Kenneth Copeland - God's Divine Nature Is Love
— Hello everybody, I'm Kenneth Copeland. Let's have a word of prayer, we get right into today's Bible lesson. Father we thank You for Your presence. We thank You Lord Jesus for being here through Your Holy Spirit and we praise You and thank You today for the anointing of God to be in this studio, on these words to go out throughout the world, declaring that Jesus is Lord and the universe is in good hands. We thank You for it today, in that name we pray and thank You. Amen. Would you join me today in welcoming Professor Greg Stephens to this broadcast again.
— Thank you very much.
— Praise God. And to welcome this audience today, welcome yourselves. Would you do that please? I woke up early this morning and I was meditating on these things. And I want to explain to you why the Lord has directed us to have Greg Stephens on this broadcast. As you know, this ministry is all about covenant. Years ago, a lot of years ago, the Lord pointed out to me the gross ignorance of the body of Christ concerning covenant. Part of the reason for that is the King James translation of the Bible because it used the word Testament, which is covenant, and that in my opinion, the translators were attempting to get across that this is the will and testament of God, but then over many, many, many, many years it's just lost. So then the other translation and the King James uses the word covenant over and over and over again, but old covenant and new covenant or New Testament really set a place where people just didn't pay attention to it, but it is extremely important. Let's open our Bibles to second Peter please. Chapter one, we'll read down through the first four verses. Simon Peter a servant, excuse me, actually, the word there is slave and other translations translate it that way. Simon Peter, a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us. Now right there is amazing statement, like precious faith. This apostle calls faith precious because he knows where he got it, from Jesus. Jesus taught him faith. Praise God.
— Not just with words.
— No he demonstrated it.
— By actually demonstrating it.
— Yes, he demonstrated it. And the classic teaching on faith in Mark, the book of Mark chapter 11, the apostle Peter call John Mark, his son. So most Bible scholars agree that he taught that and he gave that to Mark. That's the reason in the book of Mark, it's short and it's concise and it is right on the money. It's the clearest teaching on the faith of God. Now let's go ahead. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord. Grace and peace will not come just because you ask and beg for it, it's going to take some knowledge of the Word in order to gain that. According, see it's according to something, as his divine power have given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that have called us to glory and virtue, that word there is excellence. Whereby are given unto us exceeding... I'm going to do something here and if you have room in your Bible, you could do this. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious covenant promises.
— Absolutely. That's the reason they are exceeding great and precious, they're in blood, the blood of Jesus. That by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust or human desires. Now then what is and where do we find in the Word, the divine nature? Now we know from the teachings of John, that God is love, but so his divine nature's wrapped around then. Now that's where the professor comes in.
— Amen. When I started studying, I call it the first covenant, the second covenant...
— Yes.
— ...or the first testament. I've trained myself to say that. I didn't start out to learn covenant, I started out to learn Jesus, but he is the sacrificial lamb of the covenant.
— Yes he is.
— And so once I began to study him, all of a sudden I was drawn to the covenants. See we were created in his image. And when we were created, God said on day six, so that was very, very good. He was so much created in the image of God that God even brings animals by him to see what he'll do with them, to see what he'll call them. And he spoke them into existence, what they were. So we were so much, we were clothed in his glory, we were so much like him. And then we were a mirror reflection of him.
— Yes, that's right.
— It's like having two little mirrors here and you break one of them. We broke the mirror or Adam broke the mirror. And because of that everything became a broken system. Now you can see yourself, James will talk about this, about the mirror of the Word. If I've been broken, I can still see my reflection in a broken mirror but it's not the same. And so the world...
— It's distorted.
— ...it's distorted, the world... You been to those fun houses where they have the... real fun I never could get out of them. I'd have to get some kid to help me get out of that thing. But those mirrors make you look different because the mirror's distorted and that's what's happened. The world has not seen the image of him because we haven't known him to that level. And that's been my goal, is to know him at that level so I can walk in that covenant promise and reflect the image. Jesus Christ is the only one that came and perfectly reflected the image of the Father. So asking someone...
