God’s Retirement Plan

The Las Vegas Faith Center

Message From Our Sunday Services
God’s Retirement Plan

by Sr. Pastor: Tiger Todd

(702) 223-1111

Turn to the Book of Isaiah:55. A lot of people ask questions that they really don’t want an answer to because of their preconceived notions. A lot of questions that we ask, we don’t expect an answer, or even want to hear one because we want to hide in the sanctity of it being "unanswerable". A lot of people, especially in the Christian, or church community, will respond with something along the lines of, "Well, you know brother, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His ways are higher than our ways". And everyone says, "Amen". Go back to Isaiah:55 and read verse 8 with me. It says "For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord". Well, there it is. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts". See? There you go. God has surpassed our understanding. Some questions are just unanswerable.

Well, I wonder if the people that arbitrarily say that because that was their whole verse ever backed up and read the two preceding verses. So let’s do that now…look at verse 6 of Isaiah 55. "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call you upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man His thoughts. Let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon, for my thoughts are not your thoughts (implied "wicked man"). My ways are not your ways (implied "unrighteousness man"). Well, if you are a righteous man, your thoughts are His thoughts. Your ways are His ways. I’m not going to serve a pastor who’s ways are not His ways. So we have to realize that God didn’t leave questions unanswered. He’s just trying to get you righteous to get you unwicked. That’s a good deal, right?

As soon as you answer that question, you say, "Oh, no. Here’s the answer to it" Because they didn’t really want an answer. That’s why God talks about coming to Him like children. Sometimes, when we bring something into church here, we need to act like children, not like rocket scientists. A lot of people will condemn a lot of preachers, a lot of faith preachers, a lot of whatever preachers, and they’ll say "Do you know what he said? He said we are little gods". Rather than argue with them….I had one guy mad at me because I am going to have a Kenneth Copeland shop inside the Faith Center,....mad at me, and saying "I’m not going to be part of some cult". OK, that’s cool. Well, I didn’t ask you to buy a book by Kenneth Copeland, did I? You could have saved yourself all kinds of stress, and that big vein in your head would never have popped up. Just don’t buy a book by Kenneth Copeland.

When you come as babes, when kids don’t understand something, they don’t say "I can’t believe he’s talking about cars". They just don’t deal with it if they’re not ready to drive yet. You don’t have to get mad. Just don’t buy the book. There are a lot of books I don’t buy. It doesn’t mean I’m picketing the people who wrote them. Most of the people that picket specific books have never read them. They’re just mad because they heard about something that someone else had said was in the book.

How many times do we have an argument over what was said in the Bible because people didn’t read, say, verses 6 and 7. My goodness! We have these well known authors, with millions of books in print… I mean, the love of money is the root of all evil. The people who are against preachers for their particular brand of "stuff" are writing books concerning their own "stuff". Well, if you are just trying to give a public service announcement, then just give your book away. What is it doing at Barnes and Noble for $14.98? We’re seeing millions of dollars in book sales, and if the author gets two bucks a pop, well,.... that’s some money! So we have to watch these hidden agendas. Just know your Bible, know your truth, and if something is greater than it seems to be, it might just be that it’s something you don’t know yet. Don’t pressure yourself. And don’t let it set off your alarm.

The Bible contains many stories, lessons, proofs, and parables. These can be taken at face value. They can be taken allegorically, or they can even be taken and plugged into your life today. The Bible also contains "threads", much like DNA sequences. There’s something that connects the son to his father two generations over here, and then they find this little thing, and it’s a clue to the make-up. Well, in the Bible, the DNA of God is shown. And that’s the interesting thing about what I am going to call "the thread".

