TD Jakes - Holy Things are not Human Things
I’m excited to share the word of the Lord with you today. I’m going to be referencing several scriptures. I’ve received so much positive feedback from you regarding your enjoyment of the Bible class, and I’m enjoying teaching it as well. I know Dr. James is relishing a break for a moment, but I’m going to have her back—she’s getting too comfortable! For tonight, we are going to discuss that holy things are not human things. I believe you’re going to receive a blessing in your life and spirit from this. I’m going to pray that God opens up your understanding. Get a pen, get a pad, get your Bible, and get ready to focus seriously. I’m not preaching about hoping; I’m going to try to get you excited. I’m not trying to make you dance; I’m trying to root and ground you in the principles of truth that will help your life. Holy things are not human things.
Father, in the name of Jesus, open up the understanding of the person who says, «I can’t remember and I can’t retain.» Open up the understanding of the person who can’t read their Bible on their own and who finds it doesn’t make sense. Open up the understanding of the person who is grounded in the Word of God but is looking for a deeper sense of revelation and truth. Open up the understanding of ministers, pastors, elders, and leaders so that we can serve not only milk but also the meat of the Word. In Jesus' name, we pray.
Shout amen right where you are! I don’t care if you have neighbors; shout it anyway! Okay, we’re going to the Book of Genesis—that’s where everything started. It’s called the Book of Beginnings. We’re going to be in Genesis chapter 15, verses 7 through 8. As you’re turning to it, I want you to understand what I’m really after. It’s just to set you into a deeper understanding of the Passover. That’s what I’m really aiming for: a deeper understanding of the Passover. Because when you comprehend the Passover better, you understand Calvary better. You understand the price that Christ paid for your redemption, how He paid it, and what it meant. But I’m starting all the way back in the Book of Genesis. I wanted to start in Genesis 1, but I’m going to go to Genesis 15 because things really start getting good at Genesis 15. This section I’m going to discuss, I call it «the contract.»
Now, people every day say, «I’m afraid to do business with this one or that one. I’m afraid to let somebody have a piece of my company. I’m afraid to develop a partnership. I’m afraid to get a deed of trust; I’m afraid to invest in a piece of land. I’m afraid of doing this and that.» Don’t be afraid—get a contract! Because when you have a contract, you have a legal document that clearly and specifically lays out what you get, what they get, how they get it, when they get it, and what to do if a dispute arises. All of that should be written in the contract. A handshake is a wonderful thing, and a word of promise is nice, but the Bible says that the giving of an oath or contract is the end of all strife.
I hope to get to this point—if I can’t, over in Hebrews, God stated that He recognized the custom among men that the giving of an oath marks the end of all strife. I looked for something to swear by, and finding no one greater than Myself, I swore by Myself that My word is true! «Surely, blessings I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.» Think of that: God would give you a contract swearing that He’s going to bless you. It’s not just that you have His word on it; you have His contract. He says, «I swear I’m going to bless you.» You might need to hear that tonight. If I don’t go any further, God said, «I swear I’m going to bless you.»
And it goes all the way back to God dealing with Abram in Genesis chapter 15. Abram is getting old; he’s a hundred years old when he has a son. I think he’s giving up in age, and there are some things that God is going to do for him that he won’t even live to see regarding his descendants. I believe that the blessings of the Lord are generational and that they pass from generation to generation. I believe I’m walking in the blessings of my parents and my grandparents, particularly my grandfather, whom I’m named after, who was murdered at 22 years old.
I was astounded when my uncle looked at me and said, «I think God gave you more life because He gave my father less.» His father died at 22, and he was named after me. And here I am at 62, born on the same day that my grandfather was murdered. But God seems to have a way of passing blessings down, and I pray that the blessings of the Lord will not only bless you but will also pass on to your children and your children’s children. Every decision you make is going to affect generations after you, positively or negatively. They’re going to have an effect.
My mother decided she liked West Virginia while my father was supposed to be there for a temporary job. My mother loved the mountains and decided to stay. I was born up in those hills, and it affected how I came out; it affected the trajectory of my life. So, every decision—if you change churches, if you change jobs, if you go back to school, if you accept Christ—will have either direct or indirect outcomes on your family in some way. It’s going to shift them. If you get married again, it’s going to shift them; if you get divorced, it’s going to shift them. You need to keep in mind that you’re not just thinking for yourself; you’re not just living for yourself; you’re not just giving for yourself; you’re giving for generations to come.
Again, if you haven’t found Genesis by now, I’m just going to pray for you! Genesis chapter 15, verses 7 through 18: «And He said unto him, being Abram, 'I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give thee this land to inherit it.' And he said, 'Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? ' Because he’s an old man, he says, 'How do I know that this is going to stick? ' And He said unto him, 'Take me a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.' And he took unto him all these and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another, but the birds divided he not.»
Now, he took all of these animals; he had to go gather them and bring them. You have to understand these animals have value. Abram lived in a bartering system; they didn’t always deal with gold or silver, certainly didn’t have cash or cash apps, or American Express or Visa cards, but they used these goats and animals to trade for things they needed. For him to take them, slay them, and lay them out before God was a sacrifice that many couldn’t make. Many couldn’t sell the wool from their coats, and many couldn’t eat them. He offered them as a sacrifice before God. He split them open, laid them out, and didn’t divide the birds. When the fowls came down upon the carcasses, he drove them away.
When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him. God said to him, «Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them for four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterwards shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation, they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.»
And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces. In that same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, «Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the Euphrates.» This is God entering into a contract with Abram. There’s so much I want you to see about this. There’s a big hint that you begin to understand about God: number one, God is proactive, not reactive. He has determined the end from the beginning; He’s not making up the script as He goes. He’s not wondering what He’s going to do next year or uncertain about five years from now. God knows what’s going to happen four hundred years from now. He’s already laid out the plan; He’s just sharing it with Abram because Abram is getting old. Abram has seen part of the promise’s fulfillment but not all of it, and he needs to know that God’s Word will last longer than him.
