Women's Ministry Teaching

Hurry up and finish today so we can go on and get away tonight. Bless the name of the Lord. Really thank the Lord for his grace today, for his love towards us, for the power of his name. You know, the Lord is teaching me a lot right now about not believing what I see. And you've experienced the time when you were rising in your anticipation and your expectation and you see something that isn't right, you see something that says, in terms of the tangibility, it's not working. The Lord is right now teaching me to, when I see that, to not give in and say, I guess it's not working, I guess I'm losing the battle. We have come a long way in these last few weeks. I appreciate Christa's words to us very much on your behalf and Carol and I have learned a great deal in the book of Esther. It is amazing, isn't it, when you can take a book that doesn't even have the name of God in it and see so many of the principles of God. And, you know, we have to say that it wasn't because we spent hours and hours and hours together pouring over the scripture, I wish we could say that, but in our own times we dig and read and study a bit and then come back together and the Lord would just give us different things that I trust are meaningful to you and I want to review those for the sake of, how many of you have not been here all five times? Okay, those little kneelers there in front of you are for getting down and saying, if you've missed more than two. We have an evaluation, by the way, that we're going to give you, aren't we still going to do that? Okay. We studied these four things up until today. Number one, the first thing in Esther that we saw was the fact that she did not appear to be a spiritual woman. And I shared that in order to impart some comfort to those of you who don't feel that God could use you because you're not, maybe you don't come from a strong, profound spiritual background. Maybe you haven't been walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit or maybe somehow you just feel incomplete. Well we read how Esther didn't even identify with the people of God, didn't even go back with the remnants. She wasn't part of the charismatic move of her day and God used her. And the application of that, ladies, was he is looking, he is looking for vessels of grace. He's looking for women through whom he can flow his life and his spirit. I believe that today. When we started this time together, I told Carol, I just want the women to know how much God wants to use them. There's still a lot of inhibition in you ladies. There's a lot of trepidation and fear. Part of it was put upon you by men that didn't understand their security in Christ. Part of it's put on you by ignorance, not really knowing what God says. But I'm yearning for women to grow strong and to get past all of the little things that become pitfalls and snares that pull you down out of God's purpose and destiny in your life. The second thing we looked at was that Esther had to risk her securities to be used. Remember that? Mordecai, I can't go to see the king. I haven't been given any privileges of access for the last 30 days and if I go in there, the law says I'm going to die. Remember we talked week number two about the fact that in order to go on in the Lord, you've got to be willing to risk the securities that you so cling to. There is no change without risk, ladies. Can I say that again? There is no change without risk. If you're not willing to risk someone rejecting you or misunderstanding you or loss of some kind, if you're not willing to put your resource on the line, you won't change. So our application was that we need to have Mordecai's in our lives who will encourage us to take the risk. How many of you think Esther would have gone ahead if Mordecai hadn't been there? She probably wouldn't have even known about it in the first place and then secondly, remember Mordecai came to her twice. The first time he asked, the second time he told. We all need people who will help us to hear more clearly what the word of the Lord is and obey it. In week number three, we saw that Esther took radical action in order to bring about change. This is when we saw that she called for a fast for three days, she and her maidens and all the nation with her and that's when we made the point, ladies, that there are things in our lives that will not go away just because we wish they'd get better. There are things that will impede us from coming into God's best and his purposes in our lives and they will just flat stay there and all of your wishing and hoping will not change that. You've got to take radical action to bring about radical change. Carol mentioned to me that some of you wondered about fasting and she said even one or two were considering 40 day fasts and I call that radical action but let me also strongly exhort you to not do that. I feel that the enemy would love to deceive some of you into thinking that you can earn God's favor in this and that's not the purpose of a fast. How many of you have God's favor? The purpose of the fast is simply to bring down the power of the enemy over you. You look at the number of times in the scriptures when God's people employed fasting to confuse and confound their enemies. Think of 