A lot of people have taken scriptures out of context, and a lot of people have tried to beat people over the head with scriptures. "God is love" "GOD IS LOVE!!!" "bam..bam..bam..". I think what we are going to find here, is that if we look for the thread, that thread is God. Jesus came to earth only showing the Father. He said, "If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father". But he spoke a whole mess of parables that didn’t seem related. In fact, in your King James Bible, if you look at Mark 4 where he said "The entire kingdom of God is compared to the planting of a seed", you will see where they have placed new paragraph symbols, like a new thought. They have placed these little symbols here and there to help you…it’s like they were implying that Jesus just went off on a tangent now and then. In fact, it wasn’t a tangent. People just didn’t understand. They weren’t recognizing the common thread between them. But I think if we can start looking for the common thread between scriptures, we’ll be able to learn the mind of God, and thus, even in our parables, even in our age, we’ll know exactly what to do according to the will of God.

Today, as we move from one example to the other, from age to age, try to imagine a race being run, like a relay event in the Olympics, where the baton is to be passed to the next runner. Just at his last gasp, as he passes the baton to the runner in front t of him who’s ready to run the race, this last guy is spent, but he’s got to get the baton to the next guy. I think what you’ll see today is that we can use these same examples for probably five different ideas today. The one I’m trying to show, the thread, is how God uses what we’ve heard about getting wisdom, getting understanding…"If anyone lacks wisdom let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and upbraideth not" the beginning of James:1.

The Book of Proverbs starts out saying that He can give wisdom and understanding to His sons, but I don’t think we have caught these examples. We’ve seen some natural ideas, but I want to pull out a thread here, so be "thread conscious" as we go through this today.

1 Samuel:1 We’ll start off with a woman named Hannah, and start at Verse 1 "Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite: And he had two wives; the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children." Now this plays a big part in this message, so…. "And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophini and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there,. And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions: But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; (my cross reference says a "double portion"), for he loved Hannah: but the Lord had shut up her womb". Now I am a free will, faith kind of guy, and I do not, nor did I ever like the idea that God would shut up someone’s womb. I sometimes pray for God to shut up some people’s mouth, but ....to shut up a womb is different. OK? I always looked at that and thought, "that’s not right", but there’s more to it than that. But I’m going to take that at face value and say that’s true. And it continues…"And her adversary (in this case, I believe the adversary they are talking about is the other wife), is saying "I’ve got a baby, you don’t have one", and I guess that was a big deal. I remember when I first got married, all these people were coming up saying "When are you going to have kids?" Well, don’t call us, we’ll call you. Everybody’s life is different. When do you choose? And do you choose? We are going to get into that today.

This is wonderful, because Hannah’s, womb was shut up, and in the Bible, we’re going to look at a word today called "barren". The literal word in both Hebrew and Greek for barren means "shut up". We can see that it doesn’t mean dead, it doesn’t mean broke. It actually means the hand of the Lord had kept it closed for an appointed time.

Remember when Saul of Tarses was on the road to Damascus, and all of a sudden he was knocked off his donkey? He was sitting there, blind. It says "The spirit of the Lord was upon him". That’s why he was blind for three days. God doesn’t strike someone blind. Remember, after the three days, after he went to Priscilla and Aquilla’s house, remember where it said "it came off like scales". That’s how he saw it coming off. So it was as if something had covered his eyes.

Same thing. One of the other words that is in my Concordance on barren is "covered over, or shut up". Now, Hannah was barren. But it says the Lord did it. We know the story. She was fine being married to Elkanah. He was happy with her, he loved her, gave a double portion of the offerings for her. He was just delighted to have this wife. And he didn’t mind that she couldn’t have kids. I’m not sure that he knew her womb was shut up. But I think she was fine for quite awhile, and then one day, she was dissatisfied with her lot. She was dissatisfied with this deal. If you read on down here, Peninnah had a number of children, so you could probably say that she was getting old. Usually, from not being able to have kids, do they call somebody barren. Not being able to have them for ten, twenty, maybe thirty, maybe even forty years. So this had been an ongoing thing, and she found out she was barren, and now my guess is that she would have been sixty or seventy years old.

This is another thing where we are going to find this thread. Look at Chapter 2 of 1 Samuel. I just want to read this little part here. Back up to Chapter 1. Look at verse 1.

