God’s provision always proceeds the problem. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end. He is the first and the last. The devil can never get ahead of Him. That’s why you should not fear or be dismayed.
Listen to the episode here:
God Goes Before You (Part 7)
Welcome back, everyone, and thank you so much for joining me here again, on The One Thing That’s Needful Podcast, my name is Dr. Siohvaughn Funches. We’re going to be continuing our series but not finishing up our series titled God Goes Before You. We’re going to do a little recap like we always do. But first and absolutely foremost, we’re going to take time and acknowledge God.
In God’s light, we see light.
So I thank you, Heavenly Father, for this opportunity to get at the feet of Your Son Jesus, and to hear him, I thank you, that you the Father of glory has given to each and every one of us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of our understanding being enlightened that we may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, that you’re going to expound on the Scriptures to us today. About the things concerning yourself.
I thank you for turning this into a road to Emmaus experience for each and every one of us. I thank you that you are causing us to know you more. To know you more, Lord, is not only to love you more is also to experience your manifest that presence and glory in every area of our life. Thank you, Heavenly Father, that as we do the one thing that is needful, you are taking care of everything that concerns us, you are supplying all of our needs, you’re granting to us the desires of your heart, and you are leading us into the fullness of our destiny. And I say us and our whole house in Jesus’ name we pray.
So, the first thing we’re going to do after that, obviously, is to recap just a bit. If you weren’t with us on this journey, we’re about six or seven parts into this particular series. So I want to strongly encourage you to go back and just feed on that feed on Christ feed on the bread of life, of drink, of him and just really just get every bit of wisdom and revelation that He’s given us, let him encourage and strengthen your heart. In his light, you get to see the light their answers that you’re looking for. And just while being at the feet of Jesus, even if the subject matter is not the same subject as the particular challenge that you are facing, I have seen time and time again how while I’m at the feet of Jesus, hearing him doing that one thing that’s needful, God will bring to me the wisdom I need or I will see so clearly what it is that I need to do or who I need to call. Or if it’s just that I need to do nothing because it’s done already.
But the point is that I will know the Bible says that in his light, we see light and I’m paraphrasing. So never take getting at the feet of Jesus as like you’re trying to busy your time or you’re just trying to feel your schedule. No, everything that is important to you as far as life’s needs, or challenges and things like that. Just your every day what seems like Monday tasks, it’s all found at the feet of Jesus, Jesus is the solution. He is the maintenance. He’s the maintainer. He’s the resolver he’s the solver he’s the solution. He really and truly is everything we need, and hope for and God has ordained that So, so let him feed you. And you’ll be amazed that the very nourishment you need, will come through a word that he fed you even if it doesn’t seem to at first glance be, pertaining to your particular issue, trust him.
It happens to me, often, very, very often, I can vouch for God doing that. That’s why I’m so passionate about reminding myself and reminding you to know, all of you, the bride of Christ, that we need to make sure we do the one thing that is needful, and that’s to hear him. So that’s what we do here on this podcast. But again, I want to encourage you if you haven’t heard, go back and listen, because there’s so much that God has is very, very rich, and it’s encouraging and inspiring. And there’s wisdom, enlightened life. In all of these podcasts and especially on this particular series we started out this new year with this particular series and God reminding us that he’s gone before us, and the significance of that truth. Because in this life, we have trouble. And Jesus said, Be of good cheer have overcome the world, you can find that in John 16.
So it’s important for us to have this assurance, that when trouble comes not if when trouble comes, God has already gone before us. And he has determined the end. In the beginning, he has worked everything together for our good, everything may not be good. But God has worked it together for our good. When did he do that? After we had the problem when we pray, are we informing God of what is going on? Certainly not. There’s nothing wrong with hashing out the problem to God. There’s this everything right about pouring your heart out to God. If in your heart, there are feelings of fear, anger, even doubt, bitterness, pour it out, at the feet of Jesus. He is our Savior and Jesus knows how to love, even what’s messy, what’s gotten messy, and he doesn’t leave it like that. He doesn’t leave us like that. He works those things together for good, he brings about good in us, for us, and even through us.
So, that’s what having an intimate relationship is all about. It’s about being able to show somebody, into you, inside of you, whether that’s good, or bad. And there’s some modeling in there, some great in there. Some things that need improvement, some things that you couldn’t improve on it. The point is, this is an intimate relationship that we have with the Lord Jesus, and He wants it all. He loves every bit of us at every time. He wants us to pour out our hearts to him. We can see that in SAMUEL, what Hannah did that. We see just how wonderful that worked out for her. That she poured out her heart to God and she didn’t hold anything back. Not the bitterness, not the anger, not the God I don’t get it. Why God, like everything, she poured it all out.
