Kenneth Copeland - What Happened in the Garden?
Hello everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland and welcome to class this morning here with the student body of Kenneth Copeland Bible College and would you give yourselves a hand. I'm glad you're here. Amen, and this is fun time, glory to God, when you get into the Word and like Brother Hagin used to say, you lift up every leaf, you go bug hunting, you lift up every leaf and every chip, ever rock, see how many bugs you can find or the things that are bugging you about the Word.
Praise the Lord, Father, we thank You today. And once again in this class, we open our hearts and minds to You to receive concepts, ideas and the faith producing Word of God. We thank You for it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let's open our Bibles once again today to the 13th chapter of the Book of Luke. If we put a title on this message, it would be Jerusalem, which kills the prophets. Well, you can read that. And we know then that prophets were killed in Jerusalem. Jesus then went to the cross in Jerusalem. But what's behind it? Well, yeah, well, so what... Well, so what is not enough. I don't care what subject you're studying in the Bible, so what is not enough. Now we know it's true. It is absolute truth, but then at the same time you find things in the Bible. It's true, the Bible said it. Well what was said was not true. What Job said was not true.
And people have difficulty with the book of Job. But if you just straighten it out, there was not but one sin involved in that whole thing. There's a lot of others... Yeah, but there was only one responsible thing. Curse God and die. That's the theme of the book. Amen. But the things that Job said were not necessarily true. But it was true that he said it. It actually happened just like it said. And so you come back here. Now, let's read this in the 34th verse of the 13 chapter of Luke. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not"! Wouldn't do it.
Now, I want to speak a moment about the analogy that he made. Now, if you've never been a country boy and you've never seen a hen do that, it is very interesting. You had a whole bunch of little chicks running around there. And when it starts getting sundown, I mean, she clucked, bawk, bawk, bawk, here they come and she does this and they all run up under her and she squats down like that. They're all up under her wings where it's warm. And out there in West Texas, it gets cold, cold. But she just hunkers down like that and they all go to sleep and she protects them.
And I'm telling you, if anything disturbs that, she makes a racket and she just goes throwing a fit to protect those little fellows. And I have that image in my mind. I can just see her doing that particular big ole Rhode Island red. I mean, and then she does hovers down like that and everybody goes to sleep and they're so safe. And sometime you got some a little disobedient one then she'll slip him back up under her wing. And Jesus said, "I would have done that", praise God. So now... Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which kills the prophets.
Well, let's go back to the Book of Genesis now, in the third chapter. And let's read here, beginning with the first verse. "Now, the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made". Did you see that? He made him so he's responsible for him. "And he said unto the woman, yea"... Or, "Hey lady, how are you? You're so fine looking today. Just as sweet and oily, can't you just see this greasy... Oh, how y'all are? Just so nice... Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it".
Now she did, she added to it. He didn't say anything about touching it. I submit to you, since we know that Adam knew to tithe, it was Cain and Abel's tithe, their first fruits, that fruit had they let it alone until it was ripe, until it was ready. It was his tree. Then when the time had come and he would have come to them and said, "Bring to me my fruit". Now Jesus knew good and evil without experiencing it. And then he would have taught them who this serpent is. He would have taught them good and evil without having to go through the curse. I can see God's plan in that. He didn't say they couldn't touch it because they were responsible for the keeping of that garden. They were responsible for it, there wasn't anything wrong with them touching it, watering it, taking care of it. But she picked up something there. Now, she said it was beautiful and she was wanting to touch it. There was no law against it. Now, that's very interesting, isn't it?
All right, let's go back here where we were... "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil". They were already like God, he's a con artist. He's painting a picture to her. So we can't tell what that picture was. But I mean, he was making this look really, really, really good. I've been there, have you not? Amen. Oh, don't mess with that. "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise" oh man, "she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat".