She goes to Eli the priest, and Eli answered and said "go in peace and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition". She has asked for a son. But how long do you think a barren woman has asked for sons all her life? Quite awhile. She probably asked for sons a lot. But it says, now she changed the way she prayed. Here’s what she did. This is important. She said "If you give me a son, I’ll give him to you". Now the theologians say, "You can’t do that. You can’t pray that way. How dare you make a deal with God. He’s God"! Well apparently, God didn’t have any trouble with the prayer, because she goes to the priest and the priest says "Go in peace" (verse 17) "and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou has asked of Him". And she said, "Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the Lord, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah, his wife; and the Lord remembered her." This is part of our thread.

We see this with "the Lord remembered Rachel", Joseph’s mom. She was old. The Bible describes that Jacob, the father of Joseph, had already had a slew of kids. They had just done some disastrous things. But then, Rachel, the woman he said he truly loved, had a womb that was shut up. She was barren. Hannah produced Samuel, the prophet Samuel. This plays an important role because Samuel was the prophet that anointed David as King. It seems like this "shut up" thing was for a divine purpose, doesn’t it. It seems like God’s thinking was, I don’t want you to just go have a whole mess of cattle. (No offense). I’ve got a special person in mind for you to have. Look at this honorable man, Elkanah. Not a priest, just a King. Had some money, but no one asked him for an offering, and he double offers. "Well Hannah, it’s OK if you don’t have children", he says, "aren’t I everything to you? Aren’t I more than many sons to you? Good man! So we’ve got a good man, the woman is barren, and then she prays a little radically. And then God produces Samuel through her. Now if you read the rest of the story, you’ll find that she goes on to have three more sons and two more daughters. If she, indeed, was older, as I believe she was, it says that as soon as she had nursed him and weaned him, she then turned him over to the temple in the yearly visit to the temple. She went there and visited him and gave an offering, a sacrifice, for her son Samuel, whom she turned over to God. But the Bible says that God "remembered" her. Like, would God forget? "Hannah? Is that you?"

It’s like dealing with people at offering time…people who are trying to make a deal. "Oh God, I’d love to give you a thousand dollars, but I have a mortgage". God says, "You have a mortgage? I didn’t know that". "You have a "remember" thing there. He says write this down as a book of remembrance. We’ve got all these complicated issues out there, but it seems like this is where God is moving. God is moving under these conditions. He’s not moving in the "regular" thing. We have a wife that produces kids on her own. But these kids don’t amount to anything. We’ve got a woman that’s barren, a woman that continues to seek God until she finally breaks out of her traditional prayer, and then she keeps her vow. And she produces Samuel.

Let’s go down the list here. Look at Judges 13:1 It says "The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord." Now Jacob became Israel. It says his children did evil in the sight of the Lord. Well, do you think there is a difference between his children and "god’s children"? Think about that. The Bible says we are all children of God. Well, are you really? Before I became another man, I was a child of my mother and my father. Who here is going to stand up and say that Cain was a child of God? We’ve got to look into this and see if ....well, let’s just keep reading. "The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines 40 years". Do you want to know why they were in bondage 40 years? There was a certain man of Zorah, but God is still trying to get a saviour on the scene. And here it says the Zorah family, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Minoah, barren. Here we go again. There’s trouble in Israel. "I’ve got a woman".

It goes on. It says here, "His wife was barren and bare not, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her "Behold now, thou barren, and barest not, but thou shalt conceive and bare a son" , and then describes what manner of son. How many of you know what your kids are going to be like before they’re born? Here’s the story. It says "The angel of the Lord said, and behold, now this is the type of son you are going to have, therefore I pray thee, drink not wine or strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing, for lo thou shalt conceive and bare a son and no razor shall come to his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines"

So we have a message from an angel. Don’t we remember the Christmas story? The angel appeared to Mary, a virgin girl. Virgin, the literal word we got "virgin" from means "unmarried daughter". We have trouble in today’s world because it doesn’t always mean unmarried daughter, does it? So we have this connotation of, you know, 13,14,15,16 years old, but the Bible just says, "her cousin Elizabeth was well stricken in age". Well, that sounds like Sarah.

