Kenneth Copeland - You Can Talk to God Face to Face
— Hello, everybody. What about 2023? What will 2023 be like? A lot of changes. An enormous amount of changes. And a lot of the disturbances that are in the nation now will begin to be ironed out during that year because of the major decisions that the Supreme Court has made. And once the Supreme Court here makes it, God makes it and it makes it right and turns it around. But 2023 will be as good as it can be because you know the truth and the truth will make you free, glory to God and you will know and understand more about this book. It's authority in our lives. Amen. And so we rejoice in it and, Heavenly Father, we thank You for the blood covenants in this book. Yes, it will. It will be a year of great healings, and it will be a year when whole churches will be healed and brought back to a place that they've lacked for the last five years. It'll be a year of judgment, good judgment. God will judge things good and it'll be a year of judgment upon bad things.
And people that don't pay attention to what the Word is saying and pay no attention to my Word and to my people, they will come to a place where that is just an act of judgment because of the seeds that they have sown. And many, many, many of them will come to pass in 2023. And there are those that will say, "Glory to God, I've been corrected and now my finances are straightened out". Others that'll say that I don't understand why all this has happened to me, but I just give God the praise. But people will begin to know and understand that victory is at hand when you worship me and praise me and put my Word as final authority in your life, you will know me because I am the truth. I am the life, and I am the way and my Father is truth. And the two of us together in your lives, truth will become a way of life for you, and it will break the bondage that devil has put in there and all of this will come to pass before 2023 is halfway through, glory to God.
— I receive that.
— Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Oh, yes, hallelujah. Well, our golden text is in the eighth chapter of the book of John, in fact, many, many years ago... Thank You, Lord, for reminding me of that. The Word of the Lord came to me and He said, "If you will make these words your words, it will solve many, many problems in your life". Where Jesus said, "I do always those things that please him. I do nothing of myself". He said, "You make John 8:30 yours... as he spoke these words, many believed", so we can do that. I do nothing of myself. Well, how do we say that? We have the book, we have the book. Amen. "As my father has taught me, I speak these things... Well we have right here what he taught him, glory to God. And so I do always those things that please him. As he spoke these words, many believed on him, and to those Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my Word, then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free". Verse 36. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. I know that you're Abraham's seed, but you seek to kill me because my Word hath no place in you".
Now there you can examine yourself. Does his Word have place in me? Am I continuing in his Word? Am I continuing to feed on it? Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God in the 10th chapter of the book of Romans. Amen. So let's go back over to the Book of Numbers and the 19th verse of the 23rd chapter. Are you there? "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent:" Now look at this. "Hath he not said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good"? Oh, look at it again. "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent:" Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
— He is faithful.
— Hallelujah. That's the reason it's called the Word of God. It's his bond. Is it not said will he not do it. Amen. And another Scripture said he hastens, to what? To watch over his Word. Quick to do it, quick to watch over his Word and perform it. These things need to be alive in here, not just in here, but in here, where it just... It's just there. Now, Kellie you were talking to me in the dressing room about the times that you spend in his presence and practice his presence. What is practicing his presence? Well, where you're in communication with him all the time, and when you're in the car or in prayer and so forth. And so let's talk about that a minute. The things that comes up between you and the spirit of God, particularly as you're writing things down. And so talk about that. Well, that really started with me talking to him one day I was like... and I was going through some hard things, but he captured my attention and he said... he didn't say it, I just had this sudden realization and I'm like... You're my human. I mean, of course, he's the human and the Godhead, but I don't know. It hit me like an arrow. It was a rhema word from him to change what I was, how I was seeing him.
And I really from that day I just started talking to him like a human. I mean, he's human and he's God at the same time. He's my human face to face and that face to face word, there's no way to interpret the words into English that they call it presence, but it means face to face. And that's what God had with Moses. And that's what second Corinthians Chapter four says. We have this light shining in the face, each time that's face to face. And so I just started talking to him like that. I cried out to him like that. If I had something going on, I didn't try to fix my thoughts and then go to him. I stopped doing, trying to fix myself. I didn't realize I was doing that, trying to gear up my faith to go to him. That's kind of senseless since we don't have faith apart from him. We don't have the truth apart from him.
— Have you heard things in times like that you never heard before, that you hadn't thought of before?
