Kenneth Copeland - Sharing the Gospel Through Covenant Partnership
— Hello everybody, I'm Kenneth Copeland. This is the "Believer's Voice of Victory". Now, we got a lot to say today, so let's just get right down into this. Let's open our Bibles to where we were yesterday in the book of Philippians. Now, I remind you that he said "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, for your fellowship, your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now". From the first day until now.
— God is good.
— And then "Because I have you all in my heart"... Now, I wanna... I don't know of a better way to describe my relationship with my partners. And they're on my mind all the time. Now, I want you to go in here, he said, verse 17. Uh, back up here. "The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds; but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. What then? Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice For I know"... Now, listen to this partners, listen to this carefully. "I know that this shall turn to my salvation", Greg, "Through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed but with all, but with that boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death, for me to live as Christ, and to die is gain". "But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor: yet what I shall choose I know not, for I am in a straight between two"... Listen... Where's my camera? Listen now, partners, listen to those who are praying about becoming a partner with this ministry. "Having a desire to part and to be with Christ which is far better, nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you". Now, he's writing a letter and to us it seems like you know, he's just writing a letter. No, no.
— In prison.
— He's in prison, and he's up something like this in sewage underneath this thing. And he's dictating it. And he's thinking 'Man I'd like to get outta here. I'd like to just die and go, but I can't.' And I'm totally convinced that "to abide in the flesh is more needful for you". Now, he's already said this is a letter to his partners, and his partner in church. Greg, I'm convinced that he made that decision while he's writing this letter.
— Absolutely.
— And he lived a number of years after that.
— Yes, absolutely. But they needed him.
— They needed to hear this.
— Their spiritual fathers. Just as much as you are blessed by your partners, we're blessed by you. We need your example in the world today. That's part of why the Lord asked you about living to 120. For Him, but for us.
— Oh I remember that. I was out on my back deck and before I've spent a lot of time praying out there. And in the Spirit... Our home is right there on the lake, it's just a little ways across the lake there. In the Spirit I could see this bridge going across the lake and I "what is that"? And I don't know where that bridge is going, and it bothered me. And I kept looking at it, and kept looking at it and He talked to me about Barzillai and the fact that he was old, and he was 80 and he couldn't hear, and he couldn't see, and David was going back to Jerusalem and he wanted him to go with him, but he wouldn't go. And I thought, you know what? Had he had gone, God would have healed him. And I'm sitting there thinking that. And Gloria had been teaching and preaching on the 90th Psalm, which is "Threescore and ten, fourscore by strength". And in the Classic Amplified, there is a footnote at the bottom saying this never was to be the longevity of man. But Genesis 6:3 says the normal lifespan of a man shall be 120 years. And I kept thinking about that, and thinking about that. And all of those scriptures kept going through my mind. And I heard this. "Kenneth, will you go to Jerusalem with me"? I said of course I will, of course I will! And I said "Jerusalem is"? And he said "In your case, Jerusalem is Genesis 6:3. Will you do this for me"? I said "I absolutely will do it for you". And right then I committed to him, and I entered into a covenant with him, a longevity covenant, and that I will in the name of Jesus, with your help, I will live and I will preach and teach the word of faith. Now, this is where the difference was. A lot of people have lived that long, and God bless them! But he's talking about to preach and teach the word of faith, because that was my assignment, teach my people faith. And so I said "Of course I'll do it". I got all excited about it and that's when it began. And he took me through all the steps, and then he got up to where I'm up to 85 and 90 and he said "Kenneth, I don't have these anointings in the earth. They're not here. 90 to 100, they're not here. 100 to 120? They do not exist. And I'm asking you if you will do that for me". I said "I most certainly will". And I saw it in the Spirit. December the sixth, 2056. I'm not staying here a second longer. I'm getting out of here thank you very much. And I didn't think about it at the time. Now, you begin to be an oddity when you're still preaching the word of faith and still in good physical condition at 90. But you get up to 95, the news media becomes interested in you. And anything above that?
— That's a rarefied area.
— Son listen, you're gonna have all kinds of cameras around.
— Yes sir.
— And I saw it in the Spirit, Greg.
— Amen.
— On a platform, outside. There's so many people that had come to watch this event, just a multitude of people. I had Gloria standing there by my side, she's 115. And we're standing there on that platform, and I preached the word of faith, I preached Mark 11:22-23 and suddenly there was Jesus right there. Just right there. And he said "All right kids, come on". And many many people in the congregation saw him. Now, there's a lot of people that have decided to do this just because they heard me say it and preach it and teach it, you know?
— God asked you to do it.
— He asked me to do it.
— Didn't tell you to, asked you.
— No he didn't, he asked me to. And that's the reason you can't kill me. You can't. So, and right there our bodies just fall on the platform and off we go.
— Hallelujah. You know what you're describing is a Biblical scene of another covenant partnership. Elijah and Elisha.
— Yes, I was hoping you would get that.
— He saw him go, when I say him go. And he had got a double portion anointing from his partnership with Elijah. I look at Elijah, the fulfillment of this, Elijah and Elisha are John the Baptist and Jesus, and he even said that. It would come in the Spirit, the Sprit are the anointing. Elijah's name in Hebrew is Eliyyahu and it means "Yahweh is my God". And Elisha, his name is Elishua, means "God is my salvation". So it's a perfect picture of these two. There was a school of the prophets, and there was a lot of people around in Elisha's day that didn't get that anointing. But the guy who partnered with him, even tried to get rid of him once, left his job on the farm and stayed with him.
