Kenneth Copeland - The Holy Spirit Gives You Power To Live Today
— Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland, and of course, this is the Believer's Voice Of Victory broadcast. Now, at the end of yesterday's broadcast, I said, I was going to tell you something today. This came as a real revelation to me. Now, we're talking about fear and so forth, that money really is worthless until it's turned into goods and services. It's good for savings, yes. Never was meant to be hoarded because then you apply fear to it and you want to keep it and hang onto it, and just, I don't want to, I don't care. I don't care what the rest of them... No, no, this is mine. That is demonic because of fear, and I've heard of people and have seen and read stories of people that I call poor people with a whole lot of money and then, they don't know what to do with it. Then they begin trying to govern other people in the way they think and get pushy about things and maybe invented something wonderful, that's a service to people. This thing is a service to people, but it's a good thing. It serves me. I enjoy it, but the people that make the money out of it, it's a different thing. What they do with that money makes all the difference in the world, how they use it, for whom, and so forth. This came to me as a great revelation. Now, here in the Book of Revelation, where we were yesterday, right there in that 12th chapter. Now, we read that up here, verse nine, the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil in Satan, which deceives the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. Now, that's a major revelation there and you go back to the Book of Isaiah and so forth. This answers a lot of questions. I heard a loud voice, and we read that saying in heaven, "Now, has come salvation and strength, the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ, the Spirit of power, for the accuser of the brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God, day and night. Then they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they love not their lives unto death. Therefore, rejoice in you heavens, and you that dwell in them. Woe to the inhibitors of the earth and of the sea for the devil has come down under you having great wrath, because he knows that he has but a short time, and it gets shorter every day". Don't ever forget that, class, and radio and television class, don't ever forget that. It gets shorter every day, and he comes around and says, "Well, wow, you're just going to die. You just don't have any future". Well, let's say, "Devil, wait a minute. Wait a minute, old partner. What about your future? Let me read you something here and read him the Book of Revelation". He'll gone.
— Yeah, you won't even get finished with him.
— No, no. He can't stand to hear this because he believes he's going to win this. That is the answer to the question, how dumb can you get? He's not dumb. He's deceived. He deceived himself. And you come on down, and it talks about, and the woman... You got two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly. We win this thing. We win it. And there's times for chapter 14, I looked and low, a lamb stood on Mount Sinai, and with him 144,000 having his father's name written in their foreheads. Now you know, the antichrist wants to stick his number on their forehead. Now you know, the answer to that.
— Now, everything he does is counterfeit.
— Yes, it is.
— You look right here. He knows his time is short, verse 12, verse 13, and when the dragon saw that he was cast into the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man. He has always had a war on women since the earliest days.
— Yes, he has. In the days of Noah, the seed had corrupted itself.
— He hates them.
— He hates the seed. He hates any kind of seed. He immediately tries to come steal seed when it's sown in a church service. The Word, he hates...
— Greg, look how people are treated where there's no Christianity. They're treated like cattle. Just there to please some mean man, get treated like dogs, and you've met Rabbi Lambkin. What a great guy. He made this statement. He said, "Of course, I'm Jewish," but he said, "You better believe I'm thrilled to live in a Christian nation". He said, "In a Christian nation, women get treated properly".
— We're Judeo-Christian. Christian came out of the principles of this First Testament.
— What did the book say? Treat your wife as the weaker vessel. Didn't say a thing in the world about her being weaker. It said treat her, she's a treasure. Treat her as the weaker vessel. Treat her as a fine piece of crystal that you don't want to hurt her. You put her up there on that pedestal until I learned better. I had problem with not worshiping Gloria because she pulled me out of such a bitter place, and well, you know like they say, you just worship the ground she walks on. Well, I reverence the ground she walks on because she's so precious to me, but this book puts women in an extremely special place, and after all Jesus had to have a mother. Couldn't have happened.
— We were talking about what did Jesus look like? And I said to you yesterday, when we were in the back, "He looked like his mom".
— Yeah, he did. I made to mention to Greg that most people, I realized this. Well, and I too, until the Lord corrected me, and the Lord said, and then I had noticed that, that you say, "Well, in this vision, I saw Jesus," 99% of the people say, "What did he look like"? No. What did he say? And then Greg said, "He looks like his mother". Well, of course he does.
— Well, he has to. He has to look like his mother.
— He had to look like his mom.
