Kenneth Copeland - God's Power and Delegated Authority
— Hi everyone. I'm Kenneth Copeland. And again, this is Professor Greg Stephens and this is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Father, thank you for the anointing today. Oh thank you dear Jesus. Because of you and because of your name, the spirit that created everything dwells in us and we praise you and thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen. We're talking about the Spirit of Power. He is introduced in the very first book of the first book of the Bible, in Genesis chapter one: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and emptiness and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved on the space of the waters. And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light". Or, as we said yesterday, he said light be, light was, and he saw the light that it was good. So this is the introduction of the spirit of power. And as we read yesterday, at 186,000 miles per second, in 24 hours there are 16,074,764,800 miles of the Universe. Because he said so.
- Wow!
— At the speed of light. The sunshine came four days later. But he introduced matter with the words of his mouth. Glory be to God. The Spirit of God is always on the move. He is never static. But look at yourself. If something you've been praying for isn't happening or something isn't happening, look at what you're saying. Because we find out then from the 10th, then in the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews that he didn't create that out of nothing. He created it from something you can't see, which is the force of faith.
— That is correct.
- So faith is the creative power of God.
— That's right. That's right.
- Amen. Let's look at what else Jesus had to say in the book of Acts. Glory be to God. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and then Acts. "This is the earlier treatise that I wrote, O Theophilus, all that Jesus began to do and teach and teach, until the day he was caught. After that, by the Holy Spirit, albeit the Holy Spirit the commandments among the apostles whom he had chosen". Who was that? Who made the bid? The Spirit of God. The same spirit. There aren't two. There is a.
— No, there is one.
— There are no two devils. There is only one. He's the same devil he always was. And God is the same God He always was. "Jesus began to teach, and when they came together with them, he commanded them not to go out of Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, who says that you have heard from me. For John really baptized with water , but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days later". Well listen to what he said. He said, "Aren't you doing anything? Don't do anything until you get electricity."
— That is correct.
— Look at the eighth stanza. "But you will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come on you, and then you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." But don't try to do it without power. Don't try to just be born again. You are born of the spirit. But when the Spirit comes upon you, you will receive dunamis, power.
— Brother Copeland, you had tried to live holy and righteous in your own power for thousands of years. And that's the law. This is a new agent, a new day. And here's how I know that. In verse seven, it says it says in chapter one.
- Yes.
— And he said to them: "It is not for you to know the times, the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power". But it works, that's a reference to verse six.
— Yes, it is.
— So when they got together, they ask him: "Lord, will you, at that time, make the kingdom of Israel a kingdom for Israel again"? They are still in search of the millennium. Now is the right time. Or? Because that's all they believed in. That's all they believed in. He said, "I've got this whole thing, I gotta bring these Gentiles in. I've got a whole timeline of this church age, this mystery you don't know." And then he mentions that that span of time is in the Father's power. And just let me help you. Anyone trying to guess when this is, you must be stronger than the Father and his power to be able to know what it is. And that person doesn't exist. They just don't exist. But you will receive power after the Holy Spirit. He says: "I have to bring this power that is in me into you".
— My mother used to say to me, "Kenneth, Jesus is coming this year". I said, "Is that true"? "Yes". Next year she would say, "Jesus is coming this year". I said, "You said that last year". She said, "I know, but he's coming this year". But she said that every year. She realized that.
— That's right.
— And she was physically disabled because her appendix ruptured on a basketball court when she was a young girl. They rushed her to the hospital and the doctor opened it up and saw that it had already ruptured. And she had to die.
— Right.
