Cover The Spread

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.

I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.

Be sure to.

Subscribe so we can get you these new sermons every week. I hope you're blessed today. Holly already announced everything, so I don't have to do it. I can just get straight to the word. I preached a message last week called Challenge the Shadow.

That message was about how we don't just accept.

The natural pattern of things because we are people of faith. So when the enemy says you're going down, you don't go down without a fight. That's what God gave you your faith for. And that message is online. Now you can take that message and put it together with this message because I am going back to the life of Hezekiah to bring you what we might sort of call a preaching prequel, to show you something else that happened in his life.

Now I like to do this, Okay.

I was telling my oldest son this week, I loved Oh yeah. By the way, hey, everybody online, I love to take the Bible and make sure that we get the historical context of what was happening, but not leave the Bible in the historical context, but make it helpful for your life. And that's something I really believe in. One of my seminary professors who trained me told us that our job isn't to apply the Bible to people's lives, it's just to teach them what happened in the Bible.

I can't do that. It's not in my heart to do that. That's not how God wired me.

And so when I come to the scriptures, I'm always asking a couple questions, what happened here, and then what's happening in the lives of those that you've called me to help?

Lord? And so that's kind of how I pray.

Now this week, we're coming to an issue in tewod King's chapter nineteen in the Life of King Hezekiah, where you know he last week he almost died, and the prophet said, you're gonna die, and he's like, wait, I got more to do. And the Lord's like, all right, you get fifteen more years. And he flipped a shadow

By human hands. Now, Lord, our God, deliver.

Us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God, and God answers him. Skip all the way down to verse thirty four, so you can see in action what God said. Actually, I like verse thirty two too much to skip it, so go to thirty two. I gave him all of these scriptures, so this one is really good. Therefore, this is what the Lord says in response to Hezekiah's prayer concerning the king of Assyria, who is Hezekiah's enemy.

He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here.

He will not come before it with shield, or build a siege ramp against it.

By the way that he came, he will return. He will not enter this city, declares the Lord.

I will in this city and saved for my sake and for the sake of David, my servant.

Watch this verse thirty five.

That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death one hundred and eighty five thousand in the Assyrian enemy camp. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies. So Senekareb the enemy King of Assyria broke camp and withdrew.

I bet he did.

After that one hundred and eighty five thousand of your soldiers dead will make you go home. So the Lord told me to give you a message from that story today and we'll talk about it. But he said to tell you this, God is going to cover the spread. Anybody received that just by faith, like even not knowing who Snekareb is yet, but you receive it by faith that God is going to cover the spread. Lord, your word never returns void. Whoever it's for, God, shoot it

Lord, we pray for these sinners, these hell bound.

Philistines, these uncircumcised philistines betting on sports. Far as I know, not by experience, but I just asked chat GPT.

It said, cover the spread means.

I bet one time on a basketball game, the only time I ever bet on sports, only time I ever bet on sports, and.

I lost three hundred dollars.

And I bet on the Oklahoma City Thunder because my friend, Pastor Craig Rochel lives there, and I thought he had a strong enough annoying pull me through, and I lost the money. Sound do anymore but cover the spread? I mean, you heard it before, but maybe you're too holy to know what it means. When they make the odds in Vegas, then one team is favored by say like seven points, and so if that team that's favored by seven points wins, but they don't win by more than seven points, then

Not only are they up against.

The fiercest dude who has ever occupied the throne of Assyria named Seneca Rib. Anybody a pregnant looking for a baby name Seneca Rib not.

Taken, you, kidd, to be the only one. You're welcome.

This guy, when he would take his enemies right to send a message to everybody else, he would often he would often not only hang them from trees, but he would flay their skin and hang their skin from the trees that's the kind of guy we're talking about here in tewod King's nineteen just to give you the picture, and not only to mention that, but he was a trash talker that made Connor McGregor.

Look like mister Rogers.

If you follow mma, I'm using all the worldly analogies just to hook the hook the hook the people in today Graham. But he is occupying the throne of the fiercest kingdom that has already taken the northern part of Israel.

If you studied the Old.

