TD Jakes - He Speaks My Language
One day, while he was out there taking care of the sheep, the Bible says that a lion crept out and snatched one of the sheep. And David said, "Not on my watch," and he took his slingshot and killed the lion without tearing the sheep. Y'all understand that? That would be very difficult to do. How do you land a rock in a lion's head that kills the lion without tearing the sheep? And then several weeks later perhaps, the bear came out and did the same thing, and David killed the bear without hurting the sheep. And God used that to lift his skirts and he says, "What I am to the sheep, the Lord is to me". He stopped the thing that would devour me.
Every cancer survivor ought to be shouting. Every AIDS survivor ought to be shouting. Every person who's ever been in a car wreck and walked away ought to be shouting. Every person that it didn't look like you would make it and you are still here ought to be shouting. Everybody who was sick when they were a baby and they told your mama they didn't know whether you were gonna make it, and you grew to be grow, you ought to be shouting right now because God is so skillful that he could kill the lion and save the child. And it is on the premise of David's point of view that God reveals himself in the language that David would understand. And we began to realize that the Lord is my Shepherd. You don't understand how powerful it... David is the protector, acknowledging being protected. You have to be a protector to understand how powerful that is, because when you are always the protector, people take you for granted as the protector, and they don't know how much it costs you to be the protector. And it is comforting to know when you are the protector that you are also protected.
What I am to the sheep, the Lord is to me. The Lord is my Shepherd. I will not face my destiny alone. And though I will face lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my, lions, and tigers, and bears, whenever I face them, I must not become so distracted by the lion, the tiger, and the bear that I forget that the Lord... The Lord is my Shepherd. I'm tryin' not to dissect it like I want to dissect it because the other amazing thing about the text is that the Shepherd would allow himself to be the personal possession of anybody is mind-boggling. He didn't say, "The Lord is the Shepherd". He said, "The Lord is my Shepherd". When you say something is "my", this is my book. This is my towel. This is my glass of water. This is my iPad. It is ownership. That God who owns everything would humble himself to allow himself to be owned by anything is mind-boggling.
The Lord is my Shepherd. Whenever I need him, whenever I want him, even if the church is closed, even if the house is locked down, even if the prayer line is closed, the Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not. "I shall not". That's a commandment. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shall not want. Because of who my Shepherd is, I shall not want. So forget intimidating me. Forget belittling me. Forget running up in my face, telling me what I'm not. Forget trying to tell me that you are so much more than I am because I lack nothing I need for what I was created to do. I shall not... y'all didn't hear what I was saying. I'm preaching way better than you shouting. I'm preaching way better than you're shouting. Somebody holler, "I shall not want". I refuse to want! I refuse to be desperate. I refuse to be pacing the floor at 3 o'clock in the morning. I refuse to be disheveled. I refuse to be unsettled. I refuse to be nervous. I refuse to be uncertain. I refuse to be insecure. I refuse to tremble at your gaze. I refuse to back out of a room God put me in. I refuse to give up a job because you don't like me. I refuse to let you write something about me that makes me walk away from being me. I shall not want.
Write whatever you want to write, but I shall... Good God, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. I don't have to search for my next opportunity. All I have to do is follow him. It is his job to find the green grass. It is not my job to say, "I need some grass. I need some grass. I need some grass. Anybody seen any green grass? Where's the green grass? Where's the next job? Where's it at"? He maketh me to lie down. He maketh me to lie down in abundance. To a sheep, green grass is prosperity. To sheep, green grass is abundance. He maketh me to lie down. He maketh me, Timbaland, he maketh me to rest in what he gave me. He don't want me to be in green grass and insecure. How long will this last? He wants me to rest in what he gave me. I don't know, but that's somebody's word right there.
God said, "It's not enough for me to put you in green pastures. I want you to rest in what I put you in. It bothers me that you won't lay down in the green pastures. I brought you into green pastures. I moved you from here to there. I uprooted you to put you in a place where the grass was green and you still pacing the floor, where you're still pacing the floor, you're still nervous". And the Holy Ghost said, "Lay down, lay down, lay down, lay down, lay down, lay down. Give up to where I placed you". Whoever word that is, let me hear from you. Type it on the line. Make some noise. Put it in the Twitter. I don't care how you put it out. God said, Lay down. God said, Lay down in the love. Lay down in the rest. Lay down in the peace. Lay down in the opportunity. Lay down. He maketh me to lay down in green pastures. I won't exhaust it all, but he leadeth me. He leadeth me beside still waters. The still waters.
You have to understand that rapid water is dangerous for sheep because they are heavy laden with wool. If you try to cause the sheep to drink from rapid flowing water, they'll fall in, and the weight of their wool will pull them down, and they will drown. But God is so sensitive to how much I have on me. Oh God, y'all don't hear what I'm saying. God is so sensitive to how much I've been carrying on me, how much I got to deal with, how much I got on my back, that God won't let me drink from waters that are too fast for me.
And at this stage, I pray like this, "Lord, I don't want anything you don't want me to have. I don't want a job you don't want me to have. I don't want a friend you don't want me to have. I don't want a companion you don't want me to have. You know how much I got on me". He leadeth me. He leadeth me. He leadeth me beside still waters. I rebuke the spirit of envy. I rebuke the spirit of jealousy. What one person can stand, another person can't stand. You got too much wool on you to wish you were somebody else. Stop trying to be somebody else. God's already weighed you. He knows what you can handle. He knows what you can stand. He knows where your limits are. He knows what will give you a nervous breakdown. If God put you in still water, be happy and drink from the waters he put you in, because God has already weighed your capacity.
