Kenneth Copeland - The Ten Commandments Reveal the Love of God
— Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland, and this is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. And the professor is back with us again. Whoa, hey. Greg, I don't remember the last time, because it's been so long, that the Lord had me teach on the Ten Commandments. And I'll just give you a little synopsis of this. It was, he laid it down in Exodus 20. But then Deuteronomy 5, we're remembering what happened. It's the Ten Commandments plus the blessings of the Lord. Father, we thank You. Praise You, Lord Jesus. Oh, thank You, Father. And remember this now, God is love. So these are commandments of love.
— Absolutely.
— Well, I'm way ahead of my own self. So let's go to the book of Exodus together. And professor, sir.
— Yes, sir.
— Just anywhere you see fit, you butt in anytime you want. And the thing that the Lord dropped in my heart, that this should be made a textbook on these commandments, so that every KCBC student has it, to bring it up to date. Who preaches on it? Unless they preach the downside of it. But anyway, hey, let's go.
— They're in the ditch on either side. People get in the ditch on both sides.
— They do. And it's a bar ditch too. It's dangerous.
— Yes, sir.
— And what I'm saying about that, I was just, when I was a little boy, I loved to swim. And there'd be water flowing in a bar ditch. And I'd say, "Dad, let me go swim in that bar ditch". He'd say, "Kenneth, you don't know what's under there. Now you be careful". I'll go swimming in the bar ditch. Come out muddy. Exodus chapter 20, God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. I wrote there, I'm your source. You shall have not make any graven image. Well, what is that? Can you think of what that would be? You know what a totem pole is? The Native American people would make totem poles of their ancestors and they didn't know any better, but it was a graven image. Or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Remember, Genesis, you have dominion over those. So I'm reading between the lines there. You go back over to the book of Genesis. We have dominion over those. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. There's a lot here than just 10. Thou shalt not take thy name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord God will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain. Bless, so don't cuss. That's what I put down there. You got to read between the lines. You see, I've studied this a lot. I got marked up all of it. Bless, don't cuss.
— I'll add to that later.
— Okay, all right. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Glory to God, the blessing day. Malachi 3, the Lord of hosts. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do any work thou nor your son nor your daughter, your manservant, maidservant, nor your cattle, nor the stranger that is within your gates. Hey, give your cows a day off unless you have to milk them. Let them rest. These are farming people. That big old oxen was the tractor. Don't work him seven days a week, you kill him. And I might add right here that disk ruptured in my back in 2004. Oh, he got on me. Oh, he got on me. I created you to rest one day a week. You don't rest one day in five weeks, a month. You don't rest. All right.
— Verse 11.
— Yeah, I want to go back up here. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Matthew 9:18. Thou shalt not steal. Look, come on. I'm your Lord. I'm the God that's more than enough. What do you want to steal something for?
— Is he your source or not?
— Yeah, I'm your source. Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. In Levitical law, should you be bear false witness against your neighbor and find out that you lied about it, then you that lied about it are going to have to serve the sentence of the one that you lied against. It wasn't a little flivorous lawsuit. It ain't such a thing. So here we go. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. You shall not covet thy neighbor's wife. I am record here. He'll get you one better looking than that. And on Sunday, October the 8th, I was waiting to see the best looking girl in the state of Arkansas. And I figured, well, man, he wasn't kidding. Look at her. Gloria, would you like to step out here? Oh, God. And later in Tulsa, he said, "I have given her to you. I have given her to you. She is to you what temper is to steal". Well, she still is. Nor his maiden service, or his oxen, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the mountain smoking. The people saw it. They removed and stood far off. Now, listen to this. They said to Moses, You speak with us, but let not God speak with us, we'll die. The God who has loved, they didn't believe he loved. You're going to put all this on us? You bring us out here to kill us? First John, we have known the love and believed it. Praise God. Now, what were you about to say?
— Okay, so we got, we missed two here that we got to go back to. Verse 12, Honor thy father and mother.
— Yes, sir.
— That's in there. That's vitally important.
— And then, first commandment with promise. That you live long on the earth.
