Kenneth Copeland - Open the Door to Love
Let's back up here. Let's go to the 21st verse. "When Jesus"... No, 22nd, "Verily, verily". There's two verilies. That verily means... It is more of a legal term. It stands in that same place, like, "I'm telling you the truth, nothing but the truth". "Verily, verily". Now listen. "Of a truth, I tell you. And verily, verily". This is important. "The servant is not greater than his lord. Neither he that is sent, greater than he that sent him. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them. I speak not of you all. I know whom I have chosen, but that the scripture may be fulfilled, he that eateth bread with me have lifted up his heal against me. Now I tell you before it come, that when it has come to pass, you may believe". Now, notice "he" is in italics. "That you may believe that I am". "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that receiveth whomsoever I sent receiveth me. He that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me". This is very intimate. It's very dim, lamp lit, very intimate conversation.
"When Jesus had thus said He was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.' Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spoke. Now there was, leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved". Well, He loved them all, but this was John's confession. He was the only one of them that stayed with Him all the way through the whole thing. He didn't run. "Now there was, leaning on Jesus' bosom". Now get an image of that. He wasn't sitting next to Him at a table. That's just an artist's rendition, written back in a time when there was very little scripture handy to even get it from. And particularly, not the kind of revelation we have today, thousands of years later, or hundreds, or however long it's been. Leaning on his bosom. He was right there on His right. Study these things. And when you receive communion, see yourself right there next to John. And you're just right there; in your own mind, you're right there, because we have what we have in the gospels, everything He said that night.
"Leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of His disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned Him, that he should ask who it should be, of whom He spoke". John, Peter, James, and John. But John had this way in faith about him. He was close. He just hung on everything Jesus said. He was younger. And Peter came up there. I can just see Peter, "Ask Him who it is". "You ask Him". "No, you do it". I want to be one that's that close. I don't want be one that's... I want to be right there. And we are. Because those men were close, but they were not family. We're kinfolks. And Jesus said, "A prophet has no honor at home". And some of my kinfolks one time said, "Uh". No, he didn't ask me. "You think Kenneth's a prophet"? "Why, he's our kinfolks". "Uh, Elder"? Ever prophet was somebody's kinfolks, including Jesus. But we're family. We've been born into the family. We're blood kin. In the blood of Jesus. Hallelujah. Didn't take me long to get happy tonight. Jesus answered, "He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it".
That is a covenant matter. You can see it in the book of Revelation, Jesus knocking on the heart door of the church's heart. "If you will open the door to me". This is not talking about the heart of a sinner. It was the heart of the church. "If you will open the door to me, I will come in, and I will"... Huh? You know what that stands for in covenant? "When I come in here, I'll take care of all the bills". You let me sit down and eat with you, and I'll pay for the groceries. I'll pay the rent on this house. If you let me stay here long enough, I'll buy you a new house. That's covenant speech. This is an Eastern book. Western minded people have a hard time with this, because of our religious things, and just don't pay enough attention. So, Jesus gave Judas an opportunity. His name was actually Judah. He gave him an opportunity right then, but he didn't take it. I'm totally convinced, he paid so little attention. He had money on his mind, and everything. But so many times, right there in Nazareth, he was there when Jesus hid himself, and walked out from among them. And they had no idea where He went. They were going to shove Him off that cliff. They didn't know what happened to Him. That's not the only time He did that.
Now that this is just me, you understand? But I've been reading this book a long time. I'm convinced that he thought for sure, he would just come up and kiss him. Because they all thought this thing was... "He's just going to restore Israel, and going kick Rome out of here, and that's going to be the end of this thing". That he would just suddenly disappear. It didn't work that way. Now follow me carefully. "After the sop, after that, Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus to him, 'That you do do it quickly.' Now, no man at the table knew for what intent He spoke this unto him. Some of them thought Judas had the bag that Jesus had said unto him, 'Buy some things that we have need of against the feast.' Or that he should give something to the poor". I mentioned this before. You have to have a giving reputation that is beyond anything you can imagine, to think in the middle of the night, right in the middle of a Seder meal, that Jesus would lean over and say, "Go give some, so and so". But it wasn't strange to them. "The man at the Beautiful Gate".