So he wasn't out playing heavenly golf somewhere. And he's the boss of the garden. He had dominion. He could have stopped it. Even after she ate, he could have stopped it. He could have stopped it ahead of time. He had the authority to do it. I'm convinced that once she ate of that, he could not give her up to it. But anyway, whatever it was then he took them, he ate it. I don't think they just took a bite out of it. I think they had lunch. I mean, they really went after this thing because it must have been extremely delicious. "So the eyes of both them, both were opened and they knew that they were naked".
I want to talk to you a little bit here, we won't have time in this session to get into a whole lot of it. But there's the light line. When God said light be, he wasn't talking about sunshine, he was talking about light energy. The power of light. And on that line, God is above that line. At that time, Adam and his wife were above that line. They were so much like God, they could see by the speed of light, they could see angels, they could see that devil, they could see and can see and perceive of what was there.
Now he fell below the light line. So now his vision has fallen. Now he's stuck in this material world. In order to have light now he must receive it from God, he can't see an angel unless he has a divine move of the Spirit to see one. But above that light line, he's like God, he can see the angels, he can see the whole spiritual world because he was exactly like God and God created them.
Now let's continue with this. "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam", Adam, which means blood "and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where are you? Or why are you where you are? And he said, 'I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.'"
That's the first recorded word of fear in the human race. Fear came from the devil. He is the author of fear. He is fear personified. "Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree whereof I commanded" and so forth. "And the Lord God said unto the serpent," now listen to this. "Because thou hast done this, you art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon your belly shalt you go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of your life: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shalt bruise his heel".
And that's Jesus. And then the fight was on and has been on ever since. What did the angel say? Good will towards men, that did not say among men, good will toward men. The war between heaven and earth is over. How can we say that? Because the sacrifice is in the earth. He's here and you can't get him out and devil, you can't kill him... until the time comes. And he tried. He tried every way he could get it done. He tried to do it, but he couldn't.
So now then let's go to the book of Isaiah and let's turn to the 14th chapter please, verse nine. "Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for you, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto you, Art you also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of your viols: the worm is spread under you, and the worms cover you. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north".
Psalm 75:6. If you want to make a note of that... "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. You shalt be brought down to hell, to the gates of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof;"
Now we're going way back. Now you come to Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, eons of time between there, the fossil record doesn't lie. The dinosaurs were here, now whether you see it there or not, be honest enough that the dinosaurs were here. The saber-toothed tiger, the mammoth, all that. But none of them were on the ark. There are those that believe they were, but if there were, they'd still be some of them here. So that doesn't work. And we'll discuss that as we go. Now, let's turn to the book of Ezekiel Chapter 28. I just have time enough to introduce this, and then we'll take it up again tomorrow. Chapter 28:11. "Moreover, the Word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, take a lamentation against the king of Tyrus".
Now the Prince of Tyrus thought he was a god. He'd been deceived... but this is the king of Tyrus, "and say unto Him, thus says the Lord God. Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. You hast been in Eden the garden of God;" Well that Prince had never been in Eden. The Garden of God. "Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created". The day you were created. There we have it again. The day that you were perfect and the day you were created.
"You art the anointed cherub that covereth; I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; and walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in you". He had no tempter, so there is no salvation for him. Jesus said he is a liar and the father of it. He invented it. Amen. So we have the name of Jesus, glory of God, aren't you... doesn't this thrill you? It does me. I go over and get over into this and you know, and I like what Professor Greg Stephens said, you get out in the weeds, you just dig around in the weeds. You're looking around in there and you find all kinds of worms and ugly stuff. Glory to God.
My great granddaughter... Alex, John said to her... No, my granddaughter, excuse me. Told her to do something she said why? He said, "cause I'm the boss". She said, "I want to be boss". And so she killed her first white tailed deer. And so her dad was dressing it all out and she gouged his eyeball out and stuck it up here and just held the eyeball of that deer. Well I have to admit, I have never tried that. She has no fear. She has no fear. We taught our children to be fearless. Be cautious, fearless, and stand on the Word of the Living God. And we're out of time. Well, let's give the Lord a praise. We'll be back in just a moment.