— That's where the human DNA came from. He would look like his mom. As we talk about these things, notice all the attack on women that comes from the enemy. I don't want to side with him in any way. I have to reverence that this is... My wife has another man in her life. His name's Jesus.
— Yes.
— I'm okay with that.
— Yes.
— That's the way I treat this. Let me ask you this, is Satan any less... We're talking about Satan here. Is he any less powerful today than he was in Peter's time? Well, he is in the fact that he's been stripped, but he was stripped in Peter's time, too. The power that God gave believers in the early church is the same power we need today...
— Yes, it is.
— ...to deal with him because he's still in the earth and he's still deceiving people that don't have their spirits recreated, and we live in this earth and we have to deal with those people. We have to work with those people. So the same power that was available to Peter is available to us. This is why Jesus said, "Don't leave Jerusalem until you have the power I had". The first act in the life of a believer is to give you eternal life. You receive Jesus as your Lord and savior. That transformation takes place in your spirit, your physical body that you live in. We were born again. The Spirit came into our human spirit, so he's the Spirit within, but then, in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, he became the Spirit on. We always have the Spirit in us, but we have to learn how to cooperate with the Spirit that came upon us. Cloven tongues, the fire came, descended upon them, like it did with Jesus... At the Jordan River, when it was a dove. The glory of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit is what we're learning to cooperate with that power that came upon me. First Corinthians 6:19, here's a key to it. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit...
— Yes, yes, yes.
— ...who's in you, whom you have from God and you're not your own. This is why you have to keep your body in line. Because I am the host of that power in the earth. This is why I've got to keep my sugar levels down. That's why I got to get my heart cholesterol right.
— Take care of it.
— Take care of it. Precious.
— My mother said, she's had this terrible thing with her body, and because of when she's 16 years old and her appendix ruptured on a basketball court in Union, Texas. Union, Texas is about as big as this room, so they rushed her to the hospital in Lubbock. I believe it was in Lubbock. Anyway. They didn't even bother to... They saw it was ruptured. They didn't bother to sew her up, but then my grandfather threatened him, so he sewed her up. She threatened... Long story short, she said this to me, and she just started praying night and day to get everybody saved. They said she's going to die every 10 years. They'd been married nine years when I was born and that's the reason I was an only child. Anyway... Here's what she said. "Kenneth, had I known that I was going to live this long, I would've taken better care of myself," but she had that threat over her every 10 years. She didn't rest. She didn't take care of herself. She had prayed nearly all night long because she had a short time, and when she hit seventies, she called me hollering on the phone. I made it, bless God, I made it. I said, what mother? Three score in 10, but then she started going downhill. She could have said, "I'll make four score, too. That's just another 10 years". She didn't make another 10 years. The important thing here is take care of it.
— Right. When Lazarus was raised from the dead, he was alive. His Spirit was quicken, his body was quicken, but he still had to be loosed.
— Yes, you did.
— From grave clothes.
— Yes, you did.
— Loose him and let him go. The Holy Spirit is in us. They gave us life.
— Now Greg, back there then, did they mummify the dead? They wrapped linen around each part of the body.
— Right. He would've been wrapped up.
— And poured a...
— He'd of had spices.
— ...a fluid on him that hardened him.
— Yeah. In many cases. They would've come back for his bones a few years later and buried the bones. His body would've been wrapped.
— When they came in there and saw Jesus was gone and just the napkin laid there...
— That's what they came to do.
— So, it wasn't just a wild of stuff. There was a body looking shape lying there in that tomb where they had wrapped him, wrapped up his entire body. It wasn't just a cloth laid over him. His whole body was wrapped, and there it was with nobody in it. Its shape never changed, just like the wall didn't change when he walked through it. His spiritual body moved out of that. That thing still had its same shape.
— Wow.
— Wow. Now, that'll straighten your day up.
— That will definitely straighten your day up.
— To walk in there and see his shape lying there with the face part over there by the side, then face napkin here by the side.
— I'm so convinced because the Spirit's in him. Good, Holy Ghost people, Spirit of God's in them, but they're so bound, wrapped, their body needs to be loosed.
— Yes, it does.
— The Holy Spirit in us gives us life. The Holy Spirit on us gives us power to live a Christian life. We have to allow that power to affect this physical man. To affect my mind, and you do that by getting back in this manual we were talking about...
— Yes, yes.
— ...and renewing your mind to be like your spirit.
