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Watch 2022-2023 online sermons » Kenneth Copeland » Kenneth Copeland - Why Is It Dangerous To Judge People?

Kenneth Copeland - Why Is It Dangerous To Judge People?


Kenneth Copeland - Why Is It Dangerous To Judge People?

Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Let's just praise the Lord for what we've received on this. We've done weeks and weeks studying the Spirit of Power. Thank You, Father. We just praise You. Thank You, Lord Jesus. By Your own Spirit we studied the Word that You wrote in the first place, and we're so appreciative and grateful to You for it. Thank You, Father. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

His desire's for us to walk in that power.

Yes, that's right. Now, yesterday we were talking about judging people. Let's go back here to Luke chapter 6. Oh, Jesus. Lord Jesus. Verse 20, "He lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, 'Blessed be the poor for yours is the kingdom of God.'" It's called the beatitudes, and it's just magnificent words just falling from the lips of the Master. "But I say unto you which hear," you have to hear it. "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you". I've had situations over the years that really had to put this to work, in order to get that person's face out of my mind, and do this. And just do it at night and morning, during the day. Well, Father, I just forgive so and so, and I don't hold anything. And you come on down, verse 35, here it is again, "Love your enemies, do good," and so forth. "And your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye 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". Do you see it? There's an exchange there. "Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you measure withal, it will be measured unto you again". You don't have any business standing on verse 38. That doesn't work until you get all this other done. Now, "Judge not, and you shall not be judged". How easy it is to judge. I learned this from Keith Moore, not the whole thing, but Keith did a whole series on it. Brought it out, how easy it is to be judgmental. And you don't even realize what you're doing. Particularly when somebody comes up and says, "Well, now you know how much I love pastor, but..."

Oh my.

He's about to be judged right there.

Right there. It's a dangerous thing.

And he's the pastor. And if you don't like him that much, go to another church, but don't judge him. You don't know why and when and where the Lord told him to do that that way. You've been a pastor, you know what I'm talking about. I've never pastored, I don't want to. When we first built the church... Oh Lord, I don't wanna go into that. But anyway.

It's something you've got to be called to.

Now, here's what... And let me say this to the radio and television audience. Now, here's something you have to realize. Judge not that you be not judged, this is not necessarily by the Lord.

Exactly.

Let me put it in a simple way. Well, I just really do not like the way he dresses. And I don't like the way his wife dresses. So you mean you're the standard for the church now? Now, here's what people don't realize. You're going to come up against the same things in some form or another. Now that you've set the bar this high, you're going to have to pass it. And since you're the judge, the bar is probably not that high in your own life. That's the reason you... And someone said, "We judge others by what they do and judge ourselves by our good intentions".

That's right.

And that's the truth.

I'm not going to be judged by God in this and go to hell over this.

No.

I'm a believer. He already judged Jesus, or he will. This is prior to the death, burial and resurrection. But I've set myself up on the mercy seat. It's not a judgment seat, it's a mercy seat. And that's where His Spirit resides right now. All of the things that set this up in Luke before. He had eaten at the wrong place with Levi and all the publicans, his disciples walked through the field and grabbed grain with their hands and didn't wash their hands in the ceremonial way. So, this is what precipitated all of this teaching right here. Now, this is impossible to do if you're not born again, Spirit filled. You just can't... You don't have enough time to try to do all this. The rabbis teach this, the evil tongue. Lashon Hara is what it's called. It's saying true things about a person, not saying falsehoods, saying true things about a person that harms their reputation, harms their business, harms their name, harms their family.

Philippians 4 takes care of that. "Whatsoever things are honest, good and pure and good report". That's not good report.

No, it's not. So you can do it this way. And the rabbis teach that we're carriers of his name. Meaning I can't swear by his name to something. I swear to God, if that guy does that, I'm going to knock his head. No, you don't have the right to do that. You can't make God part of your fit of anger. You can't do that. He's not going to sign onto that. You just took his name in vain the minute you did that. It doesn't even have to be verbal. It can be an eye roll, or I don't care what they say about Keith Moore. I know this, I'm standing up for him. Well, see what I just do. I implied that I know something, but I don't care what you say about him. You see what I'm saying? I'm implying that there's some truth to your negative...

All you needed to say is, "God loves Keith Moore and so do I".

I'm using Keith Moore because you brought up Keith Moore.

But you just bring up anybody's name.

Brother Hagin taught us that. I think he'd say something nice about Hitler. And he said, "Well, he was persistent," or something. In other words, he wasn't going to allow himself to be trapped into doing these very things.

Remember this time we were at a gathering, and this Pentecostal preacher came up to James Robison. And he said, "That Kenneth Copeland"., he said. And James just said, "Hold on just a minute. Everybody, this brother has Kenneth Copeland on his mind and he's going to lead us in prayer for Brother Copeland". "Oh Jesus". James is quick. And he stopped it. He didn't let it go one place further. Now, let's go back over where we were in 1 Corinthians 11.

