Kenneth Copeland - There Is No Toil Involved With The Blessing
Hello everybody I'm Kenneth Copeland, it's time for The Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast, let's have a word of prayer, we'll get right into today's Bible lesson.
Oh Father, we thank you and we praise you today and we worship and praise in the wonderful matchless name of Jesus. Thank you for blessing this student body, thank you for blessing all on the network, all over the world in the sound of my voice and I thank you for anointing me and all of us in here today to hear, to speak accurately according to your anointing and your mercy and your goodness, in Jesus name, amen.
We've been talking about the blessing of the Lord, Proverbs 10:22, "The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich and he adds no sorrow, toiling," to eat, toiling to work, let me remind you, you remember when Jesus said to Peter, they were washing their nets, he said to Peter, "Cast your nets," he said, "We have toiled all night and caught nothing". This is extremely revealing. The blessing's standing there talking to him. Peter's an orthodox Jew, he knows these things, he understands this but he's not thinking blessing, he's thinking hard work, he worked all night, didn't catch anything. They're waiting breakfast, so he takes a rotten net out there because he thinks I'm going to throw this thing two or three times and then you know, we're not going to catch anything and, now for years, you know I was just like everybody else, a net breaking, boat sinking load. That wasn't any big deal, the boat, that was the only net that ever broke in the whole New Testament.
I was sitting with Jerry Savelle in church down in South Texas, in Victoria I believe and a pastor was receiving the offering, I heard the voice of the Lord. He said, "That was a rotten net". That's the reason Peter said, "Depart from me I'm a sinful man". He knew what he'd done. Now, but he was toiling, he was toiling, working hard and there stood the blessing, of course he didn't know that, he just barely knew who he was at that time. He didn't have the revelation yet, he was the Christ, the son of the living God. He just, he should have, I mean the night before he healed his wife, mother, she was dying, that woman was nearly dead, raised her up, but still, you know they're natural people and he's a natural man, they think. But look at the picture, the blessing of the Lord was standing in that boat, with a smile on his face.
Don't you know he was looking at Peter and just laughing. Peter's all shook up and Jesus is thinking, oh you ain't seen anything yet. The blessing. Say it, "The blessing of the Lord brought the fish to the boat. All of them". They just caught what they had nets enough to catch. Every fish in that Galilee came swimming up there said, "Me, me, me Jesus, me, me, me". The blessing. The blessing, it's overflow. It's overflow, it's bounding overflow. All the time, all the time, every time. If it's not fouled up with fear, doubt and unbelief.
Now, let's think about Job. I think we'd better turn over there. Oh glory to God. Well Brother Copeland, I don't ever get anything out of Job. Job just gets on to me I just... look in the first chapter of the book of Job,. This opens up secrets in the book of Job. Verse 6, "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came also among them. The Lord said unto Satan, 'When comest thou?' Then Satan answered the Lord and said, 'From going to and fro in the earth, from walking up and down in it.' And the Lord said unto Satan, 'Hath thou considered my servant Job? There's none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fears God and escheweth evil?' Satan answered the Lord and said, 'Doth Job fear God for nothing? Has thou not made a hedge about him and about his house and about all that he hath on every side? Thou has blessed the work of his hands and his substance increased in the land.'"
He's the richest man in the East, how did he get that way? The blessing of the Lord. And it became a hedge around him, the blessing wall. Say it, "The blessing wall". Now, I want you to see something, "Put forth thine hand now, touch all that he has and he will curse thee to thy face". That is the only sin in the book of Job, that's what Satan was after and Job refused to commit it. His wife committed it, "Why don't you curse God and die"? Well Satan had to put that on her mind, get them talking, he had to put that on the mind, but Job's blessed, he wouldn't do it. He flat wouldn't do it.
Now, he made a whole lot of mistakes but it didn't last but about nine months, Job had a bad year and got back everything double. He became twice the richest man in the East. How? Blessing of the Lord it maketh rich and it'll heal you of the boils. Whew, glory be to God. Yes, amen. See how misunderstood the book of Job has been? Job, now here's another thing, I won't go, I'll just, I won't go the trouble to look it up, but listen to this, he said, "I had no rest," well I will look it up too. Praise God, thank you Lord, help. Thank you Lord Jesus. In the 3rd chapter, the 25th verse, "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me and that which I was afraid of has come under me. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet, yet trouble came". Well of course it did.
Now, when you study this book, you find out he made the same sacrifice every day for his children, every day. Instead of making that sacrifice and say praise God, that's it, I roll all the care of them over on you, and I'm not bringing it up anymore. Doing what my mother did. She threw her Bible down on the kitchen table, and she said, "I've prayed for him as long as I'm going to, I'm not physically able to any longer, I've praying for him for 15 years, if he goes to hell it's your fault". That's it. That is it. Glory to God I got saved two weeks later. And she said, and then she said that. Somebody sent me, I mean just the last couple of days, had some of my mothers tapes and he posted it, I heard my own mothers voice, two days ago, isn't that precious? Isn't that precious? Glory to God.
