Throughout the ages God’s Spirit continually has striven with a wicked people. At more than one point God was close to annihilating the entire human race. Noah is an example of how obedience saved mankind from being destroyed from the face of the earth.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast…for it repenteth me that I have made them (Genesis 6:5-7).

But He remembered Noah. Noah became the man of the hour. “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord…. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:8-9).

One man saved the human race—one man who dared to be obedient to God. Noah was the last righteous man on earth. God waited as long as He could. He waited until there was only one righteous man left. Think about that!

Thank God, Noah did not do like many people today and say, “There is just too much pressure for me to live in this evil generation. After all, I’m only one man. What can I do?”

Noah heard the voice of the Lord and he obeyed. God said, “Build an ark,” so Noah built an ark. The people around him scoffed and made fun of him, but that did not stop Noah. Walking in obedience to God was more important to him than what other people had to say.

In Genesis 7, God said to Noah, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation” (verse 1). “And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him” (verse 5). Because of one man’s obedience, the entire human race and the animal kingdom were saved from destruction.

And they went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh, in which there was the breath and spirit of life. And they that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded [Noah]; and the Lord shut him in and closed [the door] round about him (Genesis 7:15-16, The Amplified Bible).

The future of the race of man was in Noah’s hands. He was faithful to do all that God asked of him. He and his family were supernaturally preserved because he obeyed God.

While we are on this earth, evil circumstances will try to rush in like a flood and overcome us. But as long as we are walking in obedience, God will make an ark around us for protection. He will shut the door to evil and nothing can open it. The same principle will work in reverse when we disobey God. The door will close, only this time in front of us, keeping us outside, unable to live the kind of life God wants us to live.

Gloria Copeland

God created this man, named him Adam and gave him dominion over the earth. Genesis 3:8 says that God and Adam walked together in the cool of the day. God created Adam in His exact likeness and image because He wanted Adam to be on His level, able to walk and talk with Him in sweet fellowship. He offered Adam the very highest kind of life—to be His family in the earth. Adam was instructed to subdue the earth and replenish it with beings in his own image, which had been created in the image and likeness of God.

God gave only one requirement to Adam: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).

The only thing God required from Adam was obedience, but the day came when he chose to exercise his own will and disobey God’s command.

The moment Adam ate of the forbidden tree, the very life of God was cut off from him. Adam, by his disobedience, had made himself subject to and less powerful than God’s enemy, Satan. The intimate fellowship, communication and relationship he had so enjoyed with God, was over. When he broke fellowship with God and made Satan his Lord, he was immediately separated from God, and died spiritually just as God had warned. Satan is a dead spirit. Separation from God is spiritual death. He became separated from God, his spiritual life source.

By disobeying God, Adam chose death as surely as if he had signed a legal document saying, “I choose death.” Because of his disobedience, the future of the world was affected—all of Adam’s seed were born into this world with the nature of sin instead of righteousness—with the nature of Satan instead of the nature of God. Adam had committed high treason against God and Satan became his master. Disobedience and rebellion became dominant in the earth. Sin put man in opposition to the thoughts and ways of God. Thus, through one man’s disobedience, death reigned. “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).

Gloria Copeland

Jeremiah 1:12
Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.

Jeremiah 17:14
Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.

Jeremiah 30:17
For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord.

Joel 3:10
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

Nahum 1:9
What do ye imagine against the Lord? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.

Matthew 8:2-3
And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

Matthew 8:16-17
When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

Matthew 15:30-31
And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them: insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.

Matthew 18:18-19
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.

Gloria Copeland

From Paul we can see that mercy is not only the
pattern we are to follow, but a spiritual force. At the new
birth, the Holy Spirit imparts to us what the English Bible
calls everlasting life. In Greek, it is called “zoe life” or the
life of God. “Zoe” is the element that makes God, God. It is
eternal because you cannot kill or stop it.

Jesus said, “I have come that they might have ‘zoe’ and
have it in abundance” (John 10:10). We are forever as God is
forever, because we have the substance of “zoe” life within us.

Receiving everlasting life is not the same thing as
living forever. You were created a spirit and a spirit can
never cease to exist. To a spirit, death is being separated
from the life of God. You will exist forever whether you
serve the devil or whether you serve God.

In the second resurrection, the graves will give up
the bodies of every person who has died without the Son
of God. Those who have died without obtaining God’s
everlasting life will manifest for eternity the presence
of sickness, disease and death just as they did in their
physical life.

When someone loses his soul, he loses control of it. A
person who goes into hell does not go blank. He has a better
memory and consciousness than he had when he was in his
body. Look at the rich man in Luke 16 who died and went
into hell. He lifted up his eyes and said, “Father Abraham.”
Not only did he recognize Abraham, but he knew his
brothers and Lazarus the beggar. He said, “Send Lazarus
down here with water to put on my tongue (v. 23-24).” He
was wiser in the spirit after he died than he was before.

One time God opened my eyes and allowed me to
see what people’s spirits looked like when they were not
attached to their physical bodies. I saw good Christian
people with undeveloped spirits that looked awful.
They had great big heads because they were mentally
developed and little, spindly, scrawny, spiritual bodies
caused by a lack of spiritual food. These people had fed
on religion, the junk food of the spiritual realm. It had
ruined their bodies.

