Kenneth Copeland - Be Thankful and Give God Praise
— Hello, everybody I'm Kenneth Copeland. You know, what's his name... No, Greg that just kind of popped out.
— That's all right.
— Professor Greg Stephens.
— Thank you.
— Glory to God. Hallelujah. He and I have a lot of fun on Covenant, because the Lord directed me many, many years ago, long, long years ago, to just keep pounding on this about the covenants of the Bible because, and this is one of the reasons that the DVD film that CBN did on the history of the Old Testament. And one of the first thing they said was, okay, I don't remember now to quote it. I need to go back and watch it again. Everybody needs to get that and watch it and watch it and watch it and watch it. And then they begin to say, "This is a series of covenants". And they're the first ones that I personally know of that really brought that out. I learned it early on and began to use it and Gloria and my own lives. And I've been believing God for something that he directed me to do. And I'd say, "Sir, I want to remind you of your covenant here" and turn to it. Now, this is what you said when you were here, and this is a covenant promise to me and to Gloria. We will have this amount of money by this date. Because I'd already prayed, it wasn't cause I needed it then I'd already prayed about it in the Spirit, and that they rose up on the inside of me. And he never did wait until that date. It always came earlier than that. I reminded him of his covenant.
— Put me to remembrance.
— Yeah, that's what he said. And then I began to remind him of the Covenant that George Washington made and the first act of Congress when he opened his Bible to the 17th chapter of Genesis, where God made covenant with Abram and changed his name to Abraham, I've made you the father of many nations. So George Washington got down on his knee and kissed that Bible. And the long and short of it was, he declared that this is one of these nations. And you will be our God and we will be your people. So the first act of Congress, number one, the number one thing, first covenant was to dedicate this nation in all of its future to the Most High God of Israel. The Liberty Bell had a quote from the Book of Leviticus from the Year of Jubilee, what Jesus called the acceptable year of the Lord.
— That's right.
— And they rang it until they broke it. Amen. And I want to remind all of you that George Washington was one of them that pushed, all men are created equal.
— Yes, he did.
— Yeah, Brother Copeland but he had slaves. Now just wait a minute. What do you know about him? You're the only one a debenture slave is? Uh... What-a-slave? When you say slave, everybody just thinks black. Oh, no, no, no. Now, wait a minute. There were people that wanted to come here so badly and had no money, they would make a contract with someone much like Jacob did with his father in law. Seven years. And he got Leah. So he went seven more to get Rachel. Well, they were debenture slaves that... I work for you. How many years do I have to work for you to get my citizenship in this magnificent liberty experiment? And all... he would buy black slaves to get them out of the hands of bad people. But they were not slaves. They were employees. He paid them a working wage. So you need to do your homework before you go judging somebody.
— Lot of Irish slaves as well.
— A lot of them.
— A lot of them.
— Yeah, because they had a lot of problems. They were second class people in Europe. And a lot of them came to New York and a lot of them were policemen. Amen. Good ones. They'll knock you in the head, brother. Now, I need to tell you, I need to finish my story from yesterday. In the Fire Church. The first year I was there, I preached that day to 23,000. Now, when we got there this year, there was a lot of construction going on and so I asked Ricardo what all of the construction is about. He said, "Well, we just need more room. And we'll have 10,000 today but when we finish this, we'll be able to seat 30,000 in here. 15 years, nobody came to his church. He kept praying and he kept fasting about it". And finally the Lord said, "If you will give me the first half of your day, I'll build the church". So he got up at 4:00 in the morning. He fasted and prayed and studied and meditated and then by noon he would do the pastoral work. And in their praise, the glory began to fall. Now this was just few days ago here was the second time I had preached in there. Now I preached there last year, but because of COVID, the church was closed. So we preached in Rhema Church in Bogota. Anyway, I was there that morning to preach faith and there was a man that got up and walked up there. They have flag men after the praise, it'll start during praise and they don't make different songs. They just flow from one song into the other and just praise and worship. And this man came up and they rushed him up on the platform to get his testimony. And I thought, I wonder what's up with him. Got up there. I found out he was a policeman and he got shot in the head and he got shot right up in here, he's a member of that church. And they prayed over him and God raised him up. That morning, I saw it... He handed Ricardo that bullet. Through praise and worship it had worked its way out of his body. He could have lived the rest of his life with the thing in there. It wasn't bothering him, but he was in church. He was in church. And they praised and they worship till the glory fell. I was there. I saw it and I was there here just a few days ago. And then he told us, he said, "Well, we've just got so many people. We need to seat 30,000 in here". And but they still have two services on Sunday.