There is nothing wrong with hashing out our problems to God. If in your heart there are feelings of fear, anger, and even bitterness, pour it out at the feet of Jesus.
We see it continually in the life of David. It actually says as he writes on, I poured out my complaint to God. He didn’t come with thanksgiving and praise all the time. He’s well known for being a worshiper. But David would on a regular basis when he felt the need to do so he would complain, he would pour out his complaint to God, he would ask God, how long and why haven’t you done this shit, God, and why haven’t you delivered me yet? God. I mean, he asked God, the tough questions, so to speak, and God at the end of the day has this to say about David’s life. He’s a man after my own heart, God is pleased with David, how much greater is God pleased with us? Now that righteousness is a gift. It’s a gift, you can’t mess that up. It’s been given to you. God gives gifts without repentance without the changing of his mind or revocation of the gift. So we can’t even mess that up.
So it’s just best that we walk in a revelation of that gift, we operate as if it’s true because it is true. And that’s how you can see manifested tangible evidence of the fact that God has made us righteous via a gift through what his son has done in fulfilling the law on our behalf. So, we want to tap into that we want to realize that we want to talk about that we want to praise God for that. And that should give us an assurance to go to God boldly to come to the throne boldly, as he told us to do. And if that means coming to the throne, happy feel with tears of joy and praise and thanksgiving are flowing from your heart or coming to God and right you got your hands lifted up, but one of them’s balled up in a face and you like God, if I could, I probably would just try to swing on you. Now religions not going to be glad about that. But in a relationship, sometimes it can get rough. You might not have done it, but you thought about it. And that’s the nature of a real relationship when you got any human being involved. Now, God doesn’t feel like that about us. But we can feel like that at times about one another. And even we can feel like that in our relationship with God because that’s the human side of us and we’re in this broken world and the devil is trying to break us.
So, sometimes when you’re going through things, you know, a tumultuous situation that you’re in a really serious challenge that you’re facing. Everything that comes out isn’t sugary and sweet. Some things that come out, are like God, if you don’t help me, I’m not helped. I feel like I’m losing, you know, and so that’s okay. God will love us continually as much as need be as many times as need be into wholeness, He will do that. So feel free to go to the Father with the good, the bad, and the ugly because Jesus Christ has indeed made you righteous before God and God sees you as righteous as Christ Jesus is when you’re crying, complaining or you’re praising and paying homage okay, it’s all the same for God. Glory be to God.
So our key scripture from this particular series comes out of Deuteronomy 31:8. It says, and the Lord is the one who was going ahead of you, He will be with you, He will not fail you or forsake you do not fear or be dismayed. And when we read this scripture within his context, we see, this is the reason why we don’t have to fear, right, this is why we don’t have to dismay. And this is so important because the devil has literally no power over you. Christ, Jesus has given the believer the power. So the devil is doing the same thing he’s been doing in the garden, he has no power. So he tries to get you to use your own power, your own god-given power against yourself or against others because he doesn’t have any. He’s been disarmed, he has no weapon, so to speak. So he wants to get you to pick up the weapon and turn it on yourself because he can’t take you out. So that’s the next best thing.
So we have to be reassured that God has gone before us, he’s determined the end of the beginning. And the end is this, the outcome is this, the outcome is you win, in the end, you win. It’s not possible for you to lose because God works all things together for your good. So He catches the bad, works together for good, catches the good works together for good, catches the I’m not really sure what that was and works together for good, you can’t lose it really is a fixed fight. What Jesus does really is finish work. So this beloved is not good news is great news, at this point is great news.
So we saw last week looking at the book of Esther, it’s where we’ve been on the last maybe like three different episodes here that her uncle Mordecai had discovered a plot to kill Esther’s husband, who’s the king at the time and expose that and Esther got it back to her husband, they confirmed it. These two guys very close to the King who worked in the kingdom had indeed plotted his assassination and they would have been successful, except God hats an ester into the kingdom, her uncle discovered the plot and exposed it to Esther who told her husband in a timely manner and saved his life indeed. So this is great news. Now, we saw also that a particular man named Haman had risen up basically in power around about this same time. And he is somebody who just even has a long history. And I mean, even in his family, his bloodline has a long history of hating the Jews. You can sort of think of him as another long line of Hitler’s at this point, hating the Jewish people. So, that’s a deadly dangerous hate right there. And we saw that even though Haman got promoted, he’s almost like second in the kingdom at this point. He’s like the king and then after that, it’s him. But that wasn’t good enough. He wanted everyone to bow down to him. He’s a very proud man.