— Well, the Spirit of God had us talk about yesterday, in the Book of James. He that waivers, let him ask in faith, for the wisdom of God, let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that waivers is like the wind blowing on water. He is a double minded man.
— Right. God had revealed things to Peter. Jesus even said, "The Father revealed that to you". He had heard the Father's voice before when the Father corrected him on the mountain of transfiguration. He denies Jesus. He's in the upper room. On the day of Pentecost, there's 120 people. Now, Jesus told that to over 500. I don't know what happened to the rest of them, but we ended up with 120 of them, and they're praying in harmony. They're praying in the Spirit, and the infilling became a reality, the power came back into the earth. That's that rushing mighty wind. That power came back in here and it became available to everybody in the church, not just one person. A few days later, Peter will grab the hand of a paralyzed man.
— Yes.
— At the gate, Beautiful, and said, "Such as I have, here's what I have. I'll give it to you". And what'd he do? He gave him the power.
— Let's look at that next chapter three. There's something I want to... Now, I want you to notice something here. The dynamic duo, Peter and John. It was that way all the way through Peter, John, and James.
— That's right.
— Now, John and James were brothers, but now here's Peter and John, went up together. This is important. They went together. They went to temple together. Once Jesus was gone, one of them didn't go up, do his thing, the other go. No, Jesus sent them out two by two.
— That's right.
— Why? For agreement power.
— Oh, that's good.
— He taught the power of agreement and both of them were in the room when he taught it. They went together under the temple about the hour prior, three o'clock in the afternoon, a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful to ask alms of them that entered into the temple. Now, how many times... Go back here, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and find out how many times they went into the temple. With Jesus, Judas carried the bag, all of them went into the temple. All of them went into the temple.
— Judas would've given the offering for the temple.
— Yeah. There appeared under them, excuse me. And fastening his eyes upon him, John said, "Look upon us". He gave heed under them expecting to receive something of him. Now hey, they had walked right past that gate. Why didn't Jesus raise him up? That's none of our business. That wasn't the plan. Don't you know that when they would come through there, Jesus just turned to look at Judas and he got something every time Jesus walked through that gate. Every time. So he said, "Here are my boys. I'm going to hit it big today".
— Let's demonstrate some power.
— Yes, and he said, expecting something to receive something from him because they had before. And they were there in agreement power, and Peter said, "Silver and gold, have I none". We can go back and we know what happened to his money and so forth, and there is a play on words there that simply mean, I don't have any on me. But such as I have, give I thee, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk, and he took him by the right hand and lifted him up and immediately, his feet and ankle bones received strength. Who did that? The Spirit of power.
— Yeah, absolutely right. Absolutely right. And it will grow so much in them. Flip over, if you will and look at Acts chapter five.
— Oh yeah.
— And verse 14, and believers were the more added to the Lord multitudes, both of men and women. Verse 15, in so much that they brought forth the sick into the streets, laid them on beds and couches that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. People got healed just by the man's shadow. People realized these men have such power, not in themselves.
— And so he didn't have to touch them.
— Let the Spirit...
— Just shadow distance.
— That's right.
— In my opinion, there's a lot of things you could get out of that, but just two or three feet away, as they walked by. Oh, but they were expecting to receive it.
— Well, no. They carried people out there for that purpose.
— Yes, they did it.
— And if you'll expect to receive it... When you're out ministering, if you'll expect to receive it, that can happen. I've seen it happen. You saw it with Brother Hagin's ministry. I remember one time it was in St. Louis, he just got near you. You shot up out of that chair.
— That was in Tulsa.
— Was it Tulsa?
— It was in Tulsa. It was for camp meeting.
— That's right.
— We came in there and he walked over there and he pointed at me and he said, "Joy," and the Tulsa World snapped a picture of me.
— That's right.
— I took off, and when they took the picture, both of my feet were off of the ground. I took off in a run. It hit me. The power of God hit me and yanked me up out of that seat. I just took off. I no more went in there to do that, that day.
— No plan to do that.
— I didn't plan to do that. I was tired. I went in there to get some joy, to get some strength for it, to leave them, and I got a bolt of it. He just said, "Joy. Wow". It was the power of God in me.
— So Jesus had the Holy Spirit within him. Because there was no sin in his spirit man. He couldn't begin to minister by the power until it came on him.
— And we're out of time.
— Very good.
— We'll be back in just a moment.