She said, "I wished I'd of," she said "I could've done that 15 years ago if I'd known, but I didn't know". Glory to God. Thank you Jesus. Well that's what he should've done, see, by faith. Faith in what? Faith in the blessing. Faith in the blessing. All right, now then, back to the book of Genesis please. I want to go to the 26th chapter of the book of Genesis. "There was a famine in the land. The first famine that was in the days of Abraham and Isaac went under Ablimelech, king of the Philistines under Gerar. The Lord appeared unto him and said, 'Don't go down to Egypt, dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of.'"
Now he knew, he knew what his dad Abraham had done, he went to Egypt so he was just going to cut and go over there too. "I will be with thee and will," read it. That was weak. Say it again. Capital B-L-E-S-S you. "I will bless you for unto thee and unto thy seed. And if you be Christ than are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise". What promise? The blessing of Abraham. "I will give all these countries, I will perform the oath which I swore unto Abraham thy father, I will make thy seed to multiple as the stars of heaven, I'll give unto thy seed all these countries and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be? Blessed".
That's the gospel. We studied that the last time we were together. "Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments and my statues and my laws. Isaac dwelled in Gerar and the men of the place asked him of his wife and he said she's my sister for he feared to say she's my wife". Now, well let's go ahead and read verse 8, "It came to pass when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out a window, saw and behold Isaac caressing," is the original word, "Caressing Rebekah his wife. Abimelech called Isaac and said behold of a surety, she is your wife and you said she's my sister".
"Isaac said unto him, because I said lest I die for her. Abimelech said, what is this thou has done unto us? One of the people might lightly have lain with thy wife and shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us and Abimelech charged all his people saying, he that touches this man or his wife will surely be put to death and Isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year," in famine, "In the same year a hundred fold and the Lord blessed him and the man waxed great, went forward and grew until he became very great".
Now, the complete Jewish Bible said, "He became very rich indeed". The blessing of the Lord in famine. In famine. "Isaac departed then, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there. Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham. And he called their names after the names by which his father had called them. Isaac's servants digged in the valley and found there a well of springing water". They hit an aquifer. A spring of water gushing, gushing water. "The herdsmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdsmen saying the water's ours. And he called the name of the well Esek because they strove with him. And they digged another well and strove for that also. And he called the name of it Sitnah and he removed from there and digged another well".
Now look what the blessing is doing. Look what the blessing is doing. He's digging those wells and they're taking them. Well that's exactly what God intended for them to do. That's what he intended for them to do. It broke that famine. But now I want you to see something, now keep your eye out for this now. "He removed from there and digged another well for they strove and called it Rehoboth; and he said, from now the Lord hath made for us, we shall be fruitful". We shall be fruitful. We shall be fruitful. We shall be fruitful, be fruitful, multiply. We shall be fruitful.
"And he went up from there to Beer-Sheba and the Lord appeared unto him the same night and said, I'm the God of Abraham thy father, fear not for I'm with thee, I will bless thee and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake. And he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitch his tent there. Now, Abimelech went to him from Gerar and Ahuzzath, one of his friends and Phicol the chief captain of the army. And said unto him, wherefore come ye to me seeing ye hate me and sent me away from thee"?
Now back up to the 16th verse, "Abimelech said to Isaac, go from us, thou art much mightier than we". Than I. The Chumash refers to it like this, "His, everything he had, his home was bigger than the palace, he's just,"... now here's what I read in the Chumash and I'll tell you in just a moment. "Isaac said unto them wherefore come ye to me seeing ye hate me and have sent me away from you? They said, we saw certainly that the Lord was with you".
Now here's what the Chumash said, "All the fruit trees dried up, the famine was still there. It was the blessing that had it stopped. Everything was blooming, everything that looked like the famine was gone but it wasn't. It had just overwhelmed it. And he left, see this sounds like this all happened in two weeks but there's a lot of time in here. It said, "The fruit trees dried up, everything dried up and they said, uh-oh, we killed the golden goose, we got to get him back in here and we're going to have to take the army in there and let him know, ain't nobody going to take your wells away from you anymore".
There's something else here that's very important, I'll show you when we get there. "They said, we saw certainly that the Lord was with you, and we said let there be now an oath between us," or a covenant, "Even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee. That thou will do us no hurt as we have not touched thee and as we have done unto thee nothing but good and have sent thee away in peace, thou art now thee blessed of the Lord. And he made them a feast and they did eat and drink and they rose up betimes," or early, see be-times, that means before time started that day. So they got up about daylight. "In the morning they made a feast and they did eat and drink". You don't make covenants after you've been drinking all day. You make stupid deals. You don't make covenant with somebody. You don't enter covenant with bankers, you don't enter covenant with people you don't know. You don't do that.
"It came to pass the same day, they swore to one another, Isaac sent them away and they departed from him in peace. It came to pass the same day," what day? "The same day, Isaac's servants came and told him concerning the well, which they had digged and said unto him, we have found water, and he called it Shebah, therefore the name of the city is Beer-Sheba until this day and Esau was forty years old when he took was wife," and so forth. The blessing of the Lord. Amen, thank you Jesus. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon. Wake up to what, just stir yourself up, everybody stand up. Everybody stand up, everybody stand up. Just stand up and stir yourself up. Go ahead, God, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed. I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed. I said, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed.