TD Jakes - All Eyes On Him: A New Outlook
How can God be so good and make such a way and then we doubt him. Our doubt bites at him, it bites at him. It's a painful thing to be doubted, your integrity disrespected. It occurred to me that this doubting was not just about God, they had a pathology of doubting, these people had murmured and complained before. They had murmured and complained against Pharaoh, the same people who murmured and complained against Pharaoh that got God to come down and deliver them in the first place now murmur and complain against God.
Now, I can understand you murmuring and complaining against Pharaoh 'cause Pharaoh was a slave master, he was abusive and he treated you like dirt and he made you make bricks without straw and he didn't feed you and he didn't care for you and he didn't love you and he killed your babies. And then God delivered you from this death-mongering man and brought you out from under his hand and gave you so much more than you ever had. But when you have a pathology of murmuring and complaining, you don't know how to be happy. I mean, these aren't powder puff people saying, "Oh, you know, the wagon ride was tough, I'm getting a callous on my hips. Oh, you know, the food service was cold, it was late coming out on".
Like, what are you talking about? You were slaves. You were slaves, this has got to be better than that. But what gives us amnesia, that we forget how bad it was before and we fall back into these patterns, these pathologies of murmuring and complaining? I guess because I've counseled people for 41 years, I am aware that if you have a murmuring individual they won't be happy till they find something to murmur about. I don't care if you put them in the Taj Mahal, they'd say, "You know, it take too long for the water to get hot. In these big buildings, you gotta wait too long for the water to get hot. In my old house, as soon as you turn the spigot on the water got hot".
Some people are going to find something to complain about, I don't care what you do, that's why they're driving some of the rest of us crazy because we need their validation. Have you ever been working hard to please somebody that's never satisfied? C'mon, where are my real people at? No matter what you do it's never enough? They look past everything you did and find something wrong? "There's a spot on your jacket," and you just want to, well. You know, I'm human, I admit it, I confess, sometimes when people disrespect your best effort it makes you angry, when you've done everything you can do for them and they still complain it makes you angry. Don't make your love so expensive. Oh, that's a tweetable right there. If you make your love too expensive, people eventually give up, they get tired of working to please you and getting nothing but complaints in return. This isn't about God, this is about you.
Now, when you complained about Pharaoh you had a right to complain, but some people, even if God let them, they would hate him too. "Sure is hot". You've been working in the hot sun for 400 years, this is a piece of cake compared to that. When you have a pathology of complaining you are only comfortable when you're unhappy. You have to give yourself permission to be happy, to say, "You know what? This is so much better than that, I'm so grateful. Yes, I have to eat the same thing every day, this stuff keeps dropping down from heaven they call manna. It's not exactly seasoned the way I would season it but I'm going to make it work for me 'cause I know what it is to live in a life where wasn't nothing dropping my way and now I see something dropping my way".
Talk to me, real people. And I have learned that until you become grateful you will never become victorious, you have to learn how to be grateful for where you are. I'm all for being ambitious, I'm all for being aggressive but don't let your ambition make you ungrateful. It is when you appreciate where you are that God takes you to the next level. I told a friend of mine the other day, I said, "I feel funny giving my testimony sometime, when I tell people by how I came up and how they took my car and how I had to thumb to church and how I passed it over 10 years and didn't have 100 members and how small and tiny my church was and how none of the pews matched and how I was working and pastoring at the same time, working a full-time job and getting off work and going to pastor when I got off work".
And they look at me and they feel so sorry for me, but what they don't understand is that when I was living like that and going through that, it didn't look to me like it sounds because I was so glad that God had asked me to do anything. I was so excited about that little church, I lit that place up. It was a little storefront and I had a chandelier right in the middle of it. Yes, I did, I was fixing that thing up, had it all fixed up, put a wreath on the door at Christmas time. It was rusty but it was a wreath on the door, glory to God. Because, whatever God gives you, until you appreciate where you're at, you're not gonna get the release of what God is about to do in your life.
Oh, somebody oughta shout me down on that. They angered God with their disrespect and he sent serpents to bite them and they died, they died, they died. The people he saved died, the people he rescued died, the people he brought out died, the people he fought Pharaoh for died, the people that 600 chariots drowned for died and they died beside the Red Sea because of their mouth. I bet you at least 50% of the troubles you have gone through in your life have come a result of things that have come out of your mouth. When are we gonna learn that once you say something, you can't take it back? When are we gonna learn to shut our mouths? Their mouthes got them in trouble, the power of life and death is in the tongue. They said things to a God who is a speaking God; their words bit him, he bit them back. He sent serpents and they bit them and a lot of them died because of their mouth.
