Kenneth Copeland - Why Live By Faith?
God is not the author of confusion. Let's look at James 3:16. Thank You Lord. Come down here. "For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect or a mature man, and able also to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. Also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds..."
Now all I have to do now is mention a ship and you immediately go back. Where did that ship come from? Who built it? Who made the money out of it? It all started in Babylon... "with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor, wherever the captain listeth. Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell".
What is that? That kindling, so the tongue is where it starts. That's what starts things in motion. It's the kindling. Well, now you know I'm a country boy and had to learn how to build a fire and all that kind of thing. And kindling is a big thing when you really need it. You really need fire. But you start with something small. Very small. Just small enough and get it started. But that gets burned up as the fire gets larger and larger and larger. Y'all so quiet... As the fire gets larger and larger and larger... What started it? Kindling. But it started back there far back. And the devil sees to it that you don't find out about it, but you can go to the Book and find it. Amen.
I kept having aches and pains in my elbows and so there was a family there and partners with the ministry and I borrowed their place on the lake, cause we didn't have any place back that then for three days over a weekend to fast and pray about it and so forth. And so to seek this, to inquire of God, it wasn't serious enough to go to a doctor. Had I gone to the doctor, he wouldn't have known what it was either, when I found out what did it. I didn't go to that system. I'm not against it. That third day, I heard the voice of the Lord in my spirit. If you want my perfect will for you, don't drink any more coffee. No, I wasn't talking to you. But now that you've groaned "oh, no", it sounds to me like you've been hearing the same things and maybe you better listen to me. Oh, no. It kind of jumped out there, didn't it? No, I abused it.
And then he began to talk to me about it. I carried a thermos with me all the time. Well, everywhere I flew, and particularly flying at night. And I just keep cup of coffee in my hand all the time. And I started drinking it as a little boy. I drank it with my grandfather, my folks wouldn't let me drink it. When I got with Pau Paw, I drank coffee with him. Oh, he'd drank it hot too, you know, it stand there, he had a percolator on the stove and he'd get up, you know, to go to work. He'd get up about 3:45, 4:00 in the morning to start his day's work. And he'd stand there in front of that stove, watching that percolator. When it quit perking, and he'd pour some in a saucer. He said, coffee is a bean and you've abused it, and it's built up in your joints because I'd pray and it'd go away for a little while, he says it's built up in there.
Well, I'd try to quit, get that old caffeine sick headache and go back to it. And I'm just talking to him like I talk. I'm talking out loud because there in the kitchen by myself. I said, "ell, what do I do now"? I heard it in my spirit. Go get your stuff. Well, of course I had it with me. It went everywhere I went, I had an old, ugly green bag that we had our Farberware coffee pot in there and a big can of Folgers. And it went. We got in that airplane and we'd wag that thing all over. He said, "Sit that on a plate". So I got a plate out of the cabinet and put it down there and put that green bag on that. He said, "Now push it away from you and say this: I have no need of you in my life again hereafter and forever. Now take communion". So then I did. And on inside of me he said, "Kenneth, to pick that coffee up again, you're going to have to go through that communion cup". It was gone, totally, completely gone. And I said, "Lord, you want me to preach this to other people"? He said, "As an illustration only", he said, "They'll have to make their own decision about it".
So there you have it, I mean, you have to make your own decisions. And I had to learn what caused and what the root cause of these things. Now... Well I won't... but anyway. "But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? No. So is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him shew out of a good conversation, good manner of life, his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, or devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is Babylon and every evil work". That's what Babel means. There it is. "Where envying and strife is, there is Babylon and every evil work". Now you see how that was described in the Book of Revelation. All of it, all of it is in that fallen system. But we're not of that system. We live in another place. I've had people say to me, "Copeland, you are out of your mind". I said, "Yes, let me alone. My mind has been renewed. I'm out of that old mind". Hallelujah. I had a fellow say to me one time, he said, "You pray about everything"? Pretty well. He said, "I bet you even pray about a parking place". And I said, "Well, of course". I knew it. I knew it. He said, "You're just some kind of a fool". I said, "No, no, no, no, no. I park. You're the fool that drives around the block, around and around and around".
That's the difference in our systems. That's the difference in the two systems and we're seeing it like never before right here in the United States. Oh, I'm telling you, it is now out in the open. Whenever you see the evangelistic ministry come on the scene, you know that change is happening. Glory to God. Now, Oral Roberts came in there and so did Kenneth Hagin right after World War II. The country was... there were a lot of preachers in trouble because they walked off from their churches and went to work in the defense plants to get money. And a lot of them lost the anointing to preach and never did get back in the ministry. They were in really trouble. Why? They got caught up in that system to fight a war. Well, my dad, I have a picture of his draft card and his age, which he was a little older than the draft, and he was in education.
