TD Jakes - Divine Intervention (10/28/2022)
In the 40-day period after His resurrection but before ascension, Jesus appears only to His disciples—not performing public miracles to convince unbelievers, but proving Himself alive and teaching the Kingdom to build their faith. Using examples like Noah, Elijah, Moses, and His own wilderness temptation, the preacher highlights the significance of 40 days as a testing and strengthening season, urging believers to rise above troubles, trust angelic ministry amid enemies, submit to God’s mission over personal agendas, and invite divine intervention into disappointed expectations.
The 40-Day Intermediate Stage
Some things God will show you and take you through so that you can have a firmness of faith and become a cornerstone, and they’re not always pleasant things. This is an intermediate stage. He has risen from the dead, and yet he has not yet ascended to his Father, and he’s only doing house calls.
He’s not healing any more blind people; he’s not turning any more water into wine; he’s not healing the woman with the issue of blood. Blind Bartimaeus is no longer being healed. He has stopped the miracles that we’ve become accustomed to seeing because he is no longer using miracles to convince the unconvincable. He is just showing himself alive to his own. Are you one of his tonight? Are you one of his online tonight? Are you one of his in the building tonight?
Listen for God to show you some things that other people don’t see, and you don’t need their confirmation. When God has spoken to you, you don’t need their confirmation.
The Symbolism of 40 Days
God has spoken to you, and the Bible says in Genesis 7:4, «For in seven days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the earth.» Noah and his family lived in the confines of the ark for exactly 40 days. At the end of 40 days, God brought them out.
There’s something about 40 days that we have to pay attention to; 40 days has a lot of symbolism in scripture of which we must pay attention to and understand. In Genesis 7:17 it says, «The flood continued 40 days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.» It rose above what other people were drowning in. So, I want you to write a note to yourself: I’m gonna rise above what other people drown in.
And so, the Bible says about Elijah that God sent the ravens to feed him, and they fed him while he was under the juniper tree, and he went in the strength of that meat 40 days and 40 nights. Isn’t that amazing? He went in the strength—that same 40 days, 40 nights. Moses on the mountain, 40 days, 40 nights. Noah in the ark, 40 days, 40 nights. With Moses on the mountaintop, 40 days, 40 nights.
We keep seeing that 40 days, and Jesus is in this 40-day window. And Jesus, full of the Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by the devil, and he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.
And the Bible says in Mark 1:13, «And he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.» Now, look at the oxymoron between the wild animals and the angels. Have you ever had to live in between wild animals and angels? Oh, I wish I had a witness. Somebody in here knows what I’m talking about—to live in between wild animals who are waiting to devour you, waiting on you to die. They know you haven’t eaten for 40 days; they see you as dinner, and the angels see you as God’s property.
And you have to live in between wild animals and angels. Most of us live our lives somewhere between wild animals and angels, and you have to decide what you’re gonna pay attention to. Are you gonna pay attention to the wild animals snarling over in the corner, saying, «I’m gonna tear you up. I’m gonna destroy you. You’re not gonna make it. You’re gonna collapse. You’re gonna have a nervous breakdown. This is too much for you. You can’t handle it»? Or are you gonna look to the angels who have come to minister to you?
Angelic Ministry Amid Enemies
What I love about the angels is that the angels don’t need a perfect audience to result in a perfect end. The angels can minister to you right in the presence of wild animals, and you can still get your blessing. You have been asking God to move the wild animals, but God is not afraid of the wild animals. In fact, he prepares a table before you in the presence of your enemies. Can I get a witness, somebody?
Glory to God. So, don’t drive all your enemies away because they’re there to watch you eat. Who am I talking to? God left your enemies alive, not to torment you; he wanted them to watch you eat so that he could prove an irrevocable point in your life that none of the snarling of their teeth could stop you from being ministered to by God.
God wants to show you so the next time something snarls at you, you won’t run from it, because God has already proven that he can feed you in the presence of wild beasts. You don’t have to have your friends, your prayer warriors, your church mothers, or your pastor. If God gets ready to bless you, he’ll send the angels to minister to you. Can I get a witness, somebody?
