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TD Jakes - Blinded By Rage


TD Jakes - Blinded By Rage

There's gonna be some moments in your life that you have to work on nailing your flesh down. And it's not always about you. That's why some generations find it more difficult to hold marriage together than others, because if you are a narcissistic individual where everything is about you, you will never have a longstanding relationship, because everything, all roads lead to you, and you when you're happy, you're there. When you're not happy, you're not there. When you're in, you're out, but life is not like that, sweetheart. You got to come home happy, come home unhappy, come home feeling good, come home feeling bad. You got to be there when your breath stinks, be there when it smells good, be there when things are wonderful.

My wife talks about the seasons of relationship. "Winter, spring, summer, or fall". You gotta be there. Then you get to say you're faithful. Then you get to say you're loyal. You don't get to say you're loyal in a month. You don't get to say you're loyal in a year. You don't get to say you're loyal when you just got little kids. Talk to me not when they're in the stroller, talk to me after they stole the car. "I'm ride or die". You ain't even got out the garage. Glory to God. I wish I could find my early tapes. I was teaching on marriage. Back when me and Serita first got married, I was pastoring before I married her. I was 22 when I started pastoring, 19 when I started preaching, and I married her, I was 24.

So, I was teaching on marriage when I was single. I want to burn them tapes. And all those first five years of being married, everything I thought, I wanna burn them too. It's gonna be a bonfire here. I'm just now ready to talk about some stuff because I've been through enough stuff to have some credibility. Talk to me, somebody. And the truth of the matter is domestic violence has triplets. Domestic violence has triplets. I want you to get these down. There are three triplets born out of domestic violence, whether that violence is expressed or not expressed. One of them is physical rage, the other one is verbal rage, and the third one is emotional rage. Physical rage, verbal rage, and emotional rage.

Now, some of them are obvious. Physical rage, control issues, tantrums of the soul, physical rage. There you are, 30 years old, having a tantrum, breaking up something you paid for. Got to pay for it again. Tore up all kinds of stuff in your house in front of your child that you chastise for acting like that, not recognizing that he's imitating your behavior. You're trying to teach young people to respect authority while you abuse their mother or their father. And the child cannot figure out how to process rage without looking at the example you set, because we learn from the environment we're in.

Now, my family is a boisterous family. My wife's family, you have to take their pulse to know they're breathing. When our families got together for dinner for the first time, it was like Jekyll was sitting on one side and Hyde was sitting on the other, 'cause my family, when we get excited about anything, we look like we're gonna kill each other. This is my sister right here with the pink on, and when we get to talking, and if you would just, you couldn't hear what we were saying, you would think it was gonna be domestic violence, and we could be having a good time. "Shut your mouth, you crazy, get out...waa"! That's how we do it. Her family walked in, they thought... Mama didn't tell us to do it like that. That's how they did it.

So, we learned how to express the same feelings that her family has, and they're sitting up there talking about, "That's interesting". We're talking about the same thing, we're having the same feelings, but how we express it is how we saw it. So, whatever example you put up, the benchmark you put up in front of your kids is the benchmark they're gonna emulate. So, if they see daddy having a tantrum, don't expect them to sit calm in class, in school, or anywhere else. And by the way, expect your daughter to marry somebody who treats her like you treated her mother. And don't go running out of the house with a gun after him unless you're gonna point it at yourself, 'cause you did it. It's gonna be rough. I told you now. I didn't want to do this when you told me to do this, because I knew they were gonna sit there and look at me like this.

I wanna talk about verbal rage. Verbal rage isn't necessarily just cursing, and it's not necessarily screaming. It's the things that you know will hurt me, and you say them to hurt me, stripping me of my dignity, stripping me of my pride, going where you're not supposed to go, stripping the person of self-respect. Verbal rage. In a moment of transparency, I open up and expose my vulnerability, and in a moment of anger, you use what I exposed against me. Oh, it's quiet. You belittle the one God called you to build up. Even if you have no spouse, this will help you. This will help you with your kids, it'll help you with your grandkids, it'll help you with your neighbors, and it may help you with what went wrong, because we all have our weapons.

Silence is as much a weapon as being loud is. Verbal abuse, I don't have to curse you to tell you you're fat and you're ugly and you always have been ugly and you're just a big hat-wearing ugly... You think those words don't have power? It's funny when I say it in a joking sense, but when it comes from the mouth of somebody I have given my all to, you think those words don't have power, you think those words won't stay longer than you? Outlive you, outlast you? Then there's emotional rage, and this is what I slipped into. This is a result of not finding a way to communicate what you're frustrated about. Emotional rage is where you lock down emotionally. I know you need it, I even have it, but because I have shut down what I'm angry about, I have also shut down what I would love to give you, because the problem with a locked door is nothing gets out.