— I want to say something.
— Yeah.
— This just jumped in my spirit and this needs to be said more. Jesus was not and is not a white man.
— No.
— Now to image him like that is unscriptural. He's a bronze colored middle Eastern Jew.
— That's right? He's neither white nor black.
— He's Galilean.
— He's Galilean.
— Well from Judah actually.
— Yes.
— From Southern. So when he came, he was the express image of the Father. We're to ask somebody to have faith here... It goes to what you saw, because they've had a distorted image, the broken mirror, they've become weak and anemic, a lot of people. And that's the vision you saw...
— Yes.
— ...when you saw the body of Christ. And because we've taught a weakened system, we've not taught him correctly. So to ask somebody to have knowledge of the Father or have faith in the Father or to trust him is futile if we've never represented his character. Faith comes, for salvation, by knowing a little bit about his character, that he's good.
— Yes.
— And he wants to bless. So Jesus perfectly reflected the Father's heart and that's exactly what he has called us to do. And so he was taught something, what Peter's teaching here, what John will teach, what they saw modeled by him, is something they learned as little Jewish boys, that Jesus learned as a little Jewish boy, that I grew up in the church and was never taught. And it goes back to Exodus, the 13 attributes of God where God will reveal himself to Moses, they're taught it. They learned the 13 attributes of God. They say a prayer concerning that every year on the day of atonement. And so he learned it from his childhood and Paul will get into it when he talks about the fruit of the Spirit and all these things, about a better covenant that we have, because we've been given that we just don't know how to use it as a tool. We've already got it in our spirit, this is something they were striving for. So God brings them up... If we can I'll set up the history of it. God brings them up out of Egypt to the mountain of God where he revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush. And if you look at the burning bush account, Moses sees a bush that's on fire. It's an acacia bush, which is a thorn bush, which represents sin. Thorns didn't come till after the fall. So a sin bush, thorn bush, is a... When I was a kid we used to go hunting and chasing rabbits and all, and you could get in a briar bush.
— Oh. Oh boy, oh.
— We had the wait-a-minute vine. You know, my dad said, "how long are you going to be in there? Well, I got a wait-a-minute vine here". And then we had the wait-a-second vine, you know just the thorn bush. So he sees a thorn bush in the desert on fire.
— What you heard was when you stumped one of those things and stuck it through the front end of your tennis shoe and it got into your big toe, huh?
— Yeah, and grabbing your legs and everything else. Yeah, I know. My brother had a knack for finding the wait-a-minute vine. Because we had to just go in and cut him out of there most of the time. But the thing is, is he sees this bush he's familiar with which represents sin, it's the thorn bush on fire, which is judgment. So sin is being judged but it's not being consumed. And he says, "I got to turn to see what this is". And he leaves the path that he's on to go see this bush and God speaks to him and he says, "I'm going to tell you who I am. I'm the God of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, your forefathers". Begins to reveal himself and reveals his calling to him. There's a vast difference Brother Copeland in creating your own purpose and discovering his purpose for you.
— That's good.
— That's the moment that Moses found God's purpose for him. He had already tried to do his purpose when he'd killed the Egyptian, that's why he is out there. He was delivering an Israelite, that's what he's called to do, but he's doing it by the flesh. God's not going to use the sword to deliver them. I'm going to deliver them the way I want to deliver them and it's going to be through you. And so there was 40 years on the backside of the desert and...
— He would, he would change. He would change from El Shaddai to Jehovah.
— Absolutely.
— And show himself powerful.
— Which is a redeemer word. Jehovah's a redeemer word. So in Exodus 19, in Exodus 19 he says this, let me read this to you. In verse four, Exodus 19, "You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bare you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself". That's what he told him to do. He didn't tell him to take them to the Promised Land. The first stop was to bring them to my presence, bring them to me and that's what he did. Verse five, "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant". What covenant are we talking about here? We're talking about the covenant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What he had revealed to him. That's a covenant of faith.
— Praise God.
— In Exodus 19 verse four to five, verse five, "If you will obey my voice..."
