Kenneth Copeland - Suit Up in God's Armor and Win
Welcome everybody to the Believer's Voice of Victory Broadcast. And here it is Friday and to Kenneth Copeland Bible College today, praise God. And all of you are in class again today. Aren't you glad they're here? So we welcome you and we're talking about... well yesterday endure hardship as a good soldier, soldier in the Army of the Lord. There's a song about that, "I'm a soldier in the Army of the Lord". Why? Because he's a good God, he's a good commander. And Jesus is the Lord Advocate General of the Church. He is the Commander and Chief of the body of Christ. He is the head and we are the body. And when we do things that are unbecoming to him, to another member of his body, we did it to him. Amen.
So now back to Ephesians six. "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places". I want to remind you now, when Jesus went to Gadara, that place on the Galilee, because he left there and went right straight back to Capernaum, is just right across the lake. But there was a mad men there, fifth chapter of the book of Luke and well, Mark, excuse me, fifth chapter of Mark, quickly I want you to see this in action... Verse five. Always... Out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.
One, rulers of the darkness of this world, "Who had his dwelling among the tombs. No man could bind him, not with chains" and so forth. "All the ways, day and night was in the mountains and in tombs, crying". He's a cutter. He cut himself with stones. "When he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshiped him"... So I don't care how much possession there was, he worshiped him anyway. "He ran and worshipped him and cried with a loud voice..." This is that devil talking. "What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that you torment me not..."
That's the devil talking through him. "For he said to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is your name? He answered my name is Legion, for we are many". That was the command devil. But he had 3 to 6000 devils under his command, principalities and powers. Principalities and powers 3 to 6000 of them, one was in command. One unclean spirit, a ruler of the darkness of this world. So as you're ministering to people, remember that and be very, very aware of the surroundings. And until the Lord says for you to do so, don't touch him.
We were in Tulsa and the house we lived in right across the way was a young man and his wife. He was going to Trinity Bible College and he called me and he said, "I have a young man in my home that he spoke to the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship and can't get him to leave". I said, "Well what's the deal with him"? Well, he said, "Now Brother Copeland, he was a gunner, a tail gunner on a B-25 in World War II". I thought he's not old enough to have even seen World War II. Dear Lord, I wasn't but five when it started. He's a liar. No, they had such sympathy for him. I mean, he just barely escaped with his life. The whole crew was killed but him. He's a liar. I said, "I'll be right over".
So I walked in the kitchen there and he just sitting there at the table. So I tried to minister to him at the table and I could see it in his eyes. His eyes all glazed over. And so I said, "Well, stand up here. I'm going to pray for you, but see this... I was very young in the Lord, I didn't know any better". And so I laid my hands on him and he hit me right in the mouth. Well, I reacted. I didn't respond. I reacted. I just unloaded on him... We were standing up... The table's here and the doorway here and the hall and the wall behind the hall there. I hit him so hard that I knocked him through that hall and his rear end stuck through the concrete, the sheet rock and he's hanging there like this. And I just pulled him out of there and put him down on the ground and set down on him and I cast... I think it was something like nine devils out of him and his eyes came around and he was very pleasant. I do not recommend that form of ministry. I didn't know any better.
I really felt bad about it, but he decided, well, maybe it's time for him to go on to somewhere else. Well the only thing John was worried about is what the landlord was going to say about that hole in the wall. But we had the same landlord and he was a believer so I'm sure it worked out alright, but he was demon possessed. I don't expect he was over 24, 25 years old. He wasn't even born in World War II. And why the people believe that mess I can't... well I mean, you know, I mean they're dumber than him, most of them probably didn't but they felt sorry for him because they could tell he's... you know... off. And so he wanted to go home with John Jacobs and he couldn't get him out of there. Well, he did leave. But anyway, there you have it. Don't touch him till you're ready to release your faith, praise God.
Anyway, suit up. Put your armor on. Put your fighting clothes on. There's been times I have literally done that. I suit up, put on that breastplate of righteousness, and I was doing that one day and I had all this going and I said, "Now I'm ready I have my suit" and the Word of the Lord came up inside of me. He said, "Put the faceplate down". Oh, oh, okay. He said, "That's my fighting suit. Now put that faceplate down. The devil can't tell whether it's me or you inside that suit. Don't say something stupid and he knows it's you and not me".
So what do you do? You stand on James 4:7. You stand there submitted to God. I have your clothes on, sir. And now I am going to resist the devil and he will flee. Satan, I resist you steadfastly in the faith and in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who I am and whom I serve. I command you to depart my presence. You get out of here, you're gone. Then something comes back up again, no I'm not gone. Ha, ha, ha, I can prove you're gone and just get James 4:7 and hold it up there, you're gone. I won't tell him to leave again. I submitted myself to God. I have on the fighting armor. He's gone. Praise God.
That's what a good soldier does. I just shot him right between the eyes with James 4:7. In that situation, he is as dead as Goliath... cause Goliath was full of the devil. He cursed him by his gods. Huh. Well Hollywood has David dancing around, no he put that sling in his hand and the Bible said he ran toward him. I come at you in the name of the Lord God of host, that put the angels involved in it right there. And those angels saw that that rock hit the only spot uncovered and killed him. He fell, and then he finished him off with his own sword. So who made David king? Goliath... Goliath and made the spirit in Saul hate him. Cause they sang better songs about him than they did him... very vain. But Saul would get depressed, spirit of depression on him. And he would do things under depression that he normally wouldn't do...