2 Chronicles chapter 20. Think of Nehemiah when he fasted. Remember what happened to all of his enemies? They just couldn't believe it but the king gave them all this privilege to go ahead and rebuild the temple. You fast in order to release a power against your enemies not to win God's favor on your life. I want to say to you if you jump into a 2 week fast or something like that and you've never fasted before you will find yourself oppressed. The enemy will grab that and in 2 or 3 days you'll be so miserable no one will want to be around you. In 40 days you could have a real problem. You could literally be dead. I don't want to have anything to do with people who would be looking for a way to bring some sort of a scorn or opprobrium on this fellowship because saying that the leadership is calling people to weird things. Some people fasted 40 days in the Bible. I believe that was divine and supernatural and I believe that in a rare occasion God will call someone to that but only after they have been led over a period of time and growing in that whole discipline and have the covering and agreement of their over shepherds and so on. If you need to fast begin by fasting this Friday with the fellowship. We're going to fast today and then read God's chosen fast by Arthur Wallace. Derrick Prince has some good material on fasting. I have a teaching at least one maybe two tapes in the tape library on fasting to give you some of the basics but radical action is required. Sometimes it just may be as simple as changing your sleeping habits and seeing that God can awaken you earlier in the morning to be alone with him and so on. I don't want to go over into these too much but our application on this one was this is often a process ladies. In other words some of you maybe have been under a bondage or an oppression or some limitation and you feel like if you go on a three day fast it will break forever. Well I'll say this if God leads you to fast on that you will set into motion the process which will break that bondage. As we'll see today one of the key ingredients of that and something that we even talked about a bit last week, week number four, the qualities of a woman God uses and one of those was perseverance and follow through. Can I say to you that one of the things about ministry that I've discovered is it's easy to get fired up for a short period of time. It's easy to let that old candle glow brightly isn't it for a few weeks even a couple months. But God's looking for the people who will persevere until they see the victory through. And our fourth application then was last week to discern our burdens, identify with them and step out and persevere until you see it done. Remember we talked last week and it was so important. Once you identify, once you see and sense the burden, now ladies let me make two distinctions today before Carol comes up, this is my last two things to say here. For some of you all that we've said has been just simply to help you deal with a personal problem and I know that. It may be a husband who doesn't understand God at all and thinks you're really going wacko on him. It may be a family member who is a child perhaps that's in rebellion and you've done anything a mother knows to do. It may be a job situation that you're in that just doesn't change. It may be darkness that you feel, I don't know it could be a personal problem. But I'm also talking to some women today about ministry, about moving out in life and in fact I'm in my spirit today, I'm sensing that God wanted me to focus on those of you who haven't risen into the fullness of ministry that God has for you. I'm seeing the first little trickle of women saying God's put a burden on my heart to do and I'm yearning today that when we leave this place, when you fill out this evaluation if you'll turn the page over and right on the back, God's giving me a burden to do this. I don't know what that means, I don't know when it's going to happen, but he's giving me that burden because you see, this is a day when God is calling men and women up into a place of destiny and I yearn today that not just those of you who are struggling with personal problems but those of you who perhaps see your life in God's order would rise into the ministry that he has for you. So today Carol's going to come and share with us the final step of seeing that release and walking in that victory that the Lord has and she's so excited this is the last time. We've had quite a bit of discussion this week about what I was allowed to say and I think, I know I'm doing real well and since you've made it possible for us to have such a lovely time, I'm not going to risk that, becoming anything less than just a real celebration together, but I could, you know, how many of you know there's always two sides to stories about dating? The right and the wrong. Hers and mine, right? But I think I'll sit down right now, yes I do. For those of you that don't know what was in the box, this is a little figurine of Esther. Isn't that nice? So I thank you for that, it will be proudly displayed. We left off last week seeing that the Jews had their day of reckoning to come. We left off that the edict had been sent out that they were to be killed on the 13th of the month, that everyone