Kenneth Copeland - The Goodness of God Meets All Needs
Good morning, good morning. I'm Kenneth Copeland, and this is The Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. And this is our second week in this series on the goodness God, and we're right here in the classroom, Kenneth Copeland Bible College, so would you give the Lord a praise, and just bless the Lord, God? Hallelujah. And in a few days the second graduating class of this college will happen. Yeah. Oh yeah. And so, in today's, and this week, we're going to be applying what we learned last week concerning the goodness of God. And some things that are very practical where it comes to ministry, whether you're in a help's ministry, or apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher.
These things will help you. And these are things that I've learned through the years, and starting with my father in the faith, Oral Roberts, and then just a few weeks, really, and I was introduced to Kenneth Hagin's ministry. And my goodness, no, God's goodness. Excuse me. And Gloria and I were just wide eyed at the Word of Faith, then I was watching Oral Roberts use faith on purpose, and then I was studying faith, and then I found out what produces it, where it comes from, how it works, how you release it, how you mess it up. All of these different things. And when you find out those things, you've arrived at a place. You've arrived at a place where you can intelligently search and seek out the things of God, because His Word is final authority. That was the big thing to me. This Word, this book, two blood covenants. One started off in the blood of animals, then went to the blood of a man in circumcision, and then the blood of Jesus in the second covenant. And we are partakers of that. Glory to God.
That's why it's referred to as the Word of God, because it is His bond. He backs it, but it takes faith to connect with it. Amen? And it takes the walk of love to continue therein without hindering that faith. All of these things that we'll be talking about are in that vain. Okay? Philippians chapter four, and the 19th verse. Let's start with the 18th verse, "I have all". This is the Apostle Paul writing a letter to his partners in Philippi, "I have all and abound. I am full, having received of Epaphroditus, the things which were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God. But my God shall supply all your need". Do you notice not needs? All of your need. All of it. Needs would tend to apply just in physical material things, but all of your need.
I remember in the early days my father in the faith, Oral Roberts talked about it all the time, "Meet the needs of the people". Meet the needs of the people. That's what you're for. Meet the needs of the people. And I was praying about needs. Need. Who needs what, when, where, why? And so forth. Well, I came to the conclusion that, that wasn't hard to do. That God had needs. "Oh, He doesn't need anything, He's a sovereign God". Well, He sovereignly needs things. He has chosen to need people. This is a family affair with Him. He needed a family or you wouldn't even be here. Amen. He needs things. He needs people. He has covenants to fulfill, and they're fulfilled through people. Men and women of God fulfill His needs.
Did Jesus have needs? He absolutely did. He needed things. He needed clothes, he needed people. What's the first thing He did? Well, other than when He turned 30, baptized in the Spirit of God, He already had the Spirit of God, but He had to be anointed, because He didn't minister as God, He ministered as a man, as you know. A man anointed by the Spirit of God, and with the Spirit of God. But what did He need? He needed a staff. He couldn't do this thing by Himself, and besides that, it was ordained that there be 12. 12 apostles of the lamb matched the 12 tribes of Israel in the first covenant. You see that? All right. He needed that. He needed a treasurer to handle all the funds that were flowing into His ministry. Glory to God. Thank You Jesus.
Now then, it is this. You remember, and we could look it up in first Timothy five, 18 and Luke 10, one, seven. And so forth, and Deuteronomy 24:14 and 15. And first Timothy five, 18 talks about the elders, "The workman is worthy of his hire". The workman is worthy of his hire, and that was referring to elders, then in Luke 10, one through seven were ministers. The crowds got so big He couldn't handle it with His staff, so He called what? Huh? 70 more. And sent them out two by two. Glory to God. He needed people. He had needs. The crowds were too big, and not only that, we're approaching the end. And there was things that must come to pass to fulfill prophetic writings and so forth, and so on. It's important to understand what your job is, to meet the needs of the people.
And you've heard me say this before. Most people don't know what a job is. Don't have a clue. Thinking about a job only through the eyes of the natural. I'm not talking about the world, I'm talking about the body of Christ. By and large. And really don't think about it until somebody brings it up. And when you understand this, then you're in a position to grow financially. Let's just start with a minimum wage job. What is a job? A job solves someone's problem. Someone has a need that needs to be fulfilled. Now, I've said this to you before, but concept, insight and ideas of motive is everything. And you must get the concept away from yourself.
The thing that turned out to be, I started studying a 13 volume book, set of books called The Laws of Prosperity. And then I read the condensed version written by Earl Nightingale, Think and Grow Rich. Now, he had entree into the top wealthiest business men in the United States, and he interviewed them. I'm talking about Henry Ford, I'm talking about Walter Chrysler, I'm talking about all of these financial jobs. He interviewed them. Talked about how they thought, what they did, and he came out with this. All of these men, all of them, many of them were tithers. John Rockefeller said, "If I hadn't tithed on that first million, I never would have on the second".
Now, he was raised in abject poverty, and his mother was a tithing woman, and she taught him how to tithe. But here was the consensus of the whole thing. All of these industrial giants all had the same concept, "I am in business to help people". Henry Ford, "I am business to get a car into the hands of the working people". Wealthy people had them, working people couldn't afford them, and that brought about great inventions like the assembly line. Whoa. And Thomas Edison, he was so wrapped up in helping people improve their lives, he didn't care whether he made any money or not. Amen. That's the reason he, primarily the reason why he started a company called General Electric, was to help people. Help somebody. That's what a job is for. The concept should be, "What can I do, number one to help God, and to minister to Him"? 13th chapter of the book of Acts, "They ministered unto the Lord, and fasted".
