TD Jakes - Heart Full of Grief and a Horn Full of Oil
In our text, we're listening at God challenging the lingering grief of one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament. In our text, we're listening at God not only challenging the lingering grief of a great prophet, but he asked him how long will you mourn over a door I have closed and a king I have rejected? How long will you mourn over a marriage that's over, a job that's gone, a house that's been removed, a girlfriend that left, a boyfriend that left? How long, how long will you be angry, and guilty, and frustrated, and bitter, and build your whole life around something that is dead?
I love how David grieved. He grieved over the death of his child with Bathsheba. As long as the child lived, he prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and when they told him the child was dead, he got up, he washed his face, he changed his clothes, and he went on with his life. There are some times in your life that you gotta get up, wash your face, change your clothes, go on with your life. Life is too short for you to hang around the cemetery, grieving over who didn't want you, who left you, who denied you, the job you didn't get, the business you lost, the house that you didn't close on. You cannot spend the rest of your life, how long? You would be shocked at the people who get up every morning with a heart full of grief. If you talk to them very long, you will hear it.
"For out of the mouth flows the issues of the heart," and it comes out in their speech, and it comes out in their language, and it comes out in that snappy way they confront you, and how they handle you, and how they deal with you, and you think they're mean. They're not really mean, they're still grieving, how long? If you can't say amen, say ouch. How long does it take to get over a person, place, or thing? How long will you put your future on hold, mulling over your past? How long will you lay here on this ground? Samuel, don't you understand who you are?
I did not create you for you to get stuck. I came to get somebody unstuck. I came to get somebody free. I came to get somebody back up on their feet. You cannot spend your rest of your life grieving over who didn't love you, who didn't raise you, who wasn't there for you, who gave you away, who gave you up for adoption. You can't spend it, you're 40 years old, you can't spend, how long? Samuel, you're stuck, and no matter whose church you join, and who you hear preach, and where you go, and how much you fast, God did not create you to be stuck with a heart full of grief. I call it atrophy. When you stay in a position too long, and you don't move. If I stay like this long enough, when I get ready to straighten up, I won't be able to straighten up, because my spine will develop atrophy. Atrophy is a body tissue or an organ, it wastes away, especially as a result of degeneration of cells, or it becomes vegetative and fails to evolve. Without exercise, the muscles deteriorate, and what started out as a decision becomes a paralysis.
I got a word for somebody who has got atrophy. You are paralyzed. You've been stuck. You've been stuck not for weeks, not for months, but for years. You've been stuck. You shout about great things coming, but you can't receive great things coming because you still got atrophy over or old things that you can't get rid of, and you have lost your ability to straighten yourself up. You have got spiritual atrophy. Who am I talkin' to? Make some noise in this place. 'Cause God is getting ready to shake you. He's gettin' ready to put you in therapy. He's getting ready to open up a door. He's getting ready to open a door. Until you get flexible, until you can move again, until you can function again, you have atrophy. That's why you can't fall in love.
It's not that there's nobody to love, it's that you haven't gotten over who you used to love. And you pray for God to send help. And you pray for God to send opportunities. And you pray for God to send increase. But you can't receive it when it comes, because you have developed atrophy. In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 13, there is a woman who was bowed over, and bent out of shape, and could in no wise lift up herself, because she stayed in this position too long. How long will you be angry? How long will your blood boil every time you see their image? How long will you keep checking their Facebook page? How long will you keep investigating somebody who's not even thinkin' about you anymore? And you are an undercover agent, tryin' to see where they're going, and who they're talking to, and who they took a picture with. It wasn't you. How long will you mourn around the tomb of what didn't work out?
I was doing a what do you call it? An Instagram interview with Javon Franklin, and he was asking me about when I did the talk show. He said when I didn't get renewed for the second term, he said were you upset? I said absolutely. He said were you disappointed? I said completely. He said how do you manage things that don't work out? I said I moved on, because I know God, and I know that if God would've meant for that to work for ten years, he would have made it work for ten years. And I have enough confidence in him to know that if he wanted it to work, it would work, and if it didn't work, I got up, I washed my face, and I kept on going. And I said thank you, Lord, for the opportunity. I had the experience. I got to learn things I would have never learned. I got to meet people I would have never met. And I was the first clergy to be on daytime television, on mainstream networks, and somebody's gonna come behind me, and they're going to do it longer, and bigger, and better. But I was the first, and I'm happy to have been the first.
You gotta change the way you talk to yourself about what happened in your life, or you will get stuck. I don't know who I'm preaching to, but the Lord sent me here to cause you to get a relief. The Lord sent me here to be your spiritual therapist, to get you back on course again. You are not yourself. You were not created for this. You were not created to feel like this. You were not created to be stuck like this. God didn't bring you out of your mother's womb to get to this point in your life and develop atrophy. God wants your nerves, and cells, and tissues, and blood, and bone, and muscles to move. Somebody shout, "Move". Somebody shout, "Move, move". That's what you ought to say to grief. That's what you ought to say to fear. That's what you ought to say to anger. That's what you ought to say to disbelief, "Move". I will not spend the rest of my life hanging around the cemetery of what could have been, what should have been, what I ought have been. "Why seek ye the living amongst the dead? He is risen".
Fill thy horn. God said I want your horn to be as full of oil as your heart has been full of grief. Fill thine horn with oil. Lift your hands for a moment, just for a moment. Lift your hands in his presence, and just start worshiping him right out of your mouth, right now. We bless you. We honor you. We adore you. We honor you. "Fill my cup, Lord. I lift it up, Lord. Come and quench the thirsting in my soul. Bread of heaven, feed me 'til I want no more. Here's my cup, fill it up and make me whole". Go fill your horn with oil. Say it with me. "Go fill your horn with oil". Say it again. "Go fill your horn with oil". Say it again. "Go fill your horn with oil".