As we turn there, if you look at chapter seven of Luke, Jesus will be tested in the very thing, right here, because this is where the centurion will come to him. This is not a covenant person of Israel.

That's right.

He will be tested in all of this. He has the opportunity to judge this non-Gentile. Why would I heal him?

So Cornelius sends word to him, and he had that opportunity. But now, this is how easy Jesus is. He just said, "I'll come heal him". And they said, "Well, he's a great guy. He built us this synagogue here in Capernaum," and all that. That didn't have anything to do with it, he had a sick servant. That whole thing mattered to him.

But they made a list of things about why he should do this, I don't need to do that. But see how the enemy will do that. He brings a guy who doesn't have a covenant after he just preached this.

Yes. That's the pattern.

That's the pattern.

Jesus said so in the fourth chapter of Mark, the sower sows the Word, Satan always comes immediately to steal it. He's a thief.

He didn't go in there and say, "Well, I'm only here for the lost tribe or the sheep of Israel". No.

No. The Syro-Phoenician woman was exactly the same way.

Exactly the same way.

But she called him Son of David and got his attention.

Absolutely got his attention. But he's doing that, not because... This is Genesis 12:3, he had blessed the people, so he's deserving. That's what they're arguing.

I love it so much.

You had us going to 1 Corinthians.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 11. Verse one.

Yeah, 1 Corinthians.

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. I praise you brethren that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you. I will have you know, the head of every man," and he begins to teach them. And he taught about women, what Brother Hagin called a woman problem. But he comes down here, verse 23, "For I received of the Lord that which I delivered to you". He's given thanks, broke it, eat, take my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. The same manner, he took the cup. When he had supped saying, 'This cup is a New Testament, a new covenant in my blood. This do ye, as often as ye drink it as a remembrance of me.'" Now, I remember things when I take communion and I take communion a lot. And I remember things. I remember miracles. I remember miracles, that little girl strapped down to that old wheelchair and about two or 12 strapped on there and strapped her down and all she could move was her eyes. She was paralyzed and Brother Roberts had just preached, move something, move a finger, get something into motion. She just started rolling her eyes. As she's saying, "Heal me. Heal me. Heal me. Heal me". I can see that when I take communion and she said, "Mama, Mama. Untie me. Untie me". "Oh baby, but..." She said, "Get me loose from here". And they had her old belt thing. They'd cut her loose. That board was on that old wheelchair like this. She just leaped across that and began to run all the way around that tent.

Praise God.

I remember that. I see that in my mind right now. And then, now you come on down, "Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he, that eats and drinks unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body". Now we're back to the Lord's body again.

There it is.

Judging other people. "For this cause many are weakly and sick among you and many are dead. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world". You can judge yourself. Oh, there's no way to count how many times I've done that for thinking and well... Yesterday or the day before I was guilty of it, I had to repent of it. Oh God, forgive me. Please forgive me. I judged him and I don't have any right to do that. That's a good man. And, "I was just laughing around about". But that don't make any difference with he is laughing or cussing, it's judgment. I judged him. And I had no right.

Peter wanted to call fire down one time. Jesus said, you don't know what spirit you're of.

That's the wrong spirit.

That's the wrong spirit. Here it is right here, "For this cause many or weak and sickly among you". This is why people are sick. This didn't mean I used to think this verse meant that you had to be. I had to bare, I have to have every sin forgiven, I've got to repent, I've got to make sure everything... It's not what that's talking about. Judging the Lord's body. You're part of the body. You're part of the body. You're part of the body. If I've been judging, let's go back to pastor. I've been judging pastor.

Or anybody in the church.

Anybody else, then I am... Here's the deal. Pastor George is my pastor. If I judge Pastor George, start talking about Pastor George. I'm not talking about Pastor George. I'm talking about Jesus Christ.

Yes you are. Cause he's the one who called him pastor.

Yes, sir. And he's the head of the church.

Yes, he is.

He's the great shepherd to which Pastor George is an under shepherd.

We came home. This is way back from when John and Kellie were very small and grade school age children, and where we lived, out in South Fort Worth then, when you turn, came off of the freeway and then down there, people would be down there sometimes selling fruit and so forth. And so Gloria stopped and picked up a whole sack of cantaloupes and brought... I like cantaloupe, brought those in there and I could hardly wait. I'd get to them I took two good looking ones off the top of the sack. Every one of them and the rest of that sack were bad. I'm telling you. I told Gloria, I said, "I think I'll go back down there and spank him". ... really good. "No", she said, "You're not either". I said, "Why not"? She says, "'Cause the cantaloupe's cheap". And then she politely remind me it wasn't my business to judge him and he's probably already gone by now anyway, and calmed me down. But I judged that, man. I called him a thief. How do I know that he did that on purpose? I don't. He probably did, but probably is not good enough. Only Jesus knows whether he did that on purpose or not.

So you turn it over to him to judge him righteously.

