Kenneth Copeland - God's WORD Is Life to All Who Find It
We will establish this morning the scriptural foundation for what we do. So, open your Bibles, first of all, to the 14th chapter of John. Now understand this. Beginning with the 12th chapter. You come to the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th chapters of the Book of John. That is the last Passover meal. And it's good to go through there and study verse by verse and put yourself there. And John is right there in the bosom of Jesus, and so, I just squeeze in there right by John. But I want to read you here, the 21st verse. "He that has my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him". Glory to God.
Another basis for it, if you will... Well, hang on a minute. Let me get situated, get my weapons. Thank You, Jesus. So let's look, as a basis here, we'll look first at Proverbs 4. Now, remember this is a book of covenants and when He says He will, then He will. In fact just hold up your Bible, and just with much gusto, "This is my Bible. This is my Lord speaking to me. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. It says I am healed by His stripes. So I am. I believe it. I have it. It's mine. I'm a believer, not a doubter. Amen. So be it". Now, glorify God. Hallelujah to His name. Thank You, Lord Jesus.
Now, Proverbs 4, please. And we'll look, the third and the fourth chapter of Proverbs are especially powerful. And the fifth verse of the third chapter, praise God. "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Lean not to thine own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path". It said, "He will". He will. So, I'm directed. Now, all I need to do is listen. Amen. Now, come over here to fourth chapter, in the 10th verse. "Hear, O my son," that's daughters too, "receive my sayings, and the years of thy life shall be many". Now, what have we learned? That's based on Genesis 6:3. Your years of your life being many, he's referring to 120 years. And Moses is the example. So, here's the way the Jews greet one another: "Shalom. May you live to be 120 like Moses".
We should be doing that, instead of, "Howdy". That's really more powerful than, "Well, just bless you, man. It's sure good to see you". No, shalom. Peace. Nothing missing, nothing broken. Shalom is translated, "Prosperity," it's translated as, "Well being". It's a powerful word in the Hebrew language. May you live to be 120 like Moses. I love it. Glory to God. Now, come on over here to the 20th verse. "My son, attend to my words". Now, what does that mean? Well, attend to it. I have business I need to attend to, and this business is the business. This book is the business. That needs to be first. Now, what happens when you do that? Well, the second step is right there. "Attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings". Put His Word first, but I'm inclined to believe this instead of what someone else said about it.
I heard this just several months ago, a young man, and he's young. And he said this to a very, very close friend of mine, and he was working for him. And he said, "I'm going to go to work for someone else". And he said, "Why"? He said, "Well, I just can't support the Word of Faith anymore". "Really"? Well, then, when he told me that, I said, "Well, since I've been around this long, I pretty well know what he's about to say, but why"? I said, "Does he think that I'm wrong"? He said, "Yes". "Does he think Brother Hagin's wrong"? "Yes". "Does he think Jesus is wrong"? He said, "Well, I guess he does". See, he wasn't inclined to believe that. So you know what the bottom line of it was? "Well, I just don't believe it amounts to that much about what you say. You just say whatever you need to or what... You know? After all, this is the way it is. That's the way it is".
Well that's what the Lord told Brother Hagin. My people are saying what they have. And then, Charles Capps preached on that powerfully. Calling things that be not as though they were is what God does. So he said, "Don't call the dog when you want the cat". He said, "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty". And the cat's standing out there, everybody said, "What's the matter, you dummy? The cat's here". He said, "Yeah, but I call it like it is". Well the dog's not coming, and you saying, "Kitty, kitty, kitty," when the cat's already there. Now, let me touch on calling thing... God said to Abram, "I have made you the father of many nations. I did that. So that's what you are". He put Jesus in a place to bear our sicknesses, carry our diseases, and by His stripes, we are healed, and made us well.
Now, let me demonstrate what I'm talking about. Napoleon always wrote... He was a small man in stature, but he rode a powerful stallion horse. He was reviewing the troops, and that horse bolted, and this young man jumped out of the ranks and grabbed that horse. And he said, "Thank you, Captain". He said, "Sir, I'm but a private". "No, sir. Captain, you will ride at my side". Where did that come from? He had the authority to make him a captain, and he did it. World War II. Man by the name of Robert Scott. He wrote the book God is My Co-Pilot. For those you that like that kind of thing. Anyway. And then, later, they made a movie of it. Well, he was an outstanding pilot, and he was an outstanding leader. And the war broke out and they needed commanders. And he was a Major in the Army Air Forces.