I want that to sink in. We're killing our marriages with our mouth, we're killing our children with our mouth, we kill our ministries with our mouth, we kill our careers with our mouth, we lose our jobs with our mouth, we fall out with people that God sent in our lives to bless us with our mouth, God opens doors that we close with our mouth. God wants to put you in places that you're gonna have to be quiet when you get there or you're gonna lose those opportunities like you lost those other opportunities. I know that don't make you shout and I know that doesn't get you excited but somebody's got to tell you the truth. Some of that stuff you lost, it wasn't the devil, it was because you couldn't handle it, it was because you said stuff to change the way people treated you and now you're upset with them like a demon was fighting you but you have been snared by the words of your mouth. And if you would shut your mouth, the devil wouldn't have nothing to work with.
Touch your neighbor and say, "Shut your mouth". But then there was another group, they got bitten but they weren't dead, they got bitten, they swole up, they got sick, they threw up but they weren't dead. And they went to Moses, who they'd been talking about, and they said, "I know I'm in trouble because I spoke against God and I spoke against you". We don't have that anymore. I told you a few weeks ago we don't have revival because we don't have repentance. You can't have revival, I don't care who you bring in to preach, you can't have revival until you have repentance. When you have done wrong, sometimes you gotta go to somebody and say, "I've been running my mouth and I'm sorry, I said some stuff I shouldn't have said and I recognize I'm a better person than that and I want you to forgive me".
See, what I'm trying to tell you, if your mouth got you in trouble, it's going to take your mouth to get you out. Don't let your mouth get so arrogant that you can't change. If you're bold enough that you just gotta keep it real, well, keep it real when you wrong, and really bring yourself in here and really apologize and really get yourself together. Now, that's keeping it real. Keeping it real don't work just because you flip out on me, keeping it real is when you flip out on yourself and say, "I have been running by mouth and I am sorry, I'm sorry". That's why you're having trouble with your children, 'cause they learned it from you. That's why they won't apologize to you, 'cause you never modeled it in front of them. They went to Moses and they said, "Man, look, we've been talking about you and we've been talking about God, and the reason I'm confessing is I'm sick of getting bitten".
What's happening in my life is a result of how I see my leadership. What's happening in my life is a result of how I see my God. How dare me insult the one who delivered me and all you are guilty of is trying to pull me through the wilderness, and I'm making it hard to be saved. And Moses, now, has to pray for people who were talking about him. This is why you gotta be a big person to be a leader, you got to be a big person to be a leader. See, because if you're not careful, you'll get bitter over what they did to you and then when it's time to pray for them you'll be saying, "Bite them again, Lord, I hope they get them again, get his other foot, bite him in his other foot," 'cause you're human.
And sometimes you have to be the bigger person. Just because you're right doesn't give you the right to be evil. You have to be right enough that you can help people who got it wrong. So love always has to keep the door cracked. That's why you get to be Moses, because you're big enough to let a brother come back, that's how you get to be Moses. And sometimes you'll be acting in your Moses-ness and somebody you're connected to is talking about, "They making a fool out of you. That's why I hate to fool with you 'cause you just let people make a fool outta you". Don't listen at them, don't listen at them, their inability to forgive will always stop them from being who they were meant to be, the bigger person is always big enough to forgive and create opportunities for them to make a comeback.
They're coming back in your life because they're in the kind of trouble that only you can pray them out of and you got to be prepared to do what God called you to do. Glory to God. You can't let your feelings control this conversation, you've gotta open up your heart and open your spirit and pray for the very person who tried to sabotage your life, tried to wreck your marriage, went after your finances, tried to get your position and now they got cancer and you gotta go in and pray for them and you got a mean it when you pray. And every time you do it, God's gonna make you a bigger man and a bigger woman and a bigger person and he's going to open up the windows of heaven and you're gonna have more capacity to receive what he has for you. God's getting ready to enlarge you and strengthen you and build you up.
Who am I preaching to tonight? Well, if I'm preaching to you, I got good news. You've been bitten but you've not been beaten, you've been bitten but you've not been beaten. I want to talk to people who have had setbacks, you've been bitten but you've not been beaten. I want to talk to people who made mistakes and got themselves in trouble and hooked up with the wrong folks and said the wrong thing and got in trouble, and it looks like you're not a real Christian, but you really are, you just did some dumb things and you got yourself in trouble.
