This episode is full of the wisdom of God for those times we are waiting on Him to manifest the miracle we long for. God’s ways, which are higher than our own, are sure and restful ways that lead to victory beyond what we can ask, pray, or imagine! In this episode, Dr. Siohvaughn Funches reminds us of how God is faithful and will absolutely keep His promises. Thus, you can trust Him! So don’t wait to celebrate because your God is faithful, and your victory is certain!
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Waiting Room Wisdom (Part 8)
We’re going to be continuing on but not finishing up our series titled Waiting Room Wisdom. Before we get into that and recap a bit to help all of our recollection and those who are joining us for the first time on this journey, let’s take a moment to acknowledge God and pray. I thank you, Heavenly Father, for this opportunity to once again get at the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ and to hear Him. I thank you, God, that the faith to believe comes by hearing the word of Christ. I thank you for making your face shine upon this time. I thank you for sending your Holy Spirit to come and teach us at this time. I thank you for the promised impartation of faith that’s going to be given unto us. I thank you, God, that this will be a special anointing on this faith.
I thank you that you will put a special favor on this faith that we receive and through this particular show series, that we will receive things effortlessly. In Jesus’ name, I pray. I thank you that you will give to each and every one of us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus. I thank you that the eyes of our understanding are being enlightened all the more. You are causing us to know even more deeply, more intimately, more experientially what is the hope of Jesus’ calling, and what are all the riches of the glory in the fullness of His inheritance in us and the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of this power that He has towards us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.
I thank you, Jesus and I praise you that you’re expounding on the scriptures to us about the things concerning yourself. I thank you that as we behold you, Lord, your Holy Spirit is transforming us into your very same image. We are resting, enjoy, and in peace. While we are feeding, God, this is our fighting. I thank you, God, in Jesus name that after coming from this feast, this is the table you prepare for us in the presence of our enemies. I thank you, God, just at the feeding, just at the determination of the meal that we have here and feed on Jesus and feast on Him. I thank you that the enemies that we’ve seen in our lives and even in our families, even in finances, even in health and in any area pertaining to your sons and daughters that are hearing this word, no matter what time they are hearing it. Let this be a timeless prophetic word with your power and favor, backing it up.
I thank you in Jesus’ mighty name, that those enemies that plagued and tormented us are now plagued and tormented themselves, and the ditch they built for us, they have fallen into it. You have blessed us to escape safely. You have crowned us with victory, loving kindness, tender mercies and you have sealed the fate of our enemies. As such, they are killed, destroyed and utterly annihilated. We will see them again no more, in Jesus’ name we pray and we touch and agree. Amen.
I don’t know where that came from other than God. It certainly wasn’t what I thought I was going to pray, but I thank God that the Holy Spirit is the teacher in and through me, now and always because no one wants to hear from me. We want to hear from God. I don’t even want to hear from me. I just happened to love me. I like me and I enjoy me, but I don’t want to hear from me. I want to hear from God. How about you? I’m not offended if you say Amen, I promise you that. I’m a humble servant, please believe it.
Proverbs 4:7 – Wisdom Is The Principal Thing
If you have been with us on this journey, you know that our key scripture for this particular series comes out of Proverbs 4:7. I’ll read from New King James version like I generally do. I’ll try to alert you all if I’m reading from a different version because it’s seldom that I do that at least here. In my study time, that’s a much different thing. Once it’s brought here, it’s usually from the New King James version. It’s says, “Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom and with all your getting, get understanding.” I was meditating on the scripture before beginning this particular episode with you all. God was enlightening and showing me that this is one of the longest series in length. Obviously, not an episode time. They’re approximately the same but it is one of the longer series as far as the parts that go to it. That right there, God was letting me know and putting it in my spirit like impressing upon me that by doing so, that was not an accident. That’s not me dragging my feet. It’s God because it’s a confirmation of our key scripture that wisdom is a principal thing.
Therefore, get wisdom that this is something very important. God is telling us that there are many things that are important, but when God announces something as a principal thing, where to take key to that. If God calls it special, set it apart, the top priority. We ought to mark it as a priority. Take it seriously and go after that thing with everything in us. As He said, “Get wisdom.” He said that if anyone asks for wisdom, He would give it freely and without finding fault.
