Kenneth Copeland - The Vastness of God's Goodness
— Hello everybody, I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome to Wednesday's edition of The Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. And we're talking about the goodness of God. God is absolute goodness. The devil is absolute darkness. Amen. And a good God, the good God created. Now, I want to show you something here from Genesis chapter one, verse one. "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". Now the fossil record does not lie. It doesn't. There's an eon of time between Genesis one and Genesis two. The earth was not created without form and void. It had been flooded. Noah's flood was the second one, not the first one. That is extremely important in understanding the Bible. Now, "and God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light that it was good". And let's go down to the 10th verse. "God called the dry land earth and gathering together of the waters called he Seas. And God saw that it was good". And in verse 12, "And the earth brought forth grass and so forth, and God saw that it was good". Isn't this good? Amen. And so you come on down in verse 18 and to rule the day over the night and so forth, and God saw that it was good. In verse 21, "God saw that it was good. And God bless them saying, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters and sea", and so on and so on. Verse 25, "and God saw that it was good". Now look at the 31st verse. "And God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good". He's a good God. And He could not have created anything in that condition and shape. It had to be re-done. It's extremely vital information. There is no question about all that there is in this earth that is not answered in the covenants. It is all there. Amen. And He saw that it was very good. Wait a minute. Something's not good. Let's go to 2:18.
— Can I make mention of when He said it wasn't good? That's true.
— And the Lord, God said it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a help meet. That's not good. We need to fix this. Amen. "And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and fowl of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them". He named everything, every living creature and so forth. And you know what happened? "He caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, 'This is good.'" He said, "This is all good. Look at this. Look at her". I'm convinced that his thrill of her, she's so gorgeous. So absolute handmade by God, that that was one of the things that he just, he just couldn't turn it loose. And it cost him dearly, but how he must have loved her and what he saw, the goodness of God was expressed in the goodness of her looks. Wow.
— He loved her so much that he followed her rather than God.
— He followed her rather than God.
— Okay. This whole chapter, I went through with some rabbis and they were getting frustrated at me, because hard to believe, but it's not. I ask a lot of questions and I've got to looking at here at the end of day six is when the second day is starting at the end of day one, we have the light. This goes to that fossil record you're talking about.
— Yes.
— Because at the end of day two and God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, "Let it divide the waters from the waters. God made the firmament and divided the waters, which were under the firmament, the waters, which are above the firmament, and it was so, and God called the firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning were the second day". He did not say good.
— I hadn't noticed that.
— He didn't say good. He said good on every single day but that day. He does not say good. Why do you not say good at the end of the second day of creation? Because heaven and earth are separated. They're not supposed to be separated from one another in God.
— Jesus will pray on earth as it is in heaven. He brought it back together.
— He's bringing it back together. A new heaven and a new earth.
— Yes.
— And so He doesn't say it's good because it's not finished. So now as you go down through this, He called the dry land earth, gathered together the waters. And God said, now look what He says in verse 11, let the earth bring forth grass and herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, because it was commanded to.
— Yes.
— The earth is reproducing after itself. He didn't do that with man. He didn't say, let the earth bring forth man. No, He got involved with this thing. So I'm wondering how can everything be good when He said that man wasn't good being alone. And He didn't say day two was good, but yet everything was good. Here's what I saw on this. Look what He does, where was that? Chapter two. Let's see. "And the Lord caused deep sleep to fall upon Adam. And he slept and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which of the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and brought her unto the man". Now what's Adam been doing right before that? Naming all the other things on the earth. And Adam said, this is good. This is bone of my bones. Flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. God didn't, well, let me rephrase that. God didn't call her good. Adam called her good. God allowed man to now...
— Yes He did.
— ...declare goodness in the earth.
— He allowed him to name her.
— He allowed him to name her. He allowed him. This is why, when a man finds a wife, he finds a good thing because he allowed, I wrote it right there, he named her. He allowed man to pronounce goodness. And so when man, walking in his authority on the planet, started talking like God, this is why He said, all of it's good now, because a man will fix the heaven and earth thing.
— Praise God.
— Man will be a steward of the planet.
— Hallelujah.
— We have given up, Brother Copeland, political thing here. We've allowed the world to try to define stewardship of the planet. And that was our assignment. We're supposed to be the ones that look over the planet.
— Yeah, moaning and groaning, looking for a manifestation.
— The earth cries for the manifestations of the sons of God. Because we're the ones that can bless the earth. Worst thing you can do as a farmer and get out there and curse your ground all the time. I tell you we can't grow anything here. I don't know what the problem.
— My grandfather would go out in that. Now he was essentially illiterate. He could sign his name and he could read a little bit, but he'd never been to school. But he'd go out there in the middle of that field every year. And he would go to the different parts of it. And he would dig down in that soil until he... Now other people used instruments. Well, he didn't fool with that. And he would until he feels some moisture, and he'd gather up a handful of it and he would smell it and he would taste it and he would set his planter like that. He always had the best crop in the county. He would stand out there and take his hat off and honor God in that field. Every time, he didn't use last year's settings because the weather is going to be a little bit different. He's a farmer.
— He's into the ground.
