Kenneth Copeland - How To Add Years to Your Life
Father, we thank You today. We praise You and worship You and bless You. Manifest Yourself today among Your people. We thank You that You, by Your Spirit, You said it when You were on the earth. You said it's the Father that dwelleth within me. He does the works. Well, the same Father is dwelling within us today and the healing mercies of God are here and we praise You and thank You for that. And we give You all the praise and all the honor, and we ascribe all the honor and the glory to the matchless, wonderful, powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And we praise You and thank You in Jesus' name, amen.
You may be seated. I have some things that the Lord is giving me to say today. First of all you can go ahead and now open your Bibles to the 91st psalm. The meeting had closed, Oral Roberts had laid his hands on a lot of people. And he walked out and when he got outside, there was a little boy waiting for him. And then he said, "Are you Oral Roberts"? He said, "Yes, I am". He said, "I'm supposed to be healed today". And Oral said to him, he said, "Son, I am exhausted and the anointing has left me". But he said, Willie said, "I don't know about all that, but I know I'm supposed to be healed today".
So Oral laid hands on him and he was healed that day. Completely, totally healed and grew up to be a mighty man of God. Thank You, Jesus. You're supposed to be healed today. You're supposed to be healed today. You're supposed to prosper today. You're supposed to be in good health today. Praise God. Now, let me talk to you about this for a moment. Now, the 90th Psalm, Moses was crying out to God in intercession. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you're God. You turned men to destruction and sayest, 'Return, ye children of men.' For a thousand years in your sight is yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night. You carry them away with a flood, and they're as a sleep in the morning. They're like grass which grows up; in the morning, it flourishes and grows up".
And he comes on... He's crying out because of what's happening out here in the wilderness. Now you can go back and check this out in the book of Numbers. I'll just paraphrase it: "I'm through with these people". Now, nobody over 20 is going to get out of here alive. They've been dying off at 70 and even 80, but he was crying out, he was interceding for them. Well, that never has been. And it's been adopted as... And I've heard people say, I heard Brother Hagin say it, "We've only been promised 70 or 80 years". That's not right. Hold your place there. Let's see what is right. Let's go to Genesis chapter six. "It came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them. The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair. Then took them wives of all that they chose. And the Lord said, 'My spirit shall not always strive with man for he also is flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years.'"
Now God said that, and Moses was crying out because of this. Well, now you come right over to the 91st psalm. And listen what Moses did with that. Now, when you know who wrote the psalm before it, then there's no title on the next one, then that person wrote that one. Well, they fit. "He that dwells in the secret place..." Wait, let's come down. "Oh, satisfy us early with thy mercy that we may rejoice and be glad in our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein now thou hast afflicted us and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thou work appear under the servants and your glory under the children. Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish now the work of our hands upon us. Yea, the work of the hands that established this. He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of Almighty Shaddai". Amen.
He cried out and then he fixed it. Now this is called the Soldier Psalm. And I'll talk about that in a moment. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High". I was crying out to God one day and, "Qara'" And I picked up an old Pentecostal hymn. "Send the power just now"! I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't put it that way. "Send the power just now". I was in a particular situation and we needed healing and a lot of things. I heard it on here. He said, "Where am I going to get it"? I said out loud, I said, "Sir"? He said, "Where am I going to get it? I can't look up to somebody else and say, 'Kenneth needs power.'" He said, "I'm in you right now". And he said, "I'm all the power you need". "Yes, sir".
Now this Psalm is written in a very unique way and it doesn't really make a lot of sense until you establish who is speaking. The first record we have of this in World War I, a commander, a field commander, ordered his men... This is where it got its name, The Soldier Psalm, to memorize this psalm. They had no casualties. Now a long time partner of ours, Keith Kerber, pastors in Alaska, and he's Special Forces, army ranger. We were in Alaska, so he asked me when Gloria and I were there and he and Nola, he said, "I'm about to be deployed. Lay hands on me, please".
So I told him about this and he said they called him back because of a particular unit that was taking so many casualties. So I reminded him of that. And I said, "Now instruct every man under your command to memorize this psalm, memorize it. So you walk up and say, 'Verse four. He shall cover you with his feathers.' Immediately, they memorized it". And I said, "When you get back, let me know what happened". I said, "Call me". And then I forgot about it. The phone rang one night about around three o'clock in the morning and Gloria answered it. Then she handed it to me and it was Keith. He said, "I couldn't wait. I needed to call you. I didn't lose anybody. I didn't have any casualties". But he said, "I want to ask you a question, though". He said, "When I left..." New commander, he was replaced. "When I left, the unit began to take casualties once more but not as many as when I was there. Why"?
