Kenneth Copeland - The Importance of Prayer
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland and welcome to week two of our broadcasting here on the shores of Eagle Mountain Lake. And as I told you last week, we had a lot of repair work going on in our prayer cabin in Southwest Arkansas. And I'm going to miss my partner today, but she has other plans today. So we just thank God for her, in Jesus' name.
And Father, we bless you today. We thank You for utterance in the Spirit of God. We thank You to rise up within us, show us inside ideas and concepts, and I pray for this radio and television audience right now, for revelation in the Word of God, revelation revealed knowledge. Thank You for it. We praise You in Jesus' name. Amen.
I want to remind you now, last week we were talking about what is known as the last supper. Well, I like to call it the beginning supper. Jesus, his disciples, they were not apostles yet. The word apostle means a sent one. They were not sent until the day of Pentecost and they became the apostles of the lamb, but in this last supper, this meal, back in that place where Jesus was talking about, "I am the true vine". And think about, now, how many times he talked about prayer. He said, "Whatever you ask in my name, I'll do it". We talked about that. The word ask there is also translated demand. Well, you're not demanding something of God, but then skip forward a little bit, after the resurrection. You remember the angels said, "Why, you men of Galilee, why are you looking up like that"? This same Jesus, this same Jesus, well, he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And it's this same Jesus that is in us today by his spirit.
Now, he said, "Whatever you demand," so now Peter and John went up to the temple and here's this man, been lame from his mother's womb. Well, I'd quote that to you, but I'm not going to. Let's go over the book of Acts chapter three. And now the way this is named, they named it The Acts of the Apostles. It actually isn't. It's the acts of the Holy Spirit in and on the apostles, glory to God. Third chapter of The Book of Acts. Now, Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour, or it's three o'clock in the afternoon. And a certain man, lame from his mother's womb, was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful to ask alms of them that entered into the temple, who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked an alms.
Peter, fastening his eyes upon him, when John said, "Look on us". And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, "Silver and gold, have I none. Such as I have, give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk". He lifted him up, and immediately his feet and the ankle bones received strength, and he, leaping up, stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, leaping, and praising God, glory to God. Now, what happened there? Peter put a demand on that name. He made a demand. Now, Jesus said, because that Greek word can be translated ask or demand, Jesus said, "Whatever you demand in my name, I'll do it". You see it? Whatever you demand in my name, I will do it. Amen. And then in John 16:23, he said, "Whatsoever you ask the father in my name, he will give it you". But you have to ask.
Well now then, let's go over here to the seventh chapter of the Book of Matthew. I was not smart enough to come up with this. Well, I might have been smart enough. I just never didn't think about it, but one of my spiritual sons came up with this, and so I just took it as my own. Amen. Glory to God. And in his book, he's talking about what are you going to do with my name? And Matthew 7:7, "Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asks, receives. He that seeks, finds. And him that knocks, it shall be opened". Now, notice this, ask, A-S-K, so ask and it shall be given you. Seek, S, and it'll be open to you. Knock, there it is again, ask, A-S-K. I wish I'd have thought of that first, but I'm going to treat it just like I did. Amen.
And I'll get ahold of him and tell him I took it from. That's what Oral Roberts said to me when I was preaching on the name of Jesus. And he said, "Kenneth, that was just a wonderful sermon". And he said, "I'm going to say I heard Kenneth Copeland say". And then he said, "I'll say I heard a man say. And then from then on, I'm going to say I'm going to tell you something". He said, "You're on your own then, man". Glory to God. Thank You, Jesus. Talking about asking here. Now I want to go back over here to what he said here in the 15th chapter of John. Now listen to this. If you abide in me. Now, what does that mean? Abide, live. If you live in me.
Now, there's another place in here, we won't look it up right now, but he said, "You can do nothing without me". Oh, isn't that the truth? And all the time Jesus was pointing to the day of Pentecost, but they didn't know that yet. They didn't know that that was about to happen. When the power of the Spirit of God would come back into this atmosphere in full. Remember now, Jacob's ladder? Angels going to and fro? You have to remember when Adam committed high treason and turned this planet over to the devil, he had authority here. He was using Adam's authority in the earth because, if you remember, he said to Jesus, "In the temptation". He said, "All of these kingdoms, I will give you for they have been given unto me and I give them to whomsoever I will". Well, who gave it to him? Adam gave it to him. That's information and as you listen to that, there's revelation in there that's powerful, because the apostle Paul said he's the God of this world.
Now, he's not our God, but he's everybody's God until you accept Jesus as the Lord of your life. Because you're just roaming loose in this world and there's an outlaw loose in this world. His name's Satan. His name used to be Lucifer. I wish we had time to get into that but when he fell, his name got changed to that old serpent, the devil. Praise God. Well, now on the day of Pentecost, on that day, glory to God, on that day, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he did exactly what he promised in that last meal. He prayed the Father and the Father sent the Holy Ghost in fullness and all of the angels that were supposed to be in this atmosphere, glory to God, came back in here and I am convinced that's what made that sound of a rushing, mighty wind. And I believe you could have heard it anywhere on this planet. Multiplied trillions of angels. Amen.
There were three archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer. Well, one of them got kicked out of heaven, glory to God. The accuser that always accusing the brethren. Well, he's kicked out. Amen. He's done. You can send his saddle home. He's through. A defeated foe and we have exactly the same name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that Peter and John used on that day. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Now, that man was expecting to receive something. Why do you think he was expecting to receive something? Well, just go to the 11th chapter of the Book of Mark and see how many times they went back and forth into the temple. Well, a man was there, sat right there. He was just as crippled after Jesus went to heaven as he was the day they went through that gate over and over and over again. And if you don't think Jesus was every going to pass by there and not put something in his hand. And of course he said, "Oh, here come my boys. Here come my boys. I'm expecting to receive something".
