Kenneth Copeland - Choose Truth
Welcome everybody to the Believer's Voice of Victory Broadcast. I'm Kenneth Copeland and this is the 10th day of our message and the development of what the Lord had been talking to me about, he started talking to me about it last year and then it just developed and developed and developed and the Lord reminded me that I had talked about you should know the truth and the truth will make it free, a lot. But I never had gone into and developed it as a series. And it's one of those kinds. It is this book. And it'd be it'd take a long time to exhausted and find everywhere in the Bible that it says truth. But we've the Lord has helped us and we've been able to say some things.
Well, it began here. We started out last week on Monday with what Jesus said in the eighth chapter of the Book of John and the 28 verse. Jesus said unto them, "When you've lifted up the Son of man, then you shall know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself. but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. 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. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my Word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know", ginosko... You shall come to a place where you have an intimate relationship with my Word, continuing in it.
Yesterday we went through all of those thing or no, Wednesday I think it was, we went through that Word, how it's used in different places. And every one of them, not one of them had anything to do with what you mentally know is translated perceive, it's translate knew. Joseph knew not his wife until after her firstborn was born. Very intimate and powerful word. So now, you shall know, you know it. You just know until it becomes part of your very being and a part of your life, you know. And we found out that God is the truth, we found out Jesus said "I'm the way the truth and the life". We found that his written Word is truth. He said sanctify them by your truths, your Word is truth.
Now then we talked about, we read this scripture and this is one you shout about, over in Numbers 23 and Balaam was having a hard time, I mean that somebody hired him to curse Israel, they just couldn't get it done and he even had a donkey speak to him over this. And that means you know, there's hope for me. Verse 19 of 23rd, chapter of Numbers, "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 said it, and he said it twice, praise God and he'll make it good, that just covenant talk all over it. Now those two and then we we've been teaching all the way in between.
Now let's go back into the Psalms. We read that Psalm where it said truth and mercy "Hesed" have come together and righteousness. They've kissed one another, Ah... Mercy and truth have kissed one another and we learn about Hesed that it is favor from the greater in Esther 2:17, Job 10:2, Daniel 1:9 and the 23rd Psalm, Hesed shall follow me all the days of my life, it's favor from the greater. Well we know and we found out, we studied in the last week in Philippians, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who thought it not robbery to be called equal with God. Well, where do we come in? Well, the Scripture says we're joint heirs with him. Amen. We sit with him in Heavenly, lifted up with him, seated in heavenly places, glory to God.
Now then... oh, there's so much to hear, so much here. Let's go over here to this of the 118th Psalm and oh, the 117 Psalm, I have to read that. Have to read this right here in verse 25. "Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord: we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord". Now the 118th Psalm and start at the top. "O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: because hesed endureth for ever. Let Israel now say, that his hesed endureth for ever". Oh, glory to God. "Let the house of Aaron now say, that his hesed endureth for ever. Let them now that fear the Lord say, that his hesed endureth for ever". Favor from the Great King, glory to God.
Now the 119th Psalm, let's go to verse 31, 119:30. Now this one is so telling, class. This is all been wonderful. But right here the Lord just going to just dump it back in our lap. "I have chosen the way of truth, thy judgments have I laid before me". I've chosen that way, my choice. Yeah, well, the Word of the Lord came to me again. Let's go over to the III John. "The elder unto the wellbeloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth".
Somebody has chosen the way of truth here. The way of the Word and he's the one that wrote and said we have known, we've "ginosko" the love and believed it. So let's deal with that for a moment before we go back over here to the 119 Psalm. There's a lot of people that... every born again person has known the love. For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son that what? Whosoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life. Now when you look that up it's "Sozo" and it means healed and sound just as well as salvation. So, he so loved, so we've known the love, whether we realize that or not, we've known it. That moment you became a new creature that is the most powerful miracle of all. It'll change you, but then you have to renew your mind.
So someone said, "Do you believe God loves you"? Well, yeah, but I just don't understand. I don't understand why he let this happen to me. In the first place, he didn't let anything happen to you. He's already done what he's done. He laid all of it on Jesus, every bit of it. Spirit, soul, body, financial, all the things of life. We have exceeding great precious covenant promises, Peter wrote. And he said, "You have received like precious faith with us". Huh, I have the same faith as Peter? Well, yeah, Jesus is the author of our Faith, there's not two different kinds. That's the truth. Now, when you begin to see this thing... yeah, that's the truth. I don't care how I feel about it, that's what's in me. I believe that. I believe it.
Now, faith has come alive. I believe the love that he has for me. I believe it and I will not let my flesh, I will not let my mind, I will not let my feelings, I don't care how they seem like they're getting trampled on for some reason or other. I'm not going to allow that to get in the way. My God loves me. And I found out in the prayer Jesus prayed in the 17 chapter of John that he loved me just as much as he does Jesus. Well of course he did. Because he not only laid all of this on Jesus, he bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live under righteousness. By whose stripes you were healed. Well if I was then I am now. So I had to learn how to believe that in spite of how I feel or what I see or what somebody else said. That is truth.
