Kenneth Copeland - A Great Awakening Begins With the 2020 Election
Kenneth Copeland: Hello everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Election time is here. And this is at a time in the most powerful nation the earth has ever seen since David was King of Israel. And the time, that's critical, not so much to its survival but critical to its mission. What it was called and anointed to do in the beginning. The reason God raised it up. Two powerful significant reasons. A place of freedom, a place where people could actually worship God without fear of persecution from the government. And a place that God knew would be key to the nation of Israel. He had, God had to have this. He raised up Israel because He loved them. This nation was raised up because we love Him. And His name is Jesus, and He is everything.
Now, listen to this from the first chapter of the book of Isaiah. Now, I'm gonna read it from the MEV, which I'm very happy to say is published by, what's his name? Oh Stephen Strang. And this the most wonderful of all the Bibles that I've ever had the privilege of holding in my hands and being a part of it. The first Bible I've ever had the opportunity as a commentary and as a study Bible. And this is a copy of it. First chapter of the book of Isaiah, and this is the MEV, Modern English Version. Verse 24, "Therefore the Lord", this is important now. "The Lord of Hosts", that is the Lord of the Angelic Armies of God. This is huge. When you find the Lord of Hosts, you need to pay some very close attention.
In the little book of Malachi it's used over 20 times, particularly talking about tithing. Angels are involved in this thing. This is huge. "Therefore the Lord, the Lord of Hosts the Mighty One of Israel says, Ah, I will get relief from my adversaries, and avenge Myself on My enemies. I will turn My hand against you, thoroughly purge away your dross, take away all your impurities. I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors", your judges and your senators and your house of representative people. Your governors, governors of your States. "At the beginning. Afterward", after that. when I get the judges in place, when I have the house and the Senate and all, and I'm talking about it in the states as well as in federal. "when I get this in place, you will be called not just the city of righteousness, but the nation of righteousness once again".
Stephen Strang: Yeah.
Kenneth Copeland: Because it was bad judges that put Roe versus Wade in the force. It's never been a law yet. It was a bad decision of the courts. And it's 16 million deaths have come because of it. Because of judges. So this is what is really at stake in this election, because how many judges is it is something like 300 federal judges by the end of this year Mr. Trump has put in?
Stephen Strang: It changes almost by the day, but you're right. Obama left a lot of vacancies, which ended up being a blessing. And he's filled them with conservative judges.
Kenneth Copeland: He's changed district courts that have been against everything that is right. And now it is just flipped it upside down. This is amazing, Stephen.
Stephen Strang: That'll be his most lasting legacy.
Kenneth Copeland: Sure
Stephen Strang: Is how he left the courts.
Kenneth Copeland: And, and another thing is extremely important to the body of Christ. By executive order, he put aside the Johnson Amendment. A lot of people don't understand the Johnson Amendment. They don't have any idea what it... They just know your tax exempt status is threatened, if you say anything political from the pulpit. Well, he didn't even know it existed. And he found out about it when in a meeting in New York City, when the spiritual... And too, this is the first president that has ever asked for help from the spiritual community. I need a board of spiritual advisers. Of which Gloria and I are a part, as you know. And he had never heard of that. He said, "Well, that has to be stopped. We just get rid of that". That's the way he just did it.
Stephen Strang: It just shows that he gets it.
Kenneth Copeland: He gets it.
Stephen Strang: You know, I'd never heard of another president even talking about it. But when they, when these pastors explained to him that they couldn't endorse him because of the Johnson Amendment.
Kenneth Copeland: He had no idea.
Stephen Strang: And the thing is that we had the Johnson. We have your Lyndon Baines Johnson to thank for that. Because in 1954, there were a couple of nonprofits here in Texas, that raised money to oppose Johnson. So he had this tacked on to a IRS bill that was not controversial, it wasn't debated, it was just there. And I'm not a lawyer, but I've written about this extensively because it's so important. It's been used as a muzzle to muzzle Christian leaders who want to obey the law, want to do what's right, and they're afraid they're gonna do something wrong. But actually it says that the church or the ministry cannot officially endorse. And there are certain things that will be official like putting up a billboard. We endorse...
