BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

“Brother Copeland, have people actually pressured you to do that?” Oh, yes. Many times. Some years ago I was even pressured by a member of the United States Senate. He came after me wanting access to private information about the Partners of this ministry that by law is confidential. I wouldn’t give in to his demands because I made a promise to The LORD and to my Partners many years ago, that I’d never give anyone a list of their names or reveal the details of their giving. He tried to force me into it by suggesting we had something to hide and making us look bad. Then he started legal proceedings against us. We ended up having to spend over a million dollars just to defend ourselves. The negative publicity was supposed to put the squeeze on us by bringing our ministry income down. But it didn’t work. Our ministry income didn’t go down. “Well, they have a right to subpoena you,” someone warned me. “So?” I said. “Let them do it.” “What if they throw you in jail?” I answered that question publicly from the pulpit. “I gave my word to my Partners and to The LORD about this,” I said, “and I’m not compromising on it. If the government wants to put me in jail, fine. I preach in prisons now, so I’ll know what to do there.” A few well-meaning people came to me and encouraged me to go ahead and provide the information. “It won’t hurt anything,” they said. “The government won’t misuse it.” But I just kept repeating the same reply. “I don’t care what they plan to do with it, I’m not giving it to them. I gave my word that it’s not going to happen.” You’re Not Standing Alone As it turned out, of course, The LORD took care of me in that situation. He protected this ministry and everything turned out fine. What’s more, instead of being threatened and intimidated by the experience, the pressure that was put on me ended up making me bolder. That’s how it always is. If you stay in faith and stand on The WORD, you get to where you enjoy not compromising. The joy of The LORD comes up on the inside of you and that’s your strength! The best way I know to describe it is to compare it to something I experienced one time when I was a little boy. I was traveling with my father on one of his frequent business trips and we stopped for the night in a hotel. While he was checking in at the desk in the lobby, I wandered into a side room where some men were playing shuffleboard and I made the mistake of touching the board. Talk about a threatening and intimidating experience! When I put my finger on that board, one of the men absolutely blasted me. He called me names and chewed me out. But while he was yelling at me, my father walked in. He put his big hand on my shoulder, pushed me behind him and in his big, booming voice he said, “You want to talk to this boy, you talk to me! You understand that?” The man looked at him like a deer in headlights. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he mumbled. “Then you shouldn’t have said anything!” my dad replied. With that, the room fell silent and everyone stood frozen, waiting to see what my dad was going to do next. They had reason for concern because my dad was no small man…and standing behind him I felt pretty big myself. I felt like saying, “Come on, Daddy! We can handle this! We can do this thing!” Nothing happened, of course. He just said, “Let’s go, boy.” Then we turned our backs, walked out and went to our hotel room. The minute he shut the door, he said, “Kenneth, from now on, keep your hands to yourself! You understand?” That kind of took the wind out of my sails, but there for a little while I was riding high. I was more than a conqueror because I was standing behind my daddy. As believers, we’re in the same position when we stand by faith on The WORD of God and refuse to compromise. We’re more than conquerors because we’re not standing alone. We’re standing behind Jesus. We’re saying, “We’ve got this, LORD! We can win this fight hands down!” That’s the attitude Daniel had. By the time he got to that lions’ den, it was no big deal to him. He was so fearless and full of faith that, instead of dining on him, the lions had to wait until later when they could dine on his enemies. “So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God” (verse 23). V 8 : BVOV

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