Kenneth Copeland - Your Vote Is Your Seed
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland, and this is "Faith for Our Nation". Praise God. Let's have a word of prayer together.
Father, we thank You for this broadcast today. And we come together in behalf of our nation, which is also Your nation, the United States of America. And we thank You for her healing. We thank You for lifting her up, and we thank You for the rebirth of this nation. You declared it, we declare it, and we thank You for it. In Jesus' name, amen.
I want you to join me today in welcoming Brother David Barton to this broadcast. David, thank you, sir.
DAVID: Good to be with you, brother.
KENNETH: Oh, yeah.
DAVID: Oh, it's fun.
KENNETH: We get to talk about a lot of good stuff today.
DAVID: We do.
KENNETH: And Bishop Keith Butler. Bishop, glory to God, man. It's good to have you here. Always good to have you. These two men have information that the general public could have, but they don't bother to find it. But that's why we're here today. We want you to get the truth behind all of the functions in the government, the way it operates. For instance, people that say, "Well, ain't nobody pays any attention to that platform". Oh, ho-ho-ho, yes, they do. They may not tell you they do. But we're going to find out from Brother David today and Brother Keith how those platforms are put together, how they work, and the fact that you can't separate the planks. I can't stand on three out of five of the planks. And no. No, no. It's a platform made to stand on. So we're going to explore just a whole big batch of that today, praise God, because the Lord's really got something on my heart to say about that.
GEORGE: Praise God.
KENNETH: And then, of course, our Pastor George, pastor of EMIC, praise God, Eagle Mountain International Church, and always good to have Pastor here. And, in fact, I'm going to turn it over to Pastor and let him just take whatever the Lord gives him to do here. And we'll, Father, questions that are on people's hearts and minds...
GEORGE: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
KENNETH: Thank you. Ha-ha. Oh, yeah. Thank you, sir. "Inquire of me," saith the Lord. "David of old inquired of the Lord before he did anything. Before he went to war, he inquired of the Lord and said, 'Lord, shall I go up?' And I said, 'Go up.' But then a few days later, he inquired of me again and said, 'Shall I go up?' I said, 'No, don't go up just yet.' And I gave Him exact instructions of what to do, how to do, what to watch for in the top of the mulberry trees". And had he gone, based on his first direction, he would have lost the battle.
GEORGE: That's right.
KENNETH: He would have lost it because he would have not gone according to the instructions that the Spirit of God gave him. So, Father, we inquire of you today. And the questions will come up in our spirit, and we will deal with them according to your Word. And we are listening to You today in the name of Jesus. Amen.
GEORGE: Amen. Amen. Well, the vision for this came because here we are, a few days before the election, and this is one of the most unusual that at least I've seen in my lifetime. I know that you've seen a few more than I have. I mean, this has to be different than what we've ever seen before and what we're facing right now. And as we thought about this, there are so many questions to answer. We have a lot of people out there we call the "no voters". There are people out there who are not even going to vote. There are people out there who are afraid, they're angry, they don't know what to do. And the Lord just dealt with us and said, "We need to bring together statesmen, statesmen who will come and speak the Word of the Lord to the people". You know, Brother Copeland, since the Lord talked to you about going on every available voice, it really hit me hard that now that we have BVOVN, we're on Dish TV, we have a voice. And we have to use this voice very, very carefully and use it for the promotion of the Gospel. And I believe that we're talking to people right now, people who are struggling with this election. And if you stay with us for this next two weeks, these next two weeks before election, you will have answers to your questions. You will have peace back in your heart again, and you will see exactly what God has planned for this nation. Now, one of the exciting things about this is we're going to be doing these broadcasts every day up until election time. And then on election night, right here, we will be hosting "America Stands 2016: Election Coverage in the Spirit of Faith"!
KENNETH: I just heard something...
GEORGE: Yes, sir.
KENNETH: I just perceived, see, you remember when Jesus said He perceived what they were thinking in their hearts?
GEORGE: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
KENNETH: I just heard this. And you sit still, you sit right where you are. Don't you turn that off and say, "Well, I ain't going to vote anyway". You're going to be held seriously, seriously to account by God if you don't vote. And you're going to find that out before this broadcast is over. You're going to be guilty of murder. You're going to be guilty of an abomination of God. You're going to be guilty for every baby that's aborted from this election forward. And so you don't cut out on me right now, in the name of Jesus.
