Kenneth Copeland - Faith Connects You to God
Most people know so little about a covenant. I have a healing covenant with Him. I do not own sickness or disease. I refuse to do that. Now, I understand that there're different levels of what people have heard, but I do it as kindly as I can, but I'm not going to let you get away with that around me. That's my job. Is to remind you that we have a covenant with God. It's a healing covenant. It's a prosperity covenant. It is a wellness covenant. It is a life covenant and it can never be broken because it's between God, the Father and Jesus, his resurrected Son, and we got in on it. And part of the blood back promise of it, that if we will confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Hallelujah. Believe it. Now he didn't say as soon as you feel good about it. Did you notice what a lack of physical feeling there is in all this?
Now don't put feelings down. Feelings are important, but understand and know this, here we are back again, but let me finish showing you this and you'll see what I'm talking about. Quench not the Spirit, despise not prophesyings, prove all things, hold fast of that which is good, abstain from all appearance of evil and, now all of this and... You understand there's an and there? All of this is conditional and the very God of peace Shalom, nothing missing, nothing broken, sanctify you or separate you wholly and I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ, faithful as he that calls you and also will do it.
We were in that seminar that afternoon and Brother Hagin brought that out. He said, "The soul and the spirit are not the same thing". Well, I thought they were. I'd heard that. Not according to this. Spirit, that's first. Soul, which is made up of your mind, your will and your emotion. That's the soulish part of you and your body. And actually, if you go to the first covenant, it doesn't say anything about burying your body. It talks about burying your bones. Because your body's going to decay away. Your bones are going to be there. Amen. My bones will be there. Amen. Bones. All right. Some good bones. Amen. So these little things make a big difference. And after we got out of that service that afternoon, I said, "Gloria looked at..." I said, "That divides it up properly. Now I understand some things. And I understand that we're dealing with this spirit man".
And I remember I did not, I really didn't want to go back to school because I had so many different things happen that were unsuccessful and so forth and I really didn't want to go back to Oral Roberts University. But then I realized that I have to, I have to, but it broke. Didn't know what I was going do. So the 24th of January, 1967, the month before I turned 30 years old and that was a miracle... How we had a lot of miracles going on there. I just fell on the floor of the night before I was supposed to register and just began praying in the Spirit disheartened as fast as I could. I told Gloria, I said, "I don't know what we're going to do". Before I told her, I said, "We go up there as these two small children, we're going to starve out". She said, "Kenneth, we're starving now. We might as well starve in the will of God..."
Okay. I'm still talking about spirit, soul, and body. I had no clue back then. None. So I just fell in the floor. I knew I was supposed to be there. I told Gloria, I said, "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do anything but fly airplanes. And I don't have a clue what to do, but I'm supposed to be here". I said, "I'm going in the bedroom there and I'm going to pray if it takes all night long". I just fell on the floor and just started praying in the Spirit just as hard and fast as I could. And I thought, "Well, I wonder if I'd be quiet here he'd say something to me". And I mean, it hit me so hard inside me. To me, it was just like it was audible. I mean, well, it's about time. I hadn't been able to get a word in edge wise. Get up on your feet. I was shaking all over and I just stood there at a brace. I mean, I hit a military brace standing right there in that little bedroom, shaking all over and I heard it on the inside. I called you here and I'll take care of you here. Your ministry starts here. He said they can't make a minister out of you. I've already made a minister out of you. All they can do is teach and train you. And it... Whew.
So glory to God. So I went in and registered for classes and everything. Don't know of a dime in the world. I'll take care of you here. Mrs. Campbell is writing my bill for the first quarter. I said, "Mrs. Campbell, may I make a collect call"? "Sure. Dial nine". She's still typing on the machine. And Campbell is just getting bigger, bigger and bigger. I called my dad. He said, "Where are you? What are you doing"? I said, "I'm in the registrar's office here at ORU". He said, "Eddie Matthews came by yesterday". Now Eddie Matthews was a building contractor and we knew him and my dad, particularly through the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship. My dad was secretary of the chapter there in Fort Worth. And just all of a sudden, he goes to my dad's office and gives him a check and said, this is for Kenneth's ministry. He had no idea where I was or what I was doing. I said, "Daddy, how much is it"? "Well, there's 365 dollars or so and change". Whatever it was.
Well, once I took my tithe out, it paid for everything. I had 15 cents left. I thought, "Well, we'll just buy us a candy bar and go broke again". God said, he'd take care of us here. I'm talking about covenant now and I'm talking about faith. I didn't know much about it, but I was walking by faith. I just about got shoved into it. But the moment Gloria and I both got saved, we started looking about faith. I read that over in the book of Hebrews. I said, "Gloria, look at this. This is the Hall of Fame. If we could get this faith, think about what we could do with this". She said, "Oh, where do we get it"? I said, "I have no idea". I hadn't gotten over to Romans 10 yet. One of my first books, I was walking across the campus and it said roaming through Romans. I thought, "Maybe I better read Romans first". I'd never read it before I get into class. Well, I walked out in front of the Learning Resource Center in my feet stuck to the floor. I just dropped down. I said, "What is it, Lord"? Go up to the sixth floor.
Now it ain't orientation, now or student's not supposed to go up there. Brother Robert's office up there. Dean Messicks office is up there. Ron Smith's office up there. And no, no, no. Don't do that. I said, "Lord, I can't do that. That's the Vatican". I just, anyway. They work for me. You go up there. My feet came undone. I could have said, no, I'm not supposed to go up there and I'm not going. I'd have been in trouble again. Faith didn't mean anything to me yet. So I'm believing, I sure believe what my daddy said and I sure believe what's happening to me. So I didn't have the nerve. I pushed the fifth floor and it was just big old empty room. But this is the first year of Oral Roberts University and it was the library. They just didn't have anything in there yet. He said inside me, "I said the sixth floor".
