Symposium–Get in the birth position
Socrates (470-399 B.C.) was a famous Greek philosopher from Athens, who taught Plato, and Plato taught Aristotle, and Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. Socrates used a simple but cleverly profound method of teaching by asking penetrating, revelatory, and psychologically probing questions. The Greeks called this form Dialectic – starting from a thesis or question, then discussing ideas and moving back and forth between points of view to determine how well ideas stand up to critical review, with the ultimate principle of the dialogue being Veritas – Truth.
“Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows what is best for us.”
~ Socrates
“I will not be satisfied just to go the church and sit around and clap my hands, and sing and go back home. I want something to pass through my womb that’s greater than me, that’s everlasting and eternal. I want to do something with my life – Give me a child lest I die!”
~ Bishop Noel Jones, 1996 Sermon – Get in the birth position
Characters:
Socrates
Bishop T. D. Jakes
Feminist Spirit (Humanist Worldview)
Anti-Feminist Spirit (Theist Worldview)
Socrates: What is Seed? In our last Symposium we discussed the ancient Greek god Cronus – god of the Ages and of Time. But what you must also pay heed to today is that Cronus was also the god of the Harvest, Agriculture, and Grain. From grain is where we get the seed that sustains all life. How does God use the mystery of the tiny seed to bring big blessings into your life? – Generational seeds that were planted before the foundations of the world which through the Ages are now germinating – are now sprouting in your life and in the lives of your Generations. This transcendent idea is derivative of the Virgin Mary who said in her hymn to God called the Magnificant according to the Gospel of St. Luke – Ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes – (And his mercy is on them that fear him – throughout all generations). The great classical composer J.S. Bach set this text to music in his Magnificant as a plaintive soprano solo followed by rousing Chorus representing God’s Angelic Hosts.
Thus, in this Symposium at the Abundant Life Cathedral in Houston, Texas, Bishop T.D. Jakes will bring a message to this gathering titled, Get in the birth position. Let us now hear the Word of the Lord according to the Book of Isaiah 54:1-6:
54: 1 Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.
2 Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;
3 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.
4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.
5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
6 For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.
Bishop T. D. Jakes: I come tonight pregnant with a message – not an idea, but a message – Not a sermon but a directional truth for somebody. I am sent to preach to somebody tonight. I don’t know who it is but you are here and this is a word sent directionally to your situation. Clear your mind of everything the Devil would do to distract you from receiving the sanctity of this moment and prepare your heart because the Lord wants to tell you what is about to happen in the days to come.
Our God has a method to the madness of the times of which we live. We pray for the end result of promises. We ask Him for oak trees, but He answers with acorns because God is a God of seed. And He knows that in the acorn is the oak tree. And you must be perceptive enough to understand when He has answered you. Words are powerful – Peter said, “That the words you speak onto us are Spirit and they are Life.” If Word goes out it will produce something.
Everyone in here is the result of a word – Whether you are moving toward positive things or whether you are still wrest with old issues. If you are wounded today, you are wounded over words – Things that have been said – Things that have been stated and spoken; attitudes and dispositions of people we respect have left us scared and fragmented emotionally. People who wrestle with issues in their lives are wrestling with the children born through spoken words. A harsh word spoken to a child planted in the womb of their mind produces an adult with low self-esteem. And so in our character we are dealing with the character and the embryos that have been birthed through words that have been spoken in the past…
God told Abraham, the man of faith, “Get up from your tent and let’s go for a walk.” While they were strolling, God tells Abraham to “Look down and tell me what do you see?” He said, “Well Lord I just see the sands of the earth.” And God says, “So shall thy seed be.” God said, “Look up and what do you see?” Abraham said, “I see the stars of Heaven.” He said, “So shall thy seed be.” I’m going to give you as much seed as you got sand or stars. The sand is symbolic of Israel – the natural, earthly, covenant people who stood in covenant relationship with God – Born out of the loins of Abraham. And the stars are the Church – “the exalted ones” who are of the seed of Abraham by faith through Jesus Christ who have made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
And God was talking to Abraham about a multiplicity of blessing before he even had his first child, because God calls those things that are not as though they were. God is serious about seed and He talks kind of crazy. Because you always want to talk about what is, but God talks about what shall be… Because He knows the potency and power of His Word… God is looking where you are going before you ever get there and He’s already keeping a record on your unborn promises… “So shall thy seed be.”