Now watch the language because there are some hints in here that are very important. Number one, in order for him to get the secret of the future, he had to sacrifice. Sacrifice is essential. So God told him to take a heifer that’s three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, and a turtledove and a young pigeon. He took all these, divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another, but the birds he did not divide. When the fowls came upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. It’s very interesting that there are all these dead animals spread out—this is a massacre! Three of this, three of that, and three of the other—twelve different types laid out. And the two turtledoves and two pigeons are there, but he didn’t split the pigeons; he didn’t split the turtledoves. Everything else is split in two.
Can you imagine the blood? These are living animals that have been sacrificed, split open, separated from one another; there’s blood everywhere! And as you see the birds coming down—no doubt vultures or some other type of carnivorous bird is flying down—Abram is fanning them away all day long. He’s fanning them away, just like Rizpah. If you remember Rizpah, she fanned the buzzards from eating her sons who were hung in the Bible. He’s fanning them away like that, but God puts him to sleep. Where do I get that? Abraham’s working, Abraham’s working—Abraham is the patriarch of faith. Abraham has stepped into the grace of God. It will not be by works, lest any man should boast.
Abraham will not get to brag and say, «I had to drive all the fowls away; I wouldn’t have this covenant with God.» God put him to sleep because this battle belongs to God. Some of you are working real hard trying to keep something together that you have to turn over to God and let Him do it. I told some of our staff the other day that in these two months that we have been shut down and streaming online, it’s been amazing to see how much of what we were doing, God didn’t need. God can do whatever He wants to do. He can do it on camera, on the screen, in your house, or in the sanctuary. He can use you, or He can choose not to use you. He’s God! He’s still in control. Inasmuch as we want to help, and as much as we want to be a blessing, and as much as we want to fan away all the buzzards that are coming against what we perceive to be our work, our labor, house, our ministry, our job, our car, our kids — it is vain, the Bible said, for you to rise up early and lay down late at night. The Lord giveth His beloved sleep.
This battle is not yours; it belongs to God. Abraham went into a sleep, but that is not what struck me the most. It is one thing to say that he went into a sleep when the sun went down; a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo, a horror of darkness fell upon him. It almost sounds like he’s dead. I mean, a horror! For the Bible to say it was a deep sleep and that a horror fell upon him, and when he was completely out of the way, that’s when God took over and started talking to him. Wow! When he couldn’t hear, when he wasn’t working, when he wasn’t swinging, God started talking. Are we too busy? Are we so busy fending off buzzards and protecting ourselves, fainting off the fire, the haters, and responding to critics, doing this and doing that? Are we too busy trying to do things that, if we would just rest in the Lord, would He not speak to us and reveal His plan?
Instead of us protecting our sacrifice, sometimes we’re so busy safeguarding what we have that we don’t even understand what God has for us. This is not about what Abraham has; this is about what God has for him. The cost of admission was sacrifice, but he could not pay for the Word of God; he could not protect the Word of God. God put him to sleep so the blessing would break out in his life. This is going to be good! He said, «Abram, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs.»
Now, He starts by telling Abram, «I have given you this land,» but after you’re gone, something’s going to happen. You’re going to have to leave this land, and your children, your seed, will be strangers in a land that is not theirs; they shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. Listen very closely to these words. They’re going to go through a period of regression. Just because God is in your life, and just because you have a covenant and a contract, just because God has given an oath, doesn’t mean that you won’t go through a period of regression. But don’t allow the regression to become so entrenched in your spirit that you believe that the regression is your destiny. It might be a setback, but it’s a setup for a comeback. You have to understand that it might be a setback, but it’s a setup for a comeback.
Sometimes God has to give you a setback to redirect you, to shift you, to change you, to prepare you or those around you for what He’s about to do in your life. And that’s how you prove that He’s Lord in your life, not just when things are going well but when things are going poorly. He said, «I’m going to send your children into a land that is not theirs. They’re going to be afflicted while they’re there. They’re going to stay there—not for the weekend, not for a month, not for a year—they’re going to be there for four hundred years. But afterwards, they’re going to come out with great substance.»
Now, He doesn’t name the land right in this particular text, but He must be talking about Egypt. No question about it; He must be talking about Egypt. Abram goes to sleep—literally right now he’s asleep spiritually; ultimately, he’s going to sleep, dead. And when he dies, He said, «This is what’s going to happen after you die,» so that when you get ready to die, you will already know how things are going to go. Look at God, sharing secrets with Abram. It’s important for you to understand the power of those secrets.
If you go to Psalms 25:1-14, I’ll come back to this in a minute, but if you go to Psalms 25:14, the Bible says, «The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He shall show them His covenant.» Do not know, when you fear, what that means? To be scared of means to reverence God. When you respect God, when you honor Him, He will let you know secrets. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; He called Abram a friend. Do you remember in the Gospel of John, chapter 15, when God said, «Henceforth, I call you no longer servants, but I call you friends. For a servant knoweth not what his master doeth.»
One of the signs that you know you’re a friend to God is that He starts to let you in on all secrets. He let Abraham in on a secret. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He shall show them His covenant. You know that doesn’t mean you should tell everybody because sometimes, when you tell people what God told you, they’ll try to kill you for it. Ask Joseph; they’ll try to destroy you for it. But that doesn’t mean God won’t still bring it to pass in your life. You might save yourself from being thrown in a pit, spending some time in Potiphar’s house, sold to the Midianites, lied upon, and put in jail. You might be able to go right to the palace if you didn’t tell all your business all the time. There’s a reason they call it a secret. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He shall show them His covenant.
Let’s go back to Genesis for just a minute. «And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace.» That’s right after He told him that his great-great-great-great-grandchildren are going to come out of everything He took them through with great substance. You need to underline that verse because God didn’t take you through tough times not to come out of it with nothing. If God saw fit to take you and secure you in a strange place and make you subservient and take you through tests and trials, it means that afterwards, you’re going to come out with great substance; that’s what He promised them. «And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.» But in the fourth generation, they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full. He said, «In the fourth generation, they’re going to come back into what you’re in right now.»
