TD Jakes - The Three Anointings of David: the Scuffling Shepherd
When something has survived a long time and endured for generations, there is a certain arrogance that comes with longevity. When David comes to attack them, the generationally cursed people scoff at him, saying, «We don’t even have to fight you; our handicapped people are enough to totally annihilate you. We could defeat you with our crippled people.»
Now they’re talking to the king of Israel, but nobody had completely annihilated them because of their position, not necessarily their power. They dwelt in a high place; that high place would become Jerusalem, which would be considered in the scriptures the capital of Israel. Today, Tel Aviv is considered the capital of Israel, but biblically, Jerusalem would become the capital of Israel. Not only that, but going beyond the politics into a deeper understanding, Jerusalem is the capital for three major religions. However, at this time, it is occupied by the cursed descendants of Ham, called the Jebusites. They dwelt in the high places, and David had paid his dues and become the king of Israel.
The first thing that stood out to me when I read the text is that it calls the king of Israel a shepherd. Now, it is interesting to call the king a shepherd because that was his old job. So, when God calls him, «I have called you to shepherd over Israel and to rule over them,» that shepherd idea lit up in my head. So, if you’re taking notes, write down «the scuffling shepherd.» A shepherd in the Bible is not considered a prestigious job; if you’re sent out to take care of the sheep, you’re not a high-ranking person—you’re an animal caretaker. Now David is the king, and God calls him the shepherd, but David wasn’t just any kind of shepherd; he was a scuffling shepherd.
Now, the term «scuffling shepherd» seems like an oxymoron because when you call someone a shepherd, you think of somebody basically babysitting sheep. But David had learned how to scuffle. The reconciliation of Israel comes after a long, hard battle. There was a time when David ruled over Judah but not over Israel because Saul and his descendants controlled Israel, and there was a time when Israel did not accept David as king. David has, bear with me, three anointings. The first one is given to him by Samuel, who anointed him while he was yet a shepherd boy to be the king over Israel. The second anointing comes years later when he is anointed by Judah to be the king of Judah, but he is still not the king of Israel. The third anointing comes when he is 30 years old and is anointed king over Israel. I want to stop there; that is a fulfillment of the first anointing.
Look at how long it took for David to become what he was anointed to be. The problem with our culture and society is that we get a little dab of anointing and want to run out and move in that anointing when we don’t understand that you have to pay your dues and fight your battles and go through your tests before you reach that point. Just because the prophecy doesn’t happen immediately, that doesn’t mean that God is not going to do it. You’ve got to have patience. He was anointed to be king while he was a shepherd boy, and he is now 30 years old before he walks into the fullness of what was prophesied years ago about his life. But when he walked into it, he walked in to rule for 40 years.
I’m trying to tell you it may be a long time coming, baby, but when it comes, it’s going to last longer than it took to get it. David, through all his rejection—by the way, he was rejected by Israel. By the way, Wednesday night I’m going to be teaching on rejection. Yeah, we’re going to pick up where we left off last Wednesday night. Something is happening in this church on Wednesday night; it’s just been amazing. Last Wednesday night, you would have thought it was Sunday morning. But David is anointed to be king over Israel, and he has now stepped into the full vesture of his anointing. It takes time to come into the full vesture of your anointing. It takes time to realize who you really are. He was anointed way back then, but the fullness of it didn’t manifest until he was 30 years old. Don’t let it escape your attention that Christ started his ministry when he was 30 years old, and Christ is called the Son of David. So, there’s a little shadow there in regard to David being the king of Israel at 30.
At 30 years old, Christ seeks to be accepted by Israel as king, though they rejected him. I want to go deeper into this: David was a shepherd boy, but he was a scuffling shepherd. He had fought all his life. «All my life,» as the saying goes, «I had to fight.» He had to take care of sheep, yet he had to fight lions. He had to take care of sheep, yet he had to fight bears. But he was so precise in the fight that he was able to fight a lion and a bear with a lamb in his mouth. Watch this: he was able to kill the lion and the bear without harming the sheep. Some of us fight, but in the process of fighting, we kill what we’re fighting for while trying to stop what we’re fighting against. That’s why you can’t be promoted. It’s not that you’re not a rock thrower, but your aim is bad. You’ve got to be precise enough to save what God wants saved and kill what God wants killed.