Now remember we started out this week this way and I want to make sure that we have this very truth just embedded into our hearts and minds. Now listen to me, class. The facts can never change truth and truth believed and stood upon here will always change the facts if you'll stay with it. And not be moved by anything else. And I've had many victories and I've had a tub full of failures over the last 56 years. And when Gloria and I came into these things, her family, her grandmother and grandfather were in the Church of Christ but her mom and dad weren't churchgoing people. And she tried to go a few times and so she was really literally a scriptural illiterate.
Well, I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church and I heard good preaching but I didn't get... the Bible didn't mean anything to me. It was a holy book. I'd fight you over it. But I didn't know anything in it, in fact that actually happened to me in training union in the Southern Baptist Church it's so much like school. I just even Sunday school had changed grades, you know. Anyway in training union, which was Sunday school at night I'd try to talk my mother and dad. Let's don't go there, we already been over there once today, let's don't go and I don't remember what was said this little boy in class with me and I don't know, he got mad and tore a page out of the Bible.
Well I just spanked him for it. I didn't know what was in there, but I know you're not supposed to do that so at least I had a little honor about me. I didn't know what was in there but both of us I said, "Gloria, do you realize Matthew, Mark, Luke..." I was a student at Oral Roberts University. I said, "Do you realize"... and here I've been born again all these years but she read the book I didn't. But now I've been studying and I said, "Gloria, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all tell the same story". She said, "Yes isn't that wonderful".
T.L. Osborn said "Copeland, you were born free". I said, "Why you say..." You didn't have any religion to unlearn, and we didn't. First thing we ever heard was Faith and Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin. But then it became so real, we began to live it. For a long time, we didn't turn on television. We just stayed in those tapes. We listened and listened and listened until it was just impounded inside of us. And that's all we thought about. And somebody would say something and we'd think, oh, what does the Bible say about that?
Now, I just didn't comment on it until I knew what the Bible says about it. And then later and even now I have to be cautious because after so long a time, people start talking and my mind is just going scripture of what they're saying, what they're saying. I really have to watch myself keep from being critical and correct everything they say. I can't do that, they hadn't had the benefit of what I know, and I'd just start thinking oh and I'm looking for the Lord to say something about this... Why? I know the truth and it's spilled over into our natural lives.
I want to know the truth about what to eat. I want to know the truth about what to think, I want to know it. I have a hunger to know it and I want to know where it is in this Book. And would you like to have an example of that? Genesis 6:3, the days of man shall be 120 years. Then it dawned on my lightning fast mind, that everything that long life is from their on is based on 120. Medical science says today the human body should live 120 years and if it wasn't for sickness and disease it would. They didn't get that out of this Book. But this Book is the truth about it.
So then I realized the levitical food laws are based on 120. They're based on long life. Long life in Psalm 91 is 120 years. That's the truth about life. And you go over there and look at those food laws. They are correct. Now, I don't follow those laws now because they're laws. I follow it now because I know better. Because I found the same truths in medical science. I followed it through all of the statistics and everything and found that the same thing is true that God said back there in Leviticus. Glory to God, so this is truth. And God had to teach them how to eat. They'd been in Egypt where they had to eat anything that they had to survive. They had to learn not just to survive, but how to live long live, long time.
Now what about these very old ones over here in the beginning? Was that just because God needed a lot of population? No, he's never had any trouble with that. People do that, they didn't know how to die. That's the reason God said "I'm not going to put up with man living so long anymore". They got to the place they had no thought about him. They lived so long that they had no thought of him at all and he had to flood them out, had to be stopped. So that's when Noah's flood came. The world was in water in the Genesis account. And you can go to the Book of Isaiah and see that and other places in Scripture. But the truth of these words, how many Christian people through the centuries never even heard the word Hesed, all they saw is mercy.
And just, well you know, mercy is mercy. You know Jesus said I'd rather have mercy than sacrifice, what's that? It's huge. I mean it is in some ways, it is everything. It is the truth that the king of the universe, the one after whom we are named. How can you tell the power of a person's name. How can you tell the power behind President Donald Trump's name. I'm not talking about him being president. No, I'm going back beyond that, his name is good he keeps his Word. He was taught that as a little boy because his dad's name was good in the construction business. His name is good, pays his bills, and he's worth three and a half billion dollars something like that. That measures his name.
My dad didn't have that kind of money but I'll tell you his name was good. My grandfather's name was good. I told you that story about I went into the farmer's bank with him there and he's all greasy and dirty. Evidently this man had been turned down on a loan, and I'm just walking in there with him. And he said, "How much you loan that old man"? He said, "All he'll sign for..." His name is good. And I'm telling you the name of Jesus is good. Has he not said it, will he not make it good. And that is truth. He is truth.
This book is truth because this book is him, glory to God. You can find it right there in the Book of Hebrews, it talked about his Word, and then it called it him. We're out of time. Ten days we've spent on this and we haven't even... we have broken the surface... we haven't scratched it. But we will and we'll be back in just a moment. So give the Lord another praise: "I have a voice. My voice is the voice of victory. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even my faith".