TD Jakes - Supply and Demand (04/21/2017)
The preacher applies the economic principle of supply and demand to faith, explaining that God's mighty acts and blessings are released in response to human hunger and demand; without appetite—often lost to pain, past trauma, or complacency—there is no draw on divine supply, urging believers to reclaim hunger for God's glory, provision, and presence.
Supply and Demand in Business and Faith
Supply and demand is not something that you hear preachers use in our jargon. As a rule, it is not one of the phrases or colloquialisms that are indicative of theology. It is generally more common amongst business because, if you do not learn supply and demand in business, you will not be in business very long.
I cannot tell you the amount of people who go into business in this country and supply some good products but go out of business. They are good at what they do, and what they do does not work, and they cannot always figure out why—and I do not want to oversimplify business because there are a lot of reasons why you go out of business—but one of the reasons, if you supply something, no matter how good it is, for which there is no demand, you will go out of business.
If you are good at doing something that I do not have a need for, you will go out of business.
The Obsolete VCR Example
I went and found one of my old VCRs—the player, you know? Plays real good. I think I paid about $300 or $400 for it. Have not bought one for about 12 years now because there is no demand for it.
I did not buy one because I could not afford it. I can afford to buy a new player or VCR or 8-track, for that matter. So, it was not lack of resources. There is no demand for it.
In order for something to be successful, the supplier is at the mercy of the demander because, no matter how good you are at supplying something, if there is no demand for it, you are vulnerable—so what they do, they spend millions of dollars to assess your demand because you control the market by your hunger.
If there is no hunger, there is no dinner. The appetite controls the ability to supply.
God Responds to Hunger
You cannot—and so is God. As great as He is, as strong as He is, as mighty as He is, as powerful as He is, He is at the mercy of your hunger.
There were cities that the water-walking, dead-raising Jesus went into that He could do no mighty acts because of their hunger. He could find no faith in that city, and He could do no mighty acts in that city.
The God who can do anything but fail could not perform where there was no hunger.
Hunger Draws the Anointing
You know this as well as I do—how the concert goes, how the sermon goes has less to do with us on the stage and more to do with those in the pews. It is their hunger that draws the anointing out of you.
If it is true about business, and it is true about food, then it is true about faith.
The Devil's Strategy: Steal Appetite
So, if I was the devil, and I could not stop God from being God, and I could not stop you from coming to church, I would let you come sit down at the table, but I would take your appetite—and the truth of the matter is we are surrounded by people who have lost their appetite.
What takes appetite? For some people, pain will take away your appetite. The pain takes so much attention and so much focus that all sensation of pleasure and fulfillment is sacrificed on the altar of pain—and, when people hurt real bad, they stop eating.
Past Trauma Kills Appetite
And I just wondered, has something taken away your appetite? I am not a big fan of angel hair pasta. I just am not. It is not the way it tastes. It is not even the way it looks.
I had a bad experience one time. I complained about some room service one time, and somebody put something in the angel hair pasta as a way of retaliation that made me desperately sick—and now, I associate angel hair pasta with nausea.
So, no matter how good you fix it, I just would rather any other kind of pasta because my mind associates angel hair pasta with what happened to me—and I have lost my desire for it because of the image that comes up in my head when I see it.
What images come up in your head about certain things that do not give you permission to enjoy what other people enjoy because of the images that come up in your head when you?
Could it be—I cannot really say, I should not really say I do not like angel hair pasta. I am stopped from liking it because of what happened to me—so, are you asking God to bless with your mouth something that you have canceled out in your head?
Demand More from Life
Can we talk about this? Because the truth of the matter is—let me tell you—there is no motivation to supply like it is when you find somebody who has got the capacity to demand—and I am trying to say to you in this simple message I am halfway through—are you putting a demand on life, or is life putting a demand on you?
Because most of the people that I encounter today, they respond to whatever life—"Well, child, what today going to bring? Lord, you do not know. When you wake up in the morning, you do not know what the day going to bring."
I do because I am going to bring it with me. I am going to bring it with me.
Waking with Agenda and Demand
I might not know what I am going to have to fight, but I know what the day is going to bring because I am going to bring it with me.
When I got out of the bed this morning, I did not have no doubt how this day was going to go. I knew that I was going to be standing right here preaching this message to this crowd this Sunday morning because I did not wake up without an agenda.
I woke up this morning. I got out of the bed this morning with an agenda and an expectation and a strategy and a plan.
I put a demand on my car—"You will take me to church." I put a demand on my body—"You will preach this morning." I put a demand on my mind—"You will think clear." I put a demand on my Holy Ghost—"You will anoint me. I got a job to do. I got something to do. I got somebody to go see."
