Keion Henderson - Lord of the Rings

Okay, verse 2 of Esther, chapter 8, the Bible says that the king removed his ring, the very one that he had taken back from Haman. Paraphrasing, he put the ring on Mordecai. Haman is like the executioner; he oversees the prison and is the governor, so whenever someone dies, he has to pardon or execute. He has authority, but when he messes up, the king takes the ring back from him and gives it to a guy named Mordecai. Do you understand how important this is? Because all throughout Esther, Haman has been trying to kill Mordecai. See, sometimes God will give you an enemy who will target you so that the person who wants to bless you won’t have to look for you. Sometimes it’s your enemy that introduces you to your next blessing. As the rarest did not know, your enemies make you important. That 's why when I say enemy, I’m not just talking about people who want to fight; sometimes an enemy can be a boss who wants to fire you for no reason at all, but that’s the way the owner of the company is going to find out about you. Do you see what I’m saying? Haman, give me the ring; I’ve got somebody else I’m getting ready to give it to. Doesn 't it sound like when God took the anointing from Saul and gave it to David? I want to talk about the Lord of the Rings, and I believe that God is getting ready to take the ring, the authority, the blessing, and there is a shift happening in this place. God is getting ready to take it from Haman’s hand and put it on your finger. High five two people and say the authority is shifting in your favor. You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. How many of you have been to a wedding recently? Raise your hands, they 're coming! I don’t know why everybody is getting married in the summertime, but this is when everyone gets married! If it rains, it must mean God didn’t want them to get married. You know when the sun is shining, they say that’s a sign from God. I know people who got married in the rain and are still married, and I know people who got married in the sun and aren 't, so you figure it out. But at every one of those weddings, there’s a portion of the service where somebody’s cute little baby comes walking down the aisle with a satin white pillow holding this ring. It’s always the cute baby too! Everyone stands up, turns around, and takes pictures. If your baby has ever been in a wedding, that means they’re cute! Some babies are so cute you don 't even have to ask an older person, «Can I borrow your baby to be the ring bearer or the flower girl?» They just have a cute baby, and every one of those babies comes and carries the ring. I’ve seen all kinds of stuff-I’ve seen babies trip and fall and lose the ring; I’ve seen babies go a whole other way; I’ve seen babies stand at the back and cry because they don’t want to come down in front of anybody. Then you get the little untamed ones that mess up the whole wedding day. You’ve got to go back there, get them, and drag them by the arm while they cry all the way up to the front, then you’ve got to put them by somebody they like because that’s the only person they’re going to stand by. But even though they’re young, a boy carries that ring; it wasn’t his. He was the ring bearer. Eventually, the preacher gets to the point and asks the question, «Is there any token that this man gives to this woman as a show and as a token of your undying affection?» The man goes and gets the ring from the guy he picked to be his best man, or whatever your tradition is, and he takes the ring and places it on the woman’s finger and vice versa. The woman and the man did not carry the ring in, but they wear the ring out. You see, sometimes people get distressed and depressed because at your current stage of life, somebody’s carrying the ring. They carry the job, they carry the title, they carry the house, they carry the car, they carry the marital status, they carry the thing that you look at, that you view as shiny, that you perceive as some sort of validation that you are who you think you are: a warrior, a person like you should be at this stage of life. It’s like a woman coming into her upper 20s or lower 30s, and she starts to question herself and asks, «Why am I not married?» I’ve learned through reading that 60% of women in the world are more in love with the idea of being married than the man they’re with. Most women don’t love their husbands; they just love being married. They can’t say amen, brothers, because it puts them on Front Street, but thank God you' re in the 40%! Come on, give God some praise! You’re in the 40%! Get this face on camera! When women get married, they think in these terms: «Oh my God, this is gonna be awesome! I get a house, I get to furnish it, and oh my God, I’m gonna have a guest room so I can have parties! Oh my God, I can have my baby’s party in the backyard and don’t have to go to Chuck E. Cheese! Oh my God, it’s gonna be awesome! I can get a closet that I can sit in and look at all of my stuff!»