Kenneth Copeland - Faith For a Lifetime
— Hello, everybody, welcome again today to the Believer's Voice of Victory Broadcast and we're still discussing Blood Covenants. And may I remind you that Kenneth Copeland Bible College teaches this, and Professor Greg Stephens is, since he's studied the Hebrew language and has a certificate saying that he is a Hebrew scholar. And I look at some of these words and I look over there at him and I think, did I get that right? Now back in the day when they finally had permission to go into the Cherokee burial grounds, where is it Cherokee, North Carolina? And when they did, they found Middle Eastern alloy and bracelets and so forth that had these inscriptions on there. Well, since the Sequoyah developed the Cherokee alphabet, they said, No, wait a minute. This would have been way back before Sequoyah and they took it to a... no, he said, that's Paleo-Hebrew. Well, that's it right there...
— Symbols, pictures for letters. Our prophet. Now my grandfather is a Blood Cherokee. And like I said before, I had my DNA and found a couple of tribes I never heard of but anyway, the Cherokee was there. So our prophet's name was Meecisis, amen. And you can follow our heritage back to the Middle East. So through all of the writings and everything, they believe that the Cherokee descended from the Jewish people.
— I don't doubt that they were dispersed into all the Earth. God sowed his people.
— And so many of the Cherokee practices follow the book. We were called the clean people. And one of my great aunts, she had something wrong with her lip and my mother said, "Odee, that's just the devil". She said, "Vinita, I'll have you know, we're clean people". Just she was Christian. She didn't know anything about resisting the devil. We're clean people. Well, that's where that came from. And they would go to the river several times a day. And you like having your oven in the kitchen? You liked that, you enjoy that? Well, John Ross, principle chief of the Cherokee, when these ignorant savages can't cope with civilization, when they got to his brick home where they had developed... I mean, they lived in teepees. They learned how to get smoke out of there. So then in their kitchens, they vented the smoke out through the top and he had a brick home and his savage brother was a law graduate. Anyway, back to the Book.
— Hebrews 12 where we left off.
— In Hebrews 10:38. "Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man drove back my soul, we shall have no pressure on him. But we are not of them. That drove back on to Perdition, but of them that believe to the saying they know the soul. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". And you go through all of this. Now here we go. "By faith the harlot Rahab"... Always, always mention that. But don't... be careful that because she's David's great grandmother, Jesus, great, great, great, great grandmother. So we have a harlot in our bloodline.
— Praise God, amen.
— Yea, it's people that can't deal with that, God dealt with that very handsomely and saw that she was desired greatly because she was a beautiful woman. But she hid the spies, and said, "You take care of my family and I'll do it. I'll go with you". Now here we are, verse 40. "God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect or blameless. Wherefore God seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him..." Now you see the qualifications, the Hall of Fame of Faith. Now, let me say this. If someone had no reward at all but he made it. Just being there, if you didn't do anything but tend the garden. The gardens are beautiful. But you see the qualifications. My long time personal, very close friend for over 40 years, Pat Robertson. When I got my DVD about David, I didn't realize it was going to be the last one he would do, the CDs about it, and he wrote a book about it and he did an audio book. So now I have his voice the same as I have Brother Hagin's voice. So I have it. He qualifies for a life of soul winning by faith. Glory to God. He started out in television. We wound up there. But he and I were very close over the years. And it's just amazing things that happened. And I told you before and I'll tell you, we were in... we had 40 years that we had our ministry in the United Kingdom. And so we were celebrating that and I texted Gordon, I said, How's he doing? He said, "He's not doing all that well". I said, "Well I'm going to come see him". He said, "The sooner the better". And so instead of clearing customs, see here at Alliance in Fort Worth. We just landed in Norfolk, Virginia. Eric was there to meet me. I walked up, got out of customs, and there he stood and I thought, I looked at him and I said, "Man, you are everywhere". I wasn't expecting him to be there, but he already had the directions over there. He put me in a car and drove me. And so I walked in there and Gordon then came in there and course he was on that hospital bed and he pretty well wasted away, you know. But anyway, he turned around and he smiled. He grabbed me by my coat and he pulled me down and he just started talking to me and laughing. And I anointed him with oil and prayed over him and started to leave and he pulled me back down again and he kept pulling me back down and oh, glory to God, I'm so glad I went. So glad I went. And now there are certain things that I have that are very precious to me, it's been a long time, a lot of years it's a good thing. Now, that's who these people are. Oral Roberts is one of those, Kennedy E. Hagin is one of those. Billy Graham is one of them. I'm just talking about the ones that I know. And of course, are others. I mean there... T.L. Lowery... Oh, my, my, Morris Cerullo, dear Lord. Now Morris Cerullo was at the same time as these others, but he went to Europe and Morris Cerullo is Jewish. And he and Theresa, M.C. and T.C. And I said, "I don't feel right calling anybody," he said, Would you please call us that. He said, I'm M.C. and she's Theresa is T.C.