Testament even a little bit, you'll remember that the kingdom was divided. Well, that's already happened, and the northern part of the kingdom, those ten tribes have already been taken away into captivity. So now Senekareb is coming for Hezekiah, who was a good king. I told you last week. He was a good king. He followed God, he trusted God. But now Senekareb is sending some messages to Hezekiah, going you're next, and Hezekia is like, no, please, uncle daddy, what do you want me to say?

Don't do it to me, you know, just just leave us alone.

We've seen what you're capable of We know you're undefeated, undisputed, and we don't want it with Senekareb.

So what do you want? You want some gold?

Hezekiah starts stripping the gold off the doorpost of the temple.

That's how bad it was.

It would have to be bad for you to take the temple where God lives and start taking stuff off of the doorpost of the house of God to get your enemy to go away. But when the enemy messes with you enough, you will start stripping very valuable things. You will start stripping very valuable things and giving away parts of yourself that are very very important, just to get him to leave you alone.

The problem with this is Senecareb is in't.

It's not like you just give him a little bit of gold and he goes away. You give him an inch, he takes a kilometer.

It's worldwide ministry.

So now Sinekareb is coming back talking about you know what, I know, you've got an alliance with Egypt. In fact, he sends these field commanders, these messengers to Hezekiah's messengers, and they meet up at this aqueduct that's going into this field, and they're they're like gathering around trying to figure out is he gonna leave us alone? Is he gonna take us too? Are we next? Is he gonna completely decimate us? Is he gonna knock down the whole temple?

Now, so the field.

Commander starts speaking about what saneka Reb can do, and they're saying stuff like you're gonna end up eating your own excrement and drinking your own urine.

Is in the Bible?

They say that they recorded.

I can't imagine what they didn't put in the Bible that these boys said.

And Hezekayah hears.

That, and he knows that the odds are against him being able to defend.

Himself against Senekariv.

So he tears his clothes.

Which is a sign of mourning, humility, and repentance, and he begins to seek God about it, but nothing seems to change. So after he saw God for a little while, he hooks up with the King of Egypt and he's like, will you help me fight this guy.

And the king of Egypt is like, all right, well, Senecareub hears.

About that, and he's like, it's still doesn't matter because I'm Senekarev.

Have you heard of me? Have you seen what I've done to all the other nations?

And he sends a letter to Hezekiah and he asked.

Him a question.

In the letter, will God really deliver you? That's what was in the letter. In the letter, he lists all the other kings that he's defeated who tried to stand up against him. He says, none of those nations were able to be saved. What makes you think you're any different? Where are the kings of Leir and Cephar, Vm and Hennah and Eva. I can't pronounce these names, y'all, but he puts all that in the letter. Now, when you get to verse fourteen, I want you to understand this

But the scripture back up, because I want you to see that's not what he did at all.

All right, because I feel like there are some people who are listening to me preach today, and you are carrying a letter of your own that was sent by an enemy into church today. I can't see it, and it's not on papyrus. But some of us have what I would like to call emotional scrolls that we carried into church with us today. It's rolled up so no one can see it.

It's tucked away.

Not a letter that was written by human hands, perhaps, but a letter that is written in your heart. The words of the enemy that he has spoken. Senekareb loves to get in your head. In your head? How many of you tend to be a lot of times in your head too much?

Now.

The reason those of us who are in our heads too much are in our heads so much is because all of the people who are in their heads too little.

Somebody has to think, for y'all, oh, we're never going to get these bills paid.

Holly's so good for me because I'm in my head all the time. She's in the moment. Take that however you want. I'm not saying that I'm smarter. It's just like she's so good for me, though, Like this used to annoy me in our marriage. You know how they say in marriage, opposites attract and then after marriage opposites attack, and.

So it used to make me so mad.

I'll be telling her something so deep, like if he watches over every spau and I think she wasn't looking listening, and she'd be like, I'm like, what are you think about?

She's like the grocery list.

But I liked eating, so I was glad that she was thinking about something kind of practical while I was thinking about something ethereal, abstract and spiritual because.

I don't want to fast.

And our marriage in many ways has been a merger of her style of processing and my style of processing, which I'm in my head a lot, and she's really good to get me out of my head.

I was on the.