Mordecai being Jewish bows to no one but the true and living God and He knows that Haman, isn’t it, so he’s not bowing to him, okay. And Haman becomes infuriated, to say the least, it’s very upset, everybody else is bowing to him. But that’s not good enough. It just really bothers him that one thing, Mordecai won’t bow to him. Now there’s a lesson here, God showed me. The enemy tries to get us to focus on the one thing that bothers us the one thing that’s not right, that one pending prayer or petition before God, and not focus at all, and lose total sight of the multitude of blessings, the multitude of answered prayers, the multitude of things that are going right, and just focus in on that one thing that irritates or bothers us. He did that to Haman successfully, and it costs time in his life, and so much more. So we don’t want to fall into that trap.
Jesus is the solution. He is the maintenance, resolver, and solver.
We want to even if we have to write it down, and read it and recite it or even remember it, it’s that important that we think about and speak about the things that God is doing and has done. Even should get to a point where even when you’re discussing the things you’re waiting on God to do, you can do it in a way that you call things that are not as though they are. You can go from a petition to praise as far as just that same prayer request, you just put a Thank You God in front of it. You know, thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are giving me that new job that I asked you for and so much more that sort of thing, as opposed to just getting stuck in that place where we’re just repeatedly asking God for that same thing. He definitely loves us. He definitely heard us and we can switch over, out of petitioning to praise. I do believe that’s, that’s the next step. That’s the next level is taking your faith up there and faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God and I like to mix my praise with sheer promises. from God, even if I start off saying, I thank You that You’ve heard me because the Bible talks about God hearing our cry and answering us repeatedly. In fact, that’s in the Bible.
So I like to say, God, I thank you that you have heard me. You’ve taken the time, being God, as important as that he is, it doesn’t get any more important. But you still hear me you still even translate a tear that falls through my eyes when I can’t articulate what words, what it is that’s bothering me. God is so very, very good. And so I thank you that you’ve heard my cry. You’ve seen my tears, and surely you will answer me about the following. And then I fill in the blank. So that’s the way we can take it from petitioning God to praising God. And doing so helps us to not just get focused on that one thing, or those two things, or those few things that we’re still waiting on God to do, the enemy tries to use that agitate us. I do sincerely believe it’s how he tricked Adam and Eve into falling in the Garden of Eden, he got them to focus on the one thing that God said they couldn’t eat from that one tree.
He said, You can freely eat from all the trees but then, there’s just this one tree the knowledge of good and evil, that’s not good for you. So don’t eat from just that one. But like countless trees are here and you got the tree of life, you got Jesus Christ Himself in the midst of the garden, you know, partake and partake as much as you want to from all of these, but the one that’s not good for you, please refrain yourself. And the enemy just had him focusing on the one tree, not the billion other ones that they could eat from. So he’s been doing that from the beginning. And you see He tricks Haman with it here. So I only stopped for a minute because God showed me this as I was going through it and studying with the Lord, and I wanted to share it with you. Because when he showed it to me, I could see an area of my life where I was falling for this.
So, God is always on time, like I said, and I told you guys, I’m on stage, but I’m in the audience, like simultaneously. It’s just amazing to me. So, we saw how Mordecai stood strong, firmly believing God and how do we know he stood strong in his faith, firmly believing God because he would not get up and bow the Bible talks about Mordecai, just sitting in the gates, he refused to stand up, he refused to defend himself, he refused to try to vindicate himself, he refused to try to straighten Mordecai out, he refused to do God’s job, and no one can do God’s job. So it’s better to say it like this. He refused to try and do God’s job, he refused to fall into that trap of the enemy that says, Come on, and do something about it come out of your role as the one who receives from God and coming over into the role of being a false god. Because so long as you’re doing that, you’re not in the place where the blessing is coming. And you won’t receive the package because you won’t be there. I’ll have you somewhere else doing something else running around like a chicken with your head cut off, as my mom likes to say.
