TD Jakes - A Second Chance at a Blessing
Amen, amen, amen, amen. While I have you standing, please remain standing. I’m going to go right into the Word of God tonight. How are you all doing tonight? Are you feeling good? If you’re feeling good, wave at me. Let me hear you! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! You’re online, and I want to hear from you too. If God is blessing you tonight, we’re going to the book of Genesis, chapter 49, verses 5 through 7. Genesis chapter 49—I heard Pastor Vincent; he already knows what the story is when I say Genesis 49! Glory to God, that’s good!
When I was young, I could remember like that too. Genesis 49, 5-7. When you have it, say amen. Now, it’s kind of unfair because in order to do this justice, I probably should have started at verse 1 and read the whole chapter. Jacob has come to the end of his life; he’s getting ready to die, and he has gathered his sons around the bed to deliver unto them a patriarchal blessing.
You have to understand that in the culture from which this scripture is drawn, the patriarchal blessing is important. It could decree and declare the direction your destiny would take. You understand what I’m saying? It determined your birthright. It determined your destiny. Receiving the blessing of your father before he passed away was very significant. After all, God had declared that He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Okay, so Jacob is at the end of his life, being identified as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob is about to die; it’s the end of an era, the end of a patriarchal dynasty. The twelve sons have gathered around the bed, and two grandsons have also come to receive a blessing from Jacob before he departs. He is dispensing that blessing, but when he comes to Simeon and Levi, it takes a turn, and it reads like this: «Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. Oh my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united; for in their anger, they slew a man, and in their self-will, they dug down a wall.» Can you say amen?
Now, I’m going to teach tonight on a second chance at a blessing—a second chance at a blessing. Now, the scripture I just read didn’t sound much like a blessing; it was more like a curse. But if you’ve ever made a bad decision, if you’ve ever done something that got you into trouble and you needed a second chance at a blessing, hopefully, before the night is over, you will be ready to receive a fresh blessing. There is such a thing as a second chance at a blessing. Amen! Somebody say, «A second chance at a blessing!»
Father, in the name of Jesus, as we go into Your Word tonight, let our understanding be unlocked and opened to receive the infallible Word of God. We thank You for the treasure of Your Word and the power of Your Word. We thank You for the articulation of Your Word. We thank You, Lord, for the Bible. We thank You for everything that is written therein. We thank You that it helps us understand the very strategies and workings of God. Continue to unlock that treasure for us tonight as we study the Word of God. We do so because we don’t want to be spiritually illiterate. We want to have a deep understanding of who we are, what we believe, why we believe what we believe, and understand how to do this both spiritually and intelligently. I believe You will open up the windows of heaven and pour us out a blessing we will not have room enough to receive. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Somebody shout amen!
You may be seated in the presence of God. First of all, I want to start by making a distinction about the Word of God. The Bible says, «In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.» It says, «All things were made by Him; without Him was not anything made that was made.» In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shined in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. If the Word was in the beginning, then the Word existed before the Bible. Some people have reduced the Word of God to just the Bible, but the Word of God existed before there were people to write it down.
The Word of God deals with the character of God, the integrity of God, the promises of God—not what man has written, but what God has said. What we have before us is a recording of pieces of what God said throughout history. The recorded Word of God, which we call the Bible, has been translated from ancient languages into contemporary languages. One of the first translations of the Word of God, originally written in Hebrew, is now available in English. The Old Testament is primarily in Hebrew, with a little bit in Aramaic; the New Testament is in Aramaic and Greek. This was eventually translated into English around 1611, actually starting around 1525, before the Authorized King James Version was published in 1600.
Now, the translations—I’ll talk a little bit about translations so that we can engage in this intelligently. You have to understand that the King James Version was actually translated by a gentleman named William Tyndale around 1525. William Tyndale translated the ancient scriptures into English, and then King James made it the official King James Version of the Bible. So when I came along, I didn’t know any of that; all I knew was that the old folks taught us if it wasn’t the King James Version, it wasn’t of God. We didn’t know where it came from or how it started; we only knew that the only Word of God for us was the King James Version.
What we learn is limited to the level of the teacher that’s teaching. Come on, somebody! Some of the people who taught us early on couldn’t even read. In lieu of revelation or information, they came up with rules and regulations. You know, «It’s holiness or hell,» and «Don’t wear makeup, don’t wear earrings.» A lot of that was to fill in the gaps where they couldn’t study the Word as astutely as we can today.
Now as we look at these different translations, I’m going to show you different translations of the verses, and as I show you, I want you to notice how the Word of God becomes clearer and clearer with each translation. I want you to understand that the translation is not just written so you can have a contemporary version because you don’t like Old English; that’s not just why it was done. The greater reason is that as our understanding of the original language increases, we get clearer translations than we did at first. It’s not merely about making Old King James English hip; it’s about studying the Word of God with more precision because we have more information than we ever had before.
It’s the same way with medicine; the way my grandmother treated a condition is a lot different from how my children treat a condition. Medicine has improved, and healthcare professionals now say, «We don’t do that anymore.» In fact, you don’t even need to wait through many generations; you can wait just five or ten years, and the entire procedure changes. As you acquire more information, you become better at this. Are y’all following me? I’m going to borrow Torrey’s statement: are y’all tracking with me? Did he kill it on Sunday? Wasn’t that amazing? Yeah, yeah!
So, I’ll borrow from him tonight. I like that—are y’all tracking with me? Okay, so you read the first one, and now I’m going to present it in the NIV to give you a clearer understanding, as I really want to delve into this. It says, «Simeon and Levi are brothers; their swords are weapons of violence. Let me not enter into their council; let me not join their assembly, for they have killed men in their anger and hamstrung oxen as they pleased.»
Okay, let’s go further. Let’s go to the American Standard Version to see if we can achieve a clearer vision of the text: «Oh my soul, come not thou into their council; unto their assembly, mine honor; be not thou united; for in their anger, they slew a man, and in their self-will, they hamstrung an ox.» Let’s go deeper to Young’s Literal Translation; each will impart greater clarity. Clarity does not diminish the substance of the text; it makes it more understandable because we achieve a clearer understanding of the original intent of what was said. Are you hearing what I’m saying?
The Bible says in all thy getting, get an understanding. The difference between preaching and teaching is not whether I raise my voice or not. When I grew up, the difference between preaching and teaching was whether you could «hoop» or not. Oh my God, hallelujah! They’d say, «Oh, he can preach!» and if you got up and started talking like that, they’d say, «He’s a teacher,» which was a nice way of saying you were boring.
See, but the difference between preaching and teaching isn’t the voice inflection; it is the depth to which you study and delve down into the Word of God, irrespective of your voice articulation. When we get to the literal translation: «Oh my soul, come not into their secret; unto their assembly be not united; for in their anger, they slew a man, and in their self-will, they eradicated a prince.» Oh wait a minute! I thought it was an ox? No, it’s a prince. In ancient times, they referred to princes as oxen because the burden of leadership rested upon them.
So, understanding the terminology is essential. It’s not a disagreement with what was written before; it’s that now we have a clearer understanding that the word translated there should have been «prince» and not «ox.» In the process of knowing that, we understand that Jacob is still upset about what they did to Joseph. Even as he is dying, he remains angry about it. Can I go deeper?
