Kenneth Copeland - Faith Is Ready To Respond
We go over to the book of Galatians. Praise God. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Now, this is the Apostle Paul, the Spirit of God speaking through the Apostle Paul to the Galatians and to you and to me. A Gentile is just simply someone without God. Well, we're not Gentiles. No, we are not. So the apostle, this great apostle is teaching all through this. "Paul an apostle, not a man, neither man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead; And all the brethren which are with me, unto the churches of Galatia: Grace be to you and peace..."
Now listen to that, grace. Grace is to the "Gentiles". Shalom is to the Jew. That's worth an amen. I said that's worth an amen. Maybe I need to go back to singing, I don't know. Verse 12: "I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ". So he begins to teach concerning Abraham and the faith of Abraham. So comes over, especially in this third chapter. "Foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith"? By the laws of faith. We've already understood that now.
"Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith".
Now, here we saw that over there in the book of Hebrew. "The law is not of faith, but the man that does them shall live in them. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us, for it is written cursed is ever one that hangs on a tree". That's Deuteronomy 21:23, "That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator".
Jesus was the seed to whom it was promised. And that's what started in the 17th chapter of Genesis. And Jesus was the seed of that promise. Ha ha. All of that was to get him in here. And go from Babylon to the kingdom. Hallelujah. Changed systems. "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise". Oh, glory to God. Faith is a spiritual force and it's not mental. This powerful, powerful thing. And he's good.
So the first principle of this law, fundamentally, put it in your heart then say it with your mouth. Mark 11:23, Romans 10:10, Second Corinthians 4:13, Luke 6:43 to 45, Matthew 12:35,37, Mark 5:25 to 34. Matthew 21, Hebrews 10:23, find the promise. Now let's go back over the 11th chapter of Hebrews. I want to show you something else. And Hollywood got this all wrong. Verse 11. "Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them," and so forth. Verse 15. "And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned".
Now that reminds me of that dedication of this new land and what is now Virginia Beach by this little group of men led by Chaplain Hunt from England. And they made the cross out of the timbers of that ship. We're not going back. We're here to stay. All of them knew they'd never see their families again, but it was worth it. Well, I'm very glad that they did, amen, And that's the way they were about this. Now notice this... "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son," now, we see some powerful revelation here. Now here is God in covenant, knowing what Abram did not know, and he entered into a blood covenant with him. In the 15th chapter of Genesis, it was the blood of animals. But if you continue reading in the 17th, God told him you will now circumcise them in. It is a sign of this covenant.
So now here's the blood of a man in a blood covenant, not animals. The whole idea was from God and it still is in the sacrifice of animals. The whole idea was don't kill the man for his sin I mean, take for me an animal. I'm not interested in death here. But now he has a covenant partner and they're in this together. So if his covenant partner was willing to offer up his only begotten Son, then that bound God as his covenant partner. He could not refuse. When Jesus one day would say, "If there's any way, let this cup pass from me". And God just had to say no, we have to go through with it. So that with Isaac was the type. Now, in the movies that I've seen... He stopped at the bottom of the mountain and he told the young man that was with him, "The lad and I are going up yonder to make the sacrifice and we will return, we will return".
And now you see it here. "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure". He saw this in the Spirit. And he fully intended to see him raised up from those ashes. And he raised the knife. Well, that's all God wanted. And the angel stepped in. Stay your hand and there was a ram caught in a thicket. Don't you love it. There he was all the time. The sacrifice was there. I've often wondered whose ram was that? That belonged to somebody. I had one man say. I believe God created it for that moment. Well, that's a stretch, because the ram was tangled. He was already there. Amen, Glory to God.
So God made covenant with a man, based on one thing, he would teach his children, entered into covenant with him in order to make a stand that would come in that day and time when his only begotten son would be put on the altar. And Jesus accepted it. Nevertheless, not my will be done but yours. Well now people have tried to pray that and tried to tack it on every prayer... That doesn't go on every prayer. That is a prayer of total dedication. Nevertheless, your will be done. You can come to a place where you settle it with God. There's never has been a time since I was called to preach that I ever thought it wasn't. I don't know and other people haven't, but you need to settle it once and for all. Settle it, I don't pray about that. About whether or not I'm called to preach, that day in that funny looking little living room settled that between Gloria and me. I mean, I'm just a preacher, that's it. And I used to be a pilot that preached.