So, Mordecai didn’t fall for it. He didn’t take the bait of Satan. That’s good news, am I right? And he just didn’t flinch. We talked briefly about other examples in the Bible when people didn’t flinch like the three Hebrew boys, it really is good. And if you get a chance, like I said, You should go back and really listen to that. So then moving on from there, as the story proceeds to go on, Haman. I mean, he goes totally out of control focused on this one thing, that he doesn’t have Mordecai’s worship. Okay, you’re not God, you shouldn’t have any ones worship. But nevertheless, everybody else’s worship wasn’t enough. He wanted it from everyone plus Mordecai. So he became so to speak, hell-bent on having everyone worship Him and bow to him. And when that didn’t happen, he began to take some very, very ill, just spiraling downward thoughts of bitterness and hate and decides he’s going to go to the king and lie and trick and trap the king into issuing a decree. This is similar to the devil right there.
See, the king is the one who has the authority and the power. Haman represents Satan in this particular story here and he goes to the king, which is symbolic in this moment as like sons and daughters of God who have an authority who have power, and he doesn’t have any himself. So he has to go to the king and get the king to use his power to do his dirty work. Because he can’t do it, he wants to murder, not just Mordecai, it’s not enough that he do that, that he does that. He wants to murder, every one of Jewish descent, even women, even children, he doesn’t care and he wants to plunder and spoil their goods. Just strip them there, of every earthly good after their dead bodies are all over. This man is evil. He represents Satan, no doubt in this story.
God gives gifts without repentance.
So he goes to the king and he tricks him. He’s like, I want to do something good for you. This is all about helping you. We’ve got some disobedient people here in the provinces, and I want to get rid of them. And don’t you worry about how much it’ll cost to send out soldiers to slaughter them all, I’m going to pay for it. So, he even puts up the money and puts it in the King’s treasury. And he gets the king to agree erroneously to his plot of evil to kill all the Jews. Now, remember, still, the king doesn’t know that his wife is Jewish. So what he’s basically doing is signing off on Satan killing like more than probably half of his constituents. How are you going to be a king, you don’t have a kingdom or subjects. Okay, that’s one thing. But another thing is, he’s talking about, give me your signature and your power to murder your own wife.
I’m pretty sure this is a sensitive area for the king how to work out in his first marriage.. So now he’s gonna have restoration from God. And he’s got a godly woman who doesn’t just have a beautiful wife this time. She’s beautiful, inside and out. This is wonderful. It’s like the daughter of Sarah how they talk about in the New Testament of the Bible. So, he’s been restored. This is much better than before. And she is humble, she submitted unto God, I mean, it just got a praying wife. He’s got an unbelieving wife, and this is great. And here comes Satan to kill her and basically kill the king, when he finds out not only has his wife been murdered, just because of her race, but also She’s been murdered because he signed off on it. That’s enough to put a man in an early grave. So, It’s just interesting how Satan has literally no mercy, whatsoever.
So praise be to God for Jesus who came to give us a life and life more abundantly, because clearly, it was the devil moving through Haman to bring about death, in every way, death to people’s literalized, death to their families, death to their marriage. I mean, he was coming for their throats, to say the least. We can see here this phrase that’s often used will recite, but God, right, this is just a perfect place to park the but God because if it wasn’t for God, this would be the end of them. And we know Jesus, God sent in human flesh as a Jew. So we know just how important Jesus is to all of us Jews and Gentiles alike. So this was very, very significant right here. There’s a lot riding on this beyond the Jewish people who live during that time, is the lineage that Jesus Christ will come through. And that would end up saving all of us are giving people access to be saved for all eternity, and fulfill God-given destinies and purposes. I mean, it is very, very big, what is happening during this time, and thank God for victory, not just for their sake, but for ours.
So, it just was wonderful how God went before them. And he has Esther in this kingdom. At this time. She’s a praying woman, and he has Mordecai related to Esther, at this time, and he’s a praying man. And God had done all of this because he knew Haman was rising in power. And he knew that Haman was going to do exactly what he did and that is, order the murder of every man, woman, and child who was of Jewish descent. I mean, this guy is the definition of evil. So, he did that. The king, as I said, erroneously agreed, lend it to Satan, his power. With that power, he said, He’s going to kill them all, without mercy. So, this date was set by rolling dice, so to speak. At that time, they cast a lot, set the date, and then decree went out in every language, every province and all the Jewish people were finding out that all of a sudden, without a court case, without a trial without a chance to appeal, the sentence had come in for them in their children, husbands, and wives, grandmothers and grandfathers, that they would all be killed on the same day.