Brink of meltdown like four years ago with some stressful stuff that was happening with the ministry, and she goes, I.

Know what we're gonna do. We're gonna go for a walk.

When she said I know what we're gonna do, I thought she was gonna give me the solution. There's like a complicated situation, and I'm like walk, She's gonna go, she says, She goes, Yes, as people do.

It's not that deep. We're going to walk. You're gonna feel better. She was right. When I'm in my head.

When I'm in my head, the problem that I'm considering seems completely unsolvable.

When I'm in my head, it.

Appears to me that I have no assistance available. When I'm in my head. Every text message that somebody sends me has a secret, covert, malicious intent to it.

Why'd they say it like that? Why'd they use a comma? Why is there no period? Why does that EMOCHI have drool coming down his mouth? Now that is weird. I should look into that. But you know, you start.

Reading into everything when you're in your head. Oh man, why do they say it like that? Why do they look at me like that? They weren't looking at you. It's completely ridiculous for.

You to think that everybody in that video game called Your Life is a NPC and you're the main character.

But yet we do that when we get in our head. Have you been stuck in your head this week?

Is that?

Why? Which one's my main camera. I can't remember the top one. Okay, okay, have you been stuck? Let me start over.

Have you been stuck in your head this week?

Is that what's been happening in your life? That God took me all the way back thousands of years before you were even born, before you even got in this battle that you're in, before you even started feeling these symptoms in your body, before you even started feeling this that has you completely wound up and unable to.

Deal with your life? Is that why God had.

Me studying about a king who thousands.

Of years ago, before you and I were ever even a thought, before you and I wherever even a shimmer in our mama, in our daddy's eyes, before you and I were ever.

Even a part of this planet.

This king, named Hessekiah, gave us a pattern for what to do when the enemy tries to get in your head?

Aren't you glad for.

The strategy of God? Because honestly, I need a strategy.

I need to know how to do battle in my brain.

I need to do I need to know what to do when what I believe about God is telling me one thing, and what I see in my life is saying another, I need to know.

How to respond to senecarev.

I've got my own senecarebs, and they send me letters. They are my personal fears, they are not yours. My fears speak differently than your fears, because my devil is custom designed to defeat me according to my weaknesses and my strengths, and so is yours.

So the challenging thing for me today can I preach?

Can I preach?

Is that I know what this Bible says, but I don't know what your letter says. I know what this word says about what God is and who God is and what he can do, and what faith is, the substance of things hope for and the evidence of things not seen, and what his word is, the everlasting seed which produces change. I know what his word says. I

You know that company where.

You can't fire anybody. I don't know what your letter says, but Seneka rebtold Hezekai, I'm gonna kill you.

I'm gonna wipe you out. It's gonna be humiliating.

Sometimes the letters that the devil sends me to get in my head is he tells me that something in my life is going to happen to cause me great shame.

And let me tell you another thing.

The day we live, then you don't even have to do anything wrong to be publicly shamed. So that can feel like a real threat, can't it. When things are going good in my life, Seneca rev tells me it won't be this way long. When things are going bad in my life. He've lives the script, it's going to be like this forever. Sometimes when I preach, they'll say, it was like you were reading my mail, and the Holy Spirit will read your mail.

Today. We came to see what we need to do.

When we're holding a letter in our hearts of condemnation for our past that is behind us and forgiven by the blood of Jesus, But we don't feel forgiven, so we keep repeating it. We came to find out what to do when we're handed a letter of impending doom, even when there's no clear indication that it's going to happen, but you imagine it. And I'm gonna tell you why to keep imagining it. You need to stop listening to so many serial killer podcast chunks.

Just messing with him, that's my dude.

And sometimes we feed ourselves the raw material, and then the enemy makes our letter out of what we feed him. And then sometimes it's more passive than that. Sometimes it is things we didn't consciously choose. But whatever the situation is, it stopped me in my tracks when I saw what Hazekiah did about the letter that he received, and it helped me so much that I wanted.

To pass it along to you today. You want it Verse four.

He received the letter from the messengers, and he didn't rip it up and pretend that it didn't exist, because that's one way to handle it, right.

Some of us we don't deal with anything that we feel.

