TD Jakes - A Symphony in a Synagogue
Luke 13:10–17: And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. Behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years, and she was bowed together and could in no wise lift herself up. When Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said unto her, «Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.» He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. The rulers of the synagogue answered with indignation because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day.
They looked at how He conducted the situation and said unto the people, «There are six days in which men ought to work. In them, therefore, come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.» The Lord then answered him and said, «Thou hypocrite! Doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away to watering? Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound lo these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?» When He had said these things, all His adversaries were ashamed, and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by the Master Conductor, the Lord of Glory Himself. And all the people of God said, «Amen.»
Please remain standing. My subject, which I seldom do, is: «A Symphony in a Synagogue.» You cannot have a symphony if you don’t have a conductor. A conductor controls every sound that makes up the symphony. God is my subtitle: «You don’t have to have everything to do anything.» This is a liberating word for you because you have been waiting for everything to be lined up right, waiting for everything to fall into alignment in order for you to move. You don’t have to have everything to do anything because you have a conductor who can handle both your adversaries, your antagonists, and your protagonists all at the same time. Can the church say, «Amen»?
Father, anoint this word and let it come to life while it’s yet being preached. Let it strengthen us and challenge us. Let it nurture us and stimulate us. Let it change us and fortify us. Let it correct us; let it lead us into Your divine will as You orchestrate our affairs as only God can do. For this, we give You praise, honor, and glory. In Jesus' name, we pray. Shout «Amen.» You may be seated in the presence of God. Somebody holler, «Conduct this!» In our text, Jesus continues to reach out to the synagogues, but you must understand that Jesus was not always well received in the synagogues. He goes there and wrestles with the theological complexities surrounding the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Most of the time, when we hear Pharisees and Sadducees together, we think they are united, but they are not really united. They don’t like each other; they are enemies who have joined together to fight Jesus. The first time we see Him in the temple, He is eight days old. Later, we see Him being baptized by John in the Jordan River. He gets up, goes into the temple, and reads Isaiah 61: «The Spirit of the Lord God hath anointed me to preach the gospel, to bind up the wounds of the brokenhearted, to loose the bound, to set free those who are captive, and to declare the acceptable year of the Lord.»
Jesus was not afraid to go into tough places. He started in the synagogues at the age of twelve. You remember when His mother left Him in the synagogue and came back to find Him confounding the doctors and lawyers with His wisdom at twelve years old. But we don’t see Him again after confounding them at twelve for eighteen years, and I wonder if there is some synergy between the eighteen years of His disappearance and the eighteen years of her infirmity. After eighteen years, He returns to the synagogue from time to time to wrestle and orchestrate in adverse situations so that He can accomplish what God has for Him to do.
I wrote down some important points I want you to derive from this message. If you’re taking notes, I want you to get these because they are important. Number one: Everything God has for you will require courage. It’s not just faith; it’s not just prayer—it will require courage. Walking into rooms with antagonists takes courage. Everything God has for you will require courage.
Everything you’ve been dreaming about, everything He has been talking to you about, everything that has been prophesied to you, will not come easily. Just because something is for you doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. Therefore, you must get rid of your fear. I don’t mean you won’t feel fear; I mean you shouldn’t allow that feeling to control your movement. That is what courage is. Courage is not the absence of fear; it is what overrides fear, enabling you to feel the fear and do it anyway. You may have walked away from some things that God had for you because once you saw the price of it, you gave up because it wasn’t as easy in reality as it was in fantasy. Everything God has for you will require courage.
Number two: Avoid transactional relationships with God. That is what prosperity preaching is аbout: «If you do this, He’ll do that.» Do not have transactional relationships with God. You cannot hold Him hostage and make your obedience dependent on Him doing certain things for you to obey Him. You must praise Him with no socks, no shoes, no house, no husband, and whether or not you have a child. Praise Him whether your church is big or small, whether they like you or don’t like you, whether they fire you or give you a raise. You cannot have a transactional relationship with God. It is the quickest way to prove that you are illegitimate. If you are a legitimate son, you will endure chastisement. If you cannot endure the chastening hand of the Lord, you prove that you are not legitimate. God is not transactional in His relationships.