— Yes. Yes. Hallelujah. To him, well, the bloom on a cotton plant was the most beautiful flower. Because that's what he was called to do. And the county agent would come by and talk to Mr. Owens before he'd go talk to anybody else, and then he'd go tell them what Mr. Owen said. And they would go then on, on what he said more than they did anything else. But being a farmer, he loved the land. There's no way he's going to stand out there and talk bad and curse that land, because everything he had, all the money he had is going into the seed. Everything he had was going into the seed. And his credit was so good. He walked into the bank one day and there was a guy that they had just turned down for a loan. And my grandfather walked in there and he's all greasy, all dirty and nasty come through there. "Well how much you going to give that old man"? He said, "All he'll sign for". Amen. For two reasons, one, you're going to get it back. And he is going to make a crop. If anybody in this county makes a crop, he's going to make. Why? He blessed the land. He blessed that land.
— Yes, sir.
— Every year.
— Yes, sir. This are the first words of Adam, was calling things into existence, like his father. This is good.
— Yes, he did.
— He called her and told her what she was.
— Now legally he was ish and she was isha.
— That's right.
— That's just actually the masculine and feminine Hebrew.
— That's exactly right.
— But he called her woman.
— He did. Now take all of that into context. I'm going to show you a verse in Proverbs 18, you know this verse. Verse 20, 21, 22. "A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth and with increase of his lips shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Whosoever findeth," right there, with what you say. You got problems with your wife, you've probably been saying the wrong things. "Who so findeth a wife findeth a good thing and obtain a favor from the Lord". Adam spoke, she's good.
— Yes, he did.
— He called her into existence. Finally, one like me. He'd been looking at all these other animals. Finally, here's one like me and he loved it. He's used the feminine indicative pronoun.
— And you have to understand he had never seen himself.
— No.
— He didn't have any mirror. Look at this.
— So if you get the revelation, you're starting to renew your mind now to this, that God is good.
— And you know, Greg, and I talk about Gloria a lot. And her dad, his announcement to me was, "My daughter is the best looking girl in the state of Arkansas". Okay. Then he came back a little while later, he said, "You don't believe me. Do you"? I said, "I believe you, man". "I'm telling you, my daughter is the best looking girl in the state of Arkansas". And then you know the rest of the story. So then he came there at Penthouse there in the company my dad worked for. And they opened the door and I thought, man he wasn't kidding. That's the most gorgeous thing I ever laid my eyes on. She was good looking. And she still is. Thank you very much.
— Imagine the Father's pleasure hearing his man, his creation talking like him.
— Yes.
— Oh, this is good.
— This is good.
— I looked right at him. This is good. You outdid yourself. I don't even mind this little scar here now. This is good.
— It didn't hurt anyways..
— But now we have to retrain ourselves, because we say stuff like good grief.
— There's no such thing.
— No.
— Boy. I mean the Lord really, really convicted me. And He said, now two things, that fear is not good. No way fear is good. It is, well, you need a little. No, you don't need any, you don't need fear to train you that a car will kill you if it runs over you. You just have to have good sense. He said, "Don't you ever, don't you ever, ever jump out at your children and frighten them and think it's funny. Don't you ever do that". Fear is not good. And the other thing He said was, "Don't use words of the kingdom of darkness to express yourself. Don't ever do that". Like the professor just said, "Good grief". Oh man. My feet are just killing me. Thrill me to death.
— That blows my mind.
— Yeah. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
— Never.
— Never do that.
— Talking about His goodness. How many times in chapter one here do we see good? It was good. It was good. It was good. It's all had to do with creation. The God who creates is good. Very good, right before chapter two.
— That one was seven. Glory to God.
— Well, that would make sense if it were seven. So all of this has to do with creation, creation being good. How big is creation? God is good. He said this is good. Whatever He says is. You want to measure His goodness? Well, He said to Abraham, count the stars.
— Count them, see how far you get.
— He did it with Job.
— Yes He did.
— Can you measure?
— Can you do it?
— Because I did this in chapter one here. Can you measure the oceans in the palm of your hand? You're so smart. You're griping about things. Really? See that's the thing. That's how good God is. Look at the universe.
— He is... And think about this in our terminology. He is good at what He does. And you see it there in the book of Isaiah. He measured the oceans with a drop of water.
— Oh my.
— Well, that's a problem, because they change and He weighed the weight of the earth with a piece of dust. And then He measured out the heaven with a nine inch span. I couldn't stand it, I had to measure mine, it's eight and three quarters. And then He did it in a balance.
— And that's the depth of His goodness, because in all of those things that He did, He said, it's good.
— Now let me explain to you something here. It gives us insight into why man's overwhelming desire to go to the planets. That was original. The Lord showed me this a number of years ago. His original plan, had Adam done what he was supposed to do, earth would have become the garden spot of the universe. Then all of those planets out there, then He would have said, all right, son, this planet is full. Let's take over these others.
— Let's do this.
— Because that is in the heart of man to do it. It just drives him to get out there. But now that original plan is coming to pass.
— And the heaven and the earth are coming together. We're about to see a recreation of this place into that garden that it was supposed to be.
— Yes, yes. And the catching away of the church, the millennial reign and a new heaven and a new earth. The first one gone. And there'll never be any more glorified ones. We're it.
— And Jesus will rule and reign with us like He was trying to get that guy to do.
— And then we're going to be involved in the creation of the New Heaven and the New Earth.
— Yes, absolutely.
— Right there with Him.
— Absolutely true.
— Glory to God.
— Hey, that's in our future, in our very near future.
— Yes it is. Oh, I'm telling you that, it's become so, that we haven't been talking about it, and we're out of time. Come Jesus, right now. Come, Jeremy.