Kenneth Copeland - Celebrate the Anointing That Came at Christmas
Kenneth: Merry Christmas, everybody. Praise God! We're Kenneth and Gloria Copeland. Welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Let's have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you today. We are so grateful to you. Oh, Lord God, we're so grateful that you sent Jesus and he was born into this earth. Hallelujah. Oh, glory to God. We're so, oh well we just so. Hallelujah. We open our hearts and our minds to hear from heaven today. Words that move heaven on the earth and all of us in the radio and television audience and all of us here in the studio we are so, so blessed to be born of you, Sir. And we thank you for sending Jesus to take care of all of it for us. And it's in Jesus' name we pray and everybody said... Amen.
Kenneth: Welcome everybody to the broadcast today. Praise the Lord. And of course we're going to talking about Christmas all the week, which comes up this following Wednesday. And there's something about...
Gloria: Did you go shop yet?
Kenneth: Absolutely. Are you kidding?
Gloria: Well go ahead then.
Kenneth: I stay ready, girl.
Gloria: Okay. I just wanted to be sure.
Kenneth: Yes. Amen.
Kenneth: Let's open our Bibles to the book of Isaiah. What Brother Copeland, you going to be talking about Christmas from Isaiah? Oh yeah. Because most Christian people don't understand because of not understanding the word of Christ. And don't have a clue of what was happening. Now there's one thing. I want to take care of this right now. Well, we don't celebrate Christmas with a tree because that's a pagan holiday. Not anymore it's not, dumb-dumb. We took it away from the pagans hundreds of years ago. Get over it. All right. Come on, dear Lord. Bless your darling heart. What was it Brother Hagin used to say? "Bless your darling heart and stupid head". Forgive me. Forgive me, dummy.
Gloria: Now I can tell I'm going to have to talk to you to behave.
Kenneth: Okay.
Gloria: It's Christmas after all.
Kenneth: Yeah, after all. Okay. Isaiah chapter 10, verse 27. "And it shall come to pass in that day that his burden", the devil's, "shall be taken away from off thy shoulder and his yoke from off thy neck. And the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing".
Kenneth: Now let's go to the New Testament in Luke chapter four and the 18th verse. Jesus is preaching in his hometown in Nazareth. And he said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me", now get this, "because he has anointed me". He has anointed me. This is key to Christmas. This is key to being a Christian, a Christ-ian. All right, he has anointed me to preach. And most people don't even know Jesus was a preacher. The idea, the traditional idea, and Gloria and I have never thought this, I mean we didn't come out of church. Somebody asked me one time, "So what's your background"?
Kenneth: I said, "Sinner".
Kenneth: I went to church as a little boy, and got out of it as quick as I could. And I had a drug problem. Mom mama drug me to church. She had to drag me too because I thought it was the most boring thing I ever got into in my life. And back in those days in that church, I think you would have agreed. I'm not, but I won't go there. I mean, after all, you know, that was 75 years ago. They'll get over it. Anyway.
Gloria: Where are you?
Kenneth: Right here.
Gloria: Well don't go away. I'll be right back.
Kenneth: It's Christmas. Luke chapter four.
Gloria: Okay, I got it.
Kenneth: And, now the word, as all of you in this room know, but it's always very important to go back over it again because if you even forget it when you're reading the Bible, even though you know it, the word Christ is the Greek word that translate the Hebrew word Messiah. Now, I have no idea why the English translators didn't translate it. I don't know, but most people have the idea that Jesus came and he healed all the time and healed everybody. And the reason he did that was to prove his divinity, which is a traditional lie in the first place. He didn't heal everybody. In his own town and that he said he healed all manner of sickness and disease. And there were times in certain places where he healed everybody, but he healed all manner of disease. There was not one and one existing disease that he did not heal. Amen.
Kenneth: And Nazareth there, Mark chapter six, there he could do, not he wouldn't, he could not do any marvelous works. Save he laid his hands on a few sick people. And in the Greek, it's sickly people, it's people with minor illness. And just a handful, got healed. And it wasn't much wrong with them. Now and think about it, if that had been his purpose to prove that he was divine. Well, he really blew it in Nazareth. He got run out of town. They wanted to kill him. He had to spiritually hide himself so they couldn't find him and he walked out from the midst of them to keep them from shoving him off at cliff. Amen.
So but what I'm saying is that this is biblical knowledge, but a whole lot of Christians just carry the Bible around with them, take them to church and read whatever the pastor says, close it and never think about it again all week long. A whole, whole lot of people are in that condition. Now at Christmas time, a whole lot of people never even open in their Bibles. Maybe the Sunday school book. Are you listening to me? So not having this kind of knowledge. The word Messiah, and you will find it in the book of John where it is interpreted. And I should've looked it up before I got in here. That's what I was, just before we went on camera I was looking for that hurriedly. But anyway, it actually says and uses the word translated Messiah in the book of John. It's the only reference to him as in that manner.
Gloria: Hmm.
Kenneth: So he's Jesus the anointed one because that's what Messiah means. The anointed. I'm anointed of God. Amen. So now, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives". He had to preach under that anointing. Now without the anointing Jesus is just as helpless as any other man when it came to doing signs and wonders. And in fact, just flip right over there to the 14th chapter of John, or if you want to, I'll just read it to you because I'm just going to look at one scripture. Verse 10 "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he does the work".
