Kenneth Copeland - Faith Needs Your Corresponding Action
Let's go to the book of Matthew, the eighth chapter. Now, let me tell you how to stay healed. I get up in the morning and first thing I do, very first thing, I go into my bathroom. Right there on my bathroom mirror, I have that scripture. I wrote it out on a little, lined, yellow paper and just scotch taped it to the mirror, that verse right there. And then, you go over to the eighth chapter of Matthew and verse 14. I have it right there on the mirror. "When Jesus was come into Peter's house". I want you to notice now, just notice who he is and what he is. "He came into Peter's house and saw his wife's mother lying and sick of a fever".
Luke 4:38 says a great fever. "He touched her hand and the fever left her and she arose and ministered unto them". In other words, she got up, fixed supper, had a great fever. This wasn't anything like the flu. I'd suggest it's more like typhoid, or it's a killer fever. Great fever. Anyway, "and when evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils and he cast out the spirits with his Word and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying himself, took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses".
So, it has been fulfilled church. If it is been fulfilled that's for all people for all time. That doesn't leave anybody out. I preach healing in prisons. I was in one prison. Here was a man and the reason he was in prison, if you were black or brown, he'd kill you. He had a problem. He had a real problem. And so, I knew about him before I got there. And when I walked in, this man was seated right on the end of a row there. And there was a black man on one side and a brown man on the other side. And he had him hugged up like this, then he said, "Ain't this just the greatest thing you ever saw in all your life"! I've seen healings in there. Just great things. Why? Because Jesus said it. I was in sick. I was sick. And you came to me. I was in prison and you visited me. They said, "When Lord"? He said, "If you've done it to the least of these, my brethren, you've done it to me".
So, he ministers in prison, out of prison. I baptized as serial killer in the Bexar County Jail in San Antonio, Texas... Named Stephen Morin. And I talked to him. I had quite a long relationship with him. He kidnapped a woman and he said, "Lady, I'm going to kill you, if you don't shut up". She said, "You're not going to kill the only person that ever loved you". She said, "Well, may I put my tape in"? He said, "I don't care what you do". Well, it was a tape of my tape of preaching. "If it just shut you up". They were out in the country, but this time he slammed on the brakes. He said, "Who said that"? And he looked in the back seat and Maggie said, "What, Stephen"? He said, "I heard somebody say, Stephen, this is your last chance, son". He had killed 21 women.
Well, anyway, he and I became good friends, and, over a period of time, he said, "I want to be executed". He said, "I want to get out of here". He said, "I don't have anything but that five year old boy". And he said, "I don't have anything here. I want to leave". So, I was there the night they executed him in Huntsville. I was with him about 30 minutes before, and I said, "Stephen, let me know if grace is enough". "Yeah," he said, "I'll do that". And where we were speaking, there's this mesh so tight. I was here looking up at him. He was in there looking down at me. So, it's impossible to give anybody a poison, or anything like that. But, anyway, we were discussing things, talking about it, and "Yeah," he said, "I can do that".
So, then, I went upstairs and the room was blacked out. So, he couldn't see any of the people that came there as witnesses. But, I was so close I was in the light. I was right there on the front row. I was as closest from me to you. And then, I went upstairs and the warden... It was spirit-filled warden. He and I are really good friends. So, I had a front row seat cause he already knew about all this. And so I was right up on the front with just a little railing right there. Don't ever think that's an easy way, that lethal injection. There's this rattle metal aluminum box up here that has the vials in it and so forth. And when they turn that thing loose, it makes a loud noise. Bang! You know you're going to be dead in seconds.
So, Warden Harvey said, "Stephen, you have anything you want to say"? And he started preaching. "If I tell you if the Holy Ghost can do something with something like me, think what he could do for you". I mean, he started preaching and he preached and he preached and, finally, the warden said, "Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, son, we here got to take care of business". "Yeah," He said, "I know it. I know it". So, Stephen prayed, "Heavenly Father, I give thanks for this time. For the time that we've been together, the fellowship in Your Word, the Christian family presented to me". And he called the names of the personal witnesses. This was March the 13th, 1985. "Allow Your Holy Spirit to flow. As I know Your love has been shattered upon me, forgive them". And, now, he said this, "Forgive them, they know not what they do, as I know You have forgiven me".
Now, he was in the presence of a bunch of people that wanted to see him die. And so, that was a proper thing to pray. "As I have forgiven them, Lord Jesus. I commit my soul to You. I praise You. And I thank You. Glory to God". That thing went bang. And he looked over there at me and went two thumbs up. More than enough that ought to get healing going in you right out or get your healing juices going right now, glory to God. More than enough... And his body lunged like that and he was gone. One of the things I told him, I said, "Stephen, you had long enough brother to become an expert on prayer". He was a brilliant man. That's the reason they never did catch him. He gave up. They didn't catch him. He went into a place and just got him a job as an architect. And I guess he went to library someplace and got a bunch of books on architects and became an architect. Had a good job. By then, police was kind of getting around close to him.
So, he left there, go somewhere else and get him another job. But see that spirit was working with him and he told me, he said, "There are times," he said, "I knew I could just turn around and walk out and they couldn't see me". But, then, after he accepted Jesus in that car, that night, he told Margie, he said, and she just dropped him off in this little town. And, she said, "Now, Stephen, I'm not going to lie for you, son". "No, no, no," he said. "I don't expect you to". He said, "You think Mr. Copeland would come turn me in"? He said, "I'd like to give my pistol to him". She said, "Stephen, I have no idea how to get ahold of him". Well, he said, "I want him to baptize me".