who did not like a Jew had the right to kill them. But because of Esther's foresight and perseverance here and God's just really ordaining these things to take place, a new edict was sent out and the Jews, they didn't wipe out the first one. I think that's interesting to see that. The word did not go out that you no longer had the right to kill them because that could not have been revoked. The word went out that the Jews now had the right to defend themselves. And I think as that day approached, they were immediately glad when they heard it. If any of you have ever been in a situation where it was just so desperate and it just looked so life-threatening or just so bad, whatever degree it might have been, it might have just been a final exam where you had to get a wonderful grade on to pass that course, when you realize that the outcome of that was going to be positive, rejoicing begins right then. And as we see throughout all the provinces of Persia in that time, whenever that edict, the renewed edict, got to their ears, they rejoiced right then. And I think that's encouraging to see. But what else had to take place before the full rejoicing could be seen? They had to have a battle. And in that day, 75,000 people were killed. I think if you look at Haman's edict, the one that he originally sent out, it said that anyone could destroy, slay, annihilate Jews, men, women, and children, and then plunder their goods, their possessions. This was the edict that was sent out that they could abide by. That had to be met point by point, which Mordecai did when he wrote. He used very much the same words. And as we see, when this actually took place, the Jews did destroy. They did kill, but they did not plunder. Even though they had the right to, they did not take the full measure of what they were allowed to do, which I think shows us that they knew what this edict was to do. It was not to make them wealthy. It was not to pad their purses at all. It was to wipe out and to root out the evil that was about to destroy a nation. And so they stopped right there. After that, they had, you know, that was to be in one day. After that, it said they rested, which I'm sure they would have to, and they feasted. I'd like to just talk about two things here this morning, because we do have something else we'd like to do with you, is to look at Hamans. How many of you have Hamans in your life? People that just absolutely dog everything you want to do. They're right on your heels. They're there to slay, annihilate you in some ways. Just as there are Hamans in our lives now, just as there were then, and there will be Hamans in the future, we also have a victory. We also have the weapon to come against that. It isn't the weapon of knives or guns or that kind of thing, but it is the weapon of Jesus Christ. If you look at the authority that he has over Satan, we can equivalent Haman with Satan in our lives. Being at work, what does Satan want to do? He wants to plunder, to kill, and to destroy anything of what God would want to see accomplished. But we need to see that we have the victory through Jesus Christ. If you look at, if you want to put that overhead up, there are a couple of references here that if you would, you don't need to turn to it, I can just read it, Matthew 28, 18. If you need authority to back that up, Jesus says himself, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. We can either believe that and act on it, or we can just let it slip through the cracks and not make any difference in our life at all. It has been stated, we can count on it being true. Colossians 2, 14. There goes the rest of my teaching. Excuse me, Colossians 2, 10. And you have come to full fullness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. I think we need to see, as we come against the things that are destructive to our life, that we need to recognize that Jesus has the authority over that. We also need to see that we can expect a battle, and that we need to be ready for that. But if we stand on the authority that we have in any circumstance and be ready for that battle, we will see the victory. I'm sure there are examples in your own life that you can think of where you have seen the victory, but it did not come without a price. Whether it was through prayer that you just had to battle the gates of hell to see that something was broken through, or just standing on the word, what we find here, and saying, God, you said it, I believe it, I'm going to act on it, and then we're going to move on. But we have the ability to see that victory. Some of us don't even realize that there is a battle, and that's a problem. For lack of a better analogy, I thought of a football game, and the different kinds of people that you see there. There are different degrees of people who know there's a battle going out there on that field. There are those spectators who come just because they were asked, and they have no interest in a football game, or whatever it might be at all. And you may ask them, what's the score, or even who's playing, and they have no idea. They are not interested. What kind of celebration will they have at the end as to who wins? It will be slim or none. There are those who are the cheerleaders on the sideline, who