As you can see from this, it can mean either to uproot or to sever the hamstring of oxen. The King James Version says you tore down a wall. The translator of the King James Version must have been compelled to render the Hebrew word as «wall,» which leads to the awkward phrasing of how you uproot a wall. But what they really meant was that he had uprooted something.
Jacob, as he nears the end of his life, says, «I don’t have a blessing for you because I’m still upset about what you did.» Now, you know that Joseph is Jacob’s beloved son; he had the coat of many colors and was favored by his father. Some Hebrew theologians suggest Jacob’s anger is rooted in two things: one is what they did to Joseph, and the other is what they did to the men of Shechem.
I’m going to clarify that because Simeon and Levi got together—when they teamed up, it was always a recipe for chaos. Hebrew scholars suggest that primarily, it was Simeon and Levi who led the deceit that befell Jacob by claiming that Joseph was dead. So, Jacob lived for years in pain, mourning the loss of his son, only to discover in his old age that Joseph was alive.
It’s hard to figure out a title for this message; I almost called it «Family Matters» because how many of you have a family? If you’ve got a family, you’ve got some matters. This is a declaration that even though this family is chosen by God, they still have issues, emotions, pain, and they are held together but not really together. Jacob remains angry with them, and until his dying breath, he refuses to bless them because they have made him miserable.
When we study what they did—with Dinah, who was Jacob’s daughter through Leah—we begin to understand what happened to her when she was raped and what they did to the men of Shechem. They annihilated an entire group of men, deceitfully. Jacob is furious about that—the bloodshed, the loss, the betrayal. Just like in your family, there have been betrayals and hurts. You have to be a strong man or woman of God to address these things.
God, act like you don’t know what you know. Come on, somebody, you know what I’m saying. That’s why everybody’s holiday is not a good holiday because when all the relatives come around, you have to act like you don’t remember what you remember. Come on, can we keep it real in here tonight? Yeah. So they’re all gathered around the bed, and they’re all related and connected, but they’re not really connected because the secrets get in the way of the connection. Jacob is angry with them because he has endured much pain all his life because of what they did.
Now, consequently, he has embarrassed them in front of all their brothers. Everybody else, just about everybody else, is getting blessings and promises. This blessing, it’s hard to make you understand how important a blessing is. Jacob fought for his father’s blessing; he wrestled in the womb for the blessing. He came out and fought off Esau and got his blessing for a bowl of soup. A blessing was a big deal. It was a big deal! Today, in our Western culture, it becomes difficult to translate. Actually, in many African cultures, it is easier to understand because there is still a great deal of respect for a patriarchal blessing. In our Western culture, we just run off without anybody’s blessing. We don’t think that we need covering, permission, or a blessing. We just kind of live our lives on our own.
Okay, so when we read this, we don’t get the impact of what is being said here. In front of all his brethren, now Simeon and Levi have to face the scorn of their dying father. That is traumatic enough; I’m losing my father, but in his last breath, he curses me. That means there’s no more chance for me to fix this with him; this is over, it’s done. And I’ll tell you something right now, it is much better to have grief than guilt. I’m going to say that again: it is much better to have grief than guilt. Grief is painful; I’m not underestimating it—it’s real painful. But guilt will make you try to pull Mama out the casket. Come on, come on, come on! It’ll make you scream, holler, fall out, and pass out on the floor because many times, when you realize you’re never gonna get it straight, never gonna resolve the issue, and now she’s gone, we’re screaming and chasing behind the casket.
We used to watch a movie; you have to be a certain age to remember «Imitation of Life.» Come on, talk to me, somebody! The girl is running behind her mama, screaming and crying because dead people can’t hear. That’s why you should fix stuff while people are living. You ought to fix it while they’re living because once they’re gone, they can’t hear you; they can’t straighten things out. You ought to forgive them while they’re living. You ought to get it together while they’re living. You ought to pull it together while they’re living so that you can straighten things out. If you love somebody, tell them now. If you were wrong, say it now. If you need to repent, do it now! Don’t wait till they’re gone, and then live with the guilt and grief of losing that person.
I don’t know who needs that, but somebody needs that tonight, and I’m giving that to you for free. Thank you! Sometimes, you can make a decision in your haste, in your youth, in your selfishness. From your point of view, you felt justified to do it, but then, in retrospect, as you mature and get older, you look back at it. If you are fair and wise, you see the other person’s perspective, and all of a sudden, you change your attitude because you get wiser about things. That’s why you should not write things in stone too early; you haven’t lived long enough, and you haven’t seen enough. After a while when it’s your turn, things look different. One of the great joys of being a grandfather is that I get to watch my children try to do it, and I’ll just sit there like, «Daddy, you won’t believe what you did!» So yeah, I believe it, do you remember? Yeah, I do. I wonder where she got that from. Come on, talk to me, somebody!
Now, what we’re looking at are decisions and consequences. I’m going to move you along. We’re looking at decisions and consequences. These boys made some decisions. They made a decision regarding Joseph because they were jealous. They made a decision because Jacob, in my opinion, was not a great leader. He didn’t balance his love, and he was very overt in letting the other brothers know that Joseph was his favorite. «Well, what am I? Swiss cheese?» Yeah, I’m gonna feel some kind of way about that. They got so beside themselves that they started hating him and decided to kill him. Then they threw him in a pit instead of killing him, dipped his coat of many colors in animal blood, and brought it up.
When Jacob starts talking about this, he digs it up by the root. You mess with the root of the father; you mess with the root, the promise, the future, the legacy. The reason Jacob loved Joseph so much is that Jacob loved his mother, Rachel. She was the love of his life, and he had worked 14 years to get that woman. Joseph was the love child of their connection, and every time Jacob looked at Joseph, he saw his mama. And there they have dug up a wall; they have uprooted him, destabilized him, broken him down, and put him in a situation. Jacob felt disrespected as a father. He felt betrayed; he felt deceived because all this time, they told him Joseph was dead. You lied to me for years!
Now, there are people listening to me right now who can relate to this because you were lied to for years. For years, you didn’t know who your daddy was. For years, you didn’t know what happened—that your parents, grandparents never told you the real story. Sometimes they died without telling you, and it’s hard when you’ve been lied to for years. It affects your heart, self-esteem, and identity. These decisions have consequences. I want you to write that down: decisions have consequences. It’s not just about prayer and anointing yourself with oil. Decisions have consequences. Elections have consequences. Marriage has consequences. You get married to prove a point, but when the dust settles, that decision has consequences. You showed your parents one thing, but now you have to live with that. Come on, talk to me.
Just because you’re saved doesn’t mean that decisions don’t have consequences. You can be saved and filled with the Holy Ghost, but if you get on Highway 30 and start going 180 miles per hour, the decisions have consequences. So when you get arrested, don’t blame it on the devil. Many times, we spiritualize things as being demonic, but they aren’t demonic at all; they’re the consequences of decisions. You can dance all over the church, but if you don’t change your decisions, you can’t change your consequences. You can fall out and be slain in the spirit, but if you go home and keep doing what you were doing before, your life will still be where it was. We can decree and declare blessings all we want, but if you don’t learn to budget your checkbook and balance your savings account, then attributes such as the blessings of Abraham coming upon you won’t do you any good. Whatever comes upon you is going to go to waste.