— He did the same thing to me.
— Okay.
— I called him Mr. M.C., He...
— Yeah, he didn't like that at all. And then there's Justice Du Plessis, he interpreted for Smith Wigglesworth and I met him at Full Gospel Business Men Fellowship in Memphis, Tennessee, and I had lunch. He said, "Young man"... he told me he interpreted for Smith. He said, "I interpreted for Smith Wigglesworth". And of course he had that South African accent. And he said, "You're preaching the same sermons and you sound a great deal like him". Whoa...
— Same Holy Spirit.
— Yeah, same Holy Spirit.
— John G. Lake, I mean, just go down the list. And John G. Lake. We had John G. Lake sermons. So we did a book on him and put those sermons into print. The Great Cloud of Witnesses.
— Lester Sumrall.
— Lester Sumrall... My, my, my. my. I sat down with him in a restaurant. I said, "Sir, what do you attribute your living so long"? He said, "I am intensely interested in what I'm doing".
— I can see you are. Oh,
— I'll never forget something he said at Rhema when I was a student there, he said, "I've always been in every move of God".
— I remember that.
— Whether it's the tent meetings or Full Gospel Business Men or whatever, he said, "I never got stuck in my revelation. When I would see the fingerprint of God on something, I would cooperate with it and get in it". Talked to that effect.
— He discussed that with me in the fact that he said, "I don't want to be an old wine bottle".
— That was it.
— He said, "I want a bridge. I've asked God for a bridge, I want to move over there in that next move. And I want to do that until the day I depart, because I'm intensely interested in what God is doing. And I want to be there till the day I die".
— I was sitting on the beach. I pastored in San Diego, California. I was sitting on the beach in Del Mar one day. I'm sorry, that's not correct. I was at the right there on the Strand where it happened. And I was looking at the ocean and I heard the Spirit of the Lord say to me, "The greatest resistance to a new wave is the previous wave going out".
— That's it. And I remembered Lester Sumrall that. Now, see, that's exactly what this is right here.
— Yes, it is.
— " We also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin..."
— All these are gone. All these are gone.
— This is a transition into our New Testament and our New Covenant.
— And to consider him.
— Those are the First Covenant people. Now there's a New Covenant group. And so we have to lay aside the things that hold us back. I don't know, I used to love to watch Olympic sports runners, skiers, swimmers and those swimmers, I remember Mark Spitz had a mustache and all these and long hair, but they learned that that was slowing them down. Then they begin wearing those caps. They started even guys shaving their legs and all, nothing to create drag in the water or running. That's laying aside the things that slow you down.
— You should hear Oral Roberts preach on that. It would take him two and a half hours. And they had to edit down his broadcasts and he'd start here like this, and you'd get over here and there be some sweat here and you get over here and his hair is down and he's over here but, you know, sometimes it wasn't all that cool in those tents. But this man believed God. First thing he had to do is get over stuttering so bad he couldn't say his name. He stuttered so badly, had tuberculosis. He was dying. He was at the point of death and he had coughed in his bedroom until they had to put a plastic sheeting of some kind up on the wall and then eventually had to redo the wall because he spit blood all over that. And so his brother came out there and got him and picked him up. This man's 6'3", picked him up and carried him out to the car and took him to a tent meeting. Brother Muncie, and took him up there and took the seat out of the car and had him out there listening to Brother Muncie. And he was the last one he prayed for. He said, "Bring that young man up here to me". Got him up on the platform, and he laid hands on him. He said, "Take a deep breath". And Oral said, "I took a deep breath. Before it had been like needles and pins. I took a deep breath and I never stuttered again, never".
