Kenneth Copeland - Faith in the Finished Work of Jesus
Father, we thank You this morning, the healer's in the house, and we give You praise, and we honor the God, the King of the universe, that always has been. And in the beginning Elohim said, "Light be", and light was. And You, Holy Spirit, slung 16 billion miles of universe in 24 hours. And You're in this place today. And we praise You, and we thank You. And we do everything we do here to the glory of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
God bless the reading and the hearing of His Word. First, open your Bibles to the book of Isaiah, the 52nd chapter, the 13th verse. "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at thee, his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of man".
By the time Jesus Christ, the Messiah, by the time He got to the cross, He had been slapped, spit on, until He no longer looked like a man. You have to imagine, His eyes swelled shut. He didn't look human anymore. And the shame of it all, the paintings all have this little loincloth. No, He was naked before all men, the precious Son of the Living God, and said, He bore our shame. He bore our shame. Now, I refuse... You can do what you want to. I refuse... I absolutely will not speak it. Shame on you. To me, that's blasphemy. He bore my shame. He bore that. I need not be ashamed. No. He bore my shame. Thank You, Jesus. Say it. He bore my shame.
Now then, let's come on over. 53. "Who hath believed our report? And to whom the arm of the Lord is revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness". I mean, if you were to see Jesus on the street, you know He's going to be a good-looking man. But obviously, they weren't following Him because of His looks.
Now, some of the Greeks said, We would see this Jesus. Well, they worshiped the human body, and He had a perfect one. Perfectly formed. But now, think about this, and stay with me. Surely, say surely. This is a guarantee. "He hath borne our griefs, carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone in his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all".
Now, come down here to this 9th verse. "And he made his grave with the wicked, in which the rich, in his death..." There is a cross-reference, in his deaths. In his deaths. So, what does that mean? Well, he didn't just die physically. Spiritual death. Now, go to the Classic Amplified with me, please. The 22nd Psalm.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning? But you answer not. By night I am not silent, and I find no rest. But you are holy, O you who dwell in the holy place where the praises of Israel are offered. Our fathers trusted in you. They trusted, leaned on, relied on you, and were confident that you delivered them. They cried to you, and were delivered, and trusted in, and leaned in, and confidently relied on you, and were not ashamed, and confounded, and disappointed. But I'm a worm, and no man. I'm the scorn of men, despised by the people, all who see me laugh at me, and mock me, and they shoot out the lip, and they shake the head, saying, He trusted and rolled himself on the Lord, and he would deliver him, let him deliver him, seeing that he delights in him. Yet you are he who took me out of the womb. You made me hope and trust when I was in my mother's breast.
I was cast upon you from my very birth, from my mother's womb, you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near and there is none to help. Many foes, like bulls, have surrounded me, and strong bulls of Bashan have hedged me in. Against me they opened their mouths wide, like a ravening, roaring lion. I'm poured out like water. My bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is softened with anguish, and melted down within me. My strength is dried up like a fragment of clay pottery, and with thirst my tongue clings to my jaws. You have brought me to the dust of death, like the pack of dogs they have encompassed me, and a company of evildoers have encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. The evildoers gaze at me. They part my clothing among them, and cast lots for raiment, along with shirt and garment, a seamless undertunic.
But be far from me, O Lord. O help, hasten to aid me. Deliver my life from the sword, my dear life, my only one, from the power of the dog, the agent of execution. Save me from the lion's mouth, if you have answered me kindly from the horn of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the congregation. I'll praise you, and the fear and reverent worship of the Lord. Praise him, all you offering of Jacob. Glorify him, fear, revere, and worship him, all you offspring of Israel. For he is not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither has he hidden his face from him. But when he cried to him, he heard.
My praise shall be of you in the great congregation. I will pay to him my vows, and made the time of trouble before them who fear and revere and worship him. The poor and afflicted shall eat and be satisfied, and they'll praise the Lord, who they diligently seek and inquire of and for him, and require him as a greatest need. May your hearts be quickened now and forever, and all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and the families of nations shall bow down and worship you, for the kingship and the kingdom of the Lord, and he that is over the nations. All the mighty ones upon the earth shall eat in thanksgiving and worship. And they go down in the dust, and bow down before him, even who cannot keep himself. Posterity will serve him, and shall tell of the Lord in the next generation, and they shall come, and they shall cleaved to his righteousness to a people to be born. He has done it. It is finished.
I was cast upon you from my very birth, from my mother's womb, you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near and there is none to help. Many foes, like bulls, have surrounded me, and strong bulls of Bashan have hedged me in. Against me they opened their mouths wide, like a ravening, roaring lion. I'm poured out like water. My bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is softened with anguish, and melted down within me. My strength is dried up like a fragment of clay pottery, and with thirst my tongue clings to my jaws. You have brought me to the dust of death, like the pack of dogs they have encompassed me, and a company of evildoers have encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. The evildoers gaze at me. They part my clothing among them, and cast lots for raiment, along with shirt and garment, a seamless undertunic.
