Kenneth Copeland - Love Expects God's Results
Kenneth Copeland: Hello everybody. This is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast.
Greg Stephens: Amen.
Kenneth Copeland: Oh, glory to God.
Greg Stephens: Victory that overcame the world.
Kenneth Copeland: Victory that overcame the world. Glory to God. Love, the love of God. The gateway to success.
Greg Stephens: Yes.
Kenneth Copeland: The power of God released. The compassion being the motive of God. Two covenants of love. First in the blood of animals, then the blood of a man through circumcision, then the blood of God that fixed it. And all of marvelous Psalms. And that there's just words that deliver and make people free. And Jesus said it very plainly, you continue in my Word and you'll know the truth. And the... Some people say "Set you free". No, no. That isn't what he said, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free".
Greg Stephens: Free. Yeah.
Kenneth Copeland: Make.
Greg Stephens: Right.
Kenneth Copeland: You just can't keep from being free, but you have to be free with faith.
Greg Stephens: The Apostle John taught us who that truth is.
Kenneth Copeland: Yes. He did.
Greg Stephens: Jesus full of grace and truth. And the disciple whom the Lord loved. The thing, and I don't want to say this is, I don't know the right words to say it. I don't want to say it broke the Lord's heart, but when he lost this mankind and we always talk about we fell. I don't like that word anymore, that we fell. We broke it.
Kenneth Copeland: Yes.
Greg Stephens: He gave it to us. He gave us a gift. We broke it and so, from then on, we had broken people and God would call broken people to minister love to more broken people, to unbreak them. And finally, Jesus came to unbreak the whole thing, put us right back on the place that we're, we're supposed to be. But God will call people in Scripture to minister to people.
Kenneth Copeland: And the God of all love.
Greg Stephens: Yes.
Kenneth Copeland: So patient that thousands of years went by. He's so intricate. And it had to be exactly right. He had to use the word of the prophets to control the environment. And Micah spoke about one who would be born in Bethlehem.
Greg Stephens: Yes.
—And 715 years later, it came to pass exactly on time. So those words controlled armies, controlled situation, controls nations, and all of a sudden, for the first time Caesar decided we going to tax people.
—And he wanted them to go to their hometown.
—Yeah.
—And that puts Joseph back in Bethlehem.
—Yes it does.
—So that, he can be born that night. Listen, he is so meticulous in lining everything up.
—Oh yes.
—That's his love.
—It is.
—And if he's that meticulous and he's not a respecter of persons, whatever he's called you to do, it's going to happen. It has to happen. You just got to keep yourself in the atmosphere of that, saying the right things.
—Oh yes.
—Because, it has to happen. That's the success part of this.
—So when you finally learn that and you realize that it has to happen and faith begins to believe, it is inevitable that it will happen. And sometimes things that are drawn out a long time, I've experienced some of that.
—Yeah.
—And you, "But, well, why did it take so long"? Well, there's a lot of elements involved and a lot of things I had to learn over the years, I had to learn that believing for finances was different from believing anything else. Because I can't do it by myself.
—Right. Right.
—I can't give by myself.
—Shall men give?
—Yeah, I do. So, anyway.
—You talked about the knowledge of that truth and making this free, our goal as followers of Jesus, is it to debate and argue doctrine about who's right and wrong. It's to have a knowledge of him and do his works. We get too many people nowadays that want to argue and fight over who's right and who's wrong. It's better to be happy than to be right.
—Can you receive and collect with your mind and your heart, of God thanking you or praising you? Jesus said, "If you only call the ones that you love, what thank have you"? He would say, I can't thank you for that. But now you call the lame and the halt and the blind and so forth. When you know good and well, they don't have enough money. And I had the Lord say that to me. He said, "You need to teach children and you need to spend time in prisons, even though they don't have any mother, money". And he said, "I thank you for going there".And then he says, when the time comes, he's going to straighten all of our doctrine out.
—Right.
—And then he'll praise us.
—Wow.
—Why? We fought the fight.
—Yes.
—And didn't quit.
—Yeah. There's only one way to speak truth and that's in love.
—In love.
—Because if you do it any other way and I'll say it this way, my grandfather used to say it a certain way, "If you can't speak the truth in love, keep your mouth shut".
—Yes.
—You'll do more good if you learn to just keep your mouth shut.
—Yeah. The vocabulary of silences.
—Yes sir.
—I said that to Jerry Savelle. Oh, anyway, let's go to the fifth chapter of the book of Mark. I said to him, I said, "Jerry, the shadow of a dog never bit anybody". "What"?
—Yeah.
—And, he caught me at a time when I was thinking about walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
—Shadow of death, Yeah.
—Well the shadow of a dog never bit anybody. It's the fear of the shadow of the dog. You see this shadow of this dog and it's huge and you find out the little old dog wasn't even bigger than that coffee cup, I mean that tea cup and well today it's lemon juice, but anyway, little old dog, but the shadow, he looked this big. That's the shadow.
—No boxer has ever been knocked out shadow boxing.