— Well, he didn't even sew them up. He cleaned her up and just used corpse clamps because she had to die. Well, my grandfather is a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. And he was a very happy man. But when he turned 100 Indians, it was hard to get him to say anything. And he encouraged the doctor: "She dies, you die". At least he sewed them up. And they told her: "Don't ever try never to have a child. It'll kill you. And you won't live more than 10 years". They were married nine years when I was born. And she said it every year. Each year. Because she thought, "Maybe I'll die this year". She just kept living and she just kept living and she just kept living. And one day she called me and yelled, "I made it, I made it, I made it". I said, "What, mom"? "Three points and 10, God bless God". She urged it. Most people think this is the set time. God didn't say that. Moses complained that they were dying in the desert. In Genesis 6:3, God says that man's normal life will be 120 years. If she held that, she would have gone further for it because she was strong.
— Sure. But she is like Abraham. Her faith lies in her future and where she will go.
— And now the reason I mentioned this, we are in a time right now where we have to do what Jesus said and be a witness. We must be witnesses that he will come. We need to talk about it, we need to bear witness to other people about it and make and make sure you think about it, think about it enough. That's my favorite thing today, we're one day closer to the resurrection. We must be. I don't know when it will be, but we're a day closer than yesterday.
— Many people make the mistake. You have merged two events. They will be the rapture at the second coming. They are two different events.
— Yes, they are.
— So what they ask him here is the second coming when he will set up a kingdom. There are a few things that need to happen, happen, and they're going to happen fast for that. But for the rapture there is nothing standing in the way of that.
— No.
— This has to happen.
— 300 prophecies, 300 of them, and Yeshua fulfilled every one of them.
— That is correct.
— Well, let me say that. Jesus, is the anglicized version of his name. If you translate it literally, it's Joshua.
— That is correct. That means salvation.
— It means safety and salvation.
— That's right. Yeshua.
— And if that did not take place, I am convinced that the word Jesus would not be so offensive to Jewish people.
— Right.
— You don't know where that came from. And what's that name? His name is Joshua. And you find it translated... You find the word Joshua is translated as Jesus in Hebrews. And it was Joshua Joshua.
— So it is not so insignificant that Joshua led them, and not Moses, into their promised land.
— That is correct.
— And the water rolled back to him.
— He was the guy. It was a type and shadow of those to come.
- Yes.
- So, and if that says, excuse me, If it says: Emmanuel, God is with us, that is also the fulfillment. That's the talk of the millennium.
— Yes, it is.
— So he has both titles. And he is the son of David. If you look at this, believe, then we have received this power. So they went and did it. We know the Holy Spirit came down and came into space, the rushing mighty wind. You talked about what that's all about. You see, the angels and the Spirit of God had kind of left the earth.
— Well, they came, they came and they went. The angel, in Exodus 23, Moses was troubled that God was not to be seen. And he discussed it with God. "You will not be here with us". I mean, This is the Copeland translation. "If you're really with us, then you won't be there with us". Then God said, "I will send my angel". Let's take a look. Exodus Chapter 23. Get back down here. The 13th stanza: "In all things that I have said unto you, Be circumspect, and mention not mention the names of other gods. And let not it be heard from thy mouth. And the first of the first fruits of the land shalt thou bring under that House of the Lord your God. You shall not see the child in its mother's milk. And he said, "I am sending an angel ahead of you to lead you on the path and to the place that I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice. Do not provoke him. He will not forgive your transgressions , because my name is in him, but if you actually obey his voice and do all that I speak, then I will become an enemy among your enemies and an adversary among your adversaries, for my angel will go before you". So, verse 25, "And thou shalt serve the Lord thy God, and he" the angel, not God, "the angel shall bless thy bread, and thy water. And I shall remove the sickness from among you." So straighten it out. Don't start with the 23rd verse. Don't start with Deuteronomy 28, read Deuteronomy 27.
— That's right.
— Then you know what happened. God had no intention of cursing anyone. They shouted over the mountains.
— Well, he's trying to teach us something with that. He's trying to give us back the authority of our words as a covenant people. So when I teach at Kenneth Copeland Bible College, this second year we're beginning, we're beginning the deals. And then from the covenants, once we understand the covenants and then we'll deal with Lashon hara, or the evil tongue, and we could talk about confession and so on. It's no use trying to confess and understand the words out of your mouth if you don't understand whose people you are and your covenant is right. That's why a lot of people say, "Well, I've tried it with commitment and this and that, and it just doesn't work for me". Well, you try without understanding.