— And then, thou shall not kill, was the other one, which in, we'll break all of these down, but in actual Hebrew, it's thou shall not murder. Totally different thing than thou shall not kill. There were times that they had to kill. What sets all of this up? This whole encounter is in chapter 19. And in Exodus 19, God instructed Moses, bring them to my presence, bring them to this place. What place? The place where they saw the burning bush. So, Moses brought them right back to there. And then, God says something to them. Verse 4 of chapter 19, You see what I did unto the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you unto myself, brought you unto myself. That's why they were taken out of Egypt, to come into his presence. Verse 5, Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant. Covenant. What covenant are we talking about here? This would be the covenant of Abraham, which is a covenant of faith. When they answered, they didn't understand it.
— They'd been slaves for 400 years. That's exactly right. And so, in verse 8, they answer God. And all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. So, they made a vow, a covenant vow. Whatever you say, we're going to do. They did it kind of in a flippant way, I think. Yeah, whatever you say, we're going to do. He's like, all right. They didn't even know what he was going to say yet. And they committed themselves to it. So, the next day.
— And then the thunderings and the lightnings came down on that mountain. No, no, no.
— That's why they were afraid.
— You talk to him. We're not going to talk to him.
— The rabbis teach that they heard the first two. And after the first two, they were afraid. They pulled back. Well, what were the first two? I am the Lord your God. He introduced himself to them. The rabbis teach this, that the moment God began to speak from that mountain, all of the cosmos stopped. They haven't heard his voice like this since he created them with his voice. They said the rivers didn't flow, the waves on the ocean, the ocean grew still. Every creature, every animal stopped. The entire planet listened. My God...
— I can see that.
— ...to the creator. So, this is why they were scared. The wind isn't blowing, nothing's happening. Not a bird is chirping because the creator that spoke everything in existence introduced himself to these people.
— You know what I like in that too? A dog can hear things that the human ear can't. His ears will perk up. He'll say, what, what, what?
— That's what creation did.
— Yeah. Particularly a guard dog.
— So, the Ten Commandments, as you mentioned when we started, are recorded twice in the Torah or in the first five books, Pentateuch. Once in Exodus 20, here, we just read, again in Deuteronomy 5. In Deuteronomy 5, the two versions, they're almost identical, but they're not quite identical because Moses is receiving them in 20 of Exodus. He's retelling it to the generation that was born in the wilderness over in Deuteronomy, I think it's chapter five. And in his retelling it, the Lord has added things to that. And so, that's why there's a little bit of difference. For example, in Exodus, it says, remember the Sabbath. In Deuteronomy, it starts, keep the Sabbath. Well, they're both correct. There's nothing wrong with that. So, God created the world with 10 utterances. There are 10 generations from Adam to Noah. Another 10 generations from Noah to Noah's son, Shem and Abraham, whose prodigy will then use, God will use 10 plagues to get them out of Egypt. And then they go to the Sinai and they get Ten Commandments. There's a pattern here. This is why all of creation paid attention to it. He's Father on this pattern. So, if you look at the Ten Commandments, quick overview as to what they are and why they are. I gave you a chart in your... you've got one right there, Brother Copeland, on page two of the notes. Tablet A and Tablet B. The first five are vertical with me and the Father. The first five are vertical. I call that my attitude. They're vertical. The second five are horizontal. I refer to that as blue over brown. You know what I'm talking about in an aircraft because that's my horizon. And so, that's how I deal with you. If I get these first five in line, it's much easier for me to get the second five, which are with mankind.
— Well, I see it. I am, I am, I am, I am and you, you, you, you, you.
— You see it? So, those first five are this way. The second five go horizontal. We begin with you shall have no other gods before me. In the Hebrew Bible, it says I am. He starts with I am, what he's told with Moses. Now, on page three, I made you another little chart and I don't know if you can see it, put the two of them together. We read them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. But what if I take one connected to six, just go straight line across. Every human... so one is I am your God, I am the Lord your God. Six is you shall not murder, straight across from it. Every human was created in God's image. So, a murder is an affront to God. See how they connect?
— Now, you know why he's the professor?