We don't deal with anything that we think, We don't deal with anything that we need to work on. We don't deal with anything that's stressing us out. We just rebuke the devil of stress. But if you rebuke the devil of stress without fixing the source where some of your stressful situations are coming from. I was trying to rebuke the devil one time, and it was like the Holy Spirit said to me, you're trying to rebuke the devil when you need to rebuke your decisions and reverse them.

And make better ones. Am I reading your mail? Is that what that feels like? Yeah?

So he didn't rip up the letter because I think that's a lot of times how we're taught to do this fate thing right like just to now, No, I believe God's gonna make it better, and it doesn't matter what the enemy says.

Well, the truth is there are some things that we have to deal with.

This is not a king who's receiving a threat that he can just ignore. He actually does have to respond to this threat because, as we read at the end of the chapter, there's one hundred and eighty five thousand Assyrian soldiers waiting to take him out. So if he gets the letter saying hey, we're coming in and just goes.

I don't focus on the negative. I'm an optimist. You're gonna be a dead optimist. It's gonna be an optimist with a crown on is what You're gonna be, Hezekiah optimist with a crown.

But there's gonna be no head on your shoulders. It's gonna be rolling on the floor. You're gonna be an opt a headless optimist, a dead optimist, and a lot of people are like that when it comes.

To their faith. I rebuke this bill.

The power company doesn't cut it back on because you said, let there be light.

You can put Genesis one over the power bill all you want in the dark.

So so watch his response.

He doesn't rip up the letter saying, well, that's not true. You're not powerful, you can't do that. Yes, yes, it is true. It is real.

That's the reality of the situation.

The second thing that I noticed that he didn't do, and I'm telling you what he didn't do, so that when I show you what he did do you will have something to compare it to. He received the letter. Remember, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill you just like I killed everybody. I'm gonna kill your family. I'm gonna take your kids out. Your kids are gonna end up on drugs. Your kids are gonna end up divorced. Your kids are gonna end up workless because you yelled at.

Them this morning. That's it goes for me, is spiral's real quick.

I would just be a little too harsh with the kids, and the devil will be like, that's why you're gonna be bailing them out of jail right there. They're gonna have a needle in their arm right there. And it all started with you. It can spiral real quick.

Now.

So this is the second thing that Hezekiah didn't do. When he got the letter from Seneka rev. They're like, hey, King, we don't know what to do. We can see you've already ripped your clothes. It is a bad situation. But he sent another letter. So he received the letter verse fourteen again, and he read it, watched this, and he read it again, and read it again, and read it again, and read it again, and read it over and over

Hear in their own language the threat of the enemy.

And then he began to study it, and he broke it down into different syllables, and he made songs around it, and he began to sing the songs of Senekareb.

That's not in the verses it. I can't prove this, but I think when.

It says, please put the verse back up, that he received the letter and he read it, that he only read it once. And after he read it once, look what he did next. He read it and then he went up to the temple of the Lord. You don't even know how annointed. That is what I just showed you. That's what stopped me in my tracks. When I read that verse. I stopped and I said, oh, that's my problem. When I get a letter from the enemy, I read

So he read it. Somebody shout. He read it, he dealt with it.

He faid did he accepted it, He acknowledged it.

I'm in debt. I'm I'm overweight, I'm I'm stressed out, I'm busy.

I'm I'm torn apart right now. I'm not in the position I need to be in to make the difference in the life of my kids.

I'm not the example I want to be.

Okay, I read it, But after he read it, he didn't stay down in it. Because if I stay down in it and memorize it, then I'm gonna get more of it. But come on, y'all, twenty twenty three, let's follow Hezekiah.

And do what hes Akaya did. What did he do?

He read it, and he went up, and I came to call you out today.

And tell you it's time to go up to the temple and see what the Lord says about this situation. Because if you stay in your head, you're dad. If you stay in your head about this, you are gonna go.

Through hell over this, and the enemy won't even have to shoot a single arrow because he will defeat you by getting in your head and causing you to forfeit, the very thing that you couldn't lose if you would stand.

Firm and see what God has said. He went up, he went up, say it. He went up, He went up to the.

