TD Jakes — Supply and Demand
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 don't learn supply and demand is business, you won't be in business very long. I can't tell you the amount of people who go into business in this country and supply some good products but go out of business. They're good at what they do, and, you know, what they do doesn't work, and they can't always figure out why, and I don't 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'll go out of business. If you are good at doing something that I don't have a need for, you'll go out of business.
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. Haven't bought one for about 12 years now 'cause there's no demand for it. I didn't, I did not buy one because I couldn't afford it. I can afford to buy a new player or VCR or 8-track, for that matter. So, it wasn't lack of resources. There's 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're 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. You can't 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 'cause 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 couldn't perform where there was no hunger. 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's true about food, then it's true about faith. So, if I was the devil, and I couldn't stop God from being God, and I couldn't stop youth from coming to church, I'd let you come sit down at the table, but I'd take your appetite, and the truth of the matter is we're 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.
And I just wondered, has something taken away your appetite? I don't, I'm not a big fan of angel hair pasta. I just am not. It's not the way it tastes. It's 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 don't give you permission to enjoy what other people enjoys because of the images that come up in your head when you? Could it be, I can't really say, I shouldn't really say I don't like angel hair pasta. I'm 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? 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's got the capacity to demand, and I'm trying to say to you in this simple message I'm 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 gonna bring? Lord, you don't know. When you wake up in the morning, you don't know what the day gonna bring".
I do 'cause I'm gonna bring it with me. I'm gonna bring it with me. I might not know what I'm gonna have to fight, but I know what the day's gonna bring because I'm gonna bring it with me. When I got out the bed this morning, I didn't have no doubt how this day was gonna go. I knew that I was gonna be standing right here preaching this message to this crowd this Sunday morning 'cause 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 gotta have something to do. A demand creates a supply. Demand more. 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're never gonna get this day again? You're never gonna get this day ever again? This is spent. You'll never see it again. You'll cry for it. You'll gasp for it. You'll pray for it. You'll never get today back. And you're gonna waste it? Somebody died last night, gasping in a hospital room, trying to make it to morning, and you here, and you're not gonna do nothing? You made it through the night. You woke up this morning, and all you're gonna do is grumble and, "Oh, my back. My toes. Lord, have mercy. Old grandma ain't what she used to be".
That's all you got? That's all you're gonna do with today is talk about what happened ten years ago and, "You acted just like your daddy. Your daddy wasn't no good". Daddy been gone 20 years, Mama. You still talking about Daddy? You might as well have died with him if you wasn't gonna 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's what I came for. I came that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. I didn't come to make you religious. I came to make you alive".
The children of Israel in the wilderness, they have left Egypt. They have left the confines of Egypt. They've left the Pharaoh. They were working for food. That's what slavery, "We'll 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'm going to replace it, I will either," catch this, "I will either replace it or become it," so, 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 didn't suffer lack in his absence, and I will supply all of your needs according to my riches and glory by Christ Jesus," so God said, "Don't worry about Pharaoh dying. Don't mourn about that. Don't worry about it. I got you covered. I will supply all of your needs," so God starts sending manna down from heaven to feed them because they hadn't even learned how to handle commerce or money.
400 years of being a slave will destroy your economic intelligence, so they don't know anything about money. They don't know anything about investments. They don't know anything about commerce. They don't know anything about the future. They were working for food, so God says, "I tell you what. You walk. I'll feed". So, they started walking, and, as they were walking, God starting feeding, and the manna started coming down from heaven to supply their needs.
Here's the other thing I want you to know. When God sent the answer, it didn't look like food, so many times, when God answers your prayers, they don't look like answers because the answer comes in the shape that is contrary to what you imagined, so you think that God hasn't answered you, but he has answered you, but he didn't answer you in the shape that you had imagined it. Oh, I wish I had time. Throughout the Bible, whenever God sent an answer, it was always unrecognizable. They didn't understand what it was. They didn't understand who Joseph was because it wasn't what they had in mind. They didn't understand who Jesus was because he wasn't what they had in mind. They didn't understand who the manna was because it wasn't 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 wasn't what they had in mind.
When you got down on your knees and start praying for answers, and God says the answer, many times, you will walk over 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. Oh, y'all don't hear what I'm saying, so God says, "I will supply what you need, but I won't supply it because you need it. I will supply it because you're 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 'cause everybody's body needs about the same thing to survive, but everybody doesn't have the same hunger.
So, I'm 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 didn't. At what point are you full? God said, "I will legislate my supply, according to your demand. If you put more on me, I'll 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'm endless. I'll never run out.
So, the only, the only cue I have to stop is when you say you're 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's enough". Y'all don't hear what I'm saying. "You have to tell me when it's 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 'cause we don't 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's got it. If you need healing, God's got it. If you need joy, God's got it. If you need peace, God's got it. If you need a family, God's got it. You have to tell him when it's enough.
I gotta quit. I gotta quit, but I'm 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'm eternal. I can flow for generations and generations and generations and generations. You have to tell me when you're full," and I came to tell you I think you're sending God the wrong signal. I think you're sending God the wrong signal because God would have no way of knowing when it was enough because he's 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 ate 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, 'cause 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".
He said, "No. I'm not gonna give them more. I'm not giving as a result of their need. I'm 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 didn't 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 don't learn how to manage where you are, I can't, then you can't handle where I'm taking you, so, all of a sudden, I can't give you what I'd like to give you because you haven't 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".
One more thing. I'm gonna take you one step further, and then I'm gonna 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 don't 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'd be laid out on the altar, just praying in the Spirit, just gone in the Holy Ghost for hours. They'd cover people with sheets. They'd 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've seen people dance on hot potbellied stove, dancing in the Holy Ghost, and never get burned. I've seen people do the holy dance on the back of a pew and never fall off the pew, and see, I'm talking about stuff you have never seen. You don't see that happening anymore. I've seen dead people raised. I've seen limbs grown. I've seen blinded eyes opened. I've seen people lay out in the presence of God and prophesy things that happened in the community a month later. I've 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 wouldn't have built Solomon's Temple". He said, "It's not the houses that you built that stopped my glory. It is the hunger that you lose that stops my 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 don't ask me for. I cannot heal a cancer you don't 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'll 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'm hungry".