Well, God didn't let it kill you 'cause he's got a plan for your life. And the Lord sent this word to you tonight because there's gonna be a mighty resurrection going on in this place. And some of the very people that you thought would never get back up again, God's gonna raise them back up again. And he told me to tell you, just because you've been bitten doesn't mean you've been beaten, God's gonna raise you up. If you look up, God's gonna bring you up and to heal you and deliver you. And I want 30 seconds of crazy praise in this place. Yes, Lord; yes, Lord.
So God tells Moses, he says, "I'm going to fix them". Now this is tough, catch this. "I'm going to fix them but I'm going to fix them through what bit them". They got bitten by a serpent and they got healed. This is the only time in the Scriptures where anybody got healed by a serpent. A serpent is a symbol of evil but God said, "I'm going to use what bit you". Now, this is good anytime you heard it but if you've heard this message this morning then this is even better, because the very thing that bit you, that broke your heart as a child, that made you need more than others, that made you more insecure than other people, that made you more vulnerable than other people, the very thing that bit you is the very thing that God is going to use to heal you.
You remember this morning when I was talking about your board members and how you have things that drove you to do exceptional things and it wasn't what you were running to, it was what you were running from? Yeah, some of you ran to great things because you were running from horrible things and the thing that the devil meant for evil, God made it good. Yeah, if you had not been exposed to that, you would not be as tenacious as you are, and so your ministry is made out of your misery, and the very thing that bit them is the very thing that God used to cure them. And he said, "I want you to make a serpent out of brass," and in order to make a serpent out of brass, you had to take brass and beat it.
And when he was beating the brass, he was acting out Jesus who was wounded for our transgressions and was bruised for our iniquities and was bitten and he became sin, he became sin, who knew no sin, the dove became a serpent on the cross and epitomized everything I did wrong so that when I looked up at the cross, I would look up at him and find life. And the Bible said, "Even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so shall the Son of man be lifted up in the earth".
In that same way, God will take what was working against you and use it to work for you. He will use it to work for you to the point that you're going to say, "It was good for me that I was afflicted. If I had never been afflicted, I would have never seen the glory of God. It was good that it happened to me, it was good that I was afflicted, it was good that I was hurt, it was good that I was broken, it was good that I lost my job, it was good that I went through that scandal, it was good that I went through that test". God's gonna take the very thing that worked against you and make it work for you. The only thing that he needs from you is to change your outlook.
Now, it takes faith when you've been bitten by a serpent to look to a serpent. You can't trust the emblems of your past to determine the emblems of your future, because God's going to use the thing that bit you to bless you. When I was on the front page of the paper in Charleston, it bit me, it bit me. For a whole week my house was on the front page of the paper, they talked about me like I was a dog, it bit me. They shot gun holes through my church, they tried to scare me out preaching the gospel. They bit me, they ostracized me, my mother couldn't take her walks, my sons couldn't go to school. It was a dark day in my life, I was bitten. The woman who wrote the first article, if I could find her, I'd take her out to the finest restaurant in Dallas, because she blessed me when she bit me because I never would have found you.
Now, all of you folks who haven't been bitten, you don't have nothing to get happy about, but if you've been bitten, you ought to get happy 'cause you got a blessing coming your way. I wish I could meet her, I hope you, lady, if you see this tape, I'll take you anywhere in Dallas you want to go. I'll buy you a steak so big you'll need two plates to hold it, I'll treat you like gold because what you meant to kill me gave me the greatest lesson I've ever had in my life. Somebody help me praise him tonight.
I'm trying to tell you your blessing is on the way, I'm trying to tell you your blessing is on the way, I'm trying to tell you your blessing is on the way. This was the trick: God said, "I'm gonna use the same symbol that bit you to bless you, but this is the trick, you're gonna have to look up at it, you're gonna have to change the way you look at the snake". He said, "Your mouth got you in trouble but your vision is gonna get you out". I want to spend my last few minutes talking to people that's got a vision, and you've been bitten but you got a vision, you've got some setbacks but you got a vision, you've had some swelling but you got a vision, you don't know where the money's coming from but you got a vision.
Well, you're in the right place tonight and you're here at the right time and you're standing in the right year because this is going to be the year for people that everybody thought was gonna die. You're getting ready to change your outlook and God's getting ready to give you what you never had before. I'm looking to Jesus, I'm looking to Jesus, my eyes are on him, my hope is in him, my trust is in him, my vision is in him. I'm ready for it, I'm ready for it, I'm ready for it, I'm ready for it, I'm praising for it, I'm dancing for it, I'm shouting for it. If you mean business, give God a praise. Yes, yes, I feel a breakthrough, I feel a breakthrough.