Kenneth Copeland - There Is Rest for the People of God
— Hello everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome once again to the Believer's Voice Of Victory broadcast. And let me remind you of Greg Stephens' qualifications. There's a reason why that I've spent a lot of time, at the Lord's direction, with him on the broadcast. He is a bonafide Hebrew scholar. He teaches First Covenant in Kenneth Copeland Bible College, and to get proper insight into things like the Shmita year and what it means to the Jews. Well, we are Gentiles grafted in to the same branch. So as we read these things, he gives us insight and ideas that, through the eyes of God, concerning that first covenant, which was in two parts. In the 15th chapter of the book of Genesis, God appeared to this man and walked in the blood of animals and he swore an oath to him. So shall thy seed be. Then you come to the 17th chapter of Genesis and he appeared to Abram. And he said, "I make my covenant between me and thee". He really didn't have to accept that. God didn't put it, "I'm forcing you to do this". He said, "It's up to you".
— Never forces you.
— No. In anything.
— In anything.
— "And my covenant is between me and thee. I have made you the father of many nations and your name will now be called Abraham". H, right in the middle of Abram. And H is...
— Part of God's name...
— Hashem.
— Hashem. Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey.
— Yes.
— The H is in there. It's all through it. See, his name wasn't big enough for his assignment.
— Oh, that's good.
— His assignment is so big that God's part of it. I mean, the seed of God will come through his lineage.
— So in this blood covenant through the blood of a man, through circumcision. Now God is in covenant with this man. And let's go back to the book of Hebrews here.
— Yes, sir.
— And I want to show you something that is so covenant important. Now he talks about the rest, entering into the rest. By faith, we talked about that yesterday. In the third verse, "For we, which have believed". You see that? Talked about faith and then he talks about believing. It's the same thing. "We which have believed do enter into rest". Come on down now. Verse nine. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest he also hath ceased from his own works as God did from his. Let us labor therefore". Now we have to stop right here. Let us labor to get a new car. No. Let us labor to build our ministry. No. Let us labor to... Oh my. I don't know whether I'll ever pay these bills. No. Let us work at entering into his rest. How do we work it? We work it by faith.
— Keywords here. There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God. Means it didn't go away. There's a rest for the people of God today.
— Yeah.
— Just as there was when this was written for the Hebrews.
— Had more of God's people entered into rest instead of fear concerning the flu.
— Oh yeah.
— And giving the flu such huge authority and allowing it just to run wild. Now, not everybody did that, but so many did. And just hang on the news broadcast. Well Greg, I mean, any day of the week I could have given the broadcast. All I needed to do is just figure out how many more have died. Nobody was talking about the fact that people were still dying of the regular flu.
— Right. Or cancer or anything else.
— Or anything else.
— Right.
— And so now it's lopsided the medical community to the point for people are just running to the hospital. Run to the hospital, run to the hospital. Now the heart patient doesn't have anywhere to go.
— Right.
— Well, anyway.
— Look at this. Remaineth, so it remains to this day. Look at this. He has ceased from his own works.
— That's it right there.
— As God did from his. Let us labor therefore, to enter into that rest. So when you're struggling and toiling and running yourself, I call it running on the hamster wheel. My sister had a hamster and that thing would run all night until one day something happened to it.
— And later you got some sleep.
— Well, I kind of know what happened to it, but I never confessed it. Something happened to it. But that thing would just run and he is not going anywhere. And there are far too many believers that continue to do this. I wrote this down. How do believers strive to enter into rest? By forcing themselves to rest? By telling themselves over and over, "I've got to rest. I got to rest. I got to rest"? That's not how you do it. That would be man's labor instead of faith. You enter into rest. The problem with rest is unbelief. You enter into rest by faith, by belief. I am going to rest. Faith is any absence of human effort.
— Yes.
— Because once I get human effort in it, it's no longer faith.
— Well, let's go back now.
— I mix faith with the promises of God.
— And faith comes by hearing.
— Yes, sir.
— And hearing by the Word of God. Well, the Lord's not going to put up with that. Let's go to the 10th chapter of Romans, since this was written... The gospel of Romans, oh, the whole gospel is in the book of Romans. The 10th chapter. "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge". Or in other words, incorrect.
— That's correct.
— "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves under the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes".
— That's faith.
— You're going to get down to faith. You're going to wind up there all the time. "For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which does those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaks". "The righteousness which is of faith speaks". It speaks. In fact, whatever we say is our faith speaking. If you speak in fear, it's faith in the flu.
— Absolutely true.
— Yeah, it's true. Now, here we go. "Speaks on this wise. Say not in your heart". Don't be saying this. "Who shall ascend into heaven? That is, to bring Christ down from above". Oh, if you would just come down and lay your hands on my sick body.
— You don't know what spirit you're of when you say that.
— No. And not knowing...
— Right. Lack of knowledge.
— Doesn't change it.
— Right.
