Kenneth Copeland - What Is a Prophet?
Hello everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland, and this is the Believer's Voice of Victory Broadcast in Kenneth Copeland Bible College. And this is the student body. Would you give yourself a hand, please. Hallelujah, glory to God. My, my, my. And we're studying... you can have a movie script. You can have a script to a play, but you are "ure" on the end of it and it's holy. This is Scripture. Oh, it's amazing when the lights come on, isn't it? When you've been at this as long as I have, if the light's not coming on, it's because of something else and I'm reaching a milestone in my life in seven days. Brother Hagin was satisfied at 86, and I'm not... no I'll be satisfied at 120. It'll be 2056 when I leave. And I'm leaving that day. I'm not staying here, no, I'm not staying here one day longer. No, I mean... Gloria will never make it to 120. 115 is all she's ever going to do because we're going together. Praise God.
I question the Lord why he... I kept hearing it, kept hearing it, kept hearing it. And it was all the way up through, each ten years he asked me if the anointing was greater. Well, of course it was. And he said, "Now I have people that have lived a long time and have given me credit for it". So see I'm not criticizing that in any way. But many years ago, the Lord said to me, "I am coming so soon I want this uncompromised message of faith preached from the top of the world to the bottom and all the way around the middle". Well, we've done that but, to preach the Word of Faith and now that 86 has come, that's just another birthday. But here's what the Lord said to me. He said, "Now I have people from 75 to 70 to 80 preaching the Word of Faith. And I have my people that are doing other things. But still, in the Word of Faith, living that long".
But he said, when you get up to 90 and I'm still standing up. Then people want to see what that old man's up to. And then 95, and I'm going to fly an airplane on my 100th birthday. That's when all the news cameras come in and that's when I get to say, "Uh huh, now y'all didn't get to 90, I'll tell you something. His name is Jesus and it's a Word of Faith". In the 10th chapter of the Book of Romans, if you have a Bible, look it up, kiddo, because that's what this is all about. That's what this school is all about. That's what the church is all about. That what KCM is all about. Praise God. Hallelujah.
That's what this Book is all about. It is about faith in God. Cause faith is the great connector. I liken it to a epoxy. You have two substance, by themselves they're worthless, they're just gooey. But when they get mixed, oh, you better stick it together quick. Because the catalyst has been put into that formula and it starts making heat and whatever it is you gonna glue together, you better glue it right the first time because you have to break it to get it undone. In the Book of Hebrews said The Gospel preached to them, same as us was not mixed with faith. So faith is the catalyst that brings things together. Faith was the catalyst that brought it together when you made the decision to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Then Grace made it available and Faith received it. And that's one of the reasons you're here today, praise God and that's one of the reasons you're where you are. And think about it, you get to be in class today. Praise God.
So we'll go back to the Book of Luke where we've been reading and we're talking about the prophets. So what is a prophet in the first place? Now the general Christian public has the idea that a prophet just foretells the future. No, we're talking about manifestations of the gifts of the Spirit. And you can find all of those in First Corinthians and then they're listed the apostle and you can find in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. But when you go to the end of the first chapter of Corinthians, you find the gifts of the Spirit or manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the life of a human being. And so, as you know, that for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. So Jesus was and is a gift to the whole world that whoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life. Well he paid a dear price for that.
And the background of that and what we're studying is why the devil was out to kill the prophets, because Jesus ministered as a prophet. He's "The" prophet. And the gifts of the Spirit were there, all of them, except the manifestation of speaking in other tongues. But now, do you remember what happened at the tomb of Lazarus? He groaned in the Spirit and said, "I know you always hear me". Glory to God. Well, when you step over after the cross and resurrection, Jesus prophesied it in that last gorgeous, beautiful Passover, because he is about to become the lamb slaughtered at the Passover. If you go back and study the lamb, it had to be a male lamb burned in fire, not boiled, burned with fire, male, fire, Jesus, hell. There it is. Praise God.
And people say, "Oh, you just make that salvation thing too easy". I didn't have anything to do with that. Listen, there's not anything easy about it. Nothing easy about it. Study out what Peter preached right after the resurrection, and he quoted Scripture. You will not leave my soul in hell not to see my body see corruption. Amen.
I was preaching in North Texas in a little town called Hereford, Texas, right up in the panhandle, and preached there for three weeks. In fact, this is where I was when the Lord pointed out victory in the new birth and victory and so forth and so on. That's where the Voice of Victory came from. And I preached that. Well, it was an abandoned drugstore building and where we had the meeting. And so I had preached that and of course the Lord direct me to preach the new birth and preach baptism of the Holy Ghost and preach that Jesus went to hell. And then victories in each one of these. Well in the evening service, and there I was and their little platform, it wasn't much bigger than the second step here and the back door opened and here this man came. And I want you to know he's a big'n because I was standing there and he was as tall as me and I'm standing up here on that platform.