So, I’m preaching it like that: decisions have consequences. That’s why it’s good to be slow in making decisions. Don’t let anybody rush you into making a decision you have to live with for the rest of your life. Jacob was disrespected as a father. His consequential patriarchal curse is a result of the pain he has endured, but I wonder, could some of Jacob’s dying wrath be fueled by his own guilt?
First of all, we’re going to look at this deeper in a minute. In the Torah, it clearly states that when those two boys, Simeon and Levi, went out and decided to bargain with the men of Shechem and told them they needed to be circumcised. What they did was tell the men: «You can have our sister and marry her if all the men in your country get circumcised,» and they did it.
Now, listen, brothers, it probably ain’t going to happen. You know what I’m saying: «If all of us have to get circumcised for one of us, that just doesn’t seem like a good deal. Excuse us, sisters, we’ll be back in a minute,» but this is a brotherly conversation. Just like y’all talk about having babies and stuff, brothers, talk back to me! «I ain’t about to do it; you’re going to live a lonely life if I have to.»
So, all the men got circumcised, and while they were healing and hurting, Simeon and Levi came in and killed them. God, I don’t have time to get into this part too deep, but God always hates people who take advantage of others' weaknesses. This is free; it’s not going to cost you anything, but I’m just going to throw it out here: the reason God hated the Amalekites is that the Amalekites were known for coming in and taking advantage of others' disadvantages. Later, in the Bible, when David comes back, and the Amalekites have taken all the women and children captive, they captured the weakest ones—those who couldn’t fight back. God hated them. The Bible says God remembered Amalek and hated them. Anytime you take advantage of someone’s weakness, God is always on the side of the oppressed.
So while these men were sore and trying to recover, Simeon and Levi came in and killed them. Jacob had made a deal with Dinah’s boyfriend. He had made a deal, and these sons came along, deceived them, and caused them to be killed. Jacob never got over that. In fact, when I studied it closely in the Torah, it says Jacob explicitly comes out and says that while they were doing it, he said nothing. And though he didn’t act, is he not complicit? Is his silence part of his pain? Has he transferred his guilt into their hatred?
Oh, y’all aren’t talking to me now. Sometimes, when you know you are complicit, you won’t deal with it because you’d rather blame the other person than confront the fact that you didn’t stand up like a man and speak up when you could have. By the way, if Joseph was dead, why didn’t you go down there and look for him? So while you’re blaming them for killing Joseph, I don’t read where you went looking for him. As a man, you just accepted that he was dead. You didn’t go see; you didn’t ask for his body. You didn’t have a burial, a funeral, or a service. How can you blame Simeon and Levi for something you weren’t man enough to investigate?
While we’re dealing with Jacob’s reaction and the guilt of it, let us not forget that Jacob was deceitful first. What he is cursing in Simeon and Levi, he was guilty of himself. He tricked Esau out of his birthright. He put on Esau’s garments to deceive Isaac into getting his blessing. He was always deceitful. His mama, Rebecca, was deceitful; her uncle Laban was also deceitful. This is a generational issue.
So what we’re looking at tonight is how do you break a culture that runs through your family? Now, I know what it means in contemporary times, but I mean it this way: how do you break free of something that you can see has been modeled and demonstrated in front of you? Your mama had too much to say, your grandmama cussed everybody out, and you end up 17 years old acting just like your family. There are certain things that have to be broken in your life, and if you don’t break them off, you will find yourself a victim of a culture that exists in your family. There’s a culture in your family, in your company, and in your workplace. There’s a way things get done, and there’s a culture in a church.
And then there’s a toxic culture, and if you’re not careful, what was modeled in front of you, you become. Now, you want mercy, but when I become it, you’re ready to stone me. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Y’all see what I’m saying? There are a lot of dynamics playing out here. I’m not excusing Simeon and Levi, but I’m saying they didn’t get there by themselves. Jacob had been a con in front of them, and Rebecca? Well, in fact, Jacob’s name means «trickster.» So the old man who’s lying there with the blessing, the only reason he got the blessing was through deceit, and now he’s looking at it in his son, hating in his son what is a reflection of himself.
Oh my God, this is Bible study. Let’s study this—sometimes you can hate in other people what you see in yourself. You won’t judge it in you, but you’ll kill it in me because you don’t have the gall, the gumption, or the strength to confront it in you. That’s why you do it, and God covers it, but when I do it, I need to be put out. These dynamics—the Bible comes to us that we might learn lessons about life as well as discover our relationship with God. It also affects our relationship with one another. Are you hearing what I’m saying? God is not just concerned about your relationship with Him. The Bible says, «How can you say that you love God, whom you have not seen, and hate your brother whom you see every day?»
How can you praise God and curse me? How can you say you love God and walk past me without speaking? We only have two commandments: that we love the Lord thy God with all your heart, your mind, and your soul, and that you love your brother as you love yourself. Two commandments—Jesus said if you get these two right, you’ve got everything else right. If you learn to love God with all your heart, your mind, and your soul, and if you love your brother as you love yourself, then all of the commandments are comprised in this one pill. You take this one pill, you’ve got everything. It’s a multifamily vitamin—you’ve got Vitamin C, you’ve got Vitamin D, you’ve got Vitamin E. You took one pill, you got all three. Jesus said if you get these two things right, you don’t have to learn ten, you don’t have to learn twenty, and you don’t have to learn twelve.
He said if you just focus on loving God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, and then He said when it comes to other people, I’m measuring that too—that you love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you wouldn’t do it to you, don’t do it to me. Now Jacob has forgotten what he did, but he has not forgotten nor forgiven what they did. Can we get into this? Yeah, let’s get in. Go to Genesis 34:1-13. This is where the plot thickens. First of all, Dinah, girl, if you had just stayed over there where you were supposed to be, we never would have had this problem in the first place. So when the Bible brings it up, it says in verse one: «And Dinah, the daughter of Leah, which she bore unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.»
Hold it right there—go back, hold it right there. Dinah, the daughter of Leah—let’s stop right there, because first of all, her mama was wounded, her mama was hurting, her mama was rejected, her mama had never been loved. Her mama? Well, her mama had to give up mandrakes to get Jacob to go into her tent to sleep with her. So this wandering daughter comes from a wounded mother. I’m gonna say that again—the wandering daughter comes from a wounded mother. The Bible identifies Dinah as the daughter of Leah—that is no accident. The Bible doesn’t waste words when it goes into letting you know Dinah, the daughter of Leah, not Bilhah, okay? Not Rachel. It said, «I want you to know that she is born from the cross-eyed consolation prize that Laban tricked Jacob with.» That was her mama.
Now, the wounded woman produces a wandering child. Are you hearing what I’m saying? When you’re in pain over your own, see, the whole reason she was in pain—every child she had, including Levi and Simeon, was an attempt to get Jacob to love her. Levi means «joined,» and she said, «Maybe now that I’ve given him another son, he will be joined unto me.» Simeon—"hearing,» and if he hears that I’ve had a son, maybe he’ll love me. This wounded woman never found any peace until she had Judah because Judah means, «Now will I praise the Lord.»
