Kenneth Copeland - The Explosive Power of Healing and Miracles
Turn to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 53. Isaiah is a mini Bible. It has 66 chapters. So much. The whole book is about Jesus. Who hath believed our report? 53rd chapter. And to whom is the arm of the Lord reveal for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground, he had no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Now, if you walk across, if you came across Jesus as a young man and you see him, well, of course, he's a good looking man, but not, "Ah". No, you wouldn't pick him out as being some sort of specially good looking... No. He's just a good looking man. He is despised and rejected, a man of sorrows.
Now that word in Hebrew is actually pain. The King James translated it sorrow. Well, pain can be sorrow and grief. Acquainted with grief, that Hebrew word is disease, plain and simple. Surely he hath borne our griefs or sicknesses, but now you can come against grief with that scripture, just the same as you can sickness. I've done it... "Carried our pain. We did esteem him smitten of God and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes, we are healed". Now that was an exceeding great and precious promise. God has always been a healing God. Always, always, always, always, always, always.
Go to Acts chapter one. And then we'll go to 1 Peter chapter two, verse eight. You shall receive power, dunamis, after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses under me, both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth. When he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, two men stood by in white apparel, which also said, "You men of Galilee why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven shall come in like manner and you have seen him go into heaven". Say it. This same Jesus. Well, while we're here, Acts chapter 10. Now this is 10 years later. There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius.
Now I've said this before, maybe some of you were not here, of Caesarea. Well, just check it out. Find out where Caesarea is and was. It's just right there. A pilot was from that same area. There was not but one centurion. The same one. He was a wealthy man. He had at least a hundred men under him. He was a field grade officer in the Roman army. He's the one that built the synagogue in Capernaum where Jairus was the leader. And where Jesus went to synagogue when he was home in Capernaum. I call that going wide screen. Anyway, a devout man, one that feared God with all his house, which gave much arms to the people and prayed to God always. So in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day and the angel of God coming into him and saying unto him, "Cornelius". And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, "What is it Lord"? And he said, "Your prayers and your arms have come up for a memorial before God". And he told him what to do. "You get Peter over here and he'll tell you".
Now, listen, he knew Peter. Isn't that good? He knew exactly who he was. He was always with Jesus all the time. And he was the big man. He was Peter, James and John. He knew who he was, knew him by name. And he said, "Get him over here and he'll do the preaching". Angels don't preach. It's men. It's people. Men and women preach this God. So Peter and he was wise enough to take some witnesses with him because he wasn't even supposed to be in that Gentile's house. So he took those with him and you know what happened. While Peter was preaching the power of God, the Spirit of God fell on him.
Then Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation, he that fears him and works righteousness is accepted of him. The Word which God sent under the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all. That word I say you know which was published throughout all Judaea and began from Galilee after the baptism with John preached. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with dunamis. That's Acts chapter one, power, dynamin. We get our word dynamite from it. That's dynamite living on the inside of you, getting ready to explode into healing and miracles. Glory to God.
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good and healing. He went about doing good and healing. He went about doing good and healing... All that were oppressed of the devil for God was with him. Well, God is with us and a manifestation of Jesus by his Spirit is here and he's there today and he is with us and he's doing the same thing today because it's the same Jesus. It is the same Jesus. It is the same Spirit. It is the same power. It is the same dynamite, self energizing, explosive power of healing and miracles. Glory to God. Hallelujah. And that power is here right now in the form of the Spirit of God. And if you don't know Jesus as your Lord, that's the easiest thing you ever did in your life. "Jesus, come into my heart. Thank You." The shortest salvation prayer on record was Saul of Tarsus on the way to Damascus.
And Jesus just knocked him to the ground. And he said, "Lord, who are You? Lord, who are You"? Thank You, Jesus. I've seen all kinds and heard all kinds of prayer. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Lord, who are You? I know who You are. You're the healer. I know who You are. You're the savior. I know who You are. You're the baptizer in the Spirit. I know who You are. You're the one that made me a new creature. I know who You are and he knows who I am and he knows who you are. Glory to God. Easiest thing you ever did is receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
And I've told this before that Gloria and I accepted Jesus. She was in October. I was first week in November of 1962 and we didn't know anything. And in 1963, we went into a meeting, that was in Christian Medical Foundation, but that was started William Standish Reed. And we just went over there and they gave an invitation. I turned around and asked my mother. I said, "There's something we ought to have". She said, "Yeah". I grabbed Gloria with a hand up, there we went. So no more English. Well, I had to fly back that night. It's January and it's cold and it's clear and airplanes like cold weather. And I climbed up to, I don't remember what the altitude was. Five, six, 7,000 feet, whatever it was. And I was just flying along. That little airplane is a little trainer airplane, didn't have any autopilot. I was sitting there with my hand on the yoke and I said, "Lord, I don't know what I'll know about that, but I'm going to say some of those words again".