Kenneth Copeland: And that's really all it says. But it was used as a fear tactic to scare everybody from even talking about it.
Stephen Strang: So a pastor can get up and talk about the issues, even talk about what different candidates to try to help their the people in their congregation to know how to live and how to follow Christ. So, Donald Trump when they explained it to him cause he doesn't live in the nonprofit world obviously, he immediately says that's wrong. I mean, that just shows how quick he gets it. And he's passed this executive order. Congress really needs to change the law because it muzzles the religious or the free speech. It muzzles free speech of religious people whether they're Christians or not, because it applies to all the religions. But it shouldn't be there and...
Kenneth Copeland: Now, we reelect him and take the House that thing's done with forever.
Stephen Strang: You're right. And that's why all these elections are important. Not just Donald Trump, but all the elections, up and down. In fact, with this whole COVID-19 thing we see what happens in these States that have been run by the Democrats for 50 years, or some of the cities. You know, it's just awful and how they are taking away our religious liberties.
Kenneth Copeland: Talk about this more Stephen. Now, I read this book, but this came out and I didn't, I'm just now getting a copy of it. And I'm just, I'm really, really interested in your take on his handling of this and the opposite handling of it and what would be done if Mr. Biden was elected president or if Hillary Clinton had been president and make that comparison.
Stephen Strang: Well, that's the whole reason I wrote the book "God, Trump, and the 2020 Election" was written in 2019. It went to press right around Thanksgiving. The impeachment thing was just being talked about. In fact, I did an epilogue right at the end, saying that I expected him to survive that. It was pretty inevitable that they were going to do it. They were just trying to put the, you know, the House did impeach him. The Senate just didn't find him guilty. And they thought that that would, they were fighting anything. The Mueller investigation didn't work. The impeachment didn't work. And then finally this pandemic game. So, you know, I write in there reasons why Trump might lose. There's a whole chapter on why Trump might lose. And one of them is if the economy went in the tank. Well, when I wrote it, the economy was doing better than ever. In fact I thought to myself, I, you know, how do I say this? Well, with the pandemic, we saw the economy go in the tank. And even though it's really bounced back up because he's a strong leader. This is one of the points. Donald Trump is a strong leader. So we started hearing about this flu. I started hearing about it right around Christmas and New Years. And you know, we'd heard about Swine flu. We'd heard about SARS. You know, these different flus that had come from China. And it looked like more of the same. It wasn't really until about February or March that it was obvious that it was as serious as it was. But Donald Trump closed the border on January 31st. I know the date, cause it's my birthday, you know? And it was during the impeachment hearings. If any time you're gonna be distracted is when you're trying to beat an impeachment, but he closed it. Biden, Bernie Sanders, some of the others called him a xenophobe. Nancy Pelosi said you should go down to Chinatown to show your solidarity with the Chinese people, all this craziness. The fact is, you know, the virus was coming in on airplanes. You know people that had been over to the Chinese New Year, In fact, people from all over the world, went to the Chinese New Year and then took it all over the world. That's what happened. And so we were able to stop it. Probably hundreds of thousands of American lives were saved by that. Because there were less viruses to go around. Later on, of course, then the Democrats start saying that Donald Trump didn't act soon enough. You know, it's like, they totally flipped it. In fact, I have a whole chapter in this little book called "Damned if He Does and Damned if He Doesn't", Because he does one thing and they criticize him and well, you know what I'm talking about. I wrote this in three weeks in the month of April. Everything was shut down. The whole publishing supply chain was shut down. Interestingly, this book was in Sam's and Walmart. You know, we had a bunch of copies in there before and they continued to sell. People go buy their toilet paper or whatever they bought in Walmart and go down and buy my book. But we did this only as a digital book first because we didn't know what was going to happen. And I knew that it was going to affect the election. And I said to myself, had the pandemic happened when I wrote this book, of course, I would have had a section about it. So I talk about some of the medical issues. I interviewed people like Don Colbert and different ones to help understand. I also talked about the religious persecution that came because Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested down in Tampa, while I was writing the book. Now, the book actually came out in May and a lot has happened since May, but the trends were already there. The trends were that the Democrats were gonna use this. You know, the other things didn't work and finally, they were given this gift by the Chinese communists, a pandemic. We've never had anything like it in our lifetime. And it wasn't, and it's just not America, it's the whole world. And it's not just the Democrats. I mean, this is bigger than the Democrats. It's just that they're trying to make it into this big deal. You know, and we're finding out that the, the reports of cases is exaggerated. And even the cases of death. People will say that you know, the death certificate will say COVID-19 and really there were four or five things that they could have put on there. You know, there's all this stuff and it's all confused. And they're people living in fear. In fact one of the greatest things is how people are living in fear. Fear is a real thing and you would know about that because you teach about it.
