Kenneth Copeland - Our Healing Covenant Blesses Others
Father, thank You for today. We're so excited, thrilled about the very thought of being in an active, living, blood agreement with You, that Jesus is so real, our blood Brother, and You are our covenant Friend and our Father. And we thank You and we praise You for it in Jesus' Name, amen.
Kenneth Copeland: Greg, this. What we see, let's go over here. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. In Ephesians Two, "Wherefore remember, you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcised". Remember what David said? That bear didn't have any covenant with God. That lion had no covenant with God. And I'm adding this. And I had supernatural strength because I have a covenant with God and that uncircumcised giant over there, I'll kill him!
Greg Stephens: You're right.
Kenneth Copeland: So, so covenant-minded. I mean, everything to David was covenant. Everything in his life was covenant with God.
Greg Stephens: That's right.
Kenneth Copeland: I'll kill him! He didn't say, I'm gonna try. He said, "King, I'll kill him".
Greg Stephens: That's right.
Kenneth Copeland: I'll get it done.
Greg Stephens: That's right.
Kenneth Copeland: So now, "strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, but now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ", that covenant blood. This, theirs was a national covenant, land and so forth. It was also a healing covenant.
Greg Stephens: Yes it was.
Kenneth Copeland: Ours is a redemption, healing, prosperity covenant. But the thing that people struggle with are the healing and the prosperity.
Greg Stephens: Mmhmm, mmhmm, it's true.
Kenneth Copeland: Now, let's deal with the healing covenant.
Greg Stephens: Jesus made no distinction between saving somebody spiritually and healing 'em.
Kenneth Copeland: Not one word.
Greg Stephens: 'Cause they both come from. This loss of salvation and sickness both come from the same place. So does poverty.
Kenneth Copeland: Oh sure, it's a curse. That's where it all happened in the first place. And we've been redeemed from it.
Greg Stephens: You got to talking about the blood, here, the blood of this covenant. I just thought of something. Blood is something that the angels look back, when He created Adam and made blood, they don't have that.
Kenneth Copeland: That's right.
Greg Stephens: They looked at that. What is that? We're the only ones that had that blood. And then the Father, when Jesus came, He became blood. And so my blood covenant now is sealed by a pretty high member.
Kenneth Copeland: Well, and when God named him blood.
Greg Stephens: Yes, He did.
Kenneth Copeland: He named Adam, Adam, named him blood. And they think, what is man? They don't know what a man is.
Greg Stephens: This is why that blood is so precious.
Kenneth Copeland: Oh, yeah.
Greg Stephens: So precious.
Kenneth Copeland: It didn't happen until man came.
Greg Stephens: So He's gonna introduce a brand new name to the nation of Israel in Exodus 15 there.
Kenneth Copeland: I want you to look at this. "If you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God", His voice, His Word, His covenant is His voice. "And will do that which is right in His sight, and will give ear to His commandments and statutes", all of that comes out of the covenant of the blessing of Abraham, that covenant blessing. And I get it. "I will put or none of these diseases will come on you, which were brought upon the Egyptians: for I am Jehovah Rapha".
Greg Stephens: Yes, sir.
Kenneth Copeland: "I am the Lord that heals". Well, Brother Copeland, you see, that's all passed away. It hasn't changed His name and that's not gonna happen.
Greg Stephens: No, He put "I am" in front of there. "Ehyeh asher ehyeh Jehovah Rapha".
Kenneth Copeland: And I am what I am.
Greg Stephens: Yes sir, I will be whatever I need to be.
Kenneth Copeland: For you.
Greg Stephens: Absolutely.
Kenneth Copeland: Or for anybody that'll just walk in that covenant.
Greg Stephens: That's strong.
Kenneth Copeland: Yeah, but Brother Copeland, I can't keep those commandments. You can repent, can't ya?
Greg Stephens: Then you can do it.
Kenneth Copeland: You can do it.
Greg Stephens: You can do it in Christ.
Kenneth Copeland: And, hey, we only have one that's in two parts. Believe on the Name of Jesus and love one another.
Greg Stephens: That's it.
Kenneth Copeland: Even as He loves the brethren. And you satisfy all
Greg Stephens: It fulfills all of it.
Kenneth Copeland: Of the other commandments.
