Kenneth Copeland - Protect Your Identity in Christ
— Hello, everybody, come on in here. This is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Romans 8:10 says, "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin. But the Spirit is alive because of righteousness". This means that even though you were born again, your body is mortal condition because of sin. That's why you have to do something with your body. Paul said, "Your spirit is alive because of righteousness". When you receive Christ, your spirit received the eternal life because you were made righteous. You had the very righteousness of God imparted to your spirit. You need one of these today. Amen.
— Amen.
— Now, go back in there what you were talking about.
— Well, now, while you read that one translation says, "Your spirit is instinct with life, because of righteousness". An instinct is an inborn pattern of behavior. So when you receive eternal life, when you make Jesus your Lord, you've been literally reborn and you're born again. And your spirit has an inborn pattern of behavior and instinct, a divine instinct, which is a new heart, a new spirit, a new nature, the life of God and God's love nature is in your spirit...
— Yes, sir.
— ... when you make Jesus your Lord.
— The Spirit of God through this man used much more, much more, much more.
— Yeah, much more.
— And you were talking about that during the break.
— So in Romans 5... actually, Romans 5 mentions Adam's name more than any other place in the Bible. Paul mentions Adam. He says, "One man got us in this mess and one man got us out". So he says in Romans 5, verse 20, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound". So Laubach's translation says, "God's work in Christ far exceeds any damage done to us by Adam's fall".
— The 21st verse, let's see. "Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord".
— Absolutely amazing. Amazing grace. So that verse Romans 5:20. My grandfather, my dad's dad was a pioneer pastor in East Texas. Just go into the community... start a church, actually.
— Where was that, Mark?
— That was like in Corsicana, Fairfield in that area. So his original church is now in this town square as a memorial to how many people got saved at his church and that's in Fairfield, I think.
— Yes.
— And so we can go there and it's got his picture the original church old frame church. On the wall in his church my dad said he had Romans 5:20. "That where sin abounded, grace did much more abound". He had so many bootleggers in his church because that was in the big thicket.
— Farmer bootleggers.
— Farmer bootleggers, they had all been in prison. They called each other by their prison number. That's five, four, three, two, right there and so they had been saved. So the sheriff of Freestone County said my grandpa Robert Hankins did more to stop bootlegging than any federal agent ever did because he went in there and preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
— Now, that's called the Big Thicket for a reason.
— Say you get in there you don't come out.
— It is... oh. There's an area there... It's a thicket. And is a dangerous place to be for a long time.
— The federal agents went in there to try to stop bootleggers and never came out. My grandpa went there and built the church and preach the Gospel of Christ, that Jesus is Lord. And Jesus changed... If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things have passed away, everything has become new. This changes everything and these men were so changed that, man, the bootlegging was gone. Their life changed so radically. They became a whole new kind of creature, a new kind of man that never existed before in Christ Jesus, that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God. I think T. L. Osborn said it this way: "Many of you think you need more power and you just need more Gospel". Because the Gospel is the power.
— Well, now, Mark, he called one time and he had heard about our prayer cabin over there in southwest Arkansas and wanted to come over and look at it. And I had a hot tub out on the deck. I said, "T. L., you ever been in a hot tub"?
— No, I haven't. I said, "I have an extra swimsuit around here you know," And I wanted to talk to him...
— Yeah, Yeah.
— So, Gloria and Daisy were on the inside. And finally Gloria came out there. She said, "You two are going to look like a couple of prunes, come in here".
— Staying there so long.
— And I wanted to hear about the miracles and so forth. But his scripture... Big banners, Jesus Christ. The same yesterday, today and forever. Because he and Daisy went to India to preach and he said, "Well now the Bible says that Jesus is alive. And that's it", no, no, no. Our book says Jesus is a nice man. That book says he's the Son of God. No, no, no. I'm just hearing him saying that. No, no, no. And he said, "We came back defeated, because we couldn't tell him the difference between this Book and their book". And he said each one of them had a book, but he said then the Lord sent us back with the revelation that he is the same yesterday, today and forever and theirs isn't. He said we went back and asked them if their God could heal. And he said, "Let's just demonstrate, you lay hands on them and see" and then of course they didn't really want to do that. But he started laying hands on them and a bunch of deaf people got healed. Boy I mean that just turned the whole thing around and all of a sudden here came the huge crowds. Because he's the same yesterday, today and forever. And that is what put the stamp on this Book. That's the different from all of theirs.
— Jesus is alive.
— He's alive.
— Actually the same power that's in the events is in the Gospel are the same power that's in the resurrection of Christ is in the message of the Gospel. The devil is just as afraid of the Gospel as he is of the resurrection of Christ. And when you know what the Gospel is, that revelation of the Word, the devil is just as afraid of you preaching that Word as he is of what happened when God raised...
— That's the reason he kept killing the prophets.
— Trying to stop them.
