TD Jakes - We Need An Epiphany
Both the wise men and the prodigal son were deceived—the wise men by Herod's false intent to worship Jesus, and the prodigal by believing he was ready for his inheritance prematurely. God intervenes with an epiphany, warning the wise men to go home another way and urging the prodigal to come to himself, showing that deception perpetuates until we embrace another path toward abundant life and better.
Herod's Deception and Empire
What is common in both texts is common in our society today. It is the perpetuation of deception. The wise men, you see, were from the east, and they were brought by Herod to go after Jesus that he might worship him, but they were deceived. The reason that Herod deceived them is that Herod had set up an empire in Judea, and he had this dream of being the king of the Jews, because on his mother's side he was Judean, but on his father's side he was Greek, and the Jews were not really accepting him as a leader because he was a biracial child, and they did not think that their king should be biracial.
They wanted him to be authentic and a part of the Royal Davidic dynasty that the scriptures might be fulfilled. And he was known for building buildings and large coliseums, and much of the big, humongous buildings that were built in the era were built by Herod. He was so powerful and so profound that he started a dynasty of successes so that you have to be careful when you read about Herod which one are they talking about—Herod One, Herod Two, Herod Three; they go on down the line, his children, his offspring.
He created a dynasty over people of which he was only partially related to. He was a tyrant, as it were, because he was not subject to any committee. The Sanhedrin and nobody else could control him. He had the last say; he was boss, and if he decided to kill every child under two, they were dead. He had this kind of power.
And he had built these coliseums right down to restoring the second temple that had laid in ruins that is now called Herod's Temple. You read it in your Bible, and they came to Herod's Temple. This Herodeous ideology that he has has become so strong that he pretty much controls the region.
He reaches out then to these eastern magi that we call wise men because they were stargazers. Having talked to the prophets, the Hebrew prophets, they knew the Messiah was coming, but they did not know where he was. The reason that Herod is concerned about the Messiah coming is because he is the king of the Jews, and now he has competition.
So if he can kill him early, he will knock him off before he becomes a threat. Note to self: whenever the devil knows that you have great destiny, he will always seek to knock you off early before you reach the hope of your calling.
I bet you there are many people in this room that have some childhood story that happened to you early in life, because hell saw you coming and thought, if I do not pollute her, dilute her, or destroy her early, she will rise to the full potential of power. But the Bible said, "No weapon formed against you shall be able to prosper, and every tongue that rises against you, God will condemn."
I do not want nobody to praise him but people who went through hell when they were young. You went through hell when you were young. You are still recovering from some of the trauma that happened to you when you were a child. Either it was a disease or it was an abuse or it was a molestation; it was something that the enemy did because he saw you coming.
Oh, but jump up and down and say, but I have made it. You are watching on television; you ought to tell God I have made it. They had me on the hit list of hell, but I made it. I made it through, I made it through in spite of the deception, in spite of the lies, in spite of the corruption, in spite of those that smiled in my face and stabbed me in the back, I made it to where I am.
In spite of the bad deals, in spite of the bad contractors, in spite of the house I thought I bought and they sold it out from under me, still I made it.
Victory Through Survival
That is why I know I got the victory. I am not waiting on the victory. My standing here is victory. I had to hide sometime, I had to bow down sometime, I had to sneak through the crowd sometime, but by hook or by crook I made it.
And the reason I am tenacious and relentless, and the reason I am driven, and the reason I will fight you is I have been fighting since I was a child. Make some noise if I am talking to you. So, I need to move on, because I am just in my introduction.
The wise men thought they were going to find Jesus so that they could go back and tell Herod where to worship. Herod thought, I have sent them to find him so I can go and kill the right one, and I will not have to kill everyone to get to the right one.
So the wise men were deceived for a while. And then the Lord spoke to them, because what happened to them—three things. First, they will rejoice when they saw the star because they are astrologists. So, the stars are like gods, and they rejoice when they saw the star, but when they saw the Son, they worshipped.