How many times you can count them, and it must not have been all of them. Just count them in the book of Mark, how many times they went back and forth in that temple. And people have majored up on the cleansing of the temple, and didn't realize He didn't go in there just to clean it. He went in there to preach. And walk right past that same man. Now, you want to go wide screen with this? That's the reason when He saw Peter and John, He thought, "Here them come my boys". Oh yeah. Expecting to receive something from them. Why? Because Jesus, when He was there, He got something every time Jesus walked through that gate. Every time Jesus said, "Come on, come on, come on. Make his way for him today". Every time Jesus walked through that gate, you're going to tell me He walked past that beggar, and didn't give him anything? And him at the gate of the temple? So he is absolutely a legal beggar. He wasn't blind, but he was legal. Bartimaeus was blind, but he was legal. And if the priests declared that you were blind, you wore a garment that declared you were not a phony. And he heard Jesus of Nazareth. "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Have mercy on me". The Jewish word is hesed. It is a hard word to translate in English. It is a covenant word.
When David, blood covenant with Jonathan, and he said, "Is there none left of the house of David to whom", he says, "that I might show kindness, to whom I might do hesed". Where the bigger blesses the less. And mercy is translated, hesed. It's actually hesed. "Jesus! Son of David! Messiah"! Messiah. He knew who he was. "Do hesed on me". Jesus stopped. "Somebody knows who I am". "And he's calling for covenant hesed". And Jesus said, "Bring him here". And of course they'll say, "Oh, he wants you now". Well, what does it matter? They didn't know who He was. His own staff didn't know who He was. What did Bartimaeus do? I no longer call him blind Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus threw off his robe, his garment. And Jesus just simply said, "Bartimaeus what can I do for you"? Jesus knew what he wanted, but he had to say it. He had to release his faith with his mouth. It was an act of faith when he dropped that garment. But he had to say it. He had to say it, that I receive my sight. Jesus said, "Okay". He's the same way today. "Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said".
Now, that's very telling. He's gone. He's out of here. Now. Now I can talk to you. "Now is the Son of God glorified. And God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him. Little children, yet a little while I'm with you, you shall seek me. And as I said unto the Jews, 'Where I go, you cannot come.' And now I say unto you, 'A new commandment, I give unto you: that you love one another". See that mark, there, is a colon? Now remember, in the Greek text, particularly, where this Bible was translated. There's no capital letters, there's no punctuation marks, and certain things were added, and so forth. So it literally reads, "A new commandment I give unto you: that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another". Commandment. My brother and sister, this is not a suggestion. This is commandment.
Is an attorney here, present? Anyone an attorney? I wonder how many laws we have, how many federal laws we have on the books in the United States now. Anybody have any idea? I don't. I don't care how many tens of thousands there are. They are to enforce ten. Ten Commandments. That's what God gave Moses. And then they got in, and decided, "That ain't enough. We're going to fix it". So then, they came up with about 600 more. And little jerky ideas of what this one meant, and what that one meant, and you can only go this far. And that far. And Jesus broke them all, except the Ten. Amen. The leper broke the law. And fell at Jesus' feet. Jesus broke the law when he touched him. Now, come down to the 14th chapter. "Let not your heart. You. Don't you let your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father's house, there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you".
Now, listen. He wasn't standing up preaching. He's just talking. He did things that night they didn't understand. The bread was not a big loaf of bread. It was matzah. I used it still. I buy it where you buy Jewish supplies. No salt. You want a big loaf? Doesn't hurt if you use a big loaf, but that's not what was there. And there were three pieces, and the napkin was folded. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Then you take Isaac out, and you break him. He did all that. The Messiah's cup. It was always upside down. And that night, He did all that. He took it out. And He took out that middle one, and He said, "This is my body, broken for you". Then, He did the unthinkable. He turned the cup right side up, and poured in the wine. And they drank with Him. And He said, "This is my blood, of the New Covenant". They still, "What? A new commandment. A new covenant. What"? Precious. The most precious moments on earth. And only hours away, would be the most precious moments in heaven. And I'll stop there just a moment.
Now, we know right here, in John's gospel, 20th chapter, "He breathed on them, and said, 'Receive you the Holy Ghost.'" That's when they got born again. What are the requirements? The apostle Paul tells us how to get saved. "Believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead". Well, they believed that. They saw it, "And confess Him with your mouth as Lord". Well, they had done that. He just breathed on them, and the new birth took place. I thought it took place at Pentecost. No, no, no. That's when the Holy Spirit came back into this atmosphere. And that sound, it was not a rushing, mighty wind. It was the sound of a rushing, mighty wind. That rushing, mighty wind sound was not just the Holy Spirit, but the untold number of angels that came back into this atmosphere, are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth the minister for the heirs of salvation? Innumerable number of angels, trillions of them. And this atmosphere, I personally, I believe you could have heard it anywhere on the planet. This atmosphere was charged with Satan's defeat. Whoosh. He's done. You can stick a fork in him. Send his saddle home. Praise God forever more. Hallelujah.