So, when Abram was offering them that sacrifice, it wasn’t just for him; it was for his descendants. It was a deed of trust for this property; it was ownership; it was a contract; it was an investment, and Abraham was setting his descendants up. Oh God, there are some things that God has put in your spirit, visions, ideas, concepts, businesses, companies that are going to set your great-great-grandchildren up. I just don’t know who I’m talking to, but I believe I’m speaking truth right now. There are some moves that you’re making right now that are bigger than you; it’s bigger than your retirement; it’s bigger than when you get old; it’s bigger than the college education for the kids. It’s changing the trajectory of your family; it’s breaking generational curses; it’s turning things around in your life and lining things up so that they can function differently.
There’s a reason God moved you from where you were; there’s a reason He’s shifting you from where you wanted to be; there’s a reason God put you in a new atmosphere and exposed you to new ideas. It’s not just about you; it’s not just about the paycheck; it’s for your children and for your children’s children. Who knows if he had stayed where he was, whether he had any children or not? Maybe they would have been killed; maybe they would have been destroyed. When God does something, He does it because it fits into His plan and into His purpose. But we know that all things work together, all of them work together, for the good of them that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.
All things—the good and the bad, the shifting and the uncertainty and the discomfort and the emotional turmoil—it’s all going to work together for the good of them that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. I hope you get that into your spirit. I hope you understand in your spirit that God is up to something good. I hope I can teach well enough to drive the dark clouds away over your life and that ominous feeling that you keep having when you lay down at night, and that discomfort you have, that indigestion, and that anxiety, and those rashes, and that breathing disorder that keeps coming. I hope that the faith of God’s Word would give you the kind of confidence that it’s going to work together for the good—for you and for your children and for your grandchildren and for your great-great-grandchildren.
Oh my God, you should see how many people are sitting in this chair. It’s as if one chair doesn’t fall over on the floor; my father is sitting here; my mother is sitting here; my grandparents are sitting here; my great-great-grandparents, who were slaves, are all sitting here. I am the sum total of all of them. The things that they fought for, I inherited. I reap the blessings of the people who went on before me, and so shall my children and my children’s children walk into new doors and dimensions only because we came first. It’s true about you. You don’t know that sometimes the enemy isn’t fighting you about you; he might be fighting you over what’s going to happen to your daughter or your son. He may be fighting them over what they’re about to inherit. The enemy knows that God has a plan. God has a plan.
This is a 400-year strategy. Some of you don’t have a four-day strategy; God has a 400-year strategy for how things are going to work out. Nothing surprises Him. Oh, you don’t know what happened to me when I got into Egypt. Lord, it didn’t go right; it started out good. It was good for about the first thirty years, but then after that, all hell broke loose, and we ended up in slavery. You know He knows all about it, but afterwards, you’re going to come out with great substance. Paul says it this way: «These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work for us a far more exceeding weight of glory. For we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.»
Let’s go deeper with that. The things that are seen are sensual; they appeal to our senses. I can see it; I can smell it; I can hear it; I can touch it. The things that we look not at, the things that are seen, are sensual and temporal. The things that are spiritual are eternal. So, while you’re praying about all the sensual stuff, God is bringing about a spiritual thing that’s going to outweigh every sensual thing. There’s a difference between sensual and sexual. Every sensual thing—all the things your eyes have seen, your ears have heard—have not even begun to imagine what God has in store for them that love Him, but it has been revealed to us by His Spirit. God’s Spirit has a plan in place for your life.
Stop stressing; go to bed; stop stressing; be at peace. God’s got this. He put Abram in a deep sleep. I want to go back to that deep sleep; He put him in a deep sleep to say, «I don’t need you; I’m going to do this without you.» That means that this is a covenant, but it’s not a bilateral covenant, because a bilateral covenant would be between two people. It is a unilateral covenant; it is God in covenant with Himself, and we become the recipients of a covenant we had nothing to do with. Abraham was asleep, and God was still putting together promises for him and his children and his grandchildren. My wife and I did estate planning; we did a will. We set a will in place, so if something happens to me, and they say I didn’t have a will, they lied—I do! I have a will; I have estate planning.
I left things to my children, to my grandchildren, to my family, but they weren’t there. They weren’t there when I made the will; they weren’t there when I made the decisions; they didn’t sign the will. I signed the will. They become the recipients of a will that they weren’t even there when it was ratified. That’s what it means to be an heir, an heir of salvation and purchase of God. You weren’t there two thousand years ago when Christ was crucified on the cross, but you inherited it. You’re an heir of salvation; you’ve been purchased by God; you’ve been born of His Spirit; you’ve been washed in His blood. «This is my story; this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.»
Let me read on: «And it came to pass, that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.» That smoking furnace and that burning lamp is God in covenant with Himself. It was the custom of the times; if we were to do a deed of trust, we would split these animals, and you and I would walk through the blood and swear that we were going to transfer the deed. God walked through it alone, by Himself. Abraham becomes a recipient of a covenant that he never walked through. All this is heavy, but this is some good stuff. You have to understand salvation is of the Lord; healing is of the Lord; the blessing is of the Lord; deliverance is of the Lord; increase is of the Lord. You don’t have anything to do with it. Take all that air out of your chest; stop looking.
Don’t look down your nose at people; whatever you have, you didn’t achieve it all by yourself. God facilitated it; you became the recipient of something for which you did not labor. I will give you houses you didn’t build. I will give you vineyards that you didn’t grow. You can’t take credit for the blessing. I am God, and I am going to do it for you. On that same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, «Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.» And Abraham’s going, you know why? Sleep. Because it’s not by works, lest any man should boast; it is by the grace of God through faith.
That’s why you sleep; that’s why God does things about you without you, so that you can’t take credit for it. That’s why God didn’t let a rich uncle provide you with the money, so you couldn’t take credit for it. That’s why God wants your friends to meet your needs, so that you get up and pray, serve, and praise Him. This is God’s doing. You have a covenant with God. A covenant is a contract; it’s a contract. It’s important that you understand that you have a contract with God that affects your children and your children’s children. And even he will sleep; he wasn’t fanning away buzzards. He didn’t earn it; he didn’t work for it; he just received it. He is an heir. It is a unilateral contract of which Abram is a recipient. That’s why in the New Testament, when you get into the New Testament and the Apostles are laying hands on people, they keep saying, «Receive ye the Holy Ghost, receive the Holy Ghost.»