GEORGE: That's right.
KENNETH: Amen. I forgive you, sweetheart. But you just stay right there where you are and hear us out. And then you make your own decision. You can do whatever you want to do. But the Scripture says a man's a fool that answers a thing before he hears it. So you sit there and listen, and if you decide not to vote, then, praise God, that's your prerogative, and that's just between you and God.
GEORGE: That's fine.
KENNETH: But you need to be hearing this.
GEORGE: That's where we're calling this "Faith for Our Nation". We have to exercise our faith for the nation. Now, I know that you gentlemen, and you, too, Brother Copeland, all of us, in dealing with people in the church, dealing with people in the ministries, and people that you are connected with, there are a lot of people that are angry. They're angry, they're confused, they're fearful. What do you say to them? What do you tell them? Where do we begin with people who are fearful about, I mean, I know what our stand is about. But there are people out there, Kenneth, I was talking with Kellie yesterday about this. And she is amazed at how many people in our circles are talking about not voting. Because they're afraid of what is happening right now. How do we get the fear out of this thing, out of the equation? Where do we start?
KENNETH: Faith in God.
GEORGE: End of story. There you go.
KENNETH: And there you go.
GEORGE: Okay. Next question is...
KENNETH: Jesus said, "Have faith in God".
GEORGE: Yeah.
KENNETH: Now think about this. "Well, what are we gonna do? This country's going down the tubes". No, it isn't. I mean, we could have another eight years of Hillary Clinton and the worst mess that anybody could make out of a nation. Let me just share just a word with you that I just got in prayer just a few days ago. Ha-ha. The Lord said, "I know my way around with politicians. I've been dealing with them since Nimrod".
GEORGE: Oh, my.
KENNETH: And He said, "I've never failed yet". Hallelujah. He dealt with Pharaoh. He jerked the slack out of him. Listen, this is God's nation, and nobody is going to take it away from Him.
GEORGE: That's right.
KENNETH: Now, I want to get that clear right now. In the name of Jesus, no man, no woman, no Democrat, no Republican, no Socialist, no Communist can take this nation away from God.
GEORGE: Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
KENNETH: I don't know what there is about that you can't understand. But I'm telling you right now, God Almighty is head of this nation, not people. Jesus of Nazareth is Lord over the United States. Now, just settle that. Only one nation in history, only one was founded by a people who love God for the purpose of worshiping Him. Now, God created the nation of Israel because He loved them. This is the only one that was ever created by people who love God, for the very purpose of having freedom to worship Him with all of their heart. He will never, ever forget it. So don't you forget it. I must not forget this. Therefore, I refuse...
GEORGE: Thank You, Jesus.
KENNETH: According to I Peter 5:6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, I refuse to worry. I don't worry about Israel. I don't worry about the United States. I have cast all that worry over on the Lord. I've got the Word of God on it that Israel will never go down again. It is there. I'm not worried about that. That's God's problem, not mine. I'm not worried about the United States. I do what I'm responsible. I preach the Word to it. I preach the Word about it. I vote, I pray, and I roll all the care of it over on Jesus, so the United States ain't my problem. That's His problem, and I'm not sweating it. Hallelujah.
GEORGE: Praise God.
KENNETH: Glory to God.
GEORGE: Praise God.
KENNETH: "Well, we might lose our religious freedom". Well, so what? I don't want to do that, but so what? I mean, we're the only one that ever had any religious freedom.
DAVID: It's in our hands. It is totally in our hands. I learned a great lesson. I've got a rabbi who is a personal rabbi for me, and he has helped me so much, because I don't speak Hebrew; he does. And he pointed out some things to me that were significant. And he said, "You know, the first time God ever spoke to mankind, spoke to Adam, he spoke in Hebrew". That was the language He chose. That's His choice. He said, "Everything in Hebrew means something". With Leah and Rachel, when they were having kids, this one was named Joyful, that one was named Sad, this was named another one.
KENNETH: Yeah.