So, when you don't communicate, nothing comes out. Even positive things don't come out. So, you have emotional rage. Emotional rage leads to emotional abandonment. This is what women don't understand about men. He can come home every night, and he has left you three years ago. Just because our bodies come home doesn't mean that our emotions come home. Emotional abandonment is trauma, especially to somebody who breathes in the air of your affection. Asphyxiated by your silence. Asphyxiated because it's been years since you touched me or held me or laughed at me without wanting anything back, just making me feel safe and secure. And maybe you didn't beat 'em, and maybe you didn't cuss 'em you just denied 'em. Ecclesiastes 7:9 says something I want you to consider.

Ecclesiastes 7:9. "Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry". Don't be quick to be angry. Don't let that be your default mechanism where you quickly become angry and hostile. Don't be quick in your spirit to think evil, quick in your spirit to get revenge, quick in your spirit to go vent on somebody, quick, quick. You don't even have all the facts. You heard, you didn't even ask the other person. Shut up. You don't know yet. Don't be quick to be angry. "Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry". This is what you gotta get, "For anger resteth in the bosom of fools". "Anger resteth in the bosom of fools". God said, if you are a person that can get angry and stay angry, God said you're a fool. "Anger resteth in the bosom of fools".

First time I read that scripture, I closed the Bible, went to bed. I thought, okay, that's enough, thank you, Jesus. "Anger resteth in the bosom of fools". How could you be angry longer than the incident lasted? You've been angry three years over something that took three minutes. Some of you have been living with somebody you've been angry with for the last ten years. They haven't seen you. They haven't seen you, your love, your compassion, your creativity, your thoughtfulness. They have not seen who they married. They may not even divorce who they married. You may look like the person you married, haven't seen them for ten years, because "Anger has rested in the bosom of fools".

One of the hardest things to get out is a heart thing. A heart thing is hard to get out. It's hard to get out because it always has reasons. It always justifies itself, it carries a license. I have a reason to be like this, my father was like this. I have a reason to be like this, he cheated on me. I have a reason to be like that, she left me. I have a reason to be like this, she doesn't love me. I had a reason, I had a reason, I had a reason, I had a reason, has a license. When everything has a license, you can't confiscate the weapon because you've given it a license. Ooh. The truth of the matter is (write this down) emotions don't come with a manual.

Am I helping anybody? I want to go to the scripture. Let's go to the scripture. Go to Genesis 49:5-7. Now, the father is about to die, and he's talking to his sons, and he's gathered them around the bed, most of them he gave different kinds of blessings, but when he came to Simeon and Levi, he said, "Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty, instruments of cruelty are in their habitation. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be thou united; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall". Because they were angry, then people got killed, and because you were self-willed, they dug down a wall. Your stubbornness is tearing down walls. It's affecting more people than you. "Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel".

One of the things he's upset with Simeon and Levi about is because when the men of Shechem raped Dinah, Simeon and Levi went against their father, contrived to get even, talked the men into being circumcised, and then destroyed them while they were bleeding. Have you ever killed somebody while they were bleeding? Cut them down and took advantage of them, knew they needed you, and you attacked them, set them up for the kill? Cursed be their anger. Now they're old men, they're grown men, and the old man is getting ready to die, and they are still cursed. They missed their blessing because of their anger. How many blessings have you lost because of your anger? How many jobs have you lost because of your anger? How many women have you lost because of your anger? How many good men have you drove away because of your anger? My God, look at your kids. Did your anger have something to do with the outcome in that house?

"Cursed be their anger". Somebody holler, "Cursed be their anger". The word curse speaks to the end of the thing. He didn't cuss their anger, he cursed their anger. "Cursed be their anger". Cursed, when you're cursed, it speaks to an end of a thing. You will not end well because of your anger. You see, "Cursed be their anger". "Anger resteth in the bosom of fools," "Cursed be their anger," are you losing things because you are still angry? Some of you are angry at people who are dead. You're angry at people who have moved away. You're angry at people who are locked up in jail, but the curse is on you, which brings me to my next great point. Anger kills its landlord. Anger kills its landlord.

Numbers 20:9-12. "And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, and he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said of them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hands, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the waters came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. And the Lord spake unto the Moses and Aaron, Because you believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I swear I had given you".

And Moses died in the wilderness because he was angry. Anger kills its landlord. Was Moses gifted? Absolutely. Was Moses chosen? Absolutely. But all of his life, Moses had an anger problem. All of his life. Maybe it's because of his unsettled childhood. Maybe it's because of something that happened in the palace. I don't know. I don't know all of his details. But I do know that Moses got into stuff that he didn't need to get into, and it always messed him up. He jumped in a fight between the Hebrews and the Egyptians and ended up murdering a man and had to flee the palace. And it delayed him 40 years from his assignment because he was a hothead. He was right about the conflict between them, but angry people, when anger controls, you could be right about the point, but wrong about the method, and anytime you're right-wrong, it delays you.