Receive the Holy Ghost because when you’re an heir, all you have to do is receive. Hallelujah! You don’t have to frame any buzzers; you don’t have to beg for it; you don’t have to work for receiving the Holy Ghost. That’s why when Jesus was walking around and found the lame man, he said, «Wilt thou be made whole?» You don’t have to work for it; all you have to do is receive it. There are some things that God wants you to receive, but your mind and your flesh say, «Oh no, I’m not ready! I don’t deserve it! I didn’t earn it! I didn’t work for it! I can’t do that! I haven’t been trained for it!» No, God didn’t ask you anything about your degree; he said, «Receive it!»
My God, if you get that—and I don’t teach another word tonight—if you just get that and never hear me again, you could live the rest of your life off that word right there: «Receive it, receive it, receive what God has for you! Receive the blessing! Stop doubting and stop questioning it! Stop pushing people away! We’ve seen it: receive a better life; receive peace; receive joy; receive a sound mind! You don’t have to earn it! Stop trying to think yourself into it. Just receive it! You are the benefactor; you are the beneficiary of a covenant, the recipient. If something happens to me right now, my kids don’t know what I left for them, but the lawyer is going to call them on the phone and bring them down to the office and say, „He left you this, and he left you that,“ and all they have to do is receive it.
When Jesus died on the cross and ushered in the New Testament, which is a new covenant, all you have to do is receive it. Will you receive it? Will you receive a better life for yourself? When you receive it, will you receive joy, contentment, and peace? Will you receive prosperity, or do you think that’s for them and those people next door and those good people over here? No, no, no, no, no! Receive it! You sleep through it. I’m going to give it to you and to your children, to your crazy great-great-grandchildren. They’re going to be the benefactors of something they didn’t even see in the contract, but they’re going to receive the benefit of it! That’s what he’s saying here: „I’m going to give you such a blessing that it’s too big for you to receive; this blessing will have to be passed down to your descendants.“
Can you imagine God giving you a blessing so big that you don’t have room to receive it, and it has to pass down to your descendants? And despite all the trouble they went through and all the trouble you went through, God still brought it to pass! Doesn’t that make you want to jump up and shout? Doesn’t that make you want to say, „I am the seed of Abraham“? Doesn’t that make you want to rejoice in the God of your salvation? It does if you receive it; it doesn’t if you don’t believe it. It doesn’t do a thing for you if you don’t believe it; it won’t lift you for one hour if you don’t believe it. You can click me right off if you don’t believe it; you can go on to watch TV. If you don’t believe it, you can walk away from the screen. But if you believe it and if you receive it, the stuff I’m talking about is what makes champions, kings, warriors, and victorious people. If you receive it, it’s yours.
Abraham woke up rich; he woke up to everything. He woke up to land that wasn’t his before he woke up with a clear blueprint for his destiny. He woke up with understanding, and oh, God, getting an understanding is important! To wake up with understanding is a big deal because life is crazy and weird; strange stuff happens, and sometimes you don’t know what’s going to happen next. That uncertainty is stressful, but Abraham didn’t wake up with uncertainty; he woke up with surety. He woke up with assurance; he woke up with understanding. Nothing good or bad surprised him because he had been with God. If you’ve been with God, he’ll let you know some things. Some parents out there already know some things your children are going to do; you can see it coming down the track. It hasn’t happened yet, but you already know it. You look at your grandkid; „Oh, cutie pie! Oh, bless that little heart!“ But you already can tell certain little things; you already know it!
Abraham woke up with a knowing. Oh God, let me have a knowing! Let me have an understanding! Let me have a sense of what you have in store for me so I don’t waste time and years and decades of my life fanning away stuff that doesn’t matter. Abraham was busy fanning away things that had nothing to do with his destiny; not one of those fowls he was swinging could stop the Covenant of God from coming to pass. I want you to hear me today, because sometimes we put our energy in the wrong place. We’re so busy trying to fan away what doesn’t matter that we miss what does matter. And God said, „Go to bed,“ and not only go to bed—go to sleep; not only go to sleep—go into a deep sleep! Because I don’t need your talent; I don’t need your skill; I don’t need your friends; I don’t need your contacts; I don’t need your degree; I don’t need your education. I don’t need anything you thought I needed to bless you!
When I get ready to bless you, I will bless you anyway. I cannot tell you how many people came up who could sing better than others who became world-renowned singers. I hear them singing and doing albums and projects, and the crowd is screaming. And meanwhile, I know people back here frying fish in the back of a church who could sing you under the table! I said, „Lord, how did you put her on stage?“ This woman back here frying catfish could sing the paint off the walls! The answer is: „It’s not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord! I bring up one and I take down another!“ It’s not your talent; it’s not your intellect; it’s not your pedigree, your background; none of that matters. It is the sovereignty of God that controls all things!
And God has made a covenant. He’ll make bad sound good; he’ll make weak sound strong; he’ll make the poor look rich. When God gets ready to bless you, he’ll change the ear of the hearer and the eyes of the beholder. When God has something for you, he’ll make them choose you because he is sovereign. Will you receive it? Will you receive it right now? Can you receive it in the middle of a pandemic? Can you receive it without a job? Can you receive it without a husband? Can you receive it without a wife? Can you receive it without credentials? Can you receive it without any signs over? Can you just receive it? Can you wake up and receive it? Can you wake up and receive it without arguing and saying, „Lord, I’m going to need some proof and some time?“ Can you just receive it? That’s what the contract is; that’s what the covenant is! It is something to be received; it is something to be received and taken into your spirit.
Now let’s go deeper into this. Go to Exodus chapter 2, verses 23-25, and I will show you what this has to do with the Passover. Because God told Abraham that he was going to bring his descendants out, and they were going to come out with great substance. God said that the people they were under were going to afflict them, but he was going to bring them out. He told Abraham about Moses; Abraham never met Moses, but God said, „I’ve already got deliverance; I’ve already got a plan; I already have a strategy.“ Moses' mother isn’t born, his father isn’t born, he’s not alive; he’s 400 years down the track, but God already knows him!