One of the ways we get wisdom is asking God for it. We get wisdom and the impartation of wisdom when we read His word and take the time, and ask the Holy Spirit to help us, to enlighten our understanding. God’s word is Him and He’s deep. I always am asking the Holy Spirit to bless me to understand. Trust me, the revelation and insight that God has given me is not because I’m so smart. It’s not because I went to this school or that school. It has nothing to with that. It has everything to do with the purpose of God. God desires for us to know. He desires for me to know. I also have a desire. I asked God, “Teach me, show me, bless me to know you more before diving into the word of God, thinking that I’m going to understand any of it.” Especially not the revelations He’s given us even so far on this particular journey here on this show.
In The Waiting Room
If you were with us in the last episode, we were talking about something and further expounding on it because it went even further back. God was telling us that when you’re in the waiting room, that waiting room represents that place after God has made you a promise, or after you’ve took hold of a promise in the Bible, which is perfectly fine to do. The Bible says, “All the promises of God are yes and in Christ, Amen to the glory of God.” When you come across to the scripture, God leads you to a particular scripture. You say, “I want to believe God for this.” For example, the Bible says, “The seed of the righteous is delivered.” The Bible also says that we’re the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
If you say, “God, you promised the seed. My children are delivered.” It’s not “will be delivered,” but “are delivered.” I’m righteous with your very own righteousness. I’m believing you to manifest in the earth as it is in heaven this particular promise. This is a part of my inheritance. I’m not arrogantly claiming this. In humility, I claim this. Knowing that without God I can do nothing. This is His provision for my life. This is his provision for my seed and I’m doing it. I’m getting it. I’m grabbing hold of it. I’m taking this. I’m running with it. Knowing that when God blesses you and your children, it’s always bigger than you and your family. It’s always a blessing for the entire body of Christ Jesus. All of us are blessed when you are, which is why there’s no room for jealousy in the body of Christ and there’s no condemnation.
If you feel a spout of jealousy or envy or things like that, you certainly shouldn’t try to suppress that. You want to bring that to God and tell Him to deliver you from that. Renew your mind in that area. Have Him supplant that wrong thinking and that wrong believing with right believing to cause repentance, which is a change of mind to take place in that particular area. God is constantly washing us with His word, washing away the dirt of this world, and things that we see that we shouldn’t have seen. I think that people say too is they have no business saying things we might have believed that we should have never believed like lies of the enemy and things like that or anything less than God’s best or anything other than what God says.
There are things coming against you so don’t feel bad about that. That’s not necessarily you. It’s just that you’re in a place in this world where things come against you and me. It is a place of humility to take hold of these promises. We know that sometimes God makes these promises and immediately, they manifest, sometimes while the words are still coming out of your mouth. The answer comes through your door. Those are wonderful times. We celebrate God and we praise Him. There are also times when we ask God, and then we must persevere in faith and wait on God with a confident expectation that He is faithful even if we are faithless. God always keeps His promises. God doesn’t begin to perform something and not finish it.
We persevere in this faith and that’s that place of waiting. That’s that waiting room. God came through this series to give us wisdom for those time that we enter into the waiting room rather than receiving the manifestation of the promise of God in our life instantaneously. God was saying that people have given up and they’ve given up on the promise and it’s not because God wasn’t doing it. It wasn’t because that breakthrough wasn’t right around the corner or staring them in the face. It was because they fainted and lost help right before that breakthrough. We can’t do that, which is why God has given us wisdom for that waiting room.
When we do the things that God is leading us to do, and refrain from the things He’s teaching us to refrain from, when we operate in His wisdom, we end up with all the strength we need. Everything we need were well-equipped for those waiting room times. We can encourage one another because naturally speaking, people go in and out of the waiting room. Brothers and sisters who are not in the waiting room right now, you’re feeling stronger and more encouraged. Maybe you see your other brother and sister getting weary in the waiting room. Encourage them, remind them, and share these things you are learning. Share these links. Send people to the show link, the blog site and the website. Share what God has given you. God has given seed to the sower and bread to the eater. He’ll cause you to reap what it is you sow.