Anyway. We learn from these things. "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked". Now he's describing Roman army, well above the shield of a Roman soldier was taller than he is, and they had hooks. This is the reason Rome was so hard to defeat in battle. They were well advanced. And this is the reason Cornelius recognized the authority of Jesus, because he's a Roman soldier, a field grade officer.
Now they could hook those things together and they did what was called the turtle maneuver. Well, what was the weapon of the day? And they put fire tips on them and just rain those arrows down on top of them. And they'd hook together. And now above all, the shield of faith. Now then you're shooting all of those arrows. But here they come, and your arrows are doing no good whatsoever. And they're right up in your face and they get up there close to you, they all come down with that shield then, and then out comes the personal weapon. Above all, the shield of faith. The fiery arrows of the devil cannot penetrate the maneuver. That's the reason faith is so important, above all, why? You have to receive righteousness by faith, you have to receive it all by faith, your shoes by faith, your righteousness by faith. The helmet of salvation, that was by faith. Find that in the book of Ephesians.
Well, we're there. Go to chapter two. Praise God, verse four. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved; And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:"
There's faith again. That's the reason he's talking about the shield of faith. So he took the Roman armor as a description, the breastplate of righteousness. Now, that armor wasn't just here. You either had it strapped here and strapped in the back where you could move, or in some cases it was a complete suit of armor. And did you ever notice in the pictures that armor always had abs. There never was a belly on it. Well, in the first place, those Roman soldiers didn't have any fat on them. But you look good in that armor. Even if you couldn't breathe. And I would laugh about that towards the Lord. I said, "Well, with your armor on, I really look good". Oh yes, can't breathe much... And the sword of the Spirit, it's double-edged. Anyway, praise God.
Aren't these things magnificent? The Word of the Living God, "For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God". What is the gift of God? Both the grace and the faith, the grace and the faith. I remember it. I just see it in my mind right now. I came home from flying that trip that night from Little Rock to Shreveport and back. Man by the name of Wiere, he was an executive at Arkansas, Louisiana gas company, Natural Gas. And when I got back in that evening, I went in bedroom there and took my shirt off and put on a just a pair of kakis, Gloria waited supper for me. She was still standing there at the kitchen stove about 8:00, and I sat down in there and I had one shoe on and about to put the other one on and just suddenly, you know how many times the Bible says suddenly, I mean, it was sudden just like that and I bowed my head there.
And when I went about my head I heard this, "Kenneth if you don't get right with me son, you're going to a devil's hell". No. "If you don't get right me, you're going to a devil's hell, son". I said, "I know it. I know it, what do I do now"? I heard my Sunday school teacher's voice, Mrs. Taggart, Southern Baptist Sunday School at the University Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas. Now, Baptist Sunday schools are just way too much like school, they just promote you all the time. Well, all the boys of us got together there, and Mrs. Taggart was our teacher, and she really cared for us. And she was the one that really, really taught Sunday school.
Now, I had gone down front when I was nine, I signed a card, but nobody prayed anything. I cried. That happened to me more than once. She said "Boys," I thought that's old lady Taggart. You have to ask Jesus to come into your heart. I thought, well, that sounds just as dumb as it did the first time I heard it, but here it goes. I said, "Jesus, come into my heart". And the war stopped on the inside of me. And for a few seconds there it felt like a square block inside my mouth and the profanity was gone forever, forever.
Now there's a lot of other junk was hanging on, I mean that was gone forever and ever and ever and ever. It worked, and that amazed me. But then I had to tell Gloria because she was raised in the Church of Christ, I was raised in Southern Baptist. So we just didn't talk about it. Neither one of us cared anything about going to church anyway. My language was terrible and she just put up with me, hurtful but she just put up with me. When I was around I'm gonna have to tell her, I call her I said, "Gloria, what do you think about if I was to maybe give my testimony or speak for God or something..." And she said, "Hallelujah". I said, "What"? She told me what had happened to her while I was out looking for the job.
And she found that Bible that my mother sent me and she just prayed, take my life and do something with it. She hadn't said to me anything about it either for the same reason I guess. And that's when it started. Right there... little by little. But I still wanted to stay in airplane business. I still wanted to sell airplanes and fly airplanes and everything that, you know, and maybe testify here a little. And then the other thing that I told you, I found out, naw, I'm called to preach and that ended that. And I never questioned it. I never got the idea well, maybe I'm not called. I don't know. I don't understand people that struggle with that. I can sympathize, but I can't understand it because once that came on me, that was it. But now T.L. Osborne said his calling to preach was Mark 16:15 through 20. He read that and said, "Yes, sir". The Lord just said, "You go do that".
But see he had a different raising than I did. He had learned born again at a young age and lived for God. Amen. Anyway, so that's the bottom line of that... so now we see this, but now he's raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places. We are seated with him, you and I are seated with him in heavenly places. Now what do you think that the saints of heaven thought about our last election? They could care less except the cloud of great witnesses that it is their job to care because they know the will of God and they see all the political hankie panky. I mean, on both sides and all those devils, they see what those devils are doing to people in Washington DC and in the state houses and the mayorships of cities and how they're being deceived. And that great cloud of witnesses are interceding for them and we are out of time. We'll be back in just a moment.