TD Jakes - The Crises of Next
How do we end up in Adullam? Adullam, by the way, means refuge, and you find yourself in a place living like a refugee, running from a kingdom that doesn't want you and an enemy that's trying to kill you. He is in a cave, alone, a ruler without a domain. It may not look like it, but I am; you may not follow me, but I'm a leader; you may not acknowledge me, but I'm a leader. You can call me by my name, Jakes. Hey Jakes, what's going on? Say whatever you want to say, but I'm a leader. If it's in you, it's in you; I'm not talking to what's around you, I'm talking to what is in you. I don't care what you hide in, if you are, you are what you are in the middle of it all.
David is anointed, but the question comes, can I go deeper? is anointing enough? He's anointed but he has no experience. All education doesn't come in institutions, some education comes through experience, and you can be anointed to be something but haven't earned the experience to be established on the level that you're in. And the distance between his anointing and him actually acquiring that which he is anointed to run requires that he has a body of experiences that temper him in such a way that he learns, like Paul, how to abase and abound, how to have lack and how to have plenty. He has learned that the state he's in does not define who he is. So we meet him in the cave, his head freshly doused with oil but his mind is void of experience. Experience is no small thing. When your anointing is powerful, your apprenticeship will be painful.
Y'all didn't hear what I'm saying. When your anointing is powerful, your apprenticeship will be painful, because God won't give that kind of power and not balance it with that kind of pain. The greater the pain, the greater the power. If you're going to have the power, you gotta be prepared to deal with the pain, the pain is a part of the power. And in fact, you will understand who you are by who hates you. David is hated by a king because he is a king. You're gonna have pain that's commensurate, not to your situation, but to your identity; when you are a king, your name will be brought up amongst kings. And don't be surprised if your enemies don't graduate with your anointing to another level, and your frustration is commensurate to your anointing.
Let me break it down plain, new levels bring new devils; when you get to another level, you've got another level of devil to fight. But you wouldn't run for refuge if you didn't have fear, so there has to be some element of truth to the fact that the presence of fear or doubt does not mean that you don't have faith. Let me prove it by the Bible. "Lord, I believe," but, "Help my unbelief"! I'm in Adullam because I believe but I have elements of unbelief. I stretched out on your word and I walked on water, but when I saw the winds and waves, I said, "Oh my God, I'm walking on water," and I began to sink.
So I have both things living in me at the same time. And I don't know whether to fight the Philistines or fight the other voices that are coming up in my head because I got a fight on the inside and a fight on the outside at the same time. And every now and then, I need a break. Let me get away, let me regroup, let me run into a cave, let me get my head together, because I don't know what to do next. I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. The crisis is not the current, because I have survived this present danger. I'm not so worried about this present danger, I got out of it, it was close, Jackie, but I made it. They tried to kill me, but I made it; it broke my heart, but I made it; I hid amongst my enemies, but I made it; I had to go crazy, but I made it; I've been through hell, but I made it. But now that I have survived, my problem is not what I survived because I made it to safe, Adullam is safe.
You can't have refuge in a place that's not safe. How many folks know you're safe? You may not be satisfied, but you're safe; you may not have attained what you hope to attain, but you're safe; you count not yourself to have apprehended, but you're safe. I want you to rub that in the devil's face because he didn't want you to be safe. If you made it to safe, I want you to take the roof off of this building right now.
It is not this present danger that has me on my knees, it is not my now, it's my next, it is the uncertainty, the instability, the fragility, the vulnerability of not knowing what's next. Is there anybody in here that ever wonders, "What's next"? The kingdom that God promised me is trying to kill me, the men that I trained under Saul have attacked me and I am running from a king to a cave. And I'm here and I'm safe, but what keeps me up at night is what's next. But see, I can pay my bills, I'm okay, I'm safe, I got some food in the icebox, I'm safe. When the weather changes, I can turn the heat on, I'm safe. But what worries me is the crisis of next. Adullam is a good place for hangover, a layover, but I can't live in a layover. And the Lord told me to tell you why he put you in Adullam; I only read two verses because that's all I need; Adullam is when you find out who you are without them.
Oh, y'all don't hear, y'all don't hear how good I'm preaching this morning. Adullam is a place that God puts you in of self-discovery, where you learn to appreciate who you are apart from all the people you thought were going to go with you. Adullam is a place that God puts you in that makes you know, "I'm a king if I don't have a kingdom, I'm a grown woman, I'm a grown man, I bring something to the table, I'm the CEO of me, I'm the Chief Executive Officer of myself". Adullam is where you learn to have confidence and boldness and self-esteem. Adullam is where you get your courage back, Adullam is where you come out of your coma and you come to yourself, and God has proven to you that, "If nobody is for you, I'm still for you, I'm on your side, I got your back, I'll fight".
So Adullam is where you get three things: first, you get you back, Adullam is where you find out you are enough, Adullam is where God puts you in a place that you never thought you could get to in all the world, and a new normal emerges in your life. And God didn't let you get the kingdom the way you thought you were gonna get the kingdom because you weren't ready yet. If God would have given you the kingdom the way you thought you were gonna get the kingdom, you would have praised the kingdom. But God put you in Adullam so that when you do get the kingdom you will praise the God of the kingdom, because you will understand that if it had not been for the Lord that was on your side, oh God, I feel like preaching, "I would have been swallowed up". But thanks be unto God, thanks be unto God, but thanks be unto God who giveth us a victory. Somebody shout, "God gave me the victory".