You cannot make decisions with a heart full of grief, you need a horn full of oil. You got to be more intentional about your worship life. You got to be more intentional about it. I don't mean you feel like worshiping, you may not feel like worshiping, but you gotta get into the routine of worshiping as an exercise, a therapy of releasing you from the atrophy of being stuck in your life. Let me tell you, when you start worshiping God, the Spirit of God will come in and release you, and heal you, and renew you, and God said to Samuel, the only way you're gonna get up from here is to fill your horn with oil. The oil is what the church is lacking. We got great buildings, we got great preachers, we got great pastors, we got more degrees than a thermometer, we have no oil. We have no oil. We've forgotten how to get lost in the presence of God. We've forgotten to allow the anointing to overwhelm us. We have lost our oil, and that's why we're stuck with atrophy, and bitterness, and anger.
You need oil. You need fresh oil. You need the anointing of the Holy Spirit to overshadow you. You need oil. He said the only way you're gonna get up is to fill your horn with oil. The only way you're gonna get up from here is to fill your horn with oil fill. Your horn with oil. Shout it, "Fill your horn with oil". Shout it again. I'm gonna show you this and then I'm gonna close. There is a revelation in the horn and the oil. The horn was taken from an animal, so in order to have a horn, you had to shed blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. The horn that God is talking about is literally an animal's horn that had to be cut away, that's sacrifice.
In order to be anointed, there must be sacrifice. Come on, here. Did you really think that you were going to be an anointed vessel for God and the devil not attack you at all? Did you think you was just gonna go skipping through the tulips the rest of your life, and not run into anything to overthrow you? Then you didn't believe in your own mission. If you believed in what God gave you, you would understand this attack is a part of the warfare, and sometimes there has to be sacrifice to be anointed. So God said don't fill a glass with oil, here he says fill a horn with oil. You could fill a glass with oil and not cut anything, but in order to get a horn, there has to be bleeding. I wanna talk to bleeding people. I want to talk to bleeding people. Are you listening at me?
I want to talk to bleeding people. You that are on Facebook, you that are following me on YouTube, you that are following me on the app, I'm talking to you. I'm talkin' about the way you've been bleeding. I'm talking about the way you've been stuck. I'm talkin' about the way you've had atrophy. I'm talking about how things are not moving forward in your life, and you've become comfortable to be bent over and stuck. You've been stuck so long that God has come down to ask you how long are you gonna live your life back there? There has to be sacrifice for where you are going. He said watch, watch, fill your horn with oil and go. The association between the blood and the oil continues through the whole Bible. First blood, then oil. There will always be first blood, then oil. First blood, then oil.
Once you have accepted Christ as your Savior, that's blood, you now receive the presence of the Holy Spirit, that's oil. It's divine order. The oil won't flow where there is no sacrifice. I'm almost finished. The oil won't flow in your comfort zone. The oil won't flow. I wanna be anointed. I want a double portion. I want, I want, I want. Shut up, because the oil will not flow where there is no blood. That's why the book of Hebrews said, "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood". Fill your horn with oil and go. I will not speak to you about this again, Samuel. You didn't even exist. Your birth is a miracle. I created you according to my own good pleasure, and now I am not pleased with you being stuck, because I am not through with you yet. Your story doesn't end because you and Saul have separated.
I know you're hurt, I get it. I created the feelings that you're stuck in. I know you're grieving. I know you're angry. I know you're bitter. I know you thought that he was going to continue to be king, but he is not. Fill your horn with oil, I got a plan, man. I can't work my plan if you're in love with what was. Watch this and I'll close. I already got next waiting on you. I could never accomplish my purpose in the earth as long as Saul is king, because Saul doesn't have the bloodline through which Jesus will come. I have a long-term strategy, you have a temporary pain. In order for the Son of David, who is Jesus, to come, David must come to reign on the throne. I moved Saul for a reason. Fill your horn with oil and go. If I would have meant for you to stay on that job, you would have still had it. If I would've meant for that business to work, it would've still worked.
Learn what you can learn from it, and fill your horn with oil, and go. Fill your horn with oil and go. Say it, "Fill your horn with oil and go". Say it again, "Fill your horn with oil and go". When was the last time you filled your horn with oil? Wait, wait, wait, 'til you got lost in the presence of God? 'Til you forgot about what you had on? Until you messed up your makeup? Until you shook down your hair? Until you got lost in the presence of God, and you really got immersed in the Holy Spirit, and God really cleaned you out, really cleaned you out? Clean you out, cathartic. The Bible says, "None but the pure in heart shall see God".
The word "pure" is where we get catheter, where God cleans you out, where he cleans you out. When was the last time you had a gulley-washing, soul-quenching, thirst-renewing power of the Holy Spirit to gush through you, and you were more than somebody who goes to church on Sunday? Fill your horn with oil and go. Say it again, "Fill your horn with oil and go". This is why I'm preaching this, and I'm gonna close. Some people get so stuck in dysfunction, that it appears to be normal, and you lose who you were created to be, because of who you've had to be. You've lost your personality, your giving spirit, your loving spirit, your laughing spirit, your curious spirit, your inquisitive spirit. You're careful, you're worried, you're paralyzed, you're stuck. The joy has gone out of your eyes. The gleam and brightness has come out of your face, and you are God's man and God's woman, and you are stuck in spiritual atrophy. And to all of that, God is saying you have had a heart full of grief, and you need a horn full of oil.