David was a scuffling shepherd; that’s why, when Samuel found him, he said, «I found a man after God’s own heart.» David knew how to be a shepherd caretaker and yet was able to go to war and fight. More importantly, he knew when to do which. There are people who have both natures, but they’re fighting when they ought to be gentle and gentle when they need to be fighting. But David was a scuffling shepherd who understood what the time was and when to do both. He is no longer a shepherd boy; that was his old job. When he killed Goliath, he got promoted to his next job. You know you’re promoted by the level of attack that comes against you. You kill the lion; the trophy is you get to fight the bear. If you kill the bear, the trophy is you get to fight Goliath.
David was a boy when he killed Goliath, but that didn’t make him any less a man. Now David, who has fought a lion and a bear and then Goliath, fought his way into transition. Moving from the shepherd fields, he has now come into the palace, and now Saul is trying to kill him. David cannot afford to use the same rock that he used on Goliath against Saul because then he would have assaulted what he called God’s anointed. So David had to duck. God is looking for somebody who knows when to fight and knows when to duck. Because had David tried to fight Saul, it would have been the anointing fighting the anointing, and Jesus said a house divided against itself shall not be able to stand. So God doesn’t anoint people to bring anointed people down. All of these bathroom prophets who have you pulled off in a corner and these parking lot prophets who say they have a word aimed at God’s anointed are unbiblical, unscriptural, and unholy. The Holy Spirit doesn’t work against the Holy Spirit.
You can’t pray that other wife away from her husband and call yourself anointed, because God’s spirit will not work against His word. Talk to me, somebody. That’s not an anointing you’re practicing; it’s witchcraft. Now David has to be shrewd enough because he is being attacked by someone he respected. He is sharp enough to make his way into Saul’s tent and leave evidence there that he could have killed him, but he wouldn’t kill him lest the charge be laid on him for having touched God’s anointed. We don’t have enough respect for God’s anointed. When God anoints a person, no matter what they do, be careful about putting your mouth on them, because they belong to God. If there’s any bringing down to be done, God will bring them down, not you, because if you touch what God has anointed, you become an enemy—not of the person, but an enemy of God.
Talk to me, somebody. Come on, stay with me. I want you to understand that Saul, from the beginning, had promised David things he didn’t receive. He had promised him that if he killed Goliath, then he would get Michal, his daughter, but he never paid up. Abner comes along now that David is king—actually, before he becomes king—and says, «Not only will I help you to become king.»
I wish I had time; if we were in Bible class, I would go through how God used a rumor against Abner to turn his heart toward David and how all of a sudden Abner, who is with Israel, starts working with David, who is in Judah, to undermine the distance to help him become king. If I had time to show you that, then you would understand how all things work together for good for them that love the Lord, and God will use someone who’s on the other side to help you accomplish your destiny and your purpose. But I don’t have time for that.
Abner did help David regain the kingdom, and Michal, who was rightfully David’s wife but had been married off to another man, was part of Abner’s influence. David said, «I will take Israel if you will get Michal back,» because David is still suffering from a promise not kept. Is there anybody in here who is still suffering from a promise not kept? David says to Abner, «I want what was promised to me. I killed Goliath; give me my Michal.» Michal is now married to somebody else. Abner pulled Michal out of her husband’s bed and brought her to David, with her husband walking behind her crying. Abner told her old husband, «Go back home.» The reason Michal ends up resentful of David is that David had pulled her away from one man to another—because Saul, her father, had never kept his word before she met her first husband.
God is bringing things into alignment, but Michal has an attitude. Come on, stay with me. The term shepherd just blew me away. It explains to me that all he has prepared him for in his destiny is locked up in his history. All that is in his destiny is hidden in his history. So, all of you who can’t find your purpose and can’t figure out what you’re supposed to be doing, God left clues in your history because your history is the foundation that prepares you for your destiny. This is where history and destiny collide in the scuffling shepherd. It is not that God has forgotten that David is king; He called him shepherd to draw an association between the skills He taught him as a shepherd boy. You’re now going to need them as a king in order to survive in this environment.
Who am I talking to? Nothing that you’ve been through shall be wasted. Stop bemoaning what you went through, no matter how painful, grievous, difficult, embarrassing, or humiliating it might have been. God took you through whatever He took you through to prepare you for what He’s about to do next in your life. Get ready, get ready, get ready, get ready, get ready, especially those who went through hell. God didn’t take you through it for you to stay in it; He was preparing you with the uniqueness of your history because of the dynamics of your destiny. There’s nobody like you.