You have never heard anybody raised in Pentecost that would dare do that. That's the reason some of them went 30 years without it. I didn't know any better. Jesus is the gift to the world. The Holy Spirit is the gift to the church. And Jesus said, "You will receive power. You go to Jerusalem and don't you do anything until you do". Well, you need to go to Sacramento and don't do anything until you do. And so I was just flying along that little airplane and I just thought of one of those words, just started in. I said, "Oh, here it is". And then I had to call my approach control and I'm thinking at the same time and I thought, "Oh Lord, I'm going to have to call these people. You're going to have to do something with me or you're going to have to fix their ears".
One of the way I got to call these people, I said, "Little rock approach control". I thought, "Hey, that worked". And it'll work for you. Easiest thing you ever did in your life, all you have to do is yield. 1 Peter 2. Thank You, Jesus. Wherefore laying aside all malice. Now anyone in here with any malice, lay it aside, all guile. What is guile? Deceitfulness. If you can think of anything that you... was the least bit deceitful, hey, repent. Hypocrisies. What does hypocrite...? Have you ever seen the theater masks? One is the mask of joy and the other is a mask of sadness. That's what hypocrite means. Putting on a phony mask, pretending to be something you are not or pretending you are not something, you know you are. Well, deal with it. See? Oh yeah. Well, oh Lord, that's me. I repent. I'm not going to be sad anymore. I'm not going to be depressed anymore.
And I quote Gloria, "Depression comes from thinking about yourself all the time and thinking about yourself all the time will depress anybody". Gloria said that now. No, that's true. So putting on a mask, no, can't do that. Oh, glory to God. As newborn babies desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. Well, I do desire, hey, we're beyond the milk of the Word because we are growing through adolescence and in the fifth chapter of Hebrews, he talks about full. When you should have been teacher by now, but yeah. By exercise, you've become adult and skillful in the Word of righteousness. All right now. And that was the 23rd verse of that first. Now come on back down here. If so you have tasted that the Lord is gracious to whom coming is unto a living stone and so forth.
Now you also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. Okay. Let's just do that. Lord, we just lift up sacrifice, the holy praise unto you. Just begin to praise him right now. A praise sacrifice. Oh, glory to God. A praise sacrifice. Glory to God. Acceptable to God. Wherefore also it's contained in the scripture. Behold I lay in Sion, a chief corner stone, elect, precious and he that believes on him shall not be confounded. Oh Lord, that's me. Say it. Lord, that's me. That is me. Unto you therefore, which shall believe he is precious, but unto them that be disobedient the stone, and so forth. Verse eight. And a stone of stumbling and rock of offense, even to them, which stumble at the Word. And you read all of these things.
Verse 13. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, for the Lord's sake, for the Lord's sake, for the Lord's sake. Unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God that with well doing, you may be put silence the ignorance and foolish men as free and so forth. Servants be subject to your masters with all fear or reverence, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward or in other words, proper respect. This is thankworthy if a man of conscious toward God in your grief suffering wrongfully, and you go all the way down to these things and you take care of all of that, and you straighten things out between you and any other thing that is hindrance to your health and your thinking and praise and respect to politicians. They're there. We're here. Amen.
And like I said before, in a lot of cases, and more than others, you just have to pray what Jesus prayed. Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing because you leave your hometown and you go to Washington, D.C. and all of a sudden you get banged into that wicked spirits in the heavenly. And we see that in the book of Daniel. And then they do and say things that they said they would not do when they were a campaigning. Well, listen, that's a tough thing. Politics is a contact sport. It's nasty. Always has been. Somebody said this nation is not just. It is as just as it possibly can be. And it's still the most just nation on earth. Amen.
Now what does that have to do with healing? Everything. Don't get upset. Don't let it get you all stirred up. Well I don't like that. Well, nobody put you in that office. You like or dislike it, but settle down. You're not ready. You're not ready to receive healing yet. You're all upset. You can believe it and all that. But your body's not hearing it because it has... Our healing is not only outside. It has to come up inside here. In the first covenant, it had to come from the outside because they were not born again people. Righteousness had been accounted to them. Jesus was made the sacrificial lamb and took our place. We've been made the righteousness of God in him. It's always in him. He is our healer in us. And you have to remember in 1 Peter 2, there's 23 verses before you get to 24. Then, and finally, down there and next to the last verse in the chapter, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live under righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed.