Kenneth Copeland - The Checklist of Faith
Let's go back now to Mark Chapter 11. Kenneth Hagin didn't write that. This is the classic teaching of the Master on faith. You can study this for days and days and days. Now you know what happened. I'm going to read this out of the Classic. "And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet".
Notice that yet is in italics. Now listen to this. "Seeing in the distance a fig tree covered with leaves, He went to see if He could find any fruit on it for in the fig tree the fruit appears at the same time as the leaves. But when He came up to it, He found nothing but leaves, for the fig season had not yet come". So that tree already had leaves on it. Not supposed to be like that. When artists paint the first couple... Now you want to be careful of an artist that paints bellybutton on. No, I have seen that. It's like the Last Supper. And they had a table for 26. And all of them on one side. It wasn't like that at all. It was very dimly lit. And if there was a table at all, it was very low. They were sitting on the floor, anyway.
In the garden, the forbidden fruit was a fig tree. When they sinned and saw that they were naked, the glory light went out. They covered... attempted to cover themselves with fig leaves. So here we have a disobedient fig tree, He answered and said to it, he talked to that tree. Now it was a far off and they heard him. So he wasn't quiet about it. "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever". That is it. "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots". Now faith needs to go into the root of the problem because problems are based in the Spirit first. This is a Spirit Book. You can't separate heaven and earth. There is a natural realm, of course, but there is a spiritual realm and it is very real.
That's the reason you have to be careful of, you know, where you're connected because you can get off in the wrong spirits. I have minister to numbers of people. If I had time, I'd go tell you some of those. But it's an amazing world. So anyway, they said, look at that. He said, "Have faith in God". The cross-reference says, have the faith of God. Have faith in God. Have faith in God. Have faith. Faith is a spiritual force and... to get the proper definition of it in the 10th chapter of Hebrews. "But the just shall live by faith My righteous servant shall live by his conviction respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, and holy fervor born of faith and conjoined with it; The just shall..." That's not optional. You can put it like this. The just will live by faith because without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to him.
"Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, 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. For by faith-trust and holy fervor born of faith..." And as you go ahead and read that and study it, you will find, along with all the rest of us, that he created... The King James said he created this earth in all things the universe by force, that does not appear. He didn't create it out of nothing. He created it from something you can't see because this room is full of faith right now. But you sure see the results of it. Hallelujah. There's a pain that comes right down from here, right behind your ear and right off into the portion of your neck there. And in the name of Jesus, that's gone. Hallelujah.
Say, "Thank You, Lord. I call that gone like Abraham of old before you, I call things that be not as though they were. So by faith I believe they are. I receive it. Thank You". Praise God. Thank You, Jesus. Glory to God. "Have faith in God. Have the faith of God. For verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain..." So he pointed at a mountain. If I had time, I'd go through. There's two mountains there. Anyway, Brother Hagin... And of course, they're right here in this 11th Chapter of Mark and where he came up off of the bed of affliction. And he had read the book of Mark, and he's going over to the church sanctuary, and he's just laying on his back thinking about it. And the word of the Lord came to him and he said, "Did you ever notice in Mark 11:23 saying is used three times and bleeding only once". He said, "My people are not failing on the bleeding part. They're failing on the saying part".
And I've had it over and over. I'm thinking about a situation right now where a young man came in to his boss, which was a good friend of mine, and he said, "I just can't support the Word of Faith any longer". He said, "Why"? He said, "Well, I just really don't think it makes all that much difference what you say". Well, it made a lot of difference what he just said. I've had people come up to me and say, "That faith stuff doesn't work out". I said, "It just did". What? "So it doesn't work". But I tried it. But finally the Lord told me what to say. They said I tried it. It doesn't work. No, it tried you and you didn't work. Because this book is right. Hallelujah. Well, now... Here is the checklist of faith. "Therefore I say unto you," Let's look at it. "For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith".
Well there it is. Three to one. And then Jesus used it and he set this in motion. "Therefore, or because of that I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father in heaven may forgive you your trespasses". This one right here. I use this in my daily life. Oh, just in my own personal life, I guess more than more than any other. Is this covenant word right here. I didn't learn that right from the very beginning, but this is the one that just grew up on the inside of me, though I'm very, very cautious about what I say because the stronger your faith becomes, the quicker something will come to pass. And you can have strong faith for healing and not for finances. You can have strong faith for finances, not for healing. And over the years there would be discussion over that. But let's find out what the answer to that is.
