TD Jakes - The Miracle of Survival
I wonder, when I read this text, what kind of parent would would go through conceiving a child, carrying a child through three trimesters, nine months, body stretched, skin taut, perspiration on your forehead, legs in a stirrup, groaning and moaning, muscles contorting, pushing and tugging, bones moving out of joint to pass a baby, and then toss it aside like garbage? Not hold it, not cleanse it, not caress it, but throw it aside in its own blood and forsake it like it was nothing at all. God said to his people, you are that baby, born out of Canaan, out of fellowship, without covenant. You were not cared for. You were not touched.
You were not swaddled. You didn't receive what you should have gotten. And when I found you, you were gasping for breath, covered with gnats and flies. Nature had moved in to claim you captives. Your body was already beginning to grow weak, placid, cold. Death was peeking over its windows to snatch you. But before death could come in for the kill, when I passed by you, I didn't say I prayed for you, I didn't say I read scriptures to you, I didn't say when I passed by you, I preached to you. He said, When I passed by you, the condition was so bad, I had to fix it in one word. If I hadn't have moved quick, you wouldn't have made it. When I passed by you and death was coming in for the kill, I looked at you and I said, live, live, live. Peter tells us that the words that he speaks are spirit and they are life.
One word from God against an abuse so atrocious that it's hard to imagine what would make it happen. Why does God go through the trouble of making us look at this blatant scene of debauchery? Why has he painted it so graphically, and what are we to learn from it? I'm so glad you asked. Is he not teaching us that the baby has passed from one world into another? For the womb is a world. It is a matrix of which it is all that the baby has ever known. It has been conditioned to live within the complexities of that matrix. For nine months, that is its global sphere, the womb of its mother. And then on the ninth month, it passes out of that world, dying to this world that it might be born into the next world. To be absent in here is to be present out there. You can't be present both places. You had to go through it to come from it. And it's still hanging... oh, y'all don't hear what I'm saying.
The baby is born looking like where he came from. It is a natural assumption that somebody should wash it, because you don't want to have the residue of your past. Not over here, somebody say, "Not over here". Yeah, yeah, you should have left that over there. You don't do that over here, you don't live like that over here, you don't act like that over here, you don't behave yourself like that, not over here. That's afterbirth; you should have left that in the world you came from.
See, the problem today with church is that we want people, we're so busy trying to get numbers that we will compromise truth. And we are willing to allow people to be born into the kingdom and still act like the world, but there ought to be some kind of change. Oh, it ain't popular. There ought to be some kind of change in your life. How can you say you are saved when you do everything you did before? My question is, saved from what? Saved, saved from what? If you were a con man and a scammer and a liar in your previous life, don't tell me that you've been born again and I still can't lay my wallet down. If you were a womanizer and a whoremonger when you were over there, why are you looking funny at my wife now that you're over here? Saved from...? You mean I can't trust a saved babysitter? Why have you brought the contamination of where you came from?
You have polluted your today with your yesterday behavior. That's afterbirth. Get rid of it. In the middle of this ugly sight, his beautiful majesty is passing by. In the middle of this death, life is passing by. In the middle of this disease, healing is passing by. In the middle of this curse, mercy is passing by. In the middle of this failure, a second chance is passing by. In the middle of this disgrace, grace is passing. "Whoa, Savior. Would you just hear my humble cry. While on others thou art calling, Jesus, do not pass me by". He said, when I passed by you, it's almost like I almost went on. It's like, it's kinda like when he passed by the woman with the issue of blood, and she saw that he was passing by and crawled to touch the hem of his garment. It's kind of like when he passed by blind Bartimaeus and blind Bartimaeus started hollerin' "Jesus".
See, you gotta sense when he's passing by. You gotta know when he's passing by. You gotta know when he's passing by, and when you need a touch from God, you can't worry about the people sitting next to you. What do they think, how do they feel, do they like you, do they care? Sometimes you got to holler till you get on somebody's nerves. You gotta holler till you upset somebody. Sometimes you gotta cry out loud and say, "Jesus thou Son of David, have mercy on me". Sometimes you gotta cry, even though they're trying to shut you up. You oughta cry that much louder. Savior, do not pass me. He said, When I passed by you, I said one thing to you, I said one word to you. There were many things wrong, but I spoke one word. One word is strong enough to straighten out everything that ever happened to you in your life.
