Kenneth Copeland - God's Mercy Endures Forever
— I want to remind you again. Well, for those of you that is now tuning in, I'm Kenneth Copeland. This is Professor Greg Stephens, and this is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast, it goes out on the Victory Channel. And these are all covenant people. It began with Abram. The whole idea is don't kill the people. Kill an animal. God is not interested in killing anybody. He is love. It doesn't say he's power. But I'll remind you again, when Cain killed Abel, it was not against the law.
— There was no law.
— So he was banished. And he added to his own curse. So you begin then with creating law. How do you create law? You enter into covenant on certain agreements. And that becomes law. And to break that law is death. But then that's the punishment. But then you kill the animal instead of the man so that one day you kill the man on the cross. And you settle it forever. Now you have a book of covenants.
— He forever fulfilled every one of those laws.
— Every one of them, all of them. The law and the prophets. And love was the key word to all of it. So now we go to the Second Chronicles, and class, look at the 19th... The first verse of the 19th chapter here, we're going to center up on the 20th. But in order to declare with whom we're dealing here, this is a national problem. "Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem". Ah... he's King. His name is Jehoshaphat. "It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great..." How many? "A great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria; and, behold, they be in Hazazon-tamar, which is Engedi. And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah". He's serious about this. This is a huge bunch of people and they're coming after him and his forces. "Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the LORD: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD. And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court, and said," listen now, "O LORD God of our fathers..." Oh, he just brought covenant into this thing. He brought Abraham in it right then,
— He brought David in it. All of them.
— Yes. He brought all them. He couldn't say in the name of Jesus. Jesus is not here. That's what we do.
— Yes, sir. "O LORD God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? And rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? And in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand you"? He went to... they fasted and they prayed and he declared it and now he's king. So his word goes. "Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend..."
— Covenant.
— That's just covenant talk all over the place. Thank You, Jesus. "And they dwelt therein, and have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name, saying, If, when evil cometh upon us, as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence, (for thy name is in this house,) and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help". There's the faith. "And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and mount Seir," and all the rest of them... "whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade..." He held them off and he's reminding him of it. Praise God. "...when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them, and destroyed them not; behold..." He's saying to God, "You look at this now, you look here, I say, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit. O our God..." He just kept on. "Then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah," and so forth. A Levite, a priest. He's a priest... "came the Spirit of the LORD in the midst of the congregation; and he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not your's, but God's". Okay. This is looking better all the time. "To morrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the LORD with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not," he told them again... "nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the LORD will be with you. And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the LORD, worshipping the LORD. And the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites, stood up to praise..." They did what?
— To praise.
— They stood up to praise the Lord Israel with a loud voice. Now, yesterday was Thanksgiving. We ought to be doing it with a loud voice. "And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper". He's talking about the prophet that said this, not himself. The prophet said the battle is God. And he said, "You believe him". "And we had consulted the people..." The people decided to do this. He didn't. "And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the LORD, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth for ever. And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Israel". They didn't say mercy. I wrote it down right here. Hesed, friend of God. Hesed. A covenant blessing of the lesser by the greater.
— That's right.
— Well, God is the greatest one. You cannot be in covenant with anybody greater than he is. What were they singing? They began to sing and praise. Praise the Lord. His hesed endureth for ever. Praise the Lord. His hesed endures forever. "And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon," and the whole bunch, and every one helped to destroy another. "And when Judah came to the wilderness, they looked into the multitude and behold, there were dead bodies fallen to the earth and none escaped". They killed one another. Our side didn't lose anybody. They got hesed from God Almighty. He just turned them against one another. And they killed themselves. They were rather confused. Somebody said something and it made somebody mad and they just turned around and probably just popped him in the mouth. He popped him in there and the war was on, but they just stood back and watch from that hill. Right there by ... They just stood there and watched them all and killed one another. And they were all dead. What a way to fight a war. First you had to believe the prophet, then you had to shout, Is "His hesed endures forever". His hesed endures forever.
— That's what God revealed to Moses. This very first thing, he said, "Show me your glory". And he said, "My goodness..." translated Hesed, will go before you. It's the very first thing God revealed to Moses.
— So many times that word is used and English people don't get it. Spanish people don't get it, Japanese people don't get it, nobody gets it. It's a Hebrew word. It doesn't exist in anybody else's language. It's very difficult to translate mercy, loving, kindness, goodness. Well, all of those are English words. But in a lot of places, the Classic Amplified does and anyway, now verse 25, "Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much. And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah; for there they blessed the LORD: therefore the name of the same place was called, The valley..."
