Kenneth Copeland - Witnessing Miracles and Healings
Praise God. Here it is, Tuesday. Jesus is on the throne at the right hand of the Father and prayer still changes things. Praise the Lord. Welcome to Kenneth Copeland Bible College this morning and let's pick this up where we left off yesterday. And we'll read from the 16th chapter of Mark. "And he said, unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not, shall be damned or condemned. The signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents. If they drink any deadly thing, it'll not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover".
And I want you to notice something. "So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. They went forth and preached everywhere the Lord working with". You notice them is in italics. And actually, it shouldn't be there. They went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with and confirming the Word. They were preaching it, but he was confirming the Word. Of course, he was working with them, but really he was working with and confirming the Word. If you don't preach the Word, he doesn't have anything to work with. If you don't confess the Word, he doesn't have anything to work with. Amen. So now we were talking about Oral Roberts when we closed yesterday. He, as a young boy, stuttered so badly that when he stepped up in front of the class at school, he just simply couldn't speak. But his mother kept saying, "Oral is my preacher". And they said, "Well, Mr. Roberts, he can't even talk. How could he ever preach"? She said, "Well, you just wait and see".
Then back in those days, tuberculosis was... He was born in January, 1918 and tuberculosis among the Cherokee people was just ramp, that was terrible. And he had tuberculosis terribly, and he had coughed until the wall in his bedroom was just drenched in blood. There was a man came to town in a tent meeting. Glory to God, by the name of Brother Moncey. Well, Oral's brother and sister said, "Well, you're going to that meeting". So they just picked him up and carried him out and put him in the backseat of the car. On the way to the meeting, the Word of the Lord came to Oral Roberts, "You will take my healing power to your generation".
Now there are other things to it, but that we'll just touch on that for now. You will take my healing power to your generation. Well, he finally was a pastor of a small church in Enid, Oklahoma. And can you imagine Oral Roberts selling gospel sheet music on the street for money? It's strange, isn't it? Now, hey, Oral could play the guitar and had a good singing voice. Now, most people don't know that because he never would do it, but some of the students, once in a while, put pressure on him and he would. It's funny. But anyway, what happened? Nothing. He just kept preaching to his little congregation and everybody's happy. Nobody doing anything. But one day he was, there was a man there that was, and that had a large piece of machinery fall on his foot. He's a mechanic. And someone called him his pastor and he ran over there.
And this, it was just a manifestation of special faith, which we will see at one point during this week. And suddenly, I mean, the man's foot was bleeding, just screaming in pain. And suddenly, he just reached down and touched it. And that man said, "Oral, what'd you do"? He said, "I didn't do anything". He said, "He's well". He got up and stepped around on it. But then nothing else. Well, he got so hungry for it, he began to press and push and press and push, and press and push. And he finally wound up on the kitchen floor one day, crying out to God, crying out to God. And a manifestation of God's power, a tangible manifestation came in his right arm. And it would... you know what they accused him of? The news media accused him of having a battery and a wire up his sleeve when he laid hands on people because it had such a powerful effect.
Well, it was a battery, but it didn't come from any earthly battery. And the miracles, ooh. Not just healing, miracles, miracles, miracles. I saw them. I'm not speaking from what I read in a book. I saw them. I knew the man until the day he went home to be with the Lord. I ministered with him. I saw it, more than a few, glory to God, hallelujah. But see, that was his calling. That was his mandate. And he pressed and pressed. The same thing happened to Kenneth E. Hagin. And he said, "I wondered after a while, what I've been preaching for 15 years". But Jesus called him up to heaven. And in the present in heaven, he put his finger in the palms of Brother Hagin's hands and he said, "They burn like fire". But then the Lord told him, "You always tell that everywhere you go. You tell that you saw me. You tell them that I put my hands in the palms of your hand".
So there was a young woman. Many years ago, she and her husband and contacted us and she had cancer. And of course, Gloria and I laid hands on her. But then the Word, God said this to me. And so I said to her, "Listen, Brother Kenneth E. Hagin has more results in cancer, in his ministry than anything else". So here's what we're going to do. Gloria and I are going to pay your expenses. We're going to pay your hotel bill, your travel bill, and get you to his meeting. Because, every time he would tell that, every, Jesus told him to. Jesus preached the same message, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he has anointed me". He preached it everywhere he went, before he preached anything else. So they came back. We were so excited to hear the news. She said, "I'm telling you, that is the most egotistical man I have ever set under in my life. He's telling everybody how much he's anointed". Well, she died. She went to heaven, of course, but she could have lived out her life.
What did Jesus say? "If you receive me, you receive the one who sent me. If you despise me, no, if they despise you, they despise me. If they despise me, they despise the one who sent me". Well, that's what happened with her. That didn't need to happen, but I'm pointing out those two tangible healing anointings. Now why point that out? God wants you well. Their ministries occurred right after World War II. You have to remember this. This great healing revival started in 1947. The whole world was caught up in a world war and the United States was hugely responsible for winning it. There were pastors that went into the defense plants and never did go back in the ministry. Got caught up in earning more money than they'd ever seen in their lives, because they came right out of the Depression, right into that war. No president gets the reward for stopping that Depression, not Mr. Roosevelt or anybody else. It was that war that stopped it because all of a sudden, there were more jobs than it could be filled. And when that happens, skilled labor came up.
So there had to be a move of God, and there had to be a strong, strong manifestations of healings and miracles because it was 98% word of mouth. You couldn't even, the only church on television at the time. Well, they didn't even have television then. But even when television came, the only, and it's just first church, which everyone is handy. Dear Lord, but not anymore. Not anymore. But this all serves to show you how God wants his people well. There are many, many, many, many miracles on the battlefield. Now, turn with me to first Corinthians. Been doing all of this speaking and talking and so forth just to get down to this, because the Apostle Paul was teaching. And you don't just start right at one... Go and check out the neighborhood.