Do you not know that God knows you before your grandmother met your grandfather? God knew you; he ordained you; he sanctified you to be in this world. They couldn’t abort you; they couldn’t miscarry you; death couldn’t kill you. The disease that attacked you when you were young couldn’t destroy you because God willed you to be here. And there you are, sitting up here saying, „I don’t know if he loves me.“ Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? If he didn’t love you, you wouldn’t be here! He willed you here; he allowed you to come; he designed it for you; he predestined you; he foreknew you! Get it in your head; get it in your spirit! The problem with the church today is we walk in our feelings and not in the word. The only word we get is some preacher preaching, and we just pick that up on Sunday morning. We pick up little clichés and tweet them out, but we don’t get the word in here.
So our minds are sick; our hearts are sick; our lives are overwhelmed and we’re stressed out because we receive what the newspaper says, what CNN says, and what MSNBC says. You need to receive, first and foremost, what God says about you, not the girls on the back of the school bus, not the ladies at the hairdressers, not the men in the barbershop, not the haters on the blog. You are who God says you are; you can do what God says you can do; you can have what God says you can have; you can be what God says you can be! Do you receive it? Because it doesn’t do any good to be an heir if you don’t receive it. I can will this desk; I can will this computer; I can will this phone; I can will this life. But if they don’t receive it, it won’t do them any good!
How many precious promises has God left you, but you’ve not received them because you’re so busy fanning away the buzzards around you that you missed out on what God has for you? Mmm, that’s so good! Go to Exodus 2:23–25. Are you with me? Are you enjoying this Bible study? I know it’s our style; you don’t hear this anymore. You hear a lot of fluff, a lot of clichés, a lot of cute stuff, and a lot of fancy stuff, but real substance teaching has gone out of style. But allow me to leave little droppings for people out there who are serious about getting to know their God. Most people just know church; they don’t know God. That’s why when they closed the church, they panicked, because all they knew was church— they didn’t know God!
If you know God, whether in the building or out of the building, in the grocery store, on the sidewalk, in the car, in the bus terminal, riding the subway, it doesn’t matter where you are; the Holy Spirit can come anywhere you are when you know God! But when all you know is church, when they close the church, then your hook-up is down; your connection is knocked down. I miss the saints; I love to say, „I can’t wait for us all to be in service again,“ but my contact with God doesn’t have anything to do with them; I knew him before I knew them! That’s what I’m trying to get you to understand.
It comes to knowing, perceiving, understanding, and embracing him through his word. We’re doing something good, so we understand a little bit now. We understand a little bit about the contract—just a little bit. You can’t go real deep in this; it takes a little bit of time—just a little bit. We understand a little bit about the Passover and what that has to do with Exodus 2:23–25:
„And it came to pass in the process of time that the king of Egypt died.“ Now this is the fulfillment of what God talked about in Genesis! We are 400 years later. Abraham’s descendants have been in Egypt because Joseph went there first, and he opened up a way for Jacob and his sons and Abraham’s descendants to come into Egypt, and they’ve been there 30 years in peace. But it came to pass, in the process of time, that the king of Egypt died and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
See, what that means is this: the first Pharaoh that remembered Joseph was good to Joseph. Finally, when they came in, they were actually in Egypt for 430 years, but God, you said in the previous text that they would be in bondage for 400 years. It wasn’t the first 30; the first 30 years were good. But when the Pharaoh died and his successor came in, he made slaves out of them, and they went into bondage. But God had told Abraham that they would be afflicted! So in Exodus 2:23, it says, „And it came to pass in the process of time that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.“ And God heard their groaning, and God remembered…
This is what I want you to get: And God remembered his covenant with Abraham! Oh whee, I could have shot right there, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham. There are a couple of things I want to break down about that. „Remembered“ is an anthropomorphic term. What does that mean, Bishop Jakes? „Remembered“ is an anthropomorphic term; an anthropomorphic term is when God describes Himself in a way that you can understand, because His attributes are something that you can’t fully comprehend.
Like the psalmist said, „He covered me with His feathers,“ but that doesn’t mean that God is a bird. The prophet said His eyes go to and fro throughout the earth, looking for whom He may show Himself strong. That doesn’t mean God has eyeballs flying all around the planet—it just means He’s omniscient. But since you don’t know what it means to be omniscient, which is all-knowing, He describes it as the eyes of the Lord going to and fro. When the Bible says God remembered, it doesn’t mean that God remembered like we forget; it’s just the closest way He can explain to you on your level what happened in His spirit regarding Abraham. Abraham is dead—the skin worms have eaten up his flesh. He has been dead a long time; if we found his remains, they would be skeletal. Four hundred years, they would be skeletal. The skin worms have eaten up his flesh, and maggots have consumed his body. There’s nothing left but bone. God didn’t have to keep His word to Abram; Abram was dead. But even dead, God was faithful. You didn’t hear that: even dead, God was faithful! Oh my God, now I see why he went into a deep sleep.
Now I understand why it was important for him to go into a deep sleep, because Abraham was going to be dead, and God was still going to be doing it. He was going to be faithful to Abram, His beloved. He’s faithful to a lover that’s dead. This is the character of your God. Abram is dead; he’s gone, he’s in the ground, his flesh is corrupted, and God is still watching over His covenant—the covenant that He made with Abraham. And the Bible says God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them. God blessed them because of who their forefathers were. There are some blessings that you receive that don’t have anything to do with you; they have something to do with the prayers of someone who came before you. And God just remembered what He promised my grandmother, and God just remembered what He promised my great-grandmother. And all of a sudden, oh, He has respect unto me because of them. So it is with you; some of the prayers you are praying right now—I know you are upset because you don’t see them manifested right now—they’re not for right now, but God will remember what He promised you, and it will come to pass. Oh, this is good! This is good! This is faith-building!