Temple, and he took the letter with him, just like you came to elevation today and you brought your letter with you. Oh yeah, you don't get to leave it at home. You take it with you everywhere you go. It is tattooed on your heart, the thing you really deal with, the thing you really worry about, the thing you struggle with, the insecurity.

That talks nasty to you.

I put in that detail about the excrement and the urine because as although you were grossed out about it, one, I wanted to take your appetite down so you could sit through the sermon longer and not be hungry for lunch. And number two, I wanted us to think about the crap that the.

Devil really says to us. Senecrab literally talked crap to Hezekiah. Literally, and I'm not.

Using that word like people do when they use it to mean the exact opposite of literally. I literally died.

Figuratively opposite were.

It's a little pet pee.

He tells you stuff that you are trash, that you are done. Holy Spirit won't do that to you.

The Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus. Jesus is righteous, Jesus is in you.

The Holy Spirit will catch you the next morning and start talking to you about last night and how you want to do that different in the future. But he won't talk to your. Spirit won't talk to you like Saekaeb will. So that's not the spirit. That's not the spirit. This gave me a picture of what we so often do.

They spread inside of us.

To the point where now it's not only oh, I did that wrong, it's there's something wrong with me, and there always has been and there always will be. They say that the three habits of negative thinking are you make it personal, you make it permanent, and you make it pervasive. When you make it personal, it's not I was wrong when I did that. It's I am wrong, and I always do that, which is permanent.

I always That's how I've always done it. That's how I did it five years ago.

And you've edited out all the times you got it right because you just say I always do it like that. And then pervasive, of course, is just a fancy word to say, like you make it everything.

It's all like this, and I'm always like that.

When you take it and you put it inside like that, and you don't find a way to process these these patterns of thinking and these problems and the sin.

That we all still have to deal with.

It starts to spread not only inside of your heart, but it starts to sabotage the decisions in your life, and you find yourself losing good people who are trying to love you because of an insecurity that was in the form of the letter that the enemy sent you that you didn't know what to do with, so you stuffed it and it spread, And if nothing is there to stop the spread of that, you will continue to

Spread to the next opportunity.

So you'll spend ten months happy at a job until the old system of how you show up for the job catches up with you at the new one, and it spreads until your children see that mom and Dad can't have a healthy conflict and work through it, and they carry a template with them into their marriage one day, and you spend years and years of your life saying, I wish that I had known how to deal with this, because the last thing I wanted to do.

Was to pass this on to them.

And we stuff it and we hallelujah over top of it, and we get little scripture versus that we quote, thinking that they will counteract. I don't know of our own meditation in our heart, but it doesn't because if we stuff it, it's spreads. But who do I tell? Who do I tell what I really feel inside? And this is an important thing for me to stop and say right now, because You can't just take that stuff and spread it anywhere. You can't just use other people like they are.

I don't know how to put this, Like they are.

Your dumping ground, like they've got a hazmat suit on and they can just handle whatever you want to say. And what encouraged me about Hezekiah was he couldn't tell anybody because he's the king.

Are there any dads in here that you just wish for once?

For one and I'm gonna get to the moms in a minute.

For once your kids would be like, it must be so hard to be you. It is amazing what you carry for our family. It is amazing you bring home the bacon, and you taught me to throw a baseball.

You're my hero dad? How do you do it all?

But who do you tell when you're trying to seem strong that this strength that.

You see is costing me.

My own strength And I've got my own issues and I still feel like a thirteen year old sometimes.

I yelled at Elijah one time.

He's my oldest, so I have him a separate therapy fund for all the mistakes I make on him that I learned and then don't do with other kids. So I save that with the college fund therapy fun college fund.

I'm doing both at the same time.

And I just yelled at him, this is my first.

What was I talking about?

It's your first time being a teenager, it's my first time raising one, and now I'm confronting all of the teenage me that I didn't deal with before. That's staring at me and you, So please be patient with one another and bear with one another, and tell your therapist I'm sorry.

So what's hard about this.

Is that I know what my letter says, but I don't know where to share it.

Do I share it with my E group or would they kick me out or would they look at me different?

Do I share it with my wife or will she think I'm weak?

Do I just to the Lord in prayer because honestly, right now, I don't know if he's really up there.

