Kenneth Copeland - Be Thankful All the Time
— Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome to Tuesday's edition of what? The Believer's Voice of a Victory broadcast. Every believer has a voice. And it is the Voice of Victory. Now, we'll go through all the story again where that came from. But I'm not smart enough to have come up with that on my own. Praise God. And we're talking about an attitude of gratitude, being thankful to God all the time. If you can't be thankful for anything else, you can be thankful you're not going to hell. I mean, I know Jesus Christ as my Lord, and my Savior. That's number one.
— That's right.
— Then the other things that surround that... the greatest miracle of all is in the fifth chapter of Second Corinthians. Any man that is in Christ is a new creature. One translation says a new species of being that never existed before. That happened to me on the second day of November, 1962, about 8:30, about 10 minutes after eight in the evening, amen, and rough in the edges. Everything else I didn't know anything. And then when I got to ORU and I had all my books, Greg, Roman through Romans, I thought, and I kind of whispered it out loud on my way to class, I thought maybe I better read Romans before I roam threw it. TL Osborn said, "Copeland, you're born free". I said, Why? He said, "You didn't have any religion to unlearn". Everything Gloria and I knew was faith. Amen. Praise God.
— I had a lot to unlearn.
— And so here we are.
— Chapter one.
— Praise God. Verse 21 of the first chapter of Romans, we're the last part of the 20th verse. "So that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened". They were fools in heart even though they knew gone. But I put it like this, even though they knew God, they were doing things that they did... They knew they were wrong, horribly wrong, but they were not thankful. They didn't thank him for anything. And so their heart was so darkened they didn't get that way after they got into all that sin. They got that way and that's what got them into the sin. The darkness was the horrible sins they were committing but they got that way because they had no gratitude toward God. And Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth speaks". Greg, every night of my life for so many years, I can't count it back. I tell Gloria, goodnight. If I'm on the road somewhere, I'll call her and I'll lay down. And I said, "Lord Jesus, like when that young lawyer was testing you and said, 'What is the greatest commandment of all?' And sir, you said, 'The greatest commandment of all is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength and love your neighbor. The second is likened to it. Love your neighbor as yourself. And upon these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets.'" So love is the curtain rod. I've been saying that every night. Every night, I don't even remember what started it. It's built in you. It's built there.
— Well, you've set your course on that. You read past in this in Romans one, these are horrible things that all of these verses down to 31 to where they actually end up being covenant breakers. They did not set off to do that.
— No.
— But they give you a heading of 180, towards south and you're off by two degrees. Not a big deal for 15 minutes, you know, just a few minutes. But if you keep that up over a period of time, you're way off course.
— Oh yes. And you could get to the point where and I'm sorry to say that people do it, you get to the point and you get to you keep thinking, well, you know, I have enough fuel to make it over there. But you've drifted not keeping up with it that two degrees. It may be more than that if you have a crosswind.
— And now an hour later.
— Oh. Where am I? Run out of fuel. And people say I can't understand why God allowed that to happen.
— Well because you go up here verse 17 of chapter one "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed". Here is how it's revealed. "From faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith".
— It is what? It is written. You don't have any excuse if it's written. They weren't living by faith. What were they doing? Living by their flesh.
— They don't have their checklist out.
— That's right.
— Going by was written.
— Everybody's done that.
— Sure.
— Not to the extent. I pray to God that these were doing it. But everybody's missed it. But be quick to repent and slow to anger, quick to repent. Oh Jesus.
— So how can covenant people not be thankful? How did they miss it? There's an example in the life of Jesus in Luke, Chapter 17. Let's go there. All right. Luke 17, beginning with verse number 11, "And it came to pass as he went to Jerusalem". Now, Luke, up until this point, Luke, there's three years of Jesus life and ministry recorded. We're getting into that last half year here. "And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee". We're in Samaria and Galilee.
— And Galilee. This is north of Judea, so Samaria...
— So talk about the Samaritans
— Okay little back story for what's about to happen here, the Samaritans, the Kingdom split after David and Solomon and you had Samaria to the north, Judah to the south, and Samaria is the Judas from Judah don't like the Samaritans and vice versa. The Samaritans are Jewish. A lot of them inbred or they bred with people from other lands. And so a lot of them are what we consider a half breed. You know, they're half Jewish but they hold to the Torah. They just don't honor the prophets...
— You can get a good look at that. It's a woman at the well,
— She is a Samaritan. And she will even say, you say we worship at your Mt. Zion. We say we worship at that mountain. Well, that's the Blessing Mountain.
