Kenneth Copeland - Take Time To Listen
— Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Father, we thank You for these two weeks. Oh, we're just so blessed. And it's thrilling in Your Word, in Your covenants of promise. And we take it and we receive it in the name of Jesus. And we give all of the glory to that matchless name above all names, the name of Jesus. Amen.
— Amen.
— Now then, class, in this Shmita Year, let's go back to what the Lord said, dropped into my spirit very plainly. Back mid way of last year, that the more I prayed about it, the more I looked at it, the year of correction, then direction, then protection, then perfection. Now, to clear something up here. In the 17th chapter of Genesis, God said, "Live and be perfect before me". Perfection. Actually it reads, in the New Living Testament, "Faithfully and blameless". Stay faithful to this covenant and blameless. And one thing that comes to me, you don't blame God for anything. He's not the problem. No, never. And so let's just briefly go through these. They are in the order in which the Lord reminded me of them. Correction. Well, Proverbs 3:11. Now in old English, sometimes correction is used, sometimes it's chastisement. Well, people think that's just awful and terrible. No, it's just simply discipline, teaching, training. Remember now, the word disciple and the word discipline are the same word. Now, AW Copeland, Aubrey Wayne Copeland, my dad, disciplined me. And after a while, I became his disciple. I figured out how much he actually knew and how much he learned from the time I was about 14 till I was about 25, 30 years old. Amen. And that's when I began to step over into the blessing of the Lord. But Greg, I knew no church background...
— Because you got yielded to correction.
— Neither did Gloria. I was surprised that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John told the same story. I knew there was Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had talked about Jesus and all that, but I'd never read it. So I was really born free from all that. Now, listen to what this says in Proverbs 3:11, "My son, despise not the chastening or the instructions of the Lord, neither be weary of correction, for whom the Lord loves, he corrects even as a father the son in whom he delights. Happy is the man that finds wisdom". How do you find that out? You don't get to the wisdom till you're willing to be corrected. Ain't that good?
— That's good.
— And being a pilot, I likened it to this. Flying a trip from A to B is a constant series of corrections so that you don't get off course. And of course, today with GPS, global positioning satellite, it's not as difficult as it used to be. But when I learned how to fly, and for many years after that, we didn't have the advantage of that. It started out as military only. But anyway, stay on course. Whatever the Lord is dealing with you on, and you know where you're going, stay on course. Now, if you're not sure what the course is, don't start doing like this to find it. You'll get lost. Stay right where you are and seek correction and wisdom. Then make your correction. And listen to your controller, the Holy Spirit. Listen to him. And he's always working at bumping you back into his will. Amen. But listen to this. A 200 mile an hour airplane flies for four hours, 800 miles, but he never did correct his course. And he's only 10 degrees off. Now, a 200 mile an hour airplane means it's a piston engine airplane. And four hours. Now, Greg, you're out at the end of his range. He has only about another 30 minute worth of reserve, or so. But he's never corrected it. So at that time he wakes up, he'll be a little over 133 miles off course. What am I going to do now?
— You need to have time to get back there.
— So how do I go direct from here to my destination? Or do I go over here? And I don't have time to do that. What if he's out over the water? He's in trouble. And there may be some storms and stuff in the way, and you have to go around that. Stay on course. Stay there. And I took off out of here one day. And the Fort Worth, Dallas area is a high density traffic area. And usually, depending on which direction you're going, and here in this area, the first altitude is going to be 3,000. Everybody knows that. So you get up into traffic and so forth. And then you're going to get a heading vector. And in this particular case, I was going eastbound. So they had me on an easterly heading. And I had filed for 41,000 flat, 410. And so, they took me out of 11,000 to something like 17,000. So I climbed up to 17. And right in here, the Lord said, "Why didn't that upset you"? "What"? He said, "You filed for 41,000". I learned a lesson that day. I said, "Well, no, sir". And I begin to talk out loud, speak out loud. I said, "Well, no, sir. That controller, I can only hear his voice, I can't see his face". Now, I recognized him because he's the controller in that sector. But I've never met that man. I recognized his voice.
— Right. You talked to him a lot.