I was shaking and trembling and I walked up, but I was 30 years old. Gloria said I was the oldest freshman in the world. I walked up to Ruth Rooks desk. Of course, I didn't know who she was then. I said, "My name's Kenneth Copeland. I just registered as a student here. I'm a commercially rated pilot and I understand this ministry uses airplanes and I need all the help I can get". She said, "Well tell Dr. Messick". And I did. He just grunted at me and walked on. I asked Richard later, I said, "Do you think Dr Messick ever smiled"? He said, "Not that I knew he did". He's a great man. He's an educator, but he just didn't have time for me. He didn't care whether I did or not. Oral Roberts had walked up behind me and I didn't know it. I turned around and he said, "I'm Oral Roberts". I actually did that. Yes, sir. He said, "I understand you're a commercially rated pilot"? I said, "Yes, sir". "Can you handle our airplane"? I said, "Yes, sir".
I didn't know what it was, but I knew I was going to be in the right seat of whatever it was. I had all my ratings and everything. If they'd show me how to start the thing I'd do all right. But I was a co-pilot. He said, "Two weeks," now, listen, "Two weeks ago, two weeks before, that's about the time that I was squalling around about this thing". and I'm going, "What am the world am I going to do here"? "Two weeks ago, I started to hire a new co-pilot. But the Spirit of God said, no, there's a student coming that's supposed to have the job". And it was me. And he said, "You're my man". Little did I know it started a relationship with a man of God that lasted until he went home to be with the Lord. The family, Richard and Lindsay were partners with them. Richard and Lindsay Roberts and Kellie's daughter, Lindsay, was named after Lindsay Roberts. But it all started that day. And the first act of faith in my life. A lot of experiences happened after that.
The point is this, we can find this in the book of Hebrews. Now the book of Hebrews is a faith book. Now, I'm going to read in this 11th chapter from the Amplified Classic translation and they can put it up on the screen there. In fact, I'll just use that and I'll speak from it. Now look at this. Now, say now. That's where you start. Faith is now. If it isn't now, and we'll see it here, hope is in the future. Not wishing. Real Bible hope based on the covenant promises of God. I will have that, but it takes faith as the catalyst. Now look at that. Now faith is the assurance, the confirmation, the title deed. You notice that? 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 perceiving as real fact, what is not revealed to the senses.
Now that's what faith is. It's an invisible force, but it is the power force. It is the creative force of the Almighty God. In the beginning, God. Whew. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. The earth had been flooded and the Spirit of God was moving on the face of the deep. One translation says on the face of the waters. Nothing was happening. God said, and then it happened. Now, right there in the book of Hebrews, we find out that it was faith. He did it that way. Now, we can, for by faith trust in holy fervor, born of faith, the men of old had divine testimony, borne to them, 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 wasn't nothing. It was something you can't see. It was faith.
Prompted, actuated by faith, Abel brought God a better and more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. And listen to this. Because of faith, Enoch was caught up and transferred to heaven so that he did not a glimpse of death. He was not found because God had translated him for even before he was taken to heaven, he received testimony. Still on record that he had pleased and been satisfactory to God. But without faith, it is impossible to please Him and be satisfactory to Him for whoever would come near to God must necessarily believe that God exists and that he is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him out. There you have it. That's why we preach faith. It's impossible to please Him without it.
Now, let me paint another broad picture here. I like to call this going wide screen. You go back to Genesis one. Now when God spoke, Adam, didn't hear that. Let them have dominion and so forth. The blessing of God was the first word any human ear ever heard. You started in the Garden of Eden with the blessing. Not a blessing, the blessing. Then by covenant, it became the blessing of Abraham. And then we come on into the second covenant. And if you belong to Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise? So it's the blessing. It's impossible to please God without faith, because that's the connection to the blessing. Revelation chapter 22 seventh verse. Behold I come quickly. Blessed is he that keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this book. Glory to God. Blessed.
Verse 14. Blessed are they that do his commandments and they have the right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates, into the city. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify under you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David and the bright and morning star. Praise God. He that testify these things says, surely I come quickly. Amen. The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, be with you all. Amen. The end. And in Genesis chapter one and two came the blessing. Blessed is the one who reads this book. And as he was going out of sight, he blessed them. That's what this is about. God is a good God. He is a blessing God. He's been lied on. By people that don't read enough. The 28th chapter of Deuteronomy gives the blessing of Abraham and the curse. But if you don't read the 27th, you have no idea what he's talking about. And people have argued about that and preached lying sermons out of it all this time. He's a blessing God. Blessed are they. It's all over the place.
In the book of Isaiah, I have wiped out your sins for my sake. And I was in a particular place one day where I needed to hear that. But I said, "No, Lord, it's for my sake". No, no, no, no, no. He said, "Kenneth, it's for my sake". He said, "do you want to remember things"? He said, "I'll remember your sins no more. You want to remember ugly things about your children"? I said, "No, sir". Well, he said, "If I remember your sins, I can't bless you. So I blotted them out". For my sake. Now he said, "You have a clean slate. Now let's talk about this". He said, "Now you plead your case". This is a blessing book by a blessing God, but it takes faith to connect with Him. It takes faith to walk in Him, to believe and trust the fact that he is. And he is the rewarder of those who seek his faith.