Kenneth Copeland - Precious Faith Connects to Precious Promises
Let's open our Bibles tonight, once more, to 2nd Peter Chapter One in the first four verses, "Simon Peter, a servant or slave, and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God and our savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. According as His divine power, that's very important. Divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and Godliness through the knowledge of Him that have called us to glory and virtue or excellence, whereby are given unto us exceeding, let's read it together, exceeding great and precious promises. Blood back, blood bought promises. That by these, by these promises, you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through human desires, and besides this giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue or moral excellence, and to your moral excellence, knowledge to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience Godliness, to Godliness brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness love, for if these things be in you they are now abound, abound".
Praise God. And abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren or idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he, that lack of these things is blind and cannot see a far off and has forgotten that he purged from his old sins. That's an amazing Word from heaven. Amazing. Exceeding great and precious promises, precious faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. We know that. From the 11th Chapter of the book of Hebrews. And we talked about the faith of God and so forth. Jesus is the author and the finisher or the developer of our faith.
Now, tonight, let's go back over the divine nature that is found in Exodus 34:6-7. Number one, his name, Yod He Vav He, the merciful name, which is Jesus. Number two, compassionate. Number three gracious, disposed to show favors. He's a good God. God is a good God. Slow to anger, abounding in kindness, abounding in faithfulness, extending mercy or hesed to the thousandth generation. Extending kindness, forgiving inequity. That's the divine nature. Hallelujah. Thank You Jesus. Now to review, let's turn to 1st Corinthians 13:4, "Love suffers long and is kind. Love, envy is not. Love on earth itself is not puffed up. Does not behave itself unseemly. Seeks not her own. Is not easily provoked. Think of no evil. Rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails".
Now Romans 5:5, "And hope makes not a shame because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us". Glory to God. That makes you want to run around the room. All right, praise God. Now let's turn over to 2nd Corinthians, 1 Chapter, but tonight in review, we'll just take the 20th verse and I'm going to add a little bit something to this. For all the precious exceeding great and precious promises of God in him, are yes and in him, amen. But you have to couple all that together, without faith it doesn't work. So it's precious faith and precious promises. There's a couple of things I wanted to show you here in the book of Hebrews, both in the 3rd and in the 4th chapters.
Now in Chapter 4, let us therefore fear less a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. But the word preach did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. So I rest my case, the promises are worthless without the faith that connects the promise to God. And an uncompromised faith is a faith that acts on the Word of God regardless of the circumstances, situation, and regardless of what you see, feel, taste, smell so forth. Now then, tonight by instruction of the Lord, turn with me to the book of Matthew, look at verse 24 of the 17th Chapter. And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter and said, "Does your master pay tribute"? And he said, "Yes". And when he was come into the house, that's the house of Jesus.
It was in Capernaum, and when they excavated it, they thought at first it was Peter's house, because it was so large. Then the evidence showed that it belonged to Jesus. This is the same house where they came from, all the parts and it was full. Nobody could get in there. And the paralyzed man, and his four wonderful, crazy friends, when they took him up on the roof, it was Jesus' house. That's worth studying in itself. Anyway, I wanted you to see that. Now he's in his own house and teaching. At the same time, came the disciples under Jesus saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven"? Jesus called a little child. Well, the house is full, and someone had their children there. Oh, I can hardly wait to get to heaven and find out what happened to this little guy.
Jesus called a little child under him and set him, so it was a boy. And set him in the midst of them and said, barely I say unto you, except you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. Who so therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. Underline, humble himself. Make a note. 1st Peter 5. And who so shall receive one such little child in my name receives me, but who shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, that he would drown in the depths of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come. But woe to that man by whom the offense comes. Therefore if thy hand, or foot offend thee, cut it off and cast it from them. They even intend somebody to cut their hand off or pluck their eye out.
