Kenneth Copeland - Keep In Step With God
Hello, everybody I'm Kenneth Copeland as if you didn't know. Well, there's some of you probably didn't. But this is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. And we're here this morning as last week, we're here at KCBC, Kenneth Copeland Bible College before the class. And we're just glad you're here with us. And, Father, we thank You for being here with us. And we praise You and worship You this morning in Jesus' name, Amen.
Last week, we were talking about the Christian chain of command and we're still going down that line. Now Jesus, the Lord advocate general of the church. Did you know the Heavenly Father has retired? Yeah, it's necessary, think about this now... to have turned all judgment of the Earth over to the man that was here, experienced it, including hell itself. And he's turned... just study it out. It states it. He has turned all judgment into the hands of the Son. That's a good thing, because he's been here. He's put up with it and didn't sin. Amen. And because of him, we can live a sin-free life through what he provided, particularly if we're quick to repent and go right straight to first John, first chapter, very important thing to do.
And I had an experience a number of years ago in a meeting that was very challenging anyway, and during the afternoon service, I had... well, I didn't get mad during the afternoon service. I came in mad. I was really, oh man, I was walking around the hotel room, I said, "I'm not going back over there tonight. I'm not going". And in here the Lord said, "Why not"? I said, "You know why", I'm talking out loud. You know, why not? And then I repeated what I did, which is none of your business. I did not cuss, but oh, I got so close. Now here is what he surprised me with Kenneth. He said, "Didn't you confess that before me"? I said, "Yes, I did". Now, listen. He said, "Kenneth, when you confessed that sin was not when I found out about it. That's when you got rid of it". Isn't that powerful? Praise God. And he's always there.
Now, may I remind you of something else. In the last meal... that last Passover meal that changed heaven and earth forever... That last meal. Let's turn there. Let's turn to John 13. Now, notice here we had to get Judas out of the room. Extremely important. "Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, 'Now is the Son of man glorified'," not son of God, "the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another".
Is that a commandment or not. Go right on over to the 14th chapter. "Let not your heart be trouble". So is that, that is red. Those letters are as red as these others. "In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you..." I want to come on down to the 10th verse. "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works". And he still does. Because Jesus was promising them right then, it's expedient for you that I go away. For if I don't go away, the Father can't come in his Spirit. And then he said, "Go to Jerusalem and don't do any business until you get it". That should be the same thing today, because the baptism of the Holy Ghost speaking with other tongues as they open the door to the supernatural. Praying in the Spirit is so powerful.
Now then, in the 10th chapter of the Book of Matthew, "And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them authority against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease". Then it names them. "These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying..." What'd he do, he what? He commanded. These are divine orders. Does he ever change? Does the Father ever change? He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And he is the commander in chief of the church. And these are his written orders. So if you have a Bible, you have no excuse... "Commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give".
Freely receive what? Power and authority, freely you have received it so freely give, "Provide neither gold or silver nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his hire". That has been twisted by the devil in and out to keep poverty in the face of Christians. But you don't just leave it there. You go over to the Book of Luke and he said, "Did you lack anything"? They said, "No, Lord, we lack nothing". So the bottom line is, leave all your stuff at home. You're going to work for me. I'm supplying everything, now later on, it's going to be your responsibility. And right as he was going to the cross, he said, "Well now I have", I'm paraphrasing, "I have been your protector".
Now, if you need a weapon, buy one. So I bought one or two or three or four or five. My dad was a hunter and he was a bird hunter. And first time he took me deer hunting, I thought, oh, I get to go deer hunting with my dad. Do you kill those little fellows? Yes. And I eat them. I like game and anyway... Early one morning, kind of cold, misty rain and he went through all the safety, the whole thing. Now, it's very important. This goes right into what we're saying. He taught me exactly what to do. Every step of it. Jesus taught his staff what to do, every step of it. My dad and I went, this is my first time. We went through that over and over and over.
So then the man took us out then. They put me up in this huge oak tree and the rifle, of course I have my dad's deer rifle and I have it now. It's very special to me. We went through the whole drill, how to... Of course I've been firing it for quite a while, but this is my first time to hunt with it. And I was 12, 13 years old and put me up in this huge oak tree, went through the whole drill and so, you know, unloaded and everything and went through the whole process to get me up in that tree. And went through it all and I got up there and inserted the magazine and I'm ready. I am so ready. And it is misting and it is very cold and it got colder and it got colder and it got colder than that.
