Road Rage

The speaker is expressing gratitude for the opportunity to bring God's Word to the people. They talk about how God is leading their ministry in a new direction and encouraging them to enjoy their work. They mention receiving a word from God about the topic of "Road Rage" and begin to discuss a scripture passage from Psalms 105. The passage talks about God's covenant with Abraham and how He fulfilled it, even through difficult circumstances. The speaker emphasizes that God is a covenant-keeping God and that His plans may be beyond human understanding. They highlight the importance of trusting in God's promises and His ability to fulfill them. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! People of God, praise the Lord! It's another wonderful Sunday and as always we are delighted and grateful to Almighty God for the opportunity to bring God's Word to His people this evening. Last Sunday was great fun. It was great fun because, like we had been saying, it's evident to us that God is taking this ministry in a different direction. And that direction is, from what we are observing, it looks to us like the Holy Spirit is trying to do things nice and fresh. The Holy Spirit is trying to... He wants things fresh. Like we had said before, when we began this ministry we were very, very fearful because we knew we were handling a vision from Almighty God and we wanted to get it just right. And along the way God has been gracious to us and God has been saying to us, relax, enjoy yourself, enjoy studying, enjoy preparing, and enjoy delivering the message. God is saying to us, enjoy what you are doing. And so we are very grateful to be able to relax and also learn and have a good time as we work on this assignment for God. And we noticed, we observed that in this vein, usually two days before our meeting, sometimes even the day before, God sends a Word. God will tell us what He wants to talk about. And so God has released a Word and our title for today's conversation, we have subtitled our subject, Road Rage. Road Rage. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, we honor you, we worship you. We appreciate your presence and we appreciate this opportunity to bring your Word. It is not a small thing. We are very honored that you would find us worthy. We invite you now, oh God, by your Holy Spirit, teach us. Teach us what you want us to see. Speak through me, Holy Spirit. Lord, this is about you, Jesus. Let there be less of me and all of you. In the end, we want to give you all the glory. Help me, Lord Jesus, to do justice to your Word. I hide myself in Christ today. I sanctify this atmosphere in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I bring the blood of Jesus Christ against any spirit contrary to the Spirit of God, an assignment against the teaching and the preaching of the Word of God today. In Jesus' name, Lord, I ask for the anointing that makes teaching and preaching easy. I anoint my tongue to speak even as the oracles of God tonight in the name of Jesus. Let every ear that hears this Word be anointed to receive it. Every heart be anointed to change. Let this Word go deep down in our spirits and grow that we shall be transformed and edified. In Jesus' name, amen. So tonight our scripture, anchor scripture, is from the book of Psalms 105. So we're in the book of Psalms 105. We're going to read it. It's a long reading. We're going to read from verse 7 to verse 24. So that's Psalms 105, 7 to 24. I read, He is the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the earth. He hath remembered His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations. Which covenant He made with Abraham and His oath unto Isaac, and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance, when there were but a few men in number. Yea, very few and strangers in it, when they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people. He suffered no man to do them wrong. Yea, He reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no harm. Moreover, He called for a famine upon the land. He broke the whole stuff of bread. He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant, whose feet they hurt with fetters. He was laid in iron until the time that His word came, the word of the Lord tried Him. The king sent and loosed Him, even the ruler of the people, and let Him go free. He made Him lord of His house, and ruler of all His substance, to bind His princes at His pleasure, and teach His senators wisdom. Israel also came into Egypt, and Jacob sojourned to the land of Ham, and He increased His people greatly, and made them stronger than their enemies. Praise God, this is God's word. This is the story of Joseph. This talks about Joseph when Joseph was sold to slavery by his brothers. But more importantly, it talks about God's covenant-keeping power. God is a covenant-keeping God. God is a covenant-keeping God. The Bible is telling us, in verse 7, that God made a covenant to Abraham. God made a covenant to Abraham. And you know, when God makes a covenant, He never forgets His covenant. He never forgets His covenant. The Bible says, My covenant I will never break, nor the word that has gone out of my mouth. When