There is a difference between being glad and breaking into worship, because he is the bright and morning star. And when they saw the star, they saw a connection between their theology and his identity, and they tied into that connection and fell down before him and started worshiping, and started giving him gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And to all of you who say Jesus was poor, you did not read the text. The baby was born with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. He is just a toddler, and he is already being given gold, frankincense, and myrrh. "And they opened their treasures," the Bible said, "and they presented unto him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh."
How many babies you know got gold, frankincense, and myrrh brought to them from eastern kings? That is Jesus. Juxtaposed between born in a manger, they now find him not in a manger, but in the house, which means some time has gone by from the manger to the house. It took them a while to get there, but it got there.
The Camels Are Coming
I do not know who I am talking to, but my next point is, God has got something coming your way. It has taken a while, but it is going to get there. It did not come while you were in the manger, but by the time you get to the house, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, God is going to release everything that has been held up to you.
And I came to tell you this morning, the camels are coming, the camels are coming. Nudge somebody and tell them the camels are coming. The camels are coming. I might have been born in a manger, I might have been born on welfare, I might have been born on WIC, I might have been born off of government cheese, but the camels are coming.
I might have been born to illiterate parents, but the camels are coming. I might have been born on the wrong side of the tracks, but the camels are coming. And they know exactly where I am, and God is going to make sure I get everything I need.
You need to type on the line the camels are coming, the camels, the camels, the camels are coming, the camels are coming, and they will find me. If you do not find me in the manger, you will find me in the house. Because, even though before I got the frankincense and the gold, I was moving.
Touch somebody and say, keep it moving. You may be broke, but keep it moving. You may be tired, but keep it moving. You may be frustrated, but keep it moving. You may be at your wit's end, but keep it moving. You may be nervous, but keep it moving. The devil might be talking to you, but keep it moving. You might have haters all around you, but keep it moving. They might say they are going to kill you, but keep it moving.
What is alike about them and the prodigal son is that both the wise men and the prodigal son have been deceived. "Give me the portion of goods that falls to me." And he divided unto them his living, and the prodigal son thought he could handle something that he had not grown up into.
Deception in Readiness
Sometimes there is a reason God does not give you what you ask for sooner. It is not that your camels are slow; it is that you are not ready. And if you get something that you are not ready for, you will lose everything that you got.
Anytime the blessing gets greater than the receiver, the receiver will lose the blessing. Because you do not have the infrastructure to carry the weight of what God is about to place on you. It is good that you have been afflicted. It is good that you waited. It is good that it took time.
God gave you time to grow up and get yourself together, but because the prodigal son was deceived, he said, "I am ready for it; give it to me now." I do not know how old he was, but the brain does not fully develop to understand consequences until the early 20s, so he is living in the moment.
This is where it gets good. The problem is we are living in the moment and we do not think about consequences or future, so everything we get, we spend. The reason we spend everything we get is because we have not thought about the consequences, and we are not trained to think about the future, because we did not think we would have one.
But without sustainability, you have a moment of jubilation and a lifetime of regret.
The Power of Epiphany
So the wise men have come down, having seen Jesus. They are now eligible for an epiphany that they could not have had worshiping stars. And God speaks to them and says something very simple.
And let me tell you something—oh God, this is so good. I almost want to shout before I tell it. You are just a simple statement away from the greatest blessing you ever had in your life. It will not be deep, it will not be profound, it will not be provocative—just a simple statement.
The simple statement was, "Go home another way." Who am I preaching to this morning? I feel like I am talking to somebody. I feel like I am talking right to somebody. I feel like I am speaking right to somebody.
The Spirit of the living God told me to tell you that there is another way to live your life, and until you humble down to the point that you become open to another way, you will be vulnerable to the hatred of Herod, because you lack the flexibility to do the same thing another way.
And if you do not learn another way, you will lose your opportunity, and worse still, you have lost so much time being stubborn and set in your way and insisting on it being the way you want it to be. You have lost so much time.
You have lost so much time because you do not value spiritual things like epiphanies. You are not asking God for an epiphany, because if you get an epiphany, you might have to admit you was wrong.
