Kenneth Copeland - Having a Heart of Thanksgiving
— Oh, happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Glory to God and all of you that are seeing this broadcast around the world, join us today in the United States for a day of thanksgiving to God. And we thank You, Father, and we praise You for the abundance and our partners all over the world. Father, I'm asking You to give them a magnificent day of Thanksgiving today. And show Yourself as abundant among them. And we thank You and we praise You. And we honor You and of course, we honor You every day we give thanks to You every day. I give thanks to You ever every day just for I'm still breathing. Glory to God. And like the Psalm says, "You put breath in our lungs". And we thank You. And we praise You, Lord Jesus not only for who You are, but what You are and what You have done for us and for this nation. We thank You and praise You in Jesus' name, my Father. Amen.
— Amen.
— And information that we just received as all of you here know that here again, our first president, George Washington, he declared it before that first Congress. There's going to be a day of thanksgiving.
— November the 26th, 1789.
— November the 26th, 1789. That's a bunch of days ago, but a Thanksgiving in this nation. And then in October, it was declared a national holiday. And October of 1941.
— October the sixth.
— Now, think about this. Japan was running roughshod over China and 1939, Great Britain declared war on Germany, all right in he middle of all of this. Now, can you see what was in the heart of our leaders back there then? Oh, we give You thanks. At that time, the United States wasn't in that war. October of 41, the December is coming. And they began to give thanks. I remember it. Thanksgiving was very, very special back there. And they had little, little flags that hung in people's windows. And as long as that little flag, when it was in the window, it meant we have a service man. A member of this family, is in the armed forces. But when they turned it around and it was gold, somebody was killed in action or missing in action. But Thanksgiving went on. And it was a day. Every day... Every day was Thanksgiving. Every day was... And people were thanking God and praying back then and now who are we? Our nation is being attacked by the devil again, trying to destroy it. But in the 13th chapter of the Book of Hebrews in the eighth verse, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. Verse 15, By Him... You see that? By him, by Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday and today and forever, By Him therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Isn't that good? Giving thanks to his name. Now, the 107th Psalm, which is one of my favorites. Now, those of you in the television audience here, listen to this now. Verse 17, Fools, because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses. He sent his Word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Not only his written Word, but Jesus is the manifestation. He is call in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God.
— Yes, sir.
— Hallelujah. Oh, and you can be healed right now, right where you are. It's what Brother Hagin called the praise cure.
— That's right.
— You just start praising God, praising God and praising him and just praising him and praise him and praise him and praising and praise him. And until you just praise the devil right out of your body, Yes. And Gloria and I and B. B. and everybody in our house... Well, praise God. That's just part of our lives. And we mean it when we say it and we give forth praise and thanksgiving to our God. And I want to take you back over here to Deuteronomy. This is where Deuteronomy 28. First I want to show you from the 30th chapter. If you go back to the 27th, 28th, 29 chapters of Deuteronomy, what was all that, all that teaching?
— Here it is. In the 19th verse, I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob... He's placed before us in this life and death, blessing and cursing, choose life and Jesus is our lives.
— Yes, sir.
— Now, in the 47th verse of 28, verse 45, All these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes... And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever because... Say "Because"... Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; And we live in the most abundant and the most blessed nation in the history of this planet. And I'm sad to say, in a lot of homes today, not all, but some, it's just too much to eat.
— Or a parade or football game or shopping the next morning on Black Friday.
— Why do they call it Black Friday? Whoever came up with that? The devil.
— Yeah. And then get out there and fight over stuff that people just give me that and tear something up on some table somewhere. Is that the spirit of Thanksgiving? I don't think.
— No, it's greed
— It is so what's called for here? Judge yourself that you be not judged. It's a wonderful day to take communion. Praise God. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so in Psalm 107. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. We need to be talking about it. We are the redeemed. And it's one day closer to the resurrection everyday that we live. And so we need to be gladly talking about people, talking to people about the redemption of this whole thing, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That his day... Amen. And talking to everybody about it, wherever you go. Oh, you know, I'm just kind of timid. That does not excuse you for being a witness, cause we're his witnesses.
— Yes.
— And you do get some strange answers. And there are certain times and certain places that I didn't know how it was going to work out. And I've told this several times, but it's worth repeating here. We were in a... Woodbridge, Virginia, last November and walking out. And there were several women there at the checkout the check-in, check-out counter. Well, it was, you know, rather early that morning. And I walked out of there and I just stopped there for a few moments. I said, you girls better come over, go to church with me. They all grinned, real big. And this one young woman, I could tell from her head scarf that she was, you know, she was not a Christian. And she said, I go to church with you, but I didn't stop there. It just rose up in me. I said, "You know, Jesus is coming". And this young woman on the end down here, she said, "I know. That's right". And I said, "He may come today. She said, "Oh, come on, Jesus".
— Well, everybody heard about Jesus. Ever one heard that he's coming soon. Maybe today. I walked out of a Walmart store. The man said, "Brother Copeland. Brother Copeland". I said, "Glory to God. Jesus is coming". Yeah, yeah. It just took him by surprise. You need to take people by surprise. And talk about his coming. Oh, give thanks under the Lord for he is good and his mercy endures forever.
— Take them by surprise so they won't get taken by surprise.