But be far from me, O Lord. O help, hasten to aid me. Deliver my life from the sword, my dear life, my only one, from the power of the dog, the agent of execution. Save me from the lion's mouth, if you have answered me kindly from the horn of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the congregation. I'll praise you, and the fear and reverent worship of the Lord. Praise him, all you offering of Jacob. Glorify him, fear, revere, and worship him, all you offspring of Israel. For he is not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither has he hidden his face from him. But when he cried to him, he heard.
My praise shall be of you in the great congregation. I will pay to him my vows, and made the time of trouble before them who fear and revere and worship him. The poor and afflicted shall eat and be satisfied, and they'll praise the Lord, who they diligently seek and inquire of and for him, and require him as a greatest need. May your hearts be quickened now and forever, and all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and the families of nations shall bow down and worship you, for the kingship and the kingdom of the Lord, and he that is over the nations. All the mighty ones upon the earth shall eat in thanksgiving and worship. And they go down in the dust, and bow down before him, even who cannot keep himself. Posterity will serve him, and shall tell of the Lord in the next generation, and they shall come, and they shall cleaved to his righteousness to a people to be born. He has done it. It is finished.
He shouted it. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He went into hell with that Word. David saw it, and he went into hell itself. That's the way he got out. He had to be on the Word of God. It had to be prophesied in order to get it into the earth, and David wrote it in the 22nd Psalm. And the next one, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Whoo! Glory to God. Hallelujah. All kinds of throat problems are being healed right now. Glory to God. And ear problems, draining ears and eardrums that have been punctured, glory to God. Hallelujah. Amen. We'll say, Brother Copeland, you wear hearing aids. Well, you are seeing aids. Loud airplanes. And the only reason we used headsets was so you could hear better, until they got noise-canceling headsets, which I use now.
Had we had those back in the day, it wouldn't be... I'm not that bad of hearing, but it helps a little, and particularly when I talk on my cell phone, because I can talk through these things. And the first time that I wore them, I was preaching for Ellison Bennett on the Navajo Indian Reservation, and David was sitting over there where he usually does, and had my phone in the bag. And I was preaching on the covenants of Abraham, and my phone rang in my ears. And I just smiled and said, "Well, that's a new meaning to ringing in your ears". It just went on. And I don't wear them all the time but they help. Anyway, look what our Savior did.
Now, here's what I want you to get and those of you online. That's the way this book is built. It has to be prophesied. And this book is His will. And faith begins where the will of God is known, 53rd chapter of Isaiah. And Verse 4, "Surely he has borne our griefs, sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses, and carried our sorrows and pains of punishment. Yet we did ignorantly consider him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God, as if with leprosy. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement needed to obtain peace and well-being was upon him. And with his stripes we are wounded, and we are healed".
Someone has a vertebrae in the back part of your neck that just seems like it won't stay in place. And you get where you get help, and you get knots across the back of your neck. May I make a suggestion to you? Now, this is just a suggestion. That's not something I heard from the Lord, but I heard that, in fact, you're in pain. I was having problems in my elbows and knots across the back of my neck. And so, you know, chiropractors will use a little shocker and a little punchers. And we had one, and we'd be on a motorcycle, and she'd thump the back of my neck. Just, oh. And I said, I told Gloria, I said, "Well, we're going to have to do what we do. I'm going to go pray, and I'm going to fast for three days and find out what it is".
And so, I did that. And the third day, if you want my will for you, don't drink any more coffee. Now, that is what he said. One of my elbows was just... He said, "You've abused it, so much of it". Well, I got to doing that flying airplanes. He said, "There are tars, not only that, but the caffeine is built up in there, and it's knotting up your muscles. And those muscles knot up, and they hurt". and I'm hearing all this in here, after three days of fasting. And he said, "If you want my will for you, don't drink any more coffee. So, go get your stuff".
Well, I had this old ugly green bag, had my little Farberware coffee pot in it, and my Folgers in my stuff. So, he said, "Take communion". So, I turned over to the communion scriptures. And now, listen, this is good. You can break anything like this. And I'd stop and get that caffeine headache, and then I'd go get a cup of coffee, and then stop. Just terrible. My elbows would hurt. This is Healing School, right? So, I set that whole thing on a plate there at the dining table, and I took communion. And I sat there, and I worshiped the Lord, and I worshiped Him.
Now, listen, I said, "And I have no need of you again hereafter forever". No withdrawal, no headache. It was gone. And he said, "The tars in that coffee bean, got built up inside your elbows. There's a reason you had pain there". So, well, Brother Copeland, you think I ought to do that? Well, you pray about it and see. He said, "If I wanted His will", well, I was in pain. And I don't have any other will but His will. And this book is His will. And faith begins where the will of God is known.
Matthew 8, the 14th verse. "When Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid sick of a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her. She arose and ministered unto them. And when the evening was come, they brought many that were possessed with devils. He cast out the spirits with His Word, healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses".
It's been fulfilled. Well, He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. This is very important. All of this, say it, is blood backed. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord. Praise God. Greater is He. I want to show you something, so you understand some things, what happened when Jesus spoke with a loud voice. I want you to say this. We're going to say, "Greater is He that's in me than he that's in the world". Ready? All right. Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. Now, wait a minute. This time, we're going to do it like King David, with all of our might. Are you ready? Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. And that's when the devil leaves.