And so when God got ready to fulfill His Word He waited until everything in Abraham had shut down – Completely, factory demolished – No water in the radiator, No gas in the engine. And when Abraham could not produce a seed, God gave him a seed. Oh yes, I know it was God’s seed because when it hit Sarah’s dead womb, it quickened it and brought it back to life again!
Socrates: Why does false gods of this Generation – Technology, Materiality, and Modernity, make it so difficult to understand the Doctrine of Generational Seed Blessing?
Bishop T. D. Jakes: Our culture limits us in understanding my text, because this text is written to women who want to become pregnant and we live in a society of women who don’t. {Nervous chatter} So your culture limits you from understanding how fervently every Israelite woman wanted to have a baby. See, women who were pregnant in the Bible were proud because everytime a woman had a baby she felt like –
Anti-Feminist Spirit: “I’m helping the miracle come to pass” – “This is one of the sands of the earth in my womb. This is one of the stars of Heaven in my womb and I’m helping to bring it to pass.”
Bishop T. D. Jakes: And they wanted to be pregnant. They were not trying to pass legislation so they could kill they’re babies. They wanted to be pregnant, so much so that if a woman wasn’t pregnant, she would lay upon the altar like Rachel and said, “Give me a child lest I die!” We need in the church today people who are so thirsty to produce a promise of God that we say, “Lord, give me the Promise lest I die.” I will not be satisfied just to go to church and sit around and clap my hands, and sing and go back home. I want something to pass through my womb that’s greater than me, that’s everlasting and eternal. I want to do something with my life – Give me a child lest I die!
Anti-Feminist Spirit: There’s a promise in me. There’s a dream in me. There’s a hope in me. There’s a calling – There’s a gift, a ministry, a talent – There’s a work, a job in me and whatever I got to go through, I’m willing to go through it. I’ve got to produce Life.
Bishop T. D. Jakes: People don’t understand you when you get like that. Now if you want to fit in with people, you ought to tip out now. You got just enough time to get out of here before you get messed up. And if you are worried about who likes you – who doesn’t like you – who understands you – who doesn’t understand you – YOU better leave while you can! Because God is raising up a generation of people who don’t care what he said, or care what she said – We want the promise and we want it now! … Every woman that produced a child felt like she was joining hands with the Creator in the process of creation – Carrying a miracle in her body. Giving her strength to her dream. Eating for two. Expecting a Promise.
Anti-Feminist Spirit: {Bishop channeling the biblical Hannah} Got to stay strong – Too much in me to die. I told the Devil one night in a fight: I said, “I’m not important and you can kill me, but what I’m carrying is too important for you to take me out. I’m too anointed to die. I’m too appointed to die. I’m too predestined to die. I’ve got too much God to – [die].
Bishop T. D. Jakes: Hannah ran to the altar, fell before God and began to wail like a drunk woman. She said, “Lord I want a baby.” Let me tell you something, if you want something from God you can’t be too cute. Her womb was closed up. If you gonna get something closed to open – If you gonna get Him to open a door for you, there comes a time in your life that you can’t worry about your mascara, your tie or your suit, your coat or your hat – Every now and then you just got to let it happen.
And Hannah cried out. She staggered like a drunk woman. She staggered on the alter like she’d been drinking. It shocked the church [e.g., Eli the High Priest] because the church is not used to people who are drunk with a hope and a dream and a calling. Touch somebody and tell them, “I’m drunk.” I’m drunk: That’s why I don’t walk like you – That’s why I don’t talk like you – That’s why I don’t act like you, I’m drunk! There’s too much in me to act right. She staggered on the altar, fell before God.
Eli [the High Priest] hadn’t seen anybody who wanted something in so long… that he didn’t know what to think of somebody who really knew how to pray. Hannah was willing to be different to get what God had for her.
Socrates: How bad do you want it? Do you want it bad enough to be criticized? Do you want it bad enough to be talked about? Do you want it bad enough to have someone make fun of you? How bad do you want your healing? How bad do you want your miracle? How bad do you want your prophecy?