God Is So Good
Nothing can be more important than sowing the word of God or love, life, encouragement, hope, faith, literally into the bride of Jesus Christ, the Son of God Himself. That’s a good seed to have. That’s a good investment to make. God has been encouraging us all throughout this series and teaching us what we should do and don’t do while we’re in the waiting room. God was showing us about what we shouldn’t do. He told us, “This is what you don’t do in the waiting room. You don’t wait to celebrate.” God gave us several examples. We started on King Jehoshaphat. Just for it to be fluid and flow, I’ll start there again. We’re in 2 Chronicles 20. We’ll start at verse 2. Those who were with us in that episode, we got a little bit into it but not much. We’re going to start there and make sure we get everything that God has for us.
It says in verse 2, “Then some came and told Jehoshaphat, saying, ‘A great multitude is coming against you.’” I absolutely love that God didn’t just go over the trouble. Sometimes in counseling people, people want to get right to the encouragement part. They don’t acknowledge the pain is real for people. They don’t acknowledge what they’re going through. We have no business magnifying the devil but we’ll acknowledge it. We know that if it’s something bad, evil and simply not God, that’s not where our story ends. We don’t say that arrogantly in and of ourselves, but we do say that boasting in our God knowing our God is sovereign. This is our Father and He loves us too much to leave us right here.
If I’m in a bad place, this chapter isn’t over yet. If this chapter is ending, then the book’s not done, but God won’t leave me here. You got to believe in the love of God like that because it’s more true than that. You won’t be put to shame in doing so. No one who hopes in the Lord and who has a confident expectation of good in the Lord is put to shame and that’s written right there. You can take that check to the bank and cash it every time. We saw all these people were coming against them. Multiple different armies joined forces against King Jehoshaphat in Israel. They were terrified. They went and sought the Lord fearful and afraid. I love how they’re not perfect. They didn’t go in robust faith like, “I know God’s going to do it.”
That’s good news for us because sometimes we’d go teeth clattering and nail biting. I love how we can come to God just as we are. He certainly won’t leave us like that. We don’t leave the same but we can come in any condition that we’re in. I love that about God because it’s necessary. I know that much in my short years here on the earth, with human experience with myself and others, that for sure God needs to be who He is and nothing less in order to have this relationship with us. It’s all in Him and none of us. Praise God.
We saw that God gave them a prophetic word. I told you that was one of my favorite parts of the entire Bible. The Bible is a pretty big book. I’m pulling that out as a favorite because it’s a rhyme of words for us at all times. God was telling them, “Don’t be afraid. The battle is not yours. It’s the Lord’s.” Stand still and see His salvation. “I’ve got you and I’ve got this. Don’t fear.” Why? Not because it’s not a great multitude, not because they’re not hail bent on killing you. All that part is true, but this is what’s more true. This is what’s so much more powerful. It makes that absolutely nothing. “I’m God, I’m sovereign, I’m bigger and badder than any and everything.” I don’t mean bad in a bad way. I mean like if you want to fight, you probably don’t want to pick it with God. You don’t want to do that. We can’t be that dumb.
If we are going to be a little slow, that’s fine. If we’re going to be like, “That slow, that’s too slow,” that will never work. I love how God being sovereign and being all of that, and the earth is He and the fullness thereof, and how God can think of things and turn a whole situation around, say a thing and create an entire world. When you’re operating with this power, when you are the almighty, when you have all power, when you possess heaven and earth, that’s not the kind of person you want to fight. He is the one you want to fight for you. Because God fights for you and for me, we can acknowledge what’s coming against us. Maybe it’s a disease or divorce. We can acknowledge that hail has broken loose, but we can have perfect shalom peace knowing this battle is in Him anyway. I don’t care how many troops you bought because I don’t have to fight one of them. You could have brought one million of them, but it makes no difference whether or not you showed up with a little or legion because this battle is the Lord’s. I refuse to engage in it.
