Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1: Be sure to.
Speaker 2: Subscribe so we can get you these new sermons every week.
Speaker 2: I hope you're blessed today. Holly already announced everything, so
Speaker 2: I don't have to do it. I can just get
Speaker 2: straight to the word. I preached a message last week
Speaker 2: called Challenge the Shadow.
Speaker 1: That message was about how we don't just accept.
Speaker 2: The natural pattern of things because we are people of faith.
Speaker 2: So when the enemy says you're going down, you don't
Speaker 2: go down without a fight. That's what God gave you
Speaker 2: your faith for. And that message is online. Now you
Speaker 2: can take that message and put it together with this
Speaker 2: message because I am going back to the life of
Speaker 2: Hezekiah to bring you what we might sort of call
Speaker 2: a preaching prequel, to show you something else that happened
Speaker 2: in his life.
Speaker 1: Now I like to do this, Okay.
Speaker 2: I was telling my oldest son this week, I loved
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. By the way, hey, everybody online, I love
Speaker 2: to take the Bible and make sure that we get
Speaker 2: the historical context of what was happening, but not leave
Speaker 2: the Bible in the historical context, but make it helpful
Speaker 2: for your life. And that's something I really believe in.
Speaker 2: One of my seminary professors who trained me told us
Speaker 2: that our job isn't to apply the Bible to people's lives,
Speaker 2: it's just to teach them what happened in the Bible.
Speaker 2: Couldn't disagree with that. More people are going through too
Speaker 2: much hell for me to preach that way. Come on,
Speaker 2: just to give you a lesson about something that happened
Speaker 2: three thousand years ago, and that Hey, have a good week.
Speaker 2: Hope the custody battle goes okay, hope you don't die,
Speaker 2: Hope you make it back the next Sunday, and I'll
Speaker 2: give you another history lesson.
Speaker 1: I can't do that. It's not in my heart to
Speaker 1: do that. That's not how God wired me.
Speaker 2: And so when I come to the scriptures, I'm always
Speaker 2: asking a couple questions, what happened here, and then what's
Speaker 2: happening in the lives of those that you've called me
Speaker 2: to help?
Speaker 1: Lord? And so that's kind of how I pray.
Speaker 2: Now this week, we're coming to an issue in tewod
Speaker 2: King's chapter nineteen in the Life of King Hezekiah, where
Speaker 2: you know he last week he almost died, and the
Speaker 2: prophet said, you're gonna die, and he's like, wait, I
Speaker 2: got more to do. And the Lord's like, all right,
Speaker 2: you get fifteen more years. And he flipped a shadow
Speaker 2: around to show him what he was capable of. And
Speaker 2: around the same time in his life, just before that happened,
Speaker 2: I want to show you something that happened, and then
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about some things that
Speaker 2: are going on in your life too. In Tewod Kings,
Speaker 2: chapter nineteen, verse fourteen, the Bible says Hezekiah received the
Speaker 2: letter from the messengers and read it, and then he
Speaker 2: went up to the temple of the Lord and spread
Speaker 2: it out before the Lord, and Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, Lord,
Speaker 2: the God of Israel, enthroned between the Cherubim, You alone
Speaker 2: are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You
Speaker 2: have made heaven and earth. Give ear, Lord and hear
Speaker 2: open your eyes, Lord, and see. Listen to the words
Speaker 2: Senecareb has sent to ridicule the Living God. It is true, Lord,
Speaker 2: that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations in
Speaker 2: their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire
Speaker 2: and destroyed them, for they were not God's but only
Speaker 2: wood and stone fashioned.
Speaker 1: By human hands. Now, Lord, our God, deliver.
Speaker 2: Us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of
Speaker 2: the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God,
Speaker 2: and God answers him. Skip all the way down to
Speaker 2: verse thirty four, so you can see in action what
Speaker 2: God said. Actually, I like verse thirty two too much
Speaker 2: to skip it, so go to thirty two. I gave
Speaker 2: him all of these scriptures, so this one is really good. Therefore,
Speaker 2: this is what the Lord says in response to Hezekiah's
Speaker 2: prayer concerning the king of Assyria, who is Hezekiah's enemy.
Speaker 1: He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here.
Speaker 2: He will not come before it with shield, or build
Speaker 2: a siege ramp against it.
Speaker 1: By the way that he came, he will return. He
Speaker 1: will not enter this city, declares the Lord.
Speaker 3: I will in this city and saved for my sake
Speaker 3: and for the sake of David, my servant.
Speaker 1: Watch this verse thirty five.
Speaker 2: That night the angel of the Lord went out and
Speaker 2: put to death one hundred and eighty five thousand in
Speaker 2: the Assyrian enemy camp. When the people got up the
Speaker 2: next morning, there were all the dead bodies. So Senekareb
Speaker 2: the enemy King of Assyria broke camp and withdrew.
Speaker 1: I bet he did.
Speaker 2: After that one hundred and eighty five thousand of your
Speaker 2: soldiers dead will make you go home. So the Lord
Speaker 2: told me to give you a message from that story
Speaker 2: today and we'll talk about it. But he said to
Speaker 2: tell you this, God is going to cover the spread.
Speaker 2: Anybody received that just by faith, like even not knowing
Speaker 2: who Snekareb is yet, but you receive it by faith
Speaker 2: that God is going to cover the spread. Lord, your
Speaker 2: word never returns void. Whoever it's for, God, shoot it
Speaker 2: straight into their heart. May it go down deep deeper
Speaker 2: than disappointment, defeat, discouragement or despair, and give your people
Speaker 2: faith to believe that you are still in the way
Speaker 2: making business in Jesus' name. Amen, He's going to do it.
Speaker 2: He's going to cover the spread. This message is called
Speaker 2: cover the spread. Last week was challenged the shadow. This
Speaker 2: week is cover the spread. I'm so glad we sang
Speaker 2: that song make Away that went so good with this message,
Speaker 2: like the Holy Spirit wanted it all to just go
Speaker 2: right there together so you could get it. There's a
Speaker 2: line in that song, I really love this because you
Speaker 2: are God. No matter the odds, the outcome is always
Speaker 2: the same. So we win. We don't know when, but
Speaker 2: we win. God's gonna cover the spread. How many of
Speaker 2: you know that term cover the spread from the sports
Speaker 2: betting world.
Speaker 1: Lord, we pray for these sinners, these hell bound.
Speaker 2: Philistines, these uncircumcised philistines betting on sports. Far as I know,
Speaker 2: not by experience, but I just asked chat GPT.
Speaker 1: It said, cover the spread means.
Speaker 2: I bet one time on a basketball game, the only
Speaker 2: time I ever bet on sports, only time I ever
Speaker 2: bet on sports, and.
