Kenneth Copeland - Open Your Gift of Healing
Father, we thank You today. And we ask You, as we open our hearts and minds for revelation from heaven, to reveal to all of us that you gave Jesus as a gift to the world; and that healing and deliverance from sickness, disease, weakness, pain, poverty, debt, fear, all of these things belongs to us. We are delivered from it. Healing belongs to us. Sickness, disease, weakness, and pain belongs to the devil, and we receive revelation of it from You. In Jesus' name, amen.
Glory to God. Let's look again in, as Brother Hagin used to say, "our golden text". Hallelujah. John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved". And, "He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God".
Now that is a picture of the fact that Jesus is a gift. God has given Him to us. Glory to God. Now, receiving the gift and of course, the gift of salvation and so forth, but we've come through the week now, and we're targeting very directly the fact that healing belongs to me, healing belongs to you. Amen. Now, then, let's go back here, again, to I Peter and 2nd chapter, "Who his own self", talking about Jesus, "who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed". "By whose stripes ye were healed". "Were" is past tense.
So in the mind and heart of God, in the mind of Jesus, in the mind of the Holy Spirit, you are healed, because 2.000 years ago, "he bore in his own body our sins: by whose stripes you," me, we, "were healed". Now, what's the matter here? "How come I've still got this pain in my body"? Because of not, by faith, receiving the heavenly gift of healing. Amen. It belongs to you. It's as much yours as being born again. It is as much yours as the Holy Spirit belongs to you. It is as much yours, praise God. I'm telling you, it belongs to you.
Now, there are really three general ideas, and they're different forms of the first two around and so forth, of divine healing: Receiving from God, from the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the healer. The curse is threefold: Spiritual death, sickness, poverty. The redemption is threefold: Life, healing and deliverance, and prosperity. Jesus is the Savior, Jesus is the healer, and Jesus is our high priest, our Melchizedek the Lord of the harvest. He is our prosperity and financial well-being. Hallelujah. Now, then, when you know Jesus, all these things belong to you. But you have to unwrap the package.
So let's go over here to Deuteronomy 28 again. Lord one way or the other way, let me have here... you know, there's their side, then there's their side, and then there's God, and He's right. Amen. Which should I? Yeah, okay. Thank You. Let's go back over here again to Galatians 3. Don't lose your place there in Deuteronomy 28 because we're coming back to that. Galatians 3, and we'll read a little bit more of this today than we did yesterday.
Galatians 3:8, "the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified," or made righteous, "by the law in the sight of God, it is evident". "It is evident: that, The just shall live by faith".
Now you need to underline that in your Bible. Then you need to look up the other Scriptures where it also says that. "The just shall live by faith. The law is not of faith: but, The man that does them shall live in them. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law," the curse for breaking the law, "being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree". Why did He do that? So "that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith," or that we might receive everything that the Spirit of God promised Abraham. Glory to God.
Verse 29, and "if you be Christ's," or, if you be in Christ, "then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise". Now let's go back over to this curse of the law. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. This is in Deuteronomy 28, the blessing and the curse, and "it shall come to pass". 15th verse "...if you will not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all of his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; all these curses shall come upon you, and overtake you".
Now, I want you to notice something. It didn't say, "And God will put all of these curses on you". No. The curse came when Adam sinned, and that curse is there. Now, God gave His promise so that you would have a way until Jesus would come and bear this whole thing for you and me. Then this is the way to get out from under that curse when you did miss it. And everybody missed it. Nobody but Jesus kept it. Here's another thing: It had to be this strict. It had to be this hard to the point that no natural human being could do it. And Jesus came as a man. He didn't keep all of this because He was the Son of God. He kept it because He was a man. And He lived and walked by faith, in the name of Jesus. He was all man and all God. And then He made Himself obedient to death. And He took that curse and He went into hell, and He provided all of us redemption from everything that came on mankind because of Adam's sin.
Now, I want to point out some things to you. In the 22nd verse... now remember, again, it didn't say, "God would put it," it said all of this stuff would come on you. It's out there waiting on you. You just be disobedient to God and then you refuse to repent, and get back over here under it. You're just out there where the devil is. I mean, you know, he's going to put it on you, brother, and tell you God did it. Now notice this, in Verse 22, "The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, with a fever, with inflammation, with an extreme burning, with the sword, with blasting, mildew". Extreme burning is also a fiery heat caused by sicknesses and diseases like streptococcus and things like that...
Now, "Well, brother, it said right there that God will smite you with it". Well, up here, it said it will come on you. Now, I'm going to take a moment here because we are going to read several Scriptures here concerning this, and I want you to hear this. Dr. Robert Young, the author of "Young's Analytical Concordance," considered to be one of the foremost Hebrew scholars of the world. And at the time that he wrote this, he was the foremost Hebrew and Greek scholar in the world. Now, he wrote a book which is now out of print called, "Hints to Bible Interpretation". And you can look, and the outline of that book you can find in the older "Young's Concordances," but that's not the book itself. That's the outline of the book, and if you can get in that outline, but it's rather confusing.
You know, you've got somebody's outline, but you don't have what they said about it. And I've gone online to find "Hints to Bible Interpretation" and they go back to that outline and they say, "Well, it doesn't say that" and all this. But I'm talking about the book that he wrote that is out of print. And you hear me say it by faith, I'm going to have me one of those books! Amen.
Now, in his book, he said the word "put" or "brought" or words like "smite", God is actively doing it, are both from the same Hebrew word. They're used in the permissive sense and not in the causative sense. And he used as an example where, you know, like in Isaiah 45. Where there are good times, "I send good times, and I send bad times, you know. But, actually, I send good times, but I permit bad times". "Well, what's the difference? He permitted it". No. Well, no, but He didn't cause it. His Word is bond. There are certain things that He's already said. "If you keep doing this, the results are going to be that. And when you keep doing this".