God speaks something, He does it. So at that point, when God makes a covenant with a man, it's no longer about whether God will do it, it's now about when. It's now about when, and about how. But when God makes a covenant to a man, God fulfills His covenant. Whatever is necessary to get that covenant fulfilled is what God does. And you know, as human beings, when God brings about the fulfillment of His covenant, it amazes us. It amazes us because we are limited in our ability to imagine. God is beyond our understanding. God is beyond our imagination. And so that's why, very often, it's futile for man to try to unravel how God will get something done. And so God makes us a promise and says, I'm going to do this great thing in your life. And in your mind, in your natural mind, it seems so fantastic and so impossible. And so because you, because of your limited ability as a human being, because you can't figure it out in your mind how God is going to do it, you decide that because you can't see the possibility of it, it must be also impossible unto God. But God's word says, Luke 137, with man it is impossible, not with God. All things are possible unto God. And so we see here, in verse 9 of our scripture, that God has made a covenant to Abraham, and God has not forgotten his covenant. And in verse 10, we find that God confirms the same word to the descendants of Abraham so that they will know that this covenant I made to your father, it's still active. It is still active. I have not forgotten. It is still active. It is still on the move. And the Bible says in verse 12, that God made this confirmation to the children, the descendants of Abraham, Jacob, when they were still few. And the Bible, I believe, is pointing out that they were still few because at that time, looking at the people and how few they were, it would almost boggle the mind that these few people, how are they going to become a great nation as God had promised Abraham? God promised Abraham that he would become a great nation. Abraham at that time didn't even have a child. But God said to him, a man with not even one child, that he would make him a great nation. And then, according to the time of life, Abraham, who had no child, now had descendants in Jacob. And at that point, they had moved from being zero descendants to a few people. At least now they were bearing fruit. But the Bible says they were few. But God confirmed his word to the few. The same word that produced that few from zero, God reminded them. This word, I gave it to your ancestor Abraham, when even this few people didn't exist. But that word birthed this few. And God, the Bible says God confirmed it to them when they were still few, so that they will know that the word is still active and still on the move. Hallelujah! And still on the move. Now, in verse 14, we find that the Bible says, God suffered no man to do them wrong. You know, there had to have been some passage of time between when God reminded Abraham's people, in verse 12, of his covenant with Abraham. There had to be time between when they were few to when they will become a great nation. And the Bible says that they moved from nation to nation. They moved from nation to nation. This is verse 13 now. When they went from one nation to another nation, from one kingdom to another people. They were a people on the move. On the way to the fulfillment of God's promise to them, they were on the move. And remember, they were few. But the Bible says in verse 12, God, in verse 14, the Bible says, God, He suffered no man to do them wrong. God preserved these few people. Along the way as they moved from one nation to another nation, from one kingdom to another kingdom, on the way to destiny, God preserved them. As they progressed towards destiny and God, God preserved them and suffered no one to do them harm. They were on a move. Moving in a path. Moving in a road that God had mapped out for them towards destiny. Many things would have happened on that road. Many things would have happened on that road. And some of them would have been enraged. Because some of them would have disagreed with how God was doing things. Why couldn't they just be in one place and be a nation in that one place? Why did they have to move from nation to nation, from kingdom to kingdom? Why couldn't they just be in one place? But God had a plan. And that plan even involved a famine. That plan even involved a famine. Verse 16 says, Moreover, He called for a famine upon the land. God called for a famine upon the land. He broke the staff of bread. This couldn't have been something enjoyable for God's people on the move. Here they are moving from nation to nation, kingdom to kingdom. And now they're in a famine. Now the staff of bread is broken. They had to have been some rage on that road as they were moving to destiny. Many things had to have happened on that road. But regardless of what was going on, one thing is clear. That road was a road designed by God to bring Abraham's seed to the promised land in covenant with God. God had a covenant with Abraham. And God had made up His mind. He was going to fulfill His covenant with Abraham regardless of what it took. And