I love the moment where y'all act like y'all don't know what I'm talking about when I say stuff in church.

No, he's always there, Steve, always for me. He's there.

Sometimes for me. I don't know what that means. To take it to the Lord in prayer, I don't know what that means. Well, Hezekiah gives us a way to go to God that I really think is going to help you with the letter that you carried in here today, whether it's condemnation, temptation, whether it's an insecurity, or whether it's an actual attack from the enemy that's happening in

Watch what Hezekiah did.

He received the letter from the messengers and read it, and then he went up to the temple of the Lord and he spread it out before the Lord.

He spread it.

Out before the Lord. Physically he did that. He took the scroll I liked it out, this would be the scroll, and he spread it out before the Lord.

Because if he carries it inside of himself, if he stays in his head, he doesn't know what to do. But he really doesn't know what to say either, So he spreads it out. Somebody say, spread it out before the Lord. Both of those are so important. One tells me what he did and one tells me where he did it, and both are important.

The first thing he did was he spread it out.

He's like, God, I'm not going to read this over and over and over again and imagine all the horrible things that can happen here.

Here.

And you need a space in your life for this season that you're in, for these challenges that you're facing that you've never faced before, for these Seneca ReBs that are going on inside of your psychological state.

Because I think this is a mental battle more than it's anything.

You need a space to be able to spread it out before the Lord, and often we don't because when anxiety comes on us, it has a way of pushing us back down, so we can't even sit with anything very long without sinking in to it.

To spread out.

Something before the Lord means that you can sit with him in an uncomfortable feeling, that you can sit with him even as the temptation is coming like a wave, that you can sit with him. And some of us have been convinced by the enemy that you can't sit with what you feel, So anytime you feel something uncomfortable, you just run from that. You just strip some more gold off the temple and say, here's Sanekareb. I don't like this feeling of being attacked, so I'll just do

So I'll just give the devil my gold. I'll just give the devil my peace. I'll even give him.

My whole family if you will just stop making me feel this way. We do not resist him, because somewhere along the line.

You have bought the lie.

That this is bigger than you. Well, it might be, but guess what I know about it.

Whatever it is, you know where I'm going, How big is it?

How big is this problem? How big is this in to me? How big?

You're like, it's really big, preacher, like, really really big.

How big is it?

Well, that depends what it's up against?

Here we go.

You're like, nah, I'm going through some real stuff.

You don't even know. You're just up here preaching. I'm going up against something that's real. Somebody shout is real.

Okay, it's real, But it's also a relative.

Everything is relative.

I found this out watching my dog, our dog.

I say, my dog, I don't do anything for him. It's their dog.

Their dog is a Boston Terrier named bo Do. Y'all remember when I told the whole church, I'm getting the family a dog.

I did.

He not too big, But when he was meeting his uh, his cousin, I guess Holly's parents dog.

What would that make them a relation? Anyway? What kind of dog is? Yo Yo?

Chihuahuah was a yo Yo and Coco. I'm gonna work this out, y'all in a million a morky? What's a morky?

All right? Coco is really little? Bo is big when he's with Coco. Bo met Coco.

Bo was a bully because he was big.

Then Bo met Toby. Their dog. Toby is a Golden doodle, bigger than a Boston Terrier. Y'all got the picture. Bo Coco Toby.

Bo was a bully with Coco because Bo was big with Coco. Bo with Toby was not a bully. Bo was a sweetheart. I don't want to get canceled. I'm only forty thirty. Bo was really nice. Bo was on his best behavior with Toby. Because watch this, how big it is, it's.

Relative to what it's up against.

So when the devil is ticking on you, that's a sign you haven't reminded him lately what he's really up against me. When he starts telling you there's no way out of this one, that's because you didn't take him to the God of Moses lately, who opened up in ocean to get his people through.

When he's telling you you're going down.

You didn't show him the God.

Of David lately, who can take a rush.

Tend of renegade, tent a rag and knocked down a whole army, and he's telling you.

You're not gonna make it. You haven't reminded him lately. Because he is God, so thad the odds, Yeah, God is we wear head.

The way Baker is in the house, Hume, the Oddsmaker is in the house.

