Kenneth Copeland - Be Delivered and Free from Fear in Christ Jesus
Let's open our Bibles once again to Hebrews chapter 2, and we will read our foundation Scripture for what we are studying concerning being delivered from fear and being free from it in Christ Jesus. Amen. There's a difference, as we talked last night, between being free from fear, being delivered from fear, and just putting fear down and controlling it in certain areas of your life. And so that's what we're looking at. The Spirit of the Lord has dealt with this ministry, dealt with me, is dealing with Gloria and me right now.
I have received our orders concerning this war. I have received orders from God to launch an all-out attack against fear, to unplug terrorism, just pull a plug on it, by attacking fear. If fear is not there, there's no terror. So terrorism can't function without fear. Terrorism is the planned, organized use of fear as a weapon in order to terrify its victims and paralyze them, and in other ways, seize them and make them helpless to resist oppression. Oppression is the spoiling, the stealing, and the taking away of one's goods and properties without their permission. Amen. Satan is the oppressor.
The Bible said in Acts 10:38, how Jesus was anointed of the Holy Ghost, who went about doing good, healing all that were oppressed, of the devil. Oppression. Oppression has to have fear to function. I'm going to show you that tonight from the Word. It has to have fear or it cannot function. Terror has to have fear and oppression in place or it cannot function. It is totally devoid of power. Amen. And so we're a people free from fear. We're not just protected from it. We've been delivered from it. Hallelujah. Amen.
Now, just settle down, Kenneth. Okay, yeah, I will. Glory to God. Now, y'all pray for me. Y'all help me tonight. You didn't do too good last night. Amen. I didn't get as far down the road as I should have last night. So you stay with me tonight. Amen. Because I get in this, I'll tell you what, I can just go absolutely wilder than I mean to tell you now. So you stay with me. Amen. Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14. "For as much then as the children are..." yeah, forgive me, Lord. The Lord reminded me to say this to you. Those of you that don't have a Bible for one reason or another, look on with somebody next to you. These scriptures need to mark your consciousness. Amen.
"For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he, Jesus, also himself, likewise, took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death. That is the devil". You notice he had it. He doesn't have it anymore. Jesus destroyed him. In other words, he paralyzed him. He totally took it away from him. "And that through death, he might destroy him that had the power of death. That is the devil and deliver them". Say deliver. Mark that word right there in your Bible "and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage".
The fear of death is the master fear. That's the fear that all other fear is based on. Sin came into the world, the Bible said, and death by sin. Amen. So then the fear came when man was born again from life to death, from spiritual life in connection with God, the life flow between God and man, revelation between God and man, a flow of spiritual force between God and man. And God had crowned the man with his glory. But he bowed his knee to a fallen angel and subjected himself to a different God. He committed high treason. And in doing so, spiritual death was lodged in his spirit. The sin came and then the death came. He bowed his knee. He was disobedient to God.
And that was the sin and the spiritual death, which is separation from the life of God in his Spirit. His body didn't die that day. His body died 930 years later. But God told him the day you eat of that tree, you shall surely die. That's spiritual death. Spiritual death is different from physical death. We have the mind idea of death being ceased to operate, ceased to exist. That's not even true in the natural. It appears like that because the body, when the spirit is gone out of the body, there's no life left in it. It just falls down. Amen. And it'll decay and return to dust. But it won't stay there. It doesn't cease to exist. You just can't see it. It's gone back to dust.
But the Bible said every human being's body is recorded. Its parts are recorded. Amen. And the born again child of God will be resurrected in the likeness of Jesus. And that body changed. Well, see, the body may have been in the grave, who knows, 4, 5, 6,000 years even. But yet at the call of the voice of God, that body will be raised up. Glory to God. And glorified just like the body of Jesus. Hallelujah. Ah, but let me tell you something. The Bible calls the second death, the resurrection of the bodies of those that refused to enter into the blood of Jesus covenant with God.
That old sin-filled, old sick-filled body be raised up and rejoined with that person's spirit. Hell is gonna cough up all of those that have been in there all of this time, incarcerated to keep them out and away from human contact. These people go around and say, "Oh, you know, that, that's my cousin. Been haunting that house over there". No, your cousin is in hell. He's there to stay. That kind of stuff comes from familiar spirits. For only one purpose, fear. Do you hear me?
Now that proves right there that even death does not mean to cease to exist. Even though that's the idea that we have of it, because that's all we've seen of it is the body dies and it goes away. But spiritual death is a different thing all together. Spiritual death is a separation from God. You are a spirit. You have a soul and you live in a body. And when that spirit is separated from God, the functioning of that spirit is still there, but now it is functioning subdued by the soul, the mind, the will, and the emotion. And it's functioning on the animal level instead of on the God level. Are you with me now? You follow me here?
Now, then spiritual death was lodged in Adam's spirit. And what had been faith became fear. The spiritual forces were still there, but they were no longer connected to God. They were connected to the devil. And at that time he had the power of death. How'd he get it? He got it from Adam, God's under ruler of this earth. God didn't put in Adam's hand the power of death. There wasn't any death here. He had in his hands, the power of righteousness, the power of creation that God had sown into him by creating him in his own likeness. And there was beating in his bosom, the supernatural glory of the living God. Hallelujah. Amen.