the road to fulfillment of that covenant, the road to destiny, involved moving. Involved wilderness experiences. Involved attacks because God wouldn't have had to... This is verse 14. He suffered no man to do them wrong. He reproved kings for their sake. So there was need to reprove kings because kings had tried to do harm to His people. They were exposed even to harm as they moved in God's plan, on God's road. They faced suffering. They faced threat of suffering. They faced famine. They were in God's road. This was not a path created by the enemy. This was the path that God ordained for them to journey on the way to the promise. The Bible says God, not the enemy, God called a famine in the land. A famine was in God's plan to bring about purpose. To bring His people into the place of fulfillment of covenant. A famine, lack, hunger, pain, tears were in God's plan. On God's road to destiny. So the next time you lack, the next time you're in a wilderness, it might not be the enemy. You might just be smack in the middle of God's plan. You might be on the road to destiny in God. The next time you lose your cool because of some suffering, because of something you lack, because you think the enemy is using witchcraft to prevent you from moving forward, think about this. God sent a famine on the land where His people were on the road to destiny. Think about that. Verse 17 says, God sent a man before them. Now, let's stop right here and examine the word of God. God sent a man before them. Who is this man? Even Joseph, who was sold for a servant. Whose feet they hurt with fetters, he was laid in iron. Joseph, who was sold for a servant. Who sold Joseph for a servant? His brothers. His brothers threw Joseph in a pit. They actually wanted to kill him. It was the benevolence of his oldest brother, Reuben, that ensured that he wasn't killed, but ended up being sold into slavery. His brothers, whom God had given to Abraham as descendants. His brothers, whom God was in covenant with, tried to kill the vessel that God intended to use for their salvation. His brothers caused Joseph to end up in slavery, caused Joseph's feet to hurt with fetters of iron. His brothers did this, but at the time they did this, there was no famine yet. At the time they did this, there was no need to move from where they were in search of food, but God knew that they were going to have to move. And how were they going to move? Why would they move? Because of famine, which God was already preparing to send. So you see, it was all in God's divine plan. God sent the famine. But you see though, the Bible is recording the events, not how they happened, because when the famine was in the land, Joseph was already gone ahead. But the verse of scripture comes before Joseph's slavery. But in the turnout of events, the famine came after Joseph was sold in slavery. And so now his brothers detest him so much because of his ability to dream, and because of his intimacy with God, because of the favor he had from his father, because of the intensity of his father's love for him. That's all he did. He didn't offend anyone. He was just loved too much. Loved too much by God and loved too much by his father. So this love that he didn't create, he didn't ask for, it was just love. It was grace. So the grace upon Joseph was so great and so heavy and so mighty, it invoked envy and jealousy in his brothers, who sold him into slavery unknown to them. This same Joseph was a man ordained by God to go ahead of them in fulfillment of God's covenant to their father Abraham. But at the time they were doing it, they didn't know. They didn't know that they were working for God. When people work against you, when they conspire against you in the office, in your marriage, in your family even, people that you love with every inch of your heart, and you will set yourself on fire to keep them warm, and they hate you so much, and they conspire against you, and they throw you away hoping they'll never hear from you, they don't realize that they are working for God. It's all in God's plan. There is a place that God is taking you to, and the road to that place involves these same people who are conspiring against you. They are ladders, they are rung, steps in God's ladder to get you to where you need to go. They don't know that. Even you don't know that. But from this story we can see it's all in God's plan. It's on your road, the road to your destiny. From time to time will involve betrayal from those closest to you. But you need to recognize that you are on a road designed by God to take you to destiny. And so you must understand that what's happening in your life now is all part of the plan. God, by the hand of Joseph's brothers, orchestrated slavery for Joseph, orchestrated pain and fetters of iron for Joseph. For what? To send him ahead, to send him ahead to Egypt because the descendants of Abraham were going to need a place to eat because a famine was coming, a famine sent by God to drive Abraham's descendants into Egypt. Something had to move them from where they were to where God needed them to be. And that famine was the instrument ordained by God to drive them into purpose. But when the