— And the disciples were astonished that he would have anything to do with her
— because a good Jew and Jesus is from Judah... His tribe doesn't have anything to do. They'll go around Samaria. Today we would know Samaria. We know today the world calls it the West Bank. I hate that term. It's Samaria and Judea. And so when you understand about this Samaritan and it's interesting, it says Samaria and Galilee, because in the time of Jesus, both places are not held to high regard. Even the Galileans. Nathaniel will say, "Is there anything good comes out of Galilee"?
— Nazareth was right there.
— Nazareth is part of Galilee.
— And then can anything good come out of Nazareth? Come out of this Galilee area?
— How would I make Americans understand? It's flyover country. I mean, it's not the elites. They are a bunch of country rednecks.
— A bunch of fishermen. Don't know anything about any kind of business. They're just hardworking guys. And one of them, particularly. I mean, he'll knock you flat on your back if you just look at him strong, it's some guy named Simon Barjona or something like that. He's a big man. I mean, he will hurt you.
— Isaiah referred to the Galilee as Galilee of the Gentiles.
— And two of those brothers will called the Sons of Thunder.
— Yeah, they're a bunch of rednecks.
— And that is who Jesus wanted to run with,
— and the majority of his ministry happened in that area. The northern part after the kingdom was split is called Israel. The southern part is called Judah. Jesus would say, I didn't come except for the lost sheep of Israel. Didn't say Judah, because he knows his purpose of why his first coming is to be. So they regarded the Galilee "galache" is how you would say in Hebrew. They're un Jewish. They're not as good to Jews as we are. So here's what happens. They're going through the midst of Samaria and Galilee, verse 12. "And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:"
— If course they did.
— They had to. By the law, they had to, "and they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have hesed on us".
— And all of them did. All ten of them.
— All of them lifted their voices. Okay,
— Verse 14 "And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests". Leviticus commands them to do that. "And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed"?
— Now there's his faith talking. Were all of them cleansed? He didn't say, "Maybe those other guys didn't get anything". No, no, he said, "I only say what I hear my Father say. And the Father within me, he does the work". Of course they were cleansed.
— Now, they didn't call him Rabbi here, the Greek word. And forgive me, Rick Renner... "Epistada". Master, it's a lower place. They're bound. They recognize that he's at a different place. So they had humility when they asked. They admit they're outcasts to Jewish society. They're acknowledging his authority, especially when they called for hesed. See, in the time of Jesus going all the way back to the time of Moses, leprosy was considered a direct judgment of God on that person, that person had sinned. Because it goes back to the time of Moses when somebody rose up against him and was given leprosy...
— Miriam.
— Yes Miriam. And he said, "Go shew yourselves to the priest". The Torah commands that Leviticus 13 and 14. And what would happen is as the priest, you would visually inspect my hands and my arms. You'd look to see if there was any sores or anything. And then you would go through the rituals of cleansing yourself.
— For the sake of the radio and television audience. Let's take Bartimaeus. You had to be examined and prove that you were blind. You couldn't be a con artist and get away with it. They would examine you every way possible and absolutely prove that you were blind. And then you were issued a coat. And you wore that garment so that people would know you had been checked out by the priest. And you were actually blind. Now, Bartimaeus began to cry, "Son of David, Son of David. Do hesed for me". He kept shouting it. Well, Jesus stopped. He had to. He called for hesed. He's the only one there. They didn't recognize it. They tried to get him to shut up. He stopped and said, "Bring him here". When he got up, he dumped that coat. That was his act of faith. He dropped that coat.
— It took the handicap sticker off his car.
— Yes, he did.
— That's what he did. Put in our terms.
— Yes, sir, he did that. Jesus said, "What do you want"? He said, "Lord, that I might receive my sight". He had to say it. He said, "Your faith has made you whole". Immediately his sight returned and he followed him in the way.
— The healing of these ten began with a test of faith. He said, "Go show yourself" he didn't pray for him, didn't lay hands on him, didn't do anything. As they went. Now, if they would have never went, what would have happened? Because the command was to go show yourself. And this is what they did. So as they went, they were cleansed.
— Now let's go. Let's do that. Let's get a back story out of this. Here's ten men coming in to the priests. I dare say the priests already knew they had leprosy.
— Well, they've got their garments for leprosy.
— And they walked in there clean. The priest is obligated to ask how they got their healing. A man called Jesus. That's what he was after. The leper that said, "I know you can, if you will". One translation, he said, "Certainly I will".
— Now, Jesus had healed a leper before.
— He told him, "Don't spread this abroad". I believe he said, "Go show yourself to the priest" but he disobeyed him and he began to tell everybody about it and Jesus said, "I must go into these other villages and preach". But this man stirred up so many people about it, he couldn't get into the villages. So trying to work with Jesus, he worked against him. That's not good.
