Kenneth Copeland - The Miracle of Jesus' Birth
— My favorite time of the year. Whew! Hallelujah.
— Amen. Yes. I'm telling you, my mother, you know, my birthday being the first week of December. And so she always had the Christmas tree up by my birthday. Not realizing what torture that was because we had the rest of the month to go. But anyway, she loved Christmas, and so did I. And December the sixth and December the seventh, 1941, my birthday was the day before and I remember thinking, "What is this all about? They have ruined my birthday," and then I thought, well, this thing's serious. And everybody just went... I mean, we went into war mode and stayed there, so. Father, we thank You for the victory of the blood of Jesus. We praise You and thank You for Your Word in the way this book of covenants work. And we praise You for that and thank you for it today in the name of Jesus. And everybody knows by now that Professor Greg is always involved, and particularly in this, the blood of Jesus ratified all of the covenants, whether anybody knows it or not. His blood is on the heavenly mercy seat now. So his birth was a miracle, as you know. So let's talk about that.
— Thank you for letting me be with you today.
— Sir...
— Thank you for letting me be with you.
— Yes, sir.
— My favorite time of the year.
— Letting you be with me. You mean I had a choice?
— Yes sir.
— I could have run you off any time I wanted to...
— Yes you could do it right now, even.
— Merry Christmas.
— Thank you, Merry Christmas. Fun time of the year. So now let's open our Bibles. Before we do that, immediately after the Garden of Eden, there was no law against murder.
— That's right.
— So there had to become law. And you make a law by entering covenant arrangements. And this is still being practiced today in some places in the world, in places where there's no law. And so tribes get together and they make agreements together, then they enter some form of blood relationship. And the penalty for breaking it is death. Well, that's the same thing true here. But, and you read over in there, this violent son will surely be put to death. But, now wait a minute. Those were written punishments. But very seldom did the death happen because you sacrificed an animal for the man...
— Substitute.
— There was a substitute. So the way the book works, once the Spirit of God through a prophet, made a statement, when that prophet made that statement, there's no way the devil could get it out of here. He's powerless against that. So then that continued to happen over all the years, and it just continued to happen and continue to happen.
— Each one reveals a little peace more. It's like a puzzle, you've all the pieces. But as you start to put together and you get the edges put together, then you begin to see what it's going to look like until it comes to this child being born.
— The prophet Micah introduce Bethlehem.
— Yeah, he did. We went from world wide to one man and his wife, Sarah and Abram, Sarai and Abram. And then we went to a family. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, from a family we went to a nation. A nation we went to one tribe, Judah. Then that tribe city, Bethlehem. Jerusalem's in Judea as well. But Bethlehem, we so focused on that. So each time it's focusing clearly, more clearly what's happening, pointing to one person.
— And the blood began in the Garden of Eden.
— That's right.
— When the original pair did what they did. And I've often thought what would have happened if Adam had owned up to it instead of blaming his wife, and blaming God.
— He had been forgiven, but there was still had to be a remission of sin.
— Yeah, there had to be.
— Because it had been done.
— It would have been a... well anyway. So that it began there. That animal shed its blood to provide clothes for them so it would of started right there. And then it continued through the centuries. So now of course we're interested in Jesus birth because that's what he came to do was ratify all of the covenants, all of the laws, all of the rules back through the years, he came to destroy the works of the devil.
— He's the final payment.
— Yes, sir.
— He will pay a price, he'll overpay the price that we owed, the debt we owed. And we receive that by faith. His grace of giving that to us. We receive that by faith.
— So in the book of Matthew, the second chapter, well, it begins. "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaa in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men or the magi from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him". The Magi... Daniel was a magi, dreams and visions and declaring things. Well, we have the three wise men cause there were three gifts. But they were not at the manger at all. He was a young child. He was about two years old when they showed up.
— That's correct.
— Now for the television audience, we're teaching out of Rick Renner's Christmas, The Rest of the Story. I strongly suggest you get this because you need to read it to your children. And it's just magnificent. And the illustrations in it are so beautiful. And we're teaching out of this. So and you read down through here of which before we get through, we will read all of this. But I want to point this out at the very beginning. Verse 21, "And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaa in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene". I mean, there's intricate plan in this whole thing, amen. So now let's go now over to the book of Luke. And I want to remind you, we don't ever compromise the Word. We don't compromise it over Christmas. We don't compromise it over anything. And I'm going to make this public. And if it messes up somebody's house, well, it just gets messed up because I got messed up and I'm... anyway... A poem got in the way. That's where Santa Claus came from. Started out with Saint Nicholas. Then that poem. And now there's Santa Claus everywhere. He doesn't even exist... You don't compromise it. And when I was a young boy, we lived in Abilene, Texas, there. And there was a family moved in close to us. And she told me that Santa Claus wasn't real. And I said, "That's not true. My mother would never lie to me". I went home and then mother had to come clean. When John and Kellie were old enough to know we sat them down and told them. Now listen, we're going to still have the fun. But Jesus is the one, I said, "Forget, what's his name? Because he doesn't exist". And so Kellie was nine years old. She was born almost on Gloria's birthday. She was born February the ninth, and Gloria was born February the 12th. Anyway, so Gloria got a birthday present in our first born and we were walking in Cox's department store and it was Christmas. And we walked through the door and this lady said, "Little girl, what's Santa Claus going to bring you"? And Kellie looked up to me and said, "You think she doesn't know"? Don't ever lie to your children. But have the fun anyway. And like we told our children, now look, you are not going to find out till Christmas morning because we all had Christmas Eve, you know, but you're not going to find out till Christmas morning. So don't even try to find out. And you're going to be glad, you'll be glad. And one year it was the year that Gloria and I got out of debt. By November, we were out. But boy, the money was gone. We were there in Tulsa. Well we told them, both of them, and they were just small, but we told them upfront what we're doing here. And so they all agreed with us, both of them agreed with us. And so John got a little can of fire crackers about that big. Kellie got a doll, and we had Chef Boyardee for Christmas dinner. And those of you don't know what it is, forget it. It all came out of a can. But we had Christmas. Now let's talk about Christ Mass. It's the celebration of the Anointed. That's what it's all about. That's what Messiah in Hebrew.
