Kenneth Copeland - You'll Have What You Consider and Say
Now I want to talk to you this morning about God, a covenant, and the contradiction. God, a covenant, and a contradiction. Now, I want you to turn with me to the book of Romans, please. Fourth chapter, Ah, thank you Jesus. Romans chapter four and we'll begin reading with the 16th verse. "Therefore, it is in faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the promise". Every time now, when you see promise, I mean your spiritual antenna oughta go right straight up. "The promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the Father of us all, as it is written. I have made thee a Father of many nations".
Did you see that in your Bible? Look at it again. "I have made thee a Father of many nations. Before him, or like him, whom he believed even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things, which be not as though they were". He is referring to the 17th chapter of the book of Genesis. Let's turn there please. "When Abraham was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said unto him, I am," now, I want you to notice, am is in italics. I want you to, I want you to get a sense and a feel for this. He said, I, the almighty God, walk before me and be blameless. I love it.
"I am the almighty God, walk before me and be thou blameless. I will make my covenant between me and thee and will multiply thee exceedingly and Abraham fell on his face and God talked with him saying, as for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, thou shalt be a Father of many nations". Here is a, if only you knew how significant this is. I want you to notice the words, verse four. "As for me, behold my covenant is with thee and thou shalt be a Father of many nations".
Now, then I want you to notice here, he said, as for me, this is my idea, as for me. Now you, hey, you don't have to do this. You don't have to do this. What was he looking for in him, David? He was looking for a faithful man that had one qualification, he would teach his children. He'd raise his children right and teach them covenant and he did that. He did that. Hallelujah. Glory, I say glory to God. Thank you, Lord Jesus.
"As for me, my covenant is with thee. I will make thee, verse six, I will make thee, I will make thee exceeding fruitful. I will make nations of thee and Kings shall come out of thee and I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God under thee and to be thy seed after thee".
Now, wait a minute here. This man is 99 years old. His wife has been barren all of her life and she's 90. He was a hundred by the time that baby was born and God said, I have made thee a Father of many nations, didn't say I'm going to and if you, you know, if you'll act right and live right, this might work out, no, no, he said, I've already done this. You want the job? As for me, I've made you, I've already done this. I have made you. I have done it. I have made you. How did that work? There is a direct contradiction here. He got a hundred year old man and a 90 year old barren woman. There's just not much, there's not much chance of them having children here. There's a direct contradiction.
Well, I want to tell you something that I learned from Brother Hagin and I want to get this over to you. I tell you, you just have to have this. You have to have this. Barry, God's Word is. Well, God's Word is truth. Now, don't add the truth to it. Don't add the word truth to it. No, don't add anything to that. God's Word is. Well, what does that mean Brother Copeland? Well, if Jesus were to appear right here this morning and were to say, my, my, isn't this a lovely Monday morning? Uh, Lord, no, no, no, no, no, Lord, this is Saturday. Not anymore, it isn't. Check your calendar, it's Monday. Because his Word is and the minute he said it, everything changed. The minute he said, I have made you the Father of many nations and you're going to have a son, made him fruitful right then. Amen.
And Abraham learned the secret to life, calling things that be not as though they were. A huge problem with human beings, a monster of a problem in Christian people is calling things that are the way they are. I remember Charles Cap, Capps. I miss him, he's, he's, he's in glory now, and I'll tell you, Charles, Charles had a way, I mean, Charles Capps could put things, like you think, I've done this many times, I'd say, Charles, I wish I'd have thought of that. I'll tell you one time, they, Charles was, was a flying farmer they, and Jerry came there to preach then, and what he had, he planted soybeans and what was it?
Jerry: He had cotton, but he changed it to soybeans.
Kenneth Copeland: Yeah, he'd been, and Jerry said, how come you didn't plant cotton? Charles said, I didn't want cotton. Dumb dumb, I didn't want cotton, I wanted soybean. You can't plant soybeans and get cotton. You can't plant cotton and get soybeans. You got to plant soybeans to get soybeans and you got to plant cotton to get cotton. And to change things, you're going to have to call things that be not as though they were. Amen. You can't change it by calling them the way they are. Oh, oh, I'm so sick. Oh, I bet I got COVID. Oh, oh, oh God, oh God, I'm so sick. That's not the way to get healed. That's the way to get sicker. Well, what do you do? I call my body well. I call my body well. Hallelujah.