Greg Stephens: Now, that's not the first place healing came in. Healing came in with God's covenant friend of Abraham. When Abraham prayed for the king, Abimelech, I believe it was.
Kenneth Copeland: I love it.
Greg Stephens: And God, because of the covenant, healed this other king.
Kenneth Copeland: Otherwise, that king had had it.
Greg Stephens: Who doesn't have, well, he couldn't, here's the deal. He couldn't, they couldn't have children. So here's a man believing for children, been promised children, prays for this king, who then has children and then God heals them. And God's doing what He's already promised Abraham because Abraham, His friend, asked for it. Now, there's an example of a stranger, not having a covenant, and God healed him on the word of a person with a covenant.
Kenneth Copeland: That's right.
Greg Stephens: There are so many people that have been blessed because of your faithfulness to fly for Oral Roberts, ministry after ministry after ministry, covenanted with you, that are flying all over the world. You see what a covenant will do? It'll bless those around about you. Now, we're not strangers getting the overflow blessing. Oh, no, no sir. I Am has shed His blood and we've been grafted into this healing covenant. Now that word Jehovah Rapha is very interesting in Hebrew. Jehovah Rapha, it means, 'cause I always wondered this. Why stripes? "By His stripes you were healed". Why not the piercing in His hands or His feet? Or why not something else? Why was it the stripes? And I realized it's the exchange because Rapha means to mend or to stitch, to mend or to stitch. I am the Lord that will mend you.
Kenneth Copeland: Well, well, well.
Greg Stephens: And stitch you, so the exchange happened. They ripped Him open and He's the One, when I should have been whipped and beaten, ripped open, He's the One that then exchanged and will mend me and heal me. So that speaks to me in two ways. The spiritual aspect of that, of His healing nature, but also the wisdom that He's placed in doctors and nurses that can mend this suit that I'm wearing.
Kenneth Copeland: Praise God.
Greg Stephens: Amen, so that's a very interesting, interesting thing. Then you go on and you see where Miriam is healed of leprosy when Moses prays. There's a covenant man. The bitter waters with the tree. Once again, here we go with a tree. The tree was gonna take away the bitterness. Now we have living water. Job will have everything that has been taken from him, will be restored double and that's part of this covenant. So those are some examples of healing that happened as a result of the covenant.
Kenneth Copeland: You know, there was a man. This was years ago. He was living, he and his wife were living and he had founded a church in Hawaii and had come from the mainland some years before where he had founded a church here. And the Lord began dealing with him about turning that church over to someone else, coming back to the mainland, and starting another work here in the United States. And he just was not doing good physically at all. Went to the doctor and diagnosed him with cancer. Well, he and his wife talked about it. I've forgotten the exact details, but here was the bottom line. They prayed about it and he said, well, when the Lord said for me to go back to the mainland and start another work, He didn't say anything to me about having cancer.
Greg Stephens: Hmm.
Kenneth Copeland: Now he had another appointment to go back and see that doctor. He said, I'm not gonna go. He said, I agree to go back to the mainland and start this other work. He said, I'm just gonna go on like He told me to do. Now, this is a man that, strong, strong in his covenant with Jesus. Said so. And he agreed to do what Jesus told him to do. And so he didn't keep the appointment. He said, I guess the guy thinks I died. But now, hey, you've gotta come to that place where you're fully persuaded.
Greg Stephens: That's right.
Kenneth Copeland: And he came to that place in spending time in God's presence. You don't just snap this off the top of your head. He just, he took the time to get in His presence. He and his wife both did. And he did not get afraid and all that disturbed by his diagnosis. Now this is just huge. And the bottom line was, well, if I'm gonna die, I'm gonna go on and die obeying what He said, and He'll take care of me.
Greg Stephens: That's right.
Kenneth Copeland: He just went on. Now that doesn't mean that he didn't have a fight on his hands. But he just acted like the covenant was true and acted like what God said was what He wanted him to do. And he just went on and after a while, he just, that cancer just got less and less and less and then was gone. Greg Stephens: He's walking on the Word that the Lord told him.
Kenneth Copeland: The last thing God said for him.
Greg Stephens: God says it. Well, that's Paul. Paul is shipwrecked. The last thing he had been told was, you must stand before Caesar.
Kenneth Copeland: You're gonna have to go to Rome.
Greg Stephens: And in that journey, he's in the ocean, bobbing, and then he gets out and builds a fire and a viper hits him. I mean, he had several things he had to shake off, but he stood on that.
