Kenneth Copeland - Knowing God's WORD Makes You Free
Well, glory to God, it's the Believer's Voice of Victory time. Amen, don't you like that? I'm Kenneth Copeland. And the Word of God is true. It is the truth. Amen. We're studying that all last week. Let's go back to our golden scriptures right here. What Jesus said in the eighth chapter of John. Now, I strongly, strongly suggest you read the entire eighth chapter of John, it's got 59 verses. But we're centering up on this. Now Jesus is preaching and whether he's doing more teaching than anything else. And then he said something in the 28th verse, "Jesus said unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am..."
Notice he is in italics. Don't you love it? "I am, and I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things". He never did claim to do anything of himself. And so "and he that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. As he spake these words, many believed on him". He hit a spiritual spot right there when he said these things. I'm just here to please him. I'm not here to please me. And that hit home with many. And so he said these words to the ones that believed, that's very important thing to realize.
These are the words that he said to those that believed it, it's recorded right there, "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If", so it's conditional, "If ye continue in my Word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. The servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth for ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my Word hath no place in you".
Now we have a comparison. Right in that moment his Word had place. They took it, they believed it. His Word had place it them. And he ministered to those. He can't do anything else. If your Word doesn't have any place, then you're over, it's done. But he said, "Because my Word has no place in you. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you're free indeed". My word hath no place in you. Now we just need to camp here a little bit. If the word has no place, what happens? No faith. There's no faith. Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And the Word of God is the truth. So it all comes together here. But now the spirit of the Lord talked to me earlier this morning, and then before I even got dressed this morning and then has been working on inside of me ever since, even in the dressing room. So you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
Now that Greek word Ginosko, in every place that it is used, it is a spiritual thing and not mental. Well, I know that. No, that's not what it was talking about... You know yeah, I know him. What's his name? I don't know what his last name is. You don't know him... No. You don't know him. But now the people that I know, I have some sort of a relationship with them. In Matthew 16:3, "And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern", same word... "you can discern the face of the sky". Matthew 16:8, "When Jesus perceived, he said unto them," so see none of this is mental, and let's back up here Matthew 1:25, "And he knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son". 6:3 "But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth..."
See this, every place it's used, it's used in a spiritual context and not mental. It's not used like, oh, I know that. Don't tell me that again, I know that. Well that's just conversation, but something you know and I said this last week, Oral Roberts would say it this way concerning healing and miracles. He said, "You get into the Word, the Word of God, and you stay there". And he said, "There are certain things that you will know that people that don't live by faith cannot know". He's using the same word, and he said, "When you stay in the Word long enough and you study it long enough". And he said, "When you find out there's a bottleneck in your finances or something of that kind". And he said, "You go before the Lord, don't try to figure it out. You pray. The first thing you want to do is whether you're walking in love or not. Because, see all of this is in a spiritual thing". And he said, "Now, you stay there until you know, until you know this is it, I know it. I have a knowing done in my gut that this is it". And he said, "When you know, that you know that you know that you know and you know that you know that you know". And he said "You're at the place where faith climaxes".
That's a powerful word... And Gloria said it like this. You come to a place where your faith boils over. I mean you... This is mine. This is mine. Like a dog that's got a bone and you're not getting it. This is it... This is the thing. So now, let's look at some more things here. Let's come on up here. It's used something like 200 times. "But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, not sacrifice. You would not have condemned... You would not have condemned the guiltless". All of this is a spiritual use of that word. It has nothing to do with the flesh. And you just go check it out. "When Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from there and great multitudes followed him. And he answered and said of them, because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them it's not given," that's revelation,
So it's used there as revealed knowledge. So every way it's used, it's come up out of the spirit. And that puts a stronger connotation to this now, let's look at it again. If so, there it is. See his Word, his Word... Jesus said, well let's look at it. Turn back here to the 6th chapter and the 63rd verse. Verse 61, "When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew", that's the same word, "He knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him".
Now there is nothing natural about any of that. That's a powerful word... And it all has to do with the inner man, the inner knowing, that just... There's times when I've come to that place where I thought, I knew better than to do that, I knew it. It looked like the thing to do. Everything pointed to it. I knew better than to do that. That's the same way it works. So what's that? Well I perceived it, I perceived in my spirit I shouldn't have done that, but I knew it ahead of time, so I didn't have any excuse. So the first thing I had to do was go to the Lord and say, "Well, I missed it here, and I repent of it in the name of Jesus. And with your help, I'm not going to do that anymore, not when I know better. I know better than that".
And there are some things... Thank You, Lord this is a good way to say that. There are things that I have learned just because I'm 86 years old, that I know better. And things that my dad taught me that now I really understand what he was talking about. My dad's a very wise man, in a lot of ways I was just opposite of him because I'm impulsive, that look good, let's do it. And then Gloria said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no let's wait... Come on now. No, no". Well my dad was that way, he would stop and he'd pray and he'd think and then he'd think and he'd pray. But there were things that he knew. He came from a line of really good people that knew God, particularly his mother, Granny... Oh, I'm telling you now Granny is a prize and she's a small woman. And she called Will, Mr. Copeland, that's what she called him all the time, he's Mr. Copeland.