So we’re in Exodus. If you just turned us on, we’re in Exodus chapter 2, verses 23 through 25. If you missed Genesis, you need to go back and watch the whole thing, because if you don’t see how Genesis connects with Exodus, you miss the mastery of the text. The mastery of the text is not the isolated truth, but it is the interweaving of revelation in a concerted effort that becomes a quilt that warms the doubts of our souls and leads us to sustaining realms of reality that are forbidden to those who only glance at the word. You’ll never understand the revelation of God by merely glancing at the word. But when you weave and stitch the word together and begin to understand the strategies of God, the providence of God, the purpose of God, it changes the complexities of life.
So you have to go back, and you have to check out what I was teaching in Genesis so you can understand what is so good about Exodus. God remembered the smoking furnace and the burning lamp. God remembered the bullocks and the doves and the turtle doves and the pigeons. God remembered the goats, and He remembered walking through the blood—the blood, the blood, the blood, the blood covenant. He says, „Strong is coming.“ You can see why God couldn’t forget it; it was a blood covenant. It was a blood covenant! Write that down! It was a blood covenant! In Genesis, it was a blood covenant; in Exodus, it is still a blood covenant. And God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.
Let’s go down a little further. I’m now in verse 27: „That ye shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, who passed over the house of the children of Israel.“ And this is how God plots! He said, „Okay, I’m getting ready to bring you out!“ He said, „And I’m going to do it in such a way: I want every man to have a lamb for his house. Every man to have a lamb for his house. Every house should have a lamb.“ And God said, „I want you to slay the lamb, and I want you to put it on the doorposts and on the lintel. And that ye shall say, 'It’s the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover! '“ It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses. He said, „You’re going to make it because of this blood! And I am going to cause the Death Angel to come through, and it’s going to pass over!“ Hence the word „Passover.“
That scourge is good. It’s going to pass over you! The curse will not come near your dwelling place; it’s going to pass over you. And the people bowed their heads and worshiped, and the children of Israel did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron; so did they. They all did it. They all covered their houses with the blood—blood on the lintel, blood on the doorposts. They all did the same thing because God was honoring the blood. And it came to pass that at midnight, the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captives that were in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the cattle.
God killed everything that was firstborn. Pharaoh rose up in the night. When Pharaoh woke up, his firstborn child was dead. And when he listened out the window, all over Egypt, mothers were screaming, and fathers were crying. The firstborn children were all dead. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry, for God had said, „Let My people go!“ There was not a house where there was not one dead; there was not a house in all of Egypt where there was not one dead—not one house—except for those that were under the blood. Because when the Death Angel got to that house, he passed over. He passed over that house not because God was playing favorites; He passed over that house because the blood was a sign to the Death Angel that death had already been there.
This is the sacrificial Passover lamb! This is the sacrificial Lamb of God—God substituting the blood of the animal for the blood of the child. So the Death Angel killed everything. There was blood in every house, but in some houses, it was the blood of the lamb standing in substitution. That’s what „Passover“ means! He passed over that house because death had already been there. Every other house was screaming and crying, but in the house of the Hebrews, they were sheltered up under the blood. That’s why the old folks used to tell them to „plead the blood,“ because they wanted to be sheltered up under the blood.
And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses. Verse 35: „And they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment.“ The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians so that they lent unto them such things as they required, and they spoiled—the Egyptians—they emptied the Egyptians. They took everything! God made the Egyptians like them long enough for the transference of wealth. Remember in Genesis when God said, „Afterward, they shall come out with great substance“?
This is God fulfilling His word! This is the wealth of the unjust laid up for the just! This is the season that we’re in right now! You can either sit in your house and scream and cry and be afraid and worry and talk about how you didn’t get to live, how you didn’t get to go to this, how you didn’t get to see a movie, or you can begin to understand and strategize what God is getting ready to do next in your life! God is up to something! Everybody else was screaming and crying and weeping and wailing, but over these houses, God passed over! Why did God pass over you? Over a hundred thousand people have died already in our country alone. Why did God pass over you? It wasn’t because you were better.
I happen to know some of those people who died. Some were more good than you! Why did God pass over you? You owe it to yourself to find out why! You owe it to yourself to gain a deeper revelation of why He allowed you to live. God has a purpose for your life, and you better start walking in that purpose! You better stop playing around with that purpose, and you better get down to business with that purpose! Because you could have been in a bus, in a refrigerator on the side of the road somewhere in New York. You could have been in the overflow room of some funeral home! But God let you live! You owe it to yourself to figure out why! It’s not because you’re good; it’s not because you’re perfect! It’s not because I’m good; it’s not because I’m perfect! If that were the case, I’d have been dead a long time ago!
But there is a reason that God let me live, and there’s a reason that God lets you live. You have to understand why—why He passed over you and your child and your family. There’s a reason God passed over you. And if you just use this time to bellyache about what’s happening next, how you missed the church, how you have to get back to work, and you don’t have extra money to buy extra bread, you are missing it! And if all you’ve stocked up on is toilet paper, you are crazy! Crazy! Flat out! I know that’s not nice. I know that’s not polite, but it’s right! You’re crazy if you don’t ask yourself, „Well, how did you let me live? Why am I still here?“ There are young people dead; there are babies dead. You’re 30 years old, and there are 30-year-olds who got the virus and died! Why are you still here? Why did He pass over you?
Now, the sojourn of the children of Israel who dwell in Egypt was 430 years. In Genesis, it was 400, and in Exodus, it’s 430, because in Exodus He counts the free years as well as the 400 years of bondage. Are you getting this? Are you getting this? There are some commonalities between Egypt, between Exodus, and between Genesis. Both of them are bloody! Both of these stories are high sci-fi—blood everywhere! A type of movie! Both of them are sacrificial. Both of them have God in control of a situation where the people are powerless, and God is ultimately in control. Both of them are built on one promise that God gave a man named Abram that He remembered, and consequently, He saved them through the blood. He promised through the blood; He saved them through the blood; He passed over them through the blood. Both of them are the recipients of a blessing that they didn’t earn; they just received it, and it became theirs.