famine came, they didn't know that. When they were selling Joseph into slavery, when they were throwing Joseph in the pit trying to kill him, intending to kill him, they didn't know that. But God did. Why? Because He designed the road. It was rage, rage against the grace upon the life of Joseph that made his brothers on the road to their destiny to throw their brother in a pit, rage. Rage on the road to destiny, road rage. And so Joseph now is sold into slavery and by the divine orchestration of the hand of God, Joseph ends up in Egypt because God needed a man to go ahead of his people to Egypt to enter into the rulership of Egypt and have access and authority over food so that when his people came, that man would be able to open up the granaries of Egypt to feed God's people. God had ordained that Abraham, Israel, was going to become a nation in Egypt. And there was a time, the timing had now begun, divine timing had now begun, so divine activity was in motion to bring about the logical conclusion, the covenant of God to Abraham. And so David is now in Egypt. David is now a ruler by divine providence. David is a ruler in Egypt. David is positioned by God to be able to show mercy to Abraham's seed when they showed up in Egypt so that they would find food, they would not perish and the nation of Israel would be born and preserved in a strange land. But the road to this purpose for Joseph was one of pain. It started in pain but it ended in honor and it ended to preserve a people so that they could become a nation. Joseph was an advanced party sent by God to Egypt to prepare a place for his people, Israel. Joseph would become a ruler which was part of the reward, part of the benefits of being in divine purpose. When you yield to divine purpose, there is honor, there is promotion. When you are available to be used of God to fulfill his purpose, there is reward and the reward is honor. Joseph would become a ruler of the people. In Egypt, Joseph who was thrown in the pit for having a dream, for being loved, would become a ruler in a strange land. Sometimes your own will not appreciate the grace upon your life. It will take you going elsewhere for your glory to shine. It will take you going elsewhere for the grace upon your life to shine. Your own will often reject you because they undermine the grace of God upon your life. Very often until you leave your familiar environment, you will not shine. Until you move from your familiar environment, you will not rise. The unique gift that God has placed upon your life very often is going to be speaking loudly when you leave your familiar environment. Don't be afraid to leave home. Don't be afraid to leave your father's house, your mother's house, your tribe, your people and go to a land which I will show you. Because it is often when you take the bold step of leaving behind that which is familiar to you that you get to an environment where you now have to use everything that you have to become, all that God has called you to be. Then you shine. When you shine, when you become what God has called you to be, those who didn't believe in you, those who disparaged you, those who undermined you, those who mocked you, they now come to you and you will have to teach them how you got where you got. Because the Bible says now that Joseph was made a ruler of the people in Egypt. He became a lord in Egypt. He became a ruler over substance in Egypt. He taught senators wisdom. Joseph was teaching elders in government wisdom. This is the same Joseph that they said he is a dreamer. This is the same Joseph that was so despised, they threw him in a pit. He is now in Egypt a ruler over substance, a ruler over men, and a teacher of wisdom to elders, to senators, to officials in a strange land. But the road to this point in his life was paved with pain and fetters of iron. Your road is leading somewhere. The lofty purpose that Joseph ended up in didn't come by happenstance. It didn't come on a platter. It was paved with pain. The wisdom which he taught eventually, he had to learn that wisdom on the road to Egypt. He had to learn wisdom. The wisdom he would teach to the elders, he had to learn it on his way to that position. Otherwise what would he have taught? What wisdom would he have been able to teach? He had to experience it. He had to live it. Your journey right now is designed by God for the purpose of teaching what you are learning now. It is not an accident. Life is tough. I know. I understand that. So many things have happened. I understand. But remember this. If God designed the road for you, God has also put a shield over you, saying, don't touch my anointed. Do my prophet no harm. God is reproving kings for your sake. There is a shield of protection around you because you are going somewhere. You cannot die until you get to the place that God intends for you to go. You can't die. You can't perish. You can't be destroyed. Nothing can happen to you until you fulfill God's purpose. The Bible says He reproved kings for the sake of His people. In the same way God is reproving kings for your sake because you are going somewhere. You carry destiny. There is a light in your hand and it's going somewhere. You