TD Jakes - Prayer Produces Promise (05/07/2025)
Amid global turmoil—pandemic, racial conflict, economic crisis—the preacher sees 2020 as a pivotal year of travail like Hannah's intense prayer, provoked by Peninnah's taunts and barrenness. Hannah's desperate, "drunk"-looking prayer at the altar birthed Samuel, shifting Israel from judges to kings and ultimately leading to David and Jesus, showing one woman's consecrated sorrow can change the world through a God-given promise.
There Hannah is. Let’s go back to Hannah, laying on the altar. Eli, who would later be beheaded, would almost break his neck, falling backward. It’s significant that he broke his neck; headship is changing.
His daughter would hear about it, go into labor, and have Ichabod. But he is still alive now, sitting near the steps where Hannah is laid out on the floor.
Whatever her behavior was like, it was to the point that he thought she was drunk. She said, “No, I am not drunk; I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit laying my request before God because I want this baby. I brought my pain and my passion to this altar.”
Pain and Passion Lead to Prayer
Pain and passion bring you to prayer. The funny thing about it is that passion is painful; unfulfilled passion is painful.
We talked about being provoked, pain, and passion; now let’s talk about prayer. Eli told her, “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” He got her to eat something, but he could not ease her pain nor fulfill her passion because some things can only come from God.
The Bible says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, make your requests known unto God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your heart and mind.”
God says the thing that brings peace to pain and passion is making your requests known unto Him—that’s prayer, baby!
How Is Your Prayer Life?
How is your prayer life lately? I’ve already taught you that Elkanah, Hannah, and Peninnah came up every year. This was supposed to be like any other year, but prayer changed everything.
All the other times they went in, they made a little sacrifice, said a quick prayer, and left, and everything stayed the same. But this was the year that changed the world.
This is not just about her having a baby; it’s about her birthing a promise. Prayer is how you birth a promise, but you can’t just sit in your house and pray.
She had to go; she had to travel; she had to sacrifice; she had to endure.
Desperate Prayer at the Altar
Faith without works is dead. Ultimately, when she got to praying at that altar like a drunk woman, staggering around, moving her mouth without an audible sound, wailing in her spirit—when she got through, I don’t know how long she was down there; I don’t know what kind of movement she made; I don’t know whether she raised her hands, collapsed on the floor, or did all of the above—whatever she did, she looked like she was drunk.
Eli had never seen anybody act like that in church before, except when they were drunk. She said, “No, I am not drunk; I am not a daughter of Belial; I am not a daughter of this world; I am not a secular woman; I am not an idolatrous woman; I am a praying woman.”
When was the last time you prayed until you looked drunk?
This Year Changes Everything
I know you have degrees, but drop your degrees and get down on your knees and pray. Stand around on the altar before God and ask Him to do something about this world because this is supposed to be the year that changes everything.
We have never seen another year like this. I know we had a pandemic 100 years ago; I know about the bubonic plague. I’ve read about all the past events, but we have never had a plague like the one we are experiencing now—in the middle of an economic crisis, racial conflict, and the shooting of innocent people in the streets.
All three things happening at the same time is a lot. That’s a lot of travail; that’s a lot of labor; that’s a lot to take in.
Multiplied Sorrow Births Something
People are stressing out, having nervous breakdowns, getting angry. People who are usually cool and collected are flipping out.
They stayed in their houses for weeks and weeks, and then they came out to all these scenes of killing, shooting, and dead bodies stuffed into 18-wheelers.
Funeral homes are running out of space, and police officers are shooting people down in the streets. This is too much!
This kind of multiplied sorrow is supposed to birth something—ah, it’s supposed to birth something! You can’t have this much sorrow and not birth anything.
I’m excited; I’m shouting! Something is about to happen; something is about to be birthed!
The Earth Groans in Travail
The whole earth is groaning and travailing in pain; something is about to happen.
Do you hear what I’m saying to you? I don’t know if Jesus is getting ready to crack the sky or if every unfulfilled promise that God has ever made is about to come to pass in a flash.