Gloria Copeland

Of course, if you want to sow into the
kingdom of God you must first be born again.
You do that simply by making Jesus the Lord
of your life.

You can read the Bible all day, and it won’t
make sense to you if you haven’t taken that
first step. The great kingdom truths it contains
will be hidden from you. Why? Because, as
Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

A person who hasn’t been born again
simply cannot understand the way God
thinks. The ways of His kingdom are beyond
his grasp because he is in darkness.

A person who has been born again,
however, is translated into God’s kingdom.
He immediately has the ability to know and
walk in God’s ways. How much he does from
then on is up to him. The more he seeks after
God and His way of doing and being right,
the more of His power and dominion he’ll
enjoy. The more he renews his mind to God’s
Word—which is His way of thinking—and
changes his life in obedience to that Word,
the more he’ll see the kingdom of heaven
manifest in his life and the lives of those
around him.

The wonderful thing about the kingdom of
God is that you don’t have to be rich or smart
or talented to walk in it. Anyone can do it. All
you have to do is find out what God says and
act on it. When you do, blessings—heavenly
breakthroughs—will begin to happen.

So I want to encourage you to start
today investing more of yourself—your
time, thought and energy—into seeking the
kingdom of God. Determine in your heart to
change some areas in your life. Dig into the
Word more deeply and find out what God
says about those areas. Then start acting like
He does instead of like the world.

Heighten your awareness of the kingdom
of God. Become more and more kingdom-of-
God minded. Then get ready for the blessings
of heaven—the lavish, liberal-to-excess,
extravagant and over-abounding favors of the
kingdom of God—to break through on you!

Gloria Copeland

But with God all things are possible! There
are no limitations in the kingdom of God! It
knows no impossibilities! So what we need
to do is obey the instructions Jesus gave in
Matthew 6:

Take no thought for your life, what
ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink;
nor yet for your body, what ye shall
put on…. (For after all these things
do the Gentiles seek:) for your
heavenly Father knoweth that ye
have need of all these things. But
seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness; and all these
things shall be added unto you
(verses 25, 32-33).

The Amplified Bible clarifies that last
verse even more. It says, “seek (aim at and
strive after) first of all His kingdom and His
righteousness (His way of doing and being
right).” In other words, if we want to operate
in the dominion of God, we have to find out
His way of doing things and then do things
His way. We’ll have to change the way we
think. We’ll have to start thinking and acting
like He does instead of thinking and acting
like the world.

We’ll have to seek Him and His principles,
put our dependence first and foremost on
Him, and then He’ll see to it that our natural
needs are met.

You see, the principles of the kingdom of
God always work. God has spoken and set
them into motion by His Word. They will
work for anyone who will put them to work.

For example, one of those principles, the
primary one, is the law of sowing and reaping.
Galatians 6:7-8 states that law very simply:
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the
flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the
Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”

Actually, the law of sowing and reaping
works in both the kingdom of God and the
kingdom of this world. If you sow into the
kingdom of darkness, you reap the harvest
of that kingdom––death in all its forms.
If you invest your time and money in the
concerns of the world, you’ll end up on drugs,
pornography and alcohol. You’ll end up sick
and unhappy.

On the other hand, if you sow to the
kingdom of God, you’ll reap the harvest of
that kingdom––abundant life in all its forms.
As Romans 8:6 says, “For to be carnally
minded [to think like the world thinks] is
death; but to be spiritually minded [to think
like God thinks] is life and peace.”

Gloria Copeland

Galatians 3:5
KJV—He therefore that ministereth to you
the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you,
doeth he it by the works of the law, or by
the hearing of faith?

Amp—Then does He Who supplies you
with His marvelous (Holy) Spirit, and works
powerfully and miraculously among you, [do
so on the grounds of your doing] what the
Law demands, or because of your believing
and adhering to and trusting in and relying
on the message that you heard?

Moffatt—When He supplies you with the
Spirit and works miracles among you, is it
because you do what the Law commands or
because you believe the gospel message?

NEB—I ask then: when God gives you
the Spirit and works miracles among you,
why is this? Is it because you keep the
law, or is it because you have faith in the
gospel message?

Proverbs 4:20-24
KJV—My son, attend to my words; incline
thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not
depart from thine eyes; keep them in the
midst of thine heart. For they are life unto
those that find them, and health to all their
flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for
out of it are the issues of life. Put away from
thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put
far from thee.

Amp—My son, attend to my words; consent
and submit to my sayings. Let them
not depart from your sight; keep them in
the center of your heart. For they are life to
those who find them, healing and health to
all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance
and above all that you guard, for out
of it flow the springs of life. Put away from
you false and dishonest speech, and willful
and contrary talk put far from you.

Moffatt—My son, attend to what I say,
bend your ear to my words; never lose
sight of them, but fix them in your mind;
to those who find them, they are life, and
health to all their being. Guard above all
things, guard your inner self, for so you live
and prosper; bar out all talk of evil, and
banish wayward words.

NEB—My son, attend to my speech, pay
heed to my words; do not let them slip out
of your mind, keep them close in your heart;
for they are life to him who finds them, and
health to his whole body. Guard your heart
more than any treasure, for it is the source
of all life. Keep your mouth from crooked
speech and your lips from deceitful talk.

Gloria Copeland