TD Jakes - Worship In The Wilderness - Part 1
God prophesied and allowed the Israelites' 400 years in Egypt to incubate them into a nation under pressure, turning a blessing into slavery, but emancipation comes not just for relief from oppression but to rediscover true identity through reconnecting and worshiping Him in the wilderness, leaving behind assimilated Egyptian ways.
We see God inviting His estranged children to be emancipated not only to relieve the oppression, but to meet them in the wilderness to worship Him. I want you to understand that they had not had a conversation with God for 400 years. They are the people of God, they are born to be with God, but they have not had a real relationship with God for 400 years, in part because of their association and in some ways assimilation with Egypt.
Their association and assimilation with Egypt started out as a blessing and ended up as a curse. It started out a blessing because there was a famine back in Israel, and Jacob moves toward his family, toward where Joseph already was in Egypt, that they might get corn to withstand the famine. Everything that starts out a blessing does not end up a blessing.
From Blessing to Slavery
So, the first 30 years or so, it was a blessing and it was a wonderful thing, but when the Pharaoh died, there was a Pharaoh who died that did not know Joseph nor regard his God. From that point they became enslaved, and they entered into 400 years of slavery.
Watch this closely, but God knew it. Not only did God know it, God arranged it. Not only did God arrange it, God prophesied to Abram that this was going to happen. He said your seed is going to sojourn in Egypt for 400 years, and afterward they will come out with great substance. There is an expiration date on trouble.
Incubation Under Pressure
If there is a date you go in, there is a date you come out. They were not there because they were subservient, or less qualified, or less capable, or less brilliant than the Egyptians. They were there by a divine prophecy whereby God incubated Abram's seed from a family into a nation.
And in order to incubate the greatness that was in them, He put pressure upon them, but they were no less than the Egyptians, but they were forced to serve the Egyptians for 400 years.
Losing Identity Through Contortion
Moses has come to emancipate them from 400 years of being contorted into whatever Egypt wanted, and any time you contort who you are into what other people want, there comes a point where you become unfamiliar with who you really are.
Some of you know what I am talking about. You have shifted everything about yourself to contort around what somebody demanded of you, and then something happened, they left, they changed, they died, and you are standing there trying to figure out who am I outside of what you needed me to be?
Assimilation for Survival
These are a people who have no sense of real identity. They have no sense of real understanding of their language. Their food is gone, their cuisine is gone, their uniqueness is gone, their religion has been aborted. They have assimilated to the environment that they are in for survival.
Survival necessitates sometimes that you adapt and adopt to situations that you did not prefer, because it is necessary in order to survive. And our Creator so endowed us with the ability to adapt, that no matter what climate we are in, we physically adapt.
The Strength of Survival Instinct
No matter what situation we are in, we emotionally adapt. No matter what circumstances we engage in, we adapt to that environment for survival state, because we have a strong survival instinct.
You would not be sitting here today if you did not have a strong survival instinct. Your heart has been broken, your life has been altered, you have been disappointed, you did not get everything that you wanted, everything did not turn out like you wanted it to turn out.
Rediscovering Self Through God
But once you were in the situation, you adapted to the situation, found a way to cope with the situation, survive through the situation, and you ought to give yourself, even if you are not going forward, you ought to give yourself a hand clap that you did not go back.
They have left Egypt to rediscover themselves by reconnecting with God. You will never find you without Him. You will never find yourself, your identity, get your self-esteem back, without Him.
Egyptian Influences Lingering
This is why they got out in the middle of the wilderness and start asking for the leeks and onions of Egypt, because their taste buds had become like the Egyptians. This is why they built an image of God that looked like the Egyptian god, because their concept of who God was is influenced by Egypt.
This is why you come to church and start talking about a higher power, because you are adopting the language of the people you work with, the man upstairs. I am not a Christian, I am spiritual.
Contorting to Fit In
This kind of language is where you have lost your language that God gave you, and adapted the language of the people around you, in part because of your need to fit in, your need to be connected, your need to be fresh, your need to be accepted.
Other women, other men, have forced you to shape your personality into something that they applaud you for, and they do not applaud you for being who you are, they applaud you for being contorted into an image that reflects the times that we are living in.
The Exhaustion of Keeping Up
So, in other words, you got to contort back because now the style has changed. I am sick of style. Rather than investing your money, you are breaking yourself trying to keep up with something that somebody dictated out of Paris.
Too much of our energy is spent trying to reconcile with men. We are trying to be in with people. We are trying to be en vogue. We are having war, war, war, war, war, war, and I am tired.
Returning to the Manufacturer
Anybody tired of twisting, and turning, and reshaping yourself into all kinds of configuration? Your need to fit in trumps your need to be who you are, and now you do not know who you are, and so you gotta go back and hit reboot, and go back to the manufacturer, and go back to God.
I have been what my mama said. I have been what my daddy said. I have been what my friends said. Now I just do not even know who I am.
Battle Between Gods
Now, the text takes us to a place where there is a battle between gods. There is Elohim, the God of the universe, and there is Pharaoh who sees himself as God. God will remove anything and anyone who is standing in between us being reconciled to Him.
The most dangerous thing you can do is to get in between me and God. If you try to get in between me and God, Pharaoh, you going down.
God Removes Obstacles
God sent an earthquake, tore down the whole jail. If you start crying out to God, I do not care who your oppressor is, God will defeat your oppressor when you want to be connected with God.
He literally moved heaven and earth to be with me. He came down through 42 generations to be with me.
The Superpower of Egypt
Egypt is not just a country like it is now, it was the superpower. This is not just a bunch of men wearing funny hats, this is the superpower of its era. Whatever Pharaoh said, that is what it was.
Real power never has to explain itself. Real power just is.
Possible Pharaohs and Their Power
Rameses was often considered a possible pharaoh during this period. He built more, he did more, he had in place economic systems that survived more. He had an army to be revered.
He had 600 chosen chariots. That was not the entire fleet, those were just the chosen chariots out of the mass of fleets.
Wealth Taken from Egypt
Pharaoh is chasing them trying to get them back, but I wonder if he was not trying to get the gross national product back, because they had borrowed so much economic wealth that they survived 40 years in the desert and never went broke.
They had enough wealth that Moses was raising an offering and had to say stop. There is so much wealth left with the slaves when they were leaving Egypt.
Backpay and Restoration
They did not steal it, the Bible says they borrowed it, but it was really due them, because after 400 years of not getting paid, this is what reparations look like in the Book of Exodus.
God is about to give you backpay. He is about to give you double for your trouble. He is about to restore unto you the years that the cankerworms, and the palmerworms, and the locusts ate up.
God will send it from somewhere. He will give you houses you did not build, vineyards you did not plant. God is a just God.