must get to your destination. And there is a covering for your preservation and your protection that God has placed over you to preserve His purpose. You must get to the place where God has intended for you to go. Just like Joseph. Just like the descendants of Abraham. Joseph went through a hard time so that he could learn hard lessons. So that he could teach. He wasn't going to teach children. He wasn't going to teach youth. He was going to teach senators. He was going to teach elders. And that tells me that these are people who are already wise. These are people who have already lived life. So to teach them wisdom you have to have superior levels of wisdom than them because you have to teach them something they don't already know. So Joseph had to learn some hard lessons. He had to go to the school of hard knocks to be able to teach the caliber of people that God was taking him to. It was necessary. God had designed the road to Joseph's destiny just like that. You stop crying about your experiences. I know it's hard. But God is teaching you something. And he needs you to learn, to pay attention so that when the time comes for you to teach what you are learning, you can teach it well. You are going to teach wisdom. Everything that's happening to you now is designed by God to accelerate your learning so that you can rise to superior levels of wisdom like Joseph, so that when God introduces you to the highest echelons of society you can teach wisdom, superior wisdom. And you can teach with accuracy, with power, and with divine deportment. Stop crying. Pay attention to what God is trying to teach you. And ensure that you don't hold grudges because God is going to use different people to get you to where he needs you to go. It could be someone in your family, someone you have served, someone you have been a blessing to and they come, turn around and betray you like Joseph's brothers did to him. Joseph understood the assignment. He knew that Satan intended to use his brothers to destroy him and his destiny in God. But he knew also that God meant it for good. That's why he said to his brothers when they finally met, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. When the day of manifestation came, Joseph didn't bury his testimony. Joseph didn't keep pretending he didn't recognize his brothers so that they could go back to Egypt and suffer and die of hunger and starvation. Joseph didn't reveal himself and say, oh, well, you meant it for evil, but see me now. Joseph understood the divine orchestration of God's hand and he said, God meant it for good to bring about this day. He fulfilled his purpose in God and God got the glory. And God's covenant to Abraham was fulfilled because God sent a man ahead and the man did his job and did it well. He understood the assignment. Can you imagine everything that Joseph went through? The shame of false accusation in the house of Potiphar. Many things would have happened because remember, Joseph was a young boy. Even though he was wise, he was still a boy. He would have done some things. He would have made some mistakes. Many things would have happened on that hard road to purpose. But he wasn't enraged against God. He wasn't enraged against his brothers. He understood the assignment. He understood the assignment. So you also, stop hiding. Stop hiding from your journey in shame, in fear, in low self-esteem and low self-worth and low self-confidence because you've made mistakes, because you've been hurt, because you did some things and you just really want to hide and to forget and you don't even think God can use you because you've done some things and because your history is so checkered. You are hiding because you are ashamed. What you need to understand is that that road, the shame, everything is in God's plan. God designed your road to where he's taking you. He already saw ahead of time everything that was going to happen to cause you to feel shame. Just the way God knew that Joseph's brothers were going to be so envious and throw him in the pit and God knew that he was going to send a famine and God knew that because of this famine now, the sons of Abraham were going to be forced to leave where they were so comfortable and move to Egypt and it would have been uncomfortable for them where they had to confront Joseph whom they sold to slavery who they threw in the pit and they would have had to bow down to Joseph. Imagine having to bow down to your youngest brother whom you threw in the pit. Imagine all of that. God knew all of that ahead of time but it was all in God's plan. Your feelings of shame, everything that happened to you to cause you to feel ashamed, what's making you feel afraid, what makes you feel less than, makes you feel like you have no confidence is all in God's plan. Stop hiding your testimony because of what happened to you on your journey. Stop being afraid. Stop being angry with God. Stop being enraged with God because of what happened to you. God allowed these things to happen because it's all part of the grand plan for purpose. And you shouldn't bury your testimony anymore. Your lack of confidence, your deep shame, deep, deep shame that's making you so