You got to have something to do. A demand creates a supply. Demand more.
The Preciousness of Today
Do you know how precious your life is? Every second of it, every minute of it, every day of it, every hour—you know? Do you know you are never going to get this day again? You are never going to get this day ever again?
This is spent. You will never see it again. You will cry for it. You will gasp for it. You will pray for it. You will never get today back. And you are going to waste it?
Somebody died last night, gasping in a hospital room, trying to make it to morning—and you here, and you are not going to do nothing?
You made it through the night. You woke up this morning—and all you are going to do is grumble and, "Oh, my back. My toes. Lord, have mercy. Old grandma ain't what she used to be."
That is all you got? That is all you are going to do with today—is talk about what happened ten years ago and, "You acted just like your daddy. Your daddy was not no good." Daddy been gone 20 years, Mama. You still talking about Daddy?
You might as well have died with him if you was not going to live. Somebody shout, "I demand life." I demand life. I demand life. I refuse existence. I refuse existence. I will not just exist. I will live.
Jesus said, "That is what I came for. I came that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. I did not come to make you religious. I came to make you alive."
God's Provision in the Wilderness
The children of Israel in the wilderness—they have left Egypt. They have left the confines of Egypt. They have left the Pharaoh. They were working for food. That is what slavery—"We will work for food." They were working for food without commerce or money. They were working for food, and Pharaoh was supplying everything that they needed.
Then they got out in the wilderness, and God destroyed Pharaoh in the Red Sea—and even though he was a bad provider, he was still a provider—and now, they lost their sense of provision in the absence of Pharaoh.
Now, God must show them that, "I will not take out of your life anything that I will not replace—and, if I am going to replace it, I will either," catch this, "I will either replace it or become it."
So, He says, "When I took your Pharaoh—when I took your Pharaoh out of your life, I took over the responsibilities of making sure that you did not suffer lack in his absence—and I will supply all of your needs according to My riches in glory by Christ Jesus."
So God said, "Do not worry about Pharaoh dying. Do not mourn about that. Do not worry about it. I got you covered. I will supply all of your needs."
Manna: Unrecognizable Answer
So God starts sending manna down from heaven to feed them because they had not even learned how to handle commerce or money. 400 years of being a slave will destroy your economic intelligence—so they do not know anything about money. They do not know anything about investments. They do not know anything about commerce. They do not know anything about the future.
They were working for food—so God says, "I tell you what. You walk. I will feed." So, they started walking, and, as they were walking, God started feeding—and the manna started coming down from heaven to supply their needs.
Here is the other thing I want you to know—when God sent the answer, it did not look like food.
So many times, when God answers your prayers, they do not look like answers because the answer comes in the shape that is contrary to what you imagined—so you think that God has not answered you, but He has answered you, but He did not answer you in the shape that you had imagined it.
God's Answers Often Unrecognizable
Oh, I wish I had time. Throughout the Bible, whenever God sent an answer, it was always unrecognizable. They did not understand what it was. They did not understand who Joseph was because it was not what they had in mind. They did not understand who Jesus was because He was not what they had in mind. They did not understand who the manna was because it was not what they had in mind.
The disciples were waiting for Jesus on the boat, but, when He came walking on the water, they were scared of Him because He was not what they had in mind.
When you got down on your knees and start praying for answers—and God sends the answer—many times, you will walk over it because it was not what you had in mind—but it is not about what you had in mind. It is about what God had in mind for you.
Supply According to Hunger
Oh, y'all do not hear what I am saying—so God says, "I will supply what you need, but I will not supply it because you need it. I will supply it because you are hungry for it"—because, if God supplied on the basis of need, He would have given everybody the same amount of bread in the wilderness because everybody's body needs about the same thing to survive—but everybody does not have the same hunger.
So, I am trying to make you understand the difference between appetite and sustenance. You need a certain amount of nutrition to survive. That has nothing to do with your appetite. Appetite has to do with what it takes to make you have a feeling of satiety.
At what point are you satisfied? When thou art eaten and are full—at what point are you full? You went back for seconds. He did not. At what point are you full?
God said, "I will legislate My supply according to your demand. If you put more on Me, I will give more to you."
So, the Bible said, "To the man who ate more, God gave more; and, to the man who ate less, God gave less"—and God said, "I will regulate what I give to you according to the demand you put on Me—and, if you put a demand on Me," God said, "now, you know I am endless. I will never run out."