— ...of Berachah, unto this day.
— The valley of what? Blessing. The valley of blessing. My, my, my, my... The valley of the Spirit. The valley of the wind of God. They just stood up there on the hill. And don't you know, they're thinking when they got down there, how on earth these people carry all this stuff? You want me to tell you? They stole it off of other nations. Some of them had it on their bodies. They probably had wagons full of it, and they came there to get it from them. They were going to kill all of them, take all of their stuff and go get somebody else. But they ran into something they couldn't handle and they got mad at one another. And I expect now, I can't prove this. You can't prove it didn't. It more likely somebody got mad over all that jewelry and stuff and they just started fighting one another. At least that's what they thought. But God did it.
— Well, of course, Verse 29, the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries. All those other countries said, "Hey, they got our stuff. Are you going to go get it"? I'm not going to go. Let them have it. This is when the kingdom had split north and south. Listen to this. United States history, north and south, the kingdom had split, Judah and Benjamin enter the south. The capital of Judah is Jerusalem. Israel is called the north and the capital of Samaria. And this is the battle in Judah. This is why Abraham Lincoln knew I can not let us become... There was pressure for him. Just let them become their own nation. We'll live together with the border.
— Oh people pushed him for that.
— We got to stay united. We got people prophesying today on television networks that the next civil war is coming. I say no, it's not. We're united. And I go to Jehoshaphat. I go to this very story right here. And I say we have a covenant.
— The story's not over yet. Verse 28, "And they came to Jerusalem with psalteries and harps and trumpets unto the house of the LORD". They brought the whole orchestra with them "And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries, when they had heard that the LORD fought against the enemies of Israel. So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet: for his God gave him rest round about. And Jehoshaphat reigned over Judah: he was thirty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi. And he walked in the way of Asa his father, and departed not from it, doing that which was right in the sight of the LORD. Howbeit the high places were not taken away: for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers. Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Jehu the son of Hanani, who is mentioned in the book of the kings of Israel".
— Northern Kingdom,
— ...and he used Covenant hesed to fight that war. First he did what was right. He called a fast among the people. It doesn't say how long that was, They stayed there, he reminds me of Ricardo Rodriguez and praising God to the glory of all. They stayed there. They didn't leave that place until the word of the Lord came. And it identifies the young man through whom it came. They got their battle plan. They knew exactly where they would be. They knew when they would be there. And they went there. He consulted the people and the people decided what they were going to do. We're going to get out front and we're just going to sing as loud as we can, that God is good and his hesed endureth forever. And David said, "Surely, surely goodness and hesed shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever". So if you don't have the Blue Bible App, get it and support them because it's a nonprofit company. And when you go to the App Store and get it, it's free. But I use it all the time, so I support them. And you can go back and check all these words and you can find every time it'll say it. Loving kindness over in Isaiah 54. It's just all over the whole... And then you see it. Let's go to Matthew 15:22.
— That's good. From the 21st verse, "Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, or look, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David;" Now she didn't have a covenant yet. She's a Syrophoenician.
— That's correct.
— "But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs". He called her a dog. Actually, he said this, reminding her, "You do not have a covenant with God". "She came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. When Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith:" She knew who he was. Son of David, do hesed for me. He couldn't turn it down, coming from a Gentile, he can't...
— ...because it's faith. It's activated by faith.
— Yes. It's impossible for him to turn it down.
— She went past the law. She went to faith.
— "'Great is your faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt.' And her daughter was made whole from that very hour". Now, Mark 10:46. I love this. Now, this is when I said even the Jewish people had lost sight of this. Are you there? "And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number... a great number of people, blind Bartimaus, the son of Timaus," So he's the son of Timothy. So we know this is a specific man. We know his name. He sat by the wayside, begging. Now, once again, he had to have proven to the high priests that he was actually blind. This was procedure because they're going to see to it. And he had a prime place. He was beside that road out there. There was one at the temple and he couldn't walk. Well, he had to be vetted that he was actually crippled to sit at that place.
— That's right.
— That's a prime place to be begging. Praise God. "And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, do hesed for me. And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, do hesed on me. And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort". They didn't get it?
— No.
— When Jesus heard that, sure he stood still. Class, same as that Syrophoenician woman. He cannot turn that down. He can't. That's a covenant statement. They called him Messiah in the book of Matthew in the 22nd chapter. "While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David". That's what they were crying out. Son of David. Son of David. Do hesed for us. He could not not honor it. It's covenant phrase, praise God and we're out of time. Hallelujah.