That's the reason he had never seen his physical body. The glory of God was around him like around God. Hallelujah. Well, when treason came, death was lodged in his spirit. Everything in there was twisted. What was going this way turned and went that way. What was faith became fear. Fear is still a form of faith. It is faith in death more than faith in God. You know, faith come up by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. Before that time, when God came on the scene and talked with them in the cool of the day, God would speak and faith would rise up and say, "It's Father, let's run". And they run to God and they talked and they had wonderful times. And after they sinned, God spoke.
And what had been faith and now was twisted into fear. The minute God spoke, instead of running to God, it ran away from him. Fear twisted faith. Well, love was twisted into hate, joy twisted into discouragement, happiness twisted into oppression and depression, loss, grief, instead of a sense of belonging, fear instead of faith. Now, then when Jesus came, glory to God. And when you received him as your Lord and Savior, then we got born again. Adam was born from life to death, but thank God we were born again from death unto life. And there was imparted into us the Spirit of life. Hallelujah in Christ Jesus. Oh, glory to God. Oh, y'all pray for me. Oh, glory to God. Oh, it's just coming all over me. Glory to God, hallelujah. Amen.
What had been fear turned to faith, hallelujah. And the love of God was shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. Whosoever confesses Jesus as Lord, God dwells in him and he in God. And God is love and perfected love casteth out fear. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I will. Now let's go back. Let's go back over here and start over again. Let's read that 15th verse again. Hebrews 2. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Or in other words, dominated by bondage, subject to it like someone subject to a king. Bondage was king.
As long as fear reigns, bondage is king. But we find that in the righteousness of God, they who have received the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness shall reign in life. Amen. Now let's turn over to the 8th chapter of the book of Romans. Romans 8. And I want us to begin reading with the 14th verse. Romans 8:14. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear".
Did you hear it? Who through all their lifetime through the fear of death were subject to bondage. He said here, let's read on down. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption. Where we cry, Abba, Father". Or where we cry, Daddy. You know what? Daddy is a very, very intimate term. You know that he's Father. Yes, but he's daddy. He's the one you love. He's your loving father.
Now then let's read it. Let's read on down a little bit more. You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. Say that loud. I have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but I have received the Spirit of adoption. Whereby I cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with my spirit that I am the child of God. Now you see what he said? He said, "You have been delivered from the fear of death and you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear". He said, "You got rid of that". You didn't receive fear or bondage when you got the Holy Ghost, but there are religions that act like you did. There are whole denominations that attempt to control their congregations through religious fear. Amen.
You know it and I know it. It's wrong. You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit we're the children of God. And if children, then heirs of God and joined heirs with Christ, the Anointed one. Glory to God. Amen. Now then let's go back and look at the book of Joshua, chapter one. I want us to read verse nine there. Joshua chapter one, verse nine. "God is speaking to Joshua after the death of Moses, a servant of the Lord came to pass. The Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun. Moses' minister saying Moses, my servant is dead" and so forth and so on.
And then he told him in the eighth verse, "This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate therein day and night. that you may observe to do all according to that's written there in. And then you shall make your way prosperous. And then you shall have good success. Have I not commanded thee"? Underline that. "Have I not commanded thee be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed". Now, if he'd have stopped right there, the man sunk. He said, I command you to be strong. I command you to be not afraid. If you can figure out how best way you can, go on across the Jordan and attack those giants over there and come back and tell me how it all turned out. No, but now Christian people have a sense of that. That came out of religion.
God called people to preach and there's been five years telling God they're not qualified. Oh God, I can never do that. Oh Lord, I could never do that. Oh, what if I said yes to that? He'd love to send me to China or someplace. Oh, that's born out of fear. You mean to tell me God called you, but he didn't check up and see what kind of grades you made in school. He don't care what kind of grades you made in school. It's his school that he's interested in. When he sent me to Oral Roberts University, I was, I was three years late. I should've been there three years before. But thank God I did get there. But now see, God was working all the time. And when I got back under his umbrella of protection, things started working for me instead of against me. Amen.
Now, I wanted you to see that because of the fear of doing what God said do. That fear should never have been functioning in me, but I allowed it to function there because I didn't know any better. Now, when I got born again, the spiritual fountain of fear, because it continually fed my spirit with fear.
When I was born again, that turned into faith. No born again believer has the fountain of fear inside their spirit anymore. It is not in there, but you can feed fear into your spirit and it'll function just like your spirit produced it by the words of your mouth, by the actions, things you feed into your eyes all the time. That's what all the meditation day and night and the lies of the devil. He's part of the attack of terrorism, planned, organized use of fear as a weapon. He said, I commanded you to be strong and of good courage. Be not afraid, neither be dismayed. Now here's the key issue. For the Lord thy God is with thee where so ever you go. Hallelujah. The Lord thy God is with thee. That's where all the difference is made.