Kenneth Copeland - Take a Stand on God's Word
The 6th Chapter of Ephesians. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;" That's 6th verse. "With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that..." I want you to get this now. Now we're gonna talk about this. I just say to the kids, you got your catchers up. Know it, know. That same word, know, Ginosko. Know this that any good thing that anybody does, the same shall he receive from the Lord.
Years and years and long time ago, the Lord started talking to me about this. He said, "Don't you teach prosperity"? I said, "Yes, I do". "Why"? I said, "Well when you called me that's what you said you wanted me to do. You said you're going to hold me responsible for the laws that govern heavenly economics. That's the reason I teach on it when I'm receiving offering". He said, "I'm going to hold you responsible for that". So he started talking me about that. He said, "You know, when people go in a men's room and just rip all the towels out and wad them up, wash their hands, throw them in the floor. Yeah, how's it make you feel"? I said, "It's disgusting because somebody had to pay for those towels". He said, "Here's what I want you to do". He said, "Use only what's necessary and then when you get through, clean up that counter".
Now, this happened just last week. I was in the men's room at Applebee's Restaurant and there's a young man in there, and I pulled the towels down here and had washed my hand and he was washing his and so I just pulled a couple of towels over there and handed him. He did it, looked up and he said, "Brother Copeland"! Isn't that good? Well, I didn't do that because I thought maybe he might be a brother. It just was the thing to do and he was washing his hands. I just finished mine, so I just took out the towel and handed it to him and he said, "Thank you". And he looked up and saw me. Yeah. I intend for people to look out after my stuff, because I look out after God's stuff. Amen.
So look for the little things to do, look at it again. I mean, you could spend a lot of time on this. In fact, I put a little red finger right there to it where it can really catch my eye. Knowing, say, "I know this", that whatsoever good thing anybody does the same shall he receive of the Lord whether he be bond or free. That is just wonderful. "Ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him". Amen. So we continue. "Finally, my brethren, be strong..."
Now here. Finally. Finally be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Dunamis. "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye 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. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand, stand therefore". Get the Word of God and take a stand. Just take a stand. And I had two men, Oral Roberts and Kenneth E. Hagin to learn. And from the two of them, there are things that I learned and made certain quality decisions, a quality decision is a decision about which there is no argument and from which there is no retreat.
And I learned from Brother Hagin, we were in one of his seminars and he talked about making the Word of God final authority in your life, put it first place. How many would like to do that, Gloria and I jumped up. And when we read that and we understand what it's saying to us, then that's final authority, "By his stripes you were healed," that's final authority, that's it. But don't do it without the Scriptures. Remember now what Keith Moore said, "To be scriptural, you have to have Scriptures". Think about that. You can have a movie script, but you put U, R, E, on the end of it and it's holy, it is God's script. Amen. And it's settled in heaven forever. That's the good part about it. Well I didn't know that for a long time.
So now take your stand. Having done all the stand, stand. Having done all the stand, that's it. Stand therefore, having on this full armor. The point is, taking the stand. There's been times I took that scripture right there and there was one time over some really serious things. You know everybody said, "Oh, man, you know, my finances are just going down the drain. Just going down the drain". I said, "No, sir". So I just took that Book, stood on it, and I said, "This will plug the drain". I took a stand. That's the only time I ever did that where I actually stood on that Book. But it worked. You can do whatever you want to do. But there are certain decisions that must be made, and like I've said earlier, and this has continued to come up when it's concerning getting out of debt.
Now, people don't think much about that until you get into situations where there's inflation. Then you have to choose. Like one guy said, "If you don't quit calling me, I'm won't take your name out of the hat". Well, when it gets to that point, man when it's pick and choose, it hurts. I know I've been there, but you take the verses first. Let's turn over there to the book of Romans. Don't lose your place now we're coming back to the breastplate of righteousness. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves condemnation. For rulers are not a terror," and so forth.
"Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same", talking now, "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil".
He's talking about police force, he's talking about first responders. And he wasn't talking about particularly about the whole government itself. But you and I both know that the devil will pull anything he possibly can to get a hold of a government so he can govern people through bad government. And over the ages that's been his way of success. And he's tried it in this country over and over and over. But he hit a roadblock when he hit this one, because this one belongs to God. First Covenants, first covenants. George Washington, first president, the first Congress walked from the meeting place, there wasn't any George Washington. We're just now George Washington. It was in New York City. They walked down to St. Paul's Chapel and there he opened the Bible, the 17th Chapter of Genesis, and entered into a covenant with God over this country. And you can look up all the prayers that he prayed about this country.
So this country, literally by covenant belongs to God. And so the devil is really, he really hit a stump when he hit this one. And you know, he's had problem with Israel all this time. And he thought he had them wiped out. The state of Israel is the only nation that was born during World War II. That's what it was fought over because they didn't go home after World War I. General Allenby opened it up, opened Palestine and they voted and said they should have their own state. They didn't go back home so Hitler came on the scene. But they're home now, praise God forevermore. Isn't that good and I've had the joy of preaching there and enjoying it. Just so wonderful.
