Kenneth Copeland - Enter Into a Covenant Relationship With Jesus
— Hello, everybody I'm Kenneth Copeland, Professor Greg Stephens and we're still talking about Covenant. We have been for a long time and you can talk about covenant and talk about covenant. God started it and in order to get his family back, it's really that simple. The thing that was the problem, the first thing that happened in the Garden, the first thing that the human ear ever heard was the blessing. Well, then you notice you come down through the years. It became the blessing of Abraham, who had been Abram. And as we know, through blood covenant of circumcision, he changed his name and put his name in the middle of Abram's name, indicating I have covenant with this man, through the shedding of his blood to get a very special baby. So, and there's other things that happened here, I'll just touch on one. Then he asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and Isaac was willing to do it knowing he was willing to sacrifice his only begotten Son and the Scripture uses those words.
— Whom you love.
— Yeah. Whom you love. Very special child. Impossible of him to be born to a 100-year-old man and a 90-year-old woman. Because there was coming a time that this special son, the sinless one, would say, "If it be your will, let this cup pass from me". No way. Because his covenant brother was willing to do it. He could not ignore that, he couldn't do it. Now, we have used this scripture many times and I'll show you why. We're going back to 23:25, Exodus 23... And I'm going to read it in the Classic Amplified here verse 20. "I send an Angel before you to keep and guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Give heed to Him," Now Moses said, "We're not doing this by ourselves and he's arguing with God, I don't know whether I'm going to go in there or not". He said, "Alright I'll send my angel in front of you and he'll take care of you". ..."To keep and guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Give heed to Him, listen to and obey His voice; be not rebellious before Him or provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgression; for My Name is in Him. But if you will indeed listen to and obey His voice and all that I speak, then I will be an enemy..." This is new. "I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries". Oh, here we go again. He's in covenant, and he talks to Moses face to face.
— That's right.
— "When My Angel goes before you..." duh duh duh... Now look at 25. "You shall serve the Lord your God; Your angel shall bless your bread and water, and I will take sickness from your midst. None shall lose her young by miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send My terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people to whom you shall come, and I will make all your foes turn from you in flight. And I will send hornets before you..." And later, it was the Super Hornet coming off of an aircraft carrier. People don't make that... Listen, he's the same God. And a hornet is a hornet. Whether it's got jet engines, or those little wings, now listen you don't want a hornet on you. Yellow Jackets... I mean, you can fight a yellow jacket. A hornet has the power to kill you. That thing hit you in the right place. Anyway. Now I found in the curse, you serve not God with gladness for the abundance of all things. And the Lord got all over me about that. He said... so I just wrote it here, I shall serve the Lord my God with gladness for the abundance of all things. You see how the Lord corrected me. But he and I talk, we have a covenant relationship, and the blood of Jesus is between the two of us and I have certain petitions and I added to that string of stuff that I do every day based on his words every day and the words of Jesus. So now go ahead.
— Okay so the covenants after basically Adam expelled God from the Earth, that's basically what he did.
— Well, let's look at that. "By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods".
— That's right. "Thou shall have no other gods before me". And that hadn't changed.
— I had to deal with this. I had two things that were my Gods. One of them was my singing voice, because I found out early on if I could sing, then I could just about get anything I wanted. And flying airplanes. And even though I knew I was in good health, every time I'd go get a flight physical, I'd get a little nervous because I can't live without this. Are you kidding me. So I had to turn loose of it, Greg. I was singing in a meeting and it rose up on the inside of me. The Lord said, "You're selling the song". And I can just see myself in my mind right now, I just stop and I said, Oh, right in the middle of the song and it was a good song. "Take my hand...", how does it go? "Lead me on, let me stand..." And I said, "That's enough of that and I just quit". I didn't sing anything in a meeting for something like a year. Till I stopped selling the song because I learned to do that on a stage. So then I just went before the Lord and got on my knees and I just told him, I said, I'll never... back then it was just propellers only. I hadn't flown any jets yet and I said, "Lord, I'll never turn another propeller. I'm done with it. It's over". And I didn't hear anything, but I was resolved to it. I don't want anything more to do with them. I'll shut down, never sing another note, never fly another airplane, whatever else it takes. But then just one day, he said, "I'm going to give your flying back to you right now". And then he let me know that he appreciated I was willing to give it up.
— Well, he gave Abraham's son back to him because he was willing to give it up.
— Well, I hadn't thought about that. But all of this happened in prayer, but it had certain conditions and the way I was to plan flights and what I was to do and then I thought about the horrible times. I was still in Arkansas and, you know, unsaved and I get all stopped up cause I smoked Cool cigarettes' because they had mentholatum in them. Well, I had to go over, they flew me over to Cross City and pick up an airplane, bring it back for annual inspection. Well, on this particular brand of airplane, right here, it was built by the Piper Manufacturing Company. And right here the fuel selectors were down here. But right here, a little small fuel line came out of there that goes to the heater. The heater in a twin runs off of the fuel, now in a single engine airplane they have a muff around the exhaust pipe. So I flew that airplane in there and I was sitting there like this with that thing. And a mechanic came in there and he said, "Copeland, you flew this airplane in there". I said, "Yeah". Well, I was all stuffed up, I couldn't smell anything. He said, "Feel of that". The carpet was fuel soaked. I'm sitting here doing this, I was flying a bomb.
— It's Hesed, the mercy.
— Yes, sir, my mama was praying, she got me too, but it was a good while after that.
— Brother Copeland, let me submit something to you, when you gave that up, whether it was a song, what would become a God to you and even flying. That was you're fully persuaded moment and he gave it back to you because you had been... Abraham became fully persuaded. Now, I'm not saying your whole life, but in that arena of your life, there's some people you've never reached that fully persuaded moment, you still hung on to whatever it is.