— Now, you think about what a gutsy guy.
— Yeah.
— He was plowing behind a team of oxen. So he just killed the oxen and made a sacrifice outta them and burned the whole thing, and "I'm going with you sir". He said "Nah, I'm going with you. Yup, I'm going with you. Hey I'm going with you".
— And the first thing he does when he sees him go, was the first thing he does was he goes over and gets that mantel and he says "Where's the Lord God of Elijah"? And he parts the water with it. He does the exact same thing he saw his Rabbi do. See what I'm saying? Jesus said "Greater works will I do". That's His expectation of us.
— Yes it is.
— And so when he sent them out, two by two...
— Bill Winston said "Jesus is the sample son".
— I like it.
— Don't you like that?
— I'll give Bill credit one time.
— I like the things that Dr. William Winston says. That He's the sample son, that we're supposed to be doing what He does. Amen.
— And that's what He did, when He sent them out two by two with His anointing and His authority and His power, that's what they did. Let me show it to you. Go to Acts chapter 3. You'll see them walk out what Jesus told them to do.
— Yes he did.
— Now what did He say when he sent them out, He said "Don't worry about what you're taking with you or what you're packing" or all that kind of stuff.
— You know, it just...
— He didn't tell them don't have money.
— No, he said "Don't take any of your stuff".
— That's right.
— And there are people that think they wore the same clothes for three and a half years. You gotta be... Anyway. Now at the end, what He said was you're going to work for me, and hey I'll take care of you, I'll supply everything. Now, this is the man divided the loaves and fishes and fed thousands, you think He can't clothe you nicely? So because he had partners, we read that in book of Luke, and so at the close, He said "Did you lack anything"? They said "No, Lord, we lacked nothing".
— You just mentioned He fed the 5,000. Elijah will take barley, and feed 100 men with it. He's the type and shadow of exactly what Jesus did. Acts chapter 3, in case you were wondering, I don't know where he gets John as Elijah and Jesus Elisha, well Elisha fed that multitude... Anyway. Acts chapter 3, here the boys are gonna play this out, exactly what Jesus said. "Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man lain from his mother's womb was carried whom they laid daily"...
— And the ninth hour is three o'clock in the afternoon.
— "Of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered in the temple; Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked in alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him"... I wanna replay that. I wanna see what Peter looked like when he fastened his eyes on him. I think it was intense. Because I've been drawn by the Spirit like that before, and you just can't get your eyes off somebody... "...Fastens his eyes upon him, with John, said Look on us. And he gave heed to them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said", he's a beggar. He has his head down. Now, he sees these boys coming through there because Jesus had gone through that temple gate over and over and over and over and over.
— All the time, every time he walked in.
— And so you know Jesus was always turning to Judas, saying give the man some. So he's go this head down like this, I think he's probably smiling, and Peter said "Look"!
— Now, the anointed had come on him.
— He says, "He expected to receive from them. Silver and gold have I none," because he had been instructed don't worry about what you're taking with you. They're doing exactly what they were told. "But such as I have I give thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. He leaping, stood, walked and entered". He went into the temple with them! He had never been in there, he'd been sitting out here the whole time. They went two by two with the anointing of Jesus. Following the instructions Jesus gave them when they went two by twos. There is covenant partnership after Jesus is gone, working in the Earth.
— That's right.
— Just as strong as if Jesus would have been there that day.
— Now when Peter was up on the housetop, and he became hungry and then that sheet was let down before him of all kinds of animals, and the Lord said to him "Rise Peter, kill and eat". He said "Not so Lord, I'm never eating anything common coming to my mouth". This happened three times. And then we all know there in the 10th chapter in the book of Acts how that worked out. Where God sent him to Cornelius' house and so he took others with him knowing he's gonna get a lot of flack, because he knows what's gonna happen when he gets into that gentile's house, because this is ten years after the Day of Pentecost. It had been a Jewish church. He knows he's gonna catch some kind of flack there. But he goes in there, he takes his partners with him, and his partners were there. He was way too smart to go in there just by himself. He knows what's gonna happen, he already knows, he's seen it in the Spirit. So he took his partners with him.
— Witnesses.
— His witnesses. Don't you love it?
— Yes sir, to establish this. And what happened? That entire household got saved, and got filled with the Holy Ghost because it's covenant partnership.
— And the Spirit of God fell on them. Don't you love it?
— As he preached Jesus. That same anointing that Peter had touched and handled and took of, Cornelius we don't know that he ever did, ever met Jesus or anything, but his giving and his alms has gone up, and they said...
— As a witness before God.
— As a witness, and he said "God's not a respecter of persons", and the very first thing he preaches, it's in Acts Chapter 10 right here. "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed through the devil, for God was with them and we are his witnesses". We're his partners.
— Yeah that's it, praise God.
— We saw it, we experienced it.
— And people say "Well, Brother Copeland", let's look over that 10th chapter again. "Brother Copeland". "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that fears him, and work of righteousness is accepted with him. The word sent unto the children of Israel preaching peace by Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. That word, I say, ye know which was published throughout all Judaea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached, How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him". And people say "But Brother Copeland, that is Jesus". No it wasn't, it's God!
— That's right.
— And it's the same God that on the inside of us today. And we're outta time. I'm gonna start doing an hour broadcast.