Right-wrong, right-wrong, I'm right, but I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I'm right. And all of a sudden I spent 40 years. How old are you? I spent 40 years delayed because anger kills its landlord. And there after 40 years, it took him 40 years to calm down enough to hear God again. And then God shows up to the angry man in a burning bush. God said, "You think you got fire? I got fire. Moses, Moses, take off your shoes, for the ground you stand on is holy ground". And all of a sudden Moses reassumes his assignment, and he does good to down to the end of the next 40 years. And then that old devil comes back and knocks at the door and said... see, we all have a devil to fight, a particular devil to fight, and Moses is frustrated, and Moses is tired. He's had moments of weakness, moments where he even argued with God.

Moses would get up in God's face and say, "They're not my people, they're your people". He had moments of anger, but he'd overcome them. But the big one came because he was tired of dealing with thirsty people. They kept needing more from him, and he felt limited, and he was tired. Be careful of when you're tired. Be careful of when you're tired. And he had been with God, he'd just come from being with God, and he comes right out there and runs into frustration and smites the rock twice. How could you just come out of the presence of God and go crazy? I know, how could you shout all over the church and fuss at people in the parking lot? Catch me. I'm slain in the Spirit.

After 120 years he gets up to it, he sees it, but he never gets to go into it. It took him 120 years to get to Mount Nebo, and he could only look at it. He could not go in because anger kills its landlord. How do I kill it? It begins with admitting that you have it. In all of its forms that it hides in, in your silence, in your emotional emptiness, all of that is different forms of your anger and your depression and your lethargic attitude, all of it's different forms of your anger. I gotta admit it. I'm angry. And once you admit it, you have got to be able to talk. You won't die from being vulnerable. You will die from being angry. Go get what the devil is trying to steal from you. Get it back if you have to cry, if you have to crawl, if you have to humble yourself, get it back. It is not about their reaction to you, it is about your freedom of awareness of who you are. Whatever they do back, it don't make any difference. You are you. You are free.

Now, you can be angry and come to church, and you can be angry, sing in the choir, and you can be angry and pastor the church, and you can be angry and preach. You can be angry and sing. You can be angry and praise the Lord. The Bible says, "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord". But you cannot be angry and worship. And it may be the reason that you don't enjoy worship is that worship requires that you open up, and you've been closed so long on the inside that you really don't know... When was the last time you got in the presence of God and worshipped God till tears were running down your face? When was the last time you got lost in the presence of God till the Holy Spirit was able to touch your soul? Not your image, but God was able to touch your soul.

When was the last time that you got in his presence and you lost all track of time because you were alone with God? When was the last time that you opened up your heart and "deep calls unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts"? Oh God, I bless, as the deer panteth at the water brook, so pant I after thee, oh God. When was the last time that you just lifted your hands and you weren't afraid to expose your heart with all of its yings and all of its yangs and all of its issues? But you said, "Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me. O Lamb of God, I come to thee".

When was the last time that your heart escaped the clutches of your anger and you were free to lift your hands and open your mouth and glorify God? When was the last time that your soul escaped out of the snare of the fowler? There's some of you that are mad at your fathers, and your fathers are dead or gone or drunk or high or strung out or in jail. Some of you are mad at your mother. Some of you learned that rage from your mother. Your mother got a mouth, and you got a mouth just like her. Some of you are angry at people who broke you and hurt you, and you don't realize the people who broke you and hurt you and let you down were broken and hurt and let down too.

I want to invite you without routine, without ceremony, to lift your hands and try to open your heart. I know the hinge is rusty. To open your heart and let the light of the Holy Spirit illuminate the eyes of your understanding, that your soul might be enlightened. I feel like God gave me this message. I feel like God gave me this message. I don't even know who it was for, but I feel pregnant with this message. I feel like this message is important. I feel like this message may stop a gun from going off. I feel like this message might stop a life from being destroyed. I feel like this message is God's final attempt to snatch somebody out of the fire.
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  1. Sabrina Thomas
    18 December 2019 07:31
    + 0 -
    thank you of joy and pressure off my mind the anger that i have inside of me deep thoughts all the time about my anger issues. its something i dont want to have in me!! its just knowing and seeing how heartless this world is ive seen many bad things as a young child thats why my heart stays close to god.
  2. Lisa
    18 April 2020 17:28
    + 0 -
    I needed this. I was even looking for the full message.