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| KENNETH COPELAND |
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DAILY GUIDE TO MIRACLES from Oral Roberts Ministries Sunday, October 8, 2006 http://orm.cc DON'T TOLERATE FEAR Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Copeland Ministries www.kcm.org First Peter 5:9 NKJV says, Resist him [the devil], steadfast in the faith. Anything that Jesus bore for us on the Cross we are morally obligated to resist. He bore sin, so we should resist it. He bore sickness and disease, so we should resist sickness and disease. To take a ho-hum attitude and tolerate things that Jesus has redeemed us from is wrong. The same can be said of fear. We are to resist it. Hebrews 2:14 says that through His death, Jesus destroyed the devil, who had the power of death, and who used the fear of dying to hold people in bondage their whole lives. One definition of fear is "confidence in death." When death loses its threat, there is no fear; and when there is no fear, death has lost its threat. The Scripture says, Whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23). So for us not to resist fear is a sin. Second Timothy 1:7 NKJV says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. That verse tells me that fear is not the power of God, it's not the love of God, and it's not a sound mind. We've not been given a spirit of fear. And anything that God didn't give us, we are not to tolerate. I believe the reason many Christians accept fear is that they have never been taught that fear, like faith, is a spiritual force. But fear is faith perverted. They are total opposites. Satan can't do anything to you apart from fear, and God will not work for you apart from faith. So it's important to understand that you have been delivered from the bondage of fear. You don't have to tolerate it any longer!" ON DOCTRINE NOTE: The key teaching of Kenneth Copeland is embodied in his definition of fear, by which he claims that fear is a "spiritual force" which is so powerful that it will prevent God from working on behalf of the person. Like his teaching about faith, which he defines as being so powerful that God had to use faith in order to create the universe and human beings, fear is also defined as being so powerful that it can circumvent God's ability to act in specific situations. In other words, God is prevented from acting according to His will and purpose by a force that is outside of himself. So, in Kenneth Copeland's theology, faith and fear are forces that are outside the realm of God's control and they act upon God in ways that He cannot prevent. Faith will cause God to act and fear will prevent God from acting, therefore, in Kenneth Copeland's theology, God is not truly sovereign and He is not truly omnipotent, although God claims those attributes for Himself: "'Indeed before the day was, I am He; and there is no one who can deliver out of My hand; I work, and who will reverse it?'"Since God claims abilities for Himself that Kenneth Copeland denies, then a follower of Kenneth Copeland must make a choice; Who is the authority, God or Kenneth Copeland? The question for Kenneth Copeland and the reader is, Is there any incident in the Scripture that is just the opposite to what Kenneth Copeland claims; where Satan acted because of an expression of faith and God acted because of an expression of fear (fear defined according to Kenneth Copeland being ". . . anything that God didn't give us," that "we are not to tolerate,")? If there is such an incident, then the Scripture proves that Kenneth Copeland's teaching about fear and faith is false. There is such an incident and it is the subject of the entire book of Job. Many people teach that the subject of the book of Job is suffering, and there is merit in that view, but actually it is about the power and sovereignty of God to control circumstances that are beyond human understanding and beyond the control of evil spiritual beings embodied in Satan. Job was a man of faith who was just in the opinion of God, yet God allowed and directed that most of his family be killed, his possessions be destroyed and his health utterly fail. Not only did God allow and direct those events, He commanded Satan to be the agent of their accomplishment. That could not possibly be the case in Kenneth Copeland's theology, because faith should bring about happiness, health, wealth and power, not the dissolution of those elements. Job began with those things and then was dispossessed of them all; just the opposite of what Kenneth Copeland would claim should have been the case. God commanded and gave to Job through the agent of Satan, sorrow, sickness, poverty and weakness and all because Job was righteous not because he was sinful or fearful. There are those who try to deny that Job was placed in such a deficient position because he was righteous by claiming that God gave him over to Satan for chastening because Job had sinned. However, God denies that to be the case, because He states specifically that Job was blameless and afflicted "WITHOUT CAUSE". "Then the Lord said to Satan, 'Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?'"Kenneth Copeland pre-defines the will of God to be only those things in the life of a Christian that are positive or beneficial, such as health, wealth, happiness, power and security. Anything that might be negative, such as illness, poverty, sorrow, subservience or persecution, are all said to be not the will of God, but are from Satan because the person has chosen fear instead of faith. Faith is said to bring about the will of God, which is always defined in positive human terms, and fear is said to bring about the will of Satan, which is always defined in negative human terms. However, according to Job, that was not how he viewed the will of God which he defined in both positive and negative human terms. The will of God, according to Job, can have its expression in the life of an individual in both a positive and negative manner, and since it is God-mandated, it should not be resisted. Job was a man who deferred to the will of God in relation to every event in his life, whether it impacted him in a positive or a negative manner. "But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips,"Kenneth Copeland adopts the theology of his mentor, Kenneth Hagin, who denied the possibility that the will of God should be anything but positive or anything except what a Christian might wish it to be. He said: "It is unscriptural to pray, 'If it is the will of God.' When you put an 'if' in your prayer, you are praying in doubt,"By presuming that the will of God might be something completely different from what a person might desire, Kenneth Hagin states that to defer to any other possibility is to "doubt", which Kenneth Copeland defines as "fear," which activates Satan and at the same time prevents God from acting. The major difficulty in accepting Kenneth Hagin's and Kenneth Copeland's teaching is that it is based solely on their own stated definitions which are not representative of what is actually revealed in the Scripture. Their definitions do not pass the test of reality. Job was a man who trusted God in life and in death; a man of faith that did not waiver, yet he was placed in the position of an invalid and a beggar, in order that he might be an example in a contest between God and Satan, not as a result of his sin or his fear but because of his uprightness before God and because of his faith. Never being given an explanation by God of why he had to endure the tremendous troubles in his life, Job represents the model for every person who would trust God in the face of the most adverse situation and still be able to say: "Though he slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him. This also will be my salvation, for a godless man may not come before His presence,"Kenneth Copeland claims to be a god, an equal to the God of the Bible, and claims to exercise power over Satan and even over God by the power of his faith. Is Kenneth Copeland able to meet the challenge that God gives? So, like God challenged Job to do, let Kenneth Copeland present his credentials and then it will be seen what authority and power he actually possesses and whether his right arm can save himself and his followers. "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: |
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