And so the man came by. I don't remember what his name was, he came back, he and my dad came by and they didn't do any good either because so cold and rainy, that great big oak tree came... I was sitting up, where I was, was easy, but I had to come back down and it came down like that. But I went through the whole reverse process to lower that rifle to my dad. I'm a young boy and I'm learning all the process of this. It's still with me today. Well, I turned around then to go back down this big tree. It had iced over and so I started down and it just spit me out. I thought, let's do that again. But my dad was teaching me everything I needed to know in that situation.
Jesus is teaching these 12 everything they need to know. This is the way you do it. You look at me, you do what I do. And they did. And it worked most of the time. But they stayed in so much strife, that didn't really stop until this night. That's really when it stops. Nevertheless... Look over here in this 9th chapter, "And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his field". And he called his 12... glory to God. So he called his laborers for the field.
What did he do? He went about all... isn't all an interesting word. It means the same in Spanish, it means the same in Hebrew, it means the same in Chaldean. Keith Moore was talking about it when he was at Rhema. There is a young man decided he'd do a Word study on all. And so he looked it up in all of the different languages and he said, "You know what it means? All". He went into all, teaching, preaching and healing. We had... I'm talking Gloria and me. We had considered that, we had salvation here and healing here. They are equally as important in the eyes of God. Why? Because he wants his people well, he wants his people well. You're the first to hear this, all right.
June the 28th, 1980 12:07 in the morning at our prayer cabin in southwest Arkansas. And I was praying about a number of things and not particularly problems. While I was worshiping Jesus, his presence filled my spirit. He began speaking to me. He ministered to me and then began answering questions for me about some things I had prayed about. Suddenly: "Stand up right on your feet". Well, I'd heard that voice before on the 23rd day of January 1967. Stand up right on your feet, I sent you here and I'll take care of you here. And so I understood. And I stood up on my feet. I commissioned you to lay hands on the sick with a special anointing. And at a certain things that he said that qualified that. "Lay these hands on the sick, no sickness nor disease shall be able to stand before you. Your words shall be my words. Your thoughts shall be my thoughts".
Habakkuk three, four and five, receive my anointing. I held that. I held on to it, all these years, over 40 years. I didn't just jump up and announce that because it sounded too much like what the Lord had said to Kenneth Hagin. And I refused to go out and try to qualify myself to do something. But this came on Gloria's birthday this year, and I refused to jump out on something. And when she stepped down from Healing School, I stepped into it. And most of you know that know the reasons why. And so I just followed her pattern, just as closely as I could. I followed her pattern. But when the Lord dropped that in me, I mean, with that same force, I heard it with the same force. This is the next phase of your healing ministry. So then and I talked to Pastor George about it. So now we have to change Healing School to fit this, because now I'm responsible for that. Now I laid hands on the sick remembering this, but there was that void there until the direction from the head of the church concerning what he intended and planned for me to do in his healing ministry, not mine, his, that I have been honored with.
In 1977, when Prophet Kenneth E. Hagin separated me into the office of the Prophet, he said this, "You're going to have to move over into that healing ministry a little sooner than you thought you would. You're not getting out ahead of God. You keep in step with God". Well, I never did get out of the healing ministry, but I followed it step by step as the Lord gave me direction. Well, the direction came on the 12th of this month. So now we changed order. I don't care if it takes 40 years. What's 40 years? How does 40 years match to a thousand years? About that long. Amen, these are plans that he has and I'm quite certain and just from what I sense in my spirit and what he said was this is the next phase of your healing ministry. He didn't say the last phase. This is the next phase.
So I'm not going to get out of this phase. If it takes another well, I won't be here forty more years, but I will be 35, so I'm not going to get out of this one. It may change a year from now, two years from now. But I will remind you of this. I wrote that down and carried that in that book right there for 40 years and didn't say anything about it. Jumping out there ahead of God got me into trouble for the last time because I would do that. I'd just get out and announce we're going to do this and then I get to thinking, Oh, dear Lord, what have I done, I'd say it on the platform, then the Lord said, "You took my anointing for strength, but now you've gone ahead", since you announced it, you're going to have to do it and we're out of time. We'll be back in just a moment, give the Lord a praise.