I'm like Abraham, I call my body well. Amen, Hallelujah, with a smile on your face, sweat coming down off your brow. I call my, I call myself well, I call my body well, I consider not these symptoms, glory to God, they're a lie of the devil, hallelujah. I don't deny the symptoms, I deny their right to live in this holy sacrifice, my body. I deny you're right. I deny the symptoms. Hallelujah. Having divine light on the circumstances.
Why give one thought to the deceptive appearances that the, the, the symptoms of this thing, just completely ignore them. I consider not, I consider him who bore this thing on the cross. I consider my Jesus. I consider, what do I consider? I'm not considering these symptoms. I'm not considering that. I don't even touch that. No, glory to God. I don't care what they are. I don't care what the pain is. No sir, no ma'am. I don't touch that. I don't consider that. He considered not his body, he considered only the covenant.
I consider not my body, 83 years old, but only what he promised, 120 years. That's the only age in the Bible that God said, he didn't say 70 or 80, three score and 10, he did not say that. That was a curse, you can read it in the 90th Psalm. Moses was, was crying out to God. It is a curse on these people for disobedience in the words that they said. They had spent so many years in bondage in Egypt, they no longer had any concept, they had no longer had any concept of the law. They had no longer had any concept of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. They had no concept of that and they were, they were beaten down, beat up. We're going to die in this desert. He brought us out here to kill us.
What are we going to do? We're going to die out here. They're covenant people. See, when you don't understand covenant, you don't understand that. He made a covenant with these people. He promised Abraham, in the 15th chapter of Genesis, that he would bring them out of 400 years of bondage. He promised it. He'd get, this is a covenant promise of God and now he's fulfilling that covenant. He is a covenant-keeping God. Say it, he is a covenant-keeping God. He is aware of his covenant. Say that, he is aware of his covenant. He is the almighty God, say it. I put my trust in him. He can do what he said he can do. He is who he said he is. He's the almighty God! He's the El Shaddai God and I have a covenant with him and it's a healing covenant and that's the reason I'm well and strong today, hallelujah, is because of my healing covenant with my Jesus, El Shaddai in the flesh. Hallelujah.
Look at Hebrews 3:1. "Wherefore, Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider". Say it, consider. "Consider the apostle and I preached of our profession, or our confession Christ Jesus, who's faithful to him that appointed him. Consider him". I consider not my own body. I consider not these symptoms, I consider not the sickness, I consider not the threat. I consider not what's happening in my nation right now. I don't consider that, no, no, no, no, I don't consider that, I don't lament over that. I consider him that bore it. I consider him to whom this nation belongs. I consider him. I consider him, not with the sickness roaring in my body.
I don't consider, I don't consider the diabetes that's been trying to kill me. I got stage one, or stage two. I'm, I don't consider that. I don't consider what's happening in my pancreas, glory to God. I consider my Jesus. I consider him that bore that on the cross. I consider him that, hey. Hallelujah. I consider him. I consider him right now. I consider you, Lord Jesus and where is he? Right here. Right here and he's here among us today. Glory to God.
Hebrews 12. "Wherefore seeing we are compassed about, with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us". What sin? Fear, worry, that's sinful 'cause anything that doesn't precede with faith is sin. "Let us run with patience, the race that is set before us. Looking". Looking where? "Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher, the developer of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God, consider him"!
Consider him, hallelujah. Oh, consider him! Consider him that did what? Consider him that endured such contradiction, that's what we're talking about. Abraham had direct contradiction to what God said. No way he could have a child at a hundred, but Jerry, there's another, there's another thing to that. Sarah died, but Abraham had learned the secret to life, brother. 25th chapter of Genesis. He remarried and had six more sons and lived to be 175. Woo! Glory to God. Can you see it? This wasn't just a one-time thing. I mean, he didn't just have one son and just dry up and be an old man again. No, no, it renewed him for life.