Kenneth Copeland - Putting Spirit, Soul and Body in the Right Order
Hello everybody, I'm Kenneth Copeland. This is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Father we thank You for the Word today. Oh, we thank You for revealed knowledge, knowledge revealed by Your spirit into our spirit, literally bypassing our minds and then our minds can catch up. Glory to God, we thank You for it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Let's look once again, at first Thessalonians chapter five, and we could call this our golden text because it literally says what we really need to know and understand. Fifth chapter, 23rd verse, the very God of peace sanctify or separate you. And let's think about this, what we're doing here by the spirit is separating the spirit, the soul, and the body, of course for study purposes. But it is vitally important that the spirit be in ascendancy in our thinking, very important, that it's in that order, spirit, and soul, and body, "...that the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, faithful as He that calls you, and also He will do it".
Now, let's look in the book of Hebrews chapter four. This is an amazing, amazing verse of scripture. Verse 12, are you there? "And the Word of God," the Word of God, now we're covenant-minded, right? Why is it called the Word of God? Because this is a copy of two covenants. They are promises and facts in blood. The very first and the blood of animals. Then in the blood of a man through circumcision, which Abram was the first and at that time, he entered into a blood covenant with God and God changed his name to Abraham or Abraham, which that H in the middle is God's name, Hashem.
So God in the middle. That blood covenant was the pattern throughout the ages for covenants. And we still practice it today and take great store in it, particularly as Christians, as born again people, we practice that, we enter into covenant... A man enters into covenant with a woman and her name is changed. Well, why her name changed? Well, the man was created first. Now, what was God doing here? It's very simple, just don't get bent out of shape over it. It's very simple, chain of command. He didn't say the man is to be boss. No, that's not what He said. Hey, where are you going to submit to me? That's not a man, that's a tyrant. He said submit to one another, of course. But in a chain of command, you got the dad, the mother, and the children, and that's the way God created it.
And as I said last week, be very careful with artist's renderings, because Adam and Eve did not have belly buttons. And somebody said, "Well, maybe Adam had a scar". No he didn't because God closed it up. Glory to God. So why bring those things out? In order to be very aware. No I'm not knocking the artists that's... but, excuse me please. The important thing here is to put first things first, spirit and soul made up of your mind, your will and your emotions, or in other words, the intellectual part of the human being, the mind, the will and the emotions that's the soul is made up of that. And then of course the body that's self-explanatory.
Now then, let's look in the book of Hebrews chapter four. The 12th verse. "For the Word of God is quick, it's alive". Well we know that from the gospel of John in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. "Alive, powerful, sharper than any two edged sword," it did not say the Bible is the sword, and of course the Apostle Paul uses in the full armor of God. He uses that as an example and an analogy about the armor of God. The Apostle Paul is the author of the book of Hebrews. It's his style, he talks about Timothy and you won't believe whatever you want to. But then when Jesus called Kenneth Hagin up to Heaven and anointed him with a special anointing lay hands on the sick. Jesus told him that the Apostle Paul wrote the book of Hebrew. And it's so obvious, he's the educated one, and all of these.
It's just Paul all over the place. It's just is so rich and so real about the priesthood and all of that... Oh, God, I love the book of Hebrew, but listen to this, "...dividing asunder of soul, and spirit, and of the joints, and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intention of the heart". Neither is there any creature that's not manifest in his sight. He called the Word he. Glory to God. Now in the Weymouth translation, "For the word of God is full of life and power, keener than the sharpest two-edged sword. It pierces even to the severance of soul from spirit". I like the way Weymouth translated that. It pierces even to the severance or separating the soul and the spirit.
Well we learned that from the Apostle Paul over in first Thessalonians. Well it's obvious he wrote both of these books, he said the same thing. "And penetrates between the joints and the marrow, and it can discern the secret thoughts and purposes of the heart, and no created thing is able to escape its scrutiny, but everything lies bare and completely exposed before the eyes of him with whom we have to do". Boy, I'll tell you what, the Word will try your own... the Word will judge you, and we should allow it to judge us. And if you judge yourself, you don't get judged. Amen. And you judge not that you'd be judged. That's the reason, you and I, can't afford to judge political figures.
I don't care what their party affiliation. You can't afford to be doing that. No, because they're up against things you and I have never been up against. We talked about that last week, wicked spirits in the heavenlies, that's the highest ranking devil there is under Satan himself. Who used to be Lucifer, as we spoke about earlier this week. So those high ranking devils... Somebody goes to Washington DC and all of a sudden these things coming against their mind and their emotions. They don't know anything about. Have no idea why they say one thing at home and then go up there and trying to say something else entirely.
