Kenneth Copeland - Because He Remembered His Covenant
— Christmas Eve, oh, at our house. A lot of people open presents Christmas morning. That didn't happen in our house. It was Christmas Eve. We opened all the presents on Christmas Eve, and all day Christmas Eve it was torture. I just, just torture.
— I can imagine, little fidgety boy wants his present.
— And I just wanted a motorcycle so bad. Anyway. And by this time I was in high school. And I saved up my money and bought a motorcycle jacket and the whole thing.
— You looked good, man.
— Anyway, so Christmas Eve and I had this, it was a box about so big. It was heavy. And I thought, I don't know what that is. And I kept... It was a heavy thing. And so I tore that package open and it was full of magazines, which made it heavy. And just a note in there and said, "I'm on the front porch". What? And I went out there and opened, and it was cold, just nasty cold, you know? And there it was. Gloria.
— What, what was it?
— A Triumph Thunderbird.
— Woo, woo.
— The motorcycle of motorcycles in my mind. I just stood there and looked at that. I went in there and got my jacket and got on that thing. And I rode that motorcycle a hundred miles that night. I liked to froze. Just rode it in. Oh, oh anyway.
— Wow.
— Well, my dad said, "If I could unzip your head, nothing but airplanes and motorcycles would come out". That's fun. And I haven't changed a whole lot.
— You'll grow up someday.
— Well, I still have motorcycles in my garage. So here we go. Let's catch up here where we were yesterday, in that 76th verse. Now this little boy, John, is being prophesied over. The 72nd verse, to perform the mercy promise to our fathers, to remember his holy covenant. Did you get it? To remember his holy covenant. All this is happening because he remembers his holy blood agreement that he made with Abraham. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So, that he would grant unto us, that we delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. And thou your child shall be called the prophet of the highest for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways. Your child shall be called the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of the salvation of his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring, now look that up the Dayspring, or actually the sun rising or the bright star, the light from on high is the way that should be translated. For the light from on high to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. And the child grew and became strong in spirit and was in the deserts until the day of his showing unto Israel or until he was 30 years old. So it came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. Well, 715 years after Micah said it, that this baby's going to be born in Bethlehem, all of a sudden the decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed or enrolled. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth unto Judea into the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house lineage of David. It is all working just exactly as God had said through the mouth of his prophets over the years. It's all right on time. Just like a well oiled watch, I mean this thing is just coming together. To be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child. Glory to God. So it was that while they were there, the days of her accomplished, that she should be delivered. Now, may I remind you that poor people are not taxed? Did you notice there are no shepherds there? They don't tax poor people. Amen.
— They tax people that don't have any money in our day and time, whether you got any money or not.
— Sounds like it. She brought forth her firstborn son wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid him in a manger because there was no room at the inn. Why was there no room at the end? Well. Now, we know that they went there from Nazareth, right? It is 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. They were slow. She's about to have this baby. So everybody got there before they got there. Of course they did. Because she had to be born in the shepherd's tower or manger. Now to describe this, a birthing trough where the mother, the ewe was, and they had to be very careful with her because she's the mother of a temple lamb, a temple sacrifice. And so the shepherds were very well, they were raised to do this and taught this and you had to be picked as a shepherd to even have this job. And now you know why Jesus ripped that temple open and said, "This is a house of prayer and you've turned it into a den of thieves". Because if you brought your lamb in and somebody examined it, said, "No, no, this is not good enough, " then they'd sell you one. And then they would take the one that they took away from you and sell it to somebody else. It was just a con game, just raising money. Anyway. And the swaddling, because once that little lamb or once Jesus was born, then he was immediately wrapped in swaddling clothes, which was a tight-fitting garment made out of linen. And it was pure, very tight fitting so that little lamb couldn't jerk around and hurt himself. And so he was wrapped in that tight-fitting swaddling clothes. And so the first time then handed her. And so she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room at the inn. So now she wrapped him and then she laid him in that little small manger. Lo the angel of the Lord came upon them. And the glory of the Lord shown round about them. And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, "Fear not, behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. And you shall find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes living in a manger". And suddenly there was an angel and a multitude of the heavenly host praising God saying, "Glory to God in the highest and on the earth peace, goodwill toward men". And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, "Let's go now even to Bethlehem and see this thing". And studying this and reading, it was all of a sudden as bright as day. It just was bright as day. Then the angel made this announcement. Then all of the angels got involved. Now notice this, this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly host, a multitude of heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men". You see Christmas cards about that and all the goodwill and all. Peace. Look at it, on earth, glory to God highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. The sacrifice, the war between heaven and earth is over. The sacrifice is in the earth. Goodwill toward men. Didn't say among men. Goodwill toward men. This war that's been going on that the devil caused, that's been going on all this time and you let your mind go back to the book of Job. And Job was an upright man. And the devil was in the earth and he was in the earth with authority because Adam had given it to him. And he is mean. Jesus said he doesn't come for anything except to steal, to kill and to destroy. That's all he does. Well, it created such hardness on the earth. And men had little understanding about God and they couldn't tell whether it was God killing them or what's going on. And the devil set out against Job for one reason only. Because he was the richest man in the east. And God had blessed him to the point that he was the richest man in the east and he was righteous in the eyes of God and a rich man with a lot of money and able to do what God's called him to do is really dangerous to the devil. And so he just set out to kill everything around him. And actually he wanted to kill him and he just came against him. And the devil said, "He'll curse to your face because, and you've blessed him". But there was a wall around him. There was a blessing wall built up around him and the devil couldn't get through there. And the Lord said, "You have access to him". Now, the only sin involved here was cursing God. You have to remember that in studying the book of Job. And he said, "He'll curse you to your face". And the Lord said, "All right, but you can't kill him. You can't have his, don't you touch his life". And all of these terrible things happened to him and his wife did it. But anyway, she committed that sin. She opened the door to the devil to kill her children, but Job never would do it. He wouldn't curse him. Well, he stood the test and he got back twice of everything and lived to be an old, old, old man. Amen. A man of faith that wouldn't quit and wouldn't blame God for his problems. So that shows us then, and as you study it through, once Jesus was born into this earth, I mean, the devil could pretty well tell his days are numbered. And so he came against him because it had been said to him in the Garden of Eden, "Your day is coming. There's coming one that's going to put his heel on your head". He did. And so he set out to kill the prophets. He didn't know who it was going to be. But then this baby's born and some really strange things are happening just because these two babies are born. So he just set after John and just set out after him to get him. But John stood up and said, "No, I'm not him. I'm not the one. But there's one coming after me. I'm not worthy to untie his shoes". Amen. So you can see where, anyway, glory to God. Now. And oh, we're out of time again today. My goodness.
— The clock just keeps ticking on.
— Yeah, it does. Well, let's give the Lord praise and thanksgiving, glory to God. Thank You, Lord.