Kenneth Copeland - Tame Your Five Senses With The Word
Father, we thank you today. We open our hearts and we open our minds to receive revelation from heaven. And we praise you and thank you for it, in Jesus' name, amen.
And we want to welcome our studio audience here today, praise God. And then all of us can welcome all of them in here today. Yeah, glory to God. And I tell you what, we do dearly love to hear from you and let us know how these broadcasts are serving you and what you're receiving from them. Very important to us. Let's go to our golden text, which is Romans 8. The eighth chapter of the book of Romans is one of the most informative chapters in the entire Bible, but you can say that for the book of Romans. But I'm talking about this eighth chapter. It is just pregnant with revelation from heaven. It is just so marvelous.
Let's look, well just for instance, look at the 11th verse. "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also make alive your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you". Hey, that's vital knowledge. You could just camp there for days and just start working off of that. For instance, another scripture that says the glory of God raised Jesus from the dead. So the Holy Spirit is the glory of God and the glory of... well, you know. Hallelujah. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit".
Now, let me help you with something here. "There is therefore now," and we said now is always now, it's so important, so important, get off of the past. Get off of that, amen. Hope is in the future. Now faith is and the past is gone. Amen? No condemnation to them who walk not after the five physical senses. Let's read it that way. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the five physical senses, but after the Word. Well, we know the flesh is the flesh, but people get confused over that. We're talking about these five physical sense gates. And the Word. You talk about the Spirit and people think, "Well, you know," no, we're not led by these five physical senses. But the Word of God. Let me tell you something, this is just as much a manifestation of God in the earth as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is him.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Hallelujah. And this is God speaking to me. This is my Bible. I put it my mouth, I put it in my heart, I put it in my eyes and my ears. That's what I use these physical senses to do, is bring this in and, as we read in yesterday's broadcast, you can train these physical senses with this. You can train them. You can train yourself, you can school yourself out of worry. You can cast your care over on him. I'm told that the Amplified translation says once and for all. Worry is a sin. And it's deadly. It is deadly. It is a mental exercise, that just over engrossing thing. It's a deadly sin.
Now, I tell you what let's do, let me tell you where we're going with this. We are going towards learning how to live and walk without sin consciousness. But rather having a righteousness consciousness. I am in right standing with God. Amen. The day I heard this, it just revolutionized my thinking. There is no sin horrific enough to cause God not to love you. He loves every terrorist, every wicked sorry human being on the face of the earth, he loves them and gave himself for them. But I've got some more good news for you, there is nothing that you could possibly do to make him love you more. He just loves you with everything he has. He is love. He doesn't have love, he is love. He has faith, but he is love. Oh, glory to God. And he has a name, his name is Jesus. Oh, my, my, my, my.
Now, let's go over to the book of Isaiah 43:25. "I, even I, am he that blotteth out your transgressions for my own sake. And I will not remember your sins". Oh, well then why are you remembering then if he doesn't? Confess them and get rid of them. Amen. And enjoy your freedom. You see, we're soldiers in the army of the Lord. And soldiers obey orders, not their feelings one way or the other. Whether they like it or not, they obey it. Why? Because there's trouble if you don't. Well, when we obey orders, we obey them because that's what they are. And when we don't obey them, there's trouble. There's trouble. It causes a lot of trouble. Not from God, but from the enemy. The devil himself, steal, kill, and destroy, we talked about that.
Now, you put me in remembrance, let us plead together. You declare that you may be justified. Hallelujah. I said, "Lord," that just startled me. I said, "It says you did that for your sake. You did that for my sake, didn't you"? "No," he said, "I did it for my sake". Well, I just couldn't get my mind around it. "I, even I, am he that blotteth out your transgressions for my sake. And will not remember your sin". I said, "Okay, but why"? He said, "Kenneth, do you remember bad stuff about your children"? I said, "Of course not". He said, "Well, I don't either. And besides that, if I remember your sins I can't bless you. So I just blotted them out of my memory".
See, God can supernaturally forget. It's not there unless we bring it up and put it back in there. "Well, I don't understand how". Well, I don't either, but I know he can and does. Amen. So, you put me in remembrance. And I said, "Well, now, what is this all about"? He said, "Boy, you've got a clean sheet of paper here and put me in remembrance of stuff you want me to remember. The good stuff about your family, plead your case with me". And it come before me. 1 John 5, well, first off, "Whosever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, everyone that loves him that begat or loved the Father loves him also that is begotten of him. By this we know we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith".
Well, everybody in here is a whatsoever. This is says, "Whosever believeth Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith". Now faith worketh by love, right? So, come right on down to the 14th verse. "This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his Word he hears us". His Word is his will. Do you ever ask somebody, say, "What is so and so really like"? Or you see magazine articles or something, what is... I was a big, big, big John Wayne fan. But I always wanted to know things about him, you know, behind the scenes. And one of the things that impressed me about John Wayne, I mean, he was just the same away from the world as he was with it. And I have some outstanding news for you, that he got born again reading Kenneth Hagin's book when he had cancer.
