Kenneth Copeland - Choose THE BLESSING Every Day
Let's open our Bibles first to Deuteronomy the 27th chapter. We're going to look at 27, 28 and then go over to 30. Now, remember this. These people had been in Egypt. They knew who they were, but they had been in a place... Think about it. They had to eat anything alive to stay alive. Then God had to go back and correct them, don't eat that stuff because 120 years is involved here. So there had to be Levitical food laws. They had to find out how to eat. The only thing they remembered actually was the Passover. And so God had to retrain them.
Now, here in the 27th and we'll look at some of them. "And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, Keep all the commandments which I command you this day. And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister: And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law".
Remember now, the first part of this is a law book. When Cain killed Abel, there was no law against it, so God had no right to judge him. There was no basis upon which to judge murder. So that started there. There had to be laws against all different kinds. It said, "Thou shalt not kill", that's bad. It says, "Thou shalt not murder" because there is self-defense. There's negligent homicide. There is murder with malice aforethought. Well, and under those conditions, you got the death penalty then and now. So our laws are set up on this. That's the reason it's called The Judeo Christian laws. But now there's a thing here, they're having to demonstrate to them because they've come out of that terrible place.
Therefore, verse 4, "it shall be when ye be gone over Jordan, that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaister them with plaister. And there shalt thou build an altar of stones" and so forth. Now look at the 9th verse. "And Moses and the priests the Levites spake unto all Israel, saying, Take heed, and hearken, O Israel; this day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God, and do his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day. And Moses charged the people the same day, saying, These shall stand upon mount Gerizim to bless the people, when ye are come over Jordan; Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin: And these shall stand upon mount Ebal to curse; Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali".
So you have two big mountains and you got roughly a million people on one and a million on the other. Am I right Billye? Can you imagine what shouting was like, shouting across the valley? Now I'd like to show you some pictures of that. Bring that up, please. There it is. There's Mt. Gerizim, the blessing mountain and Shechem, that's the valley of Shechem in the middle, Mount Ebal is the cursed mountain. Look at the difference between them. Mount Ebal is alkali and Gerizim, the blessing mountain is not bear. And when you're actually there looking at it, one of them is just lush and green. And the other one, won't anything grow on it.
But they're two mountains, the cursed mountain and the blessing mountain, so now it's good that you have this in your mind so that you can understand the situation there. And it's still the same way today and neither one of the mountains have changed and Shechem is still there. And if you go down there just a little ways where that... if you put that picture back up again, please. If you go down there just a little ways is the well of the Samaritan woman. Jacob's well is right there. Now, who was Jacob... He's Israel, amen. So it's wonderful when you tie all those things together. "The Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice, Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen".
That's what was going on. You've got a million people shouting this and it makes such an impact on your thinking. You'd never forget it. And these are stand out cursing and all that. And this is going on. "Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen". Or dishonor his father and mother, amen. "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark". Oh, now we're getting into some civil law here. So there's no basis for lawsuit. They didn't have frivolous lawsuits because if you, let's say you sue somebody, say you sue somebody for $1,000,000 and you got in the trial and they found out you were lying about it, you owed the man $1,000,000. It isn't like the United States where somebody come along and say, "I'm going to get me a good lawyer and sue my way to the top".
No, not here. There was such a threat behind it, but there's so much of it carried the death penalty. There was a reason for that. The penalties were severe on certain things in order to have order. And then over a period of time, as people learned, then those things would lax. And by the time Jesus came, it was really in my opinion more talk than anything else. But oh, the Pharisees tried to hang on to that. They wanted to kill everybody. That's the reason they wanted to kill him. We're going to kill him. We're going to be like the days of old. We're going to shut him up. We're going to destroy him. They didn't know they were supposed to, but you can see where all of this dovetailed together to set him up, to set Jesus up, all of it. I mean, even the place where he was to be born and the time and the place, everything, all of these things were in behalf of him.
Now, this is what is happening in the book of Deuteronomy. It's the last of the Pentateuch, it's the 5th book. Now let's come over to the 28th. Now it's still going on. The numbers we're just put in here where we could tell what's happening and comes down to the 26th verse, "Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen. And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Amen. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine".
That's not K-I-N-D, it's K-I-N-E, kine. Well, what is that? It's your farming equipment, your oxen, seed, the equipment that you need to carry out what you have. Well, what is your kine? What is it you need to carry out what God has called you into? You're blessed, the blessing of Abraham, not the curse, glory to God. I mean, when these things actually become a reality that in my heart and mind and Gloria's, other than learning the Word of Faith, but the Word of Faith is connected to it... other than that, being redeemed from the curse is the biggest thing we ever learned, because we started out with zero and somebody complimented my suit back in the speaker's room. And I was talking about preaching for Roy and Opal Spring over in Oklahoma. I mentioned that when I talked about the pipe... that's where I was and all the trouble I had with my clothes.
That's the time I split my britches and I heard it and it got kind of breezy. I heard it, oh no, no. So I just did a lot of backing up, I could not afford to turn around, I just backed up a lot and got back to my room and got my sewing kit out. I still carry a sewing kit in my shaving kit because there have been times I'd look, Uh oh, suspender buttons about to go, so I carry some heavy button thread and put the button back on there. And so I'm never without my thread and needle. Oh Lord, those days are gone forever, glory to God, Thank You, Jesus.
Anyway, now here are all the blessings. "The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all... And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them: And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left... But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:"
Now, I want you to pay attention to how that's written. It didn't say God will curse you. Now, if you start here and you don't know what was going on in 27, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But they were divided up on those two mountains and shouting back and forth because these are the curses that come for violating those commandments. There's no way... God wasn't trying to curse them, he's trying to keep them from it, cause by this time, there's no grace. There's just law. He's graceful because it's his desire. That's the reason he used the word Hesed so much. Because you're equal with me and I'm equal with you because of the covenants of blood that we have together.
But then in that wilderness, they just kept saying, "He brought us out here to kill us". The last time they praised him was on the other side of the Red Sea, Pharaoh and that bunch drowned and they praised him. That was it. They fussed and belly-ached all the way through there. It was an 11-day walk from the Red Sea to where they were going. He sent out the spies and they came back with a bad report. They lied. It was, but the giants are there, we're like grasshoppers in their eyes. A grasshopper compared to God, one... and all the grasshoppers in the world will blow out of sight, which has happened before, amen. So it wasn't the giants that kept them out, it was the grasshoppers.
That was it. Compare that to David, the size of Goliath was what frightened everyone. He didn't care. And Jesse had just sent him there to check on his brother and he took him some food and so forth and he got out there and they were... He said, "What do I get if I kill him"? He saw him too. This uncircumcised, Philistine doesn't have any chance against me. Now that's the difference between now and that time later. Many, many, many years. Now, let's move over. Cause all these curses and then come by the one that just covers it all is the 61st verse. "Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed. And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude;" And so forth.
Verse 66 "And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! And at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! For the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes" and so forth. "Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them". Now come over here to the 30th chapter verse 15. "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land..."
That was the whole idea is to bless you in the land. We're not there yet, but we're going and I'm going to bless you when we get there. And when you look at it, all that land that he promised them, Israel now only just has a little piece of it, but you just wait, that promise never goes away. It's to a thousand generations. You just wait and see what's happening. Because look at the 19th verse: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore you choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:"
That's the bottom line. I put the whole thing out there now you make your choice. You know what he's saying to them? I've already made my choice, I've chosen you. That's the reason they became the chosen people. Hence the title of that TV series, The Chosen. And why that particular group of people in that part of the world? Because of a man named Abram. And his only requirement was he would teach his children. Oh dear Lord, that was it. So then the covenants began and thank God they were all recorded, that everything had to be recorded. And you and I have a book full of them.
So again, "That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them". I placed it all before you, now make a choice. Now, if you want to know what God's like, there you have it. And then he placed Jesus before us. You choose, amen. And now it comes down to how good a job we do in presenting this book. And I just... Oh, such a longing to see Jesus.
And in that one moment I saw him in that vision, but then I realize that, no, I have a picture of him here and we can imagine what he physically looks like. Glory to God. But this is a picture of him, all 66 books. So now, The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, no condemnation, free from the law of sin and death, walk not after the flesh, the Spirit that raised up Christ. He's the same yesterday, today and forever. What is the law of sin and death? We just read it. This is the law of sin and death, blessing and cursing.