The third thing I want you to understand is that rejection does not equate to abandonment. Just because someone rejects you doesn’t mean that God has abandoned you. Winning people’s approval is not equivalent to the favor and presence of God. Some of you believe the sign of God’s favor is everyone being in agreement with you, but you are never going to get everyone to agree with you on anything. So do not let their rejection trigger your abandonment issues. Jesus never would have gone into the synagogue if He was worried about the Pharisees and Sadducees. These two groups, with completely different theological beliefs, didn’t like each other at all, but isn’t it amazing how enemies can come together to fight you? That is what Jesus walked into when He arrived.
Number four: You don’t always need more power as much as you need more patience. This is something I want you to grasp—patience! Eighteen years of patience! You don’t need more power; you need more patience. Not everything is supposed to work out in your twenties; not everything is supposed to work out in your thirties. If you’re talking about finances, most billionaires become wealthy in their late fifties. So, if it doesn’t happen today, it doesn’t mean that God said no. Let me say it clearly: delayed does not mean denied. You don’t always need more power; you need more patience.
Number five: Miracles can still be performed in mayhem. God can still perform miracles in the midst of chaos. You think you need to put out every fire before God can work, but the truth of the matter is that God is a present help in trouble. You need Him in the fiery furnace. He does not put out the fire before He comes in; He works in the middle of the fiery furnace. You don’t need everything to be working out perfectly for God to be present. You don’t need your family to be functional or your friends to comply; you don’t need your bank account to be overflowing. You don’t need to be in the best condition for God to do His work. In fact, He said, «My strength is made perfect in your weakness.»
When you’re weak, then I am strong. When you can’t see a way, then I show up. Let the weak say, «I’m strong»; let the poor say, «I’m rich.» Do you hear what I’m saying? The chaos around you is trying to distract you from the miracle about to happen within you, and you think it’s your job to fix the chaos. Let God conduct the mayhem; you focus on the miracle that God can create in your life, sometimes because of what you’re going through. If you didn’t have enemies, there would be no need to set a table before you. Sometimes God will wait until the enemies are present to perform the miracle, using you as a sign to convince the adversary that He is on your side. Glory to God! Everyone in trouble, holler at your boy!
If you are in trouble and God did not deliver you out of that trouble, then He is going to use that trouble to create a platform to show how strong He is in the middle of the situation. He will show them that you do not have to have them in order for Him to bless you. He will demonstrate that if He is for you, He is more than the world against you. I don’t know who I’m talking to, but someone in this room can testify that God will make you a sign. He will make you a burning bush in the desert; He will lift you up as a brazen serpent in the wilderness. He will put you in a situation and show you off.
Number six: The enemy sees opportunity in adversity. The Bible says when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, straightway He came up out of the water, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove, and the heavens opened up. The Father spoke from heaven, endorsing Him, saying, «This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.» That same Holy Spirit that endorsed Him and identified Him, and the same voice that declared He is My Son, is the same power that led Him into the wilderness to be tempted. There was an opportunity. The enemy has opportunities in opposition; he hides opportunities in opposition to trip-up fake Christians. You must be a real soldier of the cross to take a licking and keep on ticking, to go through hell and high water and continue to praise God. You can lift your hands with tears coming down your face and still worship.
How I feel something about to break loose in this place! That is what I want you to get from this message. The music you heard at the beginning, which seemed so out of place, is the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. If you allow me just a few minutes, I want you to understand that Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized at 17 years old. He didn’t even live to be 60, and yet his contributions are still celebrated today. His music has become the national anthem for several different countries. He composed nine symphonies and started on a tenth that he never completed. The ninth was his last completed symphony, and he is famous for many of them, but none compare to the Ninth Symphony.
The Ninth Symphony is composed in D Minor. It is a powerful and unique arrangement because he broke all the rules to create it. Until Beethoven, nobody had ever included a choral piece inside a symphony. He took a poem called «Ode to Joy» and made it the lyrics for the symphony, then brought in vocalists to sing along with the music. It’s common now, but back then it was unheard of to mix choral arrangements with symphonies. You have to be willing to be out of step with what is normal around you to become who God created you to be. Beethoven is just as famous as Mozart, and he goes down in history because he was a rule breaker. It was more important to him to express the creativity inside of him than to fit in with the people’s expectations.
Oh my God, where are my creative people? Creative people will always be criticized because your creativity makes others uncomfortable. They want you to fit into a little box; they want you to be predictable, and they want you to obey the rules they set. But if you are going to discover your real strength, you must mix together things that have never come together before. It takes faith to compose, to direct, and to perform what has never been done before. History tells us they almost had to break up fights over Beethoven’s music.
