Kenneth Copeland - A Quality Decision To Receive Healing
Welcome everyone to the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast I'm Kenneth Copeland and welcome them again this week to Kenneth Copeland Bible College and class this morning. So come right on in, join the class with us, and we're just glad you're here. Thank you for coming. Amen. And in way of review, we're looking at the importance, according to Jesus, of teaching and preaching divine healing. And there are people that say, "Well, we only preach the new birth". Well if you only preach the new birth, then the new birth is what you get. "Well, we only preach the new birth and people can receive the Holy Spirit". Well, whatever you preach is what a congregation will receive. Because whatever you preach is where the faith is established.
And there are congregations that don't ever preach anything but water baptism. And I've visited those congregations and my wife's grandmother belonged to a church and she came and while I was preaching once, and she said, "Kenneth," she was very serious about it, "you didn't mention water baptism one time". And I said, mom, there reason I didn't was because everybody there had been baptized. "Oh," she said, "okay, that's fine". But isn't it amazing, she hadn't considered that because that's what she heard all of her life. But I'll tell you everybody in that church was baptized. Everybody in that congregation, I mean, when you're born, you get baptized, when you're a little older, you get baptized, again you get baptized in water. So, everybody got baptized in water.
The point is, wherever you preach and whatever you preach is what the people will have faith for. Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, we read that last week. Of course that's in the book of Romans chapter 10. Now in review let's go back to what Jesus did in the 10th chapter of the book of Matthew. "And when He had called unto Him, His 12 disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease". That's the first thing He did. He commissioned them. He ordained them to do that. Now you remember the situation right after what we call the Mount of transfiguration? And Jesus and Peter James and John came down from that mountain, and there was a whole crowd of people there.
And here was this man that brought his young son to be minister to, actually to be delivered from a wicked spirit. And he said to Jesus, "I brought him to your disciples and they could not cast him out". That wasn't quite accurate. They had the power to do it, but there was a reason why it didn't work until Jesus came and took care of it. Now if you follow the teaching of that, it was because they were in so much strife with one another, and do a study on strife, it is the killer of dreams. Amen. Get some background and some study on it. Dr. Avery Jackson, neurosurgeon that's, I mean he's a brain man. He's on our board of directors and he was talking about what strife does to the brain. It actually causes brain damage. Fussing, people were not wired for that, you're wired for love. God who is love created you. Amen.
It's extremely important, now then, and he names off the names, but now notice what He said in the seventh verse, "As you go preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand," here He goes again, "Heal the sick, cleanse the leper, raise the dead". Well, that's part of the healing ministry. Amen. "Cast out devils, freely you have received, freely give". This is huge in the ministry of Jesus. Now, and we'll go now to the 10th chapter of Luke, the crowds got so huge and it was just enormous at this stage of Jesus ministry. And discussing this with Rick Renner. The students of this say that He had from 20 to 50,000 people around Him all the time. All the time. Isn't that amazing? Well, think about how many He has around Him now. Oh praise God. But this is a huge part of the ministry of Jesus Christ.
Now what do we know from Hebrews 13:8? He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He's the same, He hasn't changed, God has not changed. God is 100% all good. He's not the author of sickness and disease. In my estimation, of course people do it ignorantly, for someone to tell someone, particularly a preacher, that God put that sickness on you to teach you something, in my estimation is a blasphemous thing. You're accusing Him of doing what the devil does. There was a young man and he was just ignorant of the Word. And he came up to me and he said, "I've figured it out". I said, what's that? "I have figured this out. God and the devil are the same one". Well, that's what the devil would like for you to figure out, because he'll kill you. Like Jesse said, "He's a serial killer, that's what he does".
