Kenneth Copeland - Understanding Biblical Timing
— Hello everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. You know what this is? This is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Praise God. Whoa. We're excited today.
— Yes, sir.
— Amen. Lord. So many things are happening in the realm of the spirit, it's magnificent in my eyes. It causes and for a lot of people, it causes a lot of trouble. For people that walk by faith, it causes inconvenience.
— Yes, sir. Yeah.
— And we got inconvenienced here a few days ago.
— Yes we did.
— And for those of course there's, you'll see this broadcast later, but we were without power at my house for over 80 hours. At my house the temperature Greg, went to minus four degrees, actual temperature, no wind chill.
— And the wind was blowing. It was lower than that.
— Well, yeah.
— The actual temperature.
— Yes.
— Yeah. Wow.
— See.
— That's in Texas.
— Yeah, I understand that. So, we had a polar outbreak called a polar or an Arctic vortex and it just swung down the middle of, all the way to the Gulf Coast.
— Yes sir.
— Everybody had record temperatures. I talked to a very highly experienced weatherman, in fact, he's retired Navy and he goes to EMIC. I called him, in fact, I was sitting in my car, charging my phone. I had the garage door open, "How'd you open the door without any electricity"? It's got a little handle on it, open it about this far and started the car. And I'm sitting out there charging my phone and I called him and I said, "Sir, I don't remember," I said, "I was raised out in West Texas, and we had a lot of cold weather out there. But I came here in the last semester of junior high school, finished high school here, been in and out of here all these years. I don't remember ever seeing anything like this here". He said, "Well that's because it hadn't happened since what, 1949". Wow. Hey, hey, it messed up things all over this city, at our home. Glory to God, we didn't have a broken pipe, the headquarters building, that's another thing. And think about this, here we are in this studio, this is a miracle within itself, man, that the studio wasn't damaged beyond repair, but here we are just a few days later. Praise God. Well, thank You, Lord Jesus. Something that actually, my daughter Terri mentioned this to me and it got on my heart. So, and I began, immediately through, I'll just call it a shockwave into my spirit. Immediately grabbed hold of and almost immediately I called Professor Stephens because of his knowledge of the first covenant. And that's where it is. But then of course, then you can see it over in the new covenant, the second covenant it's there, but anyway. The 15th chapter of Genesis. Do you remember the 15th chapter of Genesis? What was happening here in the studio audience? I mean, well you know...
— Watching at home.
— Yeah. That's a good way to say it.
— Yeah.
— This is the first. This is the first of the blood covenant with Abraham. And in the first verse, "After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision saying, 'Fear, not Abraham. I am thy shield and exceeding great reward.'" Now, and there were certain things and they prepared the covenant and so forth and prophetic things were spoken in that. "And God told him then, 'You will be buried in a good old age.'"
— Yes, sir.
— "Good old age. And he lived a long time after Sarah died, remarried and had more children".
— That's right.
— But now verse 15, "Thou shall go to the fathers in peace. Thou shall be buried in a good old age, but in the fourth generation, they shall come hither or here again for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full". Not yet full. The sin of the Amorites is not yet full. That was a long, long time ago. Today, we are living in a time when the devil has pushed people, and pushed people, and pushed people. He always overplays his hand.
— Yes he does.
— And I'm convinced of this. Now, let me clear something up here, Greg, I do not agree with the politics of the Democrat party. I haven't since I've been old enough to know, but then as things increased, and increased, and increased, and increased and then who Greg, and when I grew up, abortion was, you didn't even talk about it. Murdering a baby? That was unheard of. And today it's just talked about like it's nothing.
— Even celebrated in some circles.
— And it's the celebration of known sin that pushes it to its fullness.
— Yes, sir. Yeah. The Bible is going to explain, so who are these Amorites, you got to ask that. The original Amorite is a descendant of Canaan. Now Canaan is Ham's son.
— Yes.
— But they became known as not just one group of people. They became known as a whole ideology. It was a spirit of them in the way they acted they're mentioned well, from Abraham's hometown Ur of the Chaldee's. The King of Ur will build a wall to try to keep the Amorites out. Long history back in the time when Abraham was there. So he knows who these people are. When the Lord said that to him, he knew exactly what...
— And he knew what he was talking about.
— He knew exactly what he's talking about. I'll show you as this taping goes on during this week that the rabbis will teach us in the Hamash in Leviticus, what the sins of the Amorites are, and what the people of God, the covenant people are not supposed to be part of. And once you see that, then you begin to understand what's happening in America. What happened in our elections, and what's coming to pass that hadn't happened yet in the book of Revelation.
