Kenneth Copeland - We are Joint Heirs With Christ
Hello, I'm Kenneth Copeland. Father, thank You. We are so appreciate of You. Your names, the power released in the Holy Spirit released by faith in Your name, and we praise You and honor You and worship You today and we give all of the praise. We account all the praise to that name which is above every name that's named, the sweet name of Jesus, our Lord and our savior. Thank You, Lord. Glory to God. God and his names are one. Now, we were talking yesterday and pointed out the fact of the extremely important things that Jesus said in what I call the Passover meal that changed heaven and earth because He set up, they didn't know it, but He was setting up for 50 days later when the Holy Spirit would return to this earth in his fullness and the sound of a rushing mighty wind, didn't say it was a rushing mighty wind, on the day of Pentecost which just simply means 50 days. The angels, when Adam sinned and then died in his spirit, what does that mean? Well it just means it was a separation from God, but when he did, he obeyed the devil.
So the devil became what the Spirit of God said through the apostle Paul, the god of this world, little G. Well the angels, you remember Jacob's ladder? The angels going to and fro? That didn't happen after Jesus was raised from the dead and we see that in the account of his birth when the angels came and became to shout, "A savior is born". But then on the day of Pentecost, the sacrifice had been made that literally put us back in the Garden of Eden by being born from above with his name giving us authority. Well I'm convinced that that was the noise that they heard. Listen. There are trillions of angels. Not all of them belong on the earth, but there's a lot of them that do and in more than one place, innumerable number of angels. All of those came back into this atmosphere at one time. They heard it. And flames of fire sat on them. It wasn't a little, no, no. They could see it.
All right. Let's go back now. There's some very vital information in this 16th chapter of John that Jesus brought out. Now, he started out, "These things have I spoken unto you that you should not be offended". Don't let this stuff bother you. "They'll put you out of the synagogues. Yea, the time cometh that whosoever kills you will think they do God a service". Well what about Saul of Tarsus? He fit that description. He became Paul the apostle. So his name was changed. "These things have I told you that the time shall come, you may remember that I told you of them and these things I said not unto you at the beginning because I was with you". I didn't tell you this. You didn't need it then. I'm leaving here.
Now, Verse 7, Verse 7, Verse 8, and Verse 9. There should be little plaques made of this so that every pastor should see this and every teacher should see this. You know the saying, "You go to hell for lying the same as you will as for stealing"? That's not the reason you go to hell. Jesus will tell you right here. Listen to this. Verse 8, "When he is", no, seven, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I'll send him". It's coming up 50 days from now. "When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment", look at this, "of sin because they believe not on me". That's what'll send you to hell. "They believe not on me". Well now, that brings up something else. We have a job to do. And that's outlined in the 10th chapter of Romans. How can they believe if they haven't heard? They can't. How can they preach lest they be sent? They can't.
So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing a preacher that preaches the Word of Faith and believes it. Oh, but listen to this. "Of righteousness because I go to my Father and you see me no more. Of judgment because the prince of this world is judged". Glory to God. He's been judged and He's about to get hammered. What did it say over there in the Book of Acts? There's another scripture. I'll show it to you later. "How be it when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. He will show you things to come. He will glorify me. For he shall receive of mine and show it unto you". Now, listen, class. "All things that the Father hath are mine. Therefore said I, he shall take of mine and show it unto you".
We are joint heirs with Christ. Are we not? That's what the Bible says and teaches. We are joint, not sub-heirs, joint heirs with him. The Father, the Father about whom He speaks, there's not but one. There's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And one devil and bunch of little devils, little low-level devils, all subject to us through his name. I mean I underlined this in red. "All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore said I, he shall take of mine and show it unto you". We have access to all things that the Father has because they belong to Jesus. And He's our Lord and savior. We are joint heirs with him.
Now, that doesn't mean much if you don't understand what that means in Hebrew. Jesus, the firstborn son of Mary, the firstborn son in a Jewish family is the primary heir. First, number one. The firstborn animal is dedicated to God. The first fruits off your tree, first, belong to God. That's where tithing is based. That first 10% belongs to him. I learned that from my dad early on and I spent a lot of time studying it. In the Garden of Eden, fruit off his tree and then immediately it begins to show up in Cain and Abel. Amen. Anyway, I wanted to point that out. "All things the Father has are mine". So all things the Father has is ours. I don't care whether it's healing, prosperity, whatever it is. It's ours. It belongs to us. But it has to be received by faith. So where does that take us from there? Information that we need. Well all of these things are in his name and in his Spirit who dwells in us now. Amen.