Anyway, the point here is, if you want to know what God's really like, look at Jesus. He's what God is really like. "Well, now I want you to look over here in the old covenant, and he made people sick". No, he didn't. "Well, it said he smote them". I don't have time to get into that, I wish I did. There's only one man that God ever smote and it was Jesus. "Well, he sends people hell". No, he didn't create hell for people in the first place. The Bible said he created hell for the devil and his angels. But now, if you belong to him, you're going to get his judgment. If you belong to Jesus, you get his judgment. And you go to the New Testament, and it is not there. He does not and did not, he never told anybody, "You'll have to wait". He never told anybody, "You'll have to learn something from this". The leper came to him and said, "I know you can if you will". He said, "I will".
Now, he doesn't change. That's the same Word today, it's his will today. Now, I said all of that to say this, that faith begins where the will of God is known. And this is the will of God. Especially the New Testament. This is God manifest in the flesh. Amen. And it is his perfect will. Now, look at this, we know, "This is the confidence we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will or according his Word, all of the promises of God in Jesus are yes and amen".
So, we either go to a promise, or more than one, that covers that our situation. Or we go to a Bible fact that covers our situation. "By his stripes ye were healed," is not a promise, that's already done. That's a Bible fact. The kingdom, that's kingdom business. We know that he hears us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petition that we desired of him. We know it. This is legal. This is legal. Kingdom law, his Word, we pray his Word, he hears it. He hears the case. What did we find out over there in Isaiah 43:25? Plead your case. Plead your case, but hey, you've got to have some precedence here. You've got to take your evidence. No, it's not you, it's the book. This is case law. And you take your case before the heavenly courts, praise God, and you plead that case and you thank God for the results because he's a righteous judge. And you've been judged along with Jesus. You know, judgment's wonderful if you're on the right side of it.
Now, what is judgment? I'm not talking about the end judgment. Well, yeah, you could apply it to that, but I'm talking about, "Well, judgment has come on the nation," and so forth. What is that? It's a function of seedtime and harvest. And if you'll judge yourself, you won't be judged with the world. Not condemned, we already talked about that now. Condemnation never changed anything, you just keep getting feeling worse and getting worse, and you keep on doing it. It never changes anything. But if you just stop and obey what the scripture says and take communion and judge yourself for it. When I first learned to do that, I saw myself sitting on the bench and I came up before myself and I said, "I did this," and then myself as a judge said, "I judge you. I confessed this sin and I judge you as forgiven". Standing on the Word, see?
Well, he's the righteous judge, but I judge myself first. And then I just thank him that I'm judged with him and by him. Amen. To take that place, judge myself, repent of it, confess it. Don't call it your problem. Don't soft pedal yourself. Not condemning, but brutally honest. Oh, yeah. You judge people for what they do and you judge yourself by your good intentions. That ain't going to work. No, no. Just call it what it is. If it's a sin of any kind, just call the thing what it is. Ain't nobody's business but yours and Jesus. Unless it's something you need to go to someone and repent about. But, even so, do it with a glad heart and don't mess up a really good confession with an excuse. "Well, you know, I'm going to ask you to forgive me for... but you know I was awfully tired". Oh, you just blew the whole deal. What excuse is that?
Yes, sir, I know. You know how I know that, don't you? Well, I don't care how tired you were, you don't need to be doing that. You need to be repenting of it. And I've done that a lot. L-O-T-T, lot. L-O-T-T-E, or whatever, you know. A lot, I've had to do that. Just call it what it is, smile about it, and say, "I'm asking you to forgive me and I receive your forgiveness and I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I love you dearly". It's over. And they don't forgive you? That's their problem. You've done what the Lord said to do. And you treat them, every time you see them, like they have forgiven you. I got so tickled at Keith Moore, maybe some of you heard him talking about this. You got to go Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every Thanksgiving particularly, oh. And religion and politics, here it comes. And I'm the fanatic of the family. And oh, they just rake me because I'm a prosperity preacher.
Keith said, once you've forgiven them, they're forgiven. And you can't go in there and enter to that mess again and just get huffy every time you see her. Or every time you see him. "Oh, no, not Uncle Bobo again". And Keith said, you go in there and say, "It's so nice to see you! It's so nice..". You have to practice the presence of God. It's your flesh you're fussing with. But get it in your Spirit and renew your mind to the fact that there is now no condemnation to those that what? Walk not after the five physical senses. Put that flesh down. What you see, you smell, you taste, you hear, and you feel, just put it away. Put it under command of your Spirit and renew your mind. And then control your mind and control your emotions. Amen.
And you know what's coming, so just don't yield to it. Just be the bright spot in the whole day, I don't care what they accuse you of. And it takes practice and may I suggest that you practice up before Thanksgiving. How do you do that? You start your day off loving. "Lord, I forgive everybody I come in contact with today". So it doesn't blindside me and then I have to figure out what to say and slap my jaws and change... No, just do it before you leave the house, before you go into a restaurant, before you get out in the public.
Just say, "I just forgive everybody today". Glory to God. And I'm listening to you and I go in this restaurant, anybody in there you want me to buy their meal, anybody in there you want me to bless. I tell you, Gloria and I have restaurant ministry. There's one particular restaurant that we go to a lot and particularly on weekends. And I tell you, here they all come. Particularly one of them I'm thinking about, she just scoots in next to Gloria every time she comes, whether we're at her table or not. She comes in there and just scoots up right next to Gloria. We're literally her Spiritual parents now. Now that comes from being prepared and being ready.