are aware of what's going on in the field, but they are not themselves physically involved. The degree to which they celebrate the victory will be different as to those in the stands who aren't even aware of what's going on. And then you have the players. Those who know there is a battle. Those who are actively shedding blood, sweat, and tears in that to see the victory come about. The degree to which we enter into a battle to see the victory is the degree to which we will celebrate. If someone asks you to pray for something, the degree to which you pray about that and persevere in that is the degree to which you will rejoice with that person when that answer comes. And if it's your own life, which I would think we would have more interest in persevering in that area, the degree to which you are consistent and follow through with that answer to your prayer is the degree to which you will celebrate in the end. And that celebration, we'll talk about in just a minute. I was thinking about some things that Esther was doing. I just jotted down some things that she did to follow through to see that this full need was met to save her race of people and herself. First, she recognized the need. She prayed. She fasted. She ordered her steps in saving her people as to what she was going to do. She was instrumental in having Haman put away. She had a part in writing of the new edict. She extended a day of the defense of the Jews in Susa, which is the city where she was. So instead of one day to defend themselves, in that particular area they had two. And she formally or permanently established that the Feast of Purim should be celebrated year after year. I would say that was follow through. And I would say that probably in each one of those categories, certainly when she went before the king and she had the scepter released to her or extended to her, that she was celebrating along the way in each one of those because she was seeing God at work and God really ordering things to be done so that the full victory was going to be there. She knew it was going to come. If you have a problem with follow through, if it shows up in house cleaning, you go to clean the kitchen and you just wipe the tops and you don't wipe the bottoms of the counters, in whatever area that if you iron and you just iron the fronts of the shirts and not the back because whoever sees the backs anyway or the sleeves, follow through might be something that you would need to come before the Lord about and see, is this something I need to improve on? Is this something that I need to be conditioned in? To make sure that what I am seeking to see happen is going to happen. If Esther, I feel, had fallen short in any one of these areas, that full extent would not have been met through her. God would have done it. It would have happened, but she would have not had that full rejoicing. Don't you think she was exciting when she got to the feast? Because she knew that she was instrumental in each part of that and God really used her. Then they come to the feast. This is something that Jay and I are really growing in and having children, it's very easy to celebrate with them. We don't have to have a big occasion to celebrate. If I see them sharing something, I celebrate. I make sure they know that we're excited about that. It's no different with the things of God. We need to remember what He has done for us and to remember along the way if He has done something meaningful to you, we don't want to just say, we want to make it a celebration. We want it to be a special time, not just that time. What will that do to your faith? It will absolutely build it for the next battle that you have to face. If we don't have that, if we choose not to celebrate, choose not to remember, I think we cut ourselves off from a very important learning lesson that we need to have. The Jews obviously knew that God in the Old Testament very often, if not every time, would have them establish an altar. They crossed the Red Sea. What did they do? They built an altar and gave thanks to God. Noah comes out of the ark. What does he do? He builds an altar and sacrifices to God, giving thanks. I don't think it's any different today. I think it is so much for us, not that God needs to have that, but I think we need to do it, that we keep our focus so much on Him that we aren't allowed to say, gee, I did this myself, but God was instrumental in it. God did it. A couple of things that the Jews were celebrating, which I think we can identify with that. What their feasts signified. Do you know what Purim means? P-U-R stands for lot. P-U-R-I-M is a plural of that, which stands for lots. It was their lot. Cain had cast the lot for them to be destroyed on that day. Names throughout the Bible are not insignificant. It is not insignificant that Isaac's name was chosen for Isaac, because what does Isaac mean? He was the son of Abraham and Sarah. They were very old, obviously not of the age to have children, and God said, call him Isaac, and that means laughing. It was not a joke, but it was just an unusual circumstance that these two would have a son. I think it was a remembrance to them because Sarah did laugh. She thought it was, this is really not physically possible, which it wasn't, but it was