Kenneth Copeland - Be a Doer of God's Covenant
Let's turn to two places in the first covenant, Leviticus chapter 26, then Ephesians chapter one and two. Father, I thank You for the written Word. We trust You. You are this Word and the Word is You. It's Your bond. It's written in blood and we appreciate it. 26th chapter of Leviticus. And let's begin reading. Well, let's start up here in verse three. All right, let's read verse one. "You shall make no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up standing image, neither shall you set up any image of stone on your land to bow down unto it, for I am the Lord your God. You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord".
Someone said, I heard a man on Mike Huckabee's program a few nights ago that said most people can't quote over five of the commandments. And when he says, remember my commandments and the teachings of your father and mother, when you roam, they will guide you. When you sleep, they will watch over you. And when you're awake, they will speak with you. He said, remember my commandments. And you don't know what they are? I suggest you brush up. Amen. "If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in due season".
Well, it doesn't have anything to do with El Nino in the ocean. It does not have anything with greenhouse gases. It has to do with being a doer of a covenant. I'll give you rain in due season. The land shall yield her increase and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall... Now what? If you'll do this, if you'll keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary, I am the Lord. If you walk in my statues, keep my commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in due season. And the land shall yield her increase and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach into the vintage and the vintage shall reach into the sowing time. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land safely. In other words, the seasons will begin to overlap. And you'll have so much that you'll have enough to work through the seasons. And so it won't be a planting season and a hot season and a plowing season and to have fun at the harvest. No, you have God's Word. That's his bond. You'll see that in a moment.
Now watch this. "Your threshing shall reach unto the vintage. The vintage shall reach unto the sowing time. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land. And you shall lie down and none shall make you afraid. And I will rid evil beasts out of the land. Neither shall the sword go through your land. You shall chase your enemies and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight. And your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. For I will have respect unto you and make you fruitful and multiply you and establish my covenant with you. And you shall eat old store and bring forth the old because of the new. I'll set my tabernacle among you and my soul shall not abhor you. I will walk among you. I will be your God and you'll be my people".
Now that's what George Washington prayed the day he was inaugurated and that was on the Liberty Bell. "I am the Lord your God which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt that you should not be their bondmen. I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you go upright. But if you will not hearken unto me and will not do these commandments, if you shall despise my statutes or if your soul abhor my judgments so that you will not do all my commandments but you break my covenant, I also will do this. I will even appoint over you terror consumption and burning argue and shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain for your enemies shall eat it. And I'll set my face against you and you shall be slain before your enemies. And they hate you shall reign over you and you shall flee when none pursues you". You should just start running off with nobody there.
Now, but that's not the end of it. You have to keep reading. "I will break the pride of your power and I will make your heaven as iron and the earth as brass" and so forth. And verse 34, "then shall the land enjoy their Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, your enemies' land and then so forth, as long as it lies desolate shall rest". Come on down here. Verse 40, "If they shall confess their iniquity and the integrity of their fathers with their trespasses, which they trespassed against me, that also they have walked contrary to me, that I have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies, if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled. And they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham. And I will remember and I will remember the land". I will remember. Why? Peter called it exceeding and great, precious promises.
Now the book of Ephesians. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Well, the faithful in Christ Jesus in Omaha and Texas is no different. Amen. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. We're already blessed. We're already blessed. With what? The blessing of Abraham. It's not just any blessing. So I had the Lord say to me one time, you keep making plans and ask me to bless them. You find out the plan, it's already blessed. Thank You, Lord. David, would you take this from me, please? And if I need it... Thank you. Thank You, Jesus. Praise You, God. Hallelujah.
