TD Jakes - Don't Underestimate The Power of Water
When we first met God, we met Him at the water. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness covered the face of the deep. The first thing God moved on was the Spirit of the Lord, which moved upon the face of the waters. The first thing God moved on was water, and it’s important that you understand that there is a theology to be derived about God and water. I’m not sure I can fully grasp it, but I just want to point out to you that there is some connection between God and water that is so significant that all throughout the Bible, this theme continues. As the law of first mention suggests, we will always see some unity, some connection between God and water.
Pharaoh drowned in the water, yes, he did. The priests had to wash in the water before they could go into the Holies of Holies. The new generation, born in the desert, had to pass through the Jordan in order to get to the Promised Land. There is always something about God and water; He taught Moses how to draw water out of a rock. Moses struck the rock, and the water spewed forth, not out of the creek bed, not out of the river, not out of the ocean, but God birthed water out of a rock. Later, He told him to speak to the rock, and the water would gush forth. There is something about God and water; I can’t figure out exactly what it is, but there are synergistic opportunities for us to understand more clearly that God seems to have this preoccupation with water. Jesus started His ministry at the water. He was by the Jordan River when John was baptizing, and John looked up from the baptism and said, «Behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world.»
Jesus came down, and the Bible says straightway He went down into the water and rose up out of the water. When Jesus came out of the water, the heavens opened up. Look at God and water; water and God. When He came up out of the water, the heavens opened, and a voice from heaven spoke, saying, «This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.» Jesus' ministry started with water. Let’s go back and understand that the first miracle that Jesus performed was done with water. His mother Mary said, «We’ve run out of wine,» and He told the servants to go and get six pots of water. When they brought the water to Jesus, it was out of the water that Jesus turned it into wine.
There is something between God and water; that’s why baptism is so important. You might think it’s just a ceremonial ritual, a routine that is optional to have or not to have, but don’t underestimate the power of water. Water has power; water has force; water has significance and a theology. Peter met Jesus walking on the water; Jesus called His disciples while they were standing by the waters. There is something about God and water. Lydia was baptized right outside of Philippi at the riverbanks. Philip told the eunuch, «Here is water; what does hinder me from being baptized?» There is something about God and water; wherever you see one, you see the other. He reveals Himself with water. He told the woman at the well, «If you drink of the waters that I have, you will never thirst again.»
There is something about God and water. Here we experience things about God that we would not understand otherwise if we did not develop an appreciation for God’s attraction toward water. He moved upon the face of the water, and then the Bible said on the sixth day of creation that God created man out of the dust of the earth. He formed him, but you must also understand that the human body is made of water. So, it must not have been dust alone; it had to be water as well.
The brain and the heart are 73% water, the lungs are 63% water, the skin contains 64% water, your muscles and kidneys are 79% water, and even your bones are watery at 31%. So when God got ready to make man, He made man out of water. When the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the water, the Spirit of the Lord also moved upon man, who was also made of water. Your body is composed of water. You can go longer without food than you can without water because water is essential. You always need whatever you are; spirit needs spirit, word needs word, and water needs water. Your thirst is made from what you’re made of; you want what you are. You are made of water, and God loves water, and God loves you.
To put the text in context, we must understand that when God gets ready to deliver the children of Israel, who would have thought that God would have fought Pharaoh and his army with the simplicity of that natural substance we call water? We don’t normally think of water as a weapon; we don’t view it as a tool of warfare. If I were going to fight Pharaoh, I would never choose a water hose or a water gun. But God used water as His weapon against Pharaoh. Look at God; He can use anything. He doesn’t need special artillery; He doesn’t need an M16; He doesn’t need an atomic bomb. When God gets ready to confront anything, He can do it with something you never imagined. Here we are in this country thinking about nuclear warfare and atomic bombs, and suddenly a germ is released—something nobody could see—and it shut down the whole world, with something you can’t even shoot at.
That’s why it’s not wise to get into a fight with God. His ways are past finding out; His methods are past understanding. The way He fights is so strategic, often involving something in the air, something in the ground, or even the jawbone of an ass. Who would have guessed that Pharaoh would be defeated by a water gun? But when God gets angry, anything can be lethal in His hands. When God has had enough, He’ll take you out with something that should have kept you alive. He killed Pharaoh with the same substance that, when his mother’s water broke, eased the labor pains of his birth. Be cautious, all enemies of God—you have to be careful about being an enemy of God, for God will take you out with something you never even thought was a weapon.