— Well, I just don't know whether I'm ready or... You better get ready. Whatever it is you've not been doing to accept Jesus. You get on your knees right now.
— Yes, that's a word right now.
— You don't have any promise for tomorrow. You only have a promise for tomorrow if you get in the Book and find that promise for tomorrow. But right now, in the name of Jesus in love, I command you to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Don't be a fool like me. And wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He said, do it. Well, you don't know... I know I don't know anything about you. But I know Jesus personally. I have served him for 56 years. I've developed a relationship with him that's based on this book. And the price that was paid. Jesus Christ of Nazareth according to this book, didn't just hang on that cross, let him die. Let him die in your own thinking and in your own mind. Let him die. He went to hell so you don't have to go. You can prove it in this book. It's in the Apostles Creed. He went to hell so you don't have to go. He bore sickness and sin in his own body on the tree so that you have his name as a weapon against sickness. A weapon against disease and poverty. Don't wait another second. And it's so easy. All you have to do is what I did. It's just the way it came up in my spirit. Just say, "Jesus, come into my heart. I receive You as my Lord and my Savior. Thank You for I have faith in Your blood. I have faith in Your name. I know You went to that cross, but I didn't know You went to hell". Well, he did. So just start reading in the book of John and then in the book of Acts. And it's all there. Thank You, Jesus. He bore your sins in his own body on the tree so that you could be dead to sins and live under righteousness. By his stripes, you were healed. Thank You, Jesus. He spilled his blood so you don't have to spill yours. This is a dangerous world wherever you are. It's very dangerous. I mean, there's enough stuff in the water to kill you if it hadn't got chlorine in it. What I'm saying is we are surrounded by death, we're surrounded by the curse all the time. We're surrounded by people that are full of love of money. As the Bible says, the love of it is the root of all evil. Doesn't say money is, it says the love of it is the root of all evil. So do it now. Right now. And then you can finish the rest of this broadcast as a born-again Spirit-filled believer, glory to God. I didn't know it was that easy, but I found out that it was.
— It is that easy. Wait, you've not gone too far because I just heard that. Well, I've gone too far. You've not gone too far. And I heard that over a mother. I don't know if you're a mother or grandmother. You need to loose them. You've been carrying that, just like your mom did with you.
— Yeah, she did. Roll that care off on them. They're coming home. That's the inheritance of the saints.
— That's right, she just threw her Bible down on the kitchen table and said, "That's it... I have prayed for him the last time I'm going to pray for him, if he goes to hell it's your fault". She did not realize what she was doing. I'm going to read that because somebody needs to hear it, because this is not only in that area and any other kind of worry. Now, Peter was there.
— Yes, he was.
— He was there for all of it. So let's turn over here. You need to read the whole thing in the 2nd chapter. "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls". Chapter 5. "The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, for money and advantage, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. All of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him;" Now, hang on just a minute. Thank You, Jesus. Glory to God. Oh, I love it.
— Yes, sir. Hallelujah.
— Bear with me, this is a new one.
— All right, I'll say something while you find that. I heard in my spirit as you read that and you emphasized it, a witness of the suffering of Christ and I heard in my spirit PTSD.
— Oh, glory be to Jesus. Yes. My father-in-law suffered from that in World War II.
— That's why Peter ran back to the Galilee. He was suffering from that when Jesus was on the shore and he restored him and healed him of that. There's healing for PTSD right now in Jesus' name.
— He denied him.
— He denied him three times.
— It rode him, but Jesus ministered to him concerning it.
— And he said, "Do you love me? Feed my sheep".
— Now he said the same thing.
— That's it. The answer to PTSD is love. Love never fails.
— My father-in-law had a serious heart attack in the little town of Nashville, Arkansas, and anyway, serious heart attack. He had PTSD. I mean he experienced World War II all the way to the Battle of the Bulge, all the way through it all. But now he remarried, Mary didn't, she never did. But now she just came and I begged her to move in with me. Your mother in law? Are you kidding me. I begged her to do it. And no, she wanted the house and Ron just went to work with us. He remarried, and the woman he remarried was a member of the First Baptist Church. Now Greg, here's what happened. Now, there would come times, it'd get so bad on him, he just lay out and get so drunk. He just didn't know what he was doing. And then he'd snap right back and just a sweet man. But World War II was in his brain. He had that heart attack. And the pastor of the First Baptist Church, of course, we rushed over there. He said, "Copeland, I stayed here in the room with him". He said, "I sleep here in the room and watched over him. And I waited until he was through with recovering" and all of that. Well, of course, you know, in that case, there had been days there. There's certainly no alcohol in his body. And he said, "I just stayed with him night and day. And I made absolutely sure that the man's born again". Now, listen, he's raised in the Church of Christ, he had a high moral standard and he spent years killing people.
— So that's when it goes to this verse about...
— He never took another drink.
— Well, you see it right there. Be sober, be vigilant, this is what the love of God does.
— That's what it did.
— That's what it does. And he came out of that and was healthy. And went home to be with Jesus in 1999 at 77 years old, a happy man, a delivered man, sweet man. Listen to this in the Classic Amplified, verse 6, "Therefore humble yourselves [demote, lower yourselves in your own estimation] under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you, Casting the whole..." This is what I want you to get now, whether it's kinfolk, yourself, your own body. Listen, "Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. Be well balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger]", like... he's not. "seeking someone to seize upon and devour. Withstand him", and we're out of time again today. I love it, amen. We'll be back in just a moment.