So look in the 11th chapter, because the 11th chapter is where you learn how to receive communion unto yourself. It prepares you to learn about the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in miraculous ways. He said, "Now, I received this from the Lord, which I delivered unto you". Now verse 31, "For if you would judge, we would judge ourselves. We should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord". Or corrected, that we should not be condemned with the world. So you don't condemn yourself. You judge yourself. I have done that many, many, many times. I take communion a lot and I just stop before the Lord and say, "Lord, I judge myself in this. And I humble myself before you, and I'm asking you to judge me. Point out anything in me that needs to be stopped or changed, where I'm coming short or something I've forgotten that you've given me to do". Spend some time with this. Amen.
Now we're going into an area here in the Spirit and in ministry that takes more than a little time spent with the Lord. I'll tell you a quick story. This man, a friend of mine. And a brilliant man, and his background, he had joined the Air Force as an enlisted airman. And then spent four years there. He came out and got into aviation and eventually became an airline pilot. And just a powerful man. But now he was, he walked so closely with God. He walked so closely with him every day. He talked to him every day. He developed his relationship with Jesus to the point he talked to him about everything. There was one situation where with it was either Braniff, or I believe it was Braniff Airlines before they folded up. And they had a cart that carried all the catering. You remember, they'd take those carts up and go into the airplane over the wing and go into the back part of the airplane. And this cart dumped over and damaged the wing.
Well, they called Thurman and they said, "Look, to see if you can do something about this". So he just started talking to the Lord about it, and then the Lord began to show him. And he began to have visions of it and he corrected it and finally, and corrected it until it got to the point where then he drew off what needed to be changed. They changed it, and those carts are still built that way today. Now here's another one. He was checking underneath this before he became a pastor. He was checking underneath an area and he crawled up under there, and checking this area. And he heard the audible voice of God, "Son, you forgot your papers". And he said, "Well, yeah. I did what"? And I'll get them. "No," he said, "you get up and you go get them right now". He heard that.
So he scrambled out from under there and just as he scrambled out from under it, a load 20,000 pounds of steel hanging right up above that, the thing broke and fell. And he danced out of the way of it. But you have to develop that. That didn't begin that day with Thurman Scrivner. There was a life of communication. He spent a lot of time talking to him, talked to him all the time, day in and day out. You develop that. Spend time listening. You already know everything he knows. I got that from Brother Hagin. I'm not smart enough to come up with that. Spend time. Now then after you've judged yourself now, see that? I like this. Now, chapter 12, concerning spiritual gifts.
Notice in this case, gifts is in italics. Concerning spirituals, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. You know that you were Gentile. You were Gentiles carried away under these dumb idols, even as you were led. Therefore, I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God, calls Jesus accursed. No man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. When I was a student at Oral Roberts University, I was studying these things. And I read that verse of scripture, "No man says, Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Ghost. Jesus is Lord". Glory to God.
Now, when I was a little boy in elementary school and junior high school, my book covers had airplanes all over them. Well, now, I began to write, "Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Glory to God". And I got up that little desk about that size in our, this little project house we had rented while we were there. And the kids were just small and God, I just wrote Jesus is Lord on every paper I could find. And then, later on, I heard the Word of the Lord say that I'm going to preach this Word. That Jesus saves. Jesus heals. Jesus baptizes in the Holy Ghost, and he's our soon coming King. And he is our Melchizedek. He is our financier, because this was the mandate that God called me in. He said, "I want you to teach my people the laws of success and the laws of prosperity".
That's what I'm called to do. And I'm going to preach these things, that Jesus is Lord, because I've heard this from the Lord. From the top of the world to the bottom and all the way around the middle. And so I drew this little world and it had a flag that said, "Jesus is Lord," around it. And there's this little airplane going around the center. And that's the way I had my first business cards made, Jesus is Lord. Glory to God. Well, he is, isn't he? There's a lot of people that he's savior, but he is not Lord. How much time, Tim? Good. Thank you.
Now, let's read this. I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God, calls Jesus accursed. And that no man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts. Notice here, gifts is not italicized. There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are differences of administration or ministries, but the same Lord. For there are diversities of operation, but it is the same God which works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit, that's what we're talking about. I'll give you an assignment. Look up the places where it said, and suddenly. Starting with the day of Pentecost.
And suddenly, there was a sound and suddenly, the Spirit moved and suddenly it happened. God is a sudden God. But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man or every person to profit with all, for to one is given by the Spirit, the word of wisdom. Notice it's a word of wisdom. To another, the word of knowledge. Now that's what happened over and over again to Thurman Scrivner. The word of knowledge came to him about that catering cart. It was the Word. A manifestation of the Holy Spirit living within in him that saved his life that day. And then after going into the ministry, glory to God, I'm telling you the healing ministries and the things that happened with this man and his life.
Cheryl, I mean, magnificent things, just magnificent things. He's in heaven today, just went a few days ago. Heaven is rejoicing. Hallelujah. And I had the very distinct pleasure of ordaining his wife and separating her into the ministry of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because now, she's in it. She's the administrator now, and she carries on that ministry. Praise God.
Now notice this. To another, faith or special faith. There's a difference between saving faith and special faith. This is that moment, like that's what happened to Oral Roberts, that special faith. He wasn't trying to believe anything, but by the Spirit of God, he just touched that man's foot and the power of God fixed it. That was a lead in to what he was called to do. And then he decided, he said, "Well, I'm going to do this thing. I'm going". And we're out of time, so we'll take up again here tomorrow. Glory to God. Come on. We'll be back here in just a moment. Thank You, Lord. Hallelujah.