Jesus said he comes to what? Steal, to kill and to destroy. He comes to steal the Word, that's what Jesus taught. He comes to steal the Word. If he can steal the Word, he can steal your health. If he can steal the Word, he can steal your money. If he can steal the Word, he can steal your children. If he can steal the Word, he can tear up your congregation. But then there's the name. Then the rest of that verse in John 10:10 Jesus said, "But I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly". More than you can see any way to use. Glory. All right Luke 10, now here we are again. Here this is the 70 that he brought in. There's just so much, this great Jordan valley campaign, it's just too much, there's just too many people. And we have to have preaching teams, and he sent them out in pairs, glory to God, to preach this gospel of healing.
Now notice this. In the 10th chapter of Luke, after these things, the Lord appointed other 70 also and sent them out two and two before His face into every city and place where He Himself would come. And He said, "The harvest is great and so forth, and I'll send you forth as lambs among wolves, and don't", I mean don't carry your money and all that, just I'm taking care of you, you're on my payroll now. Because Jesus said the worker is worthy of his hire. He hired these men. He brought them in on the team. Don't worry about your clothes, what you eat and so forth. So you're working for me now. And said some powerful things here. And verse 16, "He that hears you hears me. He that despises you despises me. He that despises me, despises him that sent me". That serious business.
Now, let me say this to all of you women preachers. There are still those that don't know enough about the Bible, to know that Jesus called women to preach. What about the woman at the well? Well, this always amazed me. I was raised in the Southern Baptist church. Now I'm not criticizing the Southern Baptist, dear Lord they've got so many people saved over the years. Jimmy Swaggart said, "There's more Baptist than there are people". I was raised in that church. But they frowned on women preachers. But they had women missionaries all over the world. And supported them. What they didn't realize, those were apostles. They wouldn't have called them apostles, they'd have really swallowed hard over that. But all an apostle means is a sent one. And they sent them. Glory to God. But if you're in a place and you're in a congregation, you're teaching and preaching healing, go to that.
I've heard Gloria do it many times and she'd refer to that and she would say, "I'm not the healer, I'm just bringing you the message. But if you don't receive me, you don't receive Jesus. You don't receive Jesus, you don't receive God. So get over it". That's her, one of her favorite terms, just get over it and listen to what I have to say. Don't you love it? Hallelujah. Now then, "And He talked to them and He said, 'Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.'" Praise God. So the first thing He said, heal the sick that are therein and say unto them, "The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you". "Jesus," they said, "teach just to pray". And He said, "It's very simple, our father, which art in heaven hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven".
That is a huge healing scripture. And Jesus did His work on earth as it is in heaven. There's no sickness into heaven. Amen. So that's a huge healing scripture. Praise God. So, all of His ministry, all of it, He's most well known in the Christian world for healing the sick. Now, there is an erroneous teaching that Jesus healed to prove His divinity. In the first place, He never said anything about His divinity. The Bible doesn't say anything about His divinity, it calls Him the Son of man. If that was His mission to prove His divinity, then He missed it in Nazareth. Let's look at it, Mark chapter six. Praise God forevermore. Here it is.
Verse three, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph, and of Judah and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us. And they were all offended at Him. Jesus said unto them, 'A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country and among his own kin and in his own house. And he could there do no mighty work.'"
Didn't say He wouldn't, He said He couldn't. He could not because of their unbelief. That's what stopped Him. That's what'll stop your congregation. So now I've not done this every time, but there's been times in certain congregations for certain places. And at Healing School, the Lord would specifically direct me, "You take care of unbelief today before you even start anything else". So what is unbelief? There's no such thing as non-belief. You're sitting there right now, believing something. Humans are believers. Now belief is easy, it's so easy. Charles Capps says, "The Bible is so easy you have to have help to misunderstand it".
We've had some high priced help in that area. I was present one day, I was present one day and heard a man preach and he was very strong and adamant about it, "God will break your leg just to prove to you He can heal it". Not the God I serve, He wouldn't break my leg under any circumstance. For no reason. You couldn't get my dad to break my leg. Much less my heavenly Father. Well it's just erroneous teaching and erroneous believing. Here's how simple it is, I learned this from Kenneth Hagin. Well, I think I'll go to the store. You're probably going to get every opportunity there is to not go to the store. But what about, I believe I'll go to the store? This is all the difference in the world. I think I will, I believe I will.