Speaker 1: I lost three hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: And I bet on the Oklahoma City Thunder because my friend,
Speaker 2: Pastor Craig Rochel lives there, and I thought he had
Speaker 2: a strong enough annoying pull me through, and I lost
Speaker 2: the money. Sound do anymore but cover the spread? I mean,
Speaker 2: you heard it before, but maybe you're too holy to
Speaker 2: know what it means. When they make the odds in Vegas,
Speaker 2: then one team is favored by say like seven points,
Speaker 2: and so if that team that's favored by seven points wins,
Speaker 2: but they don't win by more than seven points, then
Speaker 2: they didn't cover the spread. And somebody who bet on
Speaker 2: the other team can win their bet even though that
Speaker 2: team lost because the team that was favored to win
Speaker 2: by seven points didn't cover the spread, and so the
Speaker 2: game can be completely over. But somebody's sitting there praying
Speaker 2: just that the team that they bet on doesn't lose
Speaker 2: by more than twenty one points or twenty eight points,
Speaker 2: whatever the spread is. So that's the term in the
Speaker 2: betting world. But this is Sunday morning, and this is
Speaker 2: not the betting world. This is the Bible world. I
Speaker 2: would like to suggest to you that the term has
Speaker 2: a completely different relevance for your life as it did
Speaker 2: for hezekiahs. If you are a betting man, you are
Speaker 2: betting against Israel in this particular predicament.
Speaker 1: Not only are they up against.
Speaker 2: The fiercest dude who has ever occupied the throne of
Speaker 2: Assyria named Seneca Rib. Anybody a pregnant looking for a
Speaker 2: baby name Seneca Rib not.
Speaker 1: Taken, you, kidd, to be the only one. You're welcome.
Speaker 2: This guy, when he would take his enemies right to
Speaker 2: send a message to everybody else, he would often he
Speaker 2: would often not only hang them from trees, but he
Speaker 2: would flay their skin and hang their skin from the
Speaker 2: trees that's the kind of guy we're talking about here
Speaker 2: in tewod King's nineteen just to give you the picture,
Speaker 2: and not only to mention that, but he was a
Speaker 2: trash talker that made Connor McGregor.
Speaker 1: Look like mister Rogers.
Speaker 2: If you follow mma, I'm using all the worldly analogies
Speaker 2: just to hook the hook the hook the people in
Speaker 2: today Graham. But he is occupying the throne of the
Speaker 2: fiercest kingdom that has already taken the northern part of Israel.
Speaker 1: If you studied the Old.
Speaker 2: Testament even a little bit, you'll remember that the kingdom
Speaker 2: was divided. Well, that's already happened, and the northern part
Speaker 2: of the kingdom, those ten tribes have already been taken
Speaker 2: away into captivity. So now Senekareb is coming for Hezekiah,
Speaker 2: who was a good king. I told you last week.
Speaker 2: He was a good king. He followed God, he trusted God.
Speaker 2: But now Senekareb is sending some messages to Hezekiah, going
Speaker 2: you're next, and Hezekia is like, no, please, uncle daddy,
Speaker 2: what do you want me to say?
Speaker 1: Don't do it to me, you know, just just leave
Speaker 1: us alone.
Speaker 2: We've seen what you're capable of We know you're undefeated, undisputed,
Speaker 2: and we don't want it with Senekareb.
Speaker 1: So what do you want? You want some gold?
Speaker 2: Hezekiah starts stripping the gold off the doorpost of the temple.
Speaker 1: That's how bad it was.
Speaker 2: It would have to be bad for you to take
Speaker 2: the temple where God lives and start taking stuff off
Speaker 2: of the doorpost of the house of God to get
Speaker 2: your enemy to go away. But when the enemy messes
Speaker 2: with you enough, you will start stripping very valuable things.
Speaker 2: You will start stripping very valuable things and giving away
Speaker 2: parts of yourself that are very very important, just to
Speaker 2: get him to leave you alone.
Speaker 1: The problem with this is Senecareb is in't.
Speaker 2: It's not like you just give him a little bit
Speaker 2: of gold and he goes away. You give him an inch,
Speaker 2: he takes a kilometer.
Speaker 1: It's worldwide ministry.
Speaker 2: So now Sinekareb is coming back talking about you know what,
Speaker 2: I know, you've got an alliance with Egypt. In fact,
Speaker 2: he sends these field commanders, these messengers to Hezekiah's messengers,
Speaker 2: and they meet up at this aqueduct that's going into
Speaker 2: this field, and they're they're like gathering around trying to
Speaker 2: figure out is he gonna leave us alone? Is he
Speaker 2: gonna take us too? Are we next? Is he gonna
Speaker 2: completely decimate us? Is he gonna knock down the whole temple?
Speaker 2: Are we gonna have to keep stripping stuff and shipping
Speaker 2: it away? Or are we next to go like our
Speaker 2: neighbors to the north. What's gonna happen? Because we know
Speaker 2: Sannekareb is absolutely unbeatable.
Speaker 4: Now, so the field.
Speaker 2: Commander starts speaking about what saneka Reb can do, and
Speaker 2: they're saying stuff like you're gonna end up eating your
Speaker 2: own excrement and drinking your own urine.
Speaker 4: Is in the Bible?
Speaker 1: They say that they recorded.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine what they didn't put in the Bible
Speaker 2: that these boys said.
Speaker 4: And Hezekayah hears.
Speaker 2: That, and he knows that the odds are against him
Speaker 2: being able to defend.
Speaker 1: Himself against Senekariv.
Speaker 4: So he tears his clothes.
Speaker 2: Which is a sign of mourning, humility, and repentance, and
Speaker 2: he begins to seek God about it, but nothing seems
Speaker 2: to change. So after he saw God for a little while,
Speaker 2: he hooks up with the King of Egypt and he's like,
Speaker 2: will you help me fight this guy.
Speaker 1: And the king of Egypt is like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: Senecareub hears.
Speaker 2: About that, and he's like, it's still doesn't matter because
Speaker 2: I'm Senekarev.
Speaker 4: Have you heard of me? Have you seen what I've
Speaker 4: done to all the other nations?
Speaker 2: And he sends a letter to Hezekiah and he asked.
Speaker 1: Him a question.
Speaker 2: In the letter, will God really deliver you? That's what
Speaker 2: was in the letter. In the letter, he lists all
Speaker 2: the other kings that he's defeated who tried to stand
Speaker 2: up against him. He says, none of those nations were
Speaker 2: able to be saved. What makes you think you're any different?
Speaker 2: Where are the kings of Leir and Cephar, Vm and
Speaker 2: Hennah and Eva. I can't pronounce these names, y'all, but
Speaker 2: he puts all that in the letter. Now, when you
Speaker 2: get to verse fourteen, I want you to understand this
Speaker 2: picture that God gave me when it said that. When
Speaker 2: Hezekiah got this letter, which would have been on papyrus
Speaker 2: on a scroll, you know, like letters were back in
Speaker 2: the day. When he received the letter verse fourteen from Senecorid,
Speaker 2: he ripped it up and said, no weapon formed against
Speaker 2: mebel prosper.
Speaker 1: But the scripture back up, because I want you to
Speaker 1: see that's not what he did at all.
Speaker 2: All right, because I feel like there are some people
Speaker 2: who are listening to me preach today, and you are
Speaker 2: carrying a letter of your own that was sent by
Speaker 2: an enemy into church today. I can't see it, and
Speaker 2: it's not on papyrus. But some of us have what
Speaker 2: I would like to call emotional scrolls that we carried
Speaker 2: into church with us today. It's rolled up so no
Speaker 2: one can see it.