And so I did. And they set that tub out there and you stand on the side here in back. And I'm telling you, those officers had their hands on their pistols, when they brought him in there. They were so afraid of him. And I baptized him in water. And I'm telling you, he came up out of there. You could just see it all over his face. He just was beaming. He just, oh God, he was just so thrilled. But see, he didn't kill anybody, that is that old man. I dare say there were people watching him die that are guilty of murder because they wanted him dead. They wanted to see him dead. Isn't the gospel just absolutely fabulous? And here we are this morning, the same Jesus.
I don't know who you are that are watching but listen. The scripture says that... Well let's turn to the hundred and seventh Psalm. Psalms 1-0-7. Psalm 1-0-7. The 17th verse: "Fools because of their transgressions and because of their iniquities are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat. Then they draw near under the gates of death. Then they cry under the Lord in their trouble. And he saveth them out of their distresses. He sent his Word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction".
There are a lot of people that cause of their lifestyle, they're sick and you don't have to be wicked to be that way. Heart trouble. Cancer. Most of that is related to the way we live. The trouble I had with my heart was related to the way I ate like a pig and didn't take care of myself. Well, and I disobeyed God. How did I disobey God? Way back there in the beginning, I heard this, "Start walking and don't quit". I did it for a little while and I quit.
Now, that is disobedience and bad things happen to good people because good people make bad choices. Had I obeyed him? It's a known fact. If you'll go take a walk for one hour a day, and do it every day, you can add 25 years to your life. But I didn't do that. I had a better idea and it like to got me killed, but thank God he forgave me for it. Amen. And he fixed me. But, faith demands corresponding action. That's a fundamental of faith. And this morning when we pray the prayer of faith, I mean you do something you couldn't do. You get into action.
If you couldn't bend over, bend over. If you couldn't see, see. If you can't stand up, stand up on the inside. And one of the things when, as often as you do this, I take communion a lot and do it in remembrance of me. That means I remember things. I remember things. I remember in the invalid tent with Oral Roberts, there was this young girl. She was about nine years old. And her family, you could tell they were not well off financially, because the wheelchair was old and kind of beat up. And she was paralyzed. And in his message that night, Brother Roberts had said, "You get into action. If you can't move anything, but one little finger, move it. And it'll go all over the rest of your body". And they had a tube of 12, just kind of bailing wired to that. She had that tube of 12 was bailing wired to the wheelchair. And then, she was on that board and she stiff like this and had a strap over her like this.
And so I said that again to them and she just started rolling her eye. That's all she could move. And a little bit, she said, "Mama, Mama, get that strap off. I'm healed". Her Mama said, "Oh baby". She said, "Mama, Mama, get me loose! I'm healed! I'm telling you, I'm healed! I'm healed"! She took that strap off. And I want you to know that little girl bounded off that board. And she took off around that tent just going. I mean, she just flew off that board. It started with her eyes and it just went all over her. She was completely paralyzed. I never didn't know why, but she was just completely paralyzed. She just bounded off of that board. Amen. Because she got into action. Amen.
So, now let's go to Mark Chapter five: A Day in the Life of Jesus. Now, "They came over the other side of the sea, country of the Gadarenes". Now, you know the story here. "Here was a man. He was come out of the ship immediately. There met him a man out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit, one unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs. No man could bind him. No, not with chains because he had been often bound with feathers or shackles and chains. And the chains had been plucked asunder by him and the shackles broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. Always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting himself with stones. When he saw Jesus a far off, he ran and worshiped him and cried with a loud voice and said, what have I to do with thee Jesus thou son of the Most High God? Now I've had dealings with these devils and their voice is anything but normal".
Now you notice the Apostle Paul said, concerning the devil in the sixth chapter of Ephesians, "We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world and wicked spirits in the heavenlies. That ruler of the darkness in this world, those are the ones that possess a man or a woman, therefore put on the whole armor of God". Well, now we know what was happening here. "And he asked him what his name is. And he said, my name is Legion: for we are many. And besought him much that he would not send him away out of that country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains, a great herd of swine feeding and all the devils besought him saying, send us into the swine".
Now the people heard what that man said to Jesus. They didn't hear this, but Jesus did. All the devil. Here's the deal. That was a boss devil, a ruler of the darkness of this world. Jesus called him unclean spirit. He possessed this man, completely. And then, and we know what happened. So, but I wanted you to see this. Verse 15: "They came to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil and had the Legion sitting and clothed in his right mind and they were afraid".
Now, I want to ask you this. Where did they get those clothes? He didn't turn around to the other guy and say, "Take your clothes off". No, we wouldn't have noticed he would've had a problem, wouldn't he? Huh? That's corresponding action in advance. Jesus must have given instructions. I'm going to call this man to preach. He's skin and bones. He looks bad, but I'm going to deliver him. And I'm going send him back home to his friends. And I don't want him going home looking bad. I want him looking good. I want you to get him a couple of new suits, glory to God. I'm calling him to preach and he ought to look good.
So, this is corresponding action in advance, amen. Planning for it like a woman that planned for her son to be released from prison. And she set table for him every morning for breakfast and she's believing God. And she would have a conversation with him. What's she doing? Same thing. Only, she would get through when she washed her dishes, she washed his and, not all that long, he came home saved and full of the Spirit and called to preach. Amen. Faith has its actions, but it takes action to receive it. Put it into action by releasing.