Then you come to the place where you say, "I'm going to the store today and I'm leaving the house at 10 o'clock. I have to go there and I'm going there today. So now don't get in my way. I'm going there". That's faith. It takes a quality decision at the beginning. I have seen, and I have ministered to people that serious sickness, serious disease, that did not make that quality decision. What is a quality decision? It is a decision about which there is no more argument, and from which there is no retreat. It's settled. And to be real it must be settle on either the promises of God or the facts of God. By His stripes, we were healed was a promise until Jesus fulfilled it.
In the eighth chapter of Matthew, He came to Peter's house, saw His wife's mother sick of a fever, touched her hand, the fever left her. And when evening was come, they brought many who were possessed with devils and many that were sick, and He cast out the devils with his Word and healed all that were sick, fulfilling that, which was spoken by Isaiah, the prophet saying, "He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses". So that's fulfilled. And then Peter confirmed it again in his first letter, "He bore our sins in His own body on the tree that we be dead to sins, to live under righteousness," I like that, that we should live, "under righteousness, by who stripes you were healed".
So that whole issue is settled, we don't pray about that anymore. We don't ever pray, is it God's will to heal? Well, come on. Is Jesus not God manifested in the flesh? Does He ever change? Everybody He hired, He called them to the healing ministry. Yes but Brother Copeland I don't have any special calling. Yes you do. What does it take to specially call you? T.L. Osborn went to India and he and Daisy failed, they quit pastoring. And came back home dejected, did not know what to do. And the Lord directed him where we went yesterday in the 16th chapter of Mark, 15th through 20th verses, "Go into all the world".
Well, T.L. knew that he was called to do that, that's what he was trying to do, and preach the gospel to every creature. Well yes. "But these signs will follow them that believe. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover". He went right back and he began to do that. He began to lay hands on the sick. He began to do that, he began to make that a thrust of his ministry and he would preach in the line of that. And until Reinhard Bonnke came on the scene doing the same thing, he had the biggest crowds that had ever been had by a Christian preacher anywhere, anytime. And his great book, Healing The Sick by T.L. Osborn, he tells all the stories in there about it. That's a book you should really read and enjoy. Amen?
Daisy would go ahead and she would go be the ambassador and here's what they would do. She'd say, "Get everybody ready. Get everybody ready. Brother Osborn is coming, he's coming. Get everybody ready". Well I mean by the time he got there, everybody was ready. That is a heavenly strategy. That's what we read right there in the book of Luke. You go get everybody ready? You go. I'm coming there. You go get everybody ready. You go heal the sick there, you go preach that the kingdom of God is in hand, you go do it. Take your team and you go out there, you get all of them heal, you can get healed before I get there. Yay. Glory to God. I don't know we kind of jumped in the pool right there. Well, listen, this is heavenly planning. So in the 16th chapter of Mark, Jesus set the whole church, all the believers, "Lay hands on the sick and they'll recover".
Now Oral Roberts, my father in the faith, had a manifestation of power in his right hand. And it was so powerful and so strong, but now see, God told him when he healed him of tuberculosis and stuttering, you will take my healing power to your generation. That was his mandate. That was his calling. Well, it didn't manifest. And the small church, he was pastoring in Enid, Oklahoma, marvelous people. Pentecostal wholeness church, glory to God, all of them baptized in the Spirit. Amen. Praying in other tongues, just a great bunch of people, and nothing ever happened. And he had preached healing a little bit, nothing ever happened. He got so hungry, he got so disturbed, and he kept pressing and pressing until he wound up on his face in the kitchen, crying out to God. And tomorrow I'll tell you what happened. Because we're out of time. Come on, we'll be back here in just a moment, give the Lord a praise.