He is to me what I am to the sheep. He is as careful for me as I am careful for that which I love. God speaks my language. Now, the God who stepped out on nothing and said, "Let there be something," is speaking to David in Shepherd talk. I never will forget one day my mama called me. I picked up the phone and said, "Hello"? My mama said, "Jesus is God". And I thought, "What do you mean"? And then she said, with no Bible, no Scripture, no text, she said, "I was cookin' eggs this morning". And she said, "I cracked the egg, and I looked at the egg and I saw that the egg had three parts. It had a shell, it had a yolk, and it had a white, and still it was one egg. And all of a sudden I figured out, I saw Jesus in an egg".
God speaks your language. God knows how to show himself. God knows how to reveal himself. God knows how to show up in your life. God is going to use everything you ever learned to reveal himself. It is not just about books and Bibles. It is about having your eyes open, the eyes of your understanding enlightened that you might see him. The Bible says that the heavens are telling the glory of God. Nature is telling the glory of God. The wind is telling the glory of God. The eagles teach us about the glory of God. As the eagle stirs her nest, so is God. God speaks your language. He restoreth my soul. Good God of mercy. The only reason we survive grief, the only reason we don't lose our minds, the only reason we don't cry 'til we die is that someday, and you never know which day it is, you just keep on walking in pain, and one day, one day, you walk into restoration.
And it's not that you don't still love 'em, and it's not that you don't still miss 'em, but all of a sudden he restored your soul. You don't know what time it was, you don't know what day it was, you don't know where it was, but he just restored your soul. And you start to feel like, "I think I'm gonna be okay. I think I'm gonna be okay". Medicine couldn't do it. Doctors couldn't do it. Surgery couldn't do it. Flowers couldn't do it. Candy couldn't do it. Nice words couldn't do it. Only God. He restores my soul. And my cup runneth over.
Come here, Cora. This is my cup running over. My cup runs over so that anything around me, if you just get around me, whether we talk or not, there's a certain level of anointing that will fall on you. I'm not saying you don't know God for yourself. I'm not sayin' God didn't call you for yourself. But there's a certain overflow that just runs over on top of you. And you find yourself flowing in somethin' you don't even understand. That's why you gotta get around somebody that's got more than enough that if you get close, if you touch, it'll fall on you. If any two of you agree as touching anything. God gave me more than I could handle.
If I just had enough for me, I wouldn't have time for you. I can't be bothered with you because helping you would deplete me. But because my cup is running over, you can catch the overflow, and I can still be full, and we can preach. Come on, back to back, get back to... We could preach back to back and neither one of us will run out because there's enough power to jet fuel everything that's in you and everything that's in me. My cup runneth over. Thirty seconds of crazy praise. I said crazy praise. I said running over praise. I said running over praise. Let it run over. Let it run over. Let it run over. I feel it running over in your house, on your friends, on your spiritual sons, on your daughters. I feel it overflow. Let it run.
Stand on your feet. He used what David knew to teach him what he didn't know. He speaks my language. I've always been fascinated how in the middle of this beautiful dissertation, there is a huge deviation. He goes from, "My cup runneth over," and talking about being led, and being blessed, and the paths of righteousness, to, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death". And I've never fully understood how that fit with the previous sentence, because I'm not a shepherd boy. But I was reading about a shepherd boys who live and herd their sheep in the wilderness. I did not realize that convicts in David's day, men who were on the run, hid in the wilderness. And they were hunted, but they were hiding. But if they could find a shepherd's tent, the shepherd would take 'em in and feed 'em. And all of a sudden, though they had walked through the valley of the shadow of death, if they could find a shepherd in the wilderness... Though they were guilty and pursued for persecution, if you could find a shepherd in the wilderness...
And I know it's some guilty folks in this room. I know it's some guilty folks watching us online. I know, I know, I know, but if you can find a shepherd, though you have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, you don't have to fear any evil because the Shepherd is both a fighter and a protector. "His rod and his staff, they comfort me". The rod beats away the wolf. The staff reels in the sheep. "He prepares a table for me in the presence... of my enemies". Jan, there ain't no meal. 'Scuse my English, but there ain't no meal like the meal you eat in the presence of your enemies. When God lays out a five-course meal in front of folk who said you would never be nothin', and you would never go anywhere, and you would never be anybody, he prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies. And if you are a sheep, don't worry about it. He anoints your head with oil.
Now, I know that's a little messy, oil all in your wool, but sheep have a way of sticking their nose in holes, and snakes have a way of hiding in holes. But if the sheep has oil on his nose, it's a snake repellent. When I think of the things that I have stuck my nose in. Maybe y'all don't relate to it, but I have stuck my nose in some stuff that I know should've killed me. "Thou anointest my head with oil". I leave you with this word, "Surely". Do y'all hear the words that are comin' out of my mouth? Do you receive this one word? This word, "Surely". Virus or not, job or not, career or not, wife or not, husband or not, friend or not, if you take everything else away from me, you cannot take away my "surely". David willed me a "surely". A "surely" is in my belly. A "surely" is in my spirit. A "surely" is in my mind. I may have lost my car, but I haven't lost my "surely". "Surely, surely, surely, surely, goodness... and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life".