Hallelujah, glory. There’s some people in here—the angel stopped the car wreck. You thought for sure you were going to lose control of the car, and you did, but God’s angels stepped in just in the nick of time. There’s some people in this room that survived some stuff that you thought you would never get out of, but God sent angels to minister in your behalf.
There’s some people in here that sunk into the base of depression, but God sent angels to lift you up, and all of a sudden they ministered to you. In fact, the Bible says angels are ministering spirits. Whenever angels come, they come to make you better; they come to make you well; they come to heal you. They never come to steal; they never come to destroy.
Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus said, I come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. The angels of the Lord encamp about them that fear him. You may not know it, but you’re surrounded by angels. Glory to God.
Type that on the line: I’m surrounded by angels. Tell cancer I’m surrounded by angels. Tell COVID I’m surrounded by angels. Tell depression I’m surrounded by angels. Tell fear I’m surrounded by angels. Tell yourself I’m surrounded by angels. Even if you live in a house by yourself, you don’t live by yourself. You’re surrounded by angels.
The angels of the Lord encamp about them that fear him—that means they set their camp around people that fear God. That’s why I’m a preacher, because to fear God is to reverence God, and when you start reverencing God, the angels of the Lord encamp round about you. Did you not know you’re surrounded by angels right now? Surrounded by angels.
A lot of things that happened to your friends didn’t happen to you because you were surrounded by angels.
Then the Bible says in Acts chapter 1, verse 3, «He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.» He stayed around 40 days. He just hung around to hang out with the boys. Jesus just crash parties, walked through doors, showed up in the upper room, stood on the road to Emmaus.
Dealing with Disappointment
He intervenes in the upper room with Thomas because Thomas is doubting the Lord. He’s afraid; he’s not sure Jesus was who he thought he was, because Jesus didn’t do what he thought he would do.
I want to talk to disappointed Christians. You’ve been disappointed because God didn’t do what you thought he was going to do, but just because God didn’t do what you thought he was going to do doesn’t mean that the Lord is not with you. They thought that Jesus had come to restore them nationally, to get involved with politics, to overthrow the Roman oppression, but he came to destroy the works of the devil.
Just because God didn’t do what you thought he was gonna do doesn’t mean that God isn’t doing something in your life. Get rid of your depression, because hidden in your depression and your discouragement is arrogance—because you ordered God around, and he didn’t follow your orders; now your feelings are hurt because God didn’t follow your orders. But God did not create you to order him; God created you so he could order you.
So, just because you asked it, you expected it, you envisioned it, you thought it was supposed to happen—if God didn’t do it, it wasn’t supposed to happen. Because God has a plan for your life, and if God would have done what you expected him to do, it would have messed up the plan.
God had a plan for your life, and it wasn’t time for him to overthrow Rome. He ultimately overthrew the powers of Rome outside of Jerusalem. He brought it down to naught, but it was in God’s own timing, not your time. So, you don’t have a right to be bitter with God because he didn’t do what you thought he was going to do.
Submission to God’s Mission
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. What God has for you is for you. What God has planned for you is for you. And what we have to learn rather than to be dominant with God is to be submissive with God—to submit to his will, to submit to his way.
That doesn’t mean that you’re a mindless robot. Submission is to submit to the mission. Submission doesn’t mean you’re weak; it doesn’t mean you’re frail; it doesn’t mean you’re mindless. It means that you have a mission that’s more important than you.
Every person listening at me tonight should have a mission that’s more important than you, because until you have a mission that’s more important to you, you will always be narcissistic. And as long as you’re narcissistic, you will weigh the value of God based on the impact on you, because your goal is you.
God’s goal is his mission. God esteems nothing above his purpose. What God has purposed will come to pass. And the Bible says all things work together for good for them that love the Lord who are the called according to his purpose.