— Yeah. I talked to him before. And I said, "Well, sir. He's looking at the radar and I can't see the traffic that's up here. He's guiding me to keep me safe". And then the Lord said, "I wish I had other people that would do that". I said, "What"? He said, "I have preachers out trying to sell shoes. I have shoe salesmen that are trying to preach. And neither one of them have any idea what they're doing". He said, "They won't let me guide them". He won't allow me to get them back on course. It starts with correction. Then direction. How do I get back on course? Well, if you look at Nehemiah 9, it said, "They refused to listen. They refused to obey". Well, look that up and read it. He didn't just knock them in the head. He began to speak with them and talk with them. And he forgave them and worked them back on course. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And in Proverbs 6:20, "My son, keep thy father's commandment, forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind them continually upon thine heart and tie them about your neck. And when you go, it will lead you. And when you sleep, it'll keep you. And when you awake, it'll talk to you". That's one of my sleep scriptures at night. Praise God. So it's now the protection then. Let's go to Hebrews 1. And I taught considerably on this. So you can look that up. But Hebrews Chapter 1:1-14, "God, who at sundry time and different manners, spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son". Oh, this is good already. "Whom he hath appointed heir of all things". Now we're back into what we learned yesterday. We are joint heirs with him. "Appointed him heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. Who, being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, upholding all things by the Word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he had by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they". So now we're back to the name again. Oh, glory to God. A more excellent name.
— Appointed heir of all these things. I'm one of those. That's me.
— That's me.
— I wrote in there, "That's me".
— That's me. Yes, sir. I did too. I wrote there. That's mine. I'm a joint heir. I wrote right underneath that.
— That's me.
— "For unto which of the angels said, 'He at any time, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. And again, I will be to him a father. And again, he'll be to me a son.'" Now, when did that happen? At the cross. He was separated from him and took our place. "And of the angels he saith, who makes his angels, spirits and minister a flame of fire. But unto the son he says, thy throne, oh, God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou has loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore, God, even thy God hath anointed thee with oil of gladness above all, fellows". That's what he said when he raised him from the dead. That's what raised him up. "And thou, oh Lord, in the beginning is laid the foundation of the earth". See, he's raising him up out of hell. They perish and so forth. Verse 12, "As a vesture shall thou fold them up and they'd be changed. You'd be the same. The years will not fail to which of the angel said he at any time, 'Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.' Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we've heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For the Word was spoken by an angel who was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation"? That's not the new birth.
— No, it's not.
— That salvation is the ministry of angels. I thought for a long time it was. But then the more I studied it and the more you get down in it, it just continues in that direction. Take the time to listen to God. You got the correction now, the direction. Then in verse two, chapter nine. No. Chapter two, verse nine.
— Hebrews.
— In Hebrews. Oh, oh, oh. "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels" Satan was a fallen angel, "for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor that he, by the grace of God," listen to me, "should taste death for every man".
— Oh, that's wonderful.
— Now, when you die, I'm talking about a believer. When you die, nothing dies but your body. And you look up, the death is cessation of life. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's just physical death. He tasted death for all of us. Now that refers to the five physical senses. So I can't taste it when my body dies. I can't smell it when my body dies. I can't see it when my body dies. And I can't hear it. I just leave. The apostle, Paul, called it his departure. I'm ready to depart. Ain't that good? It's a departure. Now that means something to me as a pilot. When I get in an airplane, I don't just fly. I depart. Now, there are times that I like to just go fly for fun. I'd come in all grumpy, and Gloria would say, "Would you go fly something"? So I go fly. But that has a purpose to it. But what is most satisfying is to lay out your trip from A to B and all of the contingencies that are involved. Weather is primary. Equipment, always use the checklist. I met people that didn't use a checklist. One time, Jerry Savelle, something happened that a man in the church was going to take him somewhere. So they got in his twin engine airplane and taxied out on the runway to go. And Jerry stopped him and said, "Where's your checklist"? He said, "Oh, I don't use that, Brother Savelle". He said, "Take me back to the ramp". "What"? "I don't fly with anybody that doesn't use a checklist".
— Well, that goes to your protection.