I have given up on Jacob; now will I praise the Lord. She had finally turned to God and given to God what Jacob wasn’t interested in. You can sit here and act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, but this is Old Testament stuff, yet it is relevant to what’s going on in life right now. Sooner or later, you come to a point that if I can’t give it to him—talk to me, somebody. The agents have changed, the clothes have changed, the skin tone has changed, but life is still life, and people are still people. It doesn’t matter what dispensation you’re in; humanity is still humanity. This woman has been rejected all of her life. And by the way, what’s wrong with me, Daddy, that you use me as a trick? Dinah is the daughter of Leah. Leah was set up—her daddy gave her to him as a joke. Not only did she not have the love of her husband; she had never had the love of a father.
Can I go deeper? It is difficult to know how to love a husband if you haven’t had an opportunity to love a father. You don’t understand men’s ways, so you talk to a man like he’s a woman, and you read him like he’s a woman, and you jump to conclusions like he’s a woman. It may not even be your fault; it may be your daddy’s fault that he was never in the house in the first place. You’re guessing that man, but regardless, it will make you wander, and so you end up with somebody that does more damage to you, already wounded, because you are a wandering woman born of a wounded woman through the rejection of a father. And now you’re wandering out there; I must see strange people talking about you, looking for the daughters of the land. What are you doing, Dinah? You’re about to mess up wandering! Listen to me tonight in this Bible class: stop wandering.
Stop wandering from pillar to post, from here to there. Be still and know that God is God, and wait on God to put it together and straighten it out. I know you’ve been hurt; I know you’ve been wounded; I know you’ve been ostracized. I know it wasn’t your fault, but if you wander down, you’re gonna make it worse. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Stand still—I’m talking to somebody. Stand still. You’ve been running all your life; you’re about to run into something you can’t get out of, and God’s got you logged onto this broadcast tonight to give you a warning to just stop running and be still. Just stop running from job to job, from church to church, from man to man. You keep going because you’re wounded, and you learned how to handle your pain from your mama or perhaps your daddy.
Regardless of where you got it from, it’s handed to you. You don’t speak English because you were taught it in school; you speak English because they spoke it in your house. You never had to learn English like somebody from another country would have to learn it because it was modeled in front of you, so it was easy for you to speak it. You might have had to learn how to write it, but it was easier for you to speak it because that’s all Mama spoke to you. «Want some more milk, baby?» After a while, the baby says, «Milk, milk, milk, milk, milk, milk.» Whatever is modeled in front of you is behavior that’s easy to repeat. If Mama gets mad and throws stuff, then you learn when you’re angry, you should throw something or cuss them out or go into a rage or have a drink. So a lot of what becomes our behavior we have adopted from the culture we are surrounded with.
Now, Dinah, the daughter of Leah, let me go on with «she bore unto Jacob.» See, this is code. I can’t get off it; I got to stay here. «Dinah, the daughter of Leah, which she bore unto Jacob» is code. You have to know the story to understand what the writer is telling you. She went out to see the daughters of the land; it’s bringing up everything I just taught. And when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her and lay with her and defiled her. If she had stayed her hips where she was supposed to be, it wouldn’t have happened to her. I know today you say don’t blame the victim. Yes, the victim is complicit. If you stay within boundaries, a lot of things won’t happen. That does not absolve the guilt of the man in any way at all.
What they did was horrendous and horrible and tragic and awful, but it is also a cautionary tale. You don’t jump in everybody’s car; you don’t go to everybody’s hotel room at three o’clock in the morning. I know it’s not popular; nobody’s saying this kind of stuff. I know I’m gonna get a lot of hateful emails, but it is true. We’ve got to go back to raising our children. You stay within boundaries. It’s eight o’clock—go to bed. You get up in the morning; you brush your teeth. He only bathes once a week? What are you talking about? No boundaries have created this situation. The only thing about it is when Hamor saw her and raped her—the next verse—his soul claimed unto Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He fell in love with the girl he raped. Let that sink in for a minute. He fell in love with this strange Hebrew girl, and maybe he saw her because she was strange.
Come on, fellas, you know how we like strange. It’s not like there weren’t any daughters of Shechem—they were used to the daughters of Shechem. Here comes this Hebrew girl with her accent; she talks funny, she walks differently, she’s of a different culture. And he raped her, fell in love with her, and his soul claimed unto Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the damsel and spoke kindly unto her. And Shechem spoke unto his father Hamor, saying, «Get me this damsel to wife.» Okay, he doesn’t ask her to marry him; he goes to his father because of patriarchal blessing. He says these are arranged marriages; many cultures today still have arranged marriages. The parents make the decision. When he goes back to his father, he says, «Get me this daughter for a wife.» And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah, his daughter.
Now, his sons were with his cattle in the field, and Jacob held his peace until they came. Come on, and Hamor, the father of Shechem, went out unto Jacob. Here the two fathers come together to have a conversation about their kids. The sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it, and the men were grieved; they were mad and they were «roth,» which means anger with fire. So they were past mad—they were raw. They were angry with fire because he had wrought folly in Israel in relation to Jacob’s daughter. They understood that God had already commanded them not to associate with people who were idolaters, and now he has defiled her, ruining her chances of marrying a Hebrew man because now she doesn’t have any blood to ratify the covenant. Can I go there for a minute? She’s given her blood to someone with whom she has no covenant, not because she wanted to, but because he defiled her. That’s what «defile» meant.
Let me explain this: in the Bible, on the night of your wedding—once the marriage is consummated—you would come out and wave the bloody sheets as part of the ceremony. This is because marriage was not just a word covenant; it was a blood covenant. The whole purpose of the hymen in the body is to cut the covenant, establishing that the blood covenant is the strongest covenant possible in many religions and traditions outside of Christianity and Judaism. It is still true that blood covenants are the strongest covenants possible. Now, she has lost her blood without her permission, at the whim of Hamor. Hamor communicated with them, saying the soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. I pray you give her to him as a wife and make marriages with us; give your daughters to us and take our daughters unto you, and you shall dwell with us. The land shall be before you; dwell and trade therein, gaining possessions there. He said, «We are willing to become one with you and be connected with you to form one people.»
Shechem said unto her father and her brethren, «Let me find grace in your eyes; whatever you shall say unto me, I will do.» He said, «Whatever I have to do to calm you boys down, I’m willing to do it. I realize I messed up; let’s make this right. Just say what it’s going to take to straighten it out.» This is a family mess, and don’t sit there and look at me like you haven’t had a family mess because a family mess will keep you up all night. A family mess will have you walking the floor at three o’clock in the morning. You can’t get out of it, ignore it, turn your back on it, or act like you don’t care because you do care. Love will make you have to deal with someone that you wouldn’t have to deal with if it wasn’t for your cousin who got into trouble.
I know you said you weren’t going to help him, but there you are at two o’clock in the morning, waking people up to get some bail money. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, trying to straighten out something, and now you’re working overtime to get money to pay a lawyer. «Ask me never so much diary and gift, and I will give according as you shall say unto me, but give me the damsel to wife.» He says, «Whatever I have to do to fix this and make it right, I’m willing to do it. We can be one people; you can have part of our land, our women, we can work together, do business, and interact.»
The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor, his father, deceitfully. Wait a minute—this is where our Hebrew scholars say Jacob said nothing. Why are the sons talking when the fathers are speaking? Oh God, I could take off on that and go somewhere else, but okay. The sons of Jacob answered deceitfully, saying that because he had defiled Dinah, their sister, they would agree to their proposal if they would be circumcised.