It goes back to comparing sowing seed. Whatever kind of seed you sow is whatever kind of harvest you have in your life. Amen? I mean that's just seed time and harvest. That's just the way it works, brother. And when you keep doing that, then God has already said, in his Word, He's already told every one of us that the wages of sin are death. Amen. So when you keep doing that, then spiritual death, physical death, all of these different things are the result of it. So there are certain things now, He said, "You do that, and this is going to be the result". But He's not the One that said, "Okay, I told you". Mm.
Now, let me give you an illustration of that. It hurts me to tell it, but I'm going to do it because it's such an example of it. John was just a little ole boy and, you know, I guess everybody's got a junk drawer in their kitchen. It's the place where you put all the twisties that came off your bread wrapper. No, no. Anyway, and there was a little pen knife in there. And I came in there, and he had gotten up in there and gotten that knife. And he managed to get it, you know, he's playing with it and trying, I said, "No, no, baby. Now, John". And I took the knife and I opened it and I showed him how sharp it was and everything. I said, "Now, son, I don't mind you playing with this knife because knives are good, but I don't want you messing with this without Daddy there to help you with it". And "Okay. Yeah, Daddy, that's good".
And I put it back in the drawer and closed it. In a minute, I heard him scream. I went back in there and he almost got that thing opened and somehow or another, he got it closed back on his thumb, and he's trying to get his thumb out of there and, man, he cut down there into that thumb; blood was just squirting everywhere. Well, I grabbed him, and caught that thumb, and grabbed off some paper towels there and wrapped it around that thumb and starting praying in the Spirit, in the name of Jesus. And I got just a few words out of my mouth and his little head fell over on my shoulder, sound asleep. Well, I just held his little thumb there and prayed, "Bless the Lord, bless the Lord, bless the Lord," and took the thing off and then dressed his thumb. And it was amazing. I mean, he cut that way down in there and it was amazing how fast that healed up.
Well, now, do you think I passed up a real excellent opportunity to talk to that young man? No-ho-ho. I said, "John, now, son, that wasn't any fun was it"? "No". I said, "Did that hurt"? "Yeah, it did, Daddy". I said, "Son, Daddy told you not to do that. And the reason I told you not to do it is because I love you. And it wasn't because I don't want you playing with knives and to learn about knives and so forth. I do, because they're good. There's no such thing as a bad gun. There's no such thing as a bad knife. They're just stupid things and stupid people and bad decisions". And I said, "You know, if you obey your parents", and I gave him the Scripture and so forth. It's the same Scripture we used right before he got a spanking from now and then, you know. "You obey your Mommy and Daddy, you live long on the earth," first promise. And so, "Oh, yeah, Daddy".
Well, see, I didn't take that knife and say, "Boy, let me show you something, 'kkkch.' Now, that will just show you right there what happens if you play with knives". No, that's child abuse, brother. A man that does that ought to be sent to prison. Well, a god that would do that ought to be sent to prison too. The only god that does that is the devil. Amen? Now, what I want you to see here in this 22nd verse, these things that are listed, these diseases and so forth, and you can look up different translations or go back and get those words translated in these ways. And it talks about in "the heaven over your head is brass, and the earth under you is iron," and "The Lord will make the rain of thy land powder," and so forth.
So drought and all of that is under the curse. But we are talking now about sickness and disease. Let's go to the 27th verse. "The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, with the emerods, with the scab, with the itch, whereof cannot be healed". And you shall be smitten "with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart". 29th verse, "And you will grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and you'll not prosper in your ways: and you'll only be oppressed". I want you to underline that, "oppressed". God doesn't oppress people. This is the devil that oppresses people.
Now, I want you to get hold of that. I want you to mark it, put arrows pointing to it, whatever you've got to do. "Oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee". And the 35th verse, and "The Lord will smite you", no. And you will be smitten, "in the knees, and in the legs, with sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot unto the top of your head". Now, let's take a shortcut here. Well, actually, let's go ahead and read some more. Okay, let's read Verse 38. "You will carry much seed out into the field, and gather in little; the locust shall consume it". You hear poverty in all of this? "You'll plant vineyards, and dress them, but not drink of the wine," and so forth and so on. "You'll beget sons and daughters, but you'll not enjoy them; for they'll go into captivity". You can stand on this and get all of your children delivered from drugs. You can get the whole family delivered from it because it's under the curse, and Jesus bore it.
Now, let's go over to the... well, no, no. The Lord won't let me get out of there yet. "The stranger that is within thee shall get up above you very high; and you shall come down very low. He will lend to you, and you will not lend to him: and he will be the head, and you will be the tail". So there's the curse of debt. And if you study, you go to the book of Proverbs and so forth, it says, "The borrower is servant of the lender". Now, let's look at the 61st verse. "Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this book of the law them shall come upon you, until you be destroyed". But now, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles", that's you and me and all the rest of us, glory to God, "that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith".
Healing belongs to you, my dear brother, my dear sister. Take it right now. Say it, "Why this thing's under the curse. I've been redeemed from the curse so I am redeemed from this" thing, whatever it is that's bothering you. "I've been redeemed from this thing. Glory to God. I've been redeemed from that. So, in the name of Jesus, I don't have that. I don't have fever. Glory to God. I've been delivered from fever". What do you have, my brother and sister? Whoa, I have healing! I have deliverance because "by his stripes I was healed"! Hallelujah. Come on, give the Lord praise. Say it, "If I was, I am healed and delivered and blessed. In Jesus' name, amen".