Kenneth Copeland - The Prayer of Agreement and Faith
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. We're studying on the subject of prayer. My father in the faith, Oral Roberts, when he began, just so much of the things that I'm bringing to you, I learned from him. The first structure on the campus of Oral Roberts University was the Prayer Tower. The first thing then that we did, that Gloria and I did, in this ministry, we picked up on that and what we learned from him. And he said, "Prayer is the foundation of every Christian endeavor. Regardless of any man's ability, he will fail if not backed by prayer. Failure of all Christian enterprise is a prayer failure". Some Christians don't pray at all. They just have a promise box or something. Never give it any time. Just don't ever think about it. And like some man said, "Well, maybe we should pray". And the other fellow said, "Has it come to that"?
Well, it should have started with that. Amen. And that's the reason the Lord dropped it in my heart to spend this two weeks with you, beginning with the very teachings of Jesus and what was called the Last Supper. Then his teaching on agreement prayer, which we talked about yesterday. And there are different kinds of prayer. And we talked about the prayer of agreement. We talked about the prayer of faith, glory to God. So now, I want to step into what Jesus said in two places, John 16:23 and Matthew 11:22, 23 and 24 and 25. Now then, well, here it is. Mark 11:22. This is in the Classic Amplified. Now, listen to me. "And Jesus replying said to them, 'Have faith in God constantly. Truly, I tell you, whosoever says to this mountain...'"
Now, he was pointing to a particular mountain. They were there. He pointed to that mountain and it was called the Mountain of Corruption. I learned that from my pastor, Pastor George Pearsons. "Be lifted up and thrown into the sea. And does not doubt at all in his heart, but believes that what he says will take place, it will be done for him. For this reason, I'm telling you whatever you ask for in prayer, believe, trust and be confident that it is granted to you and you'll get it. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him and let it drop. Leave it. Let it go in order that your Father, who is in heaven," excuse me, "may also forgive your own failings and shortcomings and let them drop. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive you".
Now, listen to what he said. "For this reason," 24th verse, "I'm telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe right then, trust and be confident that it is granted to you and you will get it". Now, John 16:23. And I'll tell you something about a prayer that Gloria and I prayed years, and years, and years ago with these two scriptures. "When that time comes, you will ask nothing of me. You will need to ask me no questions, I assure you most solemnly. I tell you, my Father will grant you whatever you ask in my name presenting all that I am". Did you hear the word grant in both of those? Gloria and I came home. We'd been on the road for... Back in those days, we'd stay out two or three weeks at a time. And my dad, he was the only hired help we had at that time. And his secretary was our secretary, too.
Anyway, we came in. And in his office, he would go get what little mail we had. So we dropped in there. And he just handed me this calculator slip. "Brother Copeland, what are those"? Well, you have a calculator on your phone, right? We didn't have phones we could carry around in our pocket. And it came out and it had a red $5,000 on the bottom of it. "Really"? I said, "Well, Gloria, we need to pray". So I had my Amplified Bible with me. I pushed his desk chair back, got on my knees and had my Amplified. And I turned to those two scriptures. And I said, "Gloria, we can agree on this $5,000, because we have a heavenly grant. It is granted from heaven". She said, "Let me see that"! We both had our Amplifieds there. And she looked at it and looked at both. She said, "This is a heavenly grant"? "Yes, it is".
So we sat down and wrote out the grant. We wrote it down, exactly what we need. And we're still doing it today. This ministry does it. Our board of directors do that, particularly in the area of finances. And 2019, 2020 broke all the financial records. 2021 broke all the financial records. And 2022 has taken off. We're ahead of 2021. But we have a heavenly grant and every member of the board has signed it. And we had our lawyer draw it, grow it up in legal language and everybody signed it and we pray it together. This is the finances we need in this ministry. And we believe we have a heavenly grant. And therefore, we have signed this grant in the name of Jesus. And it's signed. And those scriptures are put right there on that heavenly grant. Yes, glory to God, it's a heavenly grant. And then all of us turn over and we agree together and we humble ourselves before God.
Now, that brings up something else. Let's go over here to the first letter of the apostle, Peter. We talked about what James wrote. By the way, James is Jesus' half brother, so he ought to know. He was raised in the household with him. And here again, read the whole book. It's a letter. It's only five chapters long. Read all of it. And oh, such great things. Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time wherein you are greatly rejoiced now for a season, if need be, you in heaven is through manifold temptations, but the trial of your faith being much more precious than that of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire might be found under praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Whoa, glory to God.
It just makes you want to just throw a fit. And you just keep reading. And then get, "Oh, but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb, without blemish and without spot, verily foreordained before the foundation of the world and manifesting these last time for you". Just delicious stuff. And you just keep reading. And then in the second chapter, you get healed. And then, for you as sheep going astray, but now returned under the shepherd and the bishop of our souls. Remember what Jesus taught about the prayer of agreement? "Humble yourselves as a little child. Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves under the elder. Yea, all of you shall be subject one to another and be clothed with humility. Put it on. For God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore. Humble yourself. Humble yourself, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care, casting all of your care, worries, anxieties upon him. For he cares for you".