Let it go. Just let it go. Spend some time thinking about it. Well, now wait a minute. Nah, just wait a minute. No, no wait a minute. No, no, wait a minute. There's a saying in aviation and it applies here. I don't care what kind of an emergency you have, unless it's something on the ground or just immediately after takeoff. Now there memory items that you have to do by memory, you have to memorize, particularly in jets, 'cause the jet moves so fast, but all of a sudden you have an emergency. Hold it, hold it, hold it. Stop and wind you watch. Now wait a minute. This thing's not going to fall out of the air. What do we have here? Dwayne, get the checklist out and let's see what this says and here we have this and this and this. That may be a false alarm, but we don't know. Wind your watch. Don't judge people. Stop and think about it and meditate on 'em and love 'em first. Love them first.

Well, there's a little French cafe place that Michelle likes to go to. And I go along with her and I've learned to like it, but we'll go in there and I went in there one day, I don't know why but, I don't know why I did this. I went in there and there's this little girl waiting on us or taking our order there. And I said, "You guys get this wrong every time. What I'm about to order, you get it wrong every time and I don't want it like this". And I looked at Michelle and go, "They never get it right". And when we left there, that area and went to our table, she goes, "You proud of that"? "Well, proud of what"? I said, "Well, I wanted to let her know". And I heard in my spirit and you should have said, "And that's the way I like it". Because that's what you're confessing. And I found out she was new. She's never worked there before. She's never done it wrong. And the man of God comes in there and unloads on her that, "You guys never get it right". And I had to repent.

Yeah, you did.

I had to straighten that out and I had to leave the biggest tip I'd ever left, not just for her, but for the girl behind the counter. And I said, "Lord, forgive me. I'm so sorry". She did not deserve that because I say they get it wrong every time.

Well, I've told you about this before. And I think I've mentioned it here in class, not too long ago, Jerry and Carolyn Savelle, Vikki and Dennis Burke, Gloria and I and Happy and Jeanne Caldwell, we were on a motorcycle trip and we didn't have anybody to preach to, we just preached to ourselves and this particular time we were up in Colorado. And there was a lot of us and we still had on our motorcycle stuff, which, that didn't go all that well for some people. So they had to make larger tables and this waitress, she came out there and she set the water down. Set the stuff down and the water down and... no, she didn't take the order yet. And she took everybody's order. And I don't know who said, but, "Could we have some water"? And slammed that down on the table. So it rose up within me and it rose up within and Jesse and Vikki and Dennis, all at the same time. And so I said, "Hey, there's something wrong, something going on with her. Let's pray for her". So we just called hands and prayed. She came back over there and so she was... I pulled the chair out. I said, "Sit down here, baby. We're going to pray for you". And so we said, "Now something's wrong and we're Christian people". And so we're standing there and around that chair and I just put my hands on the back of her head and I began to pray and she broke down. She began to weep and cry and then she says, "Here's how it happened, do you have any idea? Oh, my sister did this, nothing at the wedding and I just want..." We said, "Hey, everything's okay. Everything's all right". "Well, I just want..." "No". I said, "Just be quiet. Everything is okay, you understand? The Lord is in charge now". Led her in prayer. All of a sudden... See, we had no idea what was behind the scene. Other people just getting mad, "Well, she's not getting any tip out of me, that..."

See, I took myself out of being able to minister to that girl that day and that may have been why I was there.

It could have been.

So basically what happens is you do this, Brother Copeland, you say, "Jesus, I got this. Could you move over please, from your position, because I'm going to be the judge".

When we got through, I mean, she brought everything out there. Followed us all the way to the door and outside.

Waving. Transformed life.

Yes, it transformed her life.

It'd be like this, when we try to move people that God's placed in position, pastors, whatever they are, it'd be like me coming, put yourself in with this, with Oral Roberts. It's be like me coming up to you, while you're preaching and say, "Excuse me, let me take this for a second and I want to finish this, because you're kind of going the wrong direction with it".

It's the same thing.

It's the same thing. You'd never thought to do that.

That's the way God sees it.

You'd have never thought to do that with Oral Roberts. I would never do that with you, but that's the way he sees it.

Or sit there while he's preaching and text to somebody else how much this man is missing God. We need to repent today. You sensing this today? Judge not lest you be judged...

Judge not lest you be not judged.

This is how the power works, Brother Copeland. It's a hindrance to the power.

Yes it is.

And if you want the power full force in your life, you can't let these little things like this hinder... It's not a little thing, but you can't let these things hinder the flow of the power. Greg, Gloria, I was a student there at Oral Roberts' university and she stayed at home with the children, but she was listening to Brother Hagin's tapes all day and making notes. I came home one day and she said, "Kenneth, listen to what the Lord said to me in my spirit. In consistency lies the power. Being constantly the same way, spiritually, all the time, walking in love". And we're out of time again today. So give the Lord a praise. Hallelujah. We'll be back in just a moment.
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