In that atmosphere the Spirit of the Lord spoke and said, "Separate unto me". Huh? Barnabas and Paul. At that time Barnabas outranked Paul, but a little bit later on that changed. Amen. There were these prophets and teachers gathered together, but they fasted, they prayed, they ministered unto the Lord. They were meeting the needs of Jesus. And they ministered to Him. "Brother Copeland, does He need ministering too"? Well, absolutely. How would you like to put up with all of this all the time? There needs to be a time when you just get up and say, "Lord, what can I do for you today? How can I minister to you today"?
I was very, very, very pleasantly blessed and impressed at something Jesse Duplantis said, not only to me, but then I heard him preach it. He got up one morning and he said he knew it in his spirit. He said, "Jesus, someone has hurt You today". Listen, it happens a lot. Read your New Testament. There are things that grieve the Spirit, and hurt Him, grieve Him. And He has something coming up ahead of Him that He would rather not do. Jesus does. There's coming a time, I don't believe it's very far off. There's coming a time when He's going to have to say, "Depart from me, I never knew you". "But didn't we prophesy in Your name? I mean, didn't we do a bunch of good stuff? I never knew You. Brother Copeland, I don't understand that". I don't either. I mean, that goes beyond my insight. But it's in the book, right? You've read it. Yeah. There's coming a day He's going to have to do that.
Now, that's taking us over into an area that we'll touch later on in the week, but now then. This, in Deuteronomy 24:14 and 15 hired servants. Now, I was raised, as most of you know by now, I was raised out in West Texas and one of the great things of my life was to go on the plains on the panhandle of Texas. My grandfather, being a farmer, and he had an outstanding income for a man in that position. But he didn't have a lot of people working for him, so what did he do? He had, we called them hands. Well, "Lend me a hand". Just, "Lend me a hand". That's what that means, "Help me. Give me help. Give me a hand here". Huh? Now, the thing about this, this just touch on something, that the power of death and life is in the power of the tongue. Go look that word translated power of the tongue. It's in the hand. It's in the hand, in the power. I'm saying this, we had hired hands. And it wasn't a lot of them, but you've got to have some help here. There were crews that would come through that part of the country.
Man, I'm telling you, girl we had wheat harvest. Particularly, now, my mother's oldest brother gave his life for this country in World War two. He graduated from Texas Tech, and then he graduated, his major was political science and a minor in chemistry. He came to my grandad and he said, "Papa, there's an underground river, an aquifer, running under all of this property up here". He said, "If we can tap into that, we will never loose a crop, because it didn't rain". And my grandfather said, "Let's get it. Let's do it". And they did, and I remember it, man. I remember it. And when I was a kid, if there was any water I'd swim in a mud hole, man. You just couldn't keep me out of the water. And I just loved it. I loved to swim. And when I was just a young kid I swam in competition, and it wasn't that I was all that good at it, I just liked it so much.
And so, they had this big pool where the huge, gushing well pump would just gush that water out into that big pool. This was before they came up with the siphoning tubes that advance that. That's just in the beginning days of it. Anyway. Oh, it is hot and I was out there. I said, "Papa, can I go swimming"? He said, "Have at it". I didn't know that water was just a little above freezing. I mean, it came from the thermocline way down yonder. I didn't even sink. And he thought that was the funniest thing he ever saw. Well, I thought so too. It's water. I wanted in it. Anyway. When they did that, oh the wheat harvest. Well, cotton was great, but wheat. Think about the difference between the two. You wear the cotton, you eat the wheat. What are you doing? Meeting the needs of a lot of people. Man, there would be truckloads of people that follow the wheat harvest, and fun. Everybody had fun. Particularly if you knew the kids that were there last year.
Now, let me remind you of something else. Preparing the soil is hard work, and you're out there working hard. Now, I remember one year it was so hot, I mean that dirt was so hot your feet didn't want to be still. Just hurt. We were preparing soil. Doing what? Hoeing weeds, that's nasty. And my grandfather could sharpen a hoe to where you could almost shave with it, but we're going through the fields. Now, most people in this part of the country don't know what goat head stickers are. Now, I know I heard somebody that did. Those things are nasty. And out there they're just abundant. Here we are, there was my grandfather and one hired hand, Spanish guy. And here we go down the line. He would just scoop those goat heads off right at the base. And my grandfather took off down that field, and he went along till he lapped us. And the guy that was working with me said, he stopped at me and said, "Hey, when does that old man fall down"? I said, "He don't ever fall down".
I asked him one time, I said, "Papa, how come you can just outwalk me"? He said, "Because you don't ever set your jaw, brother, or son". Set your jaw. I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do it right, and I'm going to do it good, and I'm going to do it fast and do it hard. Set your jaw. Get your job done. Why? You're meeting the needs of people. You're meeting the needs of millions of people. Hallelujah. Needs. Say it, needs. God's needs. The people's needs. And it all meets my needs. That day I was praying and the Lord said, "Look up". And so, I physically did it. I just look up. He said, "You're concerned with your needs, now you look up and you take on the needs of the world". Because He said, "That's what I'm interested in, is meeting the needs of all the people beginning with receiving Jesus". Glory to God. And we're out of time.