Speaker 1: It's tucked away.
Speaker 2: Not a letter that was written by human hands, perhaps,
Speaker 2: but a letter that is written in your heart. The
Speaker 2: words of the enemy that he has spoken. Senekareb loves
Speaker 2: to get in your head. In your head? How many
Speaker 2: of you tend to be a lot of times in
Speaker 2: your head too much?
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The reason those of us who are in our heads
Speaker 2: too much are in our heads so much is because
Speaker 2: all of the people who are in their heads too little.
Speaker 3: Somebody has to think, for y'all, oh, we're never going
Speaker 3: to get these bills paid.
Speaker 2: Holly's so good for me because I'm in my head
Speaker 2: all the time. She's in the moment. Take that however
Speaker 2: you want. I'm not saying that I'm smarter. It's just
Speaker 2: like she's so good for me, though, Like this used
Speaker 2: to annoy me in our marriage. You know how they
Speaker 2: say in marriage, opposites attract and then after marriage opposites attack, and.
Speaker 1: So it used to make me so mad.
Speaker 2: I'll be telling her something so deep, like if he
Speaker 2: watches over every spau and I think she wasn't looking listening,
Speaker 2: and she'd be like, I'm like, what are you think about?
Speaker 1: She's like the grocery list.
Speaker 2: But I liked eating, so I was glad that she
Speaker 2: was thinking about something kind of practical while I was
Speaker 2: thinking about something ethereal, abstract and spiritual because.
Speaker 1: I don't want to fast.
Speaker 2: And our marriage in many ways has been a merger
Speaker 2: of her style of processing and my style of processing,
Speaker 2: which I'm in my head a lot, and she's really
Speaker 2: good to get me out of my head.
Speaker 1: I was on the.
Speaker 2: Brink of meltdown like four years ago with some stressful
Speaker 2: stuff that was happening with the ministry, and she goes, I.
Speaker 1: Know what we're gonna do. We're gonna go for a walk.
Speaker 2: When she said I know what we're gonna do, I
Speaker 2: thought she was gonna give me the solution. There's like
Speaker 2: a complicated situation, and I'm like walk, She's gonna go,
Speaker 2: she says, She goes, Yes, as people do.
Speaker 1: It's not that deep. We're going to walk. You're gonna
Speaker 1: feel better. She was right. When I'm in my head.
Speaker 2: When I'm in my head, the problem that I'm considering
Speaker 2: seems completely unsolvable.
Speaker 1: When I'm in my head, it.
Speaker 2: Appears to me that I have no assistance available. When
Speaker 2: I'm in my head. Every text message that somebody sends
Speaker 2: me has a secret, covert, malicious intent to it.
Speaker 3: Why'd they say it like that? Why'd they use a comma?
Speaker 3: Why is there no period? Why does that EMOCHI have
Speaker 3: drool coming down his mouth? Now that is weird. I
Speaker 3: should look into that. But you know, you start.
Speaker 2: Reading into everything when you're in your head. Oh man,
Speaker 2: why do they say it like that? Why do they
Speaker 2: look at me like that? They weren't looking at you.
Speaker 2: It's completely ridiculous for.
Speaker 3: You to think that everybody in that video game called
Speaker 3: Your Life is a NPC and you're the main character.
Speaker 2: But yet we do that when we get in our head.
Speaker 2: Have you been stuck in your head this week?
Speaker 4: Is that?
Speaker 2: Why? Which one's my main camera. I can't remember the
Speaker 2: top one. Okay, okay, have you been stuck? Let me
Speaker 2: start over.
Speaker 4: Have you been stuck in your head this week?
Speaker 2: Is that what's been happening in your life? That God
Speaker 2: took me all the way back thousands of years before
Speaker 2: you were even born, before you even got in this
Speaker 2: battle that you're in, before you even started feeling these
Speaker 2: symptoms in your body, before you even started feeling this
Speaker 2: that has you completely wound up and unable to.
Speaker 4: Deal with your life? Is that why God had.
Speaker 5: Me studying about a king who thousands.
Speaker 2: Of years ago, before you and I were ever even
Speaker 2: a thought, before you and I wherever even a shimmer
Speaker 2: in our mama, in our daddy's eyes, before you and
Speaker 2: I were ever.
Speaker 4: Even a part of this planet.
Speaker 2: This king, named Hessekiah, gave us a pattern for what
Speaker 2: to do when the enemy tries to get in your head?
Speaker 4: Aren't you glad for.
Speaker 2: The strategy of God? Because honestly, I need a strategy.
Speaker 4: I need to know how to do battle in my brain.
Speaker 6: I need to do I need to know what to
Speaker 6: do when what I believe about God is telling me
Speaker 6: one thing, and what I see in my life is
Speaker 6: saying another, I need to know.
Speaker 4: How to respond to senecarev.
Speaker 2: I've got my own senecarebs, and they send me letters.
Speaker 2: They are my personal fears, they are not yours. My
Speaker 2: fears speak differently than your fears, because my devil is
Speaker 2: custom designed to defeat me according to my weaknesses and
Speaker 2: my strengths, and so is yours.
Speaker 4: So the challenging thing for me today can I preach?
Speaker 1: Can I preach?
Speaker 2: Is that I know what this Bible says, but I
Speaker 2: don't know what your letter says. I know what this
Speaker 2: word says about what God is and who God is
Speaker 2: and what he can do, and what faith is, the
Speaker 2: substance of things hope for and the evidence of things
Speaker 2: not seen, and what his word is, the everlasting seed
Speaker 2: which produces change. I know what his word says. I
Speaker 2: don't know exactly what your letter says. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if your letter is something real that you're going
Speaker 2: through and it really is a diagnosis, or if it
Speaker 2: really is just something that you're imagining that hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 2: I don't know if your letter is something that's going
Speaker 2: on in your industry, your company, something going on in
Speaker 2: that corporation, called your family.
Speaker 4: You know that company where.
Speaker 2: You can't fire anybody. I don't know what your letter says,
Speaker 2: but Seneka rebtold Hezekai, I'm gonna kill you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna wipe you out. It's gonna be humiliating.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the letters that the devil sends me to get
Speaker 2: in my head is he tells me that something in
Speaker 2: my life is going to happen to cause me great shame.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you another thing.
Speaker 2: The day we live, then you don't even have to
Speaker 2: do anything wrong to be publicly shamed. So that can
Speaker 2: feel like a real threat, can't it. When things are
Speaker 2: going good in my life, Seneca rev tells me it
Speaker 2: won't be this way long. When things are going bad
Speaker 2: in my life. He've lives the script, it's going to
Speaker 2: be like this forever. Sometimes when I preach, they'll say,
Speaker 2: it was like you were reading my mail, and the
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit will read your mail.
Speaker 1: Today. We came to see what we need to do.