— I just heard in my spirit a pastor, somebody out there. Brother Copeland, "Why did that happen in America? What do I got to do to get that"?
— You want me to tell you?
— That's what I heard in my spirit.
— You come to church and you sing, you know, five, six, seven, eight songs. And you change songs and then you receive the offering. And then you preach a little while and go home. They do the same thing, but they praise and worship for an hour. And the miracles happen and the people are delivered and all kinds of outstanding miracles. And they have a medical doctor standing there to check you out. And they just praise and worship. They have flag men and they come up there and the praise and worship just falls and it falls and it falls and it falls. And then Ricardo gives an invitation and they just flock down there in the front end of that thing. And then he preaches the Word of Faith.
— They've learned how to host the Holy Spirit.
— Yes, they have. Now, the Friday before we were there. Now listen to this class, the Friday before we were there, he and Patricia had 45,000 in a stadium in Bolivia. They already are scheduled in Cuba, Venezuela and Peru. Now I have preached for pastors in Venezuela and Peru. They were there, They were present in our VictoryThon, they had never had services in the daytime. They thought people work in the daytime, but people were there from Spain, Venezuela, all over the Hispanic world. And it went out on Enlace. The man that founded Enlace was there, and he interviewed Gloria and me in Costa Rica one time. He was there and I had a chance to shake his hand. What do you think about this? Who else could go to Cuba and preach like this? Venezuela, that is what Venezuela needed to break the hold that devil got on that country when it turned communist, I preached there many times until finally they just won't let Americans in there anymore, but they will, this is his answer. This book is always the answer.
— Yes, sir. And it'll be the answer for America. Can I read you a verse that I believe David tapped into this. What that Pastor, Ricardo? David tapped into the same thing. I'm going to read to you from Second Samuel 22 Amplified Classic. "For this I will give thanks and extol You, O Lord, among the nations; nations I will sing praises to Your name". And he goes on to list all the faithfulness of God. Look at verse 44 here. "You have delivered me from strife with my people. You've kept me as the head of nations, people whom I've not known served me, who brought me out from my enemies. You have lifted me up above those who rose against me. You delivered me from the violent man". Praise and thanksgiving. David learned it's a spiritual law.
— Yes, it is. And they had praise services. Now, I've never talked to Ricardo about this, but they had praise services when they dedicated the Temple of Solomon.
— Yes, they did.
— They had sacrifices. I'm telling you, the sacrificial lambs were slain...
— It was extravagant.
— You can't count them all. And they sacrificed and made sacrifices for days before they did the dedication and then Solomon didn't dedicate it, the people did. And you see all of that. And then what happened? Then the musicians... they didn't start with the musician, that came later, then the musicians, then the glory fell.
— That's right. They couldn't stand.
— They couldn't even stand up. It was so powerful in that place. It was the same glory that followed them, the same cloud and fire that followed them all the way through the wilderness.
— That's how David overcame Goliath. He had spent time like that watching sheep. And he had experience with a lion and a bear, with praise and worship, watching sheep.
— Greg, I've thought about that and prayed about that many, many, many times. And I've never heard the Lord actually say this to me. But then, David is a man of the book. What did Samson do? I can tell you by reading about Samson that he was not an unusually strong looking man because they couldn't figure out where his strength came from. I mean, if he had been as big as Goliath or something like that. But he wasn't. He's just an ordinary man. He had a Nazarene vow.
— The only other one we have record of is John the Baptist.