Let's go to First Thessalonians Chapter five. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Lord. But let's go over here now, verse 15. "See that none render evil for evil unto any man;" See man is italicized so any person.... mankind. "but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men. Rejoice evermore". So rejoice. Took a second, but... "Pray without ceasing". And how do you do that? You do that in the Spirit. You do that in praise and worship. What do you do? What's the last thing before you close your eyes at night? And what's the first thing when you open them in the morning? The last thing that I do and like when I'm here, I have to call home. The last thing. Gloria and I just celebrated our 61st wedding anniversary. And we've never had an argument or fuss of any kind.
Now, there have been things we didn't agree on. We'd just sit down and see what the Word has to say about it. She's smarter than I am, so most time she's right. I mean it, I'm serious. I'm impulsive. I want to do it right now. She wants to stop and pray about it for a week and a half. That's good. Amen. The last thing I'll tell her, I'll say, "Goodnight, my love". But then the very last thing before I close my eyes: I love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength. And I love my neighbor as myself, fulfilling all the law and the prophets. And then Lord Jesus and the 13th of chapter, John, the 34th verse, you said, "I gave you a new commandment that you love one another as I have loved you and all know you're my disciples by the way you love one another them".
Brothers and sisters, that's a commandment. That is not a suggestion. Everything in this Book is a command. Command what to do, Command what not to do. Amen. There's a lot of it that we just read. Look at that again, "Rejoice, pray without ceasing, in everything, give thanks". It didn't say, "Give thanks for everything," it said, "Give thanks in everything". Now, Sunday morning, 2004, Southwest Believers' Convention, there have been some things that happened, a good meeting with a lot of good result, but there was a lot of pressure in it. That's when we did the big band live album and all that rehearsing all that. But there was another thing. I'm standing there in that shower, just let the hot run over.
Now, my shower, you walk in here, the shower's here, there's a bench over here, towel rack is here. So I just took the wash car. I don't ever remember doing that before, but I wasn't thinking about this. Just pitched it in there and I missed the bench and it went over in the corner. When I did this, a disk exploded in my back. It knocked me to the floor. I couldn't walk. I shouted as loud as I could. I didn't have to try to shout. It just came out. I screamed, man, it hurt and it knocked me in the floor and I said, "Lord God, thank You in the name of Jesus". Now I'm not against surgery. Well, when I was right there in the middle of that shower floor, I couldn't even get up, turn the water off. I said, "Thank You. In the name of Jesus, but I will never have surgery on my back. I believed it and said it. And there are times that it felt like it would have been better. But I did not have surgery and I don't have any pain in my body tonight. Amen".
David Weeter, the young man who came out here to help me, is a chiropractor. He and his wife both. And so I had to call David and Lynn, and they came over to the house. Well, now I'm his only patient. He has traveled with me for years, and he helped me a lot. I don't have any pain in my body, and I give all the praise to the glory of God. But here's the thing. The decision had to be made right then and to obey this right then. I released my faith right then, because my heart was full of it. And I screamed with pain. The first thing I did was praise God and rejoice. So what? The joy of the Lord was my strength. I finally crawled out of that shower stall, praying in the Spirit. And there have been other things that have happened in my life. But you have to make these decisions before something happens. You read that, and then that becomes your checklist. You read that, meditate on that, and you go before the Lord. You say, "Father, this is part of the covenant". Amen.
These words were backed by the blood of Jesus. So they are right. Well, I don't see why the Lord let that happen to you. He didn't let that happen to me. I let that happen to me some years before he said, "Start walking and don't quit". I disobeyed that. I paid the price for it. That's why bad things happen to good people, bad decisions. No, I let that happen to me. But the victory is mine. And I had a wife that is right in there with me. Hallelujah. And I'll just tag this right in here because it's going to come up tomorrow anyway.
Exodus 23:25. "You shall serve the Lord your God". He... You have to go down to the 20th verse. The "He" wasn't God. It is an angel. He will bless your bread and water. I will take sickness from the midst of you. And I will. What? Huh? Tell me. If you don't know him on that, turn over there and read it. ["I will fulfill the number of your days. I will take away sickness".] That's a covenant statement. All of this. Another thing he said. And then the Amplified says it. There will be no miscarriages. And the length of your days I will fulfill. I will take sickness from the midst of you. Your angel will bless your bread and water. There will be no barren or no miscarriages among you. And the length of your days I will fulfill.
Now, I started out of my driveway there to house and we live out there in the country. Eagle Mountain Lake, Fort Worth. And you come out our driveway. It goes around this way to one gate and it has to go through another gate there to get out on the Farm Market road. And I've been meditating on that scripture. I finally stopped my car between those two gates and I shouted it as loud as I could. He has taken sickness from the midst of me. And I'll never be sick another day in my life hereafter forever. Hallelujah. And I haven't. Praise God. I'm not bragging on me. I'm bragging on this Book. These are blood-backed statements and they don't fail. People fail. But God has never failed. He can't. Jesus could have and didn't. Glory to God forevermore.