Speaker 2: When we're holding a letter in our hearts of condemnation
Speaker 2: for our past that is behind us and forgiven by
Speaker 2: the blood of Jesus, But we don't feel forgiven, so
Speaker 2: we keep repeating it. We came to find out what
Speaker 2: to do when we're handed a letter of impending doom,
Speaker 2: even when there's no clear indication that it's going to happen,
Speaker 2: but you imagine it. And I'm gonna tell you why
Speaker 2: to keep imagining it. You need to stop listening to
Speaker 2: so many serial killer podcast chunks.
Speaker 1: Just messing with him, that's my dude.
Speaker 2: And sometimes we feed ourselves the raw material, and then
Speaker 2: the enemy makes our letter out of what we feed him.
Speaker 2: And then sometimes it's more passive than that. Sometimes it
Speaker 2: is things we didn't consciously choose. But whatever the situation is,
Speaker 2: it stopped me in my tracks when I saw what
Speaker 2: Hazekiah did about the letter that he received, and it
Speaker 2: helped me so much that I wanted.
Speaker 1: To pass it along to you today. You want it
Speaker 1: Verse four.
Speaker 2: He received the letter from the messengers, and he didn't
Speaker 2: rip it up and pretend that it didn't exist, because
Speaker 2: that's one way to handle it, right.
Speaker 1: Some of us we don't deal with anything that we feel.
Speaker 2: We don't deal with anything that we think, We don't
Speaker 2: deal with anything that we need to work on. We
Speaker 2: don't deal with anything that's stressing us out. We just
Speaker 2: rebuke the devil of stress. But if you rebuke the
Speaker 2: devil of stress without fixing the source where some of
Speaker 2: your stressful situations are coming from. I was trying to
Speaker 2: rebuke the devil one time, and it was like the
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit said to me, you're trying to rebuke the
Speaker 2: devil when you need to rebuke your decisions and reverse them.
Speaker 1: And make better ones. Am I reading your mail? Is
Speaker 1: that what that feels like? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So he didn't rip up the letter because I think
Speaker 2: that's a lot of times how we're taught to do
Speaker 2: this fate thing right like just to now, No, I
Speaker 2: believe God's gonna make it better, and it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: what the enemy says.
Speaker 1: Well, the truth is there are some things that we
Speaker 1: have to deal with.
Speaker 2: This is not a king who's receiving a threat that
Speaker 2: he can just ignore. He actually does have to respond
Speaker 2: to this threat because, as we read at the end
Speaker 2: of the chapter, there's one hundred and eighty five thousand
Speaker 2: Assyrian soldiers waiting to take him out. So if he
Speaker 2: gets the letter saying hey, we're coming in and just goes.
Speaker 3: I don't focus on the negative. I'm an optimist. You're
Speaker 3: gonna be a dead optimist. It's gonna be an optimist
Speaker 3: with a crown on is what You're gonna be, Hezekiah
Speaker 3: optimist with a crown.
Speaker 2: But there's gonna be no head on your shoulders. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be rolling on the floor. You're gonna be an
Speaker 2: opt a headless optimist, a dead optimist, and a lot
Speaker 2: of people are like that when it comes.
Speaker 1: To their faith. I rebuke this bill.
Speaker 2: The power company doesn't cut it back on because you said,
Speaker 2: let there be light.
Speaker 3: You can put Genesis one over the power bill all
Speaker 3: you want in the dark.
Speaker 1: So so watch his response.
Speaker 2: He doesn't rip up the letter saying, well, that's not true.
Speaker 2: You're not powerful, you can't do that. Yes, yes, it
Speaker 2: is true. It is real.
Speaker 1: That's the reality of the situation.
Speaker 2: The second thing that I noticed that he didn't do,
Speaker 2: and I'm telling you what he didn't do, so that
Speaker 2: when I show you what he did do you will
Speaker 2: have something to compare it to. He received the letter. Remember,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill you just like
Speaker 2: I killed everybody. I'm gonna kill your family. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: take your kids out. Your kids are gonna end up
Speaker 2: on drugs. Your kids are gonna end up divorced. Your
Speaker 2: kids are gonna end up workless because you yelled at.
Speaker 1: Them this morning. That's it goes for me, is spiral's
Speaker 1: real quick.
Speaker 2: I would just be a little too harsh with the kids,
Speaker 2: and the devil will be like, that's why you're gonna
Speaker 2: be bailing them out of jail right there. They're gonna
Speaker 2: have a needle in their arm right there. And it
Speaker 2: all started with you. It can spiral real quick.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: So this is the second thing that Hezekiah didn't do.
Speaker 2: When he got the letter from Seneka rev. They're like, hey, King,
Speaker 2: we don't know what to do. We can see you've
Speaker 2: already ripped your clothes. It is a bad situation. But
Speaker 2: he sent another letter. So he received the letter verse
Speaker 2: fourteen again, and he read it, watched this, and he
Speaker 2: read it again, and read it again, and read it again,
Speaker 2: and read it again, and read it over and over
Speaker 2: and over until he had memorized it. And then he
Speaker 2: gathered the whole nation and recited the letter for them
Speaker 2: that their enemy had written. And then he had it
Speaker 2: translated into thirty different languages so that everybody could.
Speaker 1: Hear in their own language the threat of the enemy.
Speaker 2: And then he began to study it, and he broke
Speaker 2: it down into different syllables, and he made songs around it,
Speaker 2: and he began to sing the songs of Senekareb.
Speaker 1: That's not in the verses it. I can't prove this,
Speaker 1: but I think when.
Speaker 2: It says, please put the verse back up, that he
Speaker 2: received the letter and he read it, that he only
Speaker 2: read it once. And after he read it once, look
Speaker 2: what he did next. He read it and then he
Speaker 2: went up to the temple of the Lord. You don't
Speaker 2: even know how annointed. That is what I just showed you.
Speaker 2: That's what stopped me in my tracks. When I read
Speaker 2: that verse. I stopped and I said, oh, that's my problem.
Speaker 2: When I get a letter from the enemy, I read
Speaker 2: it over and over and over. When he puts a
Speaker 2: thought in my head to draw me away from my hope,
Speaker 2: I play it over and over and over. When I
Speaker 2: have an experience where I make a mistake, I play
Speaker 2: it over and over and over. But when I get
Speaker 2: a word from God, I listen to it once and
Speaker 2: I go to lunch. So my problem is, watch this.
Speaker 2: I'm giving more attention to Seneca Rip's letter than the
Speaker 2: spirit's message in my life.
Speaker 4: So he read it. Somebody shout. He read it, he
Speaker 4: dealt with it.
Speaker 2: He faid did he accepted it, He acknowledged it.
Speaker 4: I'm in debt. I'm I'm overweight, I'm I'm stressed out,
Speaker 4: I'm busy.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm torn apart right now. I'm not in the
Speaker 2: position I need to be in to make the difference
Speaker 2: in the life of my kids.
Speaker 4: I'm not the example I want to be.
Speaker 2: Okay, I read it, But after he read it, he
Speaker 2: didn't stay down in it. Because if I stay down
Speaker 2: in it and memorize it, then I'm gonna get more
Speaker 2: of it. But come on, y'all, twenty twenty three, let's
Speaker 2: follow Hezekiah.
