Kenneth Copeland - Jesus Set His Church Against Sickness and Disease
Jesus went about the cities and the villages teaching preaching, and healing. Now we know from the book of Hebrews, He's the same yesterday, today and forever. Now, before we go any further, let's have a working definition of faith. I'm reading this from the Classic Amplified. Now faith is, well, we start with that. Faith is now. Now faith is the assurance, the confirmation, the title deed of the things we hope for being the proof of things we do not see, and the conviction of their reality. Faith, now this is a spiritual force. And we're about to see this right now. Faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses.
Real fact, by faith trust and holy fervor, born of faith, the men of old had divine testimony. What kind of testimony? Divine testimony, born to them and obtained a good report. By faith we understand that the worlds, during the successive ages were framed, fashioned, put in order and equipped for their intended purpose by the Word of God so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible. It was not made out of nothing. It was made out something you can't see. Faith, this invisible, powerful, wonderful, God who is love. Hallelujah. And we know, from the 11th chapter of the Book of Mark, the 22nd verse, have faith in God. My cross reference says have the faith of God. Well, of course it's the faith of God. The moment we were born again, it was by faith. Amen. The moment you became a new creature, I wish I had known this, but I was a scripture illiterate when I got saved. So was Gloria.
It was amazing. We were there. I was a student at Oral Roberts University, I had just turned 30 years old. And I'm 85 now. So do the math. Anyway, I said, "Gloria, did you notice that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all tell the same story"? She said, "Yes. Isn't that wonderful"? And TL Osborn said, "Kenneth". That's what TL spoke, in powerful jerks. He'd have a smile on his face. He said to me, one time we were having lunch. He said, "Kenneth". "Yes, sir". "You want to get rich"? "Well, yeah". We were broke. He said, "It's easy". I said, "How do you do that sir"? "Find a preacher that God's given him more to do than he has money and help him". That's a good plan. Amen. Faith. He said, "Kenneth, you were born free". He said, "You had no religion to unlearn".
Now we're back to healing. He and Daisy went to India the first time and he's just preaching faith in God. They said, "How do we know? What's the difference between your God and ours? Prove it". He couldn't do it. He came home defeated. And as he and Daisy prayed over this, the Lord took him to the 16th chapter of Mark, so let's turn there. Now, Jesus was not in a good mood. He didn't say many words, but he chewed them out. Verse 13 and they went and told it under the rest but neither believed they them.
Afterward He appeared unto the 11, as they sat at meat and up braided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen. And He said unto them, "Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized will be saved. And he that believe if not won't. And these 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 shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover".
The believer, the believer, not the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, but the believer. In 1977, Brother Hagin separated me into the office of the prophet. But I'm a believer first. And so are you. And this is our job. Then the Lord had spoken unto them. He was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth and preached. Glory to God. That's when they became apostles. They went forth and preached everywhere. The Lord working with them, notice the word them is in italics. This is one place. Well, it doesn't hurt anything, but it takes really the strength out of it. They went forth and preached everywhere. The Lord working with and confirming the Word with signs following. Amen. And He said, that was my calling to preach healing.
And Terry, I believe I'm right in saying this. He said, I never did have a special calling of any kind. He said that was my calling right there in that verse, that was my calling. And I went everywhere and started preaching. And he said, the next time they went, they had blind people healed. They said, "Well, your God is God". Your God is God. There was probably still is, in some circles, a Pentecostal teaching that Jesus healed to prove His divinity. But He didn't. He healed because His Father, God sent Him to heal. Because if that's true, He failed in Nazareth. Sixth chapter of Mark said there, he could do no mighty work. Didn't say He wouldn't, it said He could not because of their unbelief.
So let's talk about unbelief. What is that? There's no such thing as non-belief. Every human being that's awake is believing something. You go to sleep believing something. You need to be really, really, really cautious about what you're believing when you go to sleep. Don't go to sleep with fear. And let the Lord lead you. But for years, I don't know how many years it's been probably... Oh, I don't know. Lord, how long? 30, 35 years since I've used an alarm clock. And I just heard Brother Hagin say one time. He said, "Well, are you going to depend on that or depend on the inner man"? And I thought, well, there's there you go. And somebody thinks, oh, I'll be late every time. Yeah, you will. You go to sleep like that, you'll wake up late every morning. I go to sleep, I have my sleep scriptures. I have six of them on my nightstand right there. I just have them taped there where I can read them before I go to sleep.