Well, we'll go over here and we'll go down here. And that is, let's start with the fifth verse. "Likewise, you who are a younger and of lesser rank, be subject to the elders, the ministers and spiritual guides of the church, giving them due respect and yielding to their counsel. Clothe, apron yourselves, all of you, with humility as the garb of a servant so that it's covering cannot possibly be stripped from you with freedom from pride and arrogance toward one another, toward one another". All right".For God sets himself against the proud, the insolent, the overbearing, disdainful, presumptuous, boastful. He opposes, frustrates and defeats them. But gives grace, favor and blessing to the humble".
So you could look that up in Proverbs 3:34. "Therefore, humble yourselves, demote, lower yourselves in your own estimation under the mighty hand of God, that in due time, he may exalt you". He is not against you or me being exalted. But he doesn't want us exalting ourselves. We humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God that in due time, he may exalt you. Now, listen to this, "Casting the whole of your care, all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns once and for all on him for he cares for you, affectionately and cares about you watchfully. Be well balanced, tempered, sober of mind. Be vigilant and cautious at all times, for that enemy of yours, that devil, roams around like a lion roaring and fierce hunger, seeking someone to seize upon and devour.
Withstanding, be firm in faith against the onset, rooted, established, strong, immovable, determined, knowing that the same identical sufferings are appointed to your brotherhood, the whole body of Christians throughout the world. And after you've suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who imparts all blessings in favor, who has called you into his own eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will himself complete and make you what you ought to be, establish and ground you sincerely and strengthen and settle you". Glory to God. Well, there is a suffering. The apostle Paul talked about it. It's not just talking about suffering in the flesh. No. We talked about it right there. You have to resist the devil. You have to resist him. He's not a roaring lion, but he roams around like one. If he's a lion, he's had his teeth pulled. He just makes a lot of noise, trying to scare you off. The suffering of resisting, resist him, resist him, resist him. Everything Jesus bore for us on the cross, Peter said it. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree.
So we resist sin. We resist temptation. We stand on the Word of God. Actually, the word sin, look it up. Look it up in Vine's. Look it up. Or get the Blue Bible out, BLB and look it up. It just simply means to miss the mark. I don't even want to know how many times I missed the mark. Ooh, I'm 85 years old. That's a lot of missing. I mean, that's a lot of missing. But thank God for his blood. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus. And there it is. We resist that sin. We resist the temptation to be sick. We resist it. We stand against it. We stand firmly against it. Gloria and I just made that heavenly grant. And that $5,000, I'll tell you, it just looked like it had wings on it. Whew. I mean, it was just there. It was just there. And at the same time, we were believing for money enough to do the first television broadcast.
And so Jerry and I went up. We were in Birmingham, Alabama together. And so we got up and I had a Cessna 310 that we flew in there in. And I said, "Jerry, we're going to believe in God for money for this television thing. So let's just get in here". And we got up at 5:00 that morning praying in the spirit, and we praying in the spirit, praying in the spirit. And so I said, "Jerry, the Lord just said to me in my spirit to give Joe Nay that 310". So Jerry said, he thought, "Well, how are we going to get home"? That's not my problem right there then. And so I called him. I said, "Joey, you sitting down"? And I said, "The Lord just told me to give you my Cessna 310 twin engine airplane". And I heard the telephone hit the floor. "Whoa, bless God"! He started shouting and running around the room. And he picked up the phone and said, "Sure enough"? I said, "Sure enough, glory to God". So we're believing God.
Well, we came home and I said, "Jerry, here's what I'm going to do". I said, "This is my seed. And I got quite a bit of time on those engines. So I'm going to put it in the shop here and get those engines overhauled". And Jerry said, he thought, "You're going to give it to the guy, let him overhaul the engine". "No, no. It must be a proper seed". And it was getting close to time for an engine overhaul. So the ministry had both engines overhauled. And we presented it ready to go. Now, what are we going to do? Well, there was a woman that walked in. And something had happened with some stock that had been, I think, it was her dad or grandfather owned. And it was pretty well worthless, but it merged with another company. And then it turned out to be worth a whole lot of stock. And she just walked into our office and just brought a check in there for $250,000. Okay, well, there was the money to do the television.
And another friend of mine called me. And he said, "Kenneth..." Now, he had a twin Cessna, but his was pressurized. Glory to God. He called, he said, "Kenneth, the last time I was down there, it just seemed to me like I was flying your airplane, brother". But he said, "I owe a little money on it, but I'd like to just go ahead and give it to you". I said, "Well, that'll just be fine. Just help yourself". There was enough money in that other check to pay off the debt on that twin Cessna and it was pressurized. The heavenly grant worked. The heavenly grant was working all the time, because Jerry Savelle and I set ourselves in agreement. And we agreed together for the money to do the television. And then we believed together for the money for the next airplane. And it came in right on time. We never missed a lick.
While the engines were being overhauled for Joe Nay's airplane, the 414 came in. We had that airplane. The engines were finished. And I flew it to... Well, no, Joe was in this area. And he came out there and we presented it to he and Joanne and their ministry, glory to God. That's the way this works. Hallelujah. But it all had to do with prayer, the prayer of agreement. It had to do with the prayer of faith. It had to do with the heavenly grants. It was backed by prayer. Now, tomorrow, we're going to talk about, we have weapons that guarantee results in prayer. Amen. Do you have any idea how many prayers are in this book? They're all over it. Jesus prayed. God spoke. Prophets prayed. I mean, hey, it's a prayer book. Amen. We're out of time, is that right? Okay, we're out of time. I'll be back in just a moment.