Speaker 4: And do what hes Akaya did. What did he do?
Speaker 2: He read it, and he went up, and I came
Speaker 2: to call you out today.
Speaker 5: And tell you it's time to go up to the
Speaker 5: temple and see what the Lord says about this situation.
Speaker 5: Because if you stay in your head, you're dad. If
Speaker 5: you stay in your head about this, you are gonna go.
Speaker 2: Through hell over this, and the enemy won't even have
Speaker 2: to shoot a single arrow because he will defeat you
Speaker 2: by getting in your head and causing you to forfeit,
Speaker 2: the very thing that you couldn't lose if you would stand.
Speaker 1: Firm and see what God has said. He went up,
Speaker 1: he went up, say it. He went up, He went
Speaker 1: up to the.
Speaker 2: Temple, and he took the letter with him, just like
Speaker 2: you came to elevation today and you brought your letter
Speaker 2: with you. Oh yeah, you don't get to leave it
Speaker 2: at home. You take it with you everywhere you go.
Speaker 2: It is tattooed on your heart, the thing you really
Speaker 2: deal with, the thing you really worry about, the thing
Speaker 2: you struggle with, the insecurity.
Speaker 1: That talks nasty to you.
Speaker 2: I put in that detail about the excrement and the
Speaker 2: urine because as although you were grossed out about it, one,
Speaker 2: I wanted to take your appetite down so you could
Speaker 2: sit through the sermon longer and not be hungry for lunch.
Speaker 2: And number two, I wanted us to think about the
Speaker 2: crap that the.
Speaker 7: Devil really says to us. Senecrab literally talked crap to Hezekiah. Literally,
Speaker 7: and I'm not.
Speaker 1: Using that word like people do when they use it
Speaker 1: to mean the exact opposite of literally. I literally died.
Speaker 4: Figuratively opposite were.
Speaker 1: It's a little pet pee.
Speaker 2: He tells you stuff that you are trash, that you
Speaker 2: are done. Holy Spirit won't do that to you.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus. Jesus is righteous, Jesus
Speaker 1: is in you.
Speaker 2: The Holy Spirit will catch you the next morning and
Speaker 2: start talking to you about last night and how you
Speaker 2: want to do that different in the future. But he
Speaker 2: won't talk to your. Spirit won't talk to you like
Speaker 2: Saekaeb will. So that's not the spirit. That's not the spirit.
Speaker 2: This gave me a picture of what we so often do.
Speaker 2: If we don't just rip up the letter. Now I'm
Speaker 2: using it as a metaphor to say, if we don't
Speaker 2: just deny it, or if we don't just go over
Speaker 2: it and over it again in our minds, then often
Speaker 2: what we do is just we stuff it, almost to
Speaker 2: the point where we don't even realize that the enemy
Speaker 2: is talking to us, but he's using our voice to
Speaker 2: do it, and so we just stuff it, right, We
Speaker 2: just stuff it, and we keep it rolled up and
Speaker 2: scrunched up. And so if we take the things that
Speaker 2: the enemy speaks over our lives and we stuffed them,
Speaker 2: then guess what happens?
Speaker 1: They spread inside of us.
Speaker 2: To the point where now it's not only oh, I
Speaker 2: did that wrong, it's there's something wrong with me, and
Speaker 2: there always has been and there always will be. They
Speaker 2: say that the three habits of negative thinking are you
Speaker 2: make it personal, you make it permanent, and you make
Speaker 2: it pervasive. When you make it personal, it's not I
Speaker 2: was wrong when I did that. It's I am wrong,
Speaker 2: and I always do that, which is permanent.
Speaker 1: I always That's how I've always done it. That's how
Speaker 1: I did it five years ago.
Speaker 2: And you've edited out all the times you got it
Speaker 2: right because you just say I always do it like that.
Speaker 2: And then pervasive, of course, is just a fancy word
Speaker 2: to say, like you make it everything.
Speaker 1: It's all like this, and I'm always like that.
Speaker 2: When you take it and you put it inside like that,
Speaker 2: and you don't find a way to process these these
Speaker 2: patterns of thinking and these problems and the sin.
Speaker 1: That we all still have to deal with.
Speaker 2: It starts to spread not only inside of your heart,
Speaker 2: but it starts to sabotage the decisions in your life,
Speaker 2: and you find yourself losing good people who are trying
Speaker 2: to love you because of an insecurity that was in
Speaker 2: the form of the letter that the enemy sent you
Speaker 2: that you didn't know what to do with, so you
Speaker 2: stuffed it and it spread, And if nothing is there
Speaker 2: to stop the spread of that, you will continue to
Speaker 2: change external things in your life. But everything that you
Speaker 2: touch while you are walking in that insecurity, the insecurity will.
Speaker 1: Spread to the next opportunity.
Speaker 2: So you'll spend ten months happy at a job until
Speaker 2: the old system of how you show up for the
Speaker 2: job catches up with you at the new one, and
Speaker 2: it spreads until your children see that mom and Dad
Speaker 2: can't have a healthy conflict and work through it, and
Speaker 2: they carry a template with them into their marriage one day,
Speaker 2: and you spend years and years of your life saying,
Speaker 2: I wish that I had known how to deal with this,
Speaker 2: because the last thing I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Was to pass this on to them.
Speaker 2: And we stuff it and we hallelujah over top of it,
Speaker 2: and we get little scripture versus that we quote, thinking
Speaker 2: that they will counteract. I don't know of our own
Speaker 2: meditation in our heart, but it doesn't because if we
Speaker 2: stuff it, it's spreads. But who do I tell? Who
Speaker 2: do I tell what I really feel inside? And this
Speaker 2: is an important thing for me to stop and say
Speaker 2: right now, because You can't just take that stuff and
Speaker 2: spread it anywhere. You can't just use other people like
Speaker 2: they are.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to put this, Like they are.
Speaker 2: Your dumping ground, like they've got a hazmat suit on
Speaker 2: and they can just handle whatever you want to say.
Speaker 2: And what encouraged me about Hezekiah was he couldn't tell
Speaker 2: anybody because he's the king.
Speaker 4: Are there any dads in here that you just wish
Speaker 4: for once?
Speaker 1: For one and I'm gonna get to the moms in
Speaker 1: a minute.
Speaker 2: For once your kids would be like, it must be
Speaker 2: so hard to be you. It is amazing what you
Speaker 2: carry for our family. It is amazing you bring home
Speaker 2: the bacon, and you taught me to throw a baseball.
Speaker 4: You're my hero dad? How do you do it all?
Speaker 2: But who do you tell when you're trying to seem
Speaker 2: strong that this strength that.
Speaker 4: You see is costing me.
Speaker 2: My own strength And I've got my own issues and
Speaker 2: I still feel like a thirteen year old sometimes.
Speaker 1: I yelled at Elijah one time.
Speaker 2: He's my oldest, so I have him a separate therapy
Speaker 2: fund for all the mistakes I make on him that
Speaker 2: I learned and then don't do with other kids. So
Speaker 2: I save that with the college fund therapy fun college fund.
