TD Jakes - Embracing The Spirit of Prayer: Insights On Division and Faith
The third thing I want to clarify and bring to your attention is the eschatology of it all. It is essential to understand that one of the signs of the end times is that mothers will be against daughters and fathers will be against sons. The closer we get to the end times, the more difficult it becomes to maintain healthy relationships because one of the signs of the end times is a deterioration of the family. What was natural for your grandmother becomes difficult for you. Part of the reason they were married for 63 years, and you have been married for 63 minutes, might have something to do with the fact that what used to be natural isn’t natural anymore.
People are not always equipped with natural affections; they do not come here naturally knowing how to love, be nice, or recognize that if they see someone carrying six boxes up the steps, they ought to say, «Can I help you?» That is a lost art; it’s gone. One of the signs of the end times is conflict arising from strange places. Some of you have to fight at work, at home, at church, and all the time. You are so stressed out and overwhelmed that you don’t recognize we are living in the end times, and natural affections have eroded from our families. It is no longer normal to love your mother, wife, or husband, and if you post that you do, someone will criticize you. We are living in the last days where people have lost natural love.
Anytime you can have a baby and toss it into a trash can, then get in the car and smoke a joint, you have lost all maternal instincts. Anytime you can have a child with this woman and that woman and that woman and that woman, take care of none of those children, and never feel bad about it, yet have the nerve to be hurt that they didn’t call you on Father’s Day, why in the world should they call you? You haven’t been a father; you haven’t been a daddy; you haven’t been a provider; you haven’t been present. We’ve got to own some of this stuff.
Check this out: Luke 12:49–53. I want you to understand that just as the crazy weather is a sign of the end times, so is this. I came to set fire to the Earth, and I wish it were already on fire. Is it not burning? Is the ocean not as hot as a jacuzzi? I’m sorry to stop there, but I am going to be put to a hard test, and I will have to suffer a lot of pain until it is over. Do you think I came to bring peace to the Earth? No, indeed; I came to make people choose sides. Isn’t that where we are living right now, where everybody is taking a side? The spirit of division has broken out; you have to take a side. You can’t be neutral; you can’t be in the middle. They would kill you because of the side you’re on.
A family of five will be divided, with two against the other three. It is going to split families apart. Fathers and sons will turn against one another, and mothers and daughters will do the same. Mothers-in-law, oh Lord, and daughters-in-law will also turn against each other. Touch your neighbor and say, «I’m living in the Bible.» So we have two categories: the things we contribute to, the things we cause, the things we will not own, and the things that are a result of the times we are living in. We are living in the last days. You can no longer watch Mayberry with Aunt Bea, bake an apple pie, and set it in the window for Andy to come home and Opie to eat the pie. All that is over.
You have Lucy hitting Desi over the head with an AK-47. Y’all don’t even know what I’m talking about; I’m too old to even make the illustration, but for those of you who get it, you understand that we are living in the last times, and it’s difficult to hold things together. So forgive yourself for having a tough time maintaining relationships. Forgive yourself for being weary. Forgive yourself for being exhausted. Forgive yourself for being tired. Forgive yourself for being at your wit’s end. Forgive yourself for reaching a point of desperation. Forgive yourself for lacking the motivation to say anymore, give anymore, forgive anymore, apologize anymore, plan anymore. Understand that you are fighting an end-time fight; you are fighting an apocalyptic war in your house.
You are contending with the attack of the enemy through the times we are living in. Once you check off: Did I cause it? Did I do it? Did I contribute to it? Am I remembering it correctly? Once you get past that, and I don’t trust you to do a self-test—you’ve got to ask some other people how you came across in the situation because you will exonerate yourself in your own head. Once you get past that, I want you to understand we are living in the last days, and it is hard to hold anything together—your business, your marriage, your mother, your daughter, your auntie, your in-law. How many feel a force fighting against you with simple things that used to be easy? It used to be easy just to invite people over for dinner. It used to be easy to have a family picnic. It used to be easy for us to go on vacation. It used to be easy to take a drive.
Now you have to take the temperature and see if it’s the right day to ask someone and see if they are in the right mood. Now you have to discern their eyes, try out a little easy question, and see if it’s okay. Now you have to figure out who makes the potato salad and endure a cereal bowl of potato salad because Helen is stingy, and you’ve got 30 people, and she brought a cereal bowl. Am I telling the truth? People have lost all common sense. Here you come with this, saying, «Here it is, I can’t even find it.»
You act like you can’t count, and you wonder why we have an attitude because we have to run to Kroger in the middle of the barbecue. Now we’re peeling potatoes, and you want a doggy bag to take home. Am I telling the truth? Come on, somebody shout me down! Somebody just shout me down! The first one to grab a bag, I’ve got to have some of that when I leave. What happened to that when you were making that potato salad? You don’t say anything because that would turn into a ten-year war over a bowl of potato salad. You stop inviting them, and now the family’s acting funny. I’m talking about real-life issues. Jesus says that in the last days, mothers will be against daughters—that’s unheard of! Fathers will be against sons—that would be unheard of if we were not alive today.
Now it is more likely for families to hate each other than to love each other. We grew up where family love could be depended on; if you jumped on one of us, you had to jump on all of us. If you said something to my sister, part of me would leap off this stage right now and go back to the school bus. But what used to be natural is not natural anymore. The truth of the matter is, this woman is dealing with a demon. What drove her to Jesus is that she is, in fact, living with a demonic power manifesting in someone she loves.
What do you do when you’re trying to drive out what you don’t love and save what you do love? What do you do when you’re trying to kill the cancer and save the kidney? What do you do when you’re trying to drive out the demon while keeping the child in the house? What do you do when you’re trying to bind the devil and set the child free? What do you do when what you hate has invaded what you love? What do you do when you’ve said everything you know how to say, been as kind as you know how to be, been as loving as you know how to be, and still, the demon is staring you in the face? Touch somebody and say, «This is a job for Jesus.» There are some people listening to me right now. You’ve bent over backward, you’ve bent over forward, you’ve gotten down on the floor, you’ve cried, you prayed, and nothing you do seems to be enough. This is a job for Jesus. If I’m talking to you, make some noise in this house!