— I hope you can tell from my face that's a yes. I kept hearing some things about where the world is going. And I'm like for three weeks, I said to him, "Why are you talking to me like this? You should tell Dad, he has a microphone. He'll understand it. People will listen to him" and I kept just saying that to him. And one night I could not sleep and I didn't feel super disturbed. I'm just laying there and laying there. I usually go to sleep real fast. And I said, "Lord, is there something you want to say"? And he said, "Yes". And he hardly ever talks to me that way. He's so sweet and gentle. It doesn't take much. You know me, I never did like to get in trouble. You could just say, "Kellie"... And I'm like what, what?... Let me fix it. But he said yes.
So I went to the other room and I sat on the couch and he said, "Stop asking me why I'm telling you that. It's been three weeks since I could really tell you anything because you keep questioning me about it and you're starting to believe I'm not talking to you. So repent for that". And I did. And the floodgates of revelation began to come to me. And it was right after that, he took me in the Word and showed me where it was in the Word. About a year later, there was a year of like just keeping that to myself and shared it with a person or to a friend, not to preach or anything. But a year or so later, I started hearing it. I started hearing it come out of this mouth and hearing it come out of this prophet.
— And if it's truth, it'll do that.
— It will but it changed... these things, but that was just one instance. But he also wants to be able to talk to us about our personal life, and he wants to... this is like a jumping off board for him, our relationship with him here, he says in Hebrews 4, it says that we can discern between the thoughts and the intense of the heart or the things that are coming from your heart, where he is and the thoughts you might have. You begin to like really understand those. But I read in this one version, this one at the beginning of the Mirror Bible, this whoever translated that, he said, the destination of the logos is the heart. And when the logos gets in the heart, it becomes rhema. But we have to realize that when he said nothing is impossible, it's talking about the rhema and when it talks about faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word, that's the word Rhema. So I've learned to be in this until it becomes rhema, but also in this place of just welcoming his Word to me, his Word to me, the kind of word that comes in revelation, where he's saying he's the messenger to the church and he's saying, I like this, but let's talk about this. I like this, we need to stop this. The faith people. I love your faith. I put that in there. But you've tolerated the Jezebel spirit. Like that's what he's doing with those right now. And that ability and the welcome open door to him to speak to us and the expectation that he will speak back, that he will...
— And then when you go to the written Word with that, you can judge it. And then when you judge that in the Scriptures that he gives you in situations like that, because if there's no Scripture, if I don't know, I'm hearing something and I'm not right off bat here know just exactly where that is in the Scripture. I just do what Brother Hagin said, I should put it up on the shelf and in those cases like that, I write it down so I don't let it slip and just place it before the Lord. I need to see Scriptures about this, not just an isolated one or two.
— And he trained us that way... I mean he wants that. So you're not bucking this... We need to like okay, Lord, like you said. But I've also learned one other trick, not trick... thing I can do. And that is that the Holy Spirit was sent to be the witness to what Jesus... He said, I take from the Father and I give it to Him and He gives it to you. So really everything the Holy Spirit says to us is coming down that chain. And when you begin... but yet the Father is I mean, Jesus is really the open door to the Father. Sometimes we try to get to the Father and we're not like... that relationship with the Father is amazing and big when it comes through your relationship with Jesus. So he began refining my relationship with him and with the Holy Spirit. I mean this is helped me and he said the second I asked the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit be the second witness to what Jesus is... what I'm hearing and what Jesus is saying, but he always takes me to the Word and I'll hear that. And I'm like humm. And then I'll open my Bible and he'll show it to me. It's been amazing, but it's also expanded my heart to hear what he's saying.
— Now, you know what this takes? Time. Now when Moses is gone, now Joshua is in command. And the last time he was over there, there was some really big people there. So now he's faced with the same decision. But now listen to what God said to him. "Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people," And then he said, you go to war... Verse five. "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee". Verse 8. "This book of the law... this Word shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe, or to see, to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success". That's the key to life right there...
— Yeah, it is.
— You don't make a move without the covenant. I was with him and I'll be with you. Well, I was preaching in Oklahoma, number of years ago, and during a service the spirit of prophecy came on me. And then I delivered this word. And I began to think about it. And after the service, I said, "Lord, I don't know whether that was right or not. I need to know". I was right downtown and on my way back to where I was staying, stopped at a signal light. And he said, "Did you ever hear of someone that was an impersonator impersonating somebody"? And that sounds just that, boy, they sound like that. Then you heard the real one and he thought... no, that's not him. He said, "I'm going to let you hear that again". I was just standing there on a corner and I heard it again and I could tell... the devil tricked me. And I said, "Oh, Lord, what I do". He said, "You did it in faith. I will not let those words fall to the ground. I will bring them to pass". But he said, "You be more meditative before you go into a service, you spend more time meditating my Word and thinking about what I've called you to preach there in that place tonight". But I heard it. I heard the difference between two in my spirit. And that's what he's commanding Joshua to do. Well, in this case, he told him, "Send two spies", not this whole cadre of spies. And so this is where Rahab the harlot came in and became Jesus' great, great, great grandmother.