Now, circumcision is a sign of the covenant. The same way the hymen is the blood of the woman, the cutting of the foreskin of the man means, «I have a covenant with God.» What is happening here is that everybody’s breaking covenant. The rape was a break of the covenant, and now you have these men, who have no relationship with Jehovah, getting circumcised and wasting their blood like she wasted hers. Do you see how this is going down a hole?
All the men of Shechem, who are going to be prominent throughout the scriptures, are important for you to listen to because the men of Shechem end up in many stories throughout the Bible. Let me say something to you, ladies: if a grown man gets circumcised, and it’s just three days post-operation, «sore» is not a good translation. «Sore» doesn’t encompass the pain he experiences—it’s unimaginable pain. And it is into this environment that the two sons of Jacob went in. Levi, Dinah’s brother, took each man his sword—there’s the sword Jacob is talking about on his deathbed—and came upon the city boldly, slaying all the males.
Only one man raped her, but they killed all the men in the country; they slew Hamor, who did it, and his father, and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and went out. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and spoiled the city because they had defiled their sister. They took their sheep, oxen, and asses, and that which was in the city and in the field; they robbed them all. They took all their wealth, and all their children and their wives they took captive, spoiling even all that was in the house; they wrecked the place.
Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, «You have troubled me; you have made me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites, and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.» Jacob is scared; he fears that they have gotten into something they can’t get out of, and that all the surrounding nations will rise up against him and kill him. But they didn’t, so why is he still angry? On his deathbed, he is still angry, asking, «Should he deal with our sister as with a harlot?» The scandal stops there.
I want you to see the backstory behind Jacob, now old, lying in bed, still angry. Are you still angry, Jacob, who found the house of God and saw a ladder descend from heaven with angels ascending and descending? Are you still angry, Jacob, who wrestled with an angel until the breaking of day? Are you still angry, Jacob, who discovered his name was Israel, and he was a prince who had prevailed with God? He prevailed with God but didn’t prevail with his temper.
Are you dancing and angry, talking in tongues but still angry? Laying hands on people but still angry? Jacob, you don’t understand—you got a blessing from an angel, actually a theophany, a manifestation of Christ in the Old Testament. You received the blessing but couldn’t shed the burden of your own anger. I am teaching tonight not just so you will understand another Bible story, but so that you will see what unmanaged rage will do to your destiny.
Now Levi and Simeon are cursed in front of their brethren, and they live under this curse. The reason this is important is that each one of Jacob’s sons represents a tribe, and now they can’t inherit as they should because they are living under a curse and denied a blessing. You see how problems produce problems, which produce problems, growing bigger and bigger. They are still under the curse until Exodus 32:23–30.
This is hundreds of years later—no massive victory, no conquering, no massive success. In fact, the tribe of Simeon ultimately merged with other people and became part of the lost tribes, disappearing and becoming untraceable. The descendants of Simeon never got it back—not his children, nor his children’s children. Wait a minute—this is Exodus now; we’re not in Genesis anymore. Exodus is where we exit. If this is where we exit, we have been slaves for 400 years and in Egypt for 30 years, so we know at least 430 years have gone by—430 years is over ten generations. Now they are coming out from captivity with Moses. We are about to see the breaking of a curse, and I want you to see it because it is possible. Touch your neighbor and say, «It is possible.» I want you to understand—it is possible to get a second chance at a blessing.
Now, this is the situation: Moses has been in his own mess. Isn’t it amazing how God uses messed up people? You ought to be shouting right now. You ought to be sad right now. You know why? Because you messed up. Isn’t it amazing how God uses messed up people? What I love about Old Testament theology is that it shows us how messed up they were. Then, in the New Testament, comes along people «of like passions.» God can use people whose lives are all messed up, filled with contradictions and struggles, yet some way, somehow, God’s purpose prevails over our pain.
If you’re sitting there tonight, and you’ve been in pain, wounded, ostracized, overlooked, cursed instead of blessed, that’s not how your story will end. Your latter days shall be greater than your former days. I speak to you right now in the name of Jesus: you have a God who is able to give you a second chance. If you would just take ten seconds and praise Him for a second chance—yes, everybody be grateful, thankful, and appreciative. Thank God for a second chance; thank God for amazing grace. Thank God for a second start. Thank God for a new beginning! Thank God that His purpose prevails over your pain.
God used harlots, hookers, street people, and idolaters to accomplish His purpose. If God could use Ruth, if God could use Rahab, if God could use Tamar, then He can use me. Come on, somebody! God used Rebecca, and in spite of her treachery, He still used her. If there’s someone in here who wants God to use you, open your mouth and begin to give God praise.
Now, let’s go deeper. I want to get something in, oh, I feel this—I feel that somebody’s about to get a second chance. This is a prophetic class, not merely a Bible class. I thought this would be a Bible class, but this is a prophetic word: God is going to give you a second chance and a blessing. You’ve lived in guilt, you’ve walked in shame, and God said, «I’m going to give you a second chance at a blessing.» That’s why you had to be here tonight; that’s why you had to be online right now. God is about to open a door and give you another opportunity to correct and break curses. He’s going to turn it all the way around; He’s going to spin it all the way around. God is about to turn some things in your life.
Oh, wait a minute! Somebody help me praise Him! I feel a yoke breaking; I feel a door opening; I feel a curse being released. I feel the anointing of the Holy Ghost. Somebody shout unto God with the voice of triumph! Look at your neighbor and say, «I will be triumphant! I will be triumphant!» That’s why I’m going to shout unto God with the voice of triumph. I might not look triumphant right now, but before it’s all over, I will be triumphant! I will get it back; I will get a second chance. If I’m teaching what you need to be receiving, give Him some glory online! Give Him a praise! Type of praise! Make a joyful noise! Make a joyful emoji! Make a joyful sound unto God in this place. Okay, so now we gotta go back to work.
Now, this is what happened: Moses has been raised in the Pharaoh’s palace for 40 years. He’s raised up in finery; he’s educated in a way he would have never been educated. He has a boldness that he never would have had in his mama’s house as a slave. He’s raised up amongst kings and leaders, and he has a finesse and a strength because his environment was different. You see, his environment was different. Because God is raising him up to speak to kings, He does not want Moses to end up walking up to Pharaoh talking about, «Yes, sir, boss! I sure am glad you made time to see me! Oh, I have a word from the Lord for you, if you don’t mind me telling you. I am that I am sent me.» No! He wants him to come boldly and say, «I am sent by God, and I have a word from you: thus saith the Lord God unto you.»
And some of you, God had to put you in a different situation so that you would have a different attitude. That’s why you don’t fit in with your friends, and that’s why you don’t fit in with your family—because God is raising you up for a divine purpose. You don’t think like them; you don’t act like them; you don’t walk like them because you have a different destiny. My God! Let me stop. Who am I talking to? I’m talking to somebody tonight. Down through the years, God has been good to you.