You might be down by one hundred and eighty five.

Thousand soldiers, but God said, I'll cover.

Who what.

What?

Watch out if you want to be home.

In time for dinner, because I won't preach this thing to that Boston Terrier.

That's beniffit. It's your belief. Benip it at.

Your future, benipping at your sanity, benipping.

At your sobriety.

Pblic ride back every settle with the Mexico.

Say, hung in a high.

They stretched them lies, he saw my sin.

He stat is good.

They could it end up your house? Somebody set off? Cover just spread, come run, come, just stats you up. I know you're not enough. I'll cover it. I know you're not enough. I'll cover it. I know you don't happen by Do.

You have no idea who you're up against? Stephanel and it's not me. I'm a multi pood.

What'd you say? It was a mortie? Oh I'm a morkid.

But have you met my master?

Ha ha ha ha?

Where you're life? Come on, let's get ready.

Let's get ready to tell sinnemarea that the Agel is coming.

The Agel of God is coming, the.

Agel of God over your family, the Angel of God over your finances, the Agel of God over your physical diagnosis.

The ael.

So much I want to say to you so much. I want to say to you.

You've been giving God your problem and that's good. But let's change a little bit. Well, you say, I ain't a mooki over there?

What'd you call it? Moi? Moulah Morki? That's a that's a man of God right there now, Help me. Appreciate this. I'm gonna give you this for the rest of your life.

You listen to me good, and you listen to me young, and you listen to me now, and you'll play him back this when he's a little older.

Listen to this.

You can give God your problem, but make sure you also give your problem God, because.

I think that's what it is.

Right.

You've been spreading it out before everything and everybody but God. And watch what has a guy did. He spread it out before the Lord. And now remember it's not just what he did. He spread it out because this is going to be some of y'all. Right, you're going to take this message. You are going to pull out that overdrawn bank account balance on your app.

And say, here, God, I did what he said.

Here's my scroll, God, I am scrolling to this balance on my bank account and I'm bringing it to you here God, and the Angel won't come. But here's what he did that I thought was so significant when he spread it out before the Lord.

Verse fifteen. Please he prayed, He prayed, Lord, the God of Israel, enthrone between the Cherubim. What's that about.

Well, if you remember, in the temple was something called the ark of the Covenant, which was overlaid the kasha wood and gold on the top. On the top where the gold was two and a half cubits, there were two angels, one on one side and one on the other. Those angels had wings that were spread up, and those wings touched in the middle.

Exodus chapter thirty seven gives the details.

When Hezekiah was spreading out his problem before God, he was looking at the ark of the Covenant, where those angels had spread their wings over him. Where those angels wings on the cover, the golden cover of the wooden box that house the symbolic presence of Almighty God. Those wings were touching to remind Hezekiah that while you're giving me your problem and reminding me of what you need, make sure you remind your problem.

Of who I am, so.

Which spread am I preaching about today? The problem that you could spread out before God, or the promise that He has spread over you? And which one will you focus on in this moment of your life. When Hezekiah read the letter, he read it. Once he confronted the issue, he spread it. He read it, and he spread it, and as he did, look at me church, God was already spread over him. But you don't see that when

To hell with that. I don't want to see that.

I'm gonna say my kids are gonna have bumps and bruises. Yours will too, and none of us can foresee any of that. But when I see, yeah, the odds are against us. But God said, if you'll seek me, I'll cover the spread. I see you keep spreading out all your problems and all your reasons, but if you be grateful to me, I'll cover the spread. I see the distance between who you are and who you want to be. But if you'll let my grace in, I sent my

This is not abstract, y'all. You can do this as a daily practice. And I want you to.

I want you to take that problem, that persistent one that has become personal, pervasive, and you think.

It's permanent, and I want you to get a vision. Now.

I'm speaking to you by the spirit of God. This is not coming from my head right now. This is from God's heart through my.

Mouth for you. He said, I want you to spread it before me.

Maybe if the apostle Paul could join in, he'd say, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation Philippians four, verse six, let's teach this by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving. Ah present your requests to God. And that's what Hezekiah did. He spread it before God so that he wouldn't spread it to the rest of the nation, so that fear wouldn't spread, and get the best.

