Kenneth Copeland - Jesus Gave You the Authority to Be Debt Free
And so, if you’ll turn there with me this morning, Romans 13. We’ll read this, seventh verse. «Rendered, therefore, to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Owe no man anything but to love one another, for he that loveth another has fulfilled the law». I said, «What»? How can you do that? Well, I’ll look it up in the Amplified Translation. Do we have that in the Amplified? I know you do. «Keep out of debt. Owe no man anything except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor…» Well, I thought… «Gloria»! She came in there and I read that to her. She looked at that. Her feathers kind of fell. There went her house. My feathers fell. We’ll never have an airplane.
Whoever heard of paying cash for an airplane or anything else? I never paid cash for anything. Well, we got a hold of that. And then, you can’t build on that one verse. But Proverbs 22:7 says that, the borrower is servant or slave to the lender. But now, open your Bibles to Deuteronomy 28. We have the blessing and the curse. When you study the curse of the law, you need to start in the 27th, but what we’re doing today, we’ll just look at the 28, Verse 28. Now, this is a national thing, but to us, it’s a personal thing. God was told them he would heal them and their nation, but with us, it’s an individual thing, because Jesus was made the curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.
Now, that came out of that, and then later on, it actually took place when they hung the king of Ai on a stake, on a tree. But now, look at this. Deuteronomy 28:12, Verse 11, «The Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your cattle, in the fruit of your ground, the land which the Lord swore unto the fathers to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven, to give the rain unto thy land in his season, to bless all the work of the hand. Thou shalt lend unto many nations, and shall not borrow». Well, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. Now, just keep on going down until you get to the 43rd verse. Now, we’re over into the curse.
Verse 43, The stranger that is within you. Stranger, somebody you don’t even know, a stranger that is within you, shall get up above you very high, and thou shalt not… and you will come down very low. He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail. Moreover all these curses will come on you. Well, there it is. Three witnesses. The borrower is servant of the lender, a stranger. People borrow money from somebody they don’t even know. Churches borrowing money from the mob.
Now, I’m not guessing at that. I know the situation. It happened. I was invited to preach in the city where this man was pastor. Of course, I didn’t have any knowledge of that. I knew who he was. He was a tall, good looking man. He walked in there, and I knew it was him. I walked over there, and he was taller than me. All of them are taller than I am. Anyway, not all of them. Jesse’s not. Jerry’s not. I used to be taller than this. I was. I had that disc explode in my back, and it cost me about an inch, inch and a quarter, inch and a half. Anyway, I walked up to him and shook hands with him, and the Spirit of the Lord came on me, and the prophet’s anointing came on me. I began to speak to him. I said… I’m paraphrasing. I don’t remember the exact words, but here’s the bottom line of it. I said, «All of this trouble that you’ve been in, and all this terrible problem that’s facing you and your church, will very soon be completely wiped out».
And he stood there and looked at me and grabbed me. I had no idea what I was saying. But then someone talked to me that knew him personally. The debt… they were having problems financing this new church project. And he couldn’t get the money anywhere else. So he made some arrangements for that money. He had some people that offered a little higher interest, but come to find out he was in debt to the wrong people. And they were making threats to him. They were telling him, «Listen, you are going to come up with that money or we’re going to come and have a meeting with you». They threatened his family. They threatened everything about him, scared him. He was afraid for his own life. But once those words were spoken, the angels went to work and just supernaturally paid that thing off.
Now I’ll tell you another situation. I brought this up, not anywhere near to the length that I’ve gone to here this morning with you. And I’ll tell you some more about the rest of this there. But I talked this in a Ministers conference and there was a pastor there that they already had a loan application in. And so he and his wife decided they’re going to be debt free. And so he just went home after that Ministers conference, went by to the bank and walked in there and said, «I’d like to see Mr. So and So». And the secretary said, «I’ll get him». He said, «In fact, they’re discussing the church loan right now». So the banker came out there, you know, he’s all smiles. And the pastor, he said, «Well, Pastor, we’re working on your loan like now and it’s looking good». He said, «Well, that’s the reason I’m here. We have decided that we’re going to build this church debt free. We don’t need that note».
So he told me about this the next January. He said that man’s face changed and he began to look at me. He said, «You know, good and well, you can’t build that church without us. You can’t do it». And he lost control of himself and he began to blaspheme God and curse that pastor to his face. And what I had said is when you borrow that money, you enter a covenant. So whatever spirit is in them, it’s going to get into your church. When I began to teach this, I went to the Lord, I said, «Lord, am I to teach that it’s a sin to borrow money»? He said, «No, I didn’t say it was a sin. But you have to enter into a covenant. If you borrow money on anything, it’s a contract. You enter into that covenant and you make, in some cases, exceeding great promises. Not all that precious, but they’re great. And you’re swearing on paper that you will be just as able to make these big payments 30 years from now as you are now. You’ve got any idea what’s going to happen in 30 years»?
There were people two or three years ago that had no idea that gasoline in this country is going to hit five, six, $7 a gallon in some places. Now people are having to go without something to eat just to pay mortgages on the house. My, my, my. Covenants. Debt is based on covenant agreement. And most people have no earthly idea of what a covenant is. Just a contract. Get a lawyer, break it. But the moment you took the pen in hand and signed your name, you entered into a covenant because they signed as the bank or the car company or whomever it is. So now you have two or more names on an agreement. An agreement. Any two of you on earth agree as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father in heaven. Well, what about the devil when you get ahold of the wrong people. Gloria and I had to learn how.