When God gets ready to work with water, He will send rain down from heaven. Noah had never seen rain, yet he built an ark based on something he had not witnessed. Suddenly, rain began to fall from heaven. Not only that, but God broke up the cisterns of the deep; God had water on the whole earth, and it lifted the ark up, bringing life to everything that was saved in the water, while everything unsafe found death in the water. Isn’t it ironic how God can bring life and death from the same substance at the same time, depending on your location? He was killing one while making the other live with the same water that lifted Noah’s ark and destroyed Noah’s age. God uses water; He uses it, He uses it, He uses it—to cleanse, to change. In my remarks today, it is difficult to ignore the brilliance of God’s mind.
This text is not just filled with the beating of tambourines and timbrels, the skipping and dancing of Hebrew women celebrating their liberation; it also contains three different illustrations that God is trying to teach us about how He works with water. This marks the introduction of the children of Israel after 400 years of estrangement from the relationship they had with God. For 400 years, they had not offered up a sacrifice to God; for 400 years, they had not undergone ceremonial cleansing or washing; for 400 years, they had not worshiped God.
Their ideas about God had become distorted by their association with the Egyptians. Yet, as much as they could remember of Him, they prayed to Him. We know that their memory is altered because when they got ready to build an image of God, they fashioned it like the Egyptians. Therefore, we understand that they did not have a clear image of God. Despite the fact that their theology was wrong, their cries were still heard because God told Moses, «I have heard the cry of my people crying out to me.» God heard the cry of a people who had not worshiped for 400 years, of a people who had primarily lost their vision of who He was. Yet, even though His vision was veiled from their memory, with fragments of what they had left of their understanding about God passed down from generation to generation, God still heard them.
You are not too far gone; you are not so lost that He will not hear you. You have not gone so deep that He will not hear you. Even after 500 years since they had served Him, when they cried, He still heard them. I want to take a moment to thank Him for hearing my cry. I just need a David moment; David said, «I love the Lord because He heard my cry.» I love Him because He heard me. I know I wasn’t worthy to be heard, but He heard me anyway. I didn’t have a clear vision of who He was when He heard me regardless. I had not served Him nor sacrificed well enough to deserve to be answered, but He said, «I love the Lord because He heard my cry and pitied every groan. As long as I live, and trouble rises, I will hasten to His throne.»
You can’t help but love a God who answers the cry of a fallen man. For 400 years, they had fallen away from God; for 400 years, they had been trapped in the bondage of slavery; for 400 years since they had offered up a sacrifice; for 400 years, they were living in a strange land under the bondage of a hard taskmaster. They had been infiltrated and indoctrinated with false theological understandings about God, and yet when they cried, God heard them. Good God Almighty! What amazing mercy that God could hear the cry of a child who had not sacrificed nor served Him for 400 years, and that He would dare to own them to the degree that He would fight for them.
It is mind-boggling that God would fight for a group of slaves—a group of broken, disadvantaged, disenfranchised people—yet God went to war for them as if they were valuable. Slaves are typically seen as expendable commodities. And so, we see gifts given at weddings, yet God told Pharaoh, «Israel is my son, my firstborn son; he’s my child; he belongs to me. Until you turn my son loose, I will kill your sons. Until you deliver my people, I will wage war against you; until you let them go, because I have heard the cry of my son.»
Though they were prodigal, though they may have been wayward, though they may have been backwards, and though their vision may have been confused, they had cried, and God heard them. There is something about a parent and the cry of a child that is distinguishable. There is a specific cry you can make regardless of what’s occurring around you; when you make that cry, everyone can be engrossed in their activities, yet every parent will drop what they’re doing. A blood-curdling cry evokes an instinct in parents; when you hear your child cry, your adrenaline rushes, your nerves stand on edge, and suddenly you are stronger than before.
It’s an instinct God places within the bond between parent and child. God said, «I’ve heard the cry of my children; I will fight you with things you’ve never been fought with before. I will fight you with flies; I will fight you with stuff you have never been fought with before. I will fight you with flies; I will fight you with frogs; I will fight you with locusts; I will fight you with water.»