Remember Sarah, Abraham’s wife? Turn to Genesis 21. You have to see that this is a thread here, not something that Tiger is making up. Chapter 21 "The Lord visited Sarah as He had said, the Lord did unto Sarah as He had spoken, for Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age at the time which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded, and Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him. " Sarah was 91." Ninety one! That’s a good example of what the Bible calls barren. OK? It picked up in the story when she was around 84, when the Lord first appeared. But something else happened. Now wait. We’re saying that God is using people, "I am shutting up your womb"...but what if the woman never got her prayer life fixed? She would die barren, right?

I wonder how many people out there are barren in certain areas? Not just their wombs? Why do they have such trouble with money? Why is it they are always sick? Why is it that this relationship…why is it they don’t have any friends? Why is it that certain areas are so barren? Could be, those areas are shut up for a purpose, and God’s got something inside that makes you uncomfortable, or discontent. I tell you, that’s one of the greatest places in the world to be. Most people come to the pastor and they say, "I don’t know what to do…I’m so dissatisfied… That means you are perfectly poised for God, because God is trying to stir you up to get you out of the comfort zone. What you’re doing now isn’t working anyway. Your $50.00 is not going to pay your rent and your whatever. You might as well get involved in the gospel. You might as well just realize that it doesn’t work your way. That is the message that God is trying to do. God’s trying to make you see that, "Hey, I should have been here by now, but I’m still here. Why? I started climbing up the ladder but then I lost my way. Why?

Turn to Genesis Chapter 30. This Joseph business. Chapter 30, verse 1, reads "When Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister and said unto Jacob, give me children or else I die". Verse 22 " God remembered Rachel" . There is that "remembered" thing again. "God harkened to her and opened her womb". Now why do you think God is looking for old, well-stricken-in-age people to produce these kind of people….Sampson….David….David was the young son of Jesse. All of his older brothers were out doing stuff, and well renowned for their stuff, but he has this little runt boy, David. We’ve got Isaac. We’ve got a list going here. We’ve got John the Baptist. And we’ve got Jesus. And I will take it for granted that you caught our Christmas message where we were able to, prior to Christmas, where we theorized, based on Mary’s cousin’s age of 90, so the youngest Mary could be was roughly 65 at the same time, and still be a cousin. Then, in fact, hold your place in Genesis here, because I have to read this to you. It does just say straight out, and we have to know this, because God would not change the way He does things…..

Luke Chapter 1, Verse 35. "The angel answered and said unto her (meaning Mary), the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the son of God. Behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she has also conceived a son in her old age" Yes. Mary was old. It’s in the book. We’ve got to realize that God is not going to put your Saviour in the hands of a sixteen year old couple that had a baby. Are you beginning to see why he wouldn’t put Isaac…"Kings shall come out of thee"...why wouldn’t he put David…..

Now David brings us to a good point, because David was young. Are you familiar with all the tragedy David had to endure? Not only was Saul the King after him all the time, Samuel anointed Saul King. Listen very carefully to this story. This story will set you free. Samuel the prophet goes to God, and says, "God, Israel wants a King". And God says, "It’s not my will for Israel to have a King. I’ve set up the judge system (Sampson, Jeptha, a judge system). It’s not time for them to have a King. Samuel says, "Yeah, but they want one. "OK, I’ll give you one more chance, Samuel. You go tell Israel that if I give them a King, this is the kind of King they will get. " And he rattled off a description of King Saul. Samuel said to the people of Israel, "This is the type of king you will have". The people, in effect, said that was "OK" with them. Just give us a King.

God said, "Go anoint one" Got Saul. Anointed him. And we know all the things that Saul did wrong. Then Saul went after David, who God said "Anoint him as King". David didn’t have a spectacular career early on, did he? He had wives. He had children from those wives that later formed their own little countries and attacked Jerusalem. So, wait a second. If this is the God ordained plan, now wait, I want to be a Christian. I want to bring someone into the body of Christ. Am I bringing them into chaos? I am supposed to bring them into a place of life and peace. But I show them a Bible without understanding God in this, and I show them a Bible that,.... (thanks but no thanks)....