— I mean he had a message from the Garden of Eden that there's coming one. There's coming one. And he just didn't know. He didn't know and he just, well this bound to be it and he tried to kill him and he'd just kill this and kill this and kill that until there was one that came. And he got baptized in the Jordan. And the Father said, "This is my beloved Son, hear him", well he attacked him then? He pushed him every way he could.
— Now what happened on the cross... Now, in Bible College, we studied what happened on the cross, the death and resurrection of Christ. Has so many facets that there's more than just one view to contain it. So they said, number one is substitution. Jesus was not a martyr. He was a substitute and he took our condition. Number two, they call it the ransom view. We were held hostage by a power greater than ourselves, and Jesus used death to enter death to destroy him that had the power of death. That is the devil. So the ransom view is Jesus on the cross through his death, entered into the...
— That's second Timothy chapter 2.
— ... to destroy Satan himself and the works of the devil. So the third one is what you call the blood covenant. Man, I mean, you got to like that one. And then the fourth one as they call it, the love view, that how what happened on the cross saves us the love of Christ. The love of God. In other words, in everything you learned about the Gospel, the love of God and the love of Christ is the overwhelming picture of God's revelation as his love for us.
— The love of God has been shed abroad...
— And you got to see that more than just anything else is the love of Christ and the love of God. So what happened there when God raised Christ from the dead, the tremendous power that was released, the greatest display of power in the history of the universe, was because Jesus was not overcoming rigor mortis, our physical death. God released enough power to undo everything Satan had done in Adam and to make us a new creature in Christ. Put a new heart, a new spirit, set us free. Delivered us from the power of darkness. Translated us into the kingdom of the Son of God. In him we have redemption through his blood, even the remission of sin. The word remission means cancellation of penalty, the removal of guilt. In one translation says, "absolute remission". With our grandson, the doctor said molecular remission. That means, ain't nothing left, ain't nothing left of what you used to be. Your sin is gone.
— It's complete pardon... Wiped out. Doesn't exist any more.
— Your identification with Christ. Praise the Lord.
— It completely changes everything and I think the Gospel message, when you tell it, the Holy Spirit comes right there and gives witness to the truth of that. And the truth makes you free. You ask anyone, "How did you get born again"? They heard the Gospel in some form and they believed it. And once we believe it, John 3:16 says, "We pass and we enter and we have become partakers of the very nature of God, eternal life". Hallelujah. Hallelujah, takes us out of the old and brings us into the new. Puts that frown, turns it back up to a smile, gives you life abundant, not just a little bit, but abundant life. It takes over everything. And Jesus said, "The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. But I have come to give you life". And I believe this message of identification is powerful and bringing life in every part of your life.
— It's the spiritual substance. Jesus literally said, "Out of your belly will flow rivers of living water". He said, "More than you can contain of the life of God".
— Now think what he said, "The thief cometh but for to steal..." Steal what? The Word... That's Mark 4. To steal the Word. If he can steal the Word, he can kill and destroy.
— I got you.
— Then he becomes the destroyer of your finances. Now you go back to Malachi, and he cannot destroy. He is the destroyer. And the reason he's a thief is because he doesn't own anything. He doesn't have anything. He has no way to have anything. He's a spirit being. He was created an angel. He has no ownership in this, and he's just like all the other angels. What is man that God would visit him? I'll tell you who he is. He's his downfall. The biggest mistake he ever made in his entire being.
— Well, one of the worst things is you become a victim of stolen identity. So the devil would challenge your identity trying to steal your identity because he can get your stuff if he got your identity. But if he challenged Jesus' identity, he'll challenge ours.
— Do you remember when John Osteen was afraid to fly?
— Yeah.
— And he finally decided, he got into a place where he couldn't get there on a train. He couldn't get there, he had to fly. So he got on there and he said, "Hey, you know, this is my Bible. I can do what it says I can do. I have what it says I have and I can do it and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" and he said he got on there and she got on there, but he got there safely. And the devil said, "I'm gonna kill you on the way home". No.
— I'm not going to give up.
— All the way home.. Oh, my, my, my...
— If you are the Son of God, he's trying to challenge Jesus' identity. And so Jesus was just constantly confessing, "This is who I am, This is where I came from, and this is where I'm going. And the devil ain't big enough to stop me". In other words, when we were kids, we played football with my older brother and his friends and then the younger ones on this side. Well, they didn't have no huddle because they didn't have to tell no secret. They'd come up to the line and say, "We're going to run up the middle and run straight over Mark". And that's exactly what they did. Well, what God did in kind in the Word, he said, "I'm going to tell you right ahead of time exactly where I'm going and there ain't nobody gonna stop me". Man, that's the power that raised Christ from the dead. So I got to read this card because I wrote this down years ago. The great confession, the one confession that'll keep you out of hell. And the one confession that gets you into heaven. And the one confession that would give you eternal life is that Jesus is Lord. He is my Lord, but he's also Lord. He is Lord. And so I wrote this down. When Jesus was raised from the dead, he stepped from the tomb as absolute master of death in all of its phases, hell and all of its host of Satan and all of his works of sin and all of its consequences. He was the first of a redeemed, restored, victorious humanity that would follow. He's the first born from the dead, the first man to enter the death experience and master it. So when you confess Jesus is Lord, when he was raised from the dead, he wasn't barely raised from the dead. He didn't come out limping, you know, with his hair messed up, you know, and his face all beat up and come out say, "Well, that was hell. I went through a bad time". No, when Jesus was raised from the dead he said, "I am he that liveth and I was dead and I'm alive for evermore. And all power in heaven and earth is given me".