He did the Ninth Symphony because he was such a rule breaker; he was so different. Look at the mayhem around him, look at the chaos around him, look at all the controversy surrounding him, and yet he maintained his focus in the middle of the fight. I don’t know whose word that is, but God said, «Maintain your focus in the middle of the fight. Don’t let winning the fight distract you from the focus that God gave you.» It was not Bova’s job to break up the fight; it was Bova’s job to direct the symphony. Oh, I don’t know who I’m talking to, but God is getting ready to conduct something in your life that’s going to blow your mind. Shout «yes,» somebody!
Most people think that the most powerful moment of the miracle is when they see it occur, like when Jesus calls the woman up front and heals her. Then they get it. They don’t understand that it takes faith in the wait! Come on with me, people! Come on online! I need you to make some noise; I need to hear you! I know you are thousands of miles away, but I want to hear you holler in your living room. It takes faith for the wait! You don’t need faith when it happens; for if a man sees that which he hopes for, why does he yet hope for it? Anybody can believe it when it happens! Imagine with me the people marching around the Jericho wall. We talk about shouting, «For the Lord has given you the city!» But I’m not sure it was the shout that broke the wall.
I believe it was the silent march that preceded it—the marching when it looks like nothing is happening—the marching when it seems like it’s not going to work—the marching around the wall when the chariots are riding around the wall and there’s not even a crack in it. Whoever I’m preaching to, you don’t even see a crack in the wall, but keep on marching! Don’t say anything, don’t murmur, don’t complain. Don’t complain because it is the contrast between the silence and the shout that causes the reverberation to reach a pitch so strong that the wall begins to crack. So if you can’t endure the silence of the march, if you can’t endure the silence of 18 years of being bowed over, if you can endure the silence of 18 years of missing history, it is the refusal of the woman with the issue of blood to succumb to death for 12 long years with a hemorrhaging body.
Suppose she had given up on the 10th year? Suppose she had given up at 10 and a half years? Suppose she had given up on the eve of the 11th year or 11 and a half years? It was 12 long years—12 years where she had spent all her substance and saw no return—12 years of taking the advice of physicians that only made her worse. Suppose she got discouraged on the 10th year and said, «I’m broke and lonely, and I’m tired of these doctors. I might as well commit suicide and die.» My problem with suicide is that it will kill your will; it will not only kill your past, but it will destroy your future. This could be the year! Shake somebody and say, «This could be the year! This could be the month! This could be the week! This could be the service! This could be the service! This Pentecost Sunday could be the service! This could be the service!»
Somebody holler «don’t miss it!» If the woman hadn’t been there on that Sabbath day service, suppose she had missed it? Jesus was not a regular teacher in the synagogue; it just so happened that he was teaching in the synagogue on that day. It was her habit to worship. It was his appearance that was startling. You have to develop a habit of being faithful in season, out of season, good times, bad times, cracks in the wall, no cracks in the wall, lots of money, no money, feeling good, feeling bad. Slap somebody and say, «This could be your day!» Don’t let the devil talk you out of it! Don’t let the devil talk you down! Don’t let the devil back you into a corner! Don’t let the devil make you quit! Don’t let the devil make you walk away!
This could be the Sunday. Nobody gets to where they’re trying to go easily. You have to fail your way up; you have to fail your way forward. You have to be willing to trip if you’re going to be able to walk. You have to be willing to stumble if you’re going to learn how to move. You’ll never be able to walk if you don’t let the baby fall! Baby, you got to fall! Imagine with me, I cannot imagine why this woman doesn’t get more credit. We’re always talking about the woman with the issue of blood, but we don’t give this woman any credit. The woman with the issue of blood only waited 12 years. This woman was twisted for 18 years. The woman with the issue of blood came crawling for her healing; this woman didn’t even ask to be healed. Oh yeah, go there, Dad! Go there!
