Kenneth Copeland - Living By Faith on Purpose
Hello everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. This is the Believer's Voice of Victory, and we're choosing life in this place today. Glory to God. And this is Kenneth Copeland Bible College, the entire student body right here, praising God. A whole house full of faith people. Now, I have a mandate on my life to teach God's people faith. I learned faith from Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin. And both of those apostles of faith were very, very close friends and precious brothers in the Lord, to Gloria and to me. So, they taught us so much. And Kenneth Hagin heard that from the Lord. The Lord said, "Go and teach my people faith. I've taught you faith through experiences and through my Word. You teach my people faith".
Well, then, in August 2003, without sickness and without disease, he came home from Toronto where he had preached a powerful meeting, and in listening to that meeting, I have it. Listening to that meeting, he was planning on 2004 and going right on, but he came home and Jerry had finished him... They fixed breakfast for him in he and Oretha's home, and he just looked over at Oretha and smiled and left. He said, "You'll know when I go that I was satisfied". Now, his heart was a supernatural heart. He was born so premature that when he was first born in August of 1917, the doctor thought he was dead. They had to induce birth to save the life of his mother. But his grandmother noticed a spark of life about him. And they told him he had to die. The doctor told him, "Son", he said, "We would", he said, "Doctor, why is it when I drink something hot or cold, it goes down and it goes way over here before, and I feel it all the way down".
He said, "Because your whole chest... All the plumbing in your chest cavity was so deformed," and he said, "That's why it's impossible for you to live. Your heart is just..." So, out of... How can I say this well? It was so... Well, deformed. It wasn't fully developed. And then, on Mark 11:23, 22, 23, 24 and 25, he said, "I see it. I see it, Lord," he'd been on that bed 17 months. He said, "I could have done it any day there, but I didn't know". He said, "I see it. I have to believe I have it before I have it. And I have to say I have it before I have it, and then, I'll have it". And so, right in his spirit, the Lord said, "So you believe you're well"? He said, "I certainly do". He said, "Well, people ought to be up at this time of the morning".
So, he started getting up. And his legs were totally paralyzed. I want you to think about what kind of a faith miracle this is. We're talking about life here. Life and death. And he said, "I threw my legs out of the bed and I was saying it". And he, "They just felt like chunks of wood to me". Anyway... but he said, "I want announce to Almighty God and all the angels of this room and all the devils of hell, I am healed from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I am healed, and I'm well". And in a moment's time, he was up, walking around that room. Now, you think about what had to happen inside his chest. What happened? Well, really, it's a simple miracle. What had failed to happen because of being premature, suddenly happened in the moment's notice by the power of faith in God. His faith made him whole.
Now, I said all that to tell you this, Ken Jr. called me and told me what happened. So, of course, we all went to pray, because his heart was still beating. His heart was just still beating strong when he got to the hospital. So, now, that they pray... Everybody prayed. And then, he called me back and he said, "Kenneth, he's gone". He said, "My dad's gone. But his heart's still beating". And the Lord dropped it in my heart, and my spirit what to tell Ken Jr. I said, "Kenneth, you're going to have to... You and your team are going to have to go back down there to that hospital, lay hands on him and turn that heart off". I said, "It was a faith heart, and it is still beating". Oh, he said, I know it, I just didn't want to do it. They went back down there, laid their hands on his body. He's gone. Had been gone ever since breakfast. They had to go turn that faith heart off.
Now, I don't know of a better way to explain life in the faith lane. Live by faith, die by faith. He said, "When you hear I'm gone, you'll know I was satisfied". And he did... He wasn't sick. Absolutely wasn't sick. The Jews call that the kiss of death. There's several hundred ways to die, according to the Jews, and the best of all is the kiss of death, when you just depart. Without sickness, without disease, without pain and without dope. And I'm of the opinion that people that are at death's door are under too much sedation. Now, they have the same experiences but they can't express them with their body. Now my mother, I know from things that she said, I knew she was about to go, and I knew from some of the things that she was saying that she was seeing over on the other side.
Now, on the other hand, my mother was so funny that she could get me, and she'd get me laughing, she wanted to come home from the hospital. And I was there to assist her that morning. She said, "I want to go home". I said, "I know it, mother". But she said, "Kenneth, I want to go home now". I said, "Mother..." And I tried to change the subject. I said, "Mother, has the Lord been saying anything to you while you've been here"? She said, "Yes". She said, "As a matter of fact, I've seen Him". I said, "You have"? Now, I know she had. And I said, "What'd He say"? "Kenneth, He said, Vinita, go home". Well, now, she wouldn't lie to me. I knew she had seen Him and I pretty well expect he said Vinita come home. She wanted out of that hospital. She didn't want to die there. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Praise God.
All right. Let's look once again, that it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, daughters were born under them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, "My spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years". One translation day says his normal lifespan shall be 120 years. So, the 70 or 80, that was a psalm of Moses. It's very interesting that Moses wrote the 90th psalm and he also wrote the 91st psalm, and when you put those two together, he was lamenting because they were dying at 70 and 80 years. And we read that from the Classic Amplified, the note there, never was considered the normal lifespan of man. Never. So, the Lord asked me to live that long because of the anointing.