Speaker 1: I'm doing both at the same time.
Speaker 4: And I just yelled at him, this is my first.
Speaker 1: What was I talking about?
Speaker 2: It's your first time being a teenager, it's my first
Speaker 2: time raising one, and now I'm confronting all of the
Speaker 2: teenage me that I didn't deal with before. That's staring
Speaker 2: at me and you, So please be patient with one
Speaker 2: another and bear with one another, and tell your therapist
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: So what's hard about this.
Speaker 2: Is that I know what my letter says, but I
Speaker 2: don't know where to share it.
Speaker 1: Do I share it with my E group or would
Speaker 1: they kick me out or would they look at me different?
Speaker 2: Do I share it with my wife or will she
Speaker 2: think I'm weak?
Speaker 1: Do I just to the Lord in prayer because honestly,
Speaker 1: right now, I don't know if he's really up there.
Speaker 2: I love the moment where y'all act like y'all don't
Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about when I say stuff in church.
Speaker 1: No, he's always there, Steve, always for me. He's there.
Speaker 2: Sometimes for me. I don't know what that means. To
Speaker 2: take it to the Lord in prayer, I don't know
Speaker 2: what that means. Well, Hezekiah gives us a way to
Speaker 2: go to God that I really think is going to
Speaker 2: help you with the letter that you carried in here today,
Speaker 2: whether it's condemnation, temptation, whether it's an insecurity, or whether
Speaker 2: it's an actual attack from the enemy that's happening in
Speaker 2: your life right now that only you know about. This
Speaker 2: would apply to any addiction you're dealing with, any problem
Speaker 2: that you have today.
Speaker 1: Watch what Hezekiah did.
Speaker 2: He received the letter from the messengers and read it,
Speaker 2: and then he went up to the temple of the
Speaker 2: Lord and he spread it out before the Lord.
Speaker 1: He spread it.
Speaker 8: Out before the Lord. Physically he did that. He took
Speaker 8: the scroll I liked it out, this would be the scroll,
Speaker 8: and he spread it out before the Lord.
Speaker 2: Because if he carries it inside of himself, if he
Speaker 2: stays in his head, he doesn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: But he really doesn't know what to say either, So
Speaker 2: he spreads it out. Somebody say, spread it out before
Speaker 2: the Lord. Both of those are so important. One tells
Speaker 2: me what he did and one tells me where he
Speaker 2: did it, and both are important.
Speaker 1: The first thing he did was he spread it out.
Speaker 2: He's like, God, I'm not going to read this over
Speaker 2: and over and over again and imagine all the horrible
Speaker 2: things that can happen here.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: And you need a space in your life for this
Speaker 2: season that you're in, for these challenges that you're facing
Speaker 2: that you've never faced before, for these Seneca ReBs that
Speaker 2: are going on inside of your psychological state.
Speaker 1: Because I think this is a mental battle more than
Speaker 1: it's anything.
Speaker 2: You need a space to be able to spread it
Speaker 2: out before the Lord, and often we don't because when
Speaker 2: anxiety comes on us, it has a way of pushing
Speaker 2: us back down, so we can't even sit with anything
Speaker 2: very long without sinking in to it.
Speaker 4: To spread out.
Speaker 2: Something before the Lord means that you can sit with
Speaker 2: him in an uncomfortable feeling, that you can sit with
Speaker 2: him even as the temptation is coming like a wave,
Speaker 2: that you can sit with him. And some of us
Speaker 2: have been convinced by the enemy that you can't sit
Speaker 2: with what you feel, So anytime you feel something uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: you just run from that. You just strip some more
Speaker 2: gold off the temple and say, here's Sanekareb. I don't
Speaker 2: like this feeling of being attacked, so I'll just do
Speaker 2: it the enemy's way. That's what a lot of addiction is.
Speaker 2: Whether that addiction is to thinking, pills, food, you name it.
Speaker 2: Any of our addictions are often traced to something that
Speaker 2: we will not sit in because I don't like how
Speaker 2: this feels.
Speaker 4: So I'll just give the devil my gold. I'll just
Speaker 4: give the devil my peace. I'll even give him.
Speaker 2: My whole family if you will just stop making me
Speaker 2: feel this way. We do not resist him, because somewhere
Speaker 2: along the line.
Speaker 4: You have bought the lie.
Speaker 2: That this is bigger than you. Well, it might be,
Speaker 2: but guess what I know about it.
Speaker 5: Whatever it is, you know where I'm going, How big
Speaker 5: is it?
Speaker 4: How big is this problem? How big is this in
Speaker 4: to me? How big?
Speaker 2: You're like, it's really big, preacher, like, really really big.
Speaker 4: How big is it?
Speaker 2: Well, that depends what it's up against?
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 2: You're like, nah, I'm going through some real stuff.
Speaker 4: You don't even know. You're just up here preaching. I'm
Speaker 4: going up against something that's real. Somebody shout is real.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's real, But it's also a relative.
Speaker 1: Everything is relative.
Speaker 4: I found this out watching my dog, our dog.
Speaker 1: I say, my dog, I don't do anything for him.
Speaker 1: It's their dog.
Speaker 2: Their dog is a Boston Terrier named bo Do. Y'all
Speaker 2: remember when I told the whole church, I'm getting the
Speaker 2: family a dog.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 2: He not too big, But when he was meeting his uh,
Speaker 2: his cousin, I guess Holly's parents dog.
Speaker 1: What would that make them a relation? Anyway? What kind
Speaker 1: of dog is? Yo Yo?
Speaker 2: Chihuahuah was a yo Yo and Coco. I'm gonna work
Speaker 2: this out, y'all in a million a morky? What's a morky?
Speaker 1: All right? Coco is really little? Bo is big when
Speaker 1: he's with Coco. Bo met Coco.
Speaker 9: Bo was a bully because he was big.
Speaker 2: Then Bo met Toby. Their dog. Toby is a Golden doodle,
Speaker 2: bigger than a Boston Terrier. Y'all got the picture. Bo
Speaker 2: Coco Toby.
Speaker 9: Bo was a bully with Coco because Bo was big
Speaker 9: with Coco. Bo with Toby was not a bully. Bo
Speaker 9: was a sweetheart. I don't want to get canceled. I'm
Speaker 9: only forty thirty. Bo was really nice. Bo was on
Speaker 9: his best behavior with Toby. Because watch this, how big
Speaker 9: it is, it's.
Speaker 4: Relative to what it's up against.
Speaker 2: So when the devil is ticking on you, that's a
Speaker 2: sign you haven't reminded him lately what he's really up
Speaker 2: against me. When he starts telling you there's no way
Speaker 2: out of this one, that's because you didn't take him
Speaker 2: to the God of Moses lately, who opened up in
Speaker 2: ocean to get his people through.
Speaker 4: When he's telling you you're going down.
Speaker 2: You didn't show him the God.
Speaker 4: Of David lately, who can take a rush.
Speaker 2: Tend of renegade, tent a rag and knocked down a
Speaker 2: whole army, and he's telling you.