Kenneth Copeland: Yes
Stephen Strang: The people are afraid. They're afraid they're gonna get it. They're afraid they're going to die. Statistically, it is a very, very small chance that you're gonna get it. Especially if you're healthy. In fact, most people don't know this and maybe it's not very important but I tested negative to COVID. And the reason was is I went over, I took one of my friends over to the coast to go boating. And we were together four or five hours. And he calls me six days later and says he had tested positive. And so I was around him. And so I went and got the test. But it showed and I was negative. Thankfully, I got the results back in a day or two. But I was able to see that you could be around it and still not get it. And I had no symptoms and I didn't think I had it but I, you know, I couldn't prove it. So that's why I got the test. I found out it was a lot harder to get to test and so forth. I mean, it was kind of an interesting little insight in that whole thing. But the Democrats are using this. In fact, I told somebody today that I think the pandemic is gonna end the day after the election because they want to just keep everything stirred up and Oh, it's too dangerous to go vote. So we have to mail out ballots. I mean, you can...
Kenneth Copeland: Talk about that
Stephen Strang: You can stand in line at Walmart. Why can't just stand in line six feet apart, in the polling place. If anything they can spread people out and make it safe, safe, safe. One of the reasons in my chapter on why Trump might lose is just the dishonesty and the fact that there are examples. Thank God it doesn't happen often. But there are examples of where elections have been stolen by stuffing ballot boxes. We saw this in 2018 down in Florida, in Broward County, which is famous for being, shall I say crooked. At the last minute they found a box full of uncounted ballots in the trunk of a rental car from one of the poll workers or something. And of course, when they counted them the other side got the most ballots or the most votes. And that's gonna happen. They're gonna you know, if when you mail out the, how do you know that these go to people that are actually living? I mean, there's a lot of examples of people die and nobody takes them off the roll. People move and don't bother to tell the officials that they moved. I mean, there's all kinds of legitimate reasons to have wrong names. And then they send it to a mailbox. Somebody can steal it out of your mailbox. They can fill it out. They can fake your name, your signature. And it's almost impossible to track down. Now, the good thing is that it's only gonna happen if it's this really comes into play only if it's really close, like in Florida in 2000.
Kenneth Copeland: Oh, let's don't go through that again.
Stephen Strang: You know, that is when it really when it's a runaway election. And you know, I'm hesitant to say this, but I really think that there's at least a possibility there'll be a landslide, is because the other side is just, they have shown their colors. It hasn't been a little you know, game where they hide their true colors. They're showing their colors. They're telling us how they will rule if they get in, if they get power and can pass these bills and so forth. We've talked about it on some of the other broadcasts. And we see this, and I think that there's a reaction. On the other hand, we're such a divided country, and so many people are so blinded that it kind of doesn't matter how bad the other side gets. And this law and order thing, who would have thought that we'd have riot, you know, riots only last a day or two. They just do, this is more than just a spontaneous riot. This is an anarchy. And it's been going on in Portland. As we're recording this over 100 days in a row without exception, we've had a couple holidays in there and their had didn't even take off for the holiday.
