Elisabeth Elliot: The feminist movement is a Marxist movement. It is thoroughly godless. No wonder they have no solutions to offer to the restlessness and the anxiety, and the loneliness, and the fear and the perplexity. No wonder nothing has changed on those fronts in the 20 or 30 years since feminism began to take hold of our minds.

Lisa Barry: I'm so tired of young people trying to make women into men and men into women. It's as though the world is trying to undo anything that was established by God and His natural order. Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot takes a serious look at the kind of propaganda that has been handed out through many different sources. For an eye-opening look into society's values stay with us for Gateway To Joy, coming up next.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love. And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you again today about holiness in the nineties.

I was telling you some of the changes that have been wrought in our society because of the feminist movement, which began back in the late 60's and early 70's. It was very interesting for me to find that the WALL STREET JOURNAL outlined some of these changes. In COSMOPOLITAN magazine there was an article called "How to Attract a Man Like Crazy." And it said that these are the very best we have ever offered.

Danielle Crittendon, the author of the WALL STREET JOURNAL article, says, "Two decades of feminine influence on popular culture indicate women are as neurotically insecure today, as preoccupied with getting married as feminist writers say they were three decades ago. The magazines now with the most contented readerships," (listen to this, listen to this now), "are Family CIRCLE, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING. What does that say about the effect of feminism on our society?"

Well, it just corroborates some of the damage that I have been talking about that I see feminism having done. But what does this have to do with holiness in the 1990's? I read to you a prayer of Paul the Apostle for Christians in Colossians, written probably in around AD 30. And I tried to contrast what Paul was saying for them with WALL STREET JOURNAL'S column. We see trouble, restlessness, anxiety, loneliness, fear and perplexity.

Now is this a program which is coming to offer you a solution to every one of these things? Trouble, restlessness, anxiety, loneliness, fear and perplexity. You're not listening to a woman who is here to offer you pink pills of patent solutions. I want you to learn, and I am trying in my own walk with the Lord, to learn to find in those experiences not a solution in terms in which the world would offer it. How to close a deal, for example; what men want. In one of those articles it said that you need to learn to roll your shoulder elegantly, or catch a man's eye. But I am offering you a chance to learn the sufficiency of God.

He is the One who said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." We are not here to get answers or solutions from Him, but to receive Him, and that's a very big difference. Too often, I think, we imagine the Christian life is as something which is a panacea for all of our problems. We are very problem oriented, aren't we, in our industrial society.

But I see the Christian life primarily as receiving Jesus Christ--receiving Him, first of all, as Savior from my sin, coming to Him, acknowledging my helplessness, my inability to live a pure life, my need to be saved from myself. But it is a matter also of walking with Him, receiving Him in every experience of life. And that's why I sometimes end my program by saying, "Remember that every experience, if offered to Jesus, can be your gateway to joy." I actually believe that trouble can be a gateway to joy. The very experience of restlessness and anxiety is given to us. It is allowed to us. God permits it in our lives in order that we may turn to Him.

If you want to read a ringing testimony to how a man's restlessness, and fear, and loneliness and perplexity destroyed him for a long time, and then how that man found the answer to all of those things in surrendering himself to God, read the ancient confessions of St. Augustine. He describes in excruciatingly vivid detail his restlessness. And he said, "O God, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."

The feminist movement is a Marxist movement. It is thoroughly godless. No wonder they have no solutions to offer to the restlessness, and the anxiety, and the loneliness, and the fear and the perplexity. No wonder nothing has changed on those fronts in the 20 or 30 years since feminism began to take hold of our lives. Accept what God has to offer!

Now what does He offer? What is God offering to you and me today? Well, He offers life. Life with a capital L. He offers love, joy, peace. How do I get these? The first step is an acknowledgement of my need. I must come to Him in humility and in honesty, and say, "Lord, I can't make it on my own. I have made a mess of my life. I have not found what I am looking for in any of the places that I've looked. Lord, you have said, 'I am the way, the truth and the life.' I need you."

Now back to yesterday's prayer and what it reveals of the needs of the Colossians. Colossians 1:9-14. He doesn't talk about quick fixes there either, but he is talking about permanent ones, something called eternal salvation.

Now at this point I suppose there may be some listeners who have already switched me off--same old stuff, that salvation stuff. Well, that is right! Nothing that's true is new, and when you listen to Elisabeth Elliot you are listening to old-fashioned religion. Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, come to Jesus. It's not new-fashioned. I am not telling you Jesus will make you rich or happy or famous. I am telling you that Jesus is offering you life with a capital L. Jesus is offering you freedom and forgiveness for your sins. Jesus can give you peace in the midst of your pain.

I know that is true. I have experienced it. And thousands of other people have experienced the same thing, not necessarily a solution, but a very different thing--something that the world will never in a million years be able to give you--peace in the midst of your pain.

There is an old hymn that says, "On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. For 'twas on that old cross that the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain. So I'll cherish the old rugged cross, 'til my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it some day for a crown."

You who are in pain, remember that Jesus went to that hill far away. He was nailed to that old rugged cross, not that you and I might not suffer, but that our suffering might be like His. The Bible says, "He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. It was by His wounds that you and I may be healed."

Well, some of you may be saying, "I have done all that. I am saved. I went forward in a Billy Graham campaign." Well, thank God. If you actually got up out of your seat and walked down that aisle as Billy Graham always invites people to do to make a public profession of faith in front of tens of thousands, thank God. You must have been sincere, at least at the moment. Maybe things have sort of faded away since then. Do you still think that you have that free ticket to heaven?

Well, I am not going to question the reality of your decision on that day. But what I do want to remind you is that once you have surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, and accepted His free offer of salvation and forgiveness, then it means a daily surrender, a continual walking in obedience.

If you are in pain, perplexity, loneliness, offer that up to Him. Surrender it. Just let go. Accept the conditions of your life. Accept them with thanksgiving, because it is in these very conditions, in the context in which you are today, that God wants to reveal Himself to you. Do you believe that? I believe it with all my heart. No matter what happens today that I know nothing about now, but God knows all about it, I believe with all my heart that God is in charge. I don't care what happens.

Now I can say that by faith because I do believe that He has the whole world in His hands. And so I can accept the conditions with thanksgiving, seeking in the empty places of my life His fullness--in my fears, His confidence; in my sadness, His joy. May you find that today.

Lisa Barry: If you're someone who has been a follower of Christ for a long time, or if you've fallen away from Him, or maybe you've never even made a decision to follow, we have something for all of you. I'd like to encourage you to write for a free copy of our catalog. In it you'll find resources that will help you in your spiritual life, your home life and your personal life. Just ask for the catalog when you write to us here at Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or you can call us toll-free at 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about the role of suffering in the pursuit of holiness. That's next time on Gateway To Joy.