There is nowhere in this text where this woman asked to be healed. She didn’t crawl after him; she didn’t holler out like blind Bartimaeus. She didn’t scream; she didn’t say, «Oh, that I might receive my sight.» She didn’t say, «Jesus, I’m tired of this! Every time I get ready to step into the water, somebody gets in my way!» She didn’t blame anybody for her condition; she didn’t say, «Why» for 18 years? You see, the synagogue was not known for miracles; it was not known for the spectacular. The synagogue was the place where people came to give worship to God, but what did she have to worship about? The scriptures didn’t line up with her situation. The scripture says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made; her situation said she was twisted and misfigured. The particular disease that some historians have suggested this woman had is still incurable!
Hallelujah! Jesus, I played classical music at first not only in recognition of Beethoven. I’m going to bring this around in a minute, but I want you to see something: classical music has a neurological effect on the frontal lobe of the cortex; it affects the brain. Some studies suggest that if a pregnant woman plays classical music, her baby will become more intelligent in the womb because classical music is a mixture of so many diverse components. This is not psychology; this is neurology. It has been suggested that classical music reduces the likelihood of Alzheimer’s. It retains the ability to think, comprehend, remember, and concentrate. Classical music has a direct effect on the brain!
So let the music play! Perhaps it is the complexity of classical music. Perhaps it is the diversity of so many different sounds—the tapestry of sounds combined in such a way that it causes the neurons in the brain to fire differently. In order to hear both the kettle drums and the violinists, the flutist and the harp, the brain has to use more neurons to process. In fact, I’m suggesting to you that classical music is the gymnasium where the biological brain works out to process right until you can process good and evil, right and wrong, just and unjust. «I got this, but I didn’t get that. I got the other, but I didn’t get this part right here.»
Been through hell and hot water, but I made good grace. Made good grace! But my body is shaped funny, my body is shaped good, but my mind is not too sharp! Until you can process all that Jesus is conducting in a critical moment successfully, powerfully, it is the same effects of Beethoven. He’s mixing things that don’t even go together! He’s got believers; he’s got Pharisees; he’s got Sadducees. He’s got all of it conducted together in the same text! And there is a woman in the crowd—one woman who has not opened her mouth. Have a good time! She is silent. Yeah, have a good time; she says nothing. Yeah, she asks nothing. Yeah, she makes no noise. And Jesus was teaching after 18 years! Jesus is teaching in the synagogue after 18 years!
Bishop, may I suggest to you that the twisting of the woman’s body is symbolic of the twisting of the synagogue? Oh man! I do not know which one is more deformed: her body or the synagogue. I do not know! Because the synagogue had been praying for the Messiah, and they are in the presence of the Messiah, but they are too twisted to see that «I that speak unto thee am he.» Is not the woman emblematic of the condition of the synagogue? And they are both occurring simultaneously, both having the hurts of 18 years!
Please, please, can I go deeper? Oh my God, I feel the Holy Ghost! I feel the Holy Ghost in this place! All of this is happening simultaneously. This woman has gotten up this morning, and she has gotten up trying to get there, not having the benefit of fitting in with what we call normal. Some of us are more focused on being normal than we are on getting there! We want to fit in so bad that we won’t even go into places if we feel uncomfortable! Until you are willing to feel uncomfortable, you won’t discover the power of God! She comes in twisted; she was different! See, the reason I love the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven is that he performed it; it was different, it was unusual. It had both choral and poetry, and symphonic impact at the same time, simultaneously!
Yeah, and he directed it. And by the time he gets to the end of his direction, by the time he gets to his conclusion, by the time he reaches the climax, and the voices are in there and the music is in there and the drama is in there, and it crescendos and comes to a crashing end, he got five standing ovations! Five standing ovations that he couldn’t hear! You see, Ludwig van Beethoven composed, wrote, and directed deafness! You ain’t right till you got something wrong with you! You ain’t right till you’re twisted up in some kind of way! You ain’t right till the odds are against you; you ain’t right till you’re backed up in a corner and shoved to the wall! You ain’t right! Beethoven’s music outlasts almost any other composer that you can think of! He wrote it deaf!
How can you sit there and make excuses for not performing? Beethoven had more music in his head than he did in his ears! And he couldn’t even hear the clapping of the people because he was focused on what he heard in his head! History records that they had to physically come get him and turn him around to see the reaction of the people because in order to bring his best stuff, he had to block out all the noise that was on the inside! Archaeologists who have dug up his body say that in his day they ate their dinner on lead plates and that the lead plates probably led to his deafness! Yes! And that the earlier symphonies he hid from people that he couldn’t hear! But he could! But he couldn’t! They don’t hear me!