Kenneth Copeland: This qualifies as an organized attack against the government.
Stephen Strang: Yeah, it really is. They try to coup, a bloodless coup, by the that's kind of an extreme way to say it but I believe it's true. And there are people who want anarchy in our country, to bring our democracy down. And to implement a socialist and socialists are always atheist, aren't they? Have you ever seen a God fearing socialist? No, they don't exist. They're mutually exclusive. And there are people that have been waiting for something to set the trigger. And when that man was murdered, and I call it murder, in Minneapolis and no... I was interviewed on the BBC they wanted to know what a Christian leader thought about it. And I told them, I said, there's not one sane person in America that thinks that was justified. Nobody, this is not an issue. But it was like throwing a match you know like, in the old Westerns, they'd have a big keg of ammunition and somebody throws a match, it go boom. And that's exactly what happened. They were waiting for anything. And they're hoping to make such total unrest so much chaos that people are afraid. They stay at home. They don't go out and vote. You know, let's be nice to these people. Let's give in to 'em maybe they'll leave us alone, but that never happens.
Kenneth Copeland: Does this call to remembrance Saul Alinsky. Yeah, he wrote the book on this.
Stephen Strang: "Rules for Radicals".
Kenneth Copeland: Yes. And Hillary Clinton was his student
Stephen Strang: And wrote a very glowing dissertation as a senior. It's really disgusting. And my book goes in, there's new people of course, Saul Alinksy's been dead for years there's a man named Steve Phillips.
Kenneth Copeland: Yes. Yes.
Stephen Strang: He wrote a book called "Brown is the New White". And he talks about the new more of the new American majority which is all the people of color kind of the rainbow coalition. Every little ethnic group along with people who will vote a progressive, white people that will vote democratic socialists. And it adds up to 51% and they're trying to flip states. There are several states they flipped. I document this in the book. They flipped recently Virginia. They've got their eyes on Texas. They've got their eyes on Florida. It's all the close states. They're trying to flip it. And what they'll do is they will run a minority person who is socialistic or at least have that bent.
Kenneth Copeland: A.O.C.
Stephen Strang: That type of person. And then all the ethnic people kind of vote for them for, you know, supporting one of their own. And they almost did that in Florida. We had, the Democrat was a black man named Gillum. He almost beat Desantis for governor. And he was a very, very, very far left. And thank God he didn't get in. But my books, I document a lot of these stories that don't make the news. I interview Christian leaders who are in the forefront, you know, people that you and I know in common that aren't usually documented. I felt like I was writing history. You know, hopefully somebody will study this years from now to find out what really went on in 2019 and 2020. But the reason is to open up people's eyes, so they see what's going on, they see is important. And also so that the body of Christ will rise up in our authority as believers. We have authority. The secular people, all they have is political power or military power or financial power. We have the authority of God's Word. But too often we're huddled in our little churches and we're just trying to keep our kids off of drugs, bless God. And you know, we're just trying to live a Godly life and go to heaven. And there's nothing wrong with that. Every everyone should try to do that. But when that's all we do and when we're doing as a position of weakness instead of authority and boldness, we're not being what God wants us to be. And I hope that this is a wake up for the church to... Because we don't need revival in this country where revival is just awakening of people who are already saved. We need an awakening.
Kenneth Copeland: An awakening
Stephen Strang: Something that is, that is bone deep. And it takes more than the election of one politician. It's gonna take an overhaul of what's going on, but it starts on November 3rd, because if we lose this when are we going to get another chance to get it back?
Kenneth Copeland: And you've got we're out of time. But then you have men like Creflo Dollar and Bill Winston and Keith Butler. Powerhouses for the Word of the living God and the conservative move of God among God's people. We're out of time.