Kenneth Copeland - The Old and New Covenants Point to Jesus
— Hello, everybody I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome once again to the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Now, Professor Stephens and I yesterday, as you know, we're talking about, uh, we're still dwelling on the fact that this Book is a Book of blood covenants, not just agreements. And as we've said before, it's... to be called the Old Testament and the New Testament, which 99% of the Christian people to them, that's what it is. But it's a book of covenants in blood. And that has caused an enormous amount of misunderstanding. Had people understood what these are, they would have never, ever been concerned about what is the will of God for me. Because you go into that kind of an agreement, a blood agreement is the most serious thing on the face of the earth. And as we said earlier, there are still tribes in the world that do it today. And there's a lot of them that are not good. But it started with Abram. God appeared to him and said, "Your name will no longer be Abram but Abraham, for I have made you the father of many nations". Many nations, including United States. Because we came out of that. And because of the lack of knowledge of this, nobody paid any attention to the covenant that our first president and our first Congress made with God on the 17th chapter of the book of Genesis. And there are people that say today, "Well, it's not a Christian nation". Really, really, really, really, really? The Liberty Bell. Liberty in the land has a quote from the book of Leviticus on that bell. And they rang it til they broke it. There was one charlatan preacher, I could call his name, but I don't see any use in it. He's a charlatan preacher. And one of his remarks, well, see there were a lot of people got saved under his ministry. He didn't do it, but here again he memorized sermons. And like the man I told you about from the state of Texas, that he memorized Spurgeon's sermons, Oral Roberts' sermons, and sometimes he'd mix them up. But he had a lot of people saved and healed. But he got caught, went to prison in the state of Texas, and got saved on his own sermons. But see that's the way that other people got it. But this other guy turned actor then, and he thought he's a good actor because of what he was doing. But he wasn't any good as an actor either. But he said, I'll tell you, that's a bloody bunch. Had no understanding how he was blaspheming this book when he said that, that's a dangerous thing to say. The reason it says Holy Bible is for that reason, it's God's Word because it's his bond. He establish it for the purpose of a restoration. This is a book of restoration. After the sin in the garden of Eden, that's where it began.
— When Adam transgressed, he walked away from God. It changed everything, changed in the ministry of angels. It changed the planet. And so how is God going to fix this? Adam can't fix it. No descendent of Adam can fix it until that promise seed. So all of these agreements, lack of a better word so you can understand it. All of these covenants in blood made by God were the answer to get God back into the world. And that will be done through Jesus. All these covenants point to one person. His name is Jesus and when he fulfilled what you would call the Old Testament or the Old covenant, when he fulfilled that, he ushered in something new and something back like it was to get us back. I demonstrated several months ago, maybe a year ago with you, we were here when we fell. Then he brought us back up, he got us back to that place, to the place that we were in Eden. That's where we should be walking and living our life as, as he is so are we in this world. But at one time before you met Jesus, if you haven't met him. You need to. Before you met him, you were a stranger and an alien to this Book, to these covenants.
— Let's go to the book of Ephesians then. And, sometimes just read it, the whole thing. It's a letter, read it as a letter. In the 2nd chapter, let's begin reading with the 4th verse. "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 or made us alive 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:" Listen to that... "Made us sit together with him in heavenly places, 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:" What? The grace or the faith? Both. Both... "Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles..." That just simply means, somebody without God.
— Without a covenant.
— Yeah, without a covenant... "in times past Gentiles in the flesh who are called Uncircumcision by that..." Now did you catch on to that? Don't let that just... because this started out as a Jewish church.
— That's correct.
— Everybody in it until the 10th chapter of the book of Acts. When God put Peter in a trance and sent him to Cornelius, who was the centurion that said, "This must have been the Son of God". Well, he'd been praying, seeking God. Now you were without Christ. Now here's what happens when you're without the anointed one and without the anointing that goes along with it because an article of our covenant is that Jesus is ours for the asking. He is ours for the asking, he shed his blood, we didn't have to.
— Brother Copeland our covenant, it's irrevocable, but it's not unconditional.
— That's right.
— You have to receive him.
— And the reason it's irrevocable is because it's between God and Jesus. And he's the High Priest of it. "That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants..." and I put up right here, strangers from the blood covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. Now listen to this. "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ". Glory to God, there it is.
— It's a blood covenant.
— I mean, that wraps the whole thing up. It's just set for us right there. So then you can follow this man to the book of Hebrews. It's all in the book of Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats, the Blood of Christ, the Heavenly utensils of worship and all of this. And you have to remember that this man spent a long time in the deserts of Arabia, and he made the statement about knowing Christ personally as one born out of time. He couldn't have been Judas' replacement. No way. Because those apostles of the Lamb had to have been there from the beginning, all the way through the crucifixion. He came in when Ananias came. I mean, he was persecuting the church. So he didn't qualify for that. But then the Lord said, "I will show him the things he must suffer for my name's sake". So all of that really, that's a huge statement. However, let's go back to the first covenant now into the book of Leviticus and Chapter 26. Let's begin reading with verse 3. "If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase," not its increase... That is very significant. Most people will say, "Well, the land, you know, yield it". No, he said, "The land shall yield her increase and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage," The word there in Hebrew is, "Overlap" shall reach into the sowing time. "You shall eat your bread to the full," you shall. You shall, you shall. These are exceeding great and precious promises, but it's conditional. "And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new. And I set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright". Glory to God. Hallelujah. Well, I have Second Corinthians 6:16 right there. You know what I put out beside that? 1948. He did it, didn't he? Under impossible odds. People said that it's impossible, it can never happen.
— Good kings, bad kings, exile. He did it. The reason why is verse 9, I want you to learn to pay attention to something. I pray... I want to hold this up for a second, if you don't mind.