— The spiritual laws exist whether you know they do or not. And that's what the Bible does. It's a book of correction and direction. So, "Or who shall ascend into the deep? That is, to bring Christ again from the dead. What does it say? The Word is near you, even in your mouth and in your heart. That is the Word of Faith, which we preach. That if you shall confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead thou shall be saved". The same word's translated, healed. Well, we don't preach healing. We only preach salvation. It comes with the package.
— That's right.
— "For with the heart man believes under righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture says, 'Whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed.'" Now look at this. "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all is rich unto them who call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they've not believed"? They can't. "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard"? They can't. "How shall they hear without a preacher"? They can't. And it's got to be a faith preacher. "And how shall they preach except they be sent"? Or anointed. "As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, bring glad tidings of good things.' But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah saith, 'Lord who hath believed our report?' So then..". So then. It doesn't start there. You have to go down the line...
— That's absolutely right.
— To get to the so then.
— That's right.
— "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God". Or the anointed words of Jesus. All of this is the anointed words of Jesus. Glory to God.
— Amen. See, he goes down. He starts talking about Israel again and how they couldn't believe and all that as you go down into that chapter. And then he talks about his God casting way. He's making an argument for, you can turn this around once you start to believe. They couldn't enter into rest because of their unbelief. There's a problem where the disciples wondered what's going on here. "We tried to cast this demon out of this little boy. We couldn't do it". He said, "This kind comes out but by prayer and fasting". He's talking about their unbelief.
— Yes. Not the devil.
— Not the devil.
— You can't fast a devil out of anybody.
— No, but you can speak his name, and the devil has to come. It was the unbelief. They were surrounded by people watching them and talking about them and the let's see what they can do. And they got caught up in the moment. Well I've been there. I had that happen to me one time. I heard the Lord tell me to do something with a ministry line in a man's church. It's not my church. It was another guy I'm preaching for in his church. And I heard the Lord say, "I'll heal people with eye problems right now". And so I called that out. And I don't know, a few people came down there. This one little bitty lady. And as I was going down to pray for people, all of a sudden I heard in my spirit, "Spit in their eyes". I'm like, "I'm not doing it. I'm not. They'll run me out of here". But I knew where that came from. It came from here. Didn't come from up here. "I said, spit in her eyes and I'll heal her". I tell you, Brother Copeland, I was at one of those moments where I was in unbelief. I know what the Lord said to me. Now I have a choice I've got to do, whether I'm going to have faith in what he said, regardless of my reputation or my relationship with this man, or I'm not. I told everybody, "Bow your head, close your eyes. Nobody looking around in this place. And I spit in my hands and laid them on her eyes". She screamed a scream and came up. I didn't know she was blind in an eye. Came up seeing in that eye.
— Praise God.
— Now that's only happened to me one time. That wasn't an everyday thing for me, but it was a teaching moment for me to learn to operate in faith and not be intimidated by the crowd around me.
— And I want to bring up... I want to show you something here. Now let's go back to Hebrews 4:11. "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of disobedience". There's a little number seven there in your King James translation. It's the example of unbelief. It is disobedience.
— Right.
— It, unbelief...
— Well, that's what it leads to.
— That's what it is. It's just disobedience. I don't want to do that. I don't believe I'll do that. Well, that's disobedience. I was in an almost the same situation one time, another man's church. And Jerry Savelle was helping me. And there was a man in the prayer lane and the Lord said, "You see that man right there"? I said, "Yes". He said, "I want you to hit him in the stomach just as hard as you can". I said, "I don't believe I want to do that". And I made an agreement, a covenant agreement with God that I would be open and frank with him and just tell him exactly what I thought. Well, he knows anyway.
— Right.
— And I said, "I don't believe I want to do that". And I went ahead and he said, "See that man right there"? I said, "Yes". "I want you to hit him in the stomach just as hard as you can". I said, "No, sir, I'm not going to do that". Well, he didn't take that. Then the closer he got, the closer I got. And he said, "I want you to hit him in the stomach just as hard as you can". So when he got up there in front of me, I mean, I just unloaded on him. And man it knocked him backwards and he come up. And he went, "My, God". He said, "I'm healed".
— Praise God.
— "My God," he said, "I'm healed".
— Amen.
— And come to find out, he had all kinds of stomach problems, ulcers, everything you could think of. And he walked away healed. I did not want to do that.
— Oh, I understand.
— But over the years... I was preaching in, oh, it was a little town there in, not in Okmulgee, but... Anyways, while I was ORU. And I was sitting on the platform. There was a couple that were late and they walked in. The Lord said, "That couple right there. They have just come from Tulsa where they have visited their son in prison, and you tell them that I said everything's going to be all right". And I sat there long enough for the devil to begin to say, "Yeah, but what if they don't have a son? And what if they have one and he's not in prison"? So I didn't do it. And they went ahead and sat down. And I started preaching and the Lord said, "See that couple that just sat down over there..". And he went through it again. Did that three times. And so, and I didn't quite do it, but I said, "That couple sitting right over there. And no, no. Yeah, yeah. Would you two stand up please"? And I just said it. I said, "You have a son in..". No, it was in jail, not prison. "You have a son in jail". She said, "Ah!!"! So it wasn't quite as powerful as it should have been because I was disobedient.