Pat Boone and I, the Lord, Pat said, "We're doing a tour, would you like to go"? And I thought, "Well", you know I told him, I said, "I need to pray about this". I prayed about it, the Lord said, "Yeah, I want you to go". "Okay, why"? Well, he said, "There's a young woman there and told me her name. I knew her mother and her ministry and her and her ministry. And then now she lived in Israel and her ministry is there". He said, "I want you to go and minister to her". What?... You want me to go 9000 miles to minister to one young woman. He said, "What if was Kellie, would you go if it was Kellie in trouble"? I'm on my way. He said, "I want you to minister to her. I want you to take authority over that war devil".
Okay. So, you know we had to make certain transfers and then we were on El Al. Kissinger was Secretary of State and the captain said, "Oh, well there was Air Force 2 taxiing", and he said, and then El Al Captain got on there and he said, "Oh, we sure hate to see that beautiful airplane go home without results". So I'm with Pat Boone. I didn't know how this is gonna work out. And of course, he and I have been friends since I was in high school, and he called me the next morning and he said, "You want to go to the war zone with me"? He said, "They've invited me up there to speak to some of the troops up there on line". I said, "Yes, sir".
And so they stopped us in one place where there was a firefight going on. And so they put flak jackets and helmets on the two of us before we got in there. And here are all these tank crews and everything. And here is Pat Boone. Now, this is the man that wrote the lyrics to Exodus. You know what they wanted to hear? No. Speedy Gonzalez... Sing Speedy Gonzalez, and they wanted to hear all about all the things, you know, because they loved his music. Well, this happened in one or two different places and we got up on top, there's was a group that was there. They were actually manning artillery right on the... you could see Syria from where we were. And I looked at that and how many of you were in the Army?
All right. Now I look back over there to me, and there was a big mobil88 sitting right behind me, and he was talking to all of them and telling them about Speedy Gonzalez and, you know, a lot of good things and how he's praying for all of them. And now they, you know, right behind me, I knew I was in the right territory. So I just backed off, they wasn't paying any attention to me. They're paying attention to Pat. And I turned around and I said, "You war devil in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who's I am and whom I serve, I bind you, I shut you down in the name of Jesus. I'm telling you, you're coming against the land that my Savior was born in. Now you stop it now", I didn't yell that loud because they would all overhear.
Well, we went back into town, I contacted Shira. Oh, she said, "Brother Copeland I told my mother if I could just see Brother Copeland. He's the only one who could help me with this". And I said, "Well, what is it, baby"? She told me, "There's the whole story". And so I said, "Well, here's what we're going to do". And the Lord gave me the Scriptures and everything to stand on. And I hugged her up, she and her husband were standing there, I hugged her up and oh, the power of God fell. And then she said, "Oh, and tell Gloria how much I love her". Well my job's done. Got on El Al, Air Force Two was taxiing in. It worked. Somebody shout amen. But it was literally done the moment I agreed to do it. So that opened the door for the Lord to move... What was happening? I was well suited with his armor.
Now let's go back to the armor. Oh, I was in Romans 12. Well, wait a minute. "Owe no man any thing but to love one another for he that loves another hath fulfilled the law". I was reading that at home. I had gone back to preach at Grace Temple, then I got my Amplified and it said, "Stay out of debt". And then you think to love one another... Gloria! Because when I read that, there goes my airplane. Gloria looked at that and she said, "Well, if that's what the book says, that's what we're going to do". But then let's look over here in the Book of Proverbs. Look in the 10th chapter, verse 15, "The rich man's wealth is his strong city. The destruction of the poor is their poverty".
You know what that means? Nobody will pay any attention to a poor man but the rich man, they'll listen to what he has to say. Verse 22, "The blessing of the Lord maketh rich. He had no sorrow with it". And then when you continue to look here, you'll find the borrower is servant of the lender, actually says the slave of the lender. Now you come over to the Book of Deuteronomy in the 29th verse, in the 9th, "Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do". I didn't have time to look this up because the Lord dropped it in my heart to bring this up a few moments ago, or I would have found the verses one and 31st.
"Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine donkey shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep" and so forth, "Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given... no might in thine hand". And if you look at it here, you'll borrow from many, you'll be the tail and not the head. Here it is 43. "The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail".
Now it's just the opposite of that over in the blessing, you'll lend to men and borrow from none. So then you can't make a doctrine on one verse of scripture. Don't ever try to do that, but let it be the lead in, follow it, track it. If there's not anything else that backs it up, just put it up on the shelf and leave it there, because that's the way people get into error and drift off out a little at a time and get off out into something you don't have any business being in in the first place. You get something like that and you know it in your heart. You know it's real. Don't do anything else about it until you get two or three more witnesses from the Word of God. Amen. And then proceed.