Kenneth Copeland - How to Build a Strong Confession of Faith From Scripture
You men and women looking up, huh? This same Jesus will come again. Hallelujah. And I want you to know something and remember something, class. Everything he bore for us on the cross belongs to us. His resurrection belongs to us. The stripes on his back belongs to us. But I want to tell you something. The only thing that’s left there now are scars. The stripes have been totally healed. Woo hoo hoo. He said, handle me. A spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me have. No blood. His blood, the resurrected Lord Jesus, hey, handle me. They could handle him. But then he walked through the wall without opening the door. We need to grasp this. He is alive. He is risen. A spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me have. The blood is on the heavenly mercy seat of God. And it belongs to us. He’s alive and he’s coming again. All right. We’re talking about building from the scripture, strong confession of faith. We started with Matthew 12:7. The «in him» scriptures, in Christ, in the beloved and in him.
So, first John 2:5. Okay. Here’s first John 2:5. But whoso keeps his Word, in him is verily the love of God perfected. In him, whoso keeps his Word, in him is the love of God. Whoso keeps his Word, in him is the love of God perfected. Whoa. And, but now listen to this. Who keeps and treasures his Word, who bears in mind his precepts, who observes his message in its entirety, truly in him has the love and for God been perfected, completed, reached maturity by this we may perceive now and recognize and be sure that we are in him.
So, I wanted you to perfect it. It means mature. You’ve thought about this. You have said this and you’ve meditated on it until you’re grown up in it. You’re mature in this. That I know that it’s mine. I’m in the beloved, but I must develop it and take the time to meditate on it. And like we talked about yesterday, let him die. Let him die. Just, he went to hell for me. For instance, a scripture. The seventh day God rested. Well, I just said he wasn’t tired when he rested. He was finished. I said that. I don’t know how many times I said that. One day I said, «Lord, did you need rest»? He said, «Yes, I did».
I began to meditate that when he said, «Light be», the force that came out of him at the speed of light, 186,000 miles a second in the first 24 hours. What is it? Oh, something like 16 billion miles of universe. That is a powerful force. And that creative force was coming out of him all this time. And the more he spoke, the things began to happen. And he got to that place where he spoke words, said he’s made out of the dust. And in this session, he allowed me to see him. He was just gray looking. And he had him here like this. And he said, «Man, be in my image». Well, where did I get that light be? It was in the early days. We didn’t have a place for a morning services in Wichita Falls, Texas. And Allie Narnum was a good friend of a rabbi there.
And so we had our morning services in a synagogue. And I walked in there and he said, «Brother Copeland, just go in my study there, anything. Make yourself at home». And so I was studying in his study there and I saw it. Elohim said, «Light be, light was». Now, the Young’s Analytical says that. You know the Young’s Concordance? The Young’s Analytical of that scripture says that. So you might look at it. Well, of course, King James says, «Let there be». And that’s good, but to be say, let there be light. There was nothing there to resist it, to let it be. Would you let this happen? Light be and such a force, 136,000 miles a second. And the universe is still expanding at the force of it. Hallelujah. Amen. Glory to God.
Well, that’s enough to excite you. So let’s go back here. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment, which you heard from the beginning. The old commandment is the Word which you’ve heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you because the darkness is now passed and the true light now shines. He that says he’s in the light and hates his brother is in darkness even till now. He that loves his brother abides in the light and there’s none occasion for stumbling in him. I like that, in the light. But he that hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and knows not where he’s going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
All right. And we could just keep reading. Class, I strongly suggest you do this with these letters. Sometimes just sit down and read the letter. The Lord had me reading I John every day, every day for weeks. And I just read the letter like it was written to me. So now I want to look here at, yeah, 3:3. And every man that hath this hope in him, what hope? Oh, let’s start verse one. Behold what man… Oh, glory to God. This says, Look what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knows us not because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.
And every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure. I mean, you just keep that on your heart and mind all the time. It takes the place of a lot of junk the devil tried to put in your mind. It’s just not any room in there for it. No, no, it’ll purify you. You can walk in it more closely. Now then, 3.5 and 6. We know that he was manifested to take away our sins and in him… We need to read that. And we know that he was manifested to take away our sins and in him is no sin. Whosoever abides in him sins not. Okay, let’s just see this. We’re right there.