Of his heart. That's what he did. That's what we do.

You turn your problem into a petition and you ask God what I do about this, and when he shows you, even if he only shows you a little bit, you do that and you leave the rest.

To the angels. Because they've got you. I don't know about you, but I'm covered.

I'm not going to cower in fear over these things that are happening in the world.

I'm covered.

I will not give my mind to an algorithm or a news cycle because I'm covered.

I'm covered.

Just this week, I was having one of these attacks. You know, you just get these thoughts from the enemy, right, And it was really my ego, But at the time, I felt like, man, what just happened? That was very offensive and I was very self righteous about it. And Holly asked me about it because we didn't get to talk because it happened. It wasn't a big thing. If I told you what it was, it would just waste time. That's why I'm not telling you, because it wasn't that big.

What happened? And I started to talk about it. But I realized if I said what I felt in that moment, I would spread it.

I wasn't ready to talk about it yet. The next morning I woke up, I was still thinking about it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Woke up thinking about it. Wow, I was that about And I took my little notebook. I don't have a temple to go to, all right, I don't have an arc of the Covenant. I got my notebook and.

I wrote, Holy Spirit, show me how I need to see this. And I sat there and I don't won't to even sit there. I'm like, man, I'd rather be doing burpies right now that they're sitting here. This sucks. WHOA.

Sometimes you got to let the anxiety pass through because on the other side of that anxiety, on the other side of that anxiety is an awareness that you can't get if you just run every time it shows up. And what the Lord showed me next was so powerful to me. It was one of the craziest things that he ever located for me. He showed me exactly why I felt that way about it. He gave me a better story to tell myself about it, and we went and had the best breakfast, and we ended up talking

Now. I know it's not always that simple, But.

Do you have something in your life today that you need to spread before the Lord that you've been holding on the inside and fighting in your head?

Stand up?

Yeah, this is a place where you can spread it before the Lord. And I hear God saying this, Spread it before its spreads, before it just eats up all of your resources and all of your energy.

Get it before him. He can show you things, Church, He really can.

He's really alive, he's really loving, he's really personal, he's really active, he's really willing, he's really wise, he's really kind, he's really good.

And so now we see the Angel of God.

That as we spread it before him our problem, he spreads his protection over us.

Say I'm covered wire. We come to you today knowing that everybody is holding their own letter written in.

Its own tongue, speaking specifically to the troubles and trials of each individual child. Holy Spirit, I ask you now come manifest yourself through these human minds. So that we can recall what it is that we need to bring to you. But as we bring it to you, we declare that You're bigger than it. Yes, Lord, I hear you saying, we're looking at the wrong spread. We have forgotten the God who fights for us, to focused on the fighting that we're doing.

So Lord, now you called us into your presence. You brought our etham from around the world.

You brought your sons and daughters to our twenty church campuses, to all of the men and women and boys and girls who will hear this message. I thank you that you are spreading your feathers, spreading your faithfulness, spreading your favor. I want you just lift your hands as why as you can lift them, and just say, here it is God, Yeah, here it is. Here's the questions that I have, Here's the regrets that I have. Here's the anxiety that I

Say, greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. Again, Now, greater is he that is in me, Then he that is in the world. Say it again. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. If we start rehearsing the right things, we'll start believing the right things.

If we start believing the right things, we'll start becoming the right things. Greater is he that is in me, then he that is in the world. Somebody hot fives, somebody next to you say, he's greater, He's greater, He's greater, He's greater.

He's greater.

Angels of God inhabiting this space right now, setting over a canopy over his beloved right now.

Greater is he that is in me, then he that is in the world. The clear it seven times a day. Greater is he that is in me, then he that is in the world. Tell senek av Greater is he that is in me, then he that is in the world.

Come on, let's works of him together.

Let's work of him.

Hey. I hope you enjoyed the podcast, and if you did, make sure to share it and subscribe so we can get you all of these new messages as soon as they're available. I also want to take a moment and thank all of you who are a part of Elevation. Whether you support us financially, or serve with us, or just share these messages. It's because of you that we're able to reach people all around the world. And if you want more information on how to be a part

God bless you.