But whatever it is, the whole earth is groaning and travailing in pain, and according to Romans, it’s waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.
It’s waiting for you to come into who you are. For we know that the whole earth groans and travails in pain until now, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies, and the manifestation of the sons of God.
The whole world is in labor, shut up in a room like Elizabeth with closed doors.
Hannah Births a Promise
You don’t see this birth. Hannah prayed until God made her a promise: “By this time next year, everything is going to change.”
She leaves there with the promise of God—not just some vague promise, but a real promise.
As soon as she was with Elkanah, the Bible says Elkanah knew his wife; they went into that bedroom, shut the door, and when she came out, she could tell she was pregnant.
That pregnancy was the promise of God! I’m talking about the promise of God.
I’m not even worried about birthing it yet; the promise of God was in her womb right then. That was the year that changed the world.
One Year Changed History
That was the year that turned everything around. Had she not gotten pregnant with Samuel, there would be no King Saul; there would be no King David.
If there were no King David, there would be no King Jesus. This was the year that changed the world.
No wonder her pain was so intense; no wonder her passion was so undeniable; no wonder she had to be provoked like she was.
She was about to birth the man who anointed the man to whom Jesus would come, and it all started in a little town, out of town, around the bend, and over the creek bed—this pregnant woman walking around saying, “Oh, I felt him kick!”
Pregnant with Promise
God is going to give you something that you are going to feel kick on the inside—hallelujah! A promise, a pregnancy—pregnant with something that the world hasn’t seen.
Eyes haven’t seen; ears haven’t heard; neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has in store for those who love Him, but it has been revealed unto us by His Spirit.
In the middle of all this craziness, I want you to understand: you are pregnant. We are about to burst something through much travail.
The Bible says when Zion travails, sons and daughters shall be born.
2020: The Year of Delivery
You’re not going to tell me that God is going to disrupt the whole world—every town, every language, every nation, every country—and nothing is going to happen. Something is about to happen!
Now the world can’t see the pregnancy for the pain, but you’re a believer, and as a believer, you have to understand that we are in the delivery room.
We see the midwives, the pain, and the passion; we see the chaos and confusion. We see all the shaking up of government powers; we see nations all over the world marching in the streets.
We have to be spiritual enough to know that this is bigger than anything we’ve been talking about. There’s a pregnancy; there’s going to be a delivery, and she births a promise from God.
Hannah Keeps Her Vow
The Lord told me this year is going to be the year of double portion. I’m holding on to that!
I don’t care what we do; I don’t care where we go; I don’t care what happens; I don’t care how bad it gets; I don’t care how tumultuous it gets—God is going to set something in motion this year!
This is going to be the year that changes the world, and you can see it!
You can see it in the streets; you can see it in the towns.
Samuel Changes Everything
When she brought her bullocks, her goats, and her baby, it wasn’t just to thank God for what He had done. She had the sense to know that she was sowing a seed for what God was about to do.
Hannah brought her bullock, her goat, and her baby, giving them all over to the Lord. In return, He opened her womb, she conceived, she was blessed, she waxed strong, and she grew great.
Samuel would change the temple she brought him to; he would be the first prophet to give a voice to a dysfunctional priesthood.
He would be the one and the catalyst through whom they would defeat the Philistines. He would be the one who anointed the first king of Israel.
He would be the one who later judged that king. He would be the one who anointed David to be king of Israel.
David sitting on the throne of Israel is a picture of the Messiah—the coming of Jesus Christ.
All of that is built around this one woman. This year changed the world.
This Is the Year
As I close today, we stand on the precipice of a day unlike any I have ever seen before, especially in this body.
It’s tumultuous and upsetting and disturbing, and it goes on and on and on and on—the bickering, the murmuring, the complaining, and the offline, the Finneys and the Eli, and all of it.
Benina stands back behind the door giggling, while people get on your nerves, and nuisances hang everywhere, with chaos unlike any I’ve seen on this level before.
Everybody’s marching—in Europe, in Africa, they’re marching in Canada. It isn’t just California to New York; everybody’s marching.
This year means something. 2020 means something.