Wow. I mean, wow, you thought they may be opening up a bill with red lettering was bad news. And it’s serious or not. And if you take a series, God takes a series, no question, but this here was a different kind of mail they had received, they were going to die. And at that time, the king had signed off on it. So there was no appeal. Even the king could not change his mind. That was the law at that time. So, it’s looking pretty dismal. Pretty bleak at this time for them, but God, okay, so, Mordecai goes. He makes sure that Esther finds out what’s going on, because obviously, she didn’t get that mail at the palace. But she finds out that there’s this death date, so to speak, and it would include her uncle that will include any friends that she has anyone that she was neighbors with before, and it would include her because she’s Jewish, and there’s nothing in the decree that says except his wife. It just simply says every Jew, man, woman, and child.
So, Esther was going to die too. Now, this is interesting that one time what God did was, He allowed one night for the king not to be able to sleep. It was during that time that the king got the idea from God to have Chronicles, the history of the kingdom read to him, as it was read to him. They came across the time when that plot was discovered by Mordecai to stop the people from assassinating the king. And God reminds the king at that point. Have you ever done anything for Mordecai, he saved your life. So the king is up now and Haman is coming in and getting ready to tell the king. Not only does he want to kill every Jew, but he also wants to expedite the death of Mordecai and hang him on gallows that he built 10 cubit tie I believe it was that very same day.
But since God goes before us, the night before is when the king couldn’t sleep and be reminded, it just so happened to be the person who’s reading the chronicles the history of this entire king’s reign comes across the pages where it is written in the scrolls how Mordecai saved his life. So the king is up now and he is ready to honor Mordecai. But Haman is also up and he’s rushing into the palace to see the King and tell them he’s ready to hang Mordecai. Before Haman gets his request out, the king says, you know, Haman, I want to run this by what do you think we should do? What do you feel like I should do as a king, when I really, really, really want to honor somebody. I mean, it’s somebody that is really significant, really important. And I just want to bless them. Got any ideas? and Haman thinking arrogantly because I told you he was very proud, just assumed in his own heart He Who else could he be talking about except for me? And that was perfect.
See how was perfect that he was still proud. It was God who left him proud like that because pride always precedes a fall and he clearly needs to fall and he needs to fall hard. Because we see what he’ll do if he doesn’t fall he’ll kill everyone. So we got to put him down at this point. So Haman goes and he says, you know, put him on the king’s royal robe that he wore, put them on the king’s horse, parade him through, like this whole town publicly in front of everybody. And don’t just have anyone do it. Have one of the king’s top officials do it. So the king agrees. Great idea. Love it. Let’s get it done right now. You, get the royal robe in the horse and parade Mordecai. So Haman is horrified probably at this point.
The same guy who had just struck horror in every Jewish heart is now in absolute terror sees with fear at this point, because he’s thinking oh god, Mordecai Jewish not only though I have a current hit out on him and everybody else who’s Jewish. I also was just like, 10 seconds away from saying hang him, already built the gallows. But the king is beyond friends with him. He wants to honor him. Like he’s never honored anyone else horror story for Haman. This is getting really good. And to me, I see a bit of sarcasm with God. And some humor. I sent humor right here. As long as you’re not Haman, this is very funny at this juncture. So he’s parading Mordecai through, you know, this shall be done for the man who the king delights to honor. And he’s parading them around. He’s announcing this.
So, it’s interesting to me that this same Haman wanted Mordecai to bow to him and worship Him and serve Him. Mordecai refused,, he gives only his worship to the true and living God. And God turns it around where you know, God could have just had Haman killed but before that, he kills pride. It precedes his actual death and downfall. God makes him have to publicly parade Mordecai around. I mean, this is why we really can fall back and not plot the hurt or revenge of people who’ve come against us. Because when God does it, I mean, you have to literally keep from laughing. I mean, God always adds a little humor. I think God is funny. That’s where we get our sense of humor from is just a fraction of his and so we can see God has for His people, he’s fighting for his people, and that he sends himself before us because he was long before Haman’s hate manifested before he was in that position of power before he tricked the king into using his power, you know, even to his own detriment, plus the detriment and death of all the Jewish people.
We see that God had already sent Mordecai in there to plot. I mean to discover the plot against the king’s life, and had told it to Esther who got it ahead of time sent in there as his queen, and God was just ahead of the enemy. He’d gone before his children but he was lightyears ahead of the devil as well. And our Bible says that God is the same yesterday today and, forever. So that’s where we can find our risks that now we’re out of time. Now we’re going to pick up next week where we left off. So we don’t rush through this and we can really get from it everything that God has for us. But until then, I love you, God bless you and keep you and continue to be a light in the darkness, dispelling the darkness for good in your life, showing you that he’s working everything together for your good and manifesting his presence in this regard as the God who has definitely gone ahead of you and who works everything together for your good in Jesus name, I pray. I love you so much.
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