1 John 3.5. And you know that he appeared in visible form and became man to take away upon himself sins and in him there is no sin essentially and forever. No one who abides in him who lives and remains in communion with him in obedience to him deliberately, knowingly, and habitually commits and practices sin. If you just read what the King James translation says, it’s too blunt. But he’s talking about the practice of sin here where you just live that way. No. People like that have any understanding of it are not like that. Okay. And 4.13. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he has given us of his Spirit. We dwell in him and we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess, whosoever meaneth me. We found out the confession of faith.
Now, what are we going to do here? Okay. We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. Fear hath torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us. Wait a minute. I got off track here. Where was I when I got excited? You remember? Huh? Yeah. Whosoever shall confess, thank you, that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him and he in God. Now hear this 16th verse. With those times that I was reading this every day, I stopped and I wound up making this big red square around it just to stick out where I could see it. We have known.
Now that word «known» there is ginosko, very intimate. And Joseph knew not his wife until Jesus was born. We have known. We have had an intimate relationship and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love. And he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfected love casteth fear because mature love, because fear hath torment. He that fears is not made perfect or mature in love. We have known and believed it. We’ve known and believed it. There is no way to get an intimate relationship with this book without spending some time in it. We’ve known and believed the love.
You believe the love? Oh yes, Brother Copeland. Yes, I believe it. God is love, you know. Yes. Yes, I believe the love. Oh, why did you let that happen to me? I don’t understand you God. Wow. Praise God. Thank you, Lord. How do I say that without… I don’t want to say a thing that sounds like I’m criticizing somebody. I’m not. There was a man on the 700 Club. He got on his motorcycle without his helmet. Well, I’m interested in that because I’ve been riding motorcycles since I was very young. I still do today. But I believe in wearing all the gear all the time. I don’t care if you think it’s too hot, you don’t go riding a motorcycle with a baseball cap on. Now there was a time I’d ride without anything on. I don’t do that anymore.
And this man with his heart said something like, you know, the accident and so forth, they didn’t understand what happened. And I thought, well, the thing that came to me, I got to say this. And God totally restored him. This is what was the beautiful part. Because the doctor said he wasn’t any way he going to live, but people just prayed him out of it. The connection there of what happened and neglecting to put your helmet on before you got on that motorcycle. I wasn’t hearing that. I’m not saying it didn’t because I wasn’t there. I was just glad that they prayed through it. But I was… Well, yeah, thank You Lord. What I wanted to hear him say, I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll never get on that thing again without my helmet. Never. Or something that would connect it.
But you know, there was a time I didn’t think anything about that. But I do now. And there’s a whole movement in the motorcycle world. All the gear, all the time. All the gear, all the time. All the book, all the time. All your faith, all the time. Praise and worship, all the time. Amen. Now, one of the first cars that I got with the smart key, it didn’t say anything about me being smart. I just had a smart key. Well, I forgot something at home. I started the car. It’s running in the garage. And my lightning fast mind, I got out of the car with the key in my hand. Well, I have no idea. I went in the house, set it down, got whatever I got, left, killed the engine. I can’t get home. Amen.
So, that’s just not the smartest thing I ever did. But now, that is a good illustration of just going so fast and you just didn’t have time to do this. Don’t leave your keys at home because your engine is running all the time in this business. Praise God. This is so vital. It says of itself, it is all that pertains to life and godliness. The blood of an animal clothed. The blood of an animal was clothed right here in the first part of the book to cover a man that tried to meet his own needs without God. Amen. Blood of an animal and it began right there. Well, here it is. 24 hours, 16,074,764,800, 8,000 miles of universe at 186 miles, 1,000 miles a second. So, we keep his Word in our heart and in our mouth all the time.
Speak to yourself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Instruct yourself. I had to learn to do that in flying airplanes, but I found out that that’s the way the military teaches. As you develop, then you instruct yourself. You tell yourself what to do here. It’s amazing how quickly it comes when you’re not just thinking about it, but you… I was walking down the hall there a while ago and all hunched over and I just stopped and said, «Copeland, straighten up». Amen. Just straighten up instead of… Now, it’s so easy to lose good posture when you’re stiffened up and you’ve been having pain that you’re believing your way through. It’s easy to slip into that kind of lifestyle. No, no. Just straighten it up and walk by faith. Praise God. Did you get anything out of this for this week? Well, give the Lord a praise for it. We’re out of time.