— Right.
— And I was afraid to, so I had not developed faith in that area. And then I gave them the Word of the Lord. She just began to shout and weep at the same time. I watched a young English evangelist, very accurate. And he's had... We were in this church and I was just there. Well, I spoke a little bit, but not much. And he said... He's running. And he said... He spoke for this. And I said, yes. And they spoke to this one. Yes. And he spoke to this one. They said no. And he spoke to the other one. They said yes. He said, "Well, that's only not all that bad".
— Right.
— He said, "The first one was Jesus. The second one was Jesus. The third one was me. And the next one was Jesus. Pretty good". And then he just all out. But he went ahead and blessed the woman where he missed it.
— Right. Right.
— Now I dare say this. He was probably more right than she would admit.
— Yeah.
— Because it was pretty personal.
— Sure.
— You're not always wrong. There are some people that just won't admit to it.
— Right.
— For some reason or other.
— It's getting over that intimidation.
— Yes.
— Intimidation is a spirit and learning to trust your father, and you do that by Faith.
— The way you come up with this is to keep one hand... I don't care where you're ministering. I don't care what you're doing, whether you're in the ministry or whether you're a Sunday school teacher, or whether you're in the car business, but you're a believer. And a man in the car business that helped me at a time of dire need. I didn't have a car and found out later he was a member of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship in Camden, Arkansas.
— That's a full time minister.
— Yes.
— He's just selling cars.
— Yes. Always, always keep one hand on the love of God and the other on the fact that these are covenant books.
— Yes.
— That's the reason it's called Holy Bible. A Bible is a collection of things and ideas. This is Holy Bible collection. It is holy because it's a book of blood.
— Yes, sir.
— It's a book of blood covenants. And there was a Charlottetown preacher one time that tried to turn actor. And he's a pretty good actor because that's the only way he got anything done as a preacher. He said, "I'll tell you one thing. That's a bloody bunch". See he had no respect for the blood of Jesus or anything else.
— No, he doesn't. It's the most precious thing ever.
— Ever.
— You don't plead it lightly. You don't mistreat it at all.
— No you don't. Now one preacher, right here in the state of Texas, a number of years ago, he memorized some of Spurgeon's sermons, Oral Robert's sermons, Billy Graham's sermons, and he had a good ministry going, people got saved. I've had people say, "You mean that man that was a thief got people saved"? No, the message got the people saved.
— The Word did it.
— They believed it.
— The Word did it.
— The Word did it. Well, they arrested him and put him in jail. And he got saved on some of his sermons.
— Right.
— After he got in jail.
— God watches over his Word.
— Yes, sir.
— More so than the person. When I exalt myself above the Word, because I'm worried about my reputation at this church, I'm in trouble. I just had to rest. "Lord, you said do this. I'm going to do this. No matter what happens to me, what they think about me, I'm going to be obedient to you".
— That's right.
— I entered into a new level with him. I entered into a new place with him.
— You step out in faith, being honest, and just brutally honest with God and with yourself, not condemning yourself. You're correctable. And you do with all your heart, what you believe he's telling you to do, and then rest on that. I really messed up one time and I got back to my hotel room and I thought, "Lord, what have I done"? And I went back over what I said. I said, "That wasn't right at all". I said, "I think I prophesied out of my mind instead of my spirit". He didn't say one way or the other. He said, "I will be with you like I was with Samuel. I will not allow your words to fall to the ground because you did it in faith".
— There you go.
— He didn't tell me. I knew good and well, it wasn't right. But he didn't... Because I got scriptures mixed up in there. But I did it with all my heart.
— Absolutely. My dad told this story when he was here. He's in heaven now. My dad was very sick. He had some physical problem earlier in life and he was very sick. My sister was a little bitty thing at the time. She went in to pray for her daddy and she laid hands on him, just observing what she had seen growing up. My daddy was healed instantly. It wasn't about what she said. It's that child. She had a faith that where she's going to lay hands on him, he was going to be raised. She's four years old, five years old. But he agreed with it and was healed. And that's not letting those words fall down.
— Yeah. He didn't let it fall to the ground. He honored her heart.
— Absolutely did.
— Honored her heart.
— And he'll do that. He does that with us today.
— Yes.
— Listen, if you miss it, you missed it. Just say you missed it and then learn from it and go on.
— I was in, another time in Oklahoma, in Jack Long's church. And they had a motor home. Not a motor home, but a trailer home in a trailer park that the church owned for guest speakers. Very nice. And we're out of time.
— Oh.
— I'll talk about it tomorrow.
— Okay.
— It turns out good.
— Good.
— Praise God. Let's get the Lord a praise. Praise God. Thank You, Jesus.