Kenneth Copeland - Faith for Prosperity
Now open your Bibles to the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy. I must show you something now that the Lord showed me quite some time ago. "It shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: and all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken or listen unto the voice of the LORD thy God". Blessed, blessed.
Look at the eighth verse. "The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, or barns and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways. And all people of the earth shall see that you art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of you". They shall be afraid of you. Why? Because you are wealthy and God is making you wealthy. And they hated, the devil hated that. So now then, prosperity was God's idea from the beginning. Amen? Because poverty is under the curse.
So we've learned now that the curse is threefold. Spiritual death comes from not knowing Jesus as your Lord. Spiritual death, sickness and disease and poverty. It's all right there from the 27th, 28th, 29, 30th chapters of Deuteronomy. I call Heaven and Earth to record against you this day that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, you choose life that both you and your seed may live, that you may love the Lord your God, and that you may obey His voice, and that you may cleave unto Him for He is your life and he is the length of your days that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore by a covenant unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. Yee ha! Choose it, life and death, blessing and cursing. You choose life that you may live. It's our choice.
You don't start this with the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy with the blessing and the curse. You go to the 27th. We're going to talk about this big tomorrow. But in the 27th, "Moses and the priests the Levites spake unto all Israel, saying, Take heed, and hearken, O Israel; this day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God, and do his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day. And Moses charged the people the same day, saying, These shall stand upon mount Gerizim to bless the people, when ye are come over Jordan; Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar," So the tribe of Judah, from which Jesus came, was on the blessing side. "These shall stand upon mount Ebal to curse; Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali".
Those two mountains Shechem was right in the valley, in the middle. That's Mt. Gerizim. That's the blessing mountain... that Shechem. Mount Ebal is the cursed mountain. See how bare it is? It's alkaline. Nothing grows on it. All of those people were there in the middle and up on the sides of those mountains. It was these people came out of Egypt. They had a covenant, but they didn't have any idea. They'd been in slavery so long. So it's show and tell. They're shouting back and forth, back and forth. "And therefore obey the laws". Moses charged, the people saying, "You shall", and so forth, "And you're going to stand on there over there on the other mountain. And the Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice, Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image... And all the people shall answer and say, Amen". A couple of million people shouting back and forth, they're on that mountain. Hallelujah. Faith for prosperity.
Now, faith is the catalyst for these covenants. Remember now Hebrews 11, "For without faith, it is impossible to please God". Why? He's the blessing God. He's the blessing God. And faith is the connection to these covenants. And when we become covenant-minded and blood-minded, where Jesus is concerned and we have a covenant with the same Most High God, so that he that abides under the shadow of the Almighty. Right there. He that abides under the shadow of El Shaddai. Abides, lives there. Now Moses wrote the 90th Psalm, where we find 70 or 80. He wrote then the 91st Psalm and said, "With long life He'll satisfy you and show you His salvation". That's the soldier's song. Hallelujah. Glory to God. With long life He will satisfy you and show you His salvation. Well, I went after that in a huge way when I entered covenant with Jesus to live to be 120 years old and so then I had a lot of business to take care of.
And so I began to speak to my hair. It started turning gray. Well, I went to him about this and I said, "I don't care. It's scriptural to become gray-headed. But you said you doing this because of the Word of Faith. So I gonna talk to my hair". I started talking to it, and it started becoming gray all around. And I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not having that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no". Stand there and in the mirror and look at it and say. Gray hair bye and it's gone. It's gone. I said, "Ah, it's up to you. If you want a bald headed preacher. Okay. You want a white haired preacher. Okay. But we're doing this on the Word of Faith," and I didn't hear anything. I said, "You hear what I said"? So I kept going at him over that. And he said, "Well, yeah," he said, "I don't have to answer that. You know what to do. Use your mouth. Put your faith on that hair". I did it tonight in the hotel room. Stand there to look at it. And I said, "Hair, you are good looking". Amen.
I found the hairspray that didn't have any alcohol. And it's manufactured right there close where my house is at. Amen. Because this is my testimony and the reason the flight physical is a side issue here. And I know Brother Roberts got where he got before he got through, his legs wouldn't hold him up. So he would have to preach in a chair. Well, I just went before the Lord and I said, "I'm not going in a chair. I'll work out just as hard as I possibly can. And I will preach standing up with and I'll do it with a full head of hair. By faith". By faith. Go to the 11th chapter of the Book of Hebrews. The first time I read that, I went in there, I said, "Gloria, look at this". Because when we got saved, I thought, well, man, we got to have some of this faith stuff. I said "Gloria we ought to have this. How do we get this? Do you have any ideas"? She said, "No, I don't know how", but she stood up. Yeah, but this stuff is good.
So I read the 11th chapter of Hebrews and I went in there and I said "Gloria, I found the Hall of Fame, the Faith Hall of Fame". We started reading that and then go look up all of those scriptures about Noah and Abraham and all, all of them, studied each one out and the faith that they exercised. And then you get down to the end of that chapter and it says, and He's done a better thing for us and I said "How could that be any better". Well, here I am 85 and a half years old, and I've figured out it's better. I'm telling you, one Sunday, George had just preached and stirred me up over healing and stirred me up over the third chapter of the Book of Acts and the power of God hit me. I got so excited and I went back to my closet and I said, "You know what? I'm 80 years old. I'm actually 80 years old".
