Kenneth Copeland - The Power and Authority to Prosper Comes From God
— Hello, everybody, and I'm stirred up, Greg.
— I'm so...
— Well, the scripture says, "Stir yourself up," but I pretty well stay stirred up all the time. Amen. Now, let's go back to the songbook. In the 118th Psalm, "Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good". Oh, we give thanks unto the Lord, for you are so good, because his mercy endures forever. His chesed endures forever. Let Israel now say that his mercy endures forever. Now, so you need to be saying it. His mercy endures forever. When I came into the first time, I found the scripture that said, "He died for the ungodly", and I said, "Well, that's certainly me". And his mercy endures forever, thank God. Amen. Endures forever. "You'll fear the Lord and say his mercy endures forever. I called upon the Lord in distress, and the Lord answered me, put me in a large place. The Lord is on my side. I will not fear what man can do unto me". The Lord's on my side, glory to God. We win. Amen. And the Lord takes my part with them that help me. So that's partners. Amen. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes or government. That 13th verse, "Thou shalt thrust sore at me that I might fall, but the Lord helped me. Jehovah, the Lord is my strength and song, and became my salvation in the voice of rejoicing, and salvation is in the tabernacle of righteousness". Well, yeah, the great apostle Paul wrote, he who knew no sin was made to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Righteousness is not holiness, but if you walk in the fruit of the Spirit, glory to God, that produces holiness. Hallelujah. I'm telling you now, I'm working on something here. "I shall live and declare the works of the Lord. The Lord hath chastened me sore, he corrected me, but he's not given me over unto death. Open to me the gates of righteousness, and I will go through them, and I will praise the Lord Jehovah. This gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter. I will praise thee, for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation. The stone which the builders refused has become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in my eyes". Now, listen to me. Don't be going on with, oh, this is fantastic. I don't even like the word "incredible". Fantastic means it's just fairytale, or incredible means it doesn't have any credibility. Use Bible words. It's marvelous in my eyes. It is awesome to me. Marvelous in my eyes. Praise God. "We will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord. O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity". Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho.
— Oh my...
— That'll be all right. We'll just take us a little more prosperity here. What's the first thing you think of in prosperity? It's not a trick question. Money. It's a big part of it.
— I think if your soul prospers.
— Well, yeah. Creflo Dollar called it a pie. Money is just a piece of the pie. You must have it to function. And make my needs according to your riches and glory. And I had the Lord said to me, "Look up, look up, look up". So I did when I prayed that. He said, "Include in your needs the needs of the people. Include them and meet their needs". So to prosper spiritually, well, that's to be born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit. To prosper spiritually as soul, your mind, your will, and your emotions. There came a time and I prayed it. I said, "Father, your will and my will have come together. You have written your will to me and I'm yours to command". And I had to do that because I had some real disappointments in the early years. And it was just because I didn't know enough. I had to learn that he sends it. Deuteronomy 8:18. Remember, it is God that gives you the power to get wealth in order to establish his covenants in the earth. That's the purpose of the prosperity. Amen. So we're singing the song. You are my God, I will praise You. You are my God, I will exalt You. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for he is good. And his chesed endures forever.
— Holy Spirit made a connection for me just now. Verse 22, the stone which the builders refused to become the headstone of the corner. We talked about it earlier this week. Acts 4, you have Peter saying this to the priests that are questioning. This is the stone which was not of the builders. So he's quoting Psalm 118. So look at that. And he says prosperity in the name of the Lord. What's it they ask? Whose name did you do this by?
— Where did you get this authority?
— Yeah, but what started it all? A guy wanting prosperity that got healed.
— At the Beautiful gate.
— So he's quoting this entire chapter. Because that's what happened in Acts 4.
— That's what happened.
— Acts 4 fulfilled 118. Praise God.
— Somebody ought to get stirred up and shout amen. Glory to God.
— And this is why they didn't worry about the threats. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His mercy endures forever. And that man standing right there while the priests are questioning him. You can see it in Acts 4. He's standing right there. So what are you going to do? He's standing here. He's not lame anymore. His mercy endures forever.
— What are we going to do with this? They said that. What are we going to do with this? It is obviously a great miracle. But we have to stop the name. We've got to stop the name. He hadn't stopped it yet.
— To this day he hasn't stopped it. That's what COVID was all about. Trying to stop churches and stop the name. But here it is. Psalm 118. That's exactly what happened with that guy at the Beautiful gate.
— That is it.
— And that's what he preached. What did he do? He didn't defend his authority. He let the Word do it for him. And he preached the Word.
— But you had to say it. Now where does that take us? Well, how about Mark 11? I'll tell you I've got this marked up. Now I picked that up, Class. I picked that up from a personal note in my Bible that took me to the 118th Psalm. Because I didn't have it on my mind. But the Lord revealed it to me. And I just made a note, you have to say it. 118:6. So we went over there and said it.
— Amen.
— Oh, glory be to God.
— Hallelujah.
— No, I moved ahead of the Lord. Go with me to the 5th chapter of the book of Hebrews and we'll come back. We'll start once more from the 4th and then move over there into it. There's a great revelation here. Are you ready? "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword". Now, class, I want you to pay attention. The Word of God. Say it. The Word of God. "The Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature not manifest in his sight". He called the Word of God his. It's in here. "In his sight but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him which whom we have to do. Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession, for we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us come boldly therefore to the throne of grace, that we obtain mercy and grace in a time of need". Boldly. I come boldly to this throne. I come boldly to this throne. There was a day that I was praying and I was on my knees and I said, "I come boldly. I come boldly. I come boldly on my knees to this throne and I bow in the name of Jesus. Got my answer. Received it quickly". We're not finished yet. We read on in the fifth chapter, verse four. This is what we'd studied earlier. "No man takes this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he said, Thou art my son, today have I begotten thee". And he saith also in another place, "Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, he offered up prayers with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death. It was heard and feared, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. Being made perfect, blameless, he became the author of eternal salvation unto them that obey him. Called of God, an high priest after the order of Melchizedek". He's talking about Jesus at the right hand of the Father. "...of whom we have many things to say and hard to be uttered, seeing you are dull of hearing. For when you, for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need of one that teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God and are become such as have need of milk and not strong meat. For everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the Word of righteousness, for he is a baby, but strong meat belongs to them who are of full age, mature, even those by reason of use or practice have their senses to discern... Their senses exercise are trained to discern both good and evil". The Lord said, "That is the definition of your calling, to train people up in an uncommon faith, to become mature believers, feeding not on the milk, but on the meat of God's Word". And then we had that is written and in place. And of course, in Kenneth Copeland Bible College, that's our mission statement. Amen. Hallelujah. And of course, as you know, you're an instructor there. We have had people that have pastored for many years.
— That's right.
— That come and retire and go through KCBC and they get onto this. How does some fellow said to me, "I know who you are. You're that name it, name it, claim it, blab it, grab it bunch". I said, "Yes, I am. I named it, claimed it, blabbed it, grabbed it, now I have it. Now what about you"? Oh, I didn't think about that. So he wasn't stirred up at all. I get stirred up about it sometimes... Paul gives us an identifier going on down into chapter six from that.
— Yes. "Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go unto perfection". Now look at this, pay attention to class, "Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works". Now that was my church. We all got saved every Sunday because that's all they ever preached. You just tried to stay saved. And faith toward God of the doctrine of baptism because we argued if baptism took or not, if it was a true water baptism or if it was a false water baptism. That's the stuff we fought about. And the doctrine of laying on of hands and resurrection of the dead, eternal judgment. This is the stuff he's writing to Hebrews. This is the stuff that the Sadducees and the Pharisees fought over.
— The principle doctrine of Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah of God is a very sacred thing. These are precious. You don't just do this when you ordain someone. Ordination is very strong and very profitable. Hands should be laid on you at the time of ordination.
— Yes. It's a commandment.
— And the church at Antioch and one of the prophets and teachers in that church was a black man. And they pointed it out. And they pointed it out, I believe, because of his place in that church and the power that was on his life. Not the fact that he was black, but that he was one of them right there. And he's one that laid hands on Barnabas and Saul.
— For the work which I called them.
— Yes. He's not Paul yet. And Barnabas outranked him. Barnabas had not persecuted the church, but eventually the apostles, the sent ones, the apostles, Paul and Barnabas, because the apostle Paul had sat at the feet of Gamaliel.
— That's right.
— The most powerful rabbi teacher known in Israel at the time.
— Whose father is Hillel.
— Yes.
— That's still regarded as one of the best rabbis ever.
— That's the reason that we know that the book of Hebrews was written by the apostle Paul. Talked about Timothy. And besides that, when...
— He didn't sign his name because they wouldn't receive it. The Jews wouldn't receive it.
— When Jesus lifted him up, come up here, come up to the throne of God. And he asked him two things. He said, "Did you preach what you preached in Nazareth everywhere you went"? He said, "Well, of course". He said, "How would faith have come had I not preached that"? He said, "That was my text". And I'm quite sure this is where Brother Hagin got that. He said, "That was my golden text".
— That's right.
— ...from Mark 11, because that's where Brother Hagin was healed. He said, "Did the apostle Paul write the book of Hebrews"? He said, yes. He was the only one qualified.
— That's right. I believe Hebrews and Galatians were once one book. And history teaches that. Notice in chapter five of Hebrews, glorified not himself...
— Because in Galatians, redeemed from the curse of the law.
— That's it.
— And that just flows right into what happened in the book of Hebrews.
— They fit together if you read it.
— And the sin under death is in the book of Hebrews.
— When we were ordained, Michelle and I, Brother Hagin laid hands on us. And I had somebody say to me just, I don't know, just a few months ago, "Why you let Brother Copeland, that people call you professor"? This person had a problem with me being called professor. I said, "Because he called me one day and said, 'I want you to be in class.' You were teaching the students. I didn't know why you were calling. Went over there and you laid hands on me and conferred that. And so I walk in that. You're a prophet. You conferred that".
— And I talked to Dean Erby about it. Are you listening? I talked to Dean Erby about it. And he said, "Well, that's exactly what he is. He is a professor". Analyze the Word. He is professing the book to the student.
— Mark 11, you got to say it...
— But you have to say it. And I laid my hands on him and separated him into the office of the professor. Amen. And we're out of time. But we'll be back in just a moment. Yeah.