God possible, and that's what he wanted them to remember. What the feast meant, it meant that their lot had been cast to be destructed, and that was turned around. When they thought of that word lot, they knew that this was a day, a change from mourning, mourning meaning sorrow, to laughing or to a holiday, and that's what they were celebrating. Their life was wasted away. Now their life had been given back. They also celebrated relief from their enemies, and they also gave to one another. They gave to the poor. This is what their celebration included, and then in the permanent proclamation that Esther established, it was to be celebrated year after year that this was something they were to remember, to pass down to their children, generation after generation, to remember what God had done for them on that particular day. Two other things that were just interesting to me as I did some research that really don't have anything to do with this, but I'll throw them in real quickly and we don't have time to develop it. There was a statement I read. It said, God is able to work with the absolute minimum to accomplish the absolute maximum. If you look at the numbers involved in this particular day, there were 73 million Persians at this time. Three million of them were Jews. How many people did God use to change the course of that history? Two. One of those was not even really into it. She had to be convinced. That is amazing. If you think that God can't use you to overturn a drastic situation, an overpowering situation, one that to the eye just looks formidable, one that cannot be changed, God can do it. We have to get past our eyes and start looking through God's eyes and saying, God, if you can do it, then go ahead. The other thing I thought was interesting is that looking at Mordecai, he went from obscurity to a place right next to the king. That tells me that God saw something in him, something that had not been established before this time. Obviously, he was not at a place of importance before this. If you're standing around the gate waiting to hear what Esther's doing, that is not the most important thing probably in the world to do. God raised him right up there. Listen to what it says at the very end. Esther 10 says, He was great among the Jews and popular with the multitude of his brethren, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all of his people. He was just raised someone who had latent gifts, latent qualities that God knew were there and God knew that he was the man for the place where he was. He just orchestrated things to the point where Mordecai was right up there rubbing shoulders with the king and the people recognized that. We don't hear anything like this said about the king himself, but we hear these qualities spoken about Mordecai because he cared about the people and because he took hold of the opportunity that God gave him. He didn't say, No, I can't hold a place next to the king. He was willing to say, God, if this is where I'm to be, then I will do it the best that I can and through your strength. Those two things I just want to give to you. As our lives are surrendered to God, he will use them completely, but it does require that surrender on our part. Let me reiterate one thing about the feasting, the celebration. I couldn't see the overhead. Did you list the things that she did there? Jot these things down, ladies, because this will help you to have a good feast. First of all, be clear as to why you're celebrating. We've been talking in many respects about very significant victories here over the last weeks, but maybe God will just give you what I call an intermediate victory. Maybe there will just be something that you know is on the right track. For example, maybe you've been struggling to sell your home. I know some people that have had that problem. Well, to me, an intermediate victory before the thing was all closed and settled and so on, an intermediate victory would be when somebody came with a sincere interest and you had a person there that was interested. I would just celebrate that God proves that you're moving. It may be another two months before it's closed and you have the money in your hand, but I'd celebrate the fact that God is moving to bring interest. It's just an illustration. Second, share your joy. Give a choice portion to someone else. I think it's really a neat idea to have someone else over with you to celebrate, not just at a birthday or anniversary. Some of you ladies are really creative and I know you can come up with just neat little things to do and invite someone from your home group or a friend in the fellowship or just a person that you know. Come share this joy with us. One thing that we do and it's been fun for us. I wish we would have brought the plate, but we have a red, just a real bright red plate. Maybe you've seen it. It's on a very beautifully calligraphy-looking kind of lettering on the side that says, You are special today. We pull that plate out every once in a while when someone in our family has an accomplishment, whether it's a birthday or something like that. That's sort of automatic, but we try to even do it when they pick up their room. You can just make up reasons to celebrate. We need more of that. How many times do you feel it's oppressive in this house? Let's have reasons to celebrate and have little things that are visible remembrances of victories that you're winning along the way. Another thing that Esther did was she gave gifts to the poor. I don't know exactly how you would apply that, but I would think that it would be a blessing for us from time to time to be able to share something of our benefit, something of our increase with the poor. Give some of it to the Samaritan Fund or share it with a family perhaps that needs some blessing. Two last things. Never fail to remember it. Don't miss an opportunity to rejoice. We need those. The final thing the Bible says that they did is they recorded it. Very interestingly today in our prayer meeting this morning, Jack Signes shared that he felt the Lord was charging us to call to remembrance the victories of the Lord by having a book. He got this out of Malachi 3. A book where we record the things that God has done so we wouldn't forget them. We have a little book like that in the healing ministry, but we need it in an overall sense. Those are five or six ways to cause a feast and a celebration to really be significant. I think as Carol was saying, don't miss the fact that Jesus Christ in all of these things has won that victory. It's a matter of the appropriation of your faith to see it through. That's the very last thing we're going to make today as a point. I want to ask you ladies before we dismiss, do you have any questions about any of these things? Don't put your stuff away because I have one more thing to show you, but do you have any questions before we conclude? Any questions about Esther or about the principles we've been talking about? 20. Why do you submit to regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things which all perish as they are used according to human precepts and doctrines? They have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh. You know what that's saying? It's saying to me that we can deal with the externals sometimes and never really get to the root. God wants to deal with the root. Now I think it's okay to sometimes discipline yourself and say, for example, I'm not going to watch TV for the next month. I have one of the brothers in my Bible study on Thursday morning is doing it, took his TV out of the house. Why did he do that? Because he saw the TV was an obstacle to his spending time with the Lord and he was staying up late night watching TV. That, in a sense, he was fasting his TV for 30 days, but he was led of the Lord to do that. Now, if he looks to that to be the thing which is going to somehow make him more acceptable before God, forget it. But what it's doing, it's getting him in a position where he can let God rule in his life. So, in a roundabout way, my answer to that is yes, we can fast other things. Yes. No, I have... Oh, go ahead. Put that up. Alright, this is Esther. This is our last week. So, she was assured the victory, but she needed appropriate faith. Then she feasted. And our final application is that Jesus has won our victory. And that should be over the curse of the law, sin, and death. Jesus has won our victory over... My overhead maker was a little out of tune this morning. Jesus has won our victory over the curse of the law, sin, and death. If you don't know the new covenant promise, ladies, just begin to study that. We're teaching some of that on Sundays. What Jesus has won, the book of Galatians, he has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Sin and death, you know, that's just meant so much to me lately. But faith must apply that victory to our circumstances. We just don't automatically get better. That's what we've been saying. It takes your faith. And then celebration is complete when we see the fruit right there in front of us. Celebrate the victory that you're appropriating by faith. And in fact, can I suggest this? Sometimes you can celebrate before you see the victory. Have a faith-praise celebration. It's a neat thing. Alright. Oh, they're still taking notes. Be nice to Adele. She's trying very hard up here. And if I would put this down in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, here it is. You can get it from someone next to you. Alright. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Number 1, trust in God's sovereignty. I'm really making every effort to bring this down to chewable size. Number 2, remember that God delights in using you. Esther is a lovely illustration of God in His sovereignty using a woman who really didn't deserve it. Number 3, be firm in your resolve. Ladies, once you know what you're to do, or once you think you know, I believe God's calling forth a group of women that are going to stand and not be shaken. Number 4, persevere to the finish. We are not where God ultimately is going to have us, but we are on the way. And as we see these victories, number 5, celebrate and remember them. In a nutshell, that's the book of Esther. And I rejoice that we are, you are women in the kingdom for a time such as this. Amen. Let's stand together, receive this word that our sister's been given, and then we're going to sing. Let's just stand and lift our heads before the Lord, close our eyes, and just begin to pray in the Spirit of God.