—No, unless he hit himself.
—Right. But we got people that are shadow boxing.
—Yes.
—And they're wearing themselves out.
—Fifth chapter of Mark, are you there?
—I'm there.
—Oh, this powerful chapter. Great faith chapter, verse one, "They came over under the other side of the sea," or to the other side of the Galilee, "the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship immediately, they met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit". Now, if you study the sixth chapter of the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul lays all this out. Where, "Put on the whole armor of God that you may stand -- done all the stand". We don't fight flesh and blood, but principalities and powers, rulers of the darkness of this world.
—Right.
—And wicked spirits in the heavenlies. One spirit is the one that possesses people, spirit, soul and body, with an unclean spirit. He was a cutter. And when he saw Jesus afar off, "he ran and worshiped him and cried with a loud voice and said, 'What have I to do with thee Jesus, thou son of the Most High God? I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not.' For Jesus had said to him, 'Come out of the man you unclean spirit.' He asked him, 'What is your name?' And he answered saying, 'My name is Legion for we are many.'" Now that's from three to 6,000 devils.
—Wow.
—But this devil was the boss. He possessed him. "And he besought him much that he would not send him away out of that country". This gives us an insight into why we don't see anymore real demon possessed people in this country than we do, because this is a country of freedom.
—Yeah.
—Based on freedom, covenanted with God and God doesn't turn that loose at all and the devil knows it. That's the reason he pushes so hard and so, just as strong as he can to get demon possessed people in the streets, killing people. Anyway, "Now there was nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding," a great herd, "all the devils besought him". Now, the people heard this man when he said what he said, because it came out of his mouth. They only, Jesus heard all those devils. The people didn't hear that. "All the devils, besought him saying, 'Send us into the swine that we may enter into them.'" Now, any spirit being, let's start with the Spirit of God. He does not have full expression in the earth unless someone allows him to come in.
—That's true. That's good.
—He still does not have full expression through that person until that person will allow him to come on them and speak in other tongues or speak a language that they did not learn. Then that opens the door to the supernatural. Now this all has to do with love and compassion. Now, here, these devils would take anything. I mean, they'd take a pig, anything, because Jesus said, if not, they're going to go into a dry place seeking rest and find nothing. Why? Because, they don't have a person. They don't have a human being. The human being is the most important thing on... Ever created by God.
—Given authority.
—Yes. Now, notice it, "Forthwith Jesus gave them leave and the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea into that lake. There were about 2,000 and were choked or drowned in the sea". That gives you an idea of the spiritual capacity of the human being, one, 2000, 2,100 devils. And they still couldn't stop this man from worshiping Jesus.
—My, my, my.
—The Devil himself can't stop it, isn't that good?
—Yeah.
—He saw him afar off and ran and worshiped him. Now he's a cutter. He's got scars. He's nasty. He doesn't have any clothes. This man is a mess. "They that fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. When they come to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil". See, it didn't say devils was possessed with the devil, "and had the Legion sitting and clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. And, they that saw it, told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil and also concerning the swine and they began to pray him to depart out of their coast. And when he was come into the ship, he then had been possessed with the devil, prayed him, that he might be with him. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, 'go home to your friends, tell them how great things the Lord have done for thee and have had compassion on thee.'" Now my question is where did they get the clothes?
—Well, they had to bring them.
—They did.
—Which means?
—Jesus prepared before he went over there.
—Yes.
—Now faith always prepares. The love of God always prepares before it goes. It is ready for the results, even if they don't happen right at that moment. Do you have loved ones somewhere that's incarcerated? I know of this. We had testimonies of this, the woman that I'm thinking about set a place for her son.
—Amen.
—She set a place for him and she would sit there and talk to him. He's in prison, but she talked to him, there at the table. And, when she cleaned up, she went so far, if I remember this thing right, I'm sure she did. She went so far as to wash those clean dishes and she just kept on and just kept on and kept on. And that young man came home. He came home born again and filled with the Spirit.
—Amen.
—She prepared it for him.
—This reminds me of something that happened at Kenneth Copeland Bible College last year. Now it all makes sense to me. I'm teaching a class, Old Testament, first Testament and just teaching away and I looked down at this girl that was always sits right here. That's her assigned seat. She's got a boot on her ankle, on her foot. And I don't know why I did this. I don't normally do that. "What do you do? What'd you do? What's wrong with your foot"? And she says, "Oh, well, I'm going to be healed today". I said, "Well, that's good". And I heard of my spirit, "Well now is today".
—Yeah. (laughs)
—And well, it is. Now is today. And I looked at her and I said, "Well now is today". I said, "When today"? She goes, "Well, now". I said, "Okay" and just reach your hand out to her. And just, "In the name of Jesus, be made whole". That's all I could think to say. All of a sudden she jumped and pulled that boot off. Now here's the thing, she brought her other shoe with her.
—Yes, yes, yes.
—So she's doing exactly-
—That's what she did.
—Exactly that.