Boy, boy, he got a lot more than he expected, didn't he? He got the power of the name of Jesus and then he became a lifelong disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's going to be interesting when we get to heaven and find out what happened to him, glory to God. Where did he go? What kind of an apostle did he become? Amen. Pastor of a church? I don't know, but he became somebody that day, and I talked about this last week. I'm telling you, Jesus would make somebody out of a nobody. And I'll guarantee you, before I met him, you talk about a nobody, oh, I was the poster boy for nobody. I was fouled up, messed up, until the day I met Gloria Jean Neece.
Now, she unfouled me that day, of course, because of her love. And I found out then what love was all about, and the bitterness went out of me and a lot of meanness went out of me, grumpy, grumpy, and all that, because of her love. But then the two of us, glory to God, and Gloria in October, and then me, I accepted the Lord the first week of November, 1962. And as I told you last week, and then in January 63, both of us felt the Spirit of God speaking with other tongues, and that's the first time that Gloria Jean ever heard the Word born again, was in that meeting over in east Texas. That's the first time she ever heard that. All she prayed was, "Lord, take my life and do something with it". Well he certainly did, praise God.
Now the importance of prayer, let's look over here at what Jesus said in the 18th chapter of the Book of Luke. Hang on here. Praise You, Jesus. Thank You, Lord Jesus. He spoke a parable unto them, to this end. So this was the end. This was the bottom line. He spoke a parable unto them, to this end that men ought always to pray, ought always to pray, always, pray all the time, and not to faint. Pray without, and don't faint. Praise God. Now, let's look in the sixth chapter of the Book of Ephesians and listen to what the Spirit of God said through the apostle Paul. Now, I mean, there's not but six chapters in this little book. Sit down sometime and just read the whole thing. It's a letter. Somebody sent you a letter, you'd sit down and read it. You wouldn't read a chapter of it a day. You'd just sit down and read it.
In the sixth chapter, in the fifth verse, "Servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart as unto Christ". That's good advice. Whomever you're working for, it may be a grumbling boss, but just smile and just work hard and do your very best like you're working for Jesus. And that way, you become a witness, and many, many, many people have won their supervisor over by being that kind of a worker. Not with eyeservice as menpleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With goodwill, doing service as unto the Lord and not unto men. Amen.
Knowing that whatsoever good thing... Listen, say it. Whatsoever good thing any man does, the same shall he receive of the Lord. Glory to God. You masters, if you're the boss do the same thing unto them, forbearing threatening. Don't just go around threatening people all the time. Walk in love, knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is their respect to persons with him. Finally, my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wilds of the devil, for we wrestle, not with flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places. Take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all the stands, stand therefore having your loins girded about with truth, having on the breast plate of righteousness, your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
Well, that same apostle said, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation. So you're walking in power, above all taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God praying. So that's prayer armor. You just suit up, go ahead, pray. Praying always, with all prayer, all manner of prayer, all kinds of prayer and supplication in the Spirit, watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And for me, pray. Pray for your pastor. Pray for the leaders of your church. Pray for me that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in bonds and therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. Pray. Pray for your pastor. Pray for those in the church. Pray for everybody in the church. Pray all the time and unceasingly.
How can you do that? How can you just pray all the time? Well, for one thing, you have Jesus on your mind all the time. I think about him all the time. I talk to him all the time. I talk to him right before I go to sleep at night. Last person I talk to, I just say to Gloria, "Goodnight, my love," and kiss her goodnight. One time, we were watching Brother Hagin on my iPad. There was a particular service that I heard about and I really wanted to see that. We weren't there at the time.
So I set my iPad up in this little holder that I have and we watched that service. This was after Brother Hagin had already gone home to be with the Lord. He went in August of 2003. And it was really good, and I got what I wanted, and heard what I needed to hear, and I turned over there to kiss her goodnight. She said, "Not in front of Brother Hagin". And so I turned the iPad down and said, "Goodnight, my love". And then after that, the last thing, the very last thing, there was a man who came to Jesus and said, "What is the greatest commandment"? He was tempting him, but Jesus said, "The greatest commandment, love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, fulfilling all the law and the prophets".
And I pray that, and I say, "Lord, I thank You and praise You tonight, and in the name of Jesus, with Your help, I will wake up at a certain time in the morning". I haven't used an alarm clock in, I don't know, probably 30 years, and just use my faith, praise God. And I'll wake up at that time or a little bit before, and I thank You, and I praise You, and I worship You. That's the last thing as my head hits the pillow, and the first thing when I get up in the morning, and I tell Gloria, "Good morning," and I go into my bathroom, and I have healing scriptures scotch taped right up there on my bathroom. And I go through those healing scriptures there, and I pray, and talk to him, and think about him, and listen to him, listen in my spirit, and take time to visit with him.
What do you think about that, Lord? And every time we get into the car, I'll plead the blood over the car, glory to God, it'll bump nobody, nobody will bump it. Every time I get into the airplane, if I'm back in the cabin, I lay my hand on the side. We plead the blood over this aircraft in the name of Jesus and against every evil spirit, every evil plan of the devil is bound, stopped, and thwarted. Ministering spirits, lift us up in your hands according to the 91st Psalm and bless our partners all over the world.
If I'm flying the airplane, if I'm sitting in the cockpit, before I do anything else, before I start an engine, I pray the same thing. If I'm flying, then I say, "Lord, I receive the flying mind of Christ. You're the one that called me to do this. I'll not forget anything and I'll not do anything unsafe in the name of Jesus. Now, the before start checklist, please". You live with him. You abide in him and his Word abides in you. Ask what you will, and it will be done unto you. And we're out of time. I'll be back in just a moment.