— Two and seven. When I worship anything other than God, I've committed adultery. And he says that to the children of Israel. You've committed adultery against me. You went chasing after other gods. See what happened at Sinai, that's the first Pentecost, Brother Copeland. It's 50 days after they left Egypt. It's when they get the Torah, when they get these commandments. That's Pentecost. That's the first Pentecost. And so, the first Pentecost is when the scholars say that Israel, or when the people, Abraham's seed became, they became Jews. They became, they were Hebrews, they were Israelites, but Judaism began. They became, the scripture even says, they became betrothed to God. What does that mean? They were engaged to him with these laws. Because he said that in 19, I'll make you a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And so, they became betrothed to him. Now, let's flip forward to Acts 2. When Pentecost was fulfilled, after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, when he fulfilled these commandments, what happened then? The church, the Gentile was brought in. We, we became the bride of Christ. So now, we've got Jew and believer coming together. This is why Paul will write concerning this, there's neither Jew nor Greek bond nor free in Galatians, for we're all one. We are the bride of Christ. They are betrothed to the Father. They're the apple of God's eye. Jesus defends the church because he gave himself for her. You watch it with Stephen. He's seated at the right hand of the Father until they're stoning Stephen. It says, "Stephen saw, and he said, I see one standing". In Revelation chapter 1, 2, 3, you see Jesus standing, walking through the candlesticks where the church is, when they're being persecuted. Jesus defends his church, his bride. And the Father defends the Israel for Jews, the Hebrews, Judaism, because they're the apple of his eye. But we're both one in him. And that's what's different. So, look at this again, two connected to seven. When you worship anything other God, you've committed adultery, three to eight. This goes to our authority. We're carriers of his name. So, when I steal from someone, it doesn't just harm the victim, it harms his name. Four and nine, keeping the Sabbath honors God who created the world in six days. By us not resting as he did, we're falsely testifying of creation. Five to 10, honor your father and mother, honor your home. By not doing this, we are jealous he will dishonor what is not his. We can't dishonor, we can't be looking at somebody else's house when we don't even honor our own house. Do you see how they're connected?
— Well, and what he said.
— Now, honor your father and mother.
— Without honoring your father and your mother, you didn't do that. Then you broke all nine of the others.
— That's right. So, that's a transition moment. Honor your father and mother, five is a transition moment over to what we will not do. But when we have all of this right, if I know that he's my Father, I am the Lord your God, I have no other gods before me, I'll not take his name in vain, I'll remember the Sabbath, then I'll not steal, I'll not commit adultery.
— Greg, there was a time and I was just meditating this. It was while we were in Tulsa, meditating this. And I realized flying was my God. And I quote my dad, "Kenneth, if I could just unzip your brain, wouldn't be anything in there but airplanes and motorcycles". I said, that's right. In other words, those are my gods. So, I just simply, I just got on the floor. And I said, "Father, in the name of Jesus, I don't care if I never turn another prop. I don't care. I just rolled all the care of it over on you. I don't care if I never fly again. You're my God. And just, and my singing is just, and so, I don't even remember where I was. And I was singing something, I don't know what it was, came up on the inside of me, you're selling the song". I said, "That's enough of that, forget it". I learned how to do that in the entertainment business, to sell it. So, there was a long time I didn't sing, there was a long time I didn't fly. And I didn't hear anything from him. So, I said, well, I just forget it. And went on along there for, I don't know, I really don't remember how long, something like about a year. And just all of a sudden, I'm going to give you your flying back. Yes, sir.
— You fasted it to him.
— Huh?
— You did a fast of your flying... To him.
— I did. Then in my spirit, I'm going to give you your flying back on one condition, that you thank me and praise me for it. Because I'm the one that calls you to fly and I'm the one that gave you your voice. But I want you flying for me.
— That goes to, I am the Lord thy God.
— I am the Lord thy God.
— He's first. We always look at the commandments as punitive, as a punishment. No, if it's a betrothal, he's putting, he's making a vow too. I am your Lord, your God. And then we'll get a verse that will say, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you". So he's never going to disown you.
— No. Greg, look, chapter 20, Exodus 20. And you go on down. The Lord God Moses said, An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me and shall sacrifice thereon with thy burnt offerings. And thy peace offerings and thy sheep and thine oxen and all the places where I record my name. I will come unto you and I will bless you and we're out of time. We'll be back in just a moment.