— I wish you would.
— God, the Covenant and the Contradiction book. I pray that you learn to hear Covenant. When you read the Bible, covenant words jump out at you. Covenant promises jump at you. And because it becomes your reality, that's my prayer for that.
— Someone is having your ears are being healed right now. We have a healing covenant with the Most High God. Jesus saw to that. We have it and it's all the way through the first covenant all the way through the second. How Jesus Christ, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost in power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil for God was with him.
— He's fulfilling the covenant.
— Yes he is.
— And he says right there in verse 9 Leviticus, "and establish my covenant with you".
— There's that shoulder thing again. And for your benefit this came up while we were praying over today's messages. But there it is again. Shoulders with pain that just... right now just put it on up there. Glory to God. The dear woman in Harrogate, England, she came up there and she said, "I couldn't move this and I couldn't move this. I couldn't do this and I couldn't do this". And she just kind of lost it. And she just... Lower back is being healed right now, knees... Glory to God. Jesus bought and paid for your body to be healed. And may I suggest you do the same thing. I just have a little notebook, you know, it's a little yellow one, lines on it. And when I walk into my bathroom every day, I did it this morning... walked up there and look into that mirror, and it's right here where I'm going to shave. But before I do anything, I take my supplements that are first thing supplements in the morning. I do it when I get up and workout on the treadmill, I get up and do all of these things before breakfast. But there they all are, Isaiah 53. And I go through that. Then I come down and it is written in Matthew 8:14. Jesus came to Peter's house, saw his wife's mother laying sick with a fever, touched her hand and the fever left her. She rose up and ministered unto them. And when evening came, they brought many who were possessed with devils and he cast out the spirits with his Word and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled, which are spoken by Isaiah the Prophet. He took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses. And then to come right down under that, First Peter 2:24. And he bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live under righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed. If I were, I am and that's where faith comes into it, it's just there. It's so worn out finally they got started curling up in the end, so I got some Scotch tape and taped the bottom of it down. Every day and then when I'm on the road somewhere, I do it then. I don't have to have it taped up in front of me. It just lives on the inside of me all the time.
— Become reality.
— All the time.
— There's a difference between accepting and expecting. You have to accept. You have to accept. This is not an experiment with Jesus.
— No it isn't.
— It's your life.
— And more than once over the years, I couldn't tell you how many times, that I just say to the Lord, I remind you of your covenant. There's blood between the two of us. I have a mandate from God to live to be 120 years old. And I accepted it. I didn't accept it the first time it came up. I don't know whether I wanted to do that or not. And he's continued talking to me about it. And he just said, "Will you do this for me"? And finally I said, "Yes, sir, I will". Well, now I get on the treadmill and, you know, start getting tired. I got up there one day and it's early in the morning and I don't know whether I want to do this or not. And I heard him say, "I sacrificed my body for yours and now you're sacrificing your body for mine and I appreciate it". I said, "Turn this thing around". But many times on the road, particularly back there in the early days, where things would happen to me and I'd say, "I want to remind you of your healing covenant. There's blood between us. And you're my blood brother. And I'm expecting you to do something about this. And I expect it now. Not later, I need it now. There's blood here. There's blood between my family and you and your family". And if you'll listen, you'll get some answers. I got up one morning. It was early and he said, "My Word doesn't have any place in you". It was so bad I went back to bed. I mean, it kicked me in the gut. I went back to bed and I said, "Well, I know if you said it, that's true". And he and I had a serious discussion. He did all the talking, his Word has a place in me. But this is what I'm talking about Greg, you live a covenant life. That's what he intended for people to do.
— You know, he's making intercession on our behalf, before the Father right now, you too, says, "If you confess me before men, I'll confess you before my Father". You know what that is? That's Jesus... you ready for this? Pleading the blood over you.
— That's right. That's exactly right.
— You plead the blood all the time. He pleads the blood over you to the Father.
— His blood is there.
— Right there. It's alive.
— Yes, it is.
— And it speaks. It never dies. If the blood of Abel's spoke to where God say, "I hear his blood crying out". Believe me, the blood of Jesus still speaks and still cleanses, still heals.
— My spiritual father Oral Roberts preach a sermon on that about the blood crying out, the blood cries out, the blood cries out. And he said this. He said, "You criticize..." He said this in the message. "You criticize a brother or anybody else, you criticize them or you just say things that shouldn't be said". He said, "What you don't realize is the blood cries out, then you're guilty. The blood of Jesus is crying out and you need to straighten that up". Well, I never thought of that, but the blood is crying out. Amen. The blood is... something is coming right around your waist here like this. It just feels like a band just pulling tight up into you. Right around your kidneys and so forth. And in the name, Satan, you take your hands off of God's property, I break that band right now in Jesus' name. Now just be loosened up, that started from some heavy worry and you don't have anything to worry about. You roll your care over on Jesus, he's your caretaker. Read first Peter 5, find that precious promise, amen. Thank You, Jesus.
— You said it just a while ago, and this is referring to blood in First Corinthians Chapter 11. "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep". Because they don't rightly divide the Lord's body. The blood cries out and he bled the blood over you and I. There's no reason you're walking around sick. There's no reason you're walking around depressed. No reason you're anxious. Worryful, what you were saying? It's time to just roll that off and walk into his love.
— You reminded me of this Exodus 23. And people have misread this, and you have to back up and read the 20th verse, Exodus 23:25. "I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way," did you hear what he was saying? I will, you don't have to see him, well we'll take this up tomorrow. We're out of time. But we'll pick it up right here. But over here it says, he will bless your bread and water. I will take sickness from the midst of you. And I stopped right out by the side of my driveway and I got a hold of that one day and I shouted, I'll never be sick another day in my life forever. And I haven't been since then, and we'll be back in just a moment.