DAVID: Everything in Hebrew means, "Nimrod" means something. He said, "Did you know that in Hebrew you cannot say the word 'coincidence' because it never crossed God's mind something was accidental? It's all planned and ordained". I said, "What else can't you say in Hebrew"? He said, "You can't say 'retirement.' That doesn't exist". There never was a time God thought you wouldn't be productive and do something. He doesn't want nonproductive. "What else can't you", and he told me all these words. One of the words you cannot say in Hebrew is the word "rights". There are no rights in God's language. He said, "What you can say is 'responsibilities,' but you can't say, 'rights.'" The word, "rights," doesn't exist. And what we have today as Americans, we sit here and think, "I've got a right to vote, and I don't like the choices this election. I'm not going to exercise my right to vote". No. You don't have a right, you have a responsibility to vote. It's not optional whether you vote or not. God doesn't look at when you have rights, he looks at responsibilities. And we've got a responsibility to vote. Make your mind up right now you're going to vote. You're not coming out of that voting booth till you cast a vote. And once you get that in your mind, it's like divorce. You know, as long as you think there's a back door to marriage, you'll look for divorce. Once you decide, "There's no back door to this marriage, this is a permanent union between a man and a woman, and I'm not leaving this," once you figure out there's no back door, it changes your whole behavior. And that's what you've got to do with voting. We don't have the right to vote, we have the responsibility to vote.
KENNETH: Responsibility. Boy, David, that's good.
GEORGE: Mm-hmm.
KEITH: I know when I graduated from Bible school many decades ago, and had our very first church building of our new church, and coming up to a presidential election, and I wasn't praying about who to vote for. I was just praying over the election. And the Lord said to me, "I want you to vote for so-and-so". And I was aghast because who he told me to vote for from my understanding and my background and the way I was raised and all of that, was an anathema.
KENNETH: Yeah. Total heresy.
KEITH: Totally. You know, and I was stunned by it. I mean, I really was. And I was really, I mean, well, like most people, I didn't have a lot of information. You know, I was voting because of the way I was raised, what I was told, perceptions of all the people that I was around all of my life. And so I just assumed that I'd vote for, you know, but when the Lord said that to me, it really did something. So, after that, that made me become inquisitive that the Lord would say that to me. Why? So that was the first time that I got a party platform out and I read the platforms of both parties, the first time I ever did it. And I'm already a pastor now. I'm a Bible school graduate, okay, all of that. I'm leading people. It's the very first time I've ever done that. So I got the platform out, and I was stunned, because when I got the platform out, as I do with everything, I took the Scripture and went through each point, because I teach people.
DAVID: Right.
KEITH: And I was just stunned of what I found. Well, talk about your mind being renewed by the Word of God, that just kind of flipped my whole world. And it was extremely difficult for me to vote for who God said because of the way I had been socializing. It was really, I mean, get into the voting booth to actually do it was extremely difficult for me because of all of that. And I understand, and this election, at least in my lifetime, it is the strangest election I've ever seen. And in my opinion, both parties could have had better candidates. I just kind of say it like that. That came out. And for many people, at least from where I come from, neither candidate is one that we would choose, necessarily. But God still holds you responsible. And I wouldn't have chose this particular individual because I would have thought there's just no way. He turned out to be an excellent President of the United States.
GEORGE: Yeah.
KEITH: Okay. So you can't go by what you think, what you think you see. Certainly don't go by what the news media tells you. You've got to get before God and let him give you what to do, because voting is a seed. The scripture says here, praise God, "As a man sows"
KENNETH: Say that again.
KEITH: "...he shall also reap".
KENNETH: That ballot is a seed.
KEITH: It is a seed.
KENNETH: Yeah.
KEITH: And it is a seed for for your nation.
DAVID: Yep.
KEITH: And it's a seed to you personally. So you will receive also from what you plant. So the Scripture says, in Galatians 6:7, "Don't be deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows," or plants, "that's what he reaps".
GEORGE: Oh, yeah.
