Kenneth Copeland - Follow God's Direction To Live In THE BLESSING
The words of Jeremiah to whom the Word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah, the 13th year of his reign. Verse 4, "The Word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, I ordained thee a prophet unto nations.'" I wrote up here, I will watch over my Word to perform it, but you have to read down to that. "The Lord said unto me, say not, I am a child: for thou shall go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee you will speak". What's he doing? He's making this man a prophet. He changed him right there. "Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, 'Behold, I have put my words in your mouth".
Now, if you want to know how to walk in correction and direction and perfection, that's the way you do it. You put His Word in your mouth and He will perform it. Because He swore he would. Jesus said you will have what you say. You will have what you say. A young man that I know know very well, and he's all right. He's young spiritually. But he just came in and said to the man that he flies for, he said, "I have to get another job. In fact, I've already talked to some people. Why? I just can't support the Word of Faith anymore". I can't support the Word of Faith anymore. I think it's all right to say whatever you want to say. Well, he's out in the woods now. He's not saying anything. Or at least at that point, he wasn't saying anything that God could perform. But I know somebody else it will. Because the devil will take the leftovers.
And what a friend of mine's grandmother said, "You let the devil in the backseat, ain't going to be long he going to want to drive". I said, "Pretty well said". I can't improve on that. That's just it. His whole thing is control. Control. He's a loser and he knows it, but he doesn't believe it. About the time he thinks he's got everything working his way, and somebody just rises up and says, "No, you don't". Not in this house. Not here, you don't. Not now, not ever. I'm not going to think like you want me to think. I'm not going to talk like you want me to talk. I'm not going to act like you want me to act. I'm not going to do what you want me to do. So, get! Amen.
I'm going to say it again. "I have this day set for you over nations, over kingdoms, to root out, pull down, destroy, throw down, to build, and to plant. Moreover, the Word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Jeremiah, what seest thou?' And I said, 'I see a rod of an almond tree.' And the Lord said unto me, 'Thou has well seen: for I will hasten my Word to perform it". And you look that up. He said, "Well said, for I watch over my Word to perform it in your mouth. I put my Word in your mouth. You speak it and I will perform it". If you look carefully at all of the prophets of the first covenant, what was their job? They gave not only instructions to the people. They gave them things to say. If you obeyed the prophet and said what he said, you prospered.
1 John 1:5, "He is faithful. He's faithful. He's faithful". To do what? Well, look over there and see. You know it, but put your eyes on it. Oh, I tell you, I love the gospel of John. But man, the Lord led me to start reading little John and I just read it every day. I mean, it's not the five chapters. Just read it every day and it'll get on you. It'll get in you and oh my goodness, and it just starts off. This will save your life. "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declaring unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all".
I wrote in the margin of my Bible, God is light, God is life, God is love. In Him is no darkness. In Him is no death. In Him is no hate. If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, His son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and He is just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There is huge failure on those scriptures. It's huge. That is a blood-backed, exceeding great and precious promise, and if you believe it, it'll work. If you go by your feelings, it won't. I was in a meeting down in South Florida one time. I was down there three weeks. They were receiving offerings from me every night.
Now I should have had a clue, but I knew the pastor very well. I heard him praying and he said, "Oh, God help us because we are in such dire need of finances". Now, if he'd had just come to me and told me, I'd have said, "Hey, let's get in this together". But he didn't. Well, he wasn't receiving the offerings. Another man in the church was. This is Brother Copeland's offering. Well, anyway, there was a lot of pressure on me and I got mad. I'm walking around in that room. Oh man, I just really got irritated. They made a big deal of offering me there a check after three weeks for $200. I went in the hole. But anyway, I got mad. Then I calmed down, but I said, "Lord, I'm not going over and preach now after this". He said, "After what"? I said, "After what I did and said". He said, "What are you talking about"? I said, "What do you mean what am I talking about"? He said, "Didn't you confess that sin before me"? I said, "Yes, I did". He said, "Kenneth, when you confess, that is not when I found out about it".
Well, that came as a great revelation to me. We have informed God very little with all of our praying, but it is our covenant relationship with Him. For He said, "Ask, you shall receive. Knock, it shall be opened unto you. Seek and you'll find". The word seek there actually means research. Research God. He already knows. But we need to find out. Then after He said that, He said, "You need to understand that the moment you confessed that, I cleansed you of unrighteousness". Now you will mess around here and ruin that because that part you didn't believe. Oh, but He's faithful. Then I learned the truth of it. Jesus said, "When you stand praying, forgive if you have ought against any". You're not going to stand there two weeks. He said, "When you stand praying, forgive".
