearts. He was wrestling with the inequalities of life, and what had happened to him in his own particular family.

He had an opportunity when he was probably 50 or so, to steal these rights from his brother. If you remember the story, Esau had gone off hunting. He was a wild man, he just loved it out there, and he would go off hunting, and Isaac loved Esau because he'd bring him back venison and wonderful game from the wild places, and his father and Esau would celebrate together. Jacob was a quiet man, he dwelt among the tents. He was a shepherd. He was a shepherd. And a very good shepherd, and a very good cattleman. He was a rancher. He produced sheep and goats and did it very well. A man's wealth and honor in those days in that culture was often wrapped up in his cattle and his herds, and his ability to do those things.

One day Esau came out of the field and apparently he had not caught anything. Jacob was making some stew. Esau said, "Give me some of that. I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to make it, I haven't eaten for days." Jacob said, "Sell me your birthright." And Esau said, "What good is it to me? I'm going to die if I don't get something to eat."

So he swore to Jacob that Jacob could have all his rights as a firstborn. He gave his word and swore to it. So Esau, it says in the Bible, despised his birthright. Jacob obtained it. He obtained it on the word of Esau.

It wasn't a few more years, then the time came for Isaac to be sick enough to be dying, and the time came then for that patriarch to bless his children. With the birthright went the blessing. Does seem a little bit one-sided. So you got the birthright and you also got the blessing. What was the blessing? It was the invoking of God's hand upon the firstborn's life.

In this particular instance, it took with it the blessing of the whole world, because through this family Christ was to come, the savior of mankind. So there was spiritual power and prestige and all sorts of spiritual blessing wrapped up in this particular prayer and gifting as Isaac was dying.

Again, that manipulating mom, Rebekah, saw her chance and said to Jacob, "Why don't you go in? Your father's blind, he won't know it's you. Esau's out in the fields hunting game for him. Why don't you say you're your brother?" He says, "Well, my voice is so different. My skin is smooth, he's hairy." Rebekah thought up this wild scheme of killing some goats and putting the goats when Isaac touched him to bless him.

It worked. Even though Isaac was suspicious. "Skin is Esau's, but the voice is Jacob's. Are you really my son? Are you really my son, Esau?" "Yes, Father," said Jacob. So Isaac blessed him. Isaac blessed him. Shortly afterwards, Esau came home, found out what had happened, and Jacob ran, advisedly, for his life. He gets to this wild place. He comes to this place outside the city of Luz, and he puts the stone under his head because of the snakes, that's why you do that, and he fell asleep, and he has this dream.

God walked down the stairway of heaven into his life. Certainly into his dreams, but He woke him up. Have you ever felt the shadow of God in unexpected places? Jacob was absolutely overwhelmed, but when you're overwhelmed, remember you're overshadowed. That's a principle of the Christian life. When you're overwhelmed, don't forget you're going to be overshadowed. How? The Holy Spirit will come upon you.

God's overpowering, overshadowing, overruling nature is something that's going to have to permeate into our mind, down to our hearts as we wrestle with the whole subject of the unfairness of life, of what's happened to us that has been totally outside our control. We wrestle through to realizing that surely God is in this place and we knew it not. Our sense of significance does not lie in birth order, and it does not lie in anything that we are or have. It lies in our relationship with God and His plans and purposes. That's where it lies. Then we'll be significant when we get that straight.

So there's this huge struggle for purpose and meaning. It's wrapped up in the blessing of God for all humankind. It's wrapped up in Christ. It's wrapped up in Jesus and what God wants for the world. God said Jesus, and Christ was born. God's last word, God's best thought, lay in a manger.

Female Narrator: Jill's here now to answer a couple of questions about wrestling with God. Jill, tell us about a time when you knew God was there with you, even though you felt overwhelmed.

Jill Briscoe: I'm thinking back to my experience in the air raid shelter at the age of six in the Second World War being bombed and just panicking and just starting to sort of scream inside. I don't think I said anything outside of me. "Stop it, stop it, stop the bombs. Don't let the bombs fall" over and over and over again, and just panicked.

Then, as I prayed over and over again, there was a point where God came near. How did I know? Because my heart stopped beating, my panic disappeared, and I was super aware of His hereness. Somebody came, and I literally stopped crying and holding my mom and my sister in that underground shelter and looked around. It was so physical.

That was one of the overwhelming things as a child that I experienced, and the overwhelming peace of God, and His presence brings peace that I experienced in the air raid shelter.

Female Narrator: Jill, where do you find your significance in life?

Jill Briscoe: Not in. I don't find my significance as a human being in what I do, but in what I believe about what I do. I don't find my significance in achievement from the world's point of view, like my things I did in college or the certificates I got or the awards I got, or my cups in tennis I won or my skating achievements. I enjoyed those things, and I was glad I achieved in those things.

But my significance is having purpose, some reason for being and for living, for being here. My significance is in knowing that I'm not an animal. A human being isn't a super amazing animal with different abilities above the animals. My significance is that I'm made in the image of God. I share much with the animal kingdom in my body, etcetera, etcetera, but my significance is that one day I'll have a new body in glory, and I am spiritual. I am made in the image of God which puts me above the animals. That's my significance.

Female Narrator: Thanks for joining us today. We hope today's message has encouraged you to know Christ more deeply and live in the joy of His truth. Right now is one of the most important times of the year for Telling the Truth. As we approach December 31st, generous friends have stepped forward with a special matching grant that will double your gift to help more people experience life in Christ. That means your support will go twice as far to help share God's word around the world through Stuart and Jill's biblical teaching, digital broadcasts, and global partnerships.

Every day, lives are being transformed as people discover the peace and purpose that only Jesus gives, and your year-end gift makes that possible. So don't miss this powerful opportunity to make an even greater impact before midnight, December 31st, while your gift will be doubled through the special matching grant. Call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648, or give online at TellingtheTruth.org. Thank you for helping others experience life in Christ through the unchanging truth of God's Word. We're glad you've joined us today. Be sure to come back soon for more encouraging biblical truth with the Briscoes. Experience life right here on Telling the Truth.