Kenneth Copeland - Receive Your Covenant Promises by Listening
Open your Bibles with me please to the sixth chapter of John's gospel. Very... no, let me put it this way. An extremely important message is in these few verses. Verse five, when Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company coming to him, he saith unto Philip, Now listen, listen to what he said now unto Philip. Whence or where Shall we buy bread that these may eat. This he said to prove him for he himself knew what he would do. I want to stop right there. Jesus is working on something. Amen. He already knew what he would do.
Now that's important, and he said, where? Where shall we buy food? Now, this is out in the middle of a desert. You read that in the book of Mark it's the same account. It's out in the middle of the desert and it really qualifies for a famine. It's getting dark. It's dangerous out there, and they don't have anything to eat and Jesus wants to know where are we going to buy food? Amen. Phillip answered him 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them that everyone of them take a little. He wasn't listening. He did it here where Dumb de Dumb Dumb, now don't sit there and look at me in that tone of voice.
One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, there's a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes. What are they among so many? Now he's thinking, well, maybe we ought to buy from this boy here or something, I don't know. Jesus said, make the men sit down. Now, there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down in number about 5,000. Jesus took the loaves, when he had given thanks he distributed to his disciples and the disciples to them that were sat down and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore, they gathered them together and filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Nobody's listening. They were busy thinking about other things.
Now turn back with me. Hold your place, we're coming back to there. Let's look at Mark chapter six. This is Mark's account, but we don't start with the 35th verses of the desert place, you give them to eat and all that. No, you start at the 34th verse. Jesus, when he came out saw much people was moved with compassion toward them because they were as sheep not having a shepherd and he began to teach them many thing. Then go back to John. How does faith come? Faith come up by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Now in careful study of this.
Well no, I'm going to go back over those sixth chapter Mark once again. Cause there's something else there you need to see. Verse 31, he said unto them, come ye yourselves apart for into a desert place and rest awhile, for there were many coming and going and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. And the people saw them departing and many knew him and ran a foot there out of all the cities out with them and came together to him. So they were tired, they had no rest and they, looking at all that crowd. They went out there to rest, and now dear Lord, look at this. 15, 20,000 people out here. Don't they let anybody alone? No. But you see the faith for this miracle was in the people. Cause he taught them many things all day long. It was getting dark. They were worried about it. This places dangerous in the nighttime. So Jesus, knew what he would do.
Now turn with me to the book of Joshua chapter two. Now, Joshua didn't send out 12 he sent out two. He made sure he had a couple of faith guys. He been through that drill before. You know? So then they came across Rahab the harlot, in the second chapter. I want you to notice something here. The eighth verse, before they were laid down, she came upon, came up unto them up on the roof. She said unto the men, I know that the Lord has given you the land, that your terror is fallen upon us and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red sea when he came out of Egypt. When you came out of Egypt and what you did to the Kings of the Amorites that were on the other side of Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt. Neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven, above and in the earth beneath. But now God's not going to tell them that, they have to walk by faith. Not my sight. He's a faith God. He's a covenant keeping God. Are you listening to me?
They, it was not but an 11 day walk. The last time they praised him was right after they through that Red Sea and they quit praising him and started saying, we're going to die in this desert. We're going to die in the desert. We're going to die in the desert. We're going to die in the desert. Something about you have what you say. He already knew what he was gonna do. They could of walked in there without firing a shot. It would have been a like Iraq in the Gulf war. Those people surrendered to helicopters. They had it flip flopped. They were the giants and the giants were the grasshoppers. They were deathly afraid of these people. Anybody that do that to the Red Sea and that whole army drown in that Sea. They were scared.
Spitless of this group of people and they gave the devil 40 years to regroup. Jesus knew what he was going to do. God knew he'd already done it. On the other side of his command is a blessing of faith. Always. He already has that worked out. Isn't this exciting? I'll tell you, but think about it now. He already knows what he's going to do. Now he tells you to do something. Oh Lord. Oh, don't be doing that. I mean holler yes and jump just high as you can, salute and run around in a circle. Something's up.
Glory to God, I can hardly wait to get to the other side of this. I know what is done. Oh, hallelujah. Woo. This is my glory day. Thank God he's told me something I can't do. If I could do it. Who gets any glory out of that? Come on, Jesus. Tell me something that is completely impossible. I yours to command. I am your man. Thank God by Grace and faith we'll get it done, hallelujah. I done preached me happy, I ain't been here 15 minutes. Ooh, glory be to God. Thank you Jesus, Oh, praise God. Praise God.
Now, it's in the listening. I have a very, very good friend in East London, South Africa. And uh, his name is Andre Roberto, pastor of the River church. I was there a number of years ago and, and this man, was one of the first, he sowed a million Rand into the citation 10. We were believing God for it at the time, which turns out to be something between about $850,000 U.S. And, uh, Oh my. He put me in a little golf cart and we're driving around the church property and um, East London is in an industrial area and he took me into this huge warehouse, something like 600,000 square feet. It's old, old, old. And you know, in South Africa, the sheep businesses is big and particularly in that area.
Anyway, that's this thing had been and it goes all the way back. And it had been and old storage place for wool and I don't know. It was old, old, old. And he said, now we're gonna, we are going to redo all this. You know, there's just posts everywhere. It's just a nasty old building that the people wanted too much money for. And he told them, no, I'm not paying that. They said, why are you not paying that? He said, God told me not to pay that. They said God told you to not pay, yeah God told me not to pay that. God told me to pay this and that's all I'm paying. Anyway, they wound up saying, well, you know, okay, you and God can have it. Something like that anyway.
There's a lot of years ago and we're driving through there and he said, now all these posts are going to be gone and they're going to turn this into a dome. And, and uh, so anyway, Andre is praying over this absolutely totally, completely, impossible instructions that he received from the Lord Jesus. It's going to cost an absolute fortune to overhaul this very, very ugly monstrosity. And he's telling me all of this and I go, okay, yeah, but you know, he's a man of faith, so I'm sure not arguing with it. And we're driving all through that thing and anyway, make this story meaningful. He just kept praying and just kept listening and, yes sir. And the Lord said, don't worry about it. The money to cover it all is in the floor. What does that mean? We're going to dig up gold? Money is in the floor.
Okay. He and Jenny just started, you know, thank God the money's in the floor. Yeah, the money's in the floor. They just kept believing God. Just kept going, kept going. God just kept making a way and they kept going. Money's in the floor and they got got ready and they ripped the floor up and just another old bad floor. This is more nasty floor under that one. Well, I don't know maybe, you know, maybe it has some of the kind of meaning and maybe it's a, I don't want to, who knows? Yeah, but the money's in the floor. The money's in the floor. Yes. The money's in the floor. Absolutely the money's in the floor. Must be in the floor. Money gotta be in the floor. God, the money's got to be in the floor.
This thing is costing so much money to do this and all that kind of thing. So it came time to rip up this other floor. Underneath that floor was another floor made of such rare wood that it is against the law in South Africa to cut one of those trees. But it's very, very old, and makes the finest furniture known to man makes the best. Absolutely the best guitar frets in the world, and you can't even get it anymore. The money was in the floor. Millions of dollars.
Listen, you ready to hear? He doesn't have any bad news for you. You may have some correction for you. But it's not bad news. Amen. And you need to be listening. Your father could make every human being ever born rich beyond their wildest dreams and never touch his reserve. And that's really what he had planned in the beginning. In the book of Deuteronomy, he said there shouldn't be no poor among you. Well think about it, there should be no sick among you. There should be no premature death among you. Only that which God has promised. He's also able to do abundantly more. Did you get anything out of that? Come on, give the Lord praise.