Well, let’s go back to that Samuel story. Samuel says, "God, Israel wants a King". Let’s suppose this congregation comes to the pastor and says, "You need to tell God that we want the title to be 2%, not 10%". "Oh sure, guys, I’ll just go to God and say, "the people have worked it out, and it really should be 2%, not 10%". Now if I have any fear of God, or more fear of God than I have fear of men, would I do that? Would I turn to you and say, "Hey, what are you talking about, negotiating with God this way?

What made Samuel go to God and say "Israel wants a King"? Did you ever stop to think about that? The Bible records that Samuel’s two sons were the two judges in Israel at that time. The Bible says they did not obey the commandments of God, and they were wicked. They have a personal problem. ‘God, Israel wants a King, and it’s kinda my fault… Kinda my fault because I was anointed to be a priest". There’s nowhere in the Bible where it says, "Samuel, go find a wife and have babies".

Remember that scripture, "Unless the Lord build the house, he that builds it builds it in vain". Now again, don’t get me wrong. This is not against going out and having babies. OK? This is about finding out about the DNA of God so we can plug it into our lives and fix our babies, fix our parents, wherever we’re at, and find out what will let God move here. God didn’t chose Mary and Joseph because they were young and fertile. Mary wasn’t going down to the fertility clinic to get those drugs. OK? Why did God choose these people the way He did? Certainly, Samuel was not supposed to bare children , because now God has got to "fix" the deal.

Here we go….Let’s suppose that Saul was never supposed to be King, (and the scriptures says that he wasn’t). Let’s suppose that God’s plan was the judging system. And that system was to continue for awhile. Samuel was probably supposed to anoint different judges other than his two sons that he might not have had. What if that had continued on to where a young boy, a ruddy youth, who loved God but didn’t have much sense, didn’t have to be a King at such a young age. Suppose we add 30 more years to the judges. We get David, now, at 46 years old. Who is the best son David had? Solomon! Wrote the Book of Proverbs. The Book of Ecclesiastes. The Preacher. And although late in his life he went, serving women, but God named him Jedediah, calling him beloved of God when he was born. Now that was the son of Bathsheba. You know, the mess David had early on? But I’ll guarantee, if the judging system were going on, the Hittites would not have joined, like the Bible said they did, and moved into Israel, so there wouldn’t have been Uriah the Hittite marrying Bathsheba. Do you see the mess? The mess is a whole mess of people throughout scripture building their own houses, and going to God and saying "God, what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to have kids, or am I not supposed to have kids? Am I supposed to have a prophet, or am I supposed to have a King?" What am I supposed to do here? What could I do for you. Maybe I’m not even supposed to be on the first list. What could I do for you? And by asking God, have Him build the house. Because if the house were built properly, David would have walked into the Kingship, married Bathsheba, he would have had one wife and one number one son. He wouldn’t have had the first child die, all these other sons wouldn’t have had to die… he wouldn’t have lost all the mighty men in the field that served David…wouldn’t have had all this tension in Israel….would have gotten to build the Temple early…..ushering in the era of peace that the Bible says happens when Solomon became King. What we have is God not looking to put some young punk on the scene. Now, let’s find out why God chose Abraham…..

I hope you don’t think this is heresy. It’s in your Bible. Genesis Chapter 18. Here’s God telling the angels why he chose Abraham. God did not chose him because he could have kids, because Abraham was old. Not a good first thought. But it says here, verse 19 of Genesis Chapter 18, it says "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord , to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him". You can look at the first chapter of the Book of Proverbs and find out what David instilled in Solomon. And he is doing it to his kids. The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, King of Israel "to know wisdom and instruction and to perceive the words of understanding". He says wisdom is the principle thing, and you just can’t get wisdom from kids. Kids aren’t trained to be fathers at 18. Most kids in our generation, it is awful in our country, because it is not the kid’s fault. The fathers didn’t raise the kids. In the majority in this country, Mom’s have to do double duty. So we are at a disadvantage. We need God. We need the one who says, "If you lack wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men and upbraideth not".....and it shall be given him". So we need to do this, even if we are at a disadvantage, even if it looks like it’s too late. No. All things are possible to them who believeth. It’s never too late.