Jesus never claimed to heal anybody. It's the Father, the Spirit. And then you come... Then the 12th verse, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these because I go to my Father". Well, what was he talking about? If you just finished reading that, he's going to the Father. And after the cross, he's sending the Holy Spirit, the Father to dwell in us to anoint us. Glory to God. Jesus on earth was the example son. Bill Winston calls him the sample. Oh, glory to God. See a sample, you can act like him and you can taste of him. You get a little taste of, oh yeah. Amen. Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Now Acts 10:38. Let's go over there and look at that please. Peter, this is ten years after the day of Pentecost. And Jesus, Peter is referring to what Jesus preached. He preached recovery of sight to the blind. He preached the deliverance of captives. He preached the deliverance to heal the brokenhearted, and then set at liberty those that are bruised and preach the acceptable year of the Lord, which is the Great Jubilee. And that's supernatural debt cancellation. The anointing, huh? Now Peter is referring to that in Cornelius's house because they're just now finding out that the Gentiles can be born again and be baptized in the Holy Spirit, who up until then is totally Jewish church.
Verse 34, "Peter opened his mouth, and said 'Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness is accepted of him. That word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ.'" That word which God sent by Jesus Christ preaching. You get that? I like that, don't you?
He's Lord of all, of Jesus Christ. Jesus the anointed one. Jesus Messiah. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Jesus the anointed, he is Lord of all. That word, that message, I say you know, which was published throughout all Judea, how Jesus preached it all throughout Judea. And then they went and preached it throughout all Judea. And began from Galilee, after the baptism, which John preached. It began in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, because that's when he baptized Jesus in water and then God baptized him in the Holy Ghost.
He actually saw the Holy Spirit come on him. Now it's good that the Holy Spirit, it says like a dove. It's good, you know, to use the dove and look like a dove. He landed on him like a dove. Amen. All right, "How God anointed", this is what he preached, "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power; who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil for God was with him". Hallelujah. Oh, glory be to Jesus. Amen. Now, then let's go to the book of Matthew chapter one. Thank you, Jesus. No, I'm not done talking. Well, go ahead and turn there, but I'm not done quite yet talking about the anointing.
When you and I were born again, according to the second chapter of 1 John, we received anointing from Him. In 1 John, they chose to use the word unction, but it's the same word. In fact, that's what it is in Spanish. So, it's anointing. It is the anointing to live. Glory to God. You got born again? He's in there. Glory to God, hallelujah. The fruit of the spirit is in there. Thank you Jesus. He's in there forever. But boys and girls, let me tell you something. When you got baptized with the Holy Spirit, when Jesus baptized you, that's when the Spirit of God came on you, for sure of it. That's what he said, "the Spirit of the Lord is upon me".
Now, Jesus had the Spirit of God in Him when was born to Mary. Amen. He's just as much the Son of God when He's 29 as He was when He was 30. But see, He's born in a day when according to Levitical law and teaching, and the Levite did not go into service of the temple until he was 30. And then he retired from service of the temple when he was 50. Now he didn't quit work. He didn't quite retire and just sleep around a while. No, no. He had to go to work in the fields and help supply the temple. He didn't lose status, but that was ... Listen, work in that temple was extremely hard. It was night and day all the time. And God just didn't lay that on anybody. It was really too much for somebody over that length of time. Anyway. Well, Jesus stepped into that service when He was 30, and I was 30 when I walked into the will of God. And I didn't even know that back then, but I can see how the Lord patterned my life like that.
Now, I didn't have to be a fool for 29 years before I got there, but I was. Anyway. My point being, Jesus... Here again, the example son. Couldn't do anything without that anointing. Nothing. And never claimed to do anything. When you take a synopsis of what He said, particularly in the gospel of John, He said, "I only say what I hear My Father say. I only do what I see My Father do". Why? The anointing. And He is still the Man. He got born again. It's just another thing that almost a hundred percent of Christians do not know, because they get mad when you say that He went to hell. If He didn't go to hell, we're doomed. Amen.
He's the first Man ever went to hell and got out, and the last one that ever went to hell and got out, and kept us from going. Hallelujah. But He suffered in hell what no man has ever suffered and never will. Anyway. That when He was born again, He's the first born from the dead. He was manifested in the flesh in Bethlehem, made alive in the spirit in the pit of hell. One Man defeated the devil, defeated all of hell, praise God. I mean He finished him off right there. One born again Holy Ghost baptized human being. Yeah, glory to God. Now that's what we celebrate at His birth, do you hear me? That's why we shout that He was born. Yeehaw. Amen. That's what the shouting is all about. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Amen.
Christmas, Christ mass. Mass is celebration. If you're Catholic, you know that. Protestants, which is not in anymore because that's been settled. You didn't know that? The Lutheran and Vatican Council, 1994 to 1999? How many of you didn't know that? Everybody. Yeah, and they settled it in 1999 and Luther's favor. All the indulgences are gone. It looks like we wrote that thing. Google it and read it for yourself. It says there is no salvation other than... No, justification. Righteousness. There is no justification outside of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and savior and in His grace and in His blood. All indulgences are gone, all of that. So, there's no opposition anymore. Amen. There's no protest anymore. We're not Protestants anymore. Well, we never were, we weren't protesting against anybody, but the fuss is over. Amen, glory to God, hallelujah. That's the reason I have the privilege of having such a strong ministry among Catholics. It's part of my thrill. Anyway, in the book of ... How much time do I have, Tim? Yeah. Whoa, one minute? What's the matter with you?
Gloria: Tim's hungry.
Kenneth: Tim's hungry, oh my goodness. Anyway, we can begin here in the 18th verse. "The birth of Jesus the anointed was on this was, when as his mother, Mary, was a spouse to Joseph before they came together, she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make a public example, was minded to put her away privately". Now, a just man, a righteous man will not make a public example of his wife. And there are born again Christian men that put their wife down all the time, and go out to eat with somebody and just put her down all the time. Just playing around, put her down. That is not right. Praise God. Amen.