— Great. That's what this book is about, The praising of the Lord. You see, that was on the curse side. Now, this has to do with daily television for me, back when the Lord, the Word of the Lord came to me, when you get home, start a daily broadcast. I was so exhausted, just finished three weeks in Australia on a 747. I argued with him all the way back and if I had better sense, I knew he wouldn't change it.
— He said the nation needs it and the body of Christ needs it. Well, there were there were scandals going on in the United States back then. Anyway. So as usual, I called my spiritual father, Oral Roberts, and I told him, he said, "Kenneth. It is so daily". I don't want to hear that. And so I was praying about some other things. And anyway, I got down to this part. I went over there, the book of Isaiah, if you're willing and obedience you can go to the land. He said, "No, you don't qualify for that". He said, "You haven't had any good thing to say about daily television since the day I told you to do it. He said, You never smile until they turn on the camera. He was exactly right. I changed that. I love daily television. I love it. I don't feel anything. I love it because I had to change this.
— Right.
— Came in here and that day there was just a little round table out here in the middle and the chair facing this way, if I remember right. And I sit down there and I said, I'll open you know, the thing up like I always do. And I said, "Here I just want to let you know something, I love daily television. And it hit me and I jumped up and ran around that table. I love it. I look forward to it, yes, tired or not.
— Thanksgiving entered the presence...
— Yes it did. And I began to write this. Let me go here to Exodus 23:25. And this is quoted wrong. If you just start with the 25th verse, you miss read it. You have to go to the 20th. Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he, say he... We're going to read he in a minute. And this is the he the he that he that he's talking about Now I wrote right here Deuteronomy 28:47. You shall serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart for the abundance of all things, and he shall bless he, not God, your angel. He shall bless your bread and water. I will take sickness from the midst of thee. That changed the entire complexion of that healing verse. Nothing shall cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil. Other translation said there will be no miscarriages. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus.
— Moses will argue with God and say, we're not going to go unless your presence goes with us. Because he heard that he knew this angel and what this was about, he goes, No, no, no, no, you're mercy. We want you with us.
— Yes, but he said, okay. I'll send an angel with you but don't talk to him around him like you've been talking around me.
— Exactly right.
— Because he won't forgive you.
— Words are containers.
— Yes. Here you are. Amen. Whether they can see him or not? Okay, let's not be talking that way anymore. He will bless your bread and water. Now, everywhere Gloria and I go somewhere to eat, there is one restaurant here in Fort Worth that Gloria really enjoys going there. And because of the way I eat, I don't go there all that often. But once in a while I do, because I'm on strict regimen and I stay in training all the time but whomever's waiting on us... And of course, you learn their first names, you know, and you say, "Come on, so-and-so, here, take hand, take hand... and involve the waiter or the waitress in the prayer. And every time and witness. And we have an Applebee's ministry. Oh, listen, we've paid off people's cars. Amen, one young man, he is just lovely man. And he and I talked about the Lord all the time. And we got Gloria's book, God's Will For You and gave it to him and for him to read it, Oh, and he said, I believe it. He said, I believe it, I believe it, I believe every word of it. And he began to feel kind of off but then he just got sick and died of cancer. He had custody of his little girl and now his mother didn't know what to do. You've heard me tell this before I've told it on the air before. But the ministry paid off his new truck, paid for that homegoing service and gave this woman substantial financial help until they could overcome that. That happened from ministry in an Applebee's restaurant. Amen. And so now when we come in there, we have this special one area that we seat, and they all know they're going to get preached to some way or another. And they all gather around and everybody's always happy. You know why? Because they get big tips.
— Amen. But Thanksgiving revolves around food. If Jesus would break bread, he would teach a minister around food.
— And these great festival harvests and so forth. All was around food.
— The first thanksgiving sacrifice, Leviticus 7:12 Unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers, smooth loaves of fine flour. That's thanksgiving sacrifice...
— Yes, it is.
— The priest did and the Hebrew word is Toda and it means the presence of God. It's looking in his face. It's getting in the presence of the Lord. So if your Thanksgiving, maybe it'll only be you. But let it be you, invite His presence into your place.
— And Keith Moore taught on that that some Thanksgiving family gathering get over into politics and fuss and argue and fuss over all that. And he said there may be one that you just really have a difficult time with, but you cannot afford to be part of this strive.
— No.
— You remember what James said in his book, where there is strife, there is confusion, and every evil work. And so I actually see Keith Moore doing this now. He said when you get there and you see her. It's so good to see you. Don't give her a chance to say anything. It's so good... Why do you always say her. I don't know. But usually, fussy men just wait until get around the table. You're all already full. But God, I want to get this politic thing on. But our Thanksgiving days are not like that in our families. We just rejoice in one another and give thanks for one another.
— I give you a verse, Brother Copeland. Psalm 100:4. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name.
— Bless his name.
— For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting. His truth endureth to all generations.
— Praise God.
— That word for presence means face. Get into his face with thanksgiving.
— And Psalm 8. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. Then over here in the 9th Psalm and the 10th verse, and they that know my name will put their trust in Thee, for the Lord has not forsaken them to seek thee. Amen. And we're out of time. But happy Thanksgiving to everyone. And tomorrow we're going to look at the 91st Psalm, praise God, show you some things out of that. Amen. We'll be back in just a moment.