Now look at the reward system. You want to talk about the fact that it’s not too late. You declare from this day that you are going to have the Lord build your house. You declare from this day what God is going to do. Well, what did He do for Abraham and Sarah? I mean, they were thinking, this is it, but a little while later, (what’s the name of the message?... God’s Retirement Plan?), he lives another eighty years. She nurses their boy. Kings are after her. God renewed them, because it wasn’t time to get old and die. That’s not how they did it in the Bible. The old people were the people who ran everything. They were supposed to. Wisdom! Unfortunately, most fathers, the people I have met that are fathers, didn’t learn how to be fathers until they had just a couple of years left. And they learned it from seeing history repeat itself a few times, they had a better view.

Some other kids with older parents: Nostradamus and Beethoven. to name two. The story of Einstein talks about his parents already having seven kids that were diseased, and whatever, it didn’t work out, and finally they had this little boy they decided to have after all, living in an abusive home, and all that, but who said they were supposed to have the first seven? Again, we are not against the kids. But we are saying, wait a second, we see the bad examples and it messes with our…I’m sure if the other kids were born when the parents were finally mature enough, with the wisdom required, it would have been OK. In Einstein’s dad’s case, having Albert at l00 years old would have probably worked for him.

We can renew ourselves. Jenni and I, we had this thing before we got married, and I wanted a son, and OK…we got married and then she didn’t want kids anymore. Fine! I’ll just go preach, man. But after we learned about the Mary thing, and the Elizabeth thing, and the Rachel thing, and the parents of Samson thing, and Jesse’s David, and down the list, I said, "Great! Let’s have kids….you 70, me 77". Good number. If the Lord tarries, I mean, bless God, hey, I’m all for it. Let the Lord build the house. Hey, I might as well be the example of what I preach, right? If I don’t practice it, what are you guys doing here? If I didn’t get healed because of the Word, if I didn’t get renewed… Ron knew me ten years ago when I was fifteen years older than I am today, at least physically. The Word worked on me. I let the Word work on me. I’m teaching you guys to do what I did in eight years. I’m teaching you guys to do it in a month and a half. Because now I can see how fast God wanted to work. Five years ago, God told me to write a book, but I never saw myself as a book writer. Then I realized that God wants to write a book in about ten days….I thought five, six years, I need to get a smoking jacket and a pipe. That’s what my idea of an author was. God’s trying to get this thing fixed quick. God didn’t need thirty years to do anything. We’re the ones that hold up his timetable.

So, let’s plan on getting to 70, 80 years as the half way mark. "Time to have kids, honey". Well, it renewed both their bodies. Faithful people. Joseph. It bothered us that Joseph seemed to be out of the picture in the Bible after Jesus was twelve. Jesus, when he was twelve years old, remember that they went to the feast? They forgot about him, a days journey. And they found him back at the feast, and he was teaching, and listening, and he was teaching the doctors the laws, and they were amazed at his understanding. Well, you don’t think he was born with that understanding, do you? "Well, yes, Jesus came out of the womb like that little talking bubba doll. And they carried Him all through Bethlehem, and He said "I’m the Christ . Be made whole". NO. Joseph, his father, fathered Him. God sired Him. But Joseph taught him in the things of righteousness. TAUGHT HIM! That’s how He was supposed to get it. He got it the same way we did. If He got it differently, He couldn’t have been our saviour. He had to bear what we bear, yet without sin.