What shall we do, saints of God? Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord and do not wait. During this period from when God prophesied to them and they possess their possessions, and got that victory crown with victory, they did not wait to celebrate. The Bible says, “When they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir who had come against Judah, Judah means praise in Hebrew, and they were defeated.” For the people of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir. I thought they were supposed to be on each other team. God sent confusion. These people who were once for each other and coming together to kill God’s children, turned on each other and killed each other. This is wonderful. Grab yourself a seat and popcorn. This is the show you don’t want to miss. If they could make a Netflix series out of this, it’d be right at number one. We like stuff like this. This is what God did. He’s the ultimate entertainer like scoot over, Hollywood. This is good to watch.
It then says, “When they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seirs, God allowed for the people of Ammon and Moab to utterly destroy the Syrians.” Those two tribes and group of troops came and destroy one another. God is so good. When you think they were confused, then they were utterly confused. Do you feel me? It’s like, “I thought you guys got done fighting together. What happened?” God confused these fools and they ended up killing each other. What does King Jehoshaphat, the tribe of Judah, and all the children of Israel prophesied doing? So much opposition is coming against them. People are dealing with debt, infertility, death in the family, for example. This is serious stuff and its piles of stuff. It’s not just one thing. You’ve heard it being said, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” Have you ever been there? I was there. Are you feeling like that?
That’s what it was like for them. It wasn’t just the people from Mount Seir come and that’s one thing, but now you got Moab. When you thought the devil don’t hate you that much, then you get the people of Ammon, but God is so good. If God allowed the enemy to pop up his head in your life like the Whack-A-Mole game, God is so good and tremendous that He has these people. He allows the enemy because these people then represent spiritual enemies. Just like God allowed these natural enemies then to come up, God allows for spiritual enemies to rear their ugly head. Like that Whack-A-Mole game at Chuck E. Cheese, they pop that head up and God is right there. He had that big hammer with that big, huge spawn. Instead of a spawn, it’s deadly. There’s nothing there cushioning it. It’s like a big oversized microphone or a big rubber mallet and the hammer looking thing.
God is coming with one that kills at first strike. He allows them to pop their head up. God is the one who put the coin in the machine, “Come on, devil. Do you want to play? I see you. You want these various troops of people? Do you see that they would have killed them?” They didn’t even have an evil idea. They went to execute it. When they weren’t enough, they found more people to come with them to do evil. They meant what they said and they were on their way to do it. They’re hell bent on killing, not even taking captive. This isn’t about slavery here. This is about slaughter. Engage in this extra evil. They wanted to murder men, women, and children. God is so good. He’s not always a God of prevention, but he’s always a God of divine protection. Sure enough, He let those enemies rear their ugly heads and can cut it off. That’s what he did in the book of Esther with Haman, “Let them rear its ugly head so He can cut it off.”
If there are enemies in your life that have reared their ugly head at you, don’t you worry beloved, your life is in the hands of God. Nothing and no one shall by any means pluck you out because nothing’s greater than your Father in heaven. God will allow your enemies to rear that head so he can sever it. Happy head-cutting off time to God. Praise Him for the heads He’s cutting off in your life right now even while you sleep. While they praise God, they didn’t freak out, continuing to freak out, continuing to worry, talking about it, calling somebody, they didn’t have cell phones then.
You don’t tell people, “Did you heard what happened? Did you heard who’s coming?” and magnifying the devil because the devil tried to magnify himself, “Look at this great multitude coming against you.” He tried to make himself look real big, but he is so pathetic. This is before Christ get on the cross. He’s such a pathetic, defeated nothing. All these people did was worship God. When they worship the Lord, these fools who let the devil use them killed each other. This is the result under the old covenant. The Bible tells us that under the new covenant, which is where we are as Christians, as new covenant believers in Jesus Christ, this is a better covenant built on better promises. We know that this one right here in the old covenant is sufficient. You tell me what had happened. You lift your hands and praise and God ambush your enemies. I’m telling you, since all the promises of God, I know you’re a new covenant believer, but from the front of that Bible to the back of it, all the promises of God are yes. You are in Christ, and in Jesus, they are Amen. Notice that.