— Go ahead and just take this Greg.
— Okay. We always hear that God's ways can't be known, but to His covenant partners, to His friends, they are known because He's telling him right here. I brought a piece of artwork from Israel, with me. It's called a Mobius strip, a Mobius wheel, sometimes it's referred to as a Mobius ladder, isn't that interesting? In Hebraic thought, and what it is, it's a wheel within a wheel. Now, if you want to know what it says on here in Hebrew, it says, "I am that I am," or, "I will be what I will be," is the literal translation. If I start my hand on the outside of this wheel and I run it down the edge, and all of a sudden it took me to the, and see my hand? I never took my hand off, but I'm on the inside now. And then I'll go, it'll take me all the way around the outside and back up. So it's infinity. It's time. It's a wheel within a wheel. And this is the way they look at prophetic things, not just linear. In Greek thought, we think linear. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, that this is predicted on this date and prophetically, it has to be answered by January 20th, or it has to be answered by that date. That's not the way God does things. He does things in circles.
— Think about what Micah said, that a baby will be born in Bethlehem.
— Yes.
— And 715 years later, it took place.
— That's correct.
— So, that word from God was alive, through over 700 years.
— Yes.
— So actually that word from God controlled armies, it controlled nations, and it controlled also that Jesus had to be in Bethlehem when He was born.
— And so He will move Caesar to do a tax to get to that family where they need to be.
— Yes, sir.
— And so all of these things are interlaced. So in prophetic, another way of looking at time, besides linear and circular is ascending and descending, no faith, little faith, great faith. From glory, He'll take you from glory to glory, your steps are ordered. And so they see things more than just one way, they'll see patterns. And so what He's sharing right here to Abraham or to Abram at this time is a pattern of the Amorite. And if you'll learn the pattern of the Amorite, you'll understand prophetically and timeline where we are as a nation, because the land is tied to this covenant that they're about to make, in Genesis 15. So what a lot of people don't understand is why God is so slow to judge nations, why He's so slow to judge sin.
— Don't you see that Greg as God giving people time to repent?
— Oh it's absolutely right. It's absolutely right. James chapter 5. James chapter 5:7, "Be patient therefore brethren until the coming of the Lord behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it".
— Yes He does.
— Because His mercy is that overriding force in His life, and that's what He's waiting on. And that's what our assignment is, is to be out reaping the harvest during this time. In 2 Timothy 3, let me read you this, verse one, "Know this also, in the last days, perilous times shall come. For men will be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers and incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good". Boy, if that doesn't sound like today. "Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness denying the power thereof". And then he gives an instruction to us, "From such turn away".
— Get out of there.
— Don't be part of this. So we can live in a system that the Amorites seem to be flourishing, and Amorite is a spirit. That spiritual world seems to be flourishing, but we can still live in covenant and be victorious.
— Let's take a second here. I particularly want to speak to the television audience. Always remember this, God loves people. It don't make any difference what their politics happens to be, God loves people. We love people. This ministry is not against people. Now we're vehemently against the devil and we stand against him because the apostle Peter said too.
— That's right.
— He absolutely, the spirit of God said through Peter, "You stand against him because he's like a roaring lion". He isn't a roaring lion, he's like one. "Roams about seeking whom he may devour". Well, we're roams that he cannot.
— That's right.
— Because we resist him steadfast in the faith.
— Yes, sir.
— Amen. So when we talk about these things, God was against the Amlekites, but He loved them. He loves people. God is a people person. For, I can prove this, for God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son. He so loved the world. Well, the Amlekites and all the rest of them All down these ages, He's loved them all. God has never sent anybody to hell.
— No, that's true.
— He's put some very wicked spirits in there.
— That's true. It wasn't created for us.
— No, it was created for the devil and his angels. And then it got twisted around, and then men went there because of... Well, we won't get into that, but I just wanted to point out again, we're not talking against people, we're talking biblical times here. Because when we learn what the Word has to say about it, then we can do something about what's happening in our own lives. And we can do something about, maybe someone in your family or someone you know, is in a different political party or has different ideas. One of the worst things you can get into is a political argument because arguing never changes anybody it just make somebody mad. And so you just say, "Well, glory to God," and just don't get into that.
— As you understand all of this teaching, you can understand what happened in the United States last year with elections, you can understand global warming.
— Yes, you can.
— You can understand all of it. It's all right here in this iniquity of the Amorite. It appears, by studying scripture to me, that he allows this sin and his anger to get to a level, when he gets to a level, then that nation is going to be judged.
— Yeah.