Now, there are people, Christian people that live a long, long time and give God the credit for it. But to live 120 years and give the credit to the Word of Faith is a totally different thing. Particularly when Gloria and I have been living this way since 1967, and we just give God the praise for it. And we've been in this ministry that long. And been living by faith on purpose, and we've learned so many things about what the Bible says when it says the just shall live by faith. Live by faith. The just shall live by faith. We live by faith. We die by faith. We eat by faith. We sleep by faith. Our lives are sustained by the force of faith. And the Word of God, the Word of these covenants is absolutely final authority in our lives.
If the book says I can do it, I can do it. If the book says I can have it, I can have it. If the book says I am that, then, that's what I am. Amen. Whether my circumstances agree with it or not, it will eventually come to that. If I stay on the Word of God, having done all to stand, stand there for having on the full armor of God for we rest not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world and the wicked spirits in the heavens, but the name of Jesus is final authority. He has given him the name which is above every name that's named. Names in heaven, names in the earth and names under the earth. Glory to God. The name. The name that's above every name that's named. Cancer's a name, and it has to bow its knee to that name. Poverty's a name, it has to bow its knee to that name. Death is a name, it has to bow its knee to the name of Jesus. We die when we say, not when somebody else says. Amen. Thank You Jesus.
So now, let's go to 1 John... Now, we're talking about choosing life. We went to Deuteronomy 30, and we found out that it said, "Choose life". Then we found out in Hebrews 9:27 that there's appointed once, once, not a time, as appointed once to die, and after that, the judgment. Amen. So now, let's go to 1 John chapter 5, "Whosoever". Glory to God... I'm a whosoever. I am a whosoever. Now, this is the same whosoever that Jesus said, "whosoever believe upon Him should not perish", but what? Have everlasting life. This is the same whosoever. Whosoever believe it that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Well, certainly. And everyone that loves Him that begat love of Him also that is begotten of Him. By this, we know... Say I know. I know that I know that I know. I know. We know that we love the children of God when we love God. If you love the Father, then, you have to love the children. Are we not brothers and sisters in Christ?
I'll say this to you again. I've mentioned it to you before. I've had the honor and privilege of preaching in prisons for years with Mike, Barbara, Gloria. And we have a lot of partners in prison. I was in Angola and Louisiana, and Burl Cain, the warden, he was called the pastor of Angola, that old prison, it was one of the meanest, bloodiest prisons in history. But Burl Cain started building chapels all over that campus with steeples on them. And he told me, he said, "Brother Copeland", he said, "I want it, where every inmate male and female can look out the window and see a church steeple, to remind them that God loves them". Now, he said, "The only one we don't have," he said, "There's one more we need to build, and it's part of the women's camp". And I said, "Well, why don't you have it"? "Well, we just don't have the money yet". I said, "How much you need"? He to told me, I said, "Well, build it". "Really"? I said, "Yeah. Build it. This ministry will pay for the material". He built that.
And now, every inmate at Angola can look out a window and see a church steeple. Then, he started a seminary in there and it was credited through the Southern Baptist Seminary. Amen. Amen. And they just... Well, they jumped at it. Then, he told me, he said... He said, "I'm about to graduate a bunch of ministers," and he said, "I didn't know what to do with them". He said, "I knew it was a God idea," but he said, "Then, I thought, well, God sent them out two by two". So he said, I got permission from the Louisiana corrections that I could send two of these preachers that had degrees. They had a seminary degree. And then, he said, "I could send them two by two to other units in Louisiana. And they agreed to it". And he said, "First thing you know, we had a revival started throughout the prisons of Louisiana".
I was privileged to walk up to this, on death row. And as I... I think I told you this last week. But a man, he stood way back in the shadows, and I could just barely see him back there. And I said, "My name's Kenneth Copeland". He said, "I know who you are". And while I was standing there looking at him, these words dropped into my spirit. Huge man, just a great big black man. And I learned many, many years ago that a large, a large part of my life and ministry was in connection with the black community. I learned that in the very beginning. My heart's been there anyway. And I was singing in a nightclub, and I came, I came out and went into the men's room, and this is back in the days when they had a black porter in that nightclub's men's room. I walked in there, and it was just between sets. And I just walked in there to get out the rest of that room.
And I walked in there, and this man, I'd already been talking to him, and he said, "Mr. Kenneth..." I said, "Yeah"? He said, "You know what," he said, "You sing more like a black than a white man I ever knew". Now, listen, that's a compliment to me. Oh, I tried all my life to sing like a black man. I don't want to get started. That just overcomes me. Swing low. Yeah. Amen. He said, "I know who you are". I looked at him, I said, "If anybody ask you if you know Kenneth Copeland, you tell him, yes, he's my brother". And he walked right straight up to those bars, he said, "You mean that"? I said, "Yes, I do". And I led him to Jesus right there. Hallelujah.
Another man in the Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas. He had a big old coffee table Bible about that big. And I asked him how much time he had, and he said, I've forgotten now, it's something like 120 years. And he walked me all the way, this big polished brass gate in that very old prison before you go out. And he walked me all the way to the gate. And he said, "Brother Kenneth..." This also was a black man. He said, "Brother Kenneth, I want you to know something". He said, "Since I've been in here learning the Word of Faith..." He got this huge Bible. He said, "I'm freer in here than I was on the bricks". And later, I asked Warden Harvey, I said, "What about so and so"? "Oh, Kenneth," he said, "He's out preaching the gospel". The Word of the living God in the form of faith. Thank You, Jesus. Life. Now then, for whatsoever is born of God... Now I'm a whosoever and I'm a whatsoever, and we're out of time. Come on. Give the Lord a praise. Glory to God.