You might as well not even say, “God, will you please do such and such?” Your prayer should be this, “God, thank you for doing such and such,” and then declare to Him back His own word because He already say it. If you say, “God, would you do this for me?” If it’s a promise in a word, it was a promise God gave you. It’s not about what will He do for you. Do you believe is the question because He already said what He was willing to do. He said, “All.” That way we don’t have got to go one by one, or chapter by chapter, or verse by verse. That could take some time. Decipher it and put some in the no column, some in the yes column, some in the absolutely column.
Don’t Wait To Celebrate
God put them all in the absolutely, positively, without question and doubt. They are yes and in Christ, pointing us back to Christ, praise be to Christ Jesus who has made all this possible. Praise be to God our Father who love us enough to go to that great extent of allowing his son to die like that for this to be true in our life. This is why when we grab hold of a promise, when we persevere in faith, when we worship God ahead of time, when we don’t wait to celebrate, everybody’s going to celebrate when it happens. I shouldn’t say everybody but we should. Jesus healed the lepers and only one came back and said, “Thank you.” We don’t want to be like the nine that got their miracle and forget about God. That’s a problem. We want to be like the one that got the answer from God that he longed for. He we went back and walked with Jesus, remembering Him, remembering what He did and praising Him continually. We want to be like that healed man. That particular guy that was healed of leprosy.
Although this is in the old covenant, this principle is true. This is a promise from God, “Do not fear for the battle is the Lord’s.” Just because we in a new covenant don’t mean the battle is not the Lord’s. Just like the tide is the Lord’s. It was all the way before even the old covenant back with Abraham. The tide is God’s, so is the battle. What do you do? You ask God for something, you need them to fight for you. What do you do in the meantime? Here’s what you don’t do. You don’t wait to celebrate. Celebrate Him now because your victory is sure. There’s something about worship that before God, while it’s adoration to the law is warfare against your enemies. I don’t know how it work. As God said, “His ways are higher than our ways.” We want to go figure something out. We want to put our hands on it. We want to call somebody. We want to tell somebody off. We want to defend ourselves and ready to do something, but we’re not God. That’s not our place. We ended up making things better or delaying something. No more delay in Jesus’ name.
I pronounced over you and me. We enter into rest and we celebrate our best, which is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. These people did this. Not only did God caused their enemies to destroy one another. It says in verse 25, “When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away their spoil, they found among them an abundance of valuables on the dead bodies and precious jewelry, which they stripped off for themselves more than they could carry away.” They were three days gathering the spoil because there was so much. On the fourth day they assembled in the Valley of Berakah. For there, they bless the Lord like that leper that came back. They got the victory. They weren’t just defended. The enemy weren’t just defeated. God gave them the victory and God said, “I set the enemy up.”
He came trying to sift you like wheat. Instead, now you have your inheritance, which is the inheritance of a victor and not a victim. Whatever he had, you’re taking that with you. This is a pretty good deal. What did I have to do in the meantime? Worship and celebrate this God who loves you and has gone before you and has guaranteed with His very own blood your victory. It’s not good news only when you see it. It is good news when He said it. God can’t lie. This is good news right now. We are going to celebrate right now. It says, “Therefore, the name of that place was called the Valley of Berakah until this day.” Berakah, meaning blessings in their native tongue, which was Hebrew. I love it that they didn’t wait to celebrate.
They were clearly a perfect example of the power of God at work when you don’t wait to celebrate, to worship, to praise God, to thank God. You can thank God now. You have trusted even me. I’m a human being. I could make a mistake. Tomorrow’s not promised to me, but when I say to you like, “See you next week,” you people have probably heard that and never once doubted it. Maybe at first you did, but after many weeks, many months, maybe you’re like, “If she said she’s coming back for some more, she’s coming back. We expect to hear something else. We expect to eat again with her. We expect to celebrate God with this woman again.”
You believe that and I’m a human being. How do you know you believe that? I don’t think you spend any time worrying about it. I don’t think you spend any time threatened or calling your friends. You don’t do any of, “What if this happen?” You don’t do any of that hypothetical mess that the devil tried to have you in. You have rest and it’s just me. If your pilot says, “We’re landing in 1 hour and 20 minutes,” you probably do pray, “Father cover us. Give your angels in-charge over us.” Most of us don’t spend our whole flight being like, “What did the pilot said? Are you sure it’s only 1 hour and 20 minutes? Are you sure we’re at that altitude you had promise?” Nobody stands over the pilot and does that. You don’t even know the pilot. You don’t even see the pilot. Do you even know if anybody’s flying that airplane? Let me not freak you out. I’m simply saying, we trust that. I know that I do. How can we not? How can we have less trust? How can we demonstrate less trust to our God? How can we do that? It’s crazy when you think about it. Fear is a nutty thing. It’s an irrational thing when you think about it.