Major, Lieutenant Colonel, then full Colonel. He was a Major. And the General said, "Scotty, I need you to be a full Colonel". He said, "I need you to have the rank because I'm going to put you over this unit, and you need to be a Colonel. So, now, you are a Colonel". He made him a Colonel. God made Abram the father of many nations, and he became Abraham. He changed his name and He put his name in covenant, right in the center. So, this book that we have, we're reading blood backed words here, where all of this in the first covenant is a picture of Jesus. All of it. The first part of this book, there's 400 years here, and this part of it here is all fulfilled in these 27 books here. And this is where we are. This is the reason this part of my Bible has so much wear, and it's the sweet blood of Jesus that brought every bit of it to us. And every word that I speak this morning coming out of this book are blood backed. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord Jesus.
So, now, let's continue. "Attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings". Now, look. "Let them not depart from your eyes". Keep the book in front of you. See yourself with it rather than without it. See yourself healed. See yourself well. See yourself very, very prosperous. See yourself out of debt. See yourself that way. Meditate on that. Call yourself that. Amen. I call myself that. Hallelujah. The 127th Psalm. "It is vain to rise up early and sit up late, feeding on the bread of sorrows and toilings, for He gives his beloved sleep". So sleep is a gift. And, a long time ago, because all my life I had sleep problems. And I mean, even just as a young boy, I had sleep problems. But then I found out that I could call myself asleep. So, "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am sound asleep. Thank You, Lord, that I am fast asleep," before you go to bed. "I am asleep". It's a gift.
Now I have sleep scriptures that I wrote them down and just have them Scotch-taped on my nightstand right there next to my bed. You missed a chance to say, "That happens to me all the time". Well, we're not done here yet. Now this is the foundation upon which this service is built today. "For they are life". Say, "They are life". Say, "They are my life". They are life unto those that find them. How do you find them? You meditate on them. You think about them. And I use aviation a lot because it's such a big part of my life, and it started as a very, very young boy. But then, later, when I got in the ministry, the Lord dealt with me on it, and he said, "Now, this used to be your God". And I went before Him, and I said, "I'll never fly again, if that's what it takes, because I put you first".
And it was several days, and I figured, "Well, that's just over. That's just out of my life because this is more important. Far more important. I love it. It's just part of my being to fly an airplane, but listen, no". And I went for a while there. And I wasn't expecting to hear this, but suddenly, in prayer one day, He said, "All right. I'm going to give it back to you, but you put me first". And He said, "When you fly, you believe me, and you're working for me now, and you're flying for me now". And He said, "You need to change your attitude about some things". And He said, "I don't care if you're just repositioning the airplane from one airport to the other. You plan the flight. Don't just kick the tires and light the fires. You plan it". Like somebody said, "Most people have wrecks within 25 miles of their home". Well, that doesn't mean move. No, that's not what they're saying. What they're saying is here, "You be about your wits".
You get close to home, it gets very familiar. Amen. And I don't care if you're just going around the block, fasten the seatbelt. The small details. This is what he's talking about here. You find it. You find it and you do it. And once you have found something, once you have found it, keep it. Don't let it slip. Now, here you go back over to the Book of Hebrews. These precious promises. Don't let them slip. How do you let them slip? By not reading them. Now, it's amazing how you can read something many, many, many, many times, and quote it, and quote it, and quote it, and quote it, and then you go back and get the actual material and find out how much of it you changed. I've done it with Psalms. Psalms that I have sung, and performed, and I've recorded them. And then go back and listen to the record, "I didn't realize I changed that," but over a period of time, I did. It just happened. Well, don't let it just happen to these healing scriptures. Amen.
Dodie Osteen, Joel Osteen's mother, she and John called Gloria and me. They informed us and she'd been diagnosed with cancer of the liver. And they said, "It's fatal. It's just gone so far, that it's just fatal". So we prayed and agreed. Well, once they gave her that diagnosis, she never did go back to the hospital, but she got her healing scriptures. And that's what most of these tabs are in my Bible, and she published all of those healing scriptures. We'll use a number of them today. And she would get up in the morning, and she'd read them. Not memorize them, read them. She would put it in her eyes. "Don't let them depart from your eyes".
And so, she read them, and she said she would get so weak during the day, but she refused to go to bed. And she would read those scriptures three times a day. And she would read them, and she would read them, and she would read them, and she would read them, and she would read them. And she is still alive and well today, even though John is already gone to heaven. Dodie is still going strong. And she still tells Joel what to do. Amen. They're such sweet people. Glory to God. And Gloria and I were privileged to be there at her 75th birthday. And, I mean, just vibrant, just full of the Spirit of God, sits right down there in the front and just looks at Joel.
That's the way she did John. She'd say, "No, no". Lovely, lovely sweet people. "They are life to those that find them". Now, here's where I wanted to get. And health, I have a little number three out beside this in my King James reference Bible, and it says, "Medicine. Medicine to all their flesh. Keep your heart will all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from you a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from you". You're going to have to put these promises in your mouth and keep them there. Amen. Spend time in it so that it becomes medicine to your flesh.