— Let me get over there.
— "...and keep my covenant".
— Exodus.
— 19.
— 19:4.
— 19 verse five.
— Five, I got it.
— "If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people for all the earth is mine". When he does that, they all respond with, "We'll do that". Not knowing what they're saying. They don't understand it, but there's that blessing and cursing mountain thing again, where they're acknowledging it. If you go on down to verse eight, it says and all the people answered together and said, "All the Lord has spoken we will do". And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord. At that moment they accepted the covenant of Abraham. Brother Copeland that's a faith covenant.
— Yes, it is.
— Covenant of Abraham is all by faith. Abraham was justified by faith. They knew the miracles, but here's the problem with the children of Israel, they didn't know him. They'd seen the miracles, but they didn't know him. And this is what, when we started today at second Peter, to know the knowledge of him, these precious promises, it's something about knowing him and knowing the 13 attributes of God that he's going to reveal. He gives the Word to Moses. The people will see him and hear him but they'll pull away from him. They get afraid of it. Moses then will go up the mountain, he'll begin to talk about it. Moses will become a mediator between the two, between God and the people because they pull away from God because they heard the thundering of his voice, they were afraid. And at that moment Moses will build an altar. And when he builds an altar, he will offer sacrifice on it, he'll take half the blood and put it on the altar. He'll take the other half the blood and throw it on the people.
— Yes.
— At that moment, when they had already said we will do it, that became a blood covenant. Now God's obligated with a blood covenant with those people because of what that happened. And he's going to hold him to it from that moment forward. In chapter 24, Moses will take 70 of the elders up the mountain with him for a covenant meal. This is all a pattern that will play out again in the New Testament. Jesus will send 70 disciples out. Jesus didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.
— Yes.
— And everything that he's doing...
— Every bit of it to the letter.
— Yes.
— To the period.
— So in Exodus 32, let me show you this. Let's go to Exodus 32. Because what happens is when Moses is up on the mountain and he's declaring all of the law to him, Moses, God will stop the meeting and say, "Wait, stop. The children of Israel are doing something really bad". Because he'd been up there 40 days. And so Exodus 32, in verse seven, the Lord said to Moses, "Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly go out of the way which I commanded them and have made them a molten calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, I brought you out of the land of Egypt". Everybody that came out of Egypt with them were not Jewish. Some of the Egyptians saw the plagues and saw what happened and said, "We're going with the blessing we're going with you". And I think that a lot of that was these people's influence. They didn't have that blood covenant in them. And so those people will be destroyed, we know what happens. God's ready to start over at that moment and destroy them all and Moses will do something. He will remind God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
— Yes.
— He pulls covenant on him, no Lord let me remind you. So Moses invokes a blood covenant, God withdraws. Verse 15 of Exodus 32 says this, and Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables written on both their sides; on the one side and the other were they written. The tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables in verse 16. Verse 19 says this, it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and break them beneath the mountain. Now the tablets were given by God to Moses. God made those first tablets, not Moses. And in that whole thing that the 70 elders, they get a glimpse of the throne when they come up for that covenant meal, they get a glimpse of it and they see, they describe the throne and they describe that his feet were setting on sapphire.
— The King James said a sapphire pillar.
— Yes.
— His feet sat on a sapphire pillar.
— Right? So if you read the Humash which is a commentary, the Jewish rabbi's commentary, if you read and study history of this, those first two tablets of stone were pure sapphire.
— Dear God.
— So now I made a... Well I had the guys here make a replica. This would've been the actual size Brother Copeland, is 18 by 18, by nine thick, one... And there would've been five of the covenant or the 10 commandments, five of them would've been on each side. And then the other tablet would have the other five. So Moses carried a pure sapphire tablet this size down the mountain. Now I know in the movie you see this curve thing and this long, that's Hollywood, and that's of the dark ages they were. But see heaven is built four square.
— Yes, it is.
— It's as a replica of heaven, it was pure, it was sapphire. I can't even find a value on what a sapphire this large would be.
— Who would know?