Jesus, he could hear, Dexter, but he couldn’t hear! He could hear it! He had more music in his head than they had in their ears! And he went inside of his head and composed, wrote, and directed deafness! This woman comes to church twisted—it’s direct! And she’s still worshiping twisted! She asked him for nothing! She didn’t ask him, «Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me! Oh, that I might receive my sight!» She didn’t say, «Oh, my daughter is grievously vexed with the devil!» She didn’t say, «If I can touch the hem of His garment!» She didn’t say a word. She didn’t come to get anything! She was not transactional; she was relational! She was coming because God was God!
If I don’t have a car, if I don’t have shoes, if I don’t have feet, if I can’t see, if I can’t hear, if you don’t like me, if you hate me, if you unfollow me, if you leave me—you can’t stop what I hear in my head! That if God be for me, He is more than the world against me! You don’t have to have everything to do anything! Y’all didn’t hear me! Let me try. Y’all don’t have to have everything to do anything! You can do it with no husband! You can do it with no job! You can do it with no friends! You can do it with no help! This woman crawled her way into the service, and the Bible said this is one of the few times, if ever, that anybody ever interrupted Jesus while he was teaching without uttering a word.
Her silence interrupted him! The Holy Ghost told me if I preach this word, it was going to change somebody’s life! I don’t know who it is in the house! If you just keep your mouth shut and hold your peace, and let the Lord fight your battles, God is going to work on your behalf! He’s going to bring you out! He’s going to bring you through! He’s going to bring you over! And the Bible said, the Bible says, the Bible said, He saw her! He saw her and stopped teaching! He saw her and stopped in the middle of his message! And he did something that makes no sense to me! I remember I was in South Africa, and Ambassador Andrew Young was there. And I came up to him, and he started getting up out of his wheelchair, and I said, «Oh no, no!»
I came over where he was; I knelt down by the chair said, «How dare you! You don’t have to come to me; I will come to you.» And I wondered in my mind, «Jesus, you’re a young man. You’re 30 years old. Why would you call a crippled woman, who could in no wise lift herself up, and say to her, 'Come here, ' when you know she can’t come here?» God will ask you to do things that you cannot do because when you try to do it, there’s a miracle in doing what you cannot do. He will ask a man with a withered hand to stretch forth his hand. He will ask a dead man to come out of the grave. Stop waiting on God to make your miracle convenient. Look at her courage; she has to get up in front of all these people.
Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Yes, sir! And drag her twisted body to the front where she wants to go. Even if your hair’s not done, he saw her. I believe it doesn’t mean that he just saw her; he saw her 18 years of dealing with stuff. I want to talk to people who have been dealing with things for a long time, and the devil is telling you that you missed your turn, that you waited too late, and that it’s not going to happen and you’re not going to get it. But the devil is a liar! I want you to know that God sees you. He sees where you are, he sees your circumstance, he sees your faithfulness, he sees your commitment, and he sees you praising him while all hell is breaking loose in your life. He saw her, and because she had been faithful enough to find a way to inconvenience herself enough to get up out of that house, he called her.
I believe to a degree she was healed before she got up there. The very fact that she got up there, since the Bible says she could in no wise lift herself up, come on now, and nobody carried her, right? But the problem with you is you keep waiting for somebody to carry you, and your excuse is, «I had no man to carry me to the pool,» so you spent 38 years suffering because your excuses have made you sick. They have made you sick! Anything you don’t have, you don’t need. Can I preach this? He saw her; he called her; he told her something about herself that she did not know. He said, «Woman, thou art loosed, loosed from thine infirmity.» I started studying and found the word «loosed» in the Greek is translated in other translations as «divorced.»
Divorce is to break a covenant. I break a covenant with everything that has you twisted, broken, disturbed, upset. I break a covenant with it right now. I break a covenant with everything that’s had you upset, uptight, disarranged, and twisted. I challenge you to come—broken, twisted, bleeding, hurting, suffering. But whatever you do, I challenge you to come up here. God wants you to come. Jesus! She came. It wasn’t pretty, but she came! It was nice when she came. Listen to them murmuring; listen to them whispering; listen to them making noise. And he tells her something: he says, «Woman, thou art divorced; your covenant is broken between you and the thing that has bound you all these years.»