And so her oldest, my Uncle Dale, he was born in 1900, went to World War I in the Navy, and he came back from the Navy. And, you know, I mean, he's war veteran and he came home and just so glad to be home there with the folks and all, you know. And he said, "damn" in her kitchen. Now, uncle Dale is about six one or so and the Granny is about five two or three. She just walked over and got the skillet and she hit him right there. I mean, she put on knot between his eyes and set down on him and said, "Sonny boy, you're not talking like that in mama's kitchen anymore, are you"? He said, "No, ma'am". That was the end of that.
So there's a certain amount of wisdom, now here is my dad and my dad is just a little boys, he's born in 1904. So there's a tremendous amount of wisdom coming from that and his dad was a very wise man. And so that... His ability to stop and think and consider and analyze gave him a lot of wisdom and training salesman in his life. And my mother depended on his judgment. And because of this now and I don't want to put it in any other context except the power of believing God. Mother said during the Depression, she said one job would end and she said "We'd pray..." they lived out there in the country and she said they'd pray. She said, "I just pray just as far as I could see him". And she said "I knew he'd come home with a job" and he did. He was never 24 hours without a job during the Great Depression.
Now they worked hard, but now there were other people that lived in the same area, had the same opportunities and went hungry. Now that's a difference. Why? They knew the truth and the truth kept them free. They were tithers. I mean, all the way through that entire situation. It didn't make any difference how little they had or how much, the tithe came off the top. And they were blessed. Now, my mother's folks, my grandfather was I'll tell you, he was happy. He laughed and he went on all the time. But his dad was called cuss'n Owens. Well, there was a reason for it. It happened during the Civil War. And so they came from Tennessee in the Cumberland Valley and lots and lots of Cherokee people in that area.
And there was a federal captain that hung him by his thumbs in the barn trying to get him tell where his brothers were. He wouldn't do it and he'd just scream and scream and just call that man anything he could think of. He didn't have the same kind of background behind him. So there was a difference there. But let me tell you something else about my grandfather. He'd go out there and stand out there in that farm, take his hat off and stand out there and pray and worship God. There's somebody burned him on church. I never could find it out. He would not go. But now my grandmother did the tithing in that family, and they always had a crop. But now my grandfather was one that made good decisions.
And for those of you that, you know, you city folks, you don't... But the county agent would come by. Now he's the government guy in the county and he's in touch with all the farmers he'd talk about it. The county agent would always call on Mr. Owens first, then he'd go talk to the other farmers. Because Mr. Owens knew. He knew. How did he know? He prayed. My grandmother prayed all the time. That's where my mother learned to pray all the time. She prayed, she tithed, cause my grandfather could write his name but that's about it. And she kept all the books and everything and they always prospered. And there were certain things about him that when and particularly in his older years and I spent some time with him and so forth, that he would talk to me about things, he knew things, he knew that some things would not work.
There was a wine commercial came on one day and he stopped right there. No, it was on a magazine and he said, "Now Kenneth I want to show you something". He said, "Now that stuff tastes real good. It tastes too good. You stay out of it. Stay off of it". And his reason for saying that was not just in general, but there's something about a Native American's makeup. They can't handle it. He said, "Don't you be touching it". Well, and my mother prayed the same thing. Now I'll tell you how I know something. I went to work in a summer job and several of us boys in the high school did because the connection there with one of the guy's dad had a beer distributing company. And, you know, we've just hired help. We're in the warehouse there.
Well, right here in Fort Worth, almost downtown Fort Worth. And the train cars would come up in the switch there behind that company. And if the car was labeled bottle or beer, 2256 cases of beer in one of those freight cars. If there were labeled bottles, they came in last very tender. If they were labeled cans, they came up in first and because... No excuse me, the bottles came in first because they'd get hot and they'd just blow up and they're handled easier. So this car and other, the cans were roughed up. Well a car came in there labeled cans. And I mean you know, they just slammed her up in there and opened it up and it was corks. I mean this other guy and I, they put us in there cleaning that out and those fumes just go up your nose, and you come staggering out of the car.
Well, the boss drove up in there and said, "Fire both those guys, they're drinking on the job". They said, "No, no, no, no, no. They're cleaning out that nasty car". Well, I want you to know it fixed it for me. I mean, that stuff... the smell and it was rotten and it was hot and I just stumbled out of there. And it was over for me right then and there. Now when I was in the army, I tried it a little bit. My grandfather was right. I didn't have any business with it. And if it hadn't been for a couple of real close friends, I would have got myself in more trouble than I could have gotten out of because I was stupid, dumb and didn't have any better sense. But I came out of there with a whole lot better sense and I haven't messed with it since, and we're out of time. But my point is, I know. I know better. I know better. Amen, glory to God, isn't that good? Thank You, Lord Jesus. Yes. Hallelujah. Glory to God.