KEITH: Well, that's the definition of judgment, what judgment is. Judgment is not good or bad, okay? Judgment is neutral. What judgment is is the return on what seed you plant, you see? So, if for no other reason, you need to vote because, praise God, to do so will set the table for what you receive. And the next verse says, "He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption," or ruin, "he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting". And so this is very true where we are today as a result of the seed planted. Where you are today personally, we are today as a result of seed planted. And judgment came positively or negative, based upon what it was that we did. The key thing was, go to the Spirit of God, find out what He wants you to do. So that changed the whole course of everything I've got involved in spiritually, from a political standpoint, because the Lord spoke to me, because I was inquiring.
DAVID: Let me jump into something you just said, because you said, look, this nation is God's. He's going to save this nation. And you said your seed's your ballot. You're sowing and reaping.
KEITH: Mm-hmm.
DAVID: It takes me back to Nehemiah, when Nehemiah was rebuilding the walls, and he surveyed it, and all the people who came back to rebuild the walls were not the great ones in society. They were the dregs, they were the poverty people, because they kept Daniel there, they kept the three Hebrew children. They kept the smart guys there, said, "You common guys, you go back and rebuild it".
KENNETH: Yeah.
DAVID: And so the common people came back to rebuild it, and they looked at that, and, I think if I were in their shoes, I'd say, "Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. We're going to take these hundred-ton stones and lift them 70 feet in the air. Are you kidding us"? I would have said what they said, and that's, "It's impossible". And they all told Nehemiah, "This can't be done". I mean, there was not one stone left on another, which was prophesied, and it was all down. And Nehemiah said, "Look, the wall's going back up. Here is the deal: If you participate in building it, you get to live inside the walls. If you don't, you live outside the walls. And it's going back up". And that's the word you got. God's going to save the nation, but your thing is, that's your seed. If you don't participate in this thing, when it gets back to where it's supposed to be, you don't live inside the walls. You miss the blessings. You didn't sow into the blessings.
KENNETH: So you could be in the midst of the greatest economic boom this nation's ever seen, and starve.
DAVID: Mm-hmm.
KEITH: Yeah.
DAVID: That's right.
KENNETH: Mm-hmm.
KEITH: Or the other way around.
GEORGE: Or the other way around, yeah.
DAVID: You could be in the midst of the greatest stability we may ever experience, and you will be unstable. You may be in the midst of the greatest spiritual revival we've ever had, and you'll be starving spiritually. I mean, the walls go back. And whether you live inside or outside depends on whether you participate, whether you cast a ballot, whether you do something to get involved in this thing or not.
KENNETH: Or flip it back over the other way. Let's say push comes to shove and we get eight more years of what we just had, but I inquired of God, and I listened, and I cast my seed, my ballot according to what He said.
GEORGE: Yeah.
KENNETH: Now God is obligated to treat me like the best government the United States ever had.
DAVID: That's Elijah. Everybody else may be in famine for three and a half years, but I've got a raven that's going to feed me the bread every day.
KENNETH: That's right.
DAVID: I've got God the raven to feed me every day. Everybody else may have it bad. I'm going to be living okay.
KENNETH: And if you cast no vote at all, you're just flowing with the stream. So, whatever happens, you're going to drowned in it, whatever it is.
KEITH: Still goes back to the Word of God. Two Scriptures come to mind; one of them, as long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest shall not cease. And everything in the earth is a result of seedtime and harvest.
GEORGE: Yeah.
KEITH: We're here as a result of a seedtime and harvest. I mean, our earthly Father's planted seed into the fertile womb of our mother and nine months later, here we are. 22:30. I mean, the whole earth is seedtime and harvest. And so that's a principle that the entire Word of God, everything, is based upon that very thing.
GEORGE: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
KEITH: And the second thing there, praise God, is that God constantly reminds us that if we yield to the flesh, we shall of the flesh reap corruption. Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord. With all your heart. And don't lean to your own".
KENNETH: That's it.
KEITH: ..".This is what I see, it's what I think, what I feel," your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. He will direct your path.
GEORGE: Yeah.
KEITH: That's what Jesus did. That's why Jesus never missed it, okay, that very thing. And same thing with us, we don't have to miss it. And He will direct or path, and the path He will direct us will always be to what he said. He'll cause us to be prosper and be in health even as our soul, mind, will, and emotions prospers.
GEORGE: Yeah.
KEITH: And that comes from the Word of God.