Bishop T. D. Jakes: Hannah said whatever it takes. Hannah, when she saw how God had blessed her, went into praise. You know one of the first things my mother taught me was when somebody gives you something, say, “Thank you.” You know, most church folks don’t have no manners at all. When God gives you something and you know it wasn’t by might and it wasn’t by power, but it was by his Spirit – It wasn’t your education. It wasn’t your degree. It wasn’t your college, but when God gives you something, the least you can do is say, “Thank you”. …
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout – Hannah presenting her son Samuel to Eli the Priest (circa 1665)
Hannah is holding this baby, tears running down her face. Thank you Lord in her mouth. Hallelujah in her heart. Glory to God in her mind, saying, “Look what the Lord hath done.” And I can see why she can sing a song unto the Lord because He had blessed her. {Perplexed} But that doesn’t go with my text… Cause anyone can say thank you after you get the blessing, but my text … {Praises to God} My text is not saying, “Once your arms get full, give Him the praise.” But my text is asking empty arms… Broken dreams… Bank accounts that are overdrawn – Three children in one bedroom – Husband gone and its Christmas time – It’s asking the barren woman.
The person who is overworked and underpaid. The person whose marriage is not ready for television. The person who has not received what they have believed – He asked the barren church. He said, “I want you to sing.”
Feminist Sprit: But Lord my arms are empty.
Bishop T. D. Jakes: {Channeling God} Sing anyway.
Feminist Spirit: Lord, I don’t have any signs of pregnancy (and I don’t want any signs).
Bishop T. D. Jakes: He said, “Sing anyway.”
Feminist Spirit: Lord, I’m not even sure you’re listening at me.
Bishop T. D. Jakes: He said, “Sing anyway.”
Feminist Spirit: Lord, things are getting worse instead of better!
Bishop T. D. Jakes: But He said, “Sing anyway.” Sing. He said, “I don’t want to hear the married wife. I don’t want the full arms to praise me. He said, “I want empty arms to praise me.” Sing, thou barren woman. Sing, when all Hell is breaking lose. Sing, when trouble is everywhere. You been crying – You been complaining – You been murmuring, but let me tell you something Baby it’s not going to work you’re going to have to sing… right in the middle of the trouble. Thou that did not travail He said, “I want you to sing anyway.”
He said, “I don’t want you to be like Hannah; I want you to be like Mary.” You remember Mary? When the Angel appeared onto her and said, “You shall bring forth a son, and His name shall be called JESUS and He shall save His people from their sins.” The first thing she did was deal with her relationship with people – “How shall these things be seeing I know not a man?” Some of you think you not going to get it [the blessings of God] because your natural situation don’t line up.
Feminist Spirit: How can this be with the job I got? How can this be with all of these children? How can this be as old as I am now? How can this be when I didn’t finish my degree?
Anti-Feminist Spirit: {Bishop channeling Virgin Mary} “Nevertheless” – In spirt of the evidence – In spite of the circumstance – In spite of the situation, “Be it unto me according to thy Words.” In spite of all the evidence, if You said it, I believe it.
Bishop T. D. Jakes: And so what Mary did, she didn’t wait until her baby was born to start her singing; she started singing before the baby [Jesus] ever came. And when she started singing with no sign but a Word – When she started singing with nothing but the testimony from Heaven – When she started singing with nothing but a declaration from God, the Holy Ghost came up upon her… and she was with child.
{Bishop channeling the Lord} He said, “If you act like it is, before it is, it shall be.” He said, “I want you to get everything for it before you got it, before I can give it to you.” He said, “If you don’t have no food and you are believing me for a meal, I want you to get all the pots out, set the table, get out the silver, the china and the crystal. Prepare everything that you got. You can’t help what you don’t have, but prepare everything that you do have.” He said, “I’m going to bless people who act like I’m going to bless them and when you praise me like you believe me, God said, Then I’m going to bring it to pass!” Sing, thou barren woman!