Are you seeing a pattern here? What does that have to do with where you are right now? It has everything to do with where you are right now! It has everything to do with how you perceive your relationship with God! It has everything to do with what you are happy about, what you clap about, and what you shout about! God is trying to get you to grow up so you stop shouting because they put some red-bottom shoes on sale, and you stop shopping because you got extra money back from your tax returns, and you stop shouting because you got a discount on a coach you saw that you liked! All of that is foolishness! God is trying to get you back into praising Him because He passed over you, because the blood secured you, because He anchored you, because He made a way for you, because He established you—because you escaped!
You escaped! You’re not glad about that? You let what your neighbor said about you stop you from having joy? You escaped! You might as well die if you weren’t going to live! If you’ll be bitter and evil and frustrated and complaining and mad and fussing about stuff that doesn’t matter, then why be alive? There is not one person right now on a respirator that wouldn’t trade places with you in a heartbeat. Not one! Not one! They’d love to have your problems! They’d figure out a way to work it out. They’d figure out a way to fix it. They’d figure out a way to escape! They’d figure out a way to change it! But they want to be able to breathe! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! You’re breathing! You’ve got work to do! Come on, let’s go!
To my third phrase, I’m almost finished. I’m taking you to communion from the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 13, verses 1 through 6. I’m going to tie this up, weave it together, and then I’ll wrap it up. Now, before the Feast of the Passover—oh, there’s that word again—before the feast, the Passover was just a Passover, but now it’s a feast. It has become an annual and continual celebration; every time they celebrated the Passover, they reminisced about what God had done for them. Let’s stop right there. Whenever they had the Passover, they reminisced about what God had done for them.
When was the last time you remembered what God has done for you? How much have you taught your children to praise God for what He has done for you? Or have you taught them to be bitter, to complain, to fuss, to talk about church people, to grumble about people at work, to argue with your husband, or to let the dog chase the cat? Now, they continue to praise God for what He had done thousands of years ago, and they are still praising Him for it, while your memory of what happened five years ago has faded, and you say nothing about it at all. Yours was ten years ago, and you’re through with it; you don’t mention it anymore. Yours was twenty years ago, and you have stopped having a feast altogether.
Now, before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come and that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own, which were in the world—talking about His disciples—He loved them to the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God and went to God. See, Jesus knew that what you know determines how you react to what surrounds you. He rose from supper, laid aside His garments, took a towel, and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, wiping them with the towel with which He was girded.
Then He came to Simon Peter, and Peter said to Him, „Lord, are You washing my feet?“ Simon Peter therefore beckoned to Him, urging that He should ask who it would be of whom He spoke. He reclined on Jesus' breast and said to Him, „Lord, who is it?“ While Jesus was washing feet, they still tried to figure out who it was. Oh my God, if they were trying to figure it out while Jesus was washing feet, that means Jesus had to wash Judas’s feet! Jesus had to wash the feet of the guy who sold Him out for thirty pieces of silver! Wow! And you’re not speaking to some people? Jesus knelt down, girded Himself with a towel, and washed the feet of even His enemy, just as He did the rest of their feet. Meanwhile, you roll your eyes and put some nasty lotion on your Instagram to let others know you’re talking about them because you dislike them. And Jesus, in all humility, got down on His knees, took the towel, and washed their feet—even Judas’s.
Jesus answered, „It is he to whom I shall give a morsel when I have dipped it.“ When He had dipped the morsel, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. He served him, washing the feet of His enemies, and fed them. You know, the only way you can wash the feet of your enemies and feed them is when you know who you are, whose you are, where you are going, and that whatever they did to you will only push you into the purpose of God—ex-husband or not, ex-wife or not. You know that all things work together for good. You know the end from the beginning; you know that the promise will be kept, that God will remember His word, whether you’re living or dead, whether stretched on a cross or not; you know that God will not forget you. Say it: „God will not forget me.“ Say it again: „God will not forget me.“
So Jesus said to Judas, „What you do, do quickly.“ No man at the table moved; for what intent He spoke this to him, He didn’t turn them against Judas. He didn’t try to get ahead of him. He probably would have done that if He had been like me. Jesus didn’t do that. He spoke to him gently and said, „I know you have things to do; be quick about it.“ And He knew Judas was going to betray Him.
Having transitioned from communion to the Passover to the Covenant, what happens with communion? Jesus has now become the Lamb; He has become the sacrificial Lamb that covers us, consoles us, and protects us. It was the Passover; He is the Lamb, and we are the tabernacles He covers. Because He died, death passes over us.
I’m going to stop right there because I planned to preach about Pentecost. Pentecost sets its watch from the Passover. You cannot have Pentecost without Passover; it is exactly fifty days after Passover that Pentecost comes. So, when the Bible says, „When the Day of Pentecost was fully come,“ it sets its watch from Passover and fifty days later you’re at Pentecost. This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday.
Now, I grew up in the Baptist Church; my father’s side was Baptist, and my mother’s side was Baptist. We hardly ever heard anything about Pentecost Sunday. We heard a lot about Easter, which represented Passover. They taught us about the Passover, but they didn’t teach us about Pentecost. This coming Sunday, I’m going to be talking to you about Pentecost—the power of Pentecost, what it means, why it matters, and why only those who have been through Passover are eligible for Pentecost.
Can I pray with you? Because I think there are some things that God wants to pass over you. I sense in my spirit that some people are worried about impending dangers, and I want to pray for them to pass over you. I think there are some people out there stressed and worried; perhaps you haven’t been as grateful. Maybe you have not had a feast to celebrate the things that have passed over you because you’re so worried about what confronts you. Right now, in the presence of God, I want you to stop. You don’t have to knock over the dining room table or kick over any chairs; you don’t have to collapse on the floor. I just want you to receive it. Lift your hands where you are and open your heart. I receive from God for you even in the midst of the chaos outside your doors, the crying and the worry, the masks, the PPE, the news, the stress, the pressure, and the elements that have risen against you. I just want you to receive—if you can, if you will.