So the Scripture only says three important things: One, David fled and escaped to Adullam; two, his brothers and sisters and family came to where he was. Don't read over that, because they was the folks who never let him into their circle but God has so turned it around that, while David couldn't get in, they had to turn around and come to where he was. And I don't know who I'm talking to, but whatever you're worried about, God said, "In your family, I'm gonna turn it around, I'm gonna turn it around. You just stay right where I put you, I'm going to bring them to you. I'm gonna legitimize you, I'm gonna validate you, I'm gonna restore unto you the years that the canker worm and the palmer worm and the locusts ate up". And if you just be still; they're going to come to you when you have grown enough that he can trust you to bring them, when you aren't so bitter that he cannot bring better.
So he put you in the cave so that when they come you wouldn't act out on them over what they took you through. Oh my God, who am I preaching to? He said, "I gotta give you a layover because you're not ready to land yet, I gotta give you a layover so you can get your head together, so that when I start pulling your life together you will be healed enough to receive the people who rejected you. Right now, you're in a state of rejection, and you have anger and hostility about how they treated you, but I had to take you through a worse enemy to bring you to a place that you could deal with a lesser enemy. So I let them the other folks try to kill you so that you could measure what they did against what your family did, and you open up your cave".
Slap somebody say, "Open up your cave, they're coming back". Open up your cave, open up your safe place, open it up, they're coming back. Open it up, they're coming back, open it up, they're coming back, open it up, open it up, open it up, open it up, open it up, open it up. So number one, you found you; number two, you found your family; number three is the one I love the best. There were men in Saul's army that weren't really with Saul. Sometimes the host that encamps around you is not really in agreement with the attack against you, and God has to let you survive long enough for them to recognize that, "I've been on the wrong side of this story".
And the Bible said that David gathered, no-no-no-no, he didn't gather them, they came to him, that's what the text says, 400 men came to him. And the Bible says they were in three categories, they were distressed, they were in debt, and they were discontented, and they came to him. What comes to you will always be a reflection of where you are, you will always attract what you are. Because David was in distress, and David was in debt, and David was discontented, he drew what he was. Oh y'all don't get that, y'all don't get how good that is. Four hundred times got multiplied four hundred times of what David was. Distress, debt, and discontentment all recognized him because they could relate to him, and they came.
You don't, see, this is what you got to see, let me make sure you get it. You don't have to go after what's next, the Lord said, "What's next is coming to you". You just stand right there in Adullam, and I'll let you come to yourself. Stop trying to figure it out, stop trying to work it out, stop trying to make it happen, just stand right there in the cave. God said, "Whatever is yours, I'm gonna send it to you; whatever I got for you is gonna come right to you". You ain't gonna have to fight for it, you ain't gonna have to prove nothing for it, all you gotta do is stand there, they're gonna find you in your cave. So his self found him, his family found him, his people found him. Four hundred times where you are, four hundred times more of where you are. And the Bible said, when they found him, they made him their leader.
Watch this, watch this, I'm almost done. Here's the majesty of the moment. David was alone, and now, in a cave which really wasn't a cave, but that's another lesson, in a cave, he now has, his whole family has come back together through the worst circumstances. God uses the worst stuff to bring about the best results. They have come into realignment in a way they've never been in alignment before, wait a minute, and 400 times where he was. These men left Saul, heard where David was, and came to him.
Wait a minute, at this point, Saul is the greater and David is lesser. God says, I'm gonna draw people whose decisions don't make sense, they're gonna leave greater opportunities for connectivity. It's not gonna be about cash, it's gonna be about connectivity, because of all the things you've been through they know you can relate to them. They are going to come to you and make them your leader, not because of the oil on your head, but because of the experiences you endured, you have earned the right to lead by the things you suffered.
Who am I talking to? See, I got an anointing on me for leaders, I got an anointing on me for people who don't even recognize that you're a leader because all you can see is your cave and your situation and your circumstance, but that's where you're getting your credentials. I'm gonna show you one more thing and I'm gonna be finished. God said, before I show you this he said, "I want you to emphasize this point because they don't get it yet, make sure they get that I am drawing them now".
They're coming up the path, they're coming over the rocks, they're coming over the hills. They're coming, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming. Some people are following you who'd never followed you before, some people are listening at you who never listened at you before, some people are hooking up with you who were on the other side attacking you, they're switching sides right now. God said he's gonna be your vindicator, he's gonna be your defense attorney, he's gonna stand up for you.
You don't have to fight the battle, the battle is not yours, the battle belongs to God. Distressed, I said, "Lord, that's everything I built my ministry on". That's why I almost called it Adullam, because I'm anointed to minister the people in distress, I'm anointed to minister to people whose hearts are overwhelmed, I'm anointed to minister to people not only that are in distress but are in debt. I will turn somebody in debt into a business owner, into an entrepreneur, into a leader in their community.