Speaker 4: You're not gonna make it. You haven't reminded him lately.
Speaker 4: Because he is God, so thad the odds, Yeah, God
Speaker 4: is we wear head.
Speaker 2: The way Baker is in the house, Hume, the Oddsmaker
Speaker 2: is in the house.
Speaker 4: You might be down by one hundred and eighty five.
Speaker 5: Thousand soldiers, but God said, I'll cover.
Speaker 3: Who what.
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 4: Watch out if you want to be home.
Speaker 2: In time for dinner, because I won't preach this thing
Speaker 2: to that Boston Terrier.
Speaker 4: That's beniffit. It's your belief. Benip it at.
Speaker 2: Your future, benipping at your sanity, benipping.
Speaker 4: At your sobriety.
Speaker 2: Pblic ride back every settle with the Mexico.
Speaker 4: Say, hung in a high.
Speaker 2: They stretched them lies, he saw my sin.
Speaker 5: He stat is good.
Speaker 4: They could it end up your house? Somebody set off?
Speaker 4: Cover just spread, come run, come, just stats you up.
Speaker 4: I know you're not enough. I'll cover it. I know
Speaker 4: you're not enough. I'll cover it. I know you don't
Speaker 4: happen by Do.
Speaker 10: You have no idea who you're up against? Stephanel and
Speaker 10: it's not me. I'm a multi pood.
Speaker 1: What'd you say? It was a mortie? Oh I'm a morkid.
Speaker 4: But have you met my master?
Speaker 2: Ha ha ha ha?
Speaker 4: Where you're life? Come on, let's get ready.
Speaker 2: Let's get ready to tell sinnemarea that the Agel is coming.
Speaker 4: The Agel of God is coming, the.
Speaker 2: Agel of God over your family, the Angel of God
Speaker 2: over your finances, the Agel of God over your physical diagnosis.
Speaker 4: The ael.
Speaker 1: So much I want to say to you so much.
Speaker 1: I want to say to you.
Speaker 2: You've been giving God your problem and that's good. But
Speaker 2: let's change a little bit. Well, you say, I ain't
Speaker 2: a mooki over there?
Speaker 1: What'd you call it? Moi? Moulah Morki? That's a that's
Speaker 1: a man of God right there now, Help me. Appreciate this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you this for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: You listen to me good, and you listen to me young,
Speaker 2: and you listen to me now, and you'll play him
Speaker 2: back this when he's a little older.
Speaker 1: Listen to this.
Speaker 2: You can give God your problem, but make sure you
Speaker 2: also give your problem God, because.
Speaker 1: I think that's what it is.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 2: You've been spreading it out before everything and everybody but God.
Speaker 2: And watch what has a guy did. He spread it
Speaker 2: out before the Lord. And now remember it's not just
Speaker 2: what he did. He spread it out because this is
Speaker 2: going to be some of y'all. Right, you're going to
Speaker 2: take this message. You are going to pull out that
Speaker 2: overdrawn bank account balance on your app.
Speaker 1: And say, here, God, I did what he said.
Speaker 2: Here's my scroll, God, I am scrolling to this balance
Speaker 2: on my bank account and I'm bringing it to you
Speaker 2: here God, and the Angel won't come. But here's what
Speaker 2: he did that I thought was so significant when he
Speaker 2: spread it out before the Lord.
Speaker 1: Verse fifteen. Please he prayed, He prayed, Lord, the God
Speaker 1: of Israel, enthrone between the Cherubim. What's that about.
Speaker 2: Well, if you remember, in the temple was something called
Speaker 2: the ark of the Covenant, which was overlaid the kasha
Speaker 2: wood and gold on the top. On the top where
Speaker 2: the gold was two and a half cubits, there were
Speaker 2: two angels, one on one side and one on the other.
Speaker 2: Those angels had wings that were spread up, and those
Speaker 2: wings touched in the middle.
Speaker 1: Exodus chapter thirty seven gives the details.
Speaker 2: When Hezekiah was spreading out his problem before God, he
Speaker 2: was looking at the ark of the Covenant, where those
Speaker 2: angels had spread their wings over him. Where those angels
Speaker 2: wings on the cover, the golden cover of the wooden
Speaker 2: box that house the symbolic presence of Almighty God. Those
Speaker 2: wings were touching to remind Hezekiah that while you're giving
Speaker 2: me your problem and reminding me of what you need,
Speaker 2: make sure you remind your problem.
Speaker 1: Of who I am, so.
Speaker 2: Which spread am I preaching about today? The problem that
Speaker 2: you could spread out before God, or the promise that
Speaker 2: He has spread over you? And which one will you
Speaker 2: focus on in this moment of your life. When Hezekiah
Speaker 2: read the letter, he read it. Once he confronted the issue,
Speaker 2: he spread it. He read it, and he spread it,
Speaker 2: and as he did, look at me church, God was
Speaker 2: already spread over him. But you don't see that when
Speaker 2: you're just right here. You know, they tell us all
Speaker 2: of this horrible stuff about what's gonna happen to our
Speaker 2: kids these days, and how there's no more hope for
Speaker 2: this generation in the world.
Speaker 1: To hell with that. I don't want to see that.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say my kids are gonna have bumps and bruises.
Speaker 2: Yours will too, and none of us can foresee any
Speaker 2: of that. But when I see, yeah, the odds are
Speaker 2: against us. But God said, if you'll seek me, I'll
Speaker 2: cover the spread. I see you keep spreading out all
Speaker 2: your problems and all your reasons, but if you be
Speaker 2: grateful to me, I'll cover the spread. I see the
Speaker 2: distance between who you are and who you want to be.
Speaker 2: But if you'll let my grace in, I sent my
Speaker 2: son for you, and I'll cover this friend. And it
Speaker 2: is just like God to give us a term from
Speaker 2: Vegas and use it as a heavenly vision. I know
Speaker 2: the odds are against you right now, and I know
Speaker 2: that it feels like it's very impossible for you to
Speaker 2: make progress in this area. I get it, But to
Speaker 2: spread it before the Lord and to say Lord, you're seated,
Speaker 2: You're seated above all of this.
Speaker 1: This is not abstract, y'all. You can do this as
Speaker 1: a daily practice. And I want you to.
Speaker 2: I want you to take that problem, that persistent one
Speaker 2: that has become personal, pervasive, and you think.
Speaker 1: It's permanent, and I want you to get a vision. Now.
Speaker 2: I'm speaking to you by the spirit of God. This
Speaker 2: is not coming from my head right now. This is
Speaker 2: from God's heart through my.
Speaker 1: Mouth for you. He said, I want you to spread
Speaker 1: it before me.
Speaker 2: Maybe if the apostle Paul could join in, he'd say,
Speaker 2: do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation
Speaker 2: Philippians four, verse six, let's teach this by prayer and petition,
Speaker 2: with thanksgiving. Ah present your requests to God. And that's
Speaker 2: what Hezekiah did. He spread it before God so that
Speaker 2: he wouldn't spread it to the rest of the nation,
Speaker 2: so that fear wouldn't spread, and get the best.