You are not asking God for an epiphany because you have to be strong enough to change, and because you refuse to change, you do not want an epiphany. You want God to fund your dysfunction.
Oh God, oh God, I feel the Holy Ghost coming up in this place. It is coming like a flood. See, everybody in your life you have manipulated to fund your dysfunction, and now you call yourself spiritual, and now when you pray, the only thing you want from God is to capitalize your craziness.
An epiphany is an awakening. An epiphany is the sunrise. An epiphany is seeing clearly now. An epiphany is admitting, I see trees as men, and men as trees. An epiphany is coming to grips with the fact that I do not see it right.
And in order to do that you have to be willing to come down off your high horse and to understand—listen to this—that you could live your life another way. That if you miserable, you do not have to be. That if you are secretly depressed, you do not have to be. That if things are driving you crazy, they do not have to. It is a matter of choice.
There is more than one way back home. You could go back another way. Now, I know you are not going to shout when I got to this, because the onus and the responsibility is on you. You shout when the onus is on God. "Order my steps, Lord. Order my steps," because that absolves you from the responsibility of making a great decision.
And it takes away from you the joyful experience of murmuring and complaining about what you do not like about life rather than taking responsibility and making a change.
Bent on Better and Abundant Life
Give me 30 seconds of crazy praise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on.
For every problem in your life, for every worry in your life, for every stress point in your life, there is an epiphany, and the reason you do not have one is you never asked for one because you think that you are going to think of something that is smart enough to straighten it out, or you are going to argue until it becomes the way you want it to be, or you are going to stay out the game till they change the game and finally admit you are right.
You are a fool. They are not going to stop for you. They do not stop when you are born; they do not stop when you die; they do not stop when you have a car wreck; they do not stop when you have cancer.
What in the world made you think that the world was going to stop till it all lined up with you? We did not raise you right. Let us go back; let us rewind the tape, and let us start this over and get you from the crib and let you know that you are not the boss of the planet.
You do not control the business climate. You do not control the world. You do not control the universe. And, frankly, you are not doing a good job of controlling you.
Come on, and as soon as you accept that fact, you become eligible to have an opportunity at what Jesus came to do. Jesus did not come that you might have more church. He said, "I come that you might have life, and have life more abundantly."
There is an abundant life waiting on you. Anybody want abundant life? Make some noise in this place. I want abundant life. I do not care what you call it. You can call it Baptist; you can call it Bethany; you can call it—I do not care what you call it. The only reason I am here this morning is I am after abundant life.
Make some noise if you want abundant life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I am bent on better, I am bent on better, I am bent on better, I am bent on better, I am bent on better, I am bent on better.
Nudge five people and say, I am bent on better. I am bent on better, I am bent on better, I am bent on better. That is why I am at church. That is why I clap my hands. That is why I raise my hand. That is why I am studying my Word. That is why I am taking night classes. That is why I am going back to school. I am bent on better.
That is why I do not say everything I say. That is why I do not speak every time I am mad. That is why I hold my peace when my temper is trying to make me fall, because I am bent on better. And when I say too much, I have messed myself up, and I do not have time to take another lap around the same old stuff again.
I got to have better, and I need it now. It is my money, and I need it now. It is my wisdom, and I need it now. It is my victory, and I need it now. It is my power, and I need it now. And if I got a friend in the house that feels the same way, make some noise in this place.
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, he sent them from the north, the south, the east, and the west so he could tell you, come to yourself. Do not go to them; come to yourself. Do not try to morph into the culture; come to yourself.
The victory is not in becoming more like them; the victory is in coming to yourself. And the Bible says, "He was surrounded by pigs, but he came to himself." Somebody better grab my coattail, because I feel like preaching this word.
There is power in the Word of God. The Bible says, "He came to himself." He made an internal journey. He made a change in his spirit. He moved without moving. He did not start the car, but he went on a trip. And he came to himself.
Nudge somebody and say, I got to come to myself.