Are you starting to see God’s DNA here? God is looking for some people with some wisdom. If you are old, life could begin again. If your business is barren, God probably has something for you to do with it. If your family is barren, then there has got to be some wisdom….That’s why I started off with the scripture, "His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His ways are higher than our ways". Well, learn his thoughts and his ways, and they won’t be. I now approach what I don’t know now as, there is an answer. I just don’t know it yet. Did you ever send someone out to your car, and say "Go get my Phillips screwdriver out of the trunk of my car", and they come back and say "There’s no screwdriver in your car’. You go out, find the screwdriver, and what they are supposed to say is, "I couldn’t find the screwdriver". That would be more accurate, since I just proved to you that there is a screwdriver in there, just like I said. And we have said, "I’ll never know what God is supposed to do, I just don’t know". Well, you just don’t know. Let’s find out. Get into the book. Get into the Manual. Get into the manual and find out. The author gave you the Manual, not to keep it hidden from you, or He wouldn’t have given you the Manual. He wants you to know how to make popcorn. He didn’t want you to look at the microwave light show and say…..he didn’t want you to dry your cat off in it. No, no, no. People without manuals do those kinds of things. That’s a parable!

Turn to Isaiah 54 and we’ll close. I read the scripture out loud, and a multitude of women came alive from this scripture. As we’re reading it, look at Hannah, look at Rachel, see Elizabeth, see Sarah, see Mary. "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear. Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord". That covered Mary. "Enlarge the place of thy tent. Let them stretch forth the curtain". You better prepare like the Word is just true, because it’s coming. If you have something that is shut up, and you are seeking God and trying to find out His wisdom, it is on its way. If you don’t seek, someone else will get it. "Enlarge the place of thy tent"....now notice they start off with a tent. "And let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith the Lord. For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills shall be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that has mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors" (God is building a house. This is the house the Lord is building. No more tents)..".and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children" (not just the one I gave you) "shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee. Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for His works; and I have created the waster to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.

I know Joseph read that to Mary. You know Zacharias read it to Elizabeth. Joseph probably read it to Jesus. Jesus probably knew it. Jesus quoted a few chapters later in Luke Chapter 4. He said, "Surely they will talk about your late life pregnancy". They’ll talk about, you know, well his business just sprung up overnight. Nothing wrong with that. It’s your business. Put the naysayers to shame. Start letting the Lord build the house. Stop trying to just build your tent. .. just a little shack in glory. That’s all I ask. No. Jesus went for a mansion. You can camp out in a tent on your lawn if you want to, but the mansion is there. Enlarge the place of your tent. Drop any kind of psychological borders….well you know, my childbearing years are over. Well, tell that to God. I don’t know what He had to do, but He did a lot of stuff to prove those people wrong.

God did not expect his sons and daughters to live or die like the ungodly. He provided a retirement plan. Moses said that none of his natural forces were abated at 120 years old. David, in Psalm 103, says "If you fill your mouth with good things, your youth will be renewed like the eagles". Ooh, that’s the wisdom of an old bird with new feathers. That’s something to go for. We could build a Psalm 103 athletic club…pack that with membership. Be renewed day by day. Go to God for the wisdom you need. Just go to Him. And then, when you’re done, go to God and say, "God, it says in your Word, that any man that lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men. Let him ask in Faith. How do you ask in faith? You say, "God, I now, by faith, believe that I receive the wisdom of God about this situation. I’ll walk like I have it. Remember, Jesus said that. Have the faith of God: Mark Chapter 11—-believe you receive when you pray. So you leave that prayer saying "I believe I have the wisdom of God. I’ll no more be barren in that area". Are we all agreed? No one wants to be barren.

All right. Let’s close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have divine purposes, and for those of us who will just say "Yes", use us. Use these people for your divine purpose. Sure you’re building this house, this Faith Center, but there are also houses within the house. Just like it’s one body, but many members. Find out where something that is barren needs to be fixed, and if you have to pinch them so they change their prayer lives, if you have to nudge them, do so, please, God. Send angels, whatever it takes to fix the barren in these lives, and the lives of those around them. They might not be barren here, but they might know people who are. Help them to deliver the message, the parables that person needs to receive from you. We thank you God for it, we receive it in Jesus’ name. Amen.