Speaker 1: Of his heart. That's what he did. That's what we do.
Speaker 2: You turn your problem into a petition and you ask
Speaker 2: God what I do about this, and when he shows you,
Speaker 2: even if he only shows you a little bit, you
Speaker 2: do that and you leave the rest.
Speaker 1: To the angels. Because they've got you. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, but I'm covered.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to cower in fear over these things
Speaker 2: that are happening in the world.
Speaker 1: I'm covered.
Speaker 2: I will not give my mind to an algorithm or
Speaker 2: a news cycle because I'm covered.
Speaker 1: I'm covered.
Speaker 2: Just this week, I was having one of these attacks.
Speaker 2: You know, you just get these thoughts from the enemy, right,
Speaker 2: And it was really my ego, But at the time,
Speaker 2: I felt like, man, what just happened? That was very
Speaker 2: offensive and I was very self righteous about it. And
Speaker 2: Holly asked me about it because we didn't get to
Speaker 2: talk because it happened. It wasn't a big thing. If
Speaker 2: I told you what it was, it would just waste time.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm not telling you, because it wasn't that big.
Speaker 2: But it felt big in the moment, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. And so some little thing happened to me
Speaker 2: and it became this whole thing in my heart, like
Speaker 2: it triggered this old insecurity and I even know what's happening. Dang,
Speaker 2: Why am I so mad about that? And when we
Speaker 2: got done, she goes, how'd you feel about that?
Speaker 1: What happened? And I started to talk about it. But
Speaker 1: I realized if I said what I felt in that moment,
Speaker 1: I would spread it.
Speaker 2: I wasn't ready to talk about it yet. The next
Speaker 2: morning I woke up, I was still thinking about it.
Speaker 2: I couldn't stop thinking about it. Woke up thinking about it. Wow,
Speaker 2: I was that about And I took my little notebook.
Speaker 2: I don't have a temple to go to, all right,
Speaker 2: I don't have an arc of the Covenant. I got
Speaker 2: my notebook and.
Speaker 1: I wrote, Holy Spirit, show me how I need to
Speaker 1: see this. And I sat there and I don't won't
Speaker 1: to even sit there. I'm like, man, I'd rather be
Speaker 1: doing burpies right now that they're sitting here. This sucks. WHOA.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you got to let the anxiety pass through because
Speaker 2: on the other side of that anxiety, on the other
Speaker 2: side of that anxiety is an awareness that you can't
Speaker 2: get if you just run every time it shows up.
Speaker 2: And what the Lord showed me next was so powerful
Speaker 2: to me. It was one of the craziest things that
Speaker 2: he ever located for me. He showed me exactly why
Speaker 2: I felt that way about it. He gave me a
Speaker 2: better story to tell myself about it, and we went
Speaker 2: and had the best breakfast, and we ended up talking
Speaker 2: about our future in a very deep way. But if
Speaker 2: I would have spread it to her before I spread
Speaker 2: it before him, I wouldn't have even known what to
Speaker 2: talk about.
Speaker 1: Now. I know it's not always that simple, But.
Speaker 2: Do you have something in your life today that you
Speaker 2: need to spread before the Lord that you've been holding
Speaker 2: on the inside and fighting in your head?
Speaker 1: Stand up?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a place where you can spread it
Speaker 2: before the Lord. And I hear God saying this, Spread
Speaker 2: it before its spreads, before it just eats up all
Speaker 2: of your resources and all of your energy.
Speaker 1: Get it before him. He can show you things, Church,
Speaker 1: He really can.
Speaker 2: He's really alive, he's really loving, he's really personal, he's
Speaker 2: really active, he's really willing, he's really wise, he's really kind,
Speaker 2: he's really good.
Speaker 1: And so now we see the Angel of God.
Speaker 2: That as we spread it before him our problem, he
Speaker 2: spreads his protection over us.
Speaker 1: Say I'm covered wire. We come to you today knowing
Speaker 1: that everybody is holding their own letter written in.
Speaker 2: Its own tongue, speaking specifically to the troubles and trials
Speaker 2: of each individual child. Holy Spirit, I ask you now
Speaker 2: come manifest yourself through these human minds. So that we
Speaker 2: can recall what it is that we need to bring
Speaker 2: to you. But as we bring it to you, we
Speaker 2: declare that You're bigger than it. Yes, Lord, I hear
Speaker 2: you saying, we're looking at the wrong spread. We have
Speaker 2: forgotten the God who fights for us, to focused on
Speaker 2: the fighting that we're doing.
Speaker 1: So Lord, now you called us into your presence. You
Speaker 1: brought our etham from around the world.
Speaker 2: You brought your sons and daughters to our twenty church campuses,
Speaker 2: to all of the men and women and boys and
Speaker 2: girls who will hear this message. I thank you that
Speaker 2: you are spreading your feathers, spreading your faithfulness, spreading your favor.
Speaker 2: I want you just lift your hands as why as
Speaker 2: you can lift them, and just say, here it is God, Yeah,
Speaker 2: here it is. Here's the questions that I have, Here's
Speaker 2: the regrets that I have. Here's the anxiety that I
Speaker 2: keep fighting. But I'm spreading it before you. And there's
Speaker 2: nothing that is in that letter from the enemy that
Speaker 2: is greater than what is written in your word.
Speaker 1: Say, greater is he that is in me than he
Speaker 1: that is in the world. Again, Now, greater is he
Speaker 1: that is in me, Then he that is in the world.
Speaker 1: Say it again. Greater is he that is in me
Speaker 1: than he that is in the world. If we start
Speaker 1: rehearsing the right things, we'll start believing the right things.
Speaker 2: If we start believing the right things, we'll start becoming
Speaker 2: the right things. Greater is he that is in me,
Speaker 2: then he that is in the world. Somebody hot fives,
Speaker 2: somebody next to you say, he's greater, He's greater, He's greater,
Speaker 2: He's greater.
Speaker 4: He's greater.
Speaker 5: Angels of God inhabiting this space right now, setting over
Speaker 5: a canopy over his beloved right now.
Speaker 2: Greater is he that is in me, then he that
Speaker 2: is in the world. The clear it seven times a day.
Speaker 2: Greater is he that is in me, then he that
Speaker 2: is in the world. Tell senek av Greater is he
Speaker 2: that is in me, then he that is in the world.
Speaker 4: Come on, let's works of him together.
Speaker 1: Let's work of him.
Speaker 2: Hey. I hope you enjoyed the podcast, and if you did,
Speaker 2: make sure to share it and subscribe so we can
Speaker 2: get you all of these new messages as soon as
Speaker 2: they're available. I also want to take a moment and
Speaker 2: thank all of you who are a part of Elevation.
Speaker 2: Whether you support us financially, or serve with us, or
Speaker 2: just share these messages. It's because of you that we're
Speaker 2: able to reach people all around the world. And if
Speaker 2: you want more information on how to be a part
Speaker 2: of Elevation, click the link in the description. Thanks again
Speaker 2: for listening. Make sure to leave a review, share the message,
Speaker 2: and subscribe.
Speaker 1: God bless you.