Now let me show you something because I’m going to give you something. Now, sit down, because you make me get happy. If I get happy, I won’t finish. Glory to God! How many are glad you came to Bible class? Now I want you to think about this: Moses spent 40 years in Pharaoh’s house, then he tries to execute his destiny off schedule, rises up, and ends up killing an Egyptian. He has to go on the run for 40 years in the desert. Now Moses is in the desert with Jethro for 40 years. He’s in the desert as an outlaw and stays there until Pharaoh dies, and a Pharaoh rises up that didn’t know him. But even though he’s an outcast from the palace, God has purpose in his pain. It’s no accident that Moses has spent 40 years; he spent 40 years learning how to be a Pharaoh.
Now he spends 40 years learning how to survive in the desert because his destiny is tied to the desert. He’s going to end up leading the children of Israel through the desert, and the reason he can lead them through the desert is that he spent 40 years in the desert. When God is going to take you somewhere, He exposes you to the thing that’s going to be yours before you get to it. Who am I talking to? So Moses is the only one who could have led them out of Egypt because he spent 40 years learning how to survive in the desert under the tutelage of Jethro, the Cushite, which means «burnt face.»
So the burnt-face Cushite man taught Moses, the Hebrew man, how to survive in a hot place. All of a sudden, when Moses goes down there to tell Pharaoh to let my people go, he is releasing a people that he’s kin to but estranged from. They haven’t seen Moses for 80 years, and now Moses is leading them away from the familiar into the unfamiliar. They have seen the glorious power of God at the Red Sea; they’ve had a moment of encouragement, but it was tough to get it because until Pharaoh drowned, they were scared to death and wanted to go back. Rightfully so, because they don’t know anything about Moses. They don’t know anything about Moses. Now Moses has gotten them through the Red Sea, and now he’s gone up on the mountaintop, and he’s gone a while, and while he’s gone, they said, «This verse 23, for they said unto me, 'Make us gods, we shall go before us. For as for this Moses—'» That’s right, «for this Moses.»
See that statement right there? I’m so glad you threw that back at me. «As for this Moses.» You don’t say «this Moses» if you know the guy! If I say «Effortless Robinson,» that means I don’t know him. «As for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we would not what has become of him!» Moses is just some dude who brought them up out of the land of Egypt! He has no roots with them, and anytime you’re trying to lead somebody that you are not rooted in, it becomes difficult for trust to be sustained where there are no roots. And I said unto them, «Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off.» So they gave it to me. This is Aaron; then I cast it into the fire, and there came out a calf. That’s like a seven-year-old lie!
«I don’t know! I just walked past the kitchen, and the kitchen door came open, and the ice cream just jumped out of the freezer, Mama!» That’s the stupidest lie! «They gave me the earrings; I threw it in the fire, and the calf came out!» Come on, dude! When Moses saw that the people were naked, for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies, then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, «Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me!» And Levi—I said, «Oh my God! This is my chance!» All the 12 tribes of Israel were gathered around, and Moses just left it open and said, «Who is on the Lord’s side?» And Levi said, «I’m going to jump in right here.»
I came to tell somebody tonight: you can jump in right here! You don’t hear what I’m saying to you! You’ve been cursed all your life. Let me stop. You’ve been crushed all your life. You always had to take a back seat to everybody else, but God said, «This is your chance!» Who is on the Lord’s side? Somebody holler, «I am!» Go back to my «Who is on the Lord’s side?» scripture, and he said, «Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me.» And all the sons of—I see that—yes, all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. They said, «We’re on the Lord’s side.» And they said unto him, «Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.»
Wait a minute! They reversed the curse with the same thing that brought the curse in the first place! Y’all don’t want to talk to me! Y’all don’t want to talk to me! God’s going to take what was working against you and turn it around and let it work for you! Who am I talking to tonight? And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and there fell of the people that day about 3,000 men, for Moses has said, «Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, even every man upon his son and upon his brother, that He may bestow upon you a—» Y’all don’t hear this word! Y’all don’t hear this word! God bestowed on them a blessing that they couldn’t get from their father, that they couldn’t get from their mother, that they couldn’t get from their brethren, that they couldn’t get in captivity, that they couldn’t get from Pharaoh! But God has decided to bless you!
Type on the line, «God has decided to bless me!» Say to your neighbor, «God has decided to bless me!» Tell your other neighbor, «God has decided to bless me!» Tell your haters, «God has decided to bless me!» Tell your neighbors, «God has decided to bless me!» And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said unto the people, «Ye have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.» And that was how they broke the curse. This is what I want you to get, and I’m done. Okay? I’m going to show you this. You see, Moses' problem is that he’s leading a people with whom he’s not been rooted. When there is no root, every time you leave, they doubt you. When there is no root in the relationship, every time you step aside, they doubt you. And you say they’re needy; they’re not needy—they’re doubtful. They’re doubtful because there is no root, and you are in a position for which there is no root.
Now, you came back into the boy’s life, and he’s 30, and you want to pick up where you left off. It’s not that he hates you; there’s no root. You gotta build a root system. You remember when they said that Levi and Simeon had dug up a wall, and then the next translation came along and said that he had uprooted? You remember that? It said he had uprooted. See, when you are not connected to who you’re trying to lead, you uproot things. A rooting system is important in order for there to be fruit. Some of you are trying to get fruit out of a relationship where you have no root. Moses had no root with them, so every time he left, they wanted to leave! «We don’t know what has become of this man called Moses! Let us make us some gods and go back to something that we have roots to!»
No root in the relationship! No root in ministry! You’re trying to lead people that you’re not rooted to! If you know, if there’s no rootin' system, if you can’t talk to a crowd like this, you can’t talk to the stadium! People have been in this church a long time know that I talked for years and years and years every Wednesday night, and we would have thousands of people in here every Wednesday night, because I knew that you cannot just lead a church from Sunday morning! You have to root it on Wednesday! See right now you know what I’m doing? I’m digging amongst the roots. I’m digging amongst the roots! Yeah! Yeah! Sunday morning, I’m going to talk to the branches and the fruit and the leaves and everything else. Wednesday night, I’m digging amongst the roots!
And if you’re listening to me right now, you need a rooting system! You need to build a rooting system! Your marriage isn’t over; you just need a rooting system! Your career isn’t over; you just need a rooting system! You’re an entrepreneur? You need a rooting system! You can’t be uprooted and then every time you move away, they leave you! Get mad! You can’t figure out why they left—they left because they don’t know you! They don’t have your spirit! They don’t know your voice! «My sheep know my voice, and a stranger they will not follow!»
In order for your sheep to know your voice, you have to stick around long enough for them to have some root! You need roots in your marriage; you need roots in your family! Do you hear what I’m saying to you? I’m going to give you one more scripture, and I’m going to close. Can I give you one more scripture? Go to the Gospel of Saint Mark, chapter 4, verses 1 through 9, and I’ll be done. This is good, is this good? I thought it was good! It was good when I got it! Yeah, it was good when I got it! Mark, chapter 4, verse 1. This is important because this is what Jesus is teaching, and all of this is ultimately tied back to this blessing. Why you get it or don’t get it really comes down to how you’re rooted.
That’s why the Bible said, «Be steadfast, unmovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord!» Because in order to be rooted, you gotta be stable! You gotta get someplace and stick! You gotta stick it out when it’s good and stick it out when it’s bad and stick it out when it’s working and stick it out when it’s not working! Because even when it’s not working on the surface, it’s working underground! Oh my God! I helped somebody! I don’t know who it is, but I helped somebody! You’re up there looking for leaves and stuff, but let me tell you: some bad weather will kill all the leaves and all the branches, but if it don’t kill the roots, it’s going to come back up again! You’re trying to produce fruit so you can put it on Instagram?