Kenneth Copeland: That plan, Greg, was bigger than the problem.
Greg Stephens: Mmm, that's good.
Kenneth Copeland: And he had to be reminded of it. Jesus told him about it, and the angel told him about it and then the angel had to come back and remind him. No, you're not gonna. He said, "We had no hope of surviving this hurricane that we're in". The angel said, "No, no". No, you're going to Rome. And he said, "Cheer up" and they were throwing up. You know... Cheer up. It'll be just like my God told me. And if you pay attention to Him, and do what the Lord said to tell you to do, we're all gonna make it.
Greg Stephens: I know exactly what you're talking about. I flew through a hurricane one time in the Air Force. I thought, "Whose idea was this"? And then you reach that peaceful place in the eye of that thing.
Kenneth Copeland: It had to be in a C-130 to get it.
Greg Stephens: It was in a C-130.
Kenneth Copeland: Yeah, it had to be.
Greg Stephens: And we get in this eye of that and it was so peaceful and I'm thinking, oh this is nice. I wish we could just stay here then I realized, no, we gotta go.
Kenneth Copeland: You gotta go through it on the other side.
Greg Stephens: On other side of this thing. Following the instructions of the covenant. That's what He says here in Exodus 15. Think about Namaan the Syrian. Elisha tells him, "Go dip in that Jordan seven times".
Kenneth Copeland: Yes, sir.
Greg Stephens: Now I don't wanna dip there. There's some nice rivers up in Syria. Interesting thing about that Namaan guy and this is Elisha. Hebrew scholars will teach this, that, the tradition is, that he is the guy that mortally wounded Ahab, who was the enemy of Elijah, Elisha's founder. And so he comes to. He ends up coming to the prophet that had overthrown Ahab and Jezabel, you know, his mentor and all that, gives him instructions and he goes and does it. And because he followed the instructions, he was whole. And that's just a key. The last thing He said for you to do. Well I don't know what to do. Pastor Greg, I can't hear God's voice. What's the last thing He told you to do?
Kenneth Copeland: Yeah, go back to the last thing He said.
Greg Stephens: And do that. So this is all, look at this. This is a healing covenant, that as Gentiles, we weren't part of, yet, even there in His mercy, in His Hesed, God's healing Gentiles because of the relationship to people in covenant. A lot of people go to healing meetings for that very reason. They don't know the first thing about Jesus or about anything. There are people. In Jesus' ministry, they didn't know anything about Him, but they'd heard. If I can just get there, I can be made whole. Now, certain ones would call upon covenant. "Son of David" and blind Bartimaeus, the Syrophoenician woman. They had an understanding, but others had just heard about it and got there and had an encounter with Him. So there's a transition that begins to happen between the first and the second covenant. Like we talked about this earlier in the week. They wanted to make Jesus the king, the Messiah King, right then and He resisted that. The wise men come and they said, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews"? And they worshiped Him as a King. Very interesting thing. John and Jesus are a transition moment, the Apostle John and Jesus Himself are a transition moment from the First covenant to the Second covenant. In my Bible, I have a, you know I told ya I tried to convert to Judaism at one time. But right here at Malachi in my Bible, I have a big arrow.
Kenneth Copeland: Oh, I love it! Turn that around where we can see.
Greg Stephens: I have a great big arrow right there pointing.
Kenneth Copeland: Keep goin'!
Greg Stephens: Keep goin' to this side. This is the side that all of the realities of everything I've studied will be in my life. This is all just a picture of it. This is the fulfillment in my life.
Kenneth Copeland: That's the real thing.
Greg Stephens: So I drew that with a pen and I keep it there. And every Bible, no matter what version I buy, I do that same thing. I do that arrow there to remind me that there's a change that's happened. A common recognized sign of the Messiah in Israel is that He will bring healing and miracles to the people.
Kenneth Copeland: Praise God.