And Gloria got home. I said, "Gloria, you realize I'm 80 years old". She said, "Yeah". She said, "I knew that because I'm 75". So and I told you I have a large closet, walk-in closet. And I still had my pajamas and my robe on. And I was back there in that closet. And I'm going like this. I'm 80 years old. Hoo hoo hoo hoo. I'm 80 years old. And the Word of the Lord came on me and I just stopped right where I was. And He rose up on the inside of me and He said, "You listen to me. 80 is your new 30 and you're starting over again". And so for the aviation insurance company, they came out and watched me. Our insurance agent came out, watched me work out, and we videoed it and he's kinda... While I had him on, my trainer and checked my metabolic age, the age my body thinks it is on your diet, amount of exercise and all that. My body thinks it's between 35 and 37 years old.
Now it just amazed me and I got short of breath over in a prison for Mike Barber, never did had any pain, I can kind of feel that my heart rate was up high. So I got checked and they said, "Well, you need a pacemaker". And I said, "Well Lord, I'll just get that pacemaker by faith". He said, "No". Now He used an aviation term with me. He said, "You're too far behind the power curve". He said, "Take the pacemaker by faith". So I prayed over it so that then the doctor had me on the table. They don't put you completely out and they had to build a pouch for this thing. Well, I thought it was going to be about that big. Well come to find out it was but the batteries are about that big. And so I said, "Well pacemaker you belong to me now, that means you belong to God and you're in a Holy Ghost body and you're going to work right".
Well, it had a defibrillator in it. Well, the FAA has had it, had a history with pacemakers, but not with that defibrillator, which meant that and then I got on that treadmill and I would lay hands on this thing and bless it. You're mine. You're in my body and the Holy Ghost is in there with you. And my body is dedicated to Jesus. And go back to all those Scriptures and talking about the prosperity of God and that He built this planet for His family. And He said, "All of the gold is mine and I give it to you". "What is man," The angel said, "that you visit him? What is man that you visit him"? That other bunch that was here before. I can prove it to you from the Bible and the whole dinosaur group went down and we're against those now disembodied spirits.
So, now, I said that to say this. That was funny. They didn't put me all the way out. And this lady came in there and said, "Mr. Copeland, do you snore"? I said, "How would I know? I'm asleep"? I said, "No," I said "Gloria says I don't snore so..." Okay, you know no problem here. And that doctor was doing this thing through a magnified X-ray thing, and he's building that pouch for this thing. And I thought, this thing's bigger than I thought it was. And he heard... He said, "Oh, Mr. Copeland, did it hurt you"? I said, "Yeah, you did". And he said, "Okay, okay". I said, "That's okay". We're talking back and forth while he's building this thing.
I'm laying on my back like this, came out of it laughing. I've got this thing, I've got this little machine in me. I have a little machine sewed to my heart. I thought, how cool is that? Now I got to get back on that treadmill. And so I got on the treadmill and I set that thing off completely. Boy, I mean it crossed my eyes a couple times. I started training again, training again and working at it and working at it. And that's when I heard the Lord say, "I sacrificed my body for you. Now you're sacrificing your body for mine". And so you can stay here until I come or until you're 120 years old. And so I got up and got on that treadmill again, started working out, pushed it up and up and up and up. And I took that Bruce protocol.
I'll tell you what, that's a stress test of stress test, isn't it doc? Oh, that'll get your attention, brother. With the defibrillator in there, praying in tongues, praising God on a treadmill and that tread. And of course, my treadmill, the one that Keith and Phyllis gave me, is a whole lot nicer treadmill than that old medical treadmill I got on. That thing was as rough as a cob. And they, you know, they brought me in there and they lay me down on my back. I'm wired up, looked like I was going to space. And, you know, EKGs every little bit. Laid on my back and took an EKG and a set up took an EKG and it got out, did 20 jumping jacks, took EKG, got up and had me all wired up. This thing's 9 minutes long, so I got on there and start it out. And I had trained praising God at the same time until it was no problem. I was working out at the Bruce protocol.
Now, all of this is important in anything in life. Prepare, train for it. So just train at it, stay ahead of it. And I got done, they took my blood pressure every 3 minutes. You know, just stand there walking on a treadmill and everything, they are looking at me on the machine and everything. And it was just another treadmill day. Preparation by faith and meet the challenge. And got done, they said, "Are you all right"? I said, "Oh, yeah". And they said, "Well, you're just fine, Mr. Copeland".
So then they took me back then, and a little bit later they wanted, I had to go back, of course all this for the FAA. So I went back and there's a consultant here in Fort Worth, and he is an FAA. He's a cardiologist, he's a consultant to the FAA. So I went over there to his office and they got to get back on the treadmill again because they're going to shoot some stuff in my arm so they can see my heart. So I got back up on the treadmill and so she said, "Well, we'll just do this probably, you know, three or 4 minutes..."
So I got on there. They kept speeding it up, speeding it up and speeding it up, she said, "Mr. Copeland, could you stay on the treadmill a little while longer? We can't get your heart rate up enough to test it". I said "Crank it up". Thank You, Jesus. Finally got it up there where it belongs. I found out I had had a heart attack some time and didn't know it. I had one blocked artery and it had bypassed itself. I just needed a pacemaker, so call the tech rep out that manufactured this thing, this little machine. He paired up with it and got the reports, all the reports that of what this thing's been doing all the time. There it does comes out of it. I mean, this thing's checking me all the time.
And so there it all is. There it is. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Hey, here's where you did the Bruce protocol, I guess. Yeah, I said "Yes, sir". Oh, he said, "Oh, man, this looks good. You don't need that defibrillator anymore, do you"? I said, "No". He said, "Okay, I'll turn it off". So he turned that off and I have a card that I carry with me all the time and sent that to the FAA, that I did the Bruce protocol with the defibrillator in there. I don't need it anymore. So they turned it off. Faith. I'm talking about faith in God.