Kenneth Copeland - God Is 100% Good
Open your Bibles with me tonight at the 18th chapter of Luke, please. The 18th verse: "A certain ruler asked him, 'Jesus, good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said unto him, 'Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is, God.'" Let me read that just a tad different. "There is none that is absolutely good but God". He is absolutely good. Now, what is "absolutely good"? When you come up with, people say, "God is good all the time". Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I know that, but really? How good is "absolutely good"? That's zero bad. And to renew my mind, I look for ways to... Something my little brain can tag on to.
So, what is absolute cold? Zero heat. Well, I'll tell you what it is. It is 459.67 degrees below zero. Sugar, that's cold. That's absolute cold. No heat. I don't know, that does something for me. Oh, we're not done yet. In fact, I want to look at First John 1:5. "God is light and in him is no darkness at all". Now, wait a minute. Listen to this in the Message translation. "This, in essence is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you. God is light, pure light. There's not a trace of darkness in him". He is absolute goodness, and He is absolute light. Absolute. Oh, thank You, Lord.
Let's go back to the book of Genesis. I want to make this statement to you. God, our God, has never, ever created anything that was bad. Let me tell you something else about Him. He has never, ever created someone to be something He's already forbidden. And if you're struggling with a homosexual spirit, "Well, my God made me this way". Uh-huh. Whoa, hold it. No, He didn't. He did not make... "Well, I guess God just made me a thief. I can't keep from stealing". No He didn't. No, there's a lot of deception in that, but not our God. Love you? Oh yeah, but do you know why? He's absolute love. He is all love. He's love in the morning, love at night, love in the morning time. He's good and love is good, and He's good. Amen. Glory to God. I was just thinking that, whoa! Glory to God. All right.
Now, go with me to the book of beginnings. That would be Genesis and Genesis chapter one. And let's begin with the first verse and read through the fourth verse, "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good". Well, certainly it was. God created it. It was good. Now the 10th verse, "And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas. And God saw that it was good". And then the 12th verse, "And God saw that it was good". And the 18th verse, "And God saw that it was good". And the 21st verse, "And God saw that it was good". And the 25th verse, "God saw that it was good". And the 31st verse, "And God saw that it was very good".
This is getting better: very good, very good. But wait a minute, there was something that was not good. Let's look at the second chapter at the 18th verse, "And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a help mate". And so God made man a woman. And Adam said, "This is good! Yeah, whoa! This is good. Not good for me to be alone. This is good". Don't you know he did? But now what about the devil? Well, what about him? He is all bad. Now, our God created hell, He created heaven. So you know how bad hell must be. But He did not create it for people. He created it for the devil and his angels. And there are demonic spirits locked in there now that are locked in the deepest part of the pits. Just locked in there. But then men and women have wound up there and should never have been there. God did not intend for them to ever, ever, ever, ever, wound up there, not ever.
Let's take a look at this. Let's look at Ezekiel 28, thank You Lord, verse one. "The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord; Because thine heart is lifted up, and because thou hast said, I am a God", hang on a second, hold on. Catch up with this. Let me just read this to you. I want to read it to you from the Classic Amplified. "Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart is lifted up and you have said and thought". You said and thought, or you thought and said?
"I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas; yet you are only man (weak, feeble, made of earth) and not God, though you imagine yourself to be almost more than mortal with your mind as the mind of God. Indeed, you are imagining yourself wiser than Daniel. There's no secret you think that is hidden from you. With your own wisdom and with your own understanding, you have gotten you riches and power and have brought gold and silver into your treasuries. By your great wisdom and by your traffic, you have increased your riches and power and your heart is proud and lifted up because of your wealth. Therefore, says the Lord God: Because you have imagined your mind as the mind of God, having thoughts and purposes suitable only to God himself, behold therefore I'm bringing strangers upon you, the most terrible of the nations, and they'll draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, O Tyre, and they'll defile your splendor, and they'll bring you down to the pit of destruction, and you shall die the many deaths of all the Tyrians that are slain in the heart of the seas. You will say, I am a God, before him who slays you, but you're only a man made of earth and no God in the hand of him who wounds and profanes you. You shall die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers for I have spoken it, says the Lord God. Moreover," now this is the one I want you to get, "the word of the Lord came into me saying," now notice this, "Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king".
That was the prince, this is the king. Look at the relationship. One of them is king, the other one is the son of the king. And he's taken on the thoughts of his father, the devil. Jesus said that to some people. Now notice this. I'm going to read it in the King James first, and then we'll go back to the Amplified. "Thus saith the Lord God: Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of your tabrets and of your pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created". This is a created being. God created him. "Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity and guilt were found in you".
That's the reason there is no redemption for him. He created the lie. He is a lie, but he was not created like that. No, no. Now, listen to this. "You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity and guilt were found in you. Through the abundance of your commerce you were filled with lawlessness and violence and you sinned. Therefore, I cast you out as a profane thing from the mountain of God and the guardian cherub drove you out from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was proud and lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. I lay you before Kings, that they might gaze at you. You have profaned your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities and the enormity of your guilt by the unrighteousness of your trade. Therefore, I have brought forth a fire from your midst, it has consumed you and I have reduced you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who looked at you and all who know you come among the people are astonished and appalled at you. You have come to a horrible end and shall never return to being". You will never, ever return. You can't.
Now, let's go to the book of Isaiah chapter 14, beginning with verse nine. And let me get over here. Well, I'm going to read it from the New King James. "Hell from beneath is excited about you, to meet you at your coming. It stirs up the dead for you. All the chief ones of the earth. It has raised up from their thrones, all the kings of the nations. They all shall speak and say to you, Have you also become as weak as we? Have you become like us? Your pomp is brought down to Sheol," or hell, "and the sound of your stringed to instruments. The maggot is spread under you and worms cover you. How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer".
Now here's what's amazing about the name Lucifer. That name, some translations don't even use the word Lucifer. It means "morning star". Now, this gives us an insight. Hold your place there. Revelation, not "revelations". It is one revelation. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John".
What is Jesus called? The bright morning star. It is by that evidence right there, Regine, I'm completely convinced that at one time he was Jesus' personal angel and he wanted to take one more step. He wanted to take Jesus' place. Now, can you see why he was so, and I'm quoting this. I'm saying exactly what I mean to say, why he is so hell bent on killing him? Wow. That was very... Now that answers a lot of questions, at least for me. Well, certainly. And now we know why he said, "I will be like the most high God. I will take my throne above the stars". He said that and it doomed him. We said that and we got born again.