Kenneth Copeland - Remember the Covenant to Keep From Compromising
— January 2022. The decisions can be made and should be made that affect the entire year. And people are in new year's resolution and it's gone by February, but we're talking about Bible decisions based on the Word of God, based on our covenant with God. And we have to remember certain things about covenant relationship with anyone, especially with God. Daniel and his relationship with God, he absolutely refused to compromise under any... in fact, that's 12 chapter of no compromise, that's what that whole book is all about. And it established certain things there that the apostle John brought into the book of Revelation, he's quoted there. So we learned from him to never compromise. Now, he entered into... as we talked about yesterday, he entered into... where he ate no pleasant food, it didn't mean he fasted, but he just didn't eat anything pleasant, mostly just water for 21 days and didn't hear anything. But on the 21st day, he said, "Fear not Daniel for from the first day that you did set your heart to understand to chasing yourself before thy God that words were heard and I'm come for your words". 21 days he didn't hear anything and he didn't quit. He just stayed with it, because in my opinion here and what... If we go over to 1 John 5, that... let's look at it. 1 John 5, first 15, if we... 14, this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will. You could say, if we ask anything according to his Word, because his Word is his will. This is the will and testament of the Lord, Jesus Christ.
— Any scriptural thing.
— Any scriptural thing. We have this confidence that if we ask anything according to his will, his Word, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. We know that. So I believe we have confidence in saying that Daniel knew he was heard. He believed he was heard. He wouldn't quit. And I believe he was in a situation where he was going to stay until he did hear. He didn't know it was going take 21 days. He didn't know, but if it might take three months? But he wasn't going to quit because he's in intercession, and he wouldn't quit. And he said, be strong, yea be strong. And when he had spoken unto me I was straightened and so forth. And listen, when I was gone forth, lo, the prince of Greece shall come. I want to say something here. The prince of Persia, the devil that Satan had assign to Persia, which is Iran, where he was controlling that government. And he said, and when I'm gone the devil that the Lord sent to control Greece is going to replace me or replace that one. This shows us what happens in governments, and we have politicians here in the United States that they'll say one thing on the campaign trail, and then when they get to Washington, DC, they see where they have to compromise that, they don't have to keep their promise. Yes, they could keep their promised, but they don't understand the forces that are against them once they get there. I don't care if they're Christians or not. When they get there, there's forces against them they don't understand. And they do and say stupid things on whatever party they're in, because not understanding the spiritual forces behind it, good or bad. And not understanding that they have angel help if they knew how to invoke it with the name of Jesus, but that answers a lot of questions on what happens to politicians and what happens to governments and so forth. And particularly this one, and particularly the nation of Israel, because to the kingdom of darkness these are the two most powerful nations against him ever. And he never dreamed he'd have to fight them both at the same time because he thought he got rid of Israel, but they came back. It's the only nation that was born out of World War II, and World War II was fought because of it. Amen, anyway. Now let's go over. Now remember, we're talking about facts and covenant promises. What does the non-compromised Word of Faith or Word of God mean? What does that mean? What does the Word, our covenant with God say? Now that becomes very, very important because by covenant, Abraham was the friend of God. By covenant, we are the sons of God. And by covenant, we are blood brothers to Jesus. Well, but now how many Christian people know that? Are those that know it and still don't take any advantage of it because we been raised up together with him and made to sit together with him in heavenly places. So we have something to say about it. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, but if you don't say something, I've heard Gloria preach this so many times. Why didn't you say something? I had the Lord say it to me. I was in pain in my back now standing there on that treadmill and hurting all over. And I said, "Lord, how long is this going"? He said, "You're not giving me anything to work with". I was just crying the pain and all of that. I had to be corrected. So, okay, here we go. I will not compromise it. Now let's go over to 2 Peter 1, Simon Peter. Now, Simon Peter, name changed. When Jesus said, who do you say that I am. Simon Bar-Jonah said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus that time called him Peter and that's his name in the book. The covenant name change was made right then. And by calling him hard as a rock got him through after he had even denied Jesus at the cross. It got him through. If he'd have still been Simon Bar-Jonah, he'd have been in a mess you know, but Jesus never called him Simon again, he called him Peter. He called him that, because you are a rock, in that Greek language it's petra, rock. So now notice, and he said on this rock I'll built my church. He wasn't talking about Peter. Flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you. The church is built on revelation knowledge. And when you have revelation of the Word like we're talking about here, you have revelation of never compromising the Word, then you become strong. You make decisions based on the Bible, on the Word. And I was faced with making a decision of changing my physical body and yielding to a proper diet. I'd lose a bunch of weight and then come off of it. Well, that doesn't work if you're an alcoholic either. But... And finally I made the decision, this is it. I'm not going that way anymore. And I began to reach out to God and he sent me this young man and glory to God. And now he's my trainer and it just made all the difference in the world and my body weight is stable now because of that decision that I made years ago. So now Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ looking... are you ready? Are you ready? Don't ever compromise this, that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. You mean I have the same faith as this great apostle? Well, yeah, you got it, it's the same place we did. He got it from Jesus. Amen. We have the same faith as the apostle John. We have the same faith as the apostle Paul, his name was changed. He was Saul of Tarsus. And it started out Barnabas and Saul, and then later the apostles Barnabas and Paul depart, his name was changed and he was never called Saul again, never, because Jesus changed his name. Glory to God. And he became the great apostle Paul. He said, I Paul, right under you and that was not his name until Jesus changed it. Glory to God. And our name has been changed. We have been named after our Father in the third chapter of the book of Ephesians. We have been named after the Father. Glory to God. Now listen to this, "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord". Oh no. "Through the knowledge of God and the knowledge of Jesus our Lord". You need knowledge of God, knowledge of God, but you need knowledge of Jesus. You need to understand him. You need to know him and realize he's your brother. He was born twice. He was manifested in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. He was born of Mary, of God but then he died and he was made obedient unto death, went to hell and suffered like no man has ever suffered. He was made to be a curse for us that we might be redeemed from the curse. Glory to God. Amen, isn't that good? So we have light faith with Jesus. So when he was born again in hell, he became the first born of many brethren. He's the firstborn and we became firstborn. We have firstborn status. Amen, because we are grafted in Jews. Whoa! Glory be to God forever more. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Isn't that good?