Greg Stephens: That was a sign that they always looked for. The Prophets caught a glimpse of this, but not fully, not really. It was still a mystery to them, our age. So the common belief is that Messiah will come and He'll set up His Kingdom. That's in front of us. That will happen. It's not happening yet. When He returns, that's what's going to happen. So three things have to happen when a new priest comes into office. They are immersed in water, baptized. They are anointed after they are baptized and then words are spoken over them. Now think about when Jesus comes to John. What happens to Him? He walks in. He's immersed in the water. He comes out. The Holy Spirit descends upon Him. He's anointed. And then the Father speaks, "This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased". He has words spoken on Him. Brother Copeland, I firmly believe that there was a change in the priesthood of Israel that day, that the people who were the priests in Jerusalem, not any more. It's just like David, Son of David. He's anointed to be king right then, anointed to be priest. He's walking in his priestly office before He's ever in office, just like David was. So when they called out, "Son of David", they're absolutely right. They're talking about something that's happening. So around age 30 is when this thing happens and He's baptized and He begins to preach a message, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand". John will end up in prison and John will send word in Matthew Chapter 11 he said, "Are you the one or should we look for another"? And what did He tell him? "Go tell John the blind see".
Kenneth Copeland: People are getting healed.
Greg Stephens: "The deaf hear".
Kenneth Copeland: People are getting healed.
Greg Stephens: Praise God, "the lame walk". He points them to the healing anointing of the Messiah and walking in that anointing. And now He's done that with us. He did that to His disciples and He will do that with us. He gives us that same anointing. When He sends out the 12, interesting thing here. He sends out the 12. He said, "Don't go the way of the Gentiles". Isn't that interesting? He said, "But rather go to the lost sheep of Israel" when He sent them out. And He said, "Preach the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand". Listen to what He says. "Heal the sick. Cleanse the lepers". This is Matthew Chapter 10, verse five through eight. "Heal the sick. Cleanse the lepers. Cast out devils". But He said don't go by the way of the Gentiles. So what's He doing? He's operating in that first covenant still. There will come a time, though, when He will ascend and the angels will say, why are you guys standing and looking here in the sky? This same Jesus will come. When He will say, "Go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth". So our assignment is to take the healing anointing that had been given to them all the way back in Exodus 15 and take it to the nations.
Kenneth Copeland: Well, look what He said in the last chapter of the Book of Mark, 14th verse. "Afterward He appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen. And He said, 'Go ye into all the world, 'and preach the gospel to every creature'". What is that gospel? Galatians 3:8 that "all nations will be blessed" in Abraham.
Greg Stephens: Mmhmm.
Kenneth Copeland: "He that believes and baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be damned", or condemned. "These signs shall follow them that believe. In my name",
Greg Stephens: There it is.
Kenneth Copeland: "They'll cast out devils. They'll speak with new tongues. They'll take up serpents. If they drink any deadly thing, it'll not hurt them. They'll lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover".
Greg Stephens: There it is.
Kenneth Copeland: He set the whole Church in motion to take healing. Healing is what draws the people, Greg.
Greg Stephens: Yeah.
Kenneth Copeland: Healing draws the people.
Greg Stephens: We're doing the works of the Messiah because we're the body of the Messiah.
Kenneth Copeland: That's right.
Greg Stephens: And so that anointing has come upon us. That is a sign. That is a covenant sign. Healing, casting out devils. It's a covenant sign.
Kenneth Copeland: Praise God.
Greg Stephens: You wanna know if you're in the covenant? Lay hands on the sick. And He didn't say don't do this with the Gentiles, now because that day is gone.
Kenneth Copeland: Yeah it is.
Greg Stephens: We're part of this. We've been grafted into this covenant. The Church age, our age, is the spiritual seed "chosen in Him from the foundation of the world", Ephesians tells us.
Kenneth Copeland: Glory to God.
Greg Stephens: And that's what we walk in daily. Every single day.
Kenneth Copeland: Thank You Jesus.
Greg Stephens: "Healing is the children's bread". I'm a child.
Kenneth Copeland: Healing, prosperity, and redemption. Let's say it in proper order. Redemption, you got born again. You didn't have to get born again to be healed. I'm gonna say it again. You didn't have to be born again to get healed because Jesus is the gift to the world and He's the Healer and we're His representatives. We oughta be able to lay hands on anybody that's sick. I mean, come on, Jesus'll heal you, sister. Jesus'll heal you, brother. Come on, come on, come on here. Well, what if He doesn't do it? No, you just stay at home.
Greg Stephens: You're not fully persuaded.
Kenneth Copeland: No, you're not fully persuaded. And I'm fully persuaded we're out of time.
Greg Stephens: That's right, amen.