So, until you lift God’s purpose above your agenda, you’re never gonna see the hand of God move in your life the way it really needs to move in your life, because you are a self-enthroned egoist—a self-enthroned egoist means your ego is so out of control that you have crowned yourself above the King of kings.
Submission. That’s why we often kneel when we pray; it is a position of submission. It’s saying, God, I bring myself down so that your mission can be higher than me.
Are you living out God’s mission? If not, no wonder you’re not happy; no wonder you have no peace, because the peace is in his mission and doing what you were created to do and being faithful to your charge—to understand that I submit to the mission.
Whether I’m in a trailer or in a mansion, I submit to the mission. Don’t worry about the trailer; it’s just a test. He knew he was gonna ultimately bless me in exceptional ways, but he proved me in the furnace of affliction so that no devil would be able to say that I serve God for the things he gave me.
He let me serve him with my pockets empty; he let me serve him with my lights off so that I would have no doubt about who I am. You can’t just preach faith when you’re up. You can’t just preach faith when you’re rich. You can’t just preach faith when you get the degree.
You gotta say like Job, though he slay me, yet shall I trust him. That yet shall I trust him means you’re a Bible student, not just a Bible scholar. You’re always learning about God, and you’re trusting him when things don’t look good, and they don’t feel good, and your emotions have turned against you, and you’re in a fight with your own flesh, and you still praise God.
When your mouth is dry and your heart is broken and you don’t feel like praising God, you drag yourself in here and say, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.
Do not know that drives the devil crazy? Because the devil said, I know he’s not gonna praise God now. He just got bad news. I know she’s not gonna praise God with a bad knee. But there are some people in this room and online that they have learned whatever state they’re in to give God the praise anyway.
Divine Intervention on the Road to Emmaus
Now I’m gonna play with this text a little bit. There is no question to the authenticity of the fact that these people were disciples. The Bible is clear. It does not call them sinners; it does not call them unbelievers; it does not call them doubters. They are undeniably disciples.
Only one of them is named Cleophas. The others remain anonymous. But the thing that is clear about them is that they are disciples. Without distinction they have given their lives to Christ. Their conversation is a reflection of their commitment, because if you are really a Christian, you ought to talk like one.
It’s like a woman in love; she don’t feel funny talking about her marriage. A man in love don’t feel funny talking about the person they love. In fact, you can’t shut them up. So, they are talking about Jesus, and there is a stranger in the distance.
So, the first word we want to talk about is intervention. The stranger intervenes in the conversation. He is not invited into the conversation; he just eavesdropped on them talking about Jesus, and he puts himself, interjects himself, intervenes into the conversation.
I love the fact that God is aggressive—that God is aggressive enough to intervene in your understanding of who he is, because we all see through a glass darkly. We don’t know everything that there is to know about God, even though we are legitimately disciples.
We still don’t know everything that there is to know about God, and they were sharing information based on their understanding of what God had done. And Jesus said, «What are y’all talking about?» And then they asked him, «Are you a stranger in Jerusalem? Have you not known what happened three days ago?»
So, this is three days away from the resurrection. They are three days into the 40-day experience, and Jesus says, «No, what’s going on?» Your God is an actor. He feigns not to know. He allows you to get down on your knees and talk for two hours about something he already knows. He lets you feel like you are informing him about a situation, like he can’t see.
So, the teacher went back to school. Jesus is the rabbi, the master teacher; he is the professor. He is in the room to be the teacher, but he acquiesces to these who think that they are teachers. And sometimes God will acquiesce and allow you to walk in your own wisdom so that you can discover that your wisdom is foolishness in comparison to God.
And he does that because sometimes we are not fully convinced that God’s wisdom is right until our wisdom has failed. We will not listen at God’s first advice. We want to do it our way, and sometimes you have to bump your head to be humble enough to find your knees.
Sometimes you believe God cause you ain’t got nobody else to believe. Sometimes you trust God because you ain’t got no choice but to trust God.
God has a way of intervening into your situation and causing you to have a God encounter.