I said, "Keith, that's simple. The incoming commander didn't demand that. Some of your soldiers kept it up. Some of them didn't and it cost them. It's that simple". Not a casualty, two years in Afghanistan. Give the Lord a praise. "He that dwells, he that lives in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. The shadow of Shaddai". Now look, person number one, "I will say of the Lord he is my refuge and my fortress. My God, in him I will trust". That was my part. And that's the last thing I said. I released my faith. Now Jesus comes on the scene. "Surely he shall deliver you," Kenneth, "from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence". Pestilence, plagues, COVID, pandemics. "He shall cover you," Kenneth, "with his feathers and under his wings shall you trust. His truth shall be your shield and buckler".
Now I'm a soldier, now. "You shall not be afraid for the terror by night nor for the arrow that flies by day". No sir, I will not, "...nor for the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor for the destruction that wastes at noon day". No sir, I won't. Kenneth, "a thousand shall fall at your side and 10,000 at your right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee; only with your eyes shall you behold and see the reward of the wicked". Like a bad movie, only with your eyes. Well, that preached me happy. Glory of God! Now, listen, this bears out the revelation that the Lord gave me this. "Because you, Kenneth, have made the Lord, which is my refuge..." That proves it was Jesus. "Because you, Kenneth, have made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High your habitation, there shall no evil befall you, neither shall any plague come nigh your dwelling". For he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all of your ways.
Now, notice all of this from verse three down to here, angels are involved in this. Angels are keeping you in all of this. It's the angels that are carrying out the commands of the Father. Are you with me now? Do you have joy? Well, let your face know it. "For he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all of your ways. They shall bear thee up. Kenneth, they're going to bear you up in their hands lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the adder and the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet". Now here comes the Father himself. "Because Kenneth and Gloria have set their love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high because he's known my name. He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver and honor him and with long life while I satisfy him and show him my salvation, and that's based on 120 years".
Glory to God, hallelujah. Now you can take that right there and just begin receiving your healing, whatever it is, right now. So we begin with that and you flow down into the 92nd Psalm. "It's a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto your name, O Most High, to show forth thy lovingkindness, the hesed, in the morning and your faithfulness every night". Glory to God. Amen. Thank You, Lord Jesus. So, say this: "Healing belongs to me. And I receive it".
Now let's go over to Mark chapter six. "He went out from there and came into his own country and his disciples following. And when the Sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue. Many hearing him were astonished saying, 'From whence hath this man these things? And what wisdom is this which is given unto him that even such mighty works are wrote by his hands? Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Judah and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us?' And they were offended at him, but Jesus said unto them, 'A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country and among his own kin and his own house.' And he could there do no mighty work, save he laid his hands upon a few sick folk..."
Actually, W.E. Vine says "people with minor ailments". "...and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief and he went around about the villages teaching". Because that's the cure for unbelief. Amen. What is unbelief? Zero faith. It's not little faith. It's just zero. So there's not any of that in here today. No, no. None out there. Now some of you watching this may be new to you, "You mean Jesus could not...?" Didn't say he would, he said he could not. He couldn't do it. "Well, I thought Jesus could do anything". Not without faith. Faith is the great connector. All right, let's again get a definition of faith. And I want to do it from the Classic Amplified translation again. Okay, y'all going to put it up on the screen? There it is. Now faith is... When is faith? Now. Say "now". Now. You can't say now a while ago. Every time you said "now," it just updated.
"Now faith is the assurance, the confirmation, the title deed of the things we hope for, being the proof..." Say, "Being the proof". "Proof of things we do not see, and the conviction of their reality, faith perceiving as a real fact, what is not revealed to the senses". Hallelujah. Faith, the creative force of Almighty God. And it's there the moment you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior that faith was there. You can find it in the book of Ephesians, we're saved by faith through grace. It is the gift of God. "Well, Brother Copeland, is faith the gift, or the grace"? Both of them. We find that over in the book of Romans, the fourth chapter, "Therefore it is of faith so that it might be by grace".
So by faith we receive the grace of God. Now as you deal with this, we realize that anyone that's in Christ is a new creature. A new creation. And you are a unique person. Think about it. In all of the billions and who knows how many people have gone before you and before me, there never has been from Adam until now one just like you. Amen. This is a good time to praise him. Now then, I want to go to Proverbs chapter three. Let me just read this to you in the Amplified, "My son, forget not my law or teaching, let your heart keep my commandments". Listen now. "For length of days and years of life worth living, and tranquility inward and outward continuing through old age till death, these shall they add to you". His teaching, it will add years to a life worth living.