We have to get to a place where we trust God like these people. They were afraid. They’re human so fear came against them. They felt it and you feel that sensation, that spirit’s trying to come on you, trying to influence you, trying to have an effect on your emotions, but they didn’t let it stay there. They went from fear to worship. God destroyed the enemies without them having to lift a finger. I don’t know about you but I liked that. I know God does things in different ways. We see that in the Bible, Jesus healing people, even of the same condition but in different manner. Nothing’s wrong with that. There’s no condemnation, no need to worry.
Go With God
I say this to God often, l humbled myself, beggars can’t be choosers. I’m not going to come in here and tell you how to do it and it’s got to be like this. We go to the doctor for help, but we don’t tell him like, “When you put the needle, hold it like this, only feel the syringe this much.” We don’t do that. We don’t lord over him and tell him how to do it, who to do it with, and how many times. We don’t do that, but we do nitpick God like that sometimes or at least I do. It’s me. I’ll admit it. I do that sometimes. I’m learning to on this journey how to trust God more because He’s trustworthy. I want you to do the same. I want us all to experience this perfect peace that Jesus left us as an inheritance.
Jesus has everything. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. Of all the things He could have announced knowing He has an impending death. After that, hail if death wasn’t enough. That’s the next stop hail. He knows that. He says, “My peace I bequeath to you,” like rich people give an inheritance. Jesus, you’re so full and everything is yours. Out of all the things you could have said in your final moments, you leave me your shalom. This is precious, people. These people went from fear into peace and grab hold of that promise of God. They believed God and they didn’t wait to celebrate.
We saw what God did for them. If He did it for them, He is definitely able. He’s also definitely willing to do it for us. Let us follow after them. No need to reinvent the wheel. God put the example there for a reason. This worked well. There are examples at times people did things wrong. We cannot do that. In the times, the Holy Spirit wrote out these examples where things were done right and the results are right, better than we could have asked for or imagined. Let’s run with it, people. Let’s not question if it never makes sense. As long as it makes the miracle you need, who cares if it makes sense? Just do it. Let’s go with God. His ways are so much higher than our ways. His thought is much higher than our thoughts.
He’s telling us, “I know you’re in the waiting room. I know there’s been a challenge. I know there’s a great multitude that is coming against you, but you can relax. You can rest. You can have joy and you can praise Me because I’m with you, I’m for you and I’m against your enemies. I myself don’t need your help. I’m God. I alone will take care of them. The enemies you saw, you won’t see again anymore. I will work this together for your good in such a way that you will collect their spoils. It will be such a blessing to you this thing that appeared, that they meant as a curse, this evil, this harm they meant against you, I will turn into such a blessing for you.” It was called the Valley of Berakah. Valley represents a low place. God turns the valley into Berakah, into a blessing. What preceded it was that worship, that refusal to wait to celebrate.
Let’s do that. Let’s worship God. Let’s praise Him. For He is wonderful and let’s continue with our series. I’m taking my time. If God has taken His. He’s the Lord over this, Lord over our life, and certainly, Lord over this show. I am rolling with Him and He has more for us. Let’s go wait and see what God has for us and enter into deeper rest. Let’s praise Him this whole time through and watch God turn your valley of proposed defeat that the enemy said was defeat into the Valley of Berakah, this place of blessing. Even the valley isn’t against you. It’s for you. May God strengthen you to collect the spoils in Jesus’ name, I pray. May God strengthen your angels that he’s assigned to you to help you gather these spoils for as long as it takes. Turning your mourning into dancing, giving you beauty for ashes, and giving you celebrations and holidays when the enemy was the one trying to come against you with harm and fear. In Jesus name I pray, beloved. I love you and I’ll talk to you soon.
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