So his gasoline stamp was an "A" stamp, gasoline was rationed in those days. You couldn't get it if you wanted it. Now you think the things are kind of messed up now, you could go to jail for buying black market fuel. And people did. So he got to buy all the fuel he needed because he was in education and all of these things you look back on and look at these systems, now look at this. "This wisdom descends not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above..." This one, Jesus called it the wisdom of God in the Book of Luke. "is pure, peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace".
What does that mean without hypocrisy? When you know how to live by faith and you come to that place where you have an intimate relationship with the truth, then I'm not a hypocrite by saying, by his stripes, I was healed. If I was healed, I'm healed now. Now, I went to see Dr. Colbert. I was supposed to fly to Korea that time and then go on to Australia. And I said, "I've never canceled a meeting any time in my life for any reason". He said, "Well, how much flying will it take," I said about 30 hours. He said, "Well you're going to cancel this one. Because if you don't, you're liked to come home in a wheelchair". So, Okay. So I just got out there and went home, got out in the backyard. I took two heating pads and tied them around my left leg, turned the heat up just as high as it could go because I was hurting. And I learned something from Keith Moore. I began to shout, "Glory to God. My right leg doesn't hurt. Only the left one. I've got a good one left, just as loud as I could holler. Glory to God for the grass and the birds and their legs".
Glory to God just as loud as I could holler, just shouting and just loud as I could. And then to kind of ease off a little bit. Here he'd come again. I did a lot of that. Amen. Did a lot of it. Praise God, that went on, you know, and on and on. And as you can see I'm pain free today, praise God. We are the seed of Abraham and heirs according to the promise. So we stand in covenant with God, Amen. I like it. I like to be part of a chosen people. Where the wild olive branch grafted into the same root with Jesus, glory to God. Glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory. Amen. Glory to God.
Now, for anyone in the sound of my voice tonight, and you've never received Jesus as the Lord of your life, there's something you need to understand. Jesus Christ of Nazareth lived his life for you and me. He went to the cross, suffered a death. But that's not all. The Bible says he went to hell, suffered there horribly, more than any man before or any man after. Because he bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live under righteousness by whose stripes we were healed. He did that. Amen. So if you'd stand with me, please. So before we close this service tonight, anyone online, anyone here in the sound of my voice. Don't let this service go by without accepting him as your Lord and Savior. Well, Brother Copeland, I don't know. I just don't know that I understand all that. Well, it's just this simple. He went through all that horror and all that death and being persecuted everywhere he went, misunderstood and spit on and accused. He went to hell so we don't have to. He bore our sicknesses so we don't have to be sick.
The one thing he could not do is pray your and my prayer. And in 1962, the first week in November, about 6:00 in the evening, I just came home from flying a trip for an executive of the Arkansas Louisiana Gas Company. And I walked in and just changed my clothes. And Gloria was fixing supper. And I just walked in there and all of a sudden... just the glory of God. And I heard it. Kenneth, if you don't get right with me, son, you're going to a devil's hell. I said, "I know it, I know it. But what do I do now"? I heard the voice of my Sunday school teacher in a Southern Baptist Sunday school in Abilene, Texas, at the University Baptist Church. Boys, you have to ask Jesus to come into your heart. And I thought, well that sounds just as dumb as it did the first time I heard it. I didn't know anything, but I said, "Jesus, come into my heart".
Everything changed... For a few seconds there, I couldn't close my mouth. It felt like I had a square block in my mouth. And when it finally released, all the profanity was gone out of my mouth from that day forward. Had a long way to go. But then January of the next year, Gloria and I both are baptized in the Holy Ghost, speaking with other tongues. We still didn't know anything. That's the first time she ever heard the term Born Again. She just said, "Lord, take my life and do something with it". Well, he did, but that was the beginning. So we're going to lead you in this prayer tonight. Just put one hand over your heart and pray this loudly enough you can hear it with your own ears.
Oh, God in heaven, I believe with all my heart that you raised Jesus Christ from the dead. I believe that. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, Take my life and do something with it. I receive You. And according to Your Word, in the 10th chapter of Romans, I confess You as my Lord and my Savior. I'm saved, for with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with his mouth, he confesses salvation. Thank You, Jesus. Fill me now with Your Holy Spirit, overflowing like they did on the day of Pentecost. I know I'm saved. I believe that. And now I'm ready to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
So just take a deep breath. And anyone in the room that has not followed through in that experience, do it now. Easiest thing you ever did in your life. And those of you online that have accepted the Lord, let us know, let us know. We want to shout about it. Glory to God, Amen.