So somebody flip-flops, well it's not a good thing to do. But now we have an understanding of why. And in a lot of cases, have known that the mind has a tendency to block stuff out. You get up there, whoa, what is all this? All of a sudden that they treat me like a king, and now everybody hates me and what did I do? What did I say? I don't remember what I said, I hope somebody wrote it down. It's a war up there, because this country is still the most dangerous to Satan on the face of the planet. There still more Word of God being preached out of this nation than all of the other nations on earth put together. That's what we do here. And the devil would like nothing better than to totally wipe it out.
Well he can't do it, it's not his to wipe out, it belongs to Jesus. It was dedicated to Him before there ever was a George Washington. That little boat landed at Virginia Beach and that little group buried a cross out there and dedicated this land to the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Before there was a nation, glory to God, are you glad? That you're named after Jesus. Glory to God, and named after the Father? I'm a Jesus man. Amen. Thank You, Lord Jesus. "The Word of God is alive and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword. Oh, no created thing is able to escape its scrutiny, but everything lies bare and completely exposed before the eyes of him with whom we have to do," by the Word of the Living God. Now, spirit, say it with me, spirit and soul and body.
Now think about scriptures that the Apostle Paul wrote when he said, "I keep my body under control". Let's look at the 12th chapter of the book of Romans. Now keep this in mind. Say it again, "I am a spirit. I have a soul. Made up of my mind. My will and my emotions". Well see that's the intellectual part of you. Let me remind you again of what we read from the romaj which is a commentary on the first five books of the Bible, and the King James said, "And man became a living soul". Well, no he didn't. He became a living spirit with a soul, but one of the commentaries said, "And man became a speaking spirit like God". This human being, created in the likeness of God is the only one, the only one, say only one. That can choose words and speak them. Choose words and speak them.
So, words were first and for most, for the release of power, not communication for God's spoke. As spirit created all material things, then came man, then came his wife, amen. So as we said yesterday, God created a chain of command. And you know, for order and peace, well I don't tell Gloria what to do. She doesn't tell me what to do, we loved one another. And we are submitted to one another. I have learned so much about kindness and patience from that woman, I'll tell you what, she's just taught me so much over the years, and the more I'm around her the more I learn, and in a lot of ways, and in particularly in some areas like and patience, she is a lot stronger than I. But now, because I've learned from her and I've submitted myself to her kindness and her patience with things. I've learned to be a whole lot more patient and kind about things, I learned that from her. She taught me that, Amen.
I've learned so much from her, I've learned a whole lot more from her over the last 59 years, than she ever learned from me. Can you see where I'm going with this? We're a team. We're not one or the other, we're one, we're a team. I submit to her, she submits to me and we just have fun together, we simply love it. And as you've heard me saying, and a lot of people can't believe this, but you know, believe whatever you want to... But, we haven't had an argument that I did. She wouldn't enter in. And glory to God, and look at what the woman has taught me over almost 60 years now. 59 years... And look what she's taught me, because we're one with God, we're a team with Him, men, women, children we are the handiwork of God, we are His created beings, made the righteousness of God in Him, glory to God.
But the 12th chapter of Romans, "I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God, that you, present your body". You, present your body. You must realize that you are a spirit and God is in your spirit, therefore, He is in your body. But you must understand that where your body is concerned and where your mind, your will, and your emotions are concerned, you're the boss. "Brother Copeland, I just know, I don't know, I just think"... well, hey, quit thinking that. Jesus said, "Why take ye thought saying"? Don't say what you're thinking, just don't be doing that. But you can say, "My mind is my mind. It's mine, and Mr. Devil, you can't make me think anything, because I cast that reasoning down, I cast that imagination down, I cast that down out of my mind and I refuse to be moved. I refuse to be moved by what I feel".
Well, my body's the feeler, "By what I feel, by what I see. I am only moved by what I believe". And I believe the Word of God. I believe this covenant, I have a covenant relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Glory to God. Now think about this, Jesus, a born again, Holy Spirit-baptized, man, now He came into this earth, He was manifested in the flesh. God His Father, Mary His mother manifested in the flesh, but went to Hell and suffered like no man before Him, or any man in the future because He suffered all sin, all sickness, all disease, He was made a curse for us and He was made alive in the spirit. So He's no longer the only begotten Son of God, who is Jesus? Think it through. He's the first born from the dead, glory to God, our numbers in there somewhere, but we all have firstborn status. We have firstborn blessing glory to God, hallelujah. He's my Lord,He's my brother, and God is my Father. And we're out of time. Come on, help us here Jeremy.