Don’t worry about putting fruit on Instagram! Put roots underground! If you put roots underground, the fruit’s going to take care of itself, listen to Jesus' teaching. In the fourth chapter of Saint Mark, He began to teach by the seaside, and a great multitude gathered unto Him. So, He entered into a ship and sat in the sea, while the whole multitude was by the sea on the land. Jesus was sitting in the boat teaching, and He taught them many things by parables, saying unto them in His doctrine, «Hearken! Behold, there went out a sower to sow.»
And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. Some fell on stony ground where there was not much earth, and immediately it sprang up because it had a little depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away. This time, if you’re going to win, you must be rooted. I’m telling you, the battle was lost before, but you can win now if you get the rooting system in place. You didn’t lose it because the seed was bad; you didn’t lose it because God didn’t love you; you didn’t lose it because the devil had more power. You lost it because you didn’t have any root. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it out, yielding no fruit. Others fell on good ground, yielding fruit that sprang up and increased, bringing forth thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. And He said unto them, «He that hath ears, let him hear.»
Okay, let me do this. I’m going to sit down for a minute and follow Pastor Court’s lead. Last week, Pastor Court did something, and I’m going to do it this week. Yes, I saw it; I was watching, too. She taught on the names of God, didn’t she? So, what she did, I’m going to do for about ten minutes. If you all have a good question online, send it to me, and I’ll answer a couple of those. Who’s got the first question? Where’s the mic? I asked for the mic; someone should be moving with it. Thank you! She’s coming. I’m excited; calm down!
Okay, yes, what is a rooting system? How do we build a rooting system? You’re teaching we need a rooting system—R-O-O-T-I-N-G. How do we build that? In what area are we talking about—families, business, personal relationships? Does it depend? The answer differs for every question. For example, a lot of times in business, our businesses don’t succeed because we go for the glam without having the infrastructure. So, you want to build an infrastructure, and if you only have limited resources, you should invest in the legal infrastructure of the business more than the glam. There are delis in New York that still have the same furniture they had a hundred years ago, and they remain open. If we owned it, we would have redecorated it and blinged it out, but they focus on profit and have a rooting system.
In a personal relationship, the rooting system has to be built deep by not making demands before you’re in demand. We often make demands of people that we don’t have enough demand to make. You want to build a rooting system of stability, loyalty, connectivity, understanding, and transparency. All of that is your underground work that has to be built. So, when something goes wrong, you have something to hold on to. For example, you can go through a midlife crisis, or I can go through a midlife crisis, but we can withstand it if we have roots. I can love you now over who you used to be. I know you would do different if you could, but if there are no roots and I marry you in the middle of the crisis, then I don’t have anything to hold on to for stability in the storm.
So, would you say compatibility is a part of it? Compatibility is important, but longevity is better. Longevity is better because trust takes time. We are never commanded to trust another person; we are commanded to forgive them. We’re not commanded to trust them because trust is not something I can make myself do. I can make myself forgive you, but I can’t make myself trust you. You can make me trust you by being consistent. If you are just present long enough, eventually, trust will be the result of your consistency. Consistency is important, and you have to build a rooting system by being there for me in trouble, in crisis, and not just by giving love. Some people might say, «I did all that, and it still fell apart.» It’s not only important to give but also to find someone who can receive and reciprocate it because it must be mutual. It can’t be one-sided; this is not witchcraft. You can’t make me love you.
The first thing in a relationship you want to know from a companion—and you can’t just ask them this; you have to observe—is, «Are you safe to love?» One way to observe is by watching how they handle people they say they love. If you’ve divorced everyone who entered your life and can’t get along with anybody else, what would make me think I’m the exception? The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If someone has had several long-standing loyal relationships over time, you begin to understand it is within their ability to be loyal. Some people just don’t have the ability to be loyal, and Jesus said, in essence, you’re casting your pearls before swine.
I’ll take two more questions. Here’s one from online: «How do I block out other voices and focus on God’s voice?» That’s a good question. One of the reasons we have worship services is to feed your spiritual ears to hear. We have a spirit just like we have five senses in the flesh; we have five senses in the spirit. «He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.» That doesn’t mean he who has a physical ear, which is everyone; it means someone who has the ability to hear what the Spirit is saying. How do I get my spiritual ear exercised? Through worship, because worship lets you practice communicating with someone you cannot see with your natural eye nor hear with your natural ear. As that relationship strengthens, prayer does it, worship does it, and communication with God does it until He becomes more voluminous in your life.
But you can’t watch TV all day, scroll through Facebook, interact with friends, and listen to crazy music, and expect to hear God’s voice. If you want to hear God’s voice louder than other voices, spend more time with Him. Establish a rooting system with God. Get on a prayer diet and develop a worship pattern. Every day, even if I know you’re busy, make time for God. While you’re in the shower, let’s make that time God’s time. While you’re driving to work, cut off the music and start communicating with God until it becomes routine. Then, God’s voice will be louder. The other voices will always be there because God intends for there to be a trial in your garden of Eden. If you silence other voices, you won’t choose Him. So, it’s not about killing the other voices; it’s about calming them down so you can say, «God, I hear them, but I prefer You.»
Let me take another question. How long did it take for the descendants of Levi to be blessed again? We know it had to be at least 400 years because they went into idolatry in Egypt and started seeking other gods. It’s not that it took God 400 years to act, but they had turned away from Him, which is why they became enslaved in Egypt and adopted their ways. God had to separate them from the environment that had infected them to purify them in the wilderness. The Bible states He proved them in the wilderness. The word «prove» means to test. He was pruning them; He was untangling their roots. They became so much like the Egyptians that when they wanted to build a god, they crafted an Egyptian god as an image. You become who you hang around. That’s why it took so long. So, there is no specific length of time; it’s how fast you turn. God said, «If you return unto Me, I will return unto you, and you shall be My people.» It’s not about how long it takes God; it’s about how long it takes you.
Next question; I’ll take one more. «How do you truly surrender?» I am literally the will and vessel. I am the spiritual curse breaker. I’m the one who always got blamed for things when I was young because I didn’t have that model before me. Now, in the last couple of years, it feels like I receive all the backlash and rejection. I have been independent for a while, but there are good times when I need help. I’m just tired of being the strong friend all the time. I pour into people every single day, even when I’m empty. I’ve heard people say you can’t pour from an empty cup, but it’s just in me to pour into people, no matter my circumstances. I put myself in places where I aspire to be, investing in myself even when I can’t pay my bills. But how do you truly— and I guess it’s the second question—keep believing when your own family doesn’t believe in you? They see you for who you are now, but not who you are becoming.
You don’t need them to believe. You really don’t. A prophet is without honor in his own country, and it’s not unusual for the people closest to you not to see you in that light. The relationship they have with you has little to do with your destiny but rather relates to your history. Their connection to you is as a family member, not as a vision supporter. Stop seeking support from people who don’t see it. I’m not saying to leave them alone; still love them as family, but don’t tie your spiritual destiny to someone who is just a family member. I hear pain in your voice, and there are two things I want to say to you.