— "You men of Galilee, why stand ye? This same Jesus will come again". Oh, yeah.
— I believe we're having a revealing of the body of Christ, who we are, like we were talking about in Ephesians 3:10 and demonstration through the church who we are. We're new creatures in Christ. You know, there's so much controversy right now over identity. People don't know what they are, who they are, whatever, but they're lost. But we have the message to say, this is who you are and it will change your whole identity, the past, present and future.
— Jesus found himself in the scriptures and if you will open your Bible and go to Paul's revelation, you will find yourself in Christ.
— We found it in the 3rd chapter of the book of Galatians.
— Yeah. You found yourself.
— We found, we've been redeemed from the curse of the law. Then you go back to that 27th chapter of Deuteronomy. Here was a people that they knew they had a covenant with God but didn't know what it was like. And so Moses put them on two mountains. And they were shouting back and forth, the curse and they shout, "Yes. Amen". And of course the tribe of Judah and tribe of Benjamin were on the blessing mountain. That's significant. But anyway, they're shouting it back and forth. So they can get it, they get ahold of it. We're redeemed from this, God's not trying to curse us. This is what happens when you break his law. But then Christ was made a curse for us.
— The blessing.
— Because it is written, "Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree". That happened to the King of Ai in the book of Joshua. So anyway and there it all is. We have been redeemed from the curse of spiritual death, sickness and disease and poverty.
— And oppression and shame.
— And the minute we made Jesus the Lord of our life, we came into the blessing of Abraham, which is spiritual life. Healing and divine health and prosperity, spiritual prosperity, mental prosperity, physical prosperity, social prosperity and financial prosperity.
— Yeah, all of it.
— Look, Galatians 3:8. God preached the Gospel of Abraham that in all nation would be blessed because of his faith. So that in the center of the Gospel is that blessing that we are redeemed from that curse. We are blessed. Do you think God don't know what the Gospel is? He told Abraham, it's about the blessing, man.
— And people well, we'll sing a Gospel song. Let's say what it is. It's the good news, that's what that word means. It is good news.
— If it don't make you glad, it ain't the Gospel.
— Either that or you don't know what it's saying.
— You don't know what it is. Yeah, go ahead, baby.
— When Mark and I first got married you know, we were just young. I was 20, he was 23, just young. But, you know, we were going to catch the world by the tail, you know, ready for it. Because we caught that Spirit of faith. And I want to just say that I'm so appreciative that you're a pioneer of that faith to us, that we listen to you. I used to come to my dorm room, turn you on, on the radio, listening to Brother Copeland preaching righteousness, healing, all of those things and then we get together at our college, you know, and we'd be digesting all of those things. And then when Mark and I got married, we'd listen to you on the radio and just preaching this same message that we're preaching about that overcoming power.
— That voice of victory, voice of faith, just strengthened us. We are thankful for Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, for Kenneth Copeland Ministries, for years of preaching the Gospel. He changed our lives forever.
— Now you know how that blessed me today. Praise God, I'd never heard that.
— We wouldn't be here unless we had people like you. You're so bold.
— Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin. We call it, Coplanhagin. Hey, my favorite verse, second Corinthians 2:14. "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place". So he always causes us to triumph in Christ a celebration of the triumph of Christ.
— The Great Hall of Fame of faith in the 11th chapter of the Book of Hebrew. All of that and the great Apostle said,
— But he's done a greater thing for us.
— A greater thing for us.
— We've stepped over across that line where Jesus would say, "In that day", well we're in that day, glory to God.
— And we're following your faith. So, I believe you're gone further.
— You're a pound away ahead of us. Now something Brother Hagin would say, he would say, In the name of Jesus, I plead the blood that no matter what you're dealing with in the name of Jesus, I plead the blood. Plead the blood is a old English term, means I rest my case on the blood of Jesus. His blood alone has done everything.
— When you plead that blood... This document, these covenants. "We overcome him by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony," talking about the devil. When you plead the blood of Jesus, you actually throw this entire Book of blood covenants in the devil's face, and he has absolutely no recourse, he just has to back off. And we're out of time again today.
— I plead the blood.
— We are overcomers.