So we're already blessed. And I want you to notice this. "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved". He has made us accepted in the beloved. When El Shaddai appeared to Abram, he said, "I have made you the father of many nations". He had the authority to do that. He chose this man because he would teach his children. Well, we need to be teaching these things to our children and our grandchildren where they come up on the 91st Psalm. It makes me wonder how many Christian people are afraid of school shootings and so forth, but their children do not know the 91st Psalm. That'll be the first thing. I mean, they're old enough to talk, they ought to learn that. I wish I'd have known it back there then. Amen. That's the Soldier's Psalm.
Numbers 32:20 and beyond is the Soldier's promise. You can pray that for the IDF, the children of Israel. Now, what I said earlier, King Saul was circumcised the eighth day. Eliab, that older brother of David's, and Samuel passed him by. Amen. But David said he took charge by knowing and using his covenant. That's what that covenant book that Greg Stephens and I put together. That's what that's about, how to use that. Praise God. So, people plead the blood all the time and really don't know it works. But how much more powerful it is when you really have a sense of occupation when you do that. I mean, you own this thing when you do that. Hallelujah.
"He's chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated us, predestined us the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace.' There's a lot of red underlining in my Bible right here. Wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times that He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance".
Now, all of this is going somewhere. "We have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom you also trusted after that you heard the Word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after you have believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise". That just whistles by people, sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. That's huge. He is the Spirit of the promise. It is the Spirit.
In Genesis 1:1, the Spirit of God was moving. He always is. He's the power. The Spirit of God was moving on the face of the deep. God said, and it was. But we know from the book of Hebrews, He said it by faith and it was the Spirit of the promise that carried it out. In 24 hours at the speed of light, over 16 billion miles of universe. We're going to talk about that before this week's up. Praise God. "Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His glory. Wherefore, I also after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers".
Now here's his prayer. "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance is in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the working of his mighty power," according to the working of his dunamis power. Mighty there is dunamis, the Greek word from which we get our word dynamite, dynamine, dynamo. Exceeding power, self-sustaining power. "Which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and ever named that his name not only in this world but also in that which is to come, has put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things of the church, which is his body".
Now Brother Hagin talked about the Ephesians 1 prayer. To pray that, to pray it over, to pray it every day, to pray it every day, to pray it every day. That's a prayer you can pray and you're not repeating yourself, you're repeating God. You start off with the answer. Because he's telling you right here what it will do. It will unleash the mighty blessing of God in your household and the wisdom of God. I learned from Brother Hagin, look up the in whom, in him scriptures. We just read several of them there, something like 130 times in the letters. Because every time it does, it's talking about you.
Now listen to this, far above all principality, far above all power, far above all might and dominion, every name that's named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come and has put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all. That means all that's under our feet. He's the head, we're the body. I was in one of Brother Hagin's meetings one day, and as I walked in there, he said, "You know, I don't say here comes Brother Copeland and his head, or here comes Brother Copeland and his body". He said, "No, his head's attached to his body. Jesus is the head, we're the body".
And then you read where the apostle Paul said, the head cannot say to the feet, I have no need of you. He needs me. Why? Demon need bodies. Read the fifth chapter of the book of Mark, and the sixth chapter of the book of Ephesians, "Principalities and powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and wicked spirits in the heavenly". That covers a lot of ground, but that's where this is going. We're not quite there yet.
"Which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all. You have he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sin, where in times past he walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation or our manner of life in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath made us alive together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them".
There's the plan. Glory to God. We're his workmanship. "It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember, here we are, remember you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the flesh made by hands. At that time you were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, not having no hope and without God in the world".
No hope. Strangers to the covenants of promise. No hope and without God in the world. Years and years and years, I'm talking about 45, close to 50 years ago, the Word of the Lord came to me. He said, "My people are strangers to the covenants of promise. They don't know how to use a covenant. They don't even know it's there. The problem has been Old Testament and New Testament. Get that Classic Amplified and begin to read it". This, right there in that last Passover meal communion, Jesus was serving it. He should take and drink. This is the new testament in my blood. He didn't say that. He said, this is the new covenant in my blood. The new one, the new covenant and the last one in his blood.