So understanding that, what am I going to do about this? Lord. I just don't know. No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't start there. I need your wisdom and knowledge. When I first began to learn this, I knew the answer to it already, but I checked it out to make sure. Most college graduates are failures for different reasons. The problem is not in the information. The problem is in the wisdom. What did God say to Joshua? "Meditate in my Word day and night and you will observe how to do what's written therein. You'll see it". So the answer, let's go to the Book of James, Chapter 1. "James, a servant", actually, the Greek word is slave, "A servant of God and", now, notice he makes a distinction here, "A servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into different temptations".
Actually there, it's temptations, tests, and trials. It's good to make yourself a note in your Bible of that. Divers is just old English for different. Different temptations, tests, and trials, they'll come in different forms, maybe through different people. We can go back to the fourth chapter of Mark, the sower sows the Word and find all of the different soils that the heart is compared to. "Knowing this", oh, you're going to have to know something. Come on. Something you're going to have to know. Well it's right here. "Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience".
Well that means I just have to put up with it. No, no, no, no, no. It's not that kind of patience. It's actually endurance. That's part of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 and you'll find in the Book of Galatians, faith works by love. This is building up, isn't it? "But", okay. This is also what you have to know. "Let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and in entire wanting nothing". Perfect. No, complete. Complete. It's all fixed. Knowing this, yeah, okay.
When I was a student at Oral Roberts University, I mean you know the story. I said Gloria, we had a lot of debt and I was really frightened of it. I didn't know much. I didn't know anything. I said, "If we go to that school with these two little children, we'll starve out". She said, "Kenneth, we're starving now. We might as well starve in the will of God as out". Okay. I didn't have any wisdom. I didn't understand. Here it is. "If any of you", well that means any of you. You means you. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth or doesn't find fault. He upbraideth not and it shall be given him, but let him ask in faith".
Well here we are again. Faith is the glue. It's the catalyst. This is a faith book because we've already found, excuse me, we've already found out Peter talked about faith in his name. "Let him ask in faith". Well okay. "Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and the tossed. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord without faith. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways". What is that? A man of two minds. Peter did this. He said in that storm, "Lord, Master, you don't care that we perish"? He called him Lord and then accused him of not caring. Man of two minds, he's wavering. He wavering.
Well I'll tell you one thing. I resisted the devil and he didn't flee from me. Talked about that yesterday. Really? No, he didn't. How do you know? Well look. Oh, what did we learn? I'm not moved by what I see. I'm not moved by what I feel. I'm healed. You leave. This is a real problem in the lives of Christian people. This is a good time to bring this up. Brother Hagin did this and I learned it from him. So let's turn back now to Mark 11, the classic teaching of faith from Jesus himself.
Now, Kenneth E. Hagin was born so premature, they induced labor to save his mother's life. He was born so premature that His whole chest cavity was so deformed that his doctor told him, he said, "Son, we would have to replace", he asked him, he said, "Why is it if I drink something hot or cold, it goes way over here before it gets to my stomach"? he said, "You're born so premature that we'd have to give you a new heart, new lung, re-plumb you". Well he just stayed with the scripture. He just stayed with it and he said, "Somehow, it's here in these verses. If I get ahold of these, I'll come up off this bed of affliction". So he was over at his church one day in the sanctuary and he read the Book of Mark because that's where he got it, and he just laid back there and the Word of Lord came to him and said, "Did you ever notice that in that 23rd verse, I used the word say three different times and the word believe only once"? He said, "My people are quick on believing, but they're having trouble with the saying part".
What difference does it make what I say? Because this is the way you engage fear the same as the way you engage faith. You engage hate, fear. As we've studied before, words are spiritual containers. So let's go back here. "Have faith in God. Have faith in God". The cross-reference says, "Have the faith of God". Now, He cursed a fig tree. The fruit in the garden, it doesn't say anything in there about an apple. Where that apple came from I don't... came out of men's minds the same as artists that paint Adam and Eve with belly buttons. I've seen it. That final supper with a great big table, some artist made that up. It was in the middle of the night and if there was any table there, it was so low they were sitting on the floor.
Anyway, the important thing here, now, listen at this, "Have faith in God. For verily, I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe", now, there's, "Whosoever shall say, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith". Three to one. So if Jesus said that, it's written in red. You understand? "Therefore I say". He put it right into motion right then. He said, "I say unto you what things so ever you desire when you pray or when you say, believe you receive and you shall have". And we're out of time. So we'll take it up here tomorrow. In the meantime, let's give the Lord a great praise right now and we'll back back in just a moment. We're going to say it.