Kenneth Copeland - Have a Command Authority Attitude
— I am stirred up about this. I'm so stirred up. Scripture says stir yourself up. Well, I pretty well stay stirred up. Glory to God over this book, over my Lord and Savior. Amen. So let's go to the book of Acts chapter 4 verse 10. "Be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus of Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole". Whole. "This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner". Now that's in the first covenant.
— That's Psalm 118. Psalm 118 verse 22. This is Peter quoting that. This is fulfillment of Psalm 118.
— That's it. That's the way the book works. Glory to God. Neither, say neither. "Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved". Whoa. No other name. Did you ever notice this? I've noticed this. I've been doing this 58 years. Well, in a few days, 57 years. I have never heard anyone say, "Oh Buddha".
— No power in it.
— No. They use his name in vain. It is the name. It is the name. And Satan will blaspheme it every time he gets an opportunity He doesn't care about those others. They're not alive. But even in using his name in vain, it has power. It has power. I'm thinking about a charlatan. He had memorized Spurgeon's sermons, Oral Roberts' sermons. He memorized them. He could preach them. Oh, just preaching. And of course, he would receive offerings. And he's right here in the state of Texas, but he got caught. Now, a lot of people got saved. Yeah, he didn't save them.
— No. God watches over his Word.
— Yes. And the same messages that got people saved before got them saved again. He just didn't get any credit for it.
— That's right.
— Because he memorized it and preached it to get money. They caught him and put him in jail. And he realized what he'd done. And he got saved on some of those sermons he'd been while he was in jail. Now to me, that is a classic example of the goodness of God. Amen.
— His Word does not return unto him void but it accomplishes that which it was sent to do. And so he got saved off of his own sermons, which were somebody else's sermons. Yeah. Because God watches over his Word. You see that all the time. You hear about a famous minister falling or whatever, or being exposed and people want to lose their faith in God. Don't do that.
— No.
— He's just a human. Here's the deal. God watches over his Word. He's not honoring a person who's preaching the Word in sin. He's honoring his Word. Yes. You preach his Word, you get Word results. The thing is, is learning to live that. The Bible says, work out your salvation, meaning it's in here and work it out to the outside. Always stay on the God side of everything. August the 23rd, 2024. Let the Word fight its own fight. It has the power to bring itself to pass. October the 15th, 2024. Let the Word fight its own fight. It has the power within itself to come to pass. I heard the Lord say that many, many years ago, but I want to remind myself of it, so I write it in the front of every new Bible that I have.
— Speak the Word. Speak the Word only. That's what he said. Another example of this, this was Peter. There's another example of this in the life of Paul over in Acts chapter 16, Brother Copeland.
— 16th chapter of Acts.
— And verse 17. So that same authority that Peter and John experienced just a few chapters before is here in Acts chapter 17. "The same followed Paul and us and cried saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days, but Paul being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, not to the lady, to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out that same hour". Now there's another application of that name.
— Yes, it is.
— But it's said differently. Now we're dealing with an evil spirit instead of dealing with this lame man when they were commanded to preach and teach no more in that name.
— Greg, I was in with Brother Roberts, Oral Roberts, and Colin Steele came to me. He was ahead of everything when we were on the road. And I was in two of the last, two of the last three tent meetings that the ministry had. And so Brother Steele came to me and said, "Now go into the invalid room". Well, there were people just so invalid that the Lord instructed Brother Roberts to isolate them and pray for them. You know, where they would not be exposed to that huge crowd out front. So I had outlined the point of contact is in the name of Jesus. Well, about, oh, I would say as far as from here to the end of the chairs there from us. He walked in there. I had outlined it, the point of contact. So I thought of the point, my point of contact is the name of Jesus. And this was an elderly woman, you could tell. And she was on an old, old military, old army cot and a nurse there with her. And my job was to prepare them for when he comes in. So I talked about the point of contact and that's the point where you release your faith. That's what he preached. So he walked in there, he looked around and he pulled me up to him. He said, "You're going to do the praying and you're going to do the laying on hands". He said, "don't worry about it. If you make a mistake, I'll fix it". And he stepped off right towards her. I thought, "we're going to start here"? Yes, we are. The name.
— That's right.
— I said, "in the name of Jesus". I touched her head right here, the line of the tribe of Judah. You foul, unclean spirit. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whose I am and whom I serve. Take your hands off God's property now. She spit that malignant tumor out and it was still moving. I thought that thing looks like a jellyfish.
— Oh my.
— Oh, what? So Bob DeWesse came to me and he said, "Kenneth, we're not ever going to"... this was in Detroit. "We're not ever going to get everybody prayed for. I'm going to set you up a prayer line". I said, okay. Well, my mother was there and she was backing me up. And this woman came up here like this. There was this eggplant looking cancerous thing right here. And the compassion of the Lord, I just attacked it. I said, in the name of Jesus, it just disappeared. Now I want to show you something. She went like this. And my mother said, "Where'd that thing go"? I have no idea. Later, and I prayed about it and the Lord said, "I dematerialized it as she desired". When she did this, there was a huge quarter on her neck. Oh no, I'm saving that for Brother Roberts. It happened exactly like she said.
— My goodness.
— I told him that he said, well, the Lord sure looks out after me, doesn't he? She received exactly what she said and desired. And she saved that quarter for Brother Roberts. Now, why would someone do that? Just a little baby Christian. She didn't know any better. I never did know what happened after that, but the name, the name that's above every name that's named.