— The Anointed One.
— The Anointed one, Christ in Greek. The anointed one, it's the same thing. And we see here why they went to Nazareth so that it might be fulfilled. That's the way the book works. It started in the Garden of Eden at the failure of the original pair. An animal shed its blood in order to give them clothes.
— And you're going to have two, another pair come together to bring the second Adam who'll repair what the first Adam failed at, this New covenant Brother Copeland answers the first covenant, it reveals everything in that first covenant.
— Everything in that first one.
— ... Is talking about this.
— Now we have to remember that our God started time. Now we went with a finite mind with, "In the beginning, God". Now that's where we start. But anyway, he started time because he is a master of coordination of the universe in order that everything is decent and in order and it's on a time schedule. Jesus said so, only he knows when the end is. But then Jesus went ahead to say, when this gospel of the Kingdom is preached to all nations as a witness, then the end will come. Now, I remember back in the day when people scoffed at the book of Revelation when the whole world was watching what was happening in Jerusalem. Well, last night I was watching what was happening in Jerusalem. The technology is here. So, folks, we are there. We are there.
— He'll speak more about his second coming than he will as first coming. When you think about that, we know all the prophecies about his first coming. I've got 350 of them listed here, but he'll speak more about the second coming. If he fulfilled everything so accurately, how much more is he going to do that. He's going to continue, he's the same yesterday, today and forever. He's going to hit it exactly right. One of my favorite disciples of all is Matthew. I like Peter. I love John, but Matthew's one my favorites because he was so valuable to Jesus. He's a tax collector for the Roman government. He records entire sermons that Luke didn't do because he knew how to write and record statements for tax collecting. So have the Beatitudes because of him. And so 12 times Matthew will cite Old Testament prophecy or first covenant prophecy in conjunction with the term fulfilled, which he'll use phrases like, "That it might be fulfilled" like you just read a moment ago, and Jesus will accurately hit that so many times. He is written in the Greek. It is written. It's in the perfect tense. Meaning it stands written. That's literally what it means in the Greek that it stands written that he is this. And I'm so grateful for Matthew that he provides this narrative for us and he's so thorough and he's so meticulous in his writing and what he's doing so that we understand that this seed from this woman in Bethlehem, living in Nazareth, is the promise seed.
— That's right. Well, and where we see Peter's influences in the book of Mark. That's the reason the book of Mark is short. But it has, boy, it's got a punch to it. And you can just see Peter sitting there talking to him and this is where this thing, "You put that down right now". And have him record all that. But this is an anointed book, and now look in the first chapter of the book of Luke. "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the Word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus". This is a documentary.
— It's exactly what this is.
— He questioned people. I've always wondered how many languages Luke spoke. He's a physician, very, very educated man. And how many people did he speak with and how many languages did he have to come up with. Aramaic, you know, because...
— Probably Greek, Latin.
— Well, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew.
— Easily.
— What a man. So, there was in the days of Herod. All of this can't... go ahead Greg.
— No, it's okay, just keep reading. "...the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. And they were both righteous before God," How did he know all that? He interviewed Mary in Ephesus, in the church there, because she was John's assignment. So all of this is really, really important information that 99% of the Christians don't know, which you can know if you just think about a little cause you go over to the book of Acts. And then he continues to write to Theophilus, the things that happened after, and he traveled with Paul.
— I teach the students at KCBC to look at the book of Acts like it's a legal document, court argument for Paul's defense to the Emperor.
— That's right.
— And he's laying out the whole case of how this all happened and why I'm standing in front of you.
— And you put those two books back to back and it's just a continuance of this... Because he interviewed people and he interviewed Mary and found out this part. "And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years". I want to point out something here. Well, we'll just introduce this... "Zacharias said unto to Gabriel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. Now thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words". Here's the problem, we have to shut this man up. We've got to close his mouth. He doesn't know what he's dealing with here.
— Well the timeline is his wife's pregnant.
— And this thing has to work right and on time, we've got to shut him up. Now before it was over with, he lost his hearing also. And we'll look at that probably tomorrow. And we're out of time. Hallelujah.
— It's going to be a good week.