I'm standing there and I just said, "Lord, here he comes". But he was not happy with me at all. And he walked up there to me and he said, Well I thought, what is it with this guy? So... okay... So he came back and he said, Copeland, I know you're wondering about me. I said, "Well, yeah, I'm wondering about you". He said, "Let me give you a little background. I was an alcoholic truck driver and the Lord deliver me and called me to ministry and I pastor this Methodist church out here"m and he said, "Some of my parishioners came back and, you know, they said they were speaking in tongues and Jesus went to hell", and he said, "I didn't like the sound of either one of those". But he said, "The Lord, you know what happened to me when I pointed my finger at you". But he said, "I went back home, tried to go to bed and go to sleep, couldn't". So he said, "I got up and went over to the Sanctuary and got on my knees there at the altar. I just began praying". He said, "Those tongues are something. I really enjoyed that. And I stopped and I said, 'Jesus you go to hell'". He said, "You better believe it, big boy. If I hadn't, you would have".
That's the story of the Gospel right there in those few words. You better believe it, big boy. If I hadn't, you would have. Think about what he did for us. He said it. The son of man will be three days and three nights as Jonah was in the belly of the whale. So that was a type, three days and three nights. So shall the son of man be in the heart of the earth. Well if it starts at Friday it doesn't work. Well Brother Copeland, is it in the Bible? Well of course it's in the Bible. It was a high Sabbath. John records that, it started on Wednesday night, not Friday night. I mean, figure it out yourself, but that works. It was the high Sabbath. It began in the middle of the week instead of on Friday. And people still, you know, celebrate Good Friday. No, it was Good Wednesday. Well, you know, I'm not dogmatic about that, but you might as well be right. Well I am pretty dogmatic about it, but you need to do it right and you're going to be teaching it. And it's not Easter.
Now there's a reason for those painted eggs. I didn't know that. But that's not what this is about. You can get that some other time. 34th Verse, 13th Chapter of Luke. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem which killest the prophets. Well, Jerusalem didn't kill them. But they killed them in Jerusalem. That's the reason he had to be crucified in Jerusalem. It had to be in Jerusalem. The trial had to be in Jerusalem. And I want to point out a couple of other things here while we're at it. The trial had to be in Jerusalem. The centurion was Cornelius. So put those together. And when you come over and you see the centurion that built the synagogue, his name is Cornelius, there's not two or three centurions. He was the garrison commander of Rome. He was a field grade officer, which meant he had at least 100 men under him. No fewer than that. So if you're an Army guy with 100 men and that's a third of a company, but then when you have 100 men, you have their families and you have all of the subordinates, each of those men could have... Well, he had a servant. He had a servant. And he was something... particularly in that area. He was it.
So when you read these things, see what's in the shadows. Connect those dots because if his name is Cornelius in the Book of Acts, his name is Cornelius before he got over in the Book of Acts. But I'm so glad he did and I'm so glad that he honored Jesus and his Word. He said, I'm not important enough for you to come under my roof. Well, he was the highest ranking Roman officer in that whole region, but he said, I'm not important enough. I'm just a man under authority. I recognize authority. Now we're back into 2023, put the Word of God in first place. He said, "I recognize authority. I tell the man to go, he goes, I tell a man to come, he comes. I tell him to do this, he does it. You speak the Word only, my servant will be healed". Jesus said, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in all of Israel".
And I expect there were some men present there kind of hung their heads because here is this Gentile soldier represents the enemy of Israel, he's from Rome. And Jesus said he had greater faith than any of them because he recognized that the authority and the power was in the words of his mouth. That's what faith is, is recognizing the power and the authority of the Word of the living God, amen. So when it is first place and absolute authority in our lives, we can depend on it. It is as dependable as if we were in the presence of Jesus in the flesh, because this Book is just as much a manifestation of Jesus and God in the Earth because it is the Word. I'm gonna say it again. Why is it called the Word of God? Because it's his bond. The Book says, "I'll watch over my Word to perform it".
The Book says he is not a man that he should lie. He's not a man that he should repent. Has he not said it, will he not make it good? Will he not make it good? How? By his Spirit, hallelujah. He makes it good by his Spirit. By his stripes you were healed. Well, what prophet said so? Isaiah 53. Amen. We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace, our shalom. Nothing missing, chastisement of our prosperity. That word is translated prosperity. It was on him, our peace of mind. Amen. By his stripes we are healed. That is a precious statement. That is a statement of healing.
Then in the eighth chapter of the Book of Matthew, it is also written. Jesus came in to Peter's house, so his wife's mother laid sick of a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, of course it did. And when evening was come they brought many who were possessed with devils. He cast out the spirits with his Word, and he healed all that were sick, fulfilling that which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying, "He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses". So that's fulfilled. If it's fulfilled then it's fulfilled now. Don't you remember what God said in the Book of Malachi? I change not. Well, we go over that and find that in the Book of Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. Well, that means this Book is the same yesterday, today and forever. I like different translations, but you need to be careful of some of those. Amen.
I really enjoyed my little BLB app... That's just fun. Just dig around, find all different kinds of things, praise God. So all of this, Peter called them exceeding great and precious promises. So in my Bible, it says exceeding great and precious covenant promises, because here again, we're back to the place where most Christian people, most of them, they just know Old Testament, New Testament. These are covenants. It calls itself a covenant. Amen. The Hebrew Testament literally means covenant. The Greek word testament means contract. There you have it. Amen. So we're out of time again today. But the bottom line of all of this is, everything Jesus did, he did it for people. Everything God did in that first covenant, he established all of the basic groundwork for the second one, all of the blood sacrifices, all of them, even Adam himself, was a type of Jesus. We read that already, and I'm out of time. Glory to God. How did I do that? We'll be back in a few moments.