— We just showed you two examples. We showed you the man at the Beautiful gate with Peter and John. We just showed you that demon possessed woman or operating by a devil in Acts with Paul. Let me show you the attitude of Jesus with command authority over in Luke 13, because you were, you were talking about a lady being healed.
— Hank on, hang on...
— So we'll go to Luke 13 and I'll begin with verse 11. Now listen to covenant command authority attitude. "And behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and was bowed together and could in no wise lift her lift up herself". Now, so you get a picture of what she was, how she looked. "And when Jesus saw her, he called to her and said unto her, Woman, thou are loose from thine infirmity. And then he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day and said to the people, There are six days in which men ought to work and then therefore come and be healed and not on the Sabbath day. Then the Lord answered and said to him", now, listen to his attitude. This is command authority speaking here. "Thou hypocrite doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away to watering and ought..." Now listen to here's covenant "And ought not this woman being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound low these 18 years be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day"?
— Now he put it right where it belongs. It was Satan that bound her.
— That ought not. That's command. That's that Greek word I introduced you to last week. I tell you, that's that command. I demand this woman, this daughter of Abraham, no right for a daughter of Abraham to be walking like that. Coming to, I'll say it in English, modern English, coming to church and you won't heal her because it's church day.
— All right. Now does that work in the, like somebody said, that's a sweet by and by. What about the nasty here and now? I was in Jamaica and the Lord directed me to go up into the hills there then to teach and preach the Word of Faith. Well, I went in on Sunday. So I went over to Keith's Church. I don't remember his last name now. That's a long time ago. And he said, "Come on up here and sit on the platform with me". I said, okay. He said, "Take the morning service". Well, I knew I had an appointment later. I said, "You want to give him off time for lunch"? He said, "don't give him any time at all if you don't want to". Well, I needed to. My voice was... I'd been in a deal where they, they wanted me to come and teach. And I went from there to here and I had preached all faith all day long. And then they said, "We have another meeting at the Citadel. Would you come preach there"? I was about to lose my voice, anyway. So I went back in the back. Oh, God. If I were to ask you, if my voice is healed, you would say yes. If I were to ask me, if my voice is healed, I would say yes. It was just gone. So I went out. I had my cup... Here, like this. I said, "If I asked God, if my voice was healed, he'd say yes. If I asked me, if my voice was healed, I'd say yes. If I ask you, you'd probably say no. No, but I did it". Whoa. That was my voice. And it started. Now there was a woman bowled over, couldn't no wise lift herself up. And I found out later, it was her son and her grandson that brought her in there in a bed sheet, but she brought her shoes with her.
— There you go. It's like taking that coat off, that beggar's coat.
— All of a sudden, the crutch just went right straight up and man, it was on. And so she just unrolled and stood up and started dancing in the Spirit, just dancing all over the place. So in the name, in the name that's above every name that's named. Well, went up into the mountains and I noticed that I was fasting and I just went ahead and I couldn't tell much about what the food was anyway. But then we were in between two mountains down in the valley there where the church was. And this little girl, I noticed she's a little girl, and they took unusually good care of her. I heard this curdling scream, my baby's dead, my baby's, my God, my baby's dead, my baby's dead. I would say very steep to go up to that, the pastor's granddaughter. Very steep stairway. Deacon Lewis was the only one that had a flashlight. I just instinctively grabbed that flashlight. I took my first step. I have no recollection of the other steps. I took the first step. I was on top. And this man had picked up his daughter and she was just hanging and he turned around there and looked at me and I saw the look in the man's eyes. I said, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk". Nothing. I said, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I said, Walk". Nothing. And I screamed it and I hit her in the stomach. I said, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk". She said, "Papa"?
— Praise God.
— She was a school teacher. She was 18 years old and she had a rheumatic heart. She was instantly healed.
— Amen. Praise God. May I put a bow on this whole thing for us today? In Matthew 7:29, for he taught as one having authority, not as the scribes. We talked about that already. I couldn't I couldn't get my head around it, Brother Copeland. I went to the Aramaic Bible. Jesus spoke Aramaic and that word "authority" there is different than any other word and it's the word mashal. Mashal means you have authority but you have enough authority that you can pass that same authority to somebody else. That's the kind of authority Jesus has. It's an authority that he can pass his authority. So in today's lesson, we saw Peter and John. We saw Paul. We saw Jesus with the woman and we saw you doing it in the islands. Jesus, and that's why that name is so powerful. He's given you the authority and the power. There's a healing anointing today for somebody that's watching right now. There's a healing anointing. You are born again, Spirit-filled, washed in the blood. You have the authority to lay hands on yourself.
— Oral Roberts laid his hands on me.
— Yes, he did. More than once, but he laid his hands on me and said the anointing that God has placed in and on me, I now lay hands on you.
— And then later Brother Hagin did the same thing.
— Brother Hagin did the same thing. Camp meeting, 1977, last service. I'd been one of the speakers there and I was up on the platform. The Lord said, "Get on your knees". I said, "No, I don't want to cause attention to me".
— Get on your knees now. I just slipped over there on my knees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell him, "Ken Copeland" and we're out of time. We'll talk about it tomorrow. Very important.
— Very important.
— We'll be back in just a moment.