But anyway, the bottom line of it is this. We went through, go back over here now to the fourth chapter of Mark. And I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what Gloria, I’ve told you all the time Gloria’s smarter than I am. She’s more spiritually apt than I am. She’s just all the way around ahead of me. Always has been. And so her terminology was this. Well, the sower sows the Word. Yes. Now that’s the key that we have to put the Word in our mouth and we have to go through. Here’s what she said. You know, this is on, you know, this is on stony ground and all that. She said, «We’re going to have to do a soil sample. We’ll never get out of this stuff unless we do a soil sample». We went through those things. Am I stony ground? I cannot be. So I started looking up scriptures about my heart. Oh, he took a stony heart out of me and put a heart of flesh in me.
So we began to say that I’m soft hearted when it comes to God. We made certain agreements ourselves. We talked with one another about it and there I am in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was flying right seat on that airplane, but all that did was take care of my school expenses and any other fees that I had. I got a lot of, a lot of wonderful experience out of it because it was the finest airplane I’d ever even been closer to. But now what are we going to do? We didn’t have any money, but God said, «I’ll take care of you here. I’ll take care of you here».
So we began praying over that and put that in our mouth. We kept saying we’re debt free, we’re debt free, we’re debt free. We don’t have any debt. We just love everybody. Well then we had to start loving everybody. We owe it. Owe no man anything but to love him. So this changed my whole idea. I mean, you just have to love one another. That means I had to be not so quick to fly off the handle. I had to fill my mouth with those words and those scriptures went over them and over them and over them. And I learned from Brother Hagin, «I’ve been redeemed from the curse of death. Glory to God. I’ve been redeemed from the curse of death. I’ve been redeemed from the curse of death. I’ve been redeemed from it. I’ve been redeemed from it. I’ve been redeemed from it. I’ve been redeemed from it».
Now, the sower sows the Word. So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, sleep and rise night and day. The seed should spring and grow up, he knows not how, for the earth bringeth the heart. The heart brings forth the fruit. He’s talking about the heart the whole time. Well, a good friend out in California had a Chrysler dealership out there, and we needed executive cars. And he had one that, when I saw it, that car was just beautiful. It was a light, real light yellow, and it had a brown leather interior, just a beautiful car. And then a gray one, that for one of the men that was working with us in the ministry back there then, and the ministry was providing him a car.
And so I called Bob, and he said, «Kenneth, this is going to your ministry. Why don’t you just lease them? And you can, at the end of the lease, I’ll just swap cars with you, and we’ll just keep doing it that way». And I was stupid enough to do it. Sounded good to me. So I took this beautiful car. I’d drive it to the airport, and I’d come back, and the battery would be dead. This car was demon-possessed. Beautiful thing. They’d check everything, and it’s all all right. I’d drive it home. It would sit in the garage. Fine, I’d get up and go. I’d leave town and come back, and the battery would be dead. Never could find out what was the matter with it. And then other little things started going wrong with it. And I thought, and I said, I went to the Lord, and I said, «Lord, now this car, you know, these are yours». He said, «They’re not mine. No, they belong to that car dealer. No, they don’t belong to you. You leased them. That’s just another form of debt».
So I called. I said, «Bob, I’m sending these cars back to you», and he kind of swallowed hard. I said, «No, now wait a minute. I know they have some miles on them, but now here’s the deal. You sell the cars, and whatever you lose on the deal, I’ll make up the difference». He said, «Well, you don’t have to». I said, «Yeah, I have to do this, Bob». So he sold the cars, and there was some difference. So the ministry paid that difference. And then from that day till this, we’ve never leased cars again. Not ever. Anyway, we didn’t have the money. We just go with what you have. So later, a man that I didn’t know called me, and he said, «I got your number from Bob Harrison». Well, he was the car dealer. I thought, uh-oh. He said, «I understand this. You used to have this yellow Chrysler». I said, «Yes, sir». He said, «Copeland, I want you to know that’s the finest car I ever owned in my life. I just keep putting miles and miles and miles and miles on it». I said, «Did you ever have any trouble with the battery running down»? No, he said, «Not anything».
See, he got the devil out of that car and got it off that electrical system. Everything was all right. I’m telling you, folks, we live this way. You think I’d change now? Abraham, like God, called things that be not as though they were. Now, God had the authority. When he entered covenant and he said, «I am El Shaddai. I am the God that is more than enough» in the 17th chapter of Genesis, and he changed his name to Abraham, God put his name in the middle, Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey, Hashem. Covenant change of names. He said, «I have made thee the father of many nations». He had the authority to make him that. I have made thee the father of many nations.
There was a man, World War II, his name was Robert Scott, Christian man. Then the war got hot and heavy. Robert Scott was a lieutenant colonel. No, he was a major. The general came to him and he said, «Scotty, I need you to be a colonel. Today, I’m making you a full colonel». He had the authority to do it. God had the authority to make him the father of many nations. God had the authority to make you the righteousness of God. He made you and he made me the righteousness of God before the foundation of the world and knew our name. Well, praise God. Stand to your feet, please, and lift your hands and give the Lord a shout of thanksgiving. Hallelujah.