Well, God changed that. He said, "When are you going to change your mind"? Well, I wanted to be a pilot ever since I knew what an airplane was. But I had to make the change. And then I became a preacher that flies. I like that better. I had to learn the fundamentals of flying. In World War II, I mean, it had a lot of young men that just came in from the country that didn't know anything. And you talk about starting with the fundamentals. Gentlemen this is an airplane. Really?... That's the way they started. And this is a propeller. Well, they had to do that to get their attention on something that sounded so simple because 5 minutes later, they're talking about things they never heard of before. This is an airplane. This is a propeller. This is the leading edge. This is the aileron. The ail-what-eron... What's that?
Well, you only got around the one end of the wing, now you're already in to something they never heard of before, unless you'd already learned how to fly. Then they are using all kind of strange names. You had an aileron, empennage, you know an airplane had an elevator? Well yeah, it had to go up and down. The elevator is tied to the horizontal stabilizer. The vertical stabilizer, the rudder is tied to that. So when you pull back on the stick and the houses get smaller, you know it's working. And you push down this way and the houses get bigger, now you're catching on, it's that simple. And I was so eager at the time, I knew a lot of that just from reading after it and so forth. But I didn't know the correct terminology. And sure enough, the day I soloed, they came up with something I never heard before in my life.
August of 1961 and Meacham Field in Fort Worth, which there was no DFW So. Meacham was the Fort Worth Municipal Airport and Dallas Love was over there in Dallas, but I soloed at 4:00 in the afternoon. Well, I soloed... I trained early in the morning because the air was not rough and get hot. But then I don't remember why soloed in that afternoon... so long ago. But now all the traffic is there. Well, I had just been doing my little thing and a little Cessna 150, 5523 Echo. And normally I'd turn left and take off the turn on downwind. Five, five, two, three, echo, touch and go. And so then I'd come around and touch and take off again. And this day I did that, man I wanted that guy out of my airplane so bad, just get out of here, just go away.
So I did my thing and I took off and turned base and I turned downwind, I said, "Cessna five, five two, three, echo downwind, touch and go". Roger that two, three echo your number eight in the pattern to follow DC3 just outside the outer marker. Now the outer marker is part of the instrument landing system. I never heard of it. The outer marker is when you're coming in there and you come across that marker and that's when you start downhill. I never heard of it. I thought they got something painted on a barn out here or something, I don't know. I said, "Sir this is my first solo". "Oh, okay, can you hold your heading"? "Yes sir". "Can you hold your altitude"? "Yes, sir". "Well, just continue straight ahead and I'll tell you when to turn based. I'm just motoring along there, he said 2, 3, echo, you see that DC3 just off of your left wing on final"? "Yes, sir".
He said, "Wait until he passes under your wing and then turn base", and I thought well, that's cool, because I couldn't hit him now if I'd dive at him. Talking about fundamentals now but you know that little two seats, Cessna 150 flies exactly like a 747, same principle. So I had to learn one step at a time. I finally learned what an outer marker was and how to use it, and a little bit at a time and finally had an instrument rating and you know, the whole thing. That's the way I started in faith. I didn't know anything about it.
I watched Oral Roberts and I listened to Kenneth Hagin and had the privilege of having them both in the same room. Amazing. And there came a time that there was a situation. Everybody knows who Marcus Lamb and Joni Lamb, Southwest Believers' Convention. The place is full of people, and the Spirit of the Lord came on me at the offering time and he said, "Give this entire offering tonight to Marcus and Joni". So I just announced it and everybody went, "What are we going to do"? But it started that television network. Now all of that, all of that has to do with fundamentals, but you have to be obedient, ready, on-call. Amen.