— Yeah. But the Spirit of God would come on him and he'd just tear a lion apart. I'm satisfied that David read that over and over and over and over and over because he's in a dangerous place. He's out there protecting those sheep. It's his responsibility, and he is in a very dangerous place. I mean, there's dangerous in there. A lot of wild animals, of course, they've been, you know, eradicated now mostly for the most part, but not his day. And so he's meditated on him, some of the Psalms may be influenced by that.
— I guarantee it.
— But when that bear came up there, he just stood on his covenant and just grabbed him and killed him with his bare hands. He related this to Saul. He said, "I killed that lion with my bare hands". He doesn't say how big that lion was, but he's a teenager, with his bare hands. And he set out there and played the harp and wrote songs. Write them down. And as they came and he said, "That uncircumcised philistine, I'll kill him. He doesn't have a covenant. And I do". Then he ran towards him and Goliath cursed him by his gods. And he said, "I come at you in the name of the Lord of Hosts", that put the angels in it.
— That's right.
— You know who the Lord of the Host is? Jesus. In the beginning God. In the beginning Elohim. Plural. Let us make man in our image. Let them have dominion. The Spirit of God was moving upon the face of the deep. God said, "Light be".
— Malakh... in Hebrew, the Angel of the Lord. You see that over and over and over in places. But David understood this. David understood this will carry him through when Saul, the father of his covenant brother Jonathan, is after him and he finds himself in the cave. He begins to praise again. It's how you behave in the cave that will determine how you come out.
— Isn't that the truth? And his men couldn't understand why he didn't kill him and stop him from killing him. He wouldn't do it.
— No, because the whole land, there's a land covenant that's part of the covenant of Abraham, Moses and David. David is the last one on that land covenant. He is going to make sure that he does this right. And what I'm trying to get across is he's a man of thanksgiving. He knew how to host the Holy Spirit. The tabernacle of David was for the Gentiles. Everybody can be around the Ark of the Covenant for a period of about 33 years. Coincidence? He hosted the Holy Spirit. David knew how to do it. There was praise and worship 24/7. Like this, Pastor...
— Yes.
— ...you're talking about.
— Yes.
— And when you read Romans 1, all that bad stuff that's behind them...
— Oh, Greg,
— That's social media.
— Forgive me for interrupting.
— Yeah.
— Just a few years ago, he had a convention. Sergio went down there and along with Carlo Evans' dad and I heard about it, that they were going to have this. So I asked Sergio and Carlo asked to go down there and check this out. So they went and they met Ricardo and Patricia. Class, they had 1 million people from all over the Hispanic world, 1 million. Gloria and I met Reinhard, Bonnke, him and Anni. Ray McCauley introduced him to us. We had lunch with them and such lovely people. I mean. Reinhard is just so... easy... but when that anointing comes on him, man, suddenly he explodes.
— Like Samson.
— Yes, and I said, Reinhard, the anointing of the Prophet came on me. But this had been after several hours of visitation about them. And I said, "There's coming a day in the name of Jesus when you will have 1 million people answer the invitation in one service". He said, "I believe that and I receive it. It will happen". Well, at that time they just had a small tent. It was small. It only seated 30,000. That became the invitation tent later and later they got to the place a tent didn't do. They had to have big outdoor meetings. So we found out about it. And this ministry paid for and had built a sound system that they still have today, even though Reinhard is in heaven and Daniel Kolenda still uses it. You can hear it for five miles and now multiplied. Millions of people have come to... But that day happened and they don't just guess at it. They have little books and an assistant. Can you imagine how many assistant people. He had a meeting for his assistants and got them all together. Had a meeting. They had to have it in a stadium because there were 250,000 of them. So that's a nice ministry
— It's changing nations.
— Yes. Yes.
— And that's what we need today.
— This is the end-time. This is the end of the end of the end of the end-times. And we're there. And 30 seconds from now, we'll be out of time. It's important that social media be flooded with it, absolutely flooded. Flooded with it. Praise God. We'll be back in just a minute.