— That is correct.
— You're just repeating a positive confession.
— Faith has not come.
— That's it.
— And faith comes by hearing, and hearing, and hearing, hearing them taught and preached.
— Power and authority. That is delegated authority. And now I walk in that delegated authority. And that's what he's trying to teach them.
— That is correct. This angel is still alive.
— Yes, he is.
— And his job hasn't changed much. That's his job. And God's name is in him. And there's no way of knowing how tall he is. And a man saw my angel once, and it was in Beaumont, Texas. And I went there to preach over the weekend and stayed for three weeks. And this Baptist was right in the front row, and he's there every day. And suddenly he wasn't there anymore. I wondered about him. But then he came in one morning's service and sat right back the next in the pew right there, right next to the door where he could get off. And he was watching me. Suddenly his jaw dropped and his eyes widened. And then he came over after the service, he said, "Can I speak to you, please?" Well I missed him. And he said, "I was really mad at you". And he told me what it was. Well, he was Southern Baptist, and I said something that wasn't all Baptist. And he said, "I had no intention of ever coming back." He said, "I just said I'm not going back over there. I don't listen to anything like that anymore. This man doesn't know what he's talking about". And, the Lord said, "I want you to go back". And he said, "No, I'm not going back. I'm not going back there again. I'm not going to listen to anything like that." And the Lord said, "Go to another ministry." "All right. But if he says something like that again says something like that, I'm out the door." But he said, "Brother, Copeland," he said, "All of a sudden, he was the tallest man I've ever seen in my life." And he said, "He's dressed all in white and he looked like Mr. Clean. And he said he's stuck on you. And everywhere you went he was he was right there." And he said, "You slowed down a little bit and he would whisper something in your ear and and you're gone." He said, "I'm sorry really sorry". He saw him. Well, there are others. I've gotten rid of him from time to time. But there have been others who have commented. But Jesus said it. Aren't there angels there that in front of my father's face? Well, when you grew up, you didn't lose your angel.
— The Hebrew word is mal'akh, hence the word malachi. That means messenger. That's what it's called there. But now we have given the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. That makes us a little bit different. So what is the difference between power and authority? Authority is the channel through which power works.
— That's right. That's right.
— You cannot have authority without power to support it. Neither can you have power without the channel of authority. It's like the electricity is in the power plant and I need the light to come on here. But these wires are the channel it comes through. So the believer is the conduit for that power. And that is our authority. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 15 and I've written down 19 here. Oh, that's good, right here. "Therefore, I too, after hearing of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all believers, do not cease to give thanks for you, I mention you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory, may you have this spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him". That's how faith comes, right? "The eyes of your mind shall be enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the riches of glory and inheritance of the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power against us that believe, after after after working of his mighty power". So God's power is now being demonstrated by believers.
— Yes, it is.
— According to this verse.
— And further it says, "What he wrote in Christ when he raised him from the dead".
— That's right. That's right.
- Yes. Isaiah...
— And Isaiah 55. One of the crippling things about Bible study is reading a verse or two at a time. You have to die the neighborhood.
— That is correct.
— You don't start at Isaiah 53. You start with Isaiah 51 and 52.
— That is correct.
— Let's go to Isaiah 51. "Listen to me... Well, Gloria says I have an advantage because it says hear-Ken. So I'm listening. Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord Look under the rock from which you were hewn and the hole of the pit in which you were dug Look at Abraham your father, at Sarah who bore you, I called him alone and blessed him and exalted him Lord will come", same Lord here, same Spirit. "The Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her desert places. He will make her desert like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody". Our covenant is the Eden covenant.
— That's it. That's it.
— And I dare to say that. The moment you were born again, you were back in the garden.
— Yes, that was you.
— Because your sins have been blotted out. And our time is up. We will be right back.