Look at your neighbor, say, "All you need is a word". One word from Jesus will fix your past, your present, and your future. One word from him will bring you out of your grave clothes. One word from him will break the generational curses that have been on your life. One word from him will heal every disease in your body. Somebody say, "One word". He said, When I passed by you, I spoke a word. This morning, I speak a word to every dead place in your life, every dying place in your life, every place that they left you to die, To everybody who left you and thought you'd never come back. I speak to you this morning in the name that has been exalted above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow. Every tongue shall confess.
Lay your hands on somebody and say, "Live". I command you to live, I command you to live. I command you to come out of your grave clothes. I command you to get your fight back. I command you to get your courage back. I command you to reclaim everything the devil stole. In the name of Jesus, I command you to live. Give him a praise. Give him a praise. I said, give him a praise. If you feel life, give him a praise. If you feel life, give him a praise. Tell your neighbor, "Neighbor, look at me, I'm a miracle". I should have been a statistic, I could have been dead, I could have lost my mind, I could have blown out my brains, but Jesus said, "Live". I want every miracle to give God the glory. I want every miracle to give God the praise.
As I close this morning, I want you to know that somebody on your row is a survivor. Somebody on your row can testify they came from some ugly stuff, they came from some stinky stuff, they came from some stuff that should have killed 'em. They don't even look like where they came from. Can I get a witness in here? Can I get a witness? I feel like having church. Join hands with somebody, leave no one untouched. Woo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know they get on your nerves. I know they get on your nerves because their hands are kind of shaking a little bit, and I know they get on your nerves because they're hollerin' out even while I'm talking right now. But give 'em a little grace, because that's a survivor. Squeeze that hand.
That's a survivor you're touching right there. They've been thrown out. They've been locked down. The odds were against them. It looked like they weren't gonna make it. But through it all, squeeze that hand, through it all... had dangers you could see, had dangers you couldn't see, had dangers I could talk about, had dangers I couldn't say nothing about, but through it all... squeeze that hand, that's a survivor. That's a survivor right there, that's a survivor right there. He passed by you, polluted in your own blood, dying from your afterbirth, dealing with where you came from, trying to get it off of you, trying to get back up on your feet again, bruised, wounded, no comfort, cold, no covering. You know you shouldn't be where you are right now. You know you shouldn't have what you have right now. You know anybody been through what you've been through, shouldn't be where you are right now.
This is a miracle of survival. I cannot tell you how I made it. I don't even know when I made it. I just know that I made it. Thirty-three years. I don't know how we made no 33 years, I don't know how we made no 33 years, I don't know how we made no 33 years. Don't even know when it happened, just made it. How do we make it? No lights, no water, no car, no friends, folks talking about you, betting against you, saying you can't make it. Don't know how we made it, but we made it. Look at your own life. Can't you look at your own life and see, did God bring you through some stuff that you thought you couldn't go through? Thought you would lose your mind, thought surely this was gonna take me out. Didn't he bring you? Didn't he bring you? Didn't he bring you?
If he brought you through that, you know he gonna bring you through this. If he brought you through that... oh, let me... woo, I gotta quit. I'm about to preach myself happy. Get a hold of your neighbor. Don't let go. The Lord told me to remind you of what he had already done in your life, to remind you that if he brought you through all of that, if he brought you through stuff when you couldn't defend yourself, if he protected you from enemies you didn't even know you had... you thought you could trust her, turned out she was a witch. If God protected you when you wasn't even protecting yourself, then why would you get here and let your heart be troubled? So grab them by the hand and just say, "Live". "I come that you might have life". Jesus said, "I come that you might have life". He did not say, "I come that you might have church". He said, "I come that you might have life".
Don't replace life with church to anesthetize the fact that you can't make it. You want to use your faith to invigorate your vision, not to replace your vision. Church works best when I'm feeding a fire you're growing outside of these walls. It does not work when it becomes a replacement for a life you're afraid to live. Get your fight back. Woo, God, woo, I don't know who I'm talking to, but I felt that thing go out. Get your fight back, get your courage back. As you rejoice in survival, success will find you until you thank him for what he's already done, until you do like the one leper and go back and say, "Jesus, I just wanna thank you for what you already did". Get their hand, I'm gonna have prayer with somebody in this room.
