Kenneth Copeland - Cast All Your Cares and Worries on Jesus
Father, we come before this holy desk tonight in the name of Jesus, our Lord and our Savior. And I thank You, Father, for the anointing to deliver this message tonight accurately. And I praise You and thank You that the Word of the Living God lives on the inside of me. And You supernaturally dropped this message in my heart and mind for this meeting. And I praise You for that. I thank You for it. In Jesus' name, amen.
It is no good to lay there in bed at night and say, "What am I going to do"? That's the wrong question in the first place. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I like what Keith Moore said. He said, "The answer is not in your mind. It's in this book, if the book is on the inside of you". He said, "You're lying there in bed and you open the file of your mind. And you go from the front all the way to the back. Then you go to the back all the way to the front. By this time, it's one o'clock in the morning. Then you take them all out and put them in the floor. Then you take it all out. It isn't in there. You ought to know that by now. But people have spent years and never come up with the answer. You cannot come up with it like that".
So let's turn to the book of Mark. Thank You, Jesus. And in the fourth chapter of Mark, and he again, he began again to teach by the seaside. There was gathered unto him a great multitude. Now, we don't have, we don't even have a little multitude in here, but we do have on line. But he had a great multitude. "And he taught them many things by parables and said unto them in his doctrine, hearken, behold, there went out a sower to sow". He said, listen, now come over to the 14th verse, or excuse me, 13th verse. "And he said unto them, know you not this parable? And how then will you know all parables"?
So it's right here. This is basic. The sower sows the Word. That is the subject. The Word. The Word. Why is this called the Word of God? Because it is his bond. He is not a man that he should lie, the son of man that he should repent. Has he not said it? Will he not make it good? Well, the son of man came and could have lied and didn't. Hallelujah. He is the truth. "These are they by the wayside where the Word is sown. But when they have heard, Satan comes immediately and takes away the Word that was sown in their heart".
Now, that is a key issue right there. So make a note of that mentally or write it down. These are they likewise which are sown on stony ground who when they have heard the Word, immediately receive it with gladness and have no root in themselves and so endure but for a time afterward when affliction or persecution arises for the Word's sake. Do you get that? For the Word's sake. Now, you can take it personally if you want to, but that'll get you in trouble. And the moment you begin to preach prosperity, somebody's coming after you. Now, Oral Roberts, by the time I came there in 1967, his office was there on campus. But originally, he had, he wrote, he had the Abundant Life magazine. And he had the Abundant Life building downtown Tulsa. Beautiful place. Oh, just wonderful. And this woman came out publicly and said, that Oral Roberts is a liar. I said, "What are you talking about"? "He is a liar. He talks about all of this, all of this God prosperity something".
And I happen to know he's in the life insurance business. I have seen the Abundant Life building. And he'd say something like, well, you know, the Lord really takes care of me, doesn't he? I'm telling you, they called him everything. He had to have an affidavit done when he went on television assigned by a judge that these healings and miracles were real. That's what I'm talking about. So, for the Word's sake, immediately they are offended. These are they which are sown among thorns. Remember that. Such as hear the Word, and the cares, remember Martha. Martha, Martha, you're covered with the care of serving. The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust or pressures of other things entering in, choke the Word, and the Word becomes unfruitful, and that's dangerous. When this Word becomes unfruitful, we're in trouble.
Now, turn with me to the book of Ephesians, just momentarily, and look in the second chapter, 11th verse, "Wherefore remember that you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the flesh made by hand, at that time you were without Christ, without the anointing one, and his anointing, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world". Strangers from the covenants in this book, that is a sad place to be, and that is the place where most Christians are.
Now then, Mark 4:19, "And the cares of this world..." I want to look at that, I want to look at Mark 4:23 and 24 in this one. "If any man has ears to hear, let him be listening, and let him perceive and comprehend. And he said unto them, Be careful what you are hearing. The measure of thought and study you give to the truth you hear will be measure of virtue and knowledge that comes back to you, and more besides if you hear". Now where do you get your information? I noticed this all the way through COVID. Did you know a cold is a coronavirus? It was the flu.
Now I'm not bragging on me, I'm bragging on that book. We were the first ministry allowed back into Bogota, Colombia. I'm talking about the whole team, we tested negative when we went there, we tested negative when we came back. We went to Lagos, Nigeria, we tested negative before we left, we tested negative when we came back. The whole team did. And then for our children to come over and see us, get out of sight. So actually, personally, I checked, I tested negative five times, but it's conditional. January, now January 2019, we had our Ministers Conference. And I think it was when you were preaching, I think it was, anyway, I'm sitting right there on the front row, and I began to chill. If you'd been sitting there next to me, you could probably heard it. I said, "You can't put that on me. You know you can't put that on me". About 15 minutes and it's gone. Yeah, glory to God.