— That's not good. Jesus had healed people leprosy before by touching them. But he didn't do that here. This time he spoke to them. And as they went...
— He commanded.
— Here's the point that I wrote this down. Having faith doesn't always produce godly humility or even gratitude. The Jewish group of that should have known to be thankful. How do I know that? When he says, "Were there not ten? The one that returned is the Samaritan". Now he has a different standard than the other nine. There's a pattern that emerges. When you read the miracles of Jesus, it seems that those who were consistently the most receptive and appreciative of his ministry were not Jews, were not raised with the baggage, like you said earlier. All the tradition and things. He told them to go see themselves because that's the principle in the covenant of Moses. But here's the thing. There's a covenant. Part of the covenant of Moses was when something spectacular happened to you, you brought a thanksgiving offering. There's a thanksgiving covenant. I didn't realize it. But there's a thanksgiving covenant. There are four occasions when you bring a thanksgiving offering. They are these. Crossing the sea, crossing the desert, recovering from serious injury illness. That's what this is and release from captivity. Any one of those happened to you, you brought a thanksgiving offering to the priest.
— Then there's the first fruits offering. All of this is great thanksgiving and joy and dancing in all of these things.
— So the Samaritan can't go to Jerusalem to do that. So where does he go? He went right back to the source and offered a thanksgiving offering.
— Now, I was praying and I wasn't praying about this, but suddenly the Lord allowed me to see it and I saw them just as plain as I'm looking at you. I saw him run back up there. I saw him fall down before Jesus. And when he fell down there, part of one side of his nose was gone and some other parts were missing. Even though he was healed. Then I notice and he said to him, "Get up, go your way. Your faith has made you whole". When he got up, all of that disappeared. All of the bad marks. It just vanished. And he was completely whole, you couldn't tell he ever had leprosy. You couldn't tell he ever had it. His faith made him whole.
— Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
— He wasn't broken. Now the others, I can't tell you about them, but they were healed, so they no longer had to wear those ragged clothes and so forth. And I very well imagine since Jesus is the one that said that, they were made whole too. But this man he said, "Your faith has made you whole". Your faith.
— And Jesus called him a stranger.
— Yeah, he's a Samaritan.
— Right. So then this proved to you... these verses. Let me prove to you this thanksgiving covenant that the nine should have known in Psalm 50, verse 23. I'm going to read it from the Amplified Classic, Psalm 50:23 Amplified Classic. "He who brings an offering of praise and thanksgiving honors and glorifies Me; and he who orders his way aright" that's what we were talking over in Romans, wasn't it, "[who prepares the way that I may show him], to him I will demonstrate the salvation of God". Here's another one. Psalm 54, verse six, Amplified Classic. Again, "With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to You; I will give thanks and praise Your name, O Lord, for it is good".
— Praise God forever more. Praise and thanksgiving are tied together. You said something before the program in between programs about the big gun of praise... thanksgiving. What was it?
— Thanksgiving or giving thanks is the big gun of faith. And we enter into his presence in prayer. We enter into his presence. But he inhabits the praise of his people. When we begin to praise, he enters into our presence. Now, let me tell you the story. As you know, we were in Bogota, Colombia, and I preached there more than once. This was the third time that we've been there. And a man by the name of Ricardo Rodriguez, his wife's name is Patricia. They call her Patti. 15 years nobody came to his church, 15 years. And he had it. I'm telling you, 15, 20 people. The Lord said, "If you give me the first half of your day, I'll build a church". So he began to get up at 4:00 every morning and he would fast and pray and study and study and study until noon. And they would go to church and they would begin to praise. And they are now called the Fire Church. And to get there, when you drive, you know you're there because you go down this small street toward that church and there are vendors out there with food and so forth because they know those folks are going to be in there for a while. And so the first time I was there, I preached to 23,000 people. Now they have flag men in the church that this one is healed, but they have a medical doctor to check you out. And if your heart still a little off a little bit, he'll tell you, no, I don't want you to testify yet, but when your heart settles down, come back. Here was a man during that praise and worship with his son sitting on his shoulder. Now, just a few days ago, I was there that whole hour. And then I told them I thought I came to church, but I came to a celebration. They started out with How Great Thou Art, very slowly and they just moved into other songs. You could sing them all until the miracles began and we're out of time. But he entered into their praise and thanksgiving and tomorrow...
— We'll talk about that tomorrow.
— Yes, Yes.
— Thank you. I'm coming back. Okay. We'll be back in just a moment.