The reason everyone uses you up is that you attract people who need you instead of those who can feed you. When you find yourself in rooms where people can help you, you often feel unworthy of being there, causing you to gravitate toward those who need you. However, they leech off you. What I want you to do is seek out rooms where people are above you and resist the temptation to run until you own the new you inside. You’re trying to get everyone else to believe in you while you struggle to believe in yourself. You’re hurting for support because the voice inside you says you’re not worthy of what you’re believing God to do.
I want you to receive this for yourself because I believe I can help. If you listen to what I’m saying, it will truly help you. You’re going to enter these spaces and feel unworthy, uncomfortable, incapable, and scared. Stay anyway! The only reason you feel that way is not that you’re not worthy; it’s because your roots aren’t established yet. If you stay in the room long enough, it will become your norm, and you will develop a rooting system that supports you.
Instead, you’re trying to connect with your family and not with your destiny. You don’t have to strive to connect with your family because they are supposed to love you for who you are, not what you have, not what you drive, and not how many degrees you hold. They are supposed to love you just because you are you. We should never commodify our family, making our relationships with them contingent on their performance. You don’t have to earn my love to be my child; I’m going to love you anyway—I can’t help it. I’m going to love you if you’re a drug dealer; I might be hurt, but I’m going to love you if you’re drunk because you’re my child. Okay, that’s a whole different relationship. I am not necessarily the support system that will take you into your destiny; I am the support system that got you here. What got you here may not be what takes you there. You understand? You see that, don’t you?
Okay, now watch this: the way you see yourself makes certain types of people drawn to you, and they are drawn to you because they reflect how you see yourself. Now, I’m not saying to get rid of all those people who need you because there is a certain degree of gratification you get from serving and helping. I’m saying to irrigate your desert and bring streams into the dry places. The reason you are drying out is that you have no water coming into your desert, and that water will come from other places. But the funny thing about the water is that when it comes, you are often scared to drink it because it’s unfamiliar, and you feel a bit apprehensive about it. So you go back to get more people who need you, and then you’re empty and depleted. You might say, «I keep pouring out,» and they say, «You can’t pour out,» but I can! There’s nothing wrong with pouring out if you’re taking in as well.
So I want you to be intentional. Here’s your homework: I want you to write down all the people in your life who need you, and then write down all the people in your life who feed you. Notice how short the list is of those who feed you versus those who need you. Your homework is to lengthen that list of people who feed you. It doesn’t mean that you have to be in their presence; it can come through podcasts, operas, plays, or places off the beaten path that you have never been before and wouldn’t think to go. You should go! You should meet new people and make friends until you become comfortable in conversations in unfamiliar places.
Okay, I want you to remodel your life—your wardrobe, your appearance, your vernacular, your tone, and your temperament—to align with where you are going, not where you have been. When you return to the areas where you have been, you can always speak that language. You know that language; you didn’t have to learn it. But I want you to adopt the language of your destiny and not just your history, and this will take time. Here’s the good news: it can start in church. You know why? In a church like this, there are all kinds of people. There are those from shelters, the homeless, entrepreneurs, individuals rising from shelters to become entrepreneurs, people with degrees, doctors, and even those who can’t read. In a church, there are all kinds of individuals. You get to choose where you sit, who you connect with, and who you go out to eat with. Form small circles; they don’t need to be 20 people, just one or two who are headed in the same direction as you. Hop in the car for the ride and engage in something positive.
And I’m going to go a little bit deeper because I think I’m speaking to you and through you. Get into an environment with people who understand what you aspire to be. If you are artsy, go to art shows. If you’re an entrepreneur, okay, okay, give her the mic back so they can hear. Yes, I’m an entrepreneur. I actually started network marketing in 2020 with a health and wellness franchise. I’m a life coach working to get my life together, and I have been able to grow in various aspects. I also do credit repair, and I just became a member not too long ago. I love you because you are so unorthodox. I feel like if I want to be a doctor tomorrow and a photographer the next day, then that’s what I can do. God has placed so many gifts in me that are truly amazing.
I struggle sometimes figuring out how to impact people through what God has blessed me with, but also how it can be sustainable. So you are a life coach and entrepreneur. Is the entrepreneur part what else? Yes, so credit repair and a health and wellness franchise. Everything you’re doing is about fixing people, right? Right. Okay, right. That’s telling me something. What you have chosen to do lines up with the profile of what you’re complaining about. If you’re a health and wellness coach and a credit repair person, you’re making your money from those who need you. I want you to choose something. You don’t have to give that up, but I want you to select something that feeds you to balance that out.
I don’t hear you talking about connecting with groups of people that feed you. That you can be a little girl in the room. Yes, when I say I’ve been investing in myself, I literally went to Atlanta about two weeks ago for a mastermind, Neil’s mastermind, and it was quite uncomfortable. The last two years of my life have been uncomfortable. Two years ago, I was homeless. I lived in California, grew up in Compton on a private street, and took a leap of faith by moving here almost two years ago. It’s a long story, and I don’t want to take up your time.
Let me tell you something you might not be realizing: you are doing well. I want that to break through the wall you have built around yourself. You don’t clap for yourself—you need to celebrate yourself! If you were homeless, grew up in Compton, and now you are achieving all of this, you are doing much better than you feel. Your emotions are still trapped in the past; they haven’t caught up with where you are yet, and I want to bring your emotions into alignment with your current status. You are doing well! You deserve to be here; you belong here; you are in the right place. Your emotions will eventually catch up because they take time to process the scars from all that you have said and not said throughout your life. Your emotions are still back there, and we’re going to bring them forward by celebrating where you are right now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah! And I don’t know what your financial situation is now, but when you become financially stable enough, I want you to seek therapy at T.D. Jake’s ministry. Good, good! I want you to get therapy; it’s not about stating that you are crazy. It’s about acknowledging the need to move forward. Yes, you need to move on; your emotions need to be liberated from your trauma. The reason you don’t celebrate yourself is that the walls you built to keep the pain out also prevent the love from coming in.
You constructed those walls to protect yourself from the hardships of life, but the issue is those walls prevent anything from coming in. You don’t know how to tear down your own walls. Therapy helps you to dismantle them, allowing sunlight to shine in and enabling love to come through. The applause doesn’t come from others if it doesn’t first come from you. So that’s a process; it will take time. You’ll have to revisit past trauma to uncover how deep and painful it is, why you struggle to express it, and work on your wellness so that your emotions can align with your current state.
You got it? Clap your hands and give God praise! How many people got something from that? If you’re watching online and you’ve stayed tuned this entire time, I must be speaking your language. I shared something tonight that I truly hope touches your heart, soul, spirit, and changes your life. I’m so glad you chose to tune in tonight at The Potter’s House here in Dallas. I can teach you that you do have a second chance at a blessing. My sister had a second chance at a blessing; you can have a second chance at a blessing. You can have a second chance at a blessing. Everybody rise—I’m going to close.
My Father and my God, as I stand here tonight, I thank you for your goodness. I thank you for your mercy. I thank you for your grace. I thank you for your word being sure and absolute. I thank you for what we learned tonight, about your word, what we learned, Lord, about Jacob, Levi, Simeon, Moses, and most importantly, what we learned about you. Lastly, I pray that we go home better than we were when we came in and that the word of God dwells in our hearts richly, by faith in Jesus' name. Amen.