— Now think about Brother Muncie being obedient. Think about the people who sowed in Brother Muncie's ministry. Let me show you this. Let's go back to Hebrews 11 again, verse 39, and these all having obtained a good report through faith.
— Yes.
— ...Received not the promise. That's not us. We've received the promise.
— And he gets down here and said, "Consider him, he's the promise".
— There's the promise.
— And then as you study through the book of Hebrews, then all of this is reflecting what Jesus did. But it goes back to the law, it goes back to the prophets, it goes back to the sacrifices.
— The book is called, God, the Covenant, The Contradiction. Look at Hebrews chapter 12. Look at verse 2, "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross," Psalm 22, we talked about it this week, "despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God... right now. For consider him that endured such contradiction..."
— There it is. That's where the title of the book comes from.
— "Sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint..." Look what it says, "in your minds". There's some people right now that you're mentally wore out and you're mentally wore out because you're worried about this and you're worried about that. And you haven't considered him the promise who saved you. Somebody now even, you've just had horrible lightheadedness and headaches and that's coming from the worry and the stress. And you need, what we've talked about all week long, rolling this off unto him. Consider him who endured such so that you don't have to walk that. Now, that means we have to lay aside some weight. We've got to make some changes. We've got to go from divine...
— I can just see this guy out there trying to run with a big heavy overcoat on. And all of a sudden that thing falls off. Oh! Well, let's go to Bob DeWeese, who was my captain. He was captain of the airplane. And I learned so much because I stayed... when we were in hotels together we stayed close together because I was copilot on that airplane. And he said, one day, "I want you to come in and pray with me". Well I went in there, I never seen anybody pray like that. He just fell on his face and just went after it. And then he said, "Okay, that did that". He just got up. I thought, boy, I'm going to pray like him and... people of faith. Well, he had a heart attack on a handball court and he was telling, he and Charlotte were telling Gloria and I about this. He was telling about the whole thing. I knew that that had happened. But anyway, and listen to what he said. He said, "Kenneth..." just suddenly he said, I don't remember anything about that heart attack. He didn't remember anything about it. He said, "Suddenly I was in the most beautiful place I'd ever seen in my life. And I was on a small road and 'Kenneth, I had so much power in my legs.'" See he wasn't aware, he didn't have a body, he was perfectly at home, but he wasn't aware of that. He said, "I walked over, there was a fence on each side of the road. I walked over there and examined one of them. As close as I could tell it was hand-carved mahogany. The most beautiful thing you've ever seen in your life. And I looked up and I saw these lights in this lush, green countryside, and I'm home". He said, "I started running. I had such power in my legs. But I started bogging down. I couldn't figure out why. And all of a sudden I was back there in the City of Faith and there with the paddles on and Charlotte", said, "Kenneth..." and of course Gloria was there. He said, "Kenneth, do you think he said, 'Charlotte, thank you for saving my life?' 'No', he said, 'Charlotte, what did you do that for'"? He didn't want to come back. And he said, "Don't ever feel sorry for anyone that goes". And then later there at another thing we walked out, there at his home, and he stood up and said, "Kenneth, I don't know how long I'll stay here". I said, "Why"? He said, "Heaven's pulling on me. It's pulling on me".
— That's divine life, Brother Copeland.
— It's pulling on me. And sure enough, he left. It's situations like that that I've been blessed with over the years. I don't need proof. And this Book is proof. With things like that, people that I know that I experienced these things with and the supernatural part of it. Man by the name of Israel Rodriguez, pastor of the church in Puerto Rico. Faith people... wise man. Well, I flown my mother and dad up to the City of Faith where she could get an examination. And so my dad there get us. I said, "I'm going to go downstairs to the E.R. The doctor down there is a good friend of mine and I just want to go see her". And when I went down there, well, the bell rang and this ambulance pulled up and this man in there said, "See there? Now Amy, I told you he would be the first one I see when I got here". And he said, I'm going to City of Faith, I want you to get a hold of Kenneth and I want to talk to him about my healing. She said, "Israel, I don't know how to get a hold of him". And the doctor said, "Well, he's liable to die on the way if you charter an airplane". He'll be the first one I see. I was standing there. He said, "See I told..." He said it by faith.
— Yeah, that's right.
— He said it by faith. And we're out of time. But I'll finish that story because it's part of what I'm talking to you about. But we'll be back in just a moment.