— But I loved... I went back here... You look there... It wasn't a prophet that came and told him that, this says the Lord told him that... And that's why he had such courage. When we hear the rhema on the inside, that faith is born and then he'll keep leading us, keep developing us, and then we hear it. And then that's like we hear and hear. Faith comes about hearing and hearing. It's birthed and developed. He's the author and developer of our faith. And then those words that have taken on such a power, like when I hear I'm healed on the inside, devil's lost, because I'm made to hear on the inside and it be true. And every promise he made to us, Hebrews 6 says, comes with an oath that he cannot lie. And when I hear it in my heart and it goes from Logos to Rhema, or even he's told me things, you know, and you're right, you begin to develop and we shouldn't be afraid we're going to miss it.
I remember one time I was calling you because I was like, Dad, I don't want to miss it. It was over the girls traveling somewhere, two my girls. And you said it in such a way that it altered my... It was like a rhema to me. You said it, but it was rhema. And then you looked at me and I think I was with you in person because I remember either I saw your eyes in my head, which that's possible, or you said it directly to me. Y'all had that too, didn't you? You said, "You're not going to miss it", just like that. And I went... It was rhema, and all my concerns about where they were going or how they were traveling and all that. I think it was like Y2K and all of this ruckus over that, that just melted in that rhema word.
And when we will let him speak those things and what happened with me, you said, it takes time. It takes time to develop that relationship with him, but it doesn't take time to start. And when I started with him and really I began writing because I could write and my head wasn't involved, my thoughts, it really gave no space to the devil either, because I'm just writing what I'm hearing in my spirit. And those things begin to be... I began to take my... you know, we say, you know, I can't go without my time with him. And we think of our time with him. I stop thinking of my... I would have my time with him, but I stopped thinking about leaving that time. Like I started just having time with him. We are time together and then we go to the work or we go get the kids from school or we go, I stop thinking that I'm leaving it. And it began to be more like pray without ceasing. He's in my car. I got to where I sneezed at home and nobody is home but me. And I'm like, "Oh, excuse me". I mean, it got so real...
— His presence is there.
— Yes. And it's easy to start. And once you start and he's like, you're relating to him like that, not as someone who's far away, but he's here and I don't know, it's changed my entire life.
— You know, it'll become so real that I'm thinking about different times where you just suddenly stop and say, "Lord, I need to talk to you about that, not doest thou understand whatest I say. No, I need to talk to you about this. Oh, I don't know what to do about that. And until I know I'm not going to do anything, it's just let it be still". And I want to bring this up again. There's a saying in the aviation community that sudden something suddenly happens to the airplane and you're not sure what... Stop and wind your watch, don't panic and do something to make it worse and something happens.
Now, there are certain things that are absolutely due right now. Well, those are memory items, on the red checklist. Those are memory items but you still don't do the memory items without the checklist. This is our checklist. But you just stop. Well, now, wait a minute... Lord I need to talk to you about that. I'm not going to just knee-jerk this thing I don't want to foul it up. I need your wisdom. Well, then I don't want to just beg for it. I'm going to go to the book of James. Any man lacks wisdom, let him ask but let him ask in faith nothing wavering. Then I go to first Corinthians 1:30: That Jesus of God is made unto us. Praise God, wisdom, sanctification and righteousness. Then you go to the book of wisdom and the book of Proverbs, Amen.
And you begin to seek the Lord and listen and listen and listen. Jesus received all these things by listening. Listening. Go out and pray. Stay out and pray and then go do it. And he said, "I don't do anything I don't see my Father do. I don't say anything I don't hear my Father say". And as you develop this. Well now... and I brought that up, I'll introduce this and then we'll go into it on Wednesday. Let's go to the 17th chapter of John. Now 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 chapters of John are the last Passover meal. And as you study this, remember, he immediately I mean, right now he got Judas out of that room. Get him out of here before he said anything of these kind of things.
But then the 17th chapter is his closing prayer, verse 15. "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth:" Your Word is truth. Sanctify them by your truth. Your Word is truth. "You sent me into the world, even as have I also sent them. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;" Your Word is truth, sanctify them, separate them with your truth. And we're out of time. YeeHa, glory to God, we'll be back in just a moment.