That means there had to be a relationship between her infirmity and her that had lasted 18 years, and he didn’t marry them. God divorced them! He divorced them! I break every yoke that stood in your way. I break it in the name of Jesus! I command liberty to come into your life: you are loosed from your infirmity! As soon as you get it, you’re going to praise his name! It hasn’t hit you yet, but if you believe what the Scriptures have said, you are loosed from it! You are loosed from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet! Slap somebody and say, «I just got loose! I just got loose!»
Forgive me if I got loud, but I got loose! Forgive me if I leap, but I got loose! Forgive me if I holler, but I got loose! Forgive me if I run, but I got loose! Forgive me if I get wild; I got loose! I got loose! Is there anybody in here that just got loose? I got loose! I got loose! I got loose! I got loose! I got loose! I got loose! I got loose! I got loose! I came to church this morning, and I got loose! I came to service, and I got loose! I didn’t know I was going to get loose, but I got loose! I didn’t know I was in covenant with the thing I was trying to kill, but I just got loosed! I got divorced! I got set free! I got liberated! The chain just broke! My generational curse just broke! My bondage just broke! My mentality just broke! My attitude just broke! On Pentecost Sunday, I got loose! Somebody crazy, give me 50 seconds of crazy praise!
On Pentecost Sunday, touch five people and say, «I’m out of it! I’m out of being bent! I’m out of being twisted! I’m out of being broken! I’m out of it! I’m out of excuses! I’m out of worry! I’m out of depression! I’m out of fear! I’m out of worry! I’m out of pain!» You can stay in if you want to stay in, but this girl got loose! This man got loose! This boy got loose! This preacher got loose! This deacon got loose! I need some loose folk that’ll take over this building and give God a praise! Your handcuffs are loose! Your shackles just fell off your feet! Somebody give me a praise! You’ve got 10 seconds left! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes, Lord! Something just broke! Something just tore! Something just ripped! Something just ripped wide open!
Oh, for the Bible said that while she was praising God, the Pharisees and the Sadducees started arguing with Jesus. «You should have healed that woman on the Sabbath day.» But the woman didn’t answer them a word. The Bible said her response to that criticism was she glorified God. In the middle of your antagonists, I dare you to take this moment; don’t answer them a word, just give God a praise! Your Pharisees and your Sadducees are part of your symphony; they’re part of the symphony. Their criticism, their antagonism, their discontentment is part of your symphony! But you’re not the conductor. Let the conductor address your naysayers; that’s not your instrument! You are an instrument of praise!
If you just play your instrument, we’re going to get this symphony done in here! You are an instrument of praise! God created you to be to the praise of his glory! If you just do your job, we’re going to have a symphony, Hallelujah, in a synagogue! Let every praiser in the house do your job! Do it in the balcony! Do it in the back row! Do it in the front! Do it in the pulpit! One, two, three, go! I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you! I can’t hear what you say! I can’t hear what you’re doing! I’m deaf to it! I’m deaf to it! I ain’t got time to do anything but give God the praise! I’m giving him the praise! I’m giving God the praise! I can’t hear you! Come on, look at your neighbor and say, «Neighbor, if you’re not out yet, you can make a down payment now! Give him a praise like you lost your mind! Make a down payment! Something’s about to break loose in here! You don’t need everything to do anything! You don’t need everything!»
Woo! Woo! Somebody just broke covenant with something! I can feel it in the room! I can feel it! I don’t know what’s going on in your house; I don’t know what’s going on in your job, but over in here, somebody just broke covenant with something that had them twisted all out of sorts! But now the Lord has touched you! On Pentecost Sunday, you’re having a personal Pentecost! The DNA of God is hovering over you! And I don’t know who you’re going to be, but you ain’t going to never be who you used to be! You’re not going to never be!
On the day of Pentecost, the church was never the same again! This is Beethoven’s last completed symphony. It has become the national anthem for several different countries all over the world. No symphony worth its salt doesn’t perform it. It has passed the test of time; it is way over a century years old. It is just as relevant today as it was when he composed it, wrote it, and directed it. Death, what you are doing now will outlive you, will outlast you! And your blindness cannot stop it; your deafness cannot stop it; your struggle cannot stop it; your fear cannot stop it; your insecurity cannot stop it! He did it! Death! Yes! Wonderful Jesus! You know why? Wow! What Beethoven was to the orchestra, Christ is to the text!