But I take a lot of supplements and a lot of vitamin C. Amen. But I refuse to let that thing get in me. I'm not having it. Now, it wasn't always that way. I was in Oklahoma City preaching for Brother Hartsfield. And we were staying with Lavinia James. And Lavinia was a woman that had been healed of cancer in one of Brother Roberts' meetings. And so she would go get people and take them to the services. And so we were staying there in Lavinia's home. I went to bed feeling good and got up the next morning, oh man, I'll tell you, I had the flu. It's just all over me. But I'd already come to the place where I promised God I would never compromise the Word of Faith. If it says I'm healed, I'm healed. So anyway, I woke up. I said, "Gloria, you're going to have to shave me. But I don't trust you with a blade". So... She said, "Lavinia, do you have an electric shaver"? She said, "Yeah, I think so".
So Gloria put me up in the bed and shaved my face. Got in the car, and of course, Lavinia drove us to the church. Got over there to the church. I stood here like this. I said, "I'll be back in just a moment". Well, the choir practice room was right behind the platform there. I just went in there. And Satan and I had a discussion, and he lost. So when I walked back out there, now this is what I'm talking about. We walked back out there, and when I took hold of that podium, it began to weave around a bit. So I just changed my subject and preached healing for about an hour and a half, and I was well and went home. So these are cares of the world. But now let's go on with this.
I want us to look at 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter chapter 5. "The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, also partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock which is among you, taking oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of ready mind, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fades not away. Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder, yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility". Now, if you wonder what true humility is, this is it. Be clothed with true, with clothed with humility, for God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Humble yourself, therefore, under the mighty hand of God.
Underline the word "mighty". That word mighty is dunamis, the mighty power. That Greek word is where we came up with the word dynamite, dynamin, dunamis, the mighty hand of God. "That he may exalt you in due time". How? "Casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion..." he's not a roaring lion... his teeth have been pulled. Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah. "Casting all your care. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour". And people that worry, he'll devour you, because worry is fear-based. All of it is. How do we pray for Israel? You don't know? Well, the 91st Psalm is the soldier's psalm. But Numbers 32:20 is the soldier's promise. So look that up and pray that. You cannot fight thoughts with thoughts. You have to fight thoughts with words. God's words. You find his words and you pray them. I said you find his words and you pray that. Then you have the answer before you ever pray. But we'll see that before we get through.
"Whom resist steadfastly in the faith". Resist him by faith. James 4:7 does not say resist the devil and he'll flee from you. Why, Brother Copeland? No, it doesn't say that. Why, I know it does. No, you don't know it does. It says, "Draw nigh to God, he'll draw nigh to you. Submit yourself to God and resist the devil and he'll flee from you". See, that comes first. That comes first. And you can scream and holler and flee and all that kind of stuff and get over into positive negatives. Ah, devil, I told you to flee. Well, right then he's not going anywhere. But when you open that book and you say something like Brother Hagin used to say, "Just in case you can't read, let me read this to you. Father, I submit myself to you. I draw nigh to you and you're nigh to me. Now, devil, you flee. You get out of my life and take your cares with you". Hallelujah. All right.
Let's go over there and catch it like this. You can get, you can get happy over this if you're not already. Thank You, Jesus. "Cloth yourselves with humility as a garb of a servant so that its covering cannot possibly be stripped from you". Isn't that good? ..."With freedom from pride and arrogance toward one another. For God sets himself against the proud, the insolent, the overbearing, disdainful, presumptuous, and boastful. And he opposes, frustrates, and defeats them, but gives grace and favor and blessing to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves, lower yourselves in your own emotional estimation unto the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you". Exalt you. God is in the business of exalting his people, but it's when you and I try to exalt ourselves. Well, I can just take care of this. No. One woman said, "Well, I'll tell you what, if you could just take half of this worry off me, I'd be happy". He doesn't want you to be worried about anything.
"To exalt you above that problem and above those cares". Casting the whole of your care, all of your anxieties, all of your worries, all of 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, seeking someone to seize upon and devour. Withstanding, be firm in the faith against his own set. Rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined, knowing that the same identical sufferings are appointed to your brotherhood, the whole body of Christ throughout the world. But you have to do it. Thank You, Jesus.