If you’re a backslider, I want you to receive Christ. If you’re a sinner, I want you to accept Christ into your life. If you’re a Christian, I want you to receive Him more in your life and allow Him to rest, rule, and abide in your heart forever. I’m not asking you to do anything; I’m asking you to open up and just receive. If you open up your heart, I want to pray for you tonight. I want to pray for what’s worrying you, what’s eating at you, and what’s causing you distress. I want to pray for the sounds of crying outside your door.
Father, in Jesus' name, I bow my head before You. I’m so grateful for the mercies that You have allocated to all of us, and we did not deserve them. I pray first for those who mourn, those who are suffering, those who are weeping, and those who have lost loved ones. I pray for those fighting for their lives and those serving them. I pray for them always and try never to forget to ask You to bless all of those who put themselves in harm’s way that we might be safer, housed, blessed, or better. But I pray for everyone watching me right now, that in the deepest, most personal way, You would open that invisible door that sometimes we don’t even know how to reach, and open it so that we can receive what You have for us.
I am so grateful that You thought enough to give us a covenant; You didn’t have to give us a contract; You gave us a covenant. We are a covenant people; we have a covenant with You. You promised to bless us; You fixed it from the beginning. I want to thank You for the things that passed over us, and I want to thank You because Christ, through communion, is my Paschal Lamb, my Passover, my sacrifice—the one who stood in for me. Because of Him, we thwart the death angel; the death angel didn’t get to me because the blood was there. The silent death had already passed, and I thank You for the substitution. I thank You for the fact that He stood in my place and made a difference.
I pray in the name of Jesus that every backslider would come running back to You because every sign is telling them that they are running out of time. I pray, God, that they come running—not walking, running—back to You, flawed, broken, bruised, crippled, lame, haunted. I don’t care—just come back. I pray for every sinner who was skeptical, who made excuses, and who felt hurt—been walking in their flesh—that they would just please get over it and come back to You, allowing You to do a fresh thing in their hearts. I pray for every business owner who is worried, for every pastor who is at their wits' end, and for everyone who feels like giving up. I pray for those who can’t find consolation even in their own homes, that they’d find it in Your word. I pray that You would heal them, bless them, and set them free in Jesus' name. Amen.
I am so grateful that You thought enough to give us a covenant; You didn’t have to give us a contract; You gave us a covenant. We are a covenant people; we have a covenant with You. You promised to bless us; You fixed it from the beginning. I want to thank You for the things that passed over us, and I want to thank You because Christ, through communion, is my Paschal Lamb, my Passover, my sacrifice—the one who stood in for me. Because of Him, we thwart the death angel; the death angel didn’t get to me because the blood was there. The silent death had already passed, and I thank You for the substitution. I thank You for the fact that He stood in my place and made a difference.
I pray in the name of Jesus that every backslider would come running back to You because every sign is telling them that they are running out of time. I pray, God, that they come running—not walking, running—back to You, flawed, broken, bruised, crippled, lame, haunted. I don’t care—just come back. I pray for every sinner who was skeptical, who made excuses, and who felt hurt—been walking in their flesh—that they would just please get over it and come back to You, allowing You to do a fresh thing in their hearts. I pray for every business owner who is worried, for every pastor who is at their wits' end, and for everyone who feels like giving up. I pray for those who can’t find consolation even in their own homes, that they’d find it in Your word. I pray that You would heal them, bless them, and set them free in Jesus' name. Amen.
I had a good time talking to you tonight about the Word of God. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I hope it blessed you; more importantly, I hope it fed you. I hope you’re falling in love with God’s Word and beginning to understand things about the Word that you never understood before. I hope it touched you in a deep way.
To all of you who were just mildly interested, thank you very much. God bless you; take care, and have a nice evening.
To those of you who were deeply touched, you’re starting to understand that holy things are not human things, and that there’s a difference between church and God. You are starting to see the difference between fans and recipients of promises. There’s a difference between the frantic screams of those who don’t know Jesus and the deep confidence of those of us who are hunkered under the blood. There’s a difference between the feet of Judas and the hands of Jesus.
To those of you who got touched in a special way, this is a plan, a sacrificial sharing. There’s not much of this kind of teaching left. Before I leave the earth, I want to pass this on to you. Will you receive it? As I come into the autumn or winter of my life, I want to impart spiritual knowledge and understanding into your heart so that this gospel will continue to be preached around the world.
There’s a difference between holy things and human things. But Paul says if I give you my holy things, you should be healed of things. Why? Because you’ve seen the value. If you don’t see the value, please, man or sir, don’t do it. But if you see the value and it touched you in a special way, and made it easier for your counselor, or made you not need a therapist, or helped you make a decision in your life, then you should sow a special seed, and I want to bless that. Then I’m going to let you go home.
Father, I don’t even know why they are sowing; I don’t even know the circumstances, the details, or what was in the mail I delivered. I am the mailman; I brought the mail, but they opened the letter. I don’t know what was in it, but if it impacted them enough to want to sow into this moment on whatever level You told them to sow, I pray that this word would not stop with the end of this broadcast. May they go back over this message, listening again and again until they are sure they have ingested every drop of it. I pray that this word would not slip, but bring about a change in their lives. Finally, I pray that when they go to work tomorrow, they will be uplifted and strengthened. Tomorrow, they will deal with whatever they have to face, unaware of the difference between holy things and human things. Holy things are not human things. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Let me hear from you! I’m on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and everything else out there except TikTok—okay, I have not done TikTok. However, I’m active on all other platforms, and I’m looking, reading, and waiting to hear from you. I want to connect with you. Talk to me! Ask me questions. Tell me what spoke to you, what fed you, and what you didn’t understand. Let’s dive deeper into the Word of God. I love teaching the Word, and I want to see you grow. I want to see you take it, preach it, minister, and share it. Take those notes, use them, study from them, grow from them, and become everything God has called you to be. I want you to have it, and God wants to share a secret with you. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him. He wants to give you insights. Listen closely; He will guide you on how to maneuver through times like these. Have a wonderful day tomorrow, and know that this old preacher from Dallas, Texas, is praying for your success tonight. Take care!