— Yes, sir. Because Jerry Savelle is a pilot and he knows better than that. And guess who sat down on him about checklists? You don't do that. Even if you have it memorized, you read it and you do the item. Now that'll hold big in your prayer life. Have a prayer checklist. What is the most priority thing I'm praying about? I'm really busy. I have all these different things to do. It seems like I'm doing all this and getting nothing done. Pick out, and take time to do it, the most important task before you. Then tomorrow, do all you can do to accomplish that before you go to number two. If you don't get that finished before the day is up, then start on it tomorrow. If that's the most important, then don't mess with number two till you get that done. Then number two becomes the most priority. I didn't come up with that. I was reading about a situation that happened back during the depression. A man had a very large company. And he talked to a business consultant. Now you have to remember, at the time what it was. And he told him that. And he said, "How much do I owe you"? No. He said, "Wait," I think it was 30 days or something, "and pay me whatever you think it's worth". Now, during the depression, he sent him a check for $25,000. Because he owned the company and all of his department heads, he taught them that. And they all began to practice that. I mean, everything was getting done ahead of time. And man, that business, it just took a huge jump forward. He wrote him a check for 25,000. That'd be like $150,000 now or something. Because he turned his business around. It'll turn anybody's life around. It'll turn a ministry around. It'll turn a church around. I noticed this one day. And I was preaching for a man. And it wasn't all that large a church, but it wasn't a small church either. And we were walking back from the pastor's study. I came in the back of the church. And they took me into his study. And then we had a walk then down to the sanctuary. And Greg, he stopped several times on the way down and picked things up off the floor.
— Not a bad thing to do.
— Well, I didn't say it, but the Lord said, "Look at him. He doesn't delegate authority. And he's going to wear himself out. He's the janitor in his own mind". And I got thinking about it, wonder why. Well, the Lord answered me to that too, "He doesn't want to spend the money to hire a janitor. And it's going to break him down because he's not spending enough time in prayer and seeking God. He's spending too much time on the physical plant itself. And he's carrying all the load himself".
— Quick story about how prioritize things. We were doing church announcements, some video announcements. And I kept noticing our announcements get longer and longer. Finally, at one point Brother Copeland, it was ridiculous. We were over five minutes of church time doing video announcements. We were announcing everything. And a guy talked to me. He said it this way, like this orange. He got a glass. And he said, "This is the most important thing. And that raspberry right there is the least important thing". And he said, "Put the most important things in there and then fill in with the small stuff. But you start with the big one".
— Yes you do.
— "And not the little ones".
— You prioritize.
— And that's what that man was doing.
— You prioritize. And then you delegate authority.
— That's right.
— And there's a lot of pastors that wind up with heart trouble and all kinds of things because they pay way too much attention to things that are not all that important and spend too much time spending time with anybody that wants anything without delegating any kind of authority. So you've got correction. But now you're going to have to have direction. Because until you get that, you don't have any protection. You don't have protections on the angels. You go to bed at night, you don't worry about the neighborhood and get up and check everything over and over and over and over and over again. You say, "Well, I roll all the care into your hands, Lord". Gloria and I did this back in times. We stayed in some pretty raunchy places. We were in one old hotel one night. An old hotel. Old, old hotel. And the old hotels that, it now had air conditioning. But in its prior days, it had louvres in the doors where the air could circulate. That's how old it was. And it was up high. We were speaking for a pastor there. And all of a sudden, a fight started down at the Top Hat right across the street from this hotel. And the fight got outside. So I picked up the phone. No dial. Just wait till they answered. I said, "This is Kenneth Copeland. We're in room such and such and such and such. Call the police now. There's a fight going on downstairs". And all of a sudden, the guy, boom. And I looked. This guy had a pistol. He's firing the thing off. And his voice is louder than any voice. Well, the police came down. Well, the elevator stopped on our floor in the middle of all that. Gloria pulled the cover up to here. I bow and said to the Almighty, our refuge, our fortress, he's our God. In thy name I trust. And he'll deliver us from the snare". She is going on that 91st Psalm. Well, it settled down. The elevator came up. We heard the elevator open. We heard this guy's voice. I don't know why the police didn't get him. I guess he threw his pistol away. She said, "Oh Kenneth, you suppose somebody told him we're the one that called the police"? I said, "Go to sleep". Protection. That 91st Psalm ought to be the first thing on your heart. And we're out of time again today. Oh God. Thank you. We'll be back in just a bit.