And then I put myself down and the last thing... I love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength. I love my neighbor as myself fulfilling all the law and the prophets. And if there be any other, such law is covered the Apostle Paul said, "In this, love your neighbor as yourself, because love does not his neighbor any harm". Thank You Lord. Teaching, preaching and healing. Jesus ordained the 12 in the 10th chapter of Matthew. I want to touch that again because I don't want to lose that thought. The 10th chapter of the Book of Matthew. And so much teaching in here, so much in the fifth and sixth and seventh chapters of the Book of Matthew.
And he called unto Him, His 12 disciples and gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease and I'll add this, all manner of weakness and disease. Amen. Named them. We read this a moment ago, but let's read it again. These 12 Jesus sent forth and commanded them saying, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, as you go preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand". Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. There's a healing scripture if there ever was one.
Now some people say, "well, healing has passed away". When? What day? Had that been true some prophet would've said so. Well, the day of miracles has passed. Well for you maybe. So go get in a church where they're not passed. Jesus said I am the Lord that healeth thee. I am Jehovah Rapha. That's His name. I am Jehovah Rapha. I am Jehovah Shalom. I am your peace. Isaiah said that the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. Well, if Jehovah Rapha has passed away, then Jehovah Shalom has passed away. Because He's the same. He would've had to have changed His name. And there's no shadow of turning about changing Him then or Jesus either one. Is and was, Jesus of Nazareth. God manifested in the flesh. What's the answer to that? I'll go over here at this group. Was and is Jesus God manifested in the flesh. Amen. He said, "I only say what I hear my Father say, I only do what I see my Father do".
Now, because of all of the stuff going on the Lord instructed me a few weeks ago to bring this up. Jesus was not and is not a white man. He's a dark skinned, Middle Eastern Jew. He's a bronze skin, man. Have you seen the movie of the Red Tails? The Tuskegee Airman. That young man had a picture of black Jesus, right there in his cockpit headed... Man, they couldn't kill that kid. Because his Jesus was black. And that's good. Amen. There's just a lot of things that just need to be settled. There's some things that you need to settle. I mean stuff that's just so settled. Don't even pray about that anymore. I've not known any personally for a long time. Some guy that, well, I don't really know whether I'm called to preach or not. Well, I think I'll preach a little while and if that doesn't work, I'll go back to service station.
I'm telling you what I know. The last time I raised my voice to Gloria Jean, and if she hadn't have been the lovely kind of person she is, it'd have ended right then too. We were living in a little rent house. I was still struggling around trying to stay in the airplane business and all that. I don't even remember now what set me off and I was just ranting and raving about something. And as I stopped on the inside of me, I'm thinking she doesn't deserve this. I just stopped. I said, "Oh, Gloria, I'm so sorry". And I just fell over on the couch, ugly green couch in that little house, just flopped down there. And I went into a deep sleep. And when I woke up right there at first, I thought I slept around the clock but then I realized I didn't.
And what's your name? Ron. Her face was that close to my face. I was on the left side like this and she was right there on the floor in front of that couch. Like this. She didn't slap my jaws. I said, "Oh Gloria, I got to preach". She said, "I know it. I know it". That's settled. Settle some things. I'm going to live by faith, walk by faith, talk by faith. That's who I am. That's what I am. And that's what I do. Jesus set the church. He set His church against sickness and disease. Amen. Now let's go to the Book of Luke, also the 10th chapter. Oh wait a minute. No, no, no. I don't want to do that yet. I want to go to the Book of Mark. Thank You Jesus for reminding me of that. And the third chapter. Verse 14, and He ordained 12 that they should be with Him and that He might send them forth to preach and to have power to heal sickness and cast out devils.
And Simon he surnamed Peter. When did that happen? Well, He said, "Who do you say that I am"? And Peter jumped up and said, "Thou, art the Christ". Son of the living God. And Jesus said, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. And I call you Peter. And upon this rock I'll build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it". He changed his name. He changed Abram's name to Abraham. Abraham. An H right in the middle of his name. Now what did that mean? H, Hashem, the name. The name. And He said, "I have made you". Let's get hold of something here. "I have made you". We have been made the righteousness of God in Him.