And for lack of a better subject I said, “Get in the birth position.” Touch someone and tell them, “Get in the birth position.” Let me explain something – Praise is the birth position. Praise is the birth position. Praise is the birth position. You see some of you didn’t even understand yourself what’s been going on with you lately. You been happy when you didn’t even know what you been happy about. Anybody going through what you been going through would have lost their mind and went crazy, but some kind of way you were happy anyway – You were getting in the birth [position]! … Get Ready! Get Ready! Get Ready! Get Ready! G-G-G-G-G-G-Get Ready!
Socrates: Mary is exemplary of the humble, faithful disciple. That a woman provides such an example is significant, since first-century culture often relegated women to a secondary status. Such examples exist in the Old Testament as well (Miriam in Ex 15:21; Hannah in 1 Sam. 2:1-10; Deborah in Judges 5). One of the beauties of Luke’s infancy material is that different sorts of people all experience joy at the arrival of Jesus. This reveals Jesus’ universal appeal. Praise for God’s Word to Mary (Luke 1:46-49).
Bishop T. D. Jakes: See I found out something when my wife was having a baby, I was getting a message. I was watching her go through labor and God was giving me messages because when she really got down into labor, I found out why they call it labor, because … It is Labor! She didn’t look nothing like she did on our Wedding Day, because she was in labor. Her hair was all over her head – Her jaws were full of air – She had a death grip on my hand. She wasn’t worried about makeup – She wasn’t worried about being feminine – She wasn’t worried about being cute, because she had something in her and she was trying to push it out.
And because of what God’s got in you, you don’t have time to worry about nothing else but delivering your baby. Some of you in this room right now, there are things God has put in you – You’ve been carrying them along time. The Devil said, “It’s not going to happen.” But it is going to happen. He wants to do everything He can to change your attitude because your attitude determines your altitude. The Lord sent me here to guide you through your delivery.
Bishop T. D. Jakes: Everytime the Devil says shut up, Get in the birth position. Everytime he tries to get you to give up, Get in the birth position. When you get on the job and they acting real crazy, go in the bathroom, shut yourself up in the stall, start clapping your hands and praising God, and Get in the birth position. When they tell you they not going to let you have the loan, Get in the birth position. When they tell you can’t buy the house, Get in the birth position. When they tell you can’t get the grant for your daughter, Get in the birth position. God says He’s going to do it anyway.
Socrates: Who is this message for – The rich or the poor? The careerist or the underemployed? The advantaged or the disadvantaged?
Bishop T. D. Jakes: This message is to the disadvantaged. It’s not to the advantaged. If for people who somewhere, somewhere in your life, you’re disadvantaged – You’re limited. You look at other people and say, Oh, look at the married wife – Look at that ministry – Look at that man – Look at that woman – Look at what they’ve got – Look at them – I’m disadvantaged.” I’m incapacitated in some area. {Mood change} God meant for you to be limited, so you wouldn’t praise yourself. Some of you have been wondering, been praying, “Lord, why am I like I am?” Why am I like I am? Why am I like I am? Why did I go through that? Why? Why? Why doesn’t this go with that? This about me doesn’t go with this about me? Since You were going to use me why did You fix this to go with that? How come this part of my life don’t line up with that part of my life?
But God sent me to tell you He meant for you to be disadvantaged. He meant for you to be limited, because when you limited you lean on Him – When you limited you depend on Him – When you limited you got to have it. And when you come out, He doesn’t have to worry about you being arrogant. He doesn’t have to worry about you being uppity. He doesn’t have to worry about you looking down your nose at anybody, because you know if it had not been for the Lord that was on your side –
Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living waters – Not drops – Not dribbles – Rivers of living waters. You got power you haven’t even used yet. You got strength you haven’t even accessed yet. You got glory you haven’t even discovered yet. It is in you to be great. It is in you to overcome. It is in you to be victorious. It is in you to live and not die. It is in you to be the head and not the tail. It is in you to overcome. It is in you to live. It is in you to prosper. It is in you to succeed. It is in you to stand on your feet. It is in you to make it. It is in you to go forward.
*N.B.: For further reading regarding the Life and Times of Socrates, see this outstanding opus by one of my most enduring intellectual mentors whom I’ve read for over 30 years – The outstanding and prolific English Historian – Paul Johnson, Socrates: A Man for Our Times (Viking Press, 2011).
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Category: Commentary