— And Jesus will judge all the nations. We've entered into a different phase now because what they're acting out here in chapter 15 is going to be ratified by Jesus at the cross.
— He's not, there's no way He's going to just let things go on and go on.
— He can't because of His holiness.
— Until it destroys the things that He's created.
— No, He can't.
— That's the reason judgment kept coming on Israel and He had to get them out and put them someplace, in a holding someplace to keep the whole nation from being...
— He always has a remnant. He always has that. So a nation and a group of people will be judged, it'll happen with Joshua here as he's promising.
— Excuse me Greg.
— Yes, sir.
— Let's talk about inequity.
— Okay.
— Lucifer was created perfect but then, iniquity was found in him.
— Right.
— And in my study of the scriptures over these years and what I've learned, iniquity is doing something wrong. Maybe because it's wrong. I mean, you made a decision to do it, you knew better than to do it, you knew God was against it, you knew it was going to cause trouble, and you did it anyway.
— Right. I'll tell you who had a great understanding of that word is King David. David understood it well. Let me show you. We got time?
— Oh yeah.
— Psalm 32.
— About five minutes.
— We'll start it. And we'll pick it up because you wanted to talk about iniquity here. Let's go to Psalm 32, beginning with verse one, "Blessed is he, whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered". Two different things right there, transgression and sin.
— Yet they're all connected.
— "Blessed is the man whom the Lord, imputeth not iniquity. And in whose spirit, there is no guile".
— Oh man.
— So now when you look at that, there are three words in the Hebrew for sin, transgression and iniquity. And they're often interchanged and used, but in our Bible, they'll be translated as sin or transgression or iniquity. The first one is a Hebrew word, Hata. Hata is most often used for sin. And it means to miss the mark. You've heard that phrase before. It's, you take an arrow, you shoot it, and I missed the target. I so missed the target, but that could be done accidentally. That it could be an error, it could be a mistake.
— You didn't intend to do that.
— No, not necessarily.
— Maybe you just didn't know.
— Didn't know how to shoot the thing. The other two words are more serious than Hata. The second word is Pesha. Pesha is often translated as transgression. We just saw it in that verse. Now listen to this. Here's what it means, it's a willful rebellion against a given standard. It's, I willfully, that was what Adam did. Eve Hata, she just missed the mark, she was deceived.
— Adam was not.
— He was not, it was a willful rebellion against a given standard, a casting off of God's authority, it's going beyond the limits, is what it means in Hebrew. I go beyond the limits. I know that that's my timeline, but I went past it, on purpose.
— Now that translated transgression?
— That's a transgression. The next word is more serious and this is the one that we're getting to iniquity. It's a Hebrew word Avon and it means, it relates to your inner character, this comes from your spirit. All right. It points to an intentional twisting of what God said. Good is bad. Bad is good. Right is wrong. Wrong is right. You're literally going to twist what God says. That's what Lucifer did.
— Yes he did.
— He willfully twisted. It's a twisting of a given standard. It's also translated as this, perversion. It's perversion. It's distorting the will of God and the plan of God. And so it is, it's consciously knowing, but it's consciously twisting it.
— Okay. The twisting, think about that, the twisted, that then becomes wicked.
— Yes. Now all of those other things will come out of that. That comes from your spirit.
— But what I'm pointing out is that wickedness is the twisting.
— Yes.
— Wicker means, Wicker furniture is made out of twisted material. It's a twisted lie. It's a twisted, wicked, sinful life on purpose just, and most of the time that starts gradually.
— Yeah. You keep yielding to it.
— You just keep yielding.
— And then it becomes part of your spirit man.
— And then finally you get to the place where the wickedness looks okay. I mean, after all I came out on top.
— And then you've been given over, at that point, you'll get to a place where you'll be given over toward the destruction of your flesh to reparate mine and that's what's happening in the world. And you get mad at people and you keep using the word sin. It is sin, but it's beyond that now. This goes to the spirit, to the heart of a man. So reading those verses, and I know we've got just seconds left here, reading those verses again. "Blessed is he whose transgression," Pesha, willful rebellion, "Is forgiven. Whose sin," who's missing the mark, "Is covered".
— Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not. He doesn't hold against him iniquity.
— Perversion, twisted, selfish, distortion.
— In whose spirit there is no deception.
— That's it, yeah. Create in me a clean heart, David will say. Daniel was of an excellent spirit. God looks at the heart. This is what he said when he chose the king, "I don't look at the outward the way you guys do. I'm checking to see if that's twisted in here. If he's going to twist my words," and that's what King Saul did.
— And we're out of time.