— And you tell me that God's against prosperity when he wrote...
— He'd have to deny himself to be against prosperity.
— ...well, that's what his feet are resting on.
— Yes.
— And so he brings these sapphire tablets down. They estimate it weighed approximately 150 pounds with the two of them. He's a strong guy and Moses has to carry it down the mountain and he breaks those. And God will tell him, "Now you're going to make your own stones and I want you to carve them out. I want you to come back up here". So they didn't look like these, but see this is heaven. Jesus was that heavenly nature and came down and was broken. So see, I'm beginning to see the covenant connections and all the little connectors that happened in all those things. Those tablets were heavenly and so now Moses will take tablets that he'll cut out himself, same measurements, take them back up to the mountain and God will write on them himself. And what he writes on them is so beautiful because the first five commandments identify our duties in relationship to the Lord. The very first thing he says, "I am the Lord you're God". He'll say "Yod Heh Waw Heh Yod Hey Waw Hey El". Which is a very interesting thing. Why would he do that, that many times? I am Jehovah Jehovah El. I am the redemptive, I was a redeemer... I was this way before you sinned, I'm this way after you've sinned and I'm Almighty God...
— Yes. Amen.
— ...the Creator and Yod Hey Waw Hey, I am your God, you will have no other gods before me, you shall take, not take my name in vain, remember the Sabbath to keep it holy, honor your mother and father. That was on one tablet. It was all our relationship to him. The other tablet had five sayings on it. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, it's all our relationships with one another. See when I get knowledge of him, those first five, correct... I'll get all of these correct Because they all hang on love. Because God is love. Remember the Sabbath, keep it holy. All of those things are the things that he wrote with his own hand on sapphire tablets, I mean the very thing from heaven. I just, when I think about it, Brother Copeland, I just shake my head. He's carrying a piece of heaven with him, but see that's what's happened with us now, a piece of heaven has come in us.
— Yes, that's right.
— And we have the knowledge and this is why we grow in knowledge. And so now what God will teach him and I don't know, we're about out of time right here. I know what God will teach him and will tell him, this is a prayer. When he brings him back up the mountain, I'm going to teach you the 13 attributes about myself. And I'm going to say it, God will say a prayer for him and say, "Whenever you say this prayer, I'll hear it and I'll be merciful". And you'll see over and over and over. Now, this is why Jesus will teach his disciples a prayer. And this is why we teach our disciples a prayer. You know you've taught us to pray in the Holy Spirit, to pray the Word. And so in all of those things, those are all knowledge of him and enables us to not be weak and anemic...
— Yes.
— ...and enables us to grow. So the Word was made flesh, it was sinless, holy, conceived of God, broken at Calvary, but praise God, he didn't come out of there. Now he takes these mortal stones, this flesh, and he's engraved it on our hearts. And so all of this pattern is a covenant pattern of us walking in the knowledge of him. It's glorious.
— It is glorious isn't it?
— It is absolutely glorious. Now, Peter being taught that as a young man, you go back to Peter and he says, "A servant". In second Peter, "Of Christ obtained like precious faith with us through righteousness of God and our savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God".
— Yes.
— They didn't know God, for 400 years they had been in Egypt, they had known the gods of Egypt, this is why they made a golden calf because they got in fear because Moses hadn't come back and so they made that golden calf...
— And Aaron he should have known better. If I read this correctly, he said something like, "Well, we just put that gold in there and that calf just jumped out".
— Right. He actually said, "It's all the gold that the Egyptians gave us that we brought out, that's why we did it because you blessed us, it's why".
— Yeah he blamed it on God.
— He blamed... The golden calf is because you gave us a whole bunch of gold before we left. And then that didn't fly.
— It did not fly, but he's one of the ones that went up the mountain and saw it.
— Oh my, my, my, my, my, let's give the Lord praise and thanksgiving. We're out of time, but glory to God. Father we thank You, we praise You, we thank You for this. Praise God. And Brother Greg and I'll be back in just a moment. Praise God. Thank You Lord. Thank You Jesus.