Father, the anointing is in this place. I know you're speaking to your people right now. You told me to talk to 'em about the miracle of survival. There's some people that survive things they shouldn't have survived. You've been good to people who wasn't good to you. You helped people who didn't help you. You blessed people who didn't bless you back. You gave jobs to people who used it to do things that were totally against your Word. You gave opportunities to people who took the opportunity and forgot the God that gave it to 'em. We stand here, Lord. Throw ourselves on the mercy of the court. Thank you for being a God of second chances. Thank you for being a God of new beginnings. I pray specifically for every person in this room who has been left to die somewhere in a desert of despair or depression, in the desert of poverty or doubt, in the desert of divorce or confusion. There are all types of deserts we can find ourselves thrown into where people wait for us to die.
I pray for every person in this room, every person, every person in this room, that hadn't washed off of them something that they've been through. I pray for every person in this room that's still in love with somebody who's gone, that's still married to somebody who's divorced them. I pray for every person in this room that smells afterbirth on their heart. I pray for every person in this room that's still grappling with the complexities of their childhood, never recognizing who they are as an adult. I pray for their afterbirth. I pray for every person in this room that has night terrors, wakes up screaming in the night, horrified by memories you can't discuss with anybody else. It's afterbirth; it's got to get off of you today. I pray for every person in this room that's tormented by things you cannot change and cannot fix.
The words of people are still hanging on to you, what they said, what they had on when they said it. You can still see it in your mind, but God's gonna heal you this morning. He's gonna wash you, he's gonna wash you, he's gonna wash you by the Word of God today. He's gonna put a healing into your wound. I speak to every wounded place, every bruise in your life, every wound in your heart, in your ability to love, to communicate, to live, to thrive, to accept, to grow. I command you in the name of Jesus to be healed. I put salt in your wounds. I put salt in your wounds, and I command you in Jesus's name to be healed.
Finally, I swaddle you with the Word of God. I want the devil to know you're covered. I want every demon to know you're covered. I want every disease to know you're covered. I want every pain to know you're covered, that God's got you surrounded from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet. God said he's gon' baby wrap you. He's gon' baby wrap you this morning. He's gon' baby wrap you. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. Every tongue that rises against you shall be condemned. God's gon' baby wrap you from the crown of your head to the sole of your feet. God has you covered. You will never be the same. In Jesus's name, amen. If you receive it, give him some kind of...
I pray for every person in this room, every person, every person in this room, that hadn't washed off of them something that they've been through. I pray for every person in this room that's still in love with somebody who's gone, that's still married to somebody who's divorced them. I pray for every person in this room that smells afterbirth on their heart. I pray for every person in this room that's still grappling with the complexities of their childhood, never recognizing who they are as an adult. I pray for their afterbirth. I pray for every person in this room that has night terrors, wakes up screaming in the night, horrified by memories you can't discuss with anybody else. It's afterbirth; it's got to get off of you today. I pray for every person in this room that's tormented by things you cannot change and cannot fix.
The words of people are still hanging on to you, what they said, what they had on when they said it. You can still see it in your mind, but God's gonna heal you this morning. He's gonna wash you, he's gonna wash you, he's gonna wash you by the Word of God today. He's gonna put a healing into your wound. I speak to every wounded place, every bruise in your life, every wound in your heart, in your ability to love, to communicate, to live, to thrive, to accept, to grow. I command you in the name of Jesus to be healed. I put salt in your wounds. I put salt in your wounds, and I command you in Jesus's name to be healed.
Finally, I swaddle you with the Word of God. I want the devil to know you're covered. I want every demon to know you're covered. I want every disease to know you're covered. I want every pain to know you're covered, that God's got you surrounded from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet. God said he's gon' baby wrap you. He's gon' baby wrap you this morning. He's gon' baby wrap you. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. Every tongue that rises against you shall be condemned. God's gon' baby wrap you from the crown of your head to the sole of your feet. God has you covered. You will never be the same. In Jesus's name, amen. If you receive it, give him some kind of...