—And you can just see Jesus, "Alright now, boys. Now, let me tell you something. We're going to go over here".
—Here's what's about to happen.
—"And go get him some clothes. We're going to take him some new clothes. We're going to... Hey, he's nasty. He's skin and bones. He doesn't eat. We're going to cover him. He's got those little marks on him, but they're going to be gone, but I'm calling him preach and a preacher ought to look good.
—Glory to God.
—Yeah. And he gets back home to his friends, he ought to look good.
—Yeah.
—Because they're going to say, "Where have you been? Where do you get those clothes"? The first thing they're going to see is his clothes.
—Yeah, right.
—Not that ugly... Because he's going to be cleaned up and in his right mind, right?
—Yes. He's going to look and suits.
—Call him in the ministry, changes the whole region.
—Changes the whole region thereabout.
—And love did that.
—So love did that. And if that's an apostle, I don't know what an apostle is. He sent him home.
—Yeah, he's a sent one.
—Yeah, he's sent.
—And that's the Gadarenes. That's the Decapolis. It's a place where the Gentiles primarily lived in the first century. There are Jews there, but primarily it's Gentiles. They're the Greeks. And so there's, Hellenistic Jews. As a matter of fact, later in his ministry, they'll come to the disciples and say, "The Greeks seek thee". I guarantee it was from this guy.
—I hadn't thought about that.
—It was from this guy. It had to have been.
—And they said, "We would see this Jesus".
—Yes.
—Yeah, "We've heard a lot about him, well, I want to see him. I want to see this guy-"
—"I want to see the guy that killed the pigs and did the..".
—Yeah. "I want to see the guy that put such good looking clothes on my friend".
—Absolutely right. Absolutely true. Absolutely true. And they had heard of him how'd they hear of it? That guy right there and loved him.
—And he got home and Mrs. Legion said, "Where have you been? Where did you get those good looking clothes? Who got you those clothes"? "Let me tell you about this man named Jesus".
—Yes. And news of him then spread abroad everywhere. And when they had heard of Jesus, well, the woman right behind it, is we always call her the woman with the issue of blood right behind it. When she had heard of Jesus, I'm telling you, word got around that lake.
—Well, he lived just across the lake. He was going home. He just went from over there, got that job done. So he is going back over, he's going home. He lived in Capernaum.
—Right.
—And so he's just going home. Well, they had all the spies out. Well, here he comes, here he comes.
—Right. And they were set up, Jairus' daughter, this woman, they're all doing that because news of him was spread about. Not that Jesus wanted them talking about himself. He always pointed to the Father.
—Oh, yeah.
—And that's a pitfall you got to watch out for you. You, you don't share the gold, the girls, the glory, Brother Hagin used to say. The glory all belongs to him.
—Yes it does.
—In all of these things, because...
—I was talking yesterday and the day before, about being able to buy nice things for Gloria. And just, well, last night when we were talking about this, God is so good. He's just so good. And this is not the only time. I mean, we do this almost every night and she'll just start talking about things. "Look and think about this". "Oh, Kenneth, think about this? Think about this house we live in". "Oh, Kenneth think about..". "Oh, think about that mess we lived when we first got started here". And you just, you start talking about the goodness of God and then she'll invariably say, "He will do this for anyone that will allow it".
—Yes. Yeah. You know what she's doing? To walk by faith simply means that your heart has been established and in his goodness and in his love, and you can trust him.
—Yeah.
—24 hours a day, seven days a week. And you will talk his love and his goodness, you'll pray his love and goodness. I mean, it just becomes part of you, it's your environment.
—And I made so many...
—And that's what she's done. That's what she's doing.
—So many stupid things. It cost me, caused me a lot of pain and physically, it's because I was too busy to obey God. But I'm pain free.
—Absolutely right.
—And, I remember all that pain, but it's kind like a bad dream. It was terrible when it was going on. But I used to be way overweight. Thank God I'm not anymore.
—Right. Right. But love did that.
—Love did that.
—Even when you didn't act right, love acted right towards you.
—Yes he did. And he just stayed with me.
—And he's faithful and it was all a matter of learning to trust him. And here's the hardest thing for Greg, because, I have to know the answers to things. That's just the way I am and that's fine. But trust requires unanswered questions. "Lord, you won't tell me the answer, but I trust you".
—I trust you. Yes I do.
—I trust you and I love you.
—I trust your will. I trust your... I came to that place where I made a conscious decision and, I just stood before him at attention.
—Yes, sir.
—As a soldier in the army of the Lord. And I said, "Lord, I'm a soldier. I am yours to command. I'm yours to command. It is no longer my will. And your will, you command me from your Word? You command me. Your will is my will. I'll have no other will".
—Yes.
—But, I bow my knee to my king. Praise God.
—Amen.
—And here we are out of time.
—You'll know my disciples. They love one another.
—That's it.
—Has this been good? I've learned things.
—Me too.
—Glory to God.
—Amen.
—Thank You Lord.
—Come on Jeremy. We love you, boy.