But now read on here a little bit, verse 9, "If your eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. It's better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell". Humble yourself, and be converted, be changed. There are some habits and some situations that seem like there's no answer for them. There are certain sex sins, such as homosexuality, lesbianism and people have been lied to and said that God made them that way. Let me tell you something, God has never made anyone to be something he's already forbidden. That hasn't happened. That is lie from hell. But with a determined heart, and a desire to be free, and then you have to press to get the desire. But of course the devil doesn't want to turn loose. But he'll give you the desires of your heart. Now, there's a play on word there, he will give you the desire of your heart, and then he will give you the desire of your heart. It's a precious promise. Glory to God.
Now then, continue to read. Let's go down to verse 12, no, verse 11. "For the Son of man has come to save that which was lost. How think he? If a man have a hundred sheep, and one of them to be gone astray, does he not leave the 90 and nine and go into the mountains and seek that which is gone away, astray? And if so be that he find it, barely I'll say unto you, he rejoices more of that sheep than the 99 which went not away. Even so, it is not the will of your father, which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. Moreover, if your brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. Alone. And if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother," don't gossip about it. That's sinful.
"But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established. If he's shall neglect to hear them," now what's happening here? Correction? Yes. I want you to see something very carefully here. If he neglect to hear them, tell it to the church. If he neglect to hear the church, let him be under... He's not a heathen. Well, what's he saying? Get him out of your prayer life. Set him out of the way. "Verily I say unto you whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven". It has to start here on the earth. There's nowhere, it isn't in there.
In fact, the Apostle Paul attempted it. Get this devil off me. What did the Lord say to him? My grace is sufficient to you. In other words, you do it. John, if you had a real nice truck and somebody came up to you and said, "John, I need to borrow your truck brother". "Well, I mean, that's fine, what do you need my truck for"? "Well, I need to go home, this and that". "What kind of truck do you have"? "Well, I got this". "Come on brother. I know your truck. Your truck is sufficient for that. You don't need mine". Now, when you check that out, He said, "Lest I be exalted above measure from the abundance of the revelation".
Now, any translation that says, God gave me a thorn in the flesh, it is wrong. No. It's a messenger of Satan sent to buffet me. I mean, for God to give him a devil, that'd be like sending a dog to guard the meat, brother. I mean, the devil wants all the pride he can get into him. Because pride is what caused him everything. Anyway, come to find out, if you just look right across in my King James Bible, if you just look right across the page, he said, this thing, night and day bothered me was the care of all the churches. That's what he was carrying. He was carrying the care. Anyway. "Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven".
Again, so he evidently had taught this over and over. "And again, I say unto you, if two of you on earth shall agree", the Classic Amplified says, make a symphony. Harmony together. Is it up there? Yes. Thank you. Once more, please. Again, I say unto you, two of you shall agree on earth that touching anything that they shall ask. Now, let's see it in the Classic. "Whatever you forbid and declare to be improper and unlawful on earth must be what is already forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit and declare proper and lawful on earth must be what is already permitted in heaven. And I tell you if two of you on earth agree, harmonize together, make a symphony together about whatever, anything and everything they may ask, it will come to pass and be done for them by my Father in heaven".
Let's go over to the book of Acts, Chapter 4. As they spoke under the people of the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them being grieved, that they taught the people and preached through Jesus, the resurrection from the dead. They laid hands on them and put them in hold in the next day. Now it was even time. However many of them, which heard the word believed, and the number of men was about 5,000. And it came to pass on the morrow that the rulers and elders and so forth and so on. And verse 8, "Peter filled with the Holy Ghost said under them, you rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to impotent man, but what means he made whole, be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him does this man stand here, before you whole".
Now we could just keep reading, but here's what I want to go. Now they all came together, for of the truth against our holy child, Jesus, whom thou has anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles, the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever, thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now Lord behold, their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness, they may speak thy word by stretching forth thine hand to heal that signs and wonders may be done by the name of the holy child, Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together. Now that's corporate prayer in agreement.