God Supplies Based on Capacity
So, the only—the only cue I have to stop is when you say you are full—because, if I opened up and fed you according to My capacity, I would blow you up—so I have to feed you according to your capacity. You have to tell Me when it is enough.
Y'all do not hear what I am saying. "You have to tell Me when it is enough"—and the problem with us is many of us have decided that it is enough before life is over because we have lost our appetite to believe God for more because we do not want the process that goes along with the provision—and, because the process—oh, let me stop—because the process is so difficult, you have given up on the provision.
But I came to church this morning to tell you that, if you can survive the process, that God has provisions beyond anything you will ever imagine—that the cattle on a thousand hills belongs to our God—that whatever you need, God has got it. If you need healing, God has got it. If you need joy, God has got it. If you need peace, God has got it. If you need a family, God has got it.
You have to tell Him when it is enough.
The Widow's Oil: Flow Stops with Demand
I got to quit. I got to quit—but I am onto something. You remember the woman who had a pot of oil, and the prophet told her to borrow vessels and borrow not a few?
Do you remember as long as the vessels kept coming, the oil kept flowing? You remember that the oil only stopped when the demand stopped?
God said, "I am eternal. I can flow for generations and generations and generations and generations. You have to tell Me when you are full."
And I came to tell you I think you are sending God the wrong signal. I think you are sending God the wrong signal—because God would have no way of knowing when it was enough because He is infinite—so He sends it according to their eating—and to the one who ate more, He gave more—and to the one who ate less, He gave less—because what God hates is waste.
"And I will not give it to a waster. To him that hath," God says, "I will give more. To him that hath not"—this is crazy to me, God talking, because it sounds so ungodly to say this—"To him that hath not," God said, "I will take away that which he seemeth to have."
I thought, "Lord, if You find somebody who hath not, You ought to give them more."
Giving According to Capacity, Not Need
He said, "No. I am not going to give them more. I am not giving as a result of their need. I am giving according to their capacity, their appetite, their hunger—and to him that hath not, the reason I take away what he seems to have is because you did not maximize what I gave you—so how could I take you to the next level? Why would you ask Me to invest in something that is already bankrupt?
If you do not learn how to manage where you are, then you cannot handle where I am taking you—so, all of a sudden, I cannot give you what I would like to give you because you have not mastered what you have—but, when I see you mastering on the level that you are," then God said, "I will give you more—pressed down, shaken together, and running over—but I will only give it according to your eating."
Lost Hunger in Modern Church
One more thing. I am going to take you one step further, and then I am going to close.
As a person who has lived 50-some years, the church today is almost unrecognizable to the church I grew up in—and there are pros and cons on both sides—but one of the pros to the church I grew up in that we do not see today is there used to be a glory that came in the church that was so amazing that people would lay prostrate on the floor for hours.
No, no—not for minutes. For hours—for hours. They would be laid out on the altar, just praying in the Spirit, just gone in the Holy Ghost for hours. They would cover people with sheets. They would look like corpses in the presence of the Lord.
People were getting healed and coming up out of wheelchairs and walking and dancing and shouting. I have seen people dance on hot potbellied stove, dancing in the Holy Ghost, and never get burned. I have seen people do the holy dance on the back of a pew and never fall off the pew—and, see, I am talking about stuff you have never seen.
You do not see that happening anymore. I have seen dead people raised. I have seen limbs grown. I have seen blinded eyes opened. I have seen people lay out in the presence of God and prophesy things that happened in the community a month later. I have seen the gifts of the Spirit operate at maximum capacity.
And I ask myself—did we compromise stained glass windows and padded pews for the presence of the Lord?
But the Lord said, "I am not dissuaded by opulence, or I would not have built Solomon's Temple." He said, "It is not the houses that you built that stopped My glory. It is the hunger that you lost that stops My glory."
Hunger Brings God's Glory
He said, "Tell My people—he that hungers and thirsts after righteousness shall be filled—but I cannot give you a glory that you do not ask Me for. I cannot heal a cancer you do not ask Me to heal.
Tell My people who have called out My name that, if you humble yourself and pray and seek My face and turn from your wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven. I will forgive your sins, and I will heal your land.
But because this generation will only give Me a two-hour window, then I can only be a two-hour God—but, if I ever find anybody who wants My glory more than they want to be stuck in traffic, if I find somebody who wants My glory well enough to miss a football game, I will open up the windows of heaven and pour you out."
Tell your neighbor, "I want the glory. I want the glory. I want the glory. I want it in my life. I want it in my spirit. I want it in my heart—and I am hungry."
Is there anybody hungry in this house? Is there anybody hungry in this house? Lift your hands, and open your mouth, and let God know, "I am hungry."