ashamed that you are quiet. You are failing to declare the marvelous things that God is doing in your life. All of that is a delight to Satan. The reason is this. Revelations 12, 11. The Bible says, they overcame him, him, Satan. How? By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. The word of your testimony that you are refusing to share, that you are sitting on because you are ashamed, you are afraid, you don't feel bold enough. That is the key to your victory. The blood of the Lamb is already shed on Calvary. The blood of the Lamb and the power therein is already available and that works on your behalf. But it is a combination, the key is a combination. The blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony. That's the combination. It's got to be two. It's got to be two. So, the blood is already waiting. The blood is already available. The blood is already powerful. The blood is already active. But it's a two-fold combination. It's a key. And without the other, without the testimony, you will not overcome. Satan knows this. So he will do whatever he can do to keep you quiet. To prevent you from giving glory to God. To prevent you from using the other key that is in your control in order to win and overcome him. He doesn't want you to overcome him. So he's going to subdue you, to try to subdue you by your mind by preventing you using anything and everything, shame, fear, anxiety, anxiety, mental imbalance, whatever he can find, he's going to use against you to ensure that you don't use that key that is in your power to use and combine it with the word of God already made available to you and already active and on standby. Satan is going to prevent you from using the key in order to overcome him. Don't let him do that. Don't let him do that. Because that thing that seems so painful to you now, that seems so debilitating, that is paralyzing you effectively and not allowing you to step up and rise to the levels that God has designed for you on your road to destiny, that thing that's making you so mad and so angry with God, that thing indeed is a platform, you know. It's a platform designed by God to bring you fame. If only you will see it correctly. If only you will see what you have been through correctly. If only you will see what you have experienced. If only you will see that your life's journey was necessary for you to get to the promised land. Like Joseph, your pain was necessary. Your shame was necessary. There is no way Joseph would have got to rulership in Egypt without the pit, without the palace, without the prison, without Potiphar's house. There is no way he would have ended up in the palace without the road to the palace ran through pain and fetters of iron. The road to your palace runs through pain, fetters of iron, shame, fear, disgrace. The road to where you're going runs through what you're going through. So go through, so that you can get to. And do it quick. Allow God to use you. Because once you yield yourself to God, there is reward. Joseph was rewarded with rulership. And Joseph was rewarded with restoration of his family. God used Joseph to establish the nation of Israel in the land of Goshen, in a strange land. God used Joseph who was thrown in the pit to birth an entire nation. Joseph was an ambassador for God. But his journey went through pain, went through fetters of iron. But in the end, there was reward for him. God was glorified. And a nation preserved. Hallelujah to Jesus. So my prayer for everyone, including myself, because I'm dealing with some things myself. We're all dealing with something. My prayer is that God will give us grace, abundant grace, to recognize that that thing that holds us down, that thing that prevents us from going for God is actually in reality a platform designed by God to bring us honor and to glorify himself. Amen. Hallelujah to Jesus. Well, again, it's been a wonderful time in God. Wonderful time in His Word. And we've had a great time, especially hearing straight from God. Because these are deep, deep, deep things. For me, anyway, these are deep issues that only the Spirit of God can reveal. And I trust God that as many as have heard His Word tonight will open their hearts and let God go in by His Word and just do some cleaning and just do some pulling out and just do some restoration and let God just put some things in order. What needs to be pulled down should get pulled down. What needs to be rooted up should get rooted up so that God can build a new thing. Amen. In Jesus' name. So we always like to end our meeting with a prayer. We like to start with a prayer. We like to end with a prayer. And so now we pray, Father, in the name of Jesus, that you will open up our hearts and let your Word take root in our hearts. We pray that the words that we have heard, O God, will come alive and serve the purpose for which you sent your Word. Help us because in our own flesh we can do nothing. We thank you for truth. We thank you for light. We thank you for strength. Until we meet next week, Lord, protect and preserve us all and be a shield for us. In Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Thank you, everyone. Till next time. God bless you.