— I was thinking about, does that have that name change? Does that have some form of bringing you into your calling?
— Oh, everything to do with it.
— If your name is changed...
— Now, see, I started out as a teacher. I still love to teach, started out as a teacher. And I had it in my spirit. I knew that the prophets ministry was ahead of me someplace. I picked that up in the spirit and I held onto that for... oh, about four years. And I said, "Lord, I'm not going to..." Now you have to remember, this is back in the 60's and 70's. There were a lot of people didn't know there were any prophets left. There were just pastors and evangelists. And certainly couldn't be an apostle anywhere. Well, the word apostle just means somebody sent of God. But I said, "Lord, I'm not going to announce that for myself". And so we had gone to camp meeting that year in 1977. And it was Saturday night, the last night of camp meeting and the speakers... I had spoken during that meeting and Gloria and I were up there on the platform and I heard it in my spirit, "Get on your knees". Well, Brother Hagin just started giving the invitation. I said, "No, I don't want to cause attention". He said, "Get on your knees now". So I just slipped off on my knees and I heard Brother Hagin, "Yes, I'll tell him. Yeah. I'll... yeah. I'll tell him". Kenneth Copeland, just as my knees hit the floor. Oh God. Well, I didn't have any idea what was going to happen. But he said, you're going to have to move over into that healing ministry a little bit sooner than you thought you were because you're not getting ahead of God, you're keeping step with God. And whether you want to or not, you're going to operate in the ministry of the prophet. Seer, seer standing right in the pulpit, you'll see right in front of your eyes just like you saw it rolling off on a television screen, you'll be able to minister to the people. Now you're going to get a lot of persecution from some friends. Some are going to draw back from you, but those fair weather friends are not worth it. Go on with God. Jesus is coming. It's better to stand in his presence and say, "I'll not be disobedient".
— So the call was oral.
— So, now I received a calling, so I'm called a prophet. So it changed my ministry office, Gloria, that's a wonderful observation. I never thought of that.
— I never...
— But by covenant, I was already a teacher. Well, I didn't lose being a teacher, but I teach from a higher revelation and see into things and I've had visions and dreams, had just recently had a vision that this was lasted couple of days, anyway...
— I never had thought of that before.
— I hadn't either.
— I didn't just now.
— But listen to what he said. Now, remember what does the Word say?
— Where are you?
— Right here in the in 2 Peter 1:3. According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that have called us to glory and virtue or excellence. He has called us to excellence. Well, now here is a really great opportunity to compromise. Excellence. Well, I don't really need all that. Who said he think about you needing it? Now, then the Lord called Gloria and got Gloria to call me at the same place. We didn't have much and...
— Well, look at that. It said, whereby our given unto us succeeding great and precious promises that by these...
— By these promises, you become partakers of the divine nature. By those promises, you can't get it any other way. And we saw this...
— So your calling has everything.
— It has everything to do with it.
— I see that.
— So now the Lord said to us both, I was praying one day and I thought we needed so much, we needed everything. And I just began to pray in the spirit. I was a little exasperated about it because I didn't understand all that. He said, "Look up". And I had my head down like this. He said, "Look up". I looked up, he said, "I want you to look above your needs". And he said, "You and Gloria are in the ministry. You look above your needs and you see the world and you begin add their needs to your needs". And then he said, "And then look at your partners. You reach out to help them get their needs met through your letters and so forth". When we looked up and we saw the needs of the people just flooded finances and so forth into us because we looked up and began to look beyond our needs and began to look out to the people with whom we are connected and then the needs of the world.
— Calling.
— The callings and so forth. And so then, according as his divine power, his divine power has given unto us how many things? All things that pertain to life and godliness, that's all things. What pertains to life. When you start off with food and drink, come on and close you where it has to do with the money that you need. It has to do with the teaching and training of your children. It has to do with the place to live. Jesus says, why take ye thought for all these things, your heavenly Father knows you have need of them. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things be added to you. Now that includes finances. It include... and he was talking about what you shall eat, what you shall drink, what you shall wear, why take ye thought saying these things? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and these promises and all these things will be added to you.
— That would be healing, prospering.
— Everything.
— Wisdom... Everything that to life and godliness. Amen.
— Praise God. I receive it.
— And so we don't compromise those things. We don't walk away from the excellence because we don't have enough money to be excellent. Now, wait a minute. Now wait a minute. Yeah, but Brother Copeland, I need a car. This old car... Well, what does the inside of that car look like? Is it full of popcorn, kernels and spill snow cones? Well, yeah, but this... Now remember when Jesus said, if you're not faithful with little, you won't be faithful with much, your new car's going to look like a pig bin. Get in there and clean out that one. Wash that thing and polish it. I don't care if it's got to wrinkle in every fender. You polish that thing and you clean it up and you say, "Jesus, this is what my new car's going to look like and I'm not going to compromise excellence". Praise God, because you're my source.
— I think if you took the time to get into this first chapter here, all the way down there here, you can see a lot of reasons why things don't work.
— Well. Yeah, it's there. That's good news. That's the gospel my friend. And we're out of time again, praise the Lord. Let's give the Lord a praise and thanksgiving.
— Thank you Lord. Thanks God. Thank you Jesus.
— Hallelujah.