That will work, want to grant. I mean, when you stand praying, forgive. It's not an act of feeling. Judgment, now there is coming a time when judgment will take place. But I've already talked to you about that. But let me say it to you like this. Judgment is a function of seed time and harvest. Amen. So that, you don't walk in judgment. Turn with me to Luke Chapter 6. We know what's Luke 6:38, "Give, and it will be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure you measure with all it shall be measured unto you again". Well now, wait a minute. There's 37 verses before it. This was a whole sermon. He had just named his 12. This is huge. If you just back up a little bit. "Bless them that curse you, pray for them which despitefully use you".
And you come on down, come on down here. "Love your enemies. Do good and lend hoping for nothing again; for your rewards shall be great and you shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful. Judge not and you shall not be judged; condemn not and you shall not be condemned; forgive and you shall be forgiven; give and it will be given unto you". Judge not. This is what I've learned over the years. A lot of it from Brother Hagin. A lot of it from Brother Roberts. A lot of it from the Scripture. A lot of it from personal experience. That's a huge sin in the church. "Judge not that you be not judged".
If you study the scriptures, you'll find out, if you judge somebody, you have set the bar and you will be tried at that level and you don't even realize it's coming. Because you didn't realize you did it in the first place. For instance, well now you know how I love Pastor. Here it comes. That's like the country singer said: Don't give me none of that degree stuff. Tell me left or right. Well don't give me that about how much I love Pastor, either, before you cut him down. Now, I'll just tell you one thing, buddy, buddy. If I'd have been him, I wouldn't have done that. Well you dumb, dumb if you'd have been him that's what you'd have done. That may be the answer to the question. How dumb can you get? If you were him, that's what you'd have done. But you do not know the circumstances. You do not know the situation. You do not know what led up to that. You do not know what decisions were made. You're not running that church. You don't know what the Lord told the Pastor to do or to say. You don't know what the Pastor's wife and the Pastor prayed and came to a conclusion that this was right.
Now, if you don't like anything he says, get out of there. I told you, I think I told you a little bit about this, but anyway, I'm going to tell you again. Wayne Cochran, old C.C. Rider. Wayne had never been to church. He told me, he said, "Kenneth, I stole the Bible". He said, "I'm ashamed of it. I stole the Bible in the hotel room and got saved on it". I said, "Wayne, was it a Gideon Bible"? "Yeah, that is the name of it". I said, "Wayne, they put those in there for you to have". "Really? Can I keep it"? I said, "I think I would".
Now he started pastoring and he ran into this. There was a man in his church that didn't like anything he said, didn't want to do anything he wanted to do. He was crossed ways of everything he said. So he called him in. He said, "The problem is you're in the wrong sheepfold". Here was his explanation. He said, "You're like a plumber in a roofing church. And you keep trying to put the toilet on top of the house and it doesn't work". Well now, Wayne is an old rock and roller. I mean, the way it come across. So he said, "I know a pastor in this town that he thinks the same way you do". Because after he talked to him for a while and he found out what he didn't like, he said, "Would it be all right with you if we have a meeting together"? He called the other Pastor, they got together and they liked one another. He moved over there in that other church. And now everybody's happy and he's happy and both pastors are happy. But he's no longer judging that pastor.
Now, his life was miserable because he was sitting in judgment over another man, and particularly a man of God. Shall we just stand and just praise and worship for a few moments? Thank You, Lord Jesus. It's meetings like this that I don't like to close. David, would you hold it? That it's the flow is so precious. There was one man that Brother Hagin told about and this actually happened. This man had gone to a country church to preach. He was staying with an elderly man that was one of the lead deacons in the church but he was an elderly man. And so, he stayed with him. Stayed in home with him. He came back that night and he had waited up for him, so they talked about the meeting a little bit. He said he was just getting tired. He wanted to go to bed but this old gentleman said, "Well, let's remain". So he thought, "Well, okay".
So he started talking again. Then a little while, he'd say, "Well, son, let's remain". And so he just kept trying to, he's about to go to sleep. Finally, he said, "Well, sir, I think we ought to retire". He said, "Retire. That's the word I was trying to think of". I know you'd like to retire and I'd like to remain. Lord Jesus, Son of the living God, I pray the blessing of the Lord on this congregation. I pray the blessing of the Lord on the leadership of this church. I pray the blessing of the Lord on all that have come in to visit for these meetings and all that have been watching us online. As God's representative, I'm authorized to tell you, be blessed. Be blessed. God always needs a receiver. You have to have a receiver. Anybody open?
Be blessed. Be blessed. Be blessed. Now, this bus didn't receive it. Let's start over again. Be blessed. Be blessed. That's better. Be blessed. Be blessed. Be blessed. Be healed. Be well. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Take the ball and run with it. Filled with faith, excited about faith. I quote Kenneth E. Hagin. "Boys, it's the scripture you get excited about that works for you". I'm excited about faith. I'm excited about prosperity. It is very simple. The curse is threefold: spiritual death, sickness and disease, and poverty. And the blessing is spiritual life, healing, and prosperity.