Kenneth Copeland - Prayer Is Our Divine Connection to God
So now let's go back to the book of Mark once more. There's something here that I want to bring out. And in the 11th chapter, we'll just start here in the 11th verse, "Jesus entered into Jerusalem and into the temple and looked around about upon all things. And now the evening was come. He went out unto Bethany with the twelve". Now, that's the first big lesson of faith. Jesus said, "I only say what I hear my Father say. I only do what I see my Father do". So he didn't just go in there and get mad. Do you remember he prayed all night long before he chose his 12? All night to God. He did not go to bed before he chose those 12 men.
Now here's what is in the Garden. That tree. Remember the fig leaves. Remember the fig leaf suits. That's what I thought. You know, God said, "Oh, boy, that ain't going to do" so an animal shed its blood to cover him and his wife. So the fig tree is the fruit in the garden. And this is backed up by the teachings of the rabbis and so forth but that was the fruit. There's a footnote here, "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 to it, he found nothing but leaves for the fig season had not yet come".
So what's the deal here? That was a disobedient tree. So it got ahead and grew leaves when it had no business of doing that. Anyway. "And in the morning they passed by and saw the fig tree dried up from the roots". Now, wait. I need to back up here because that's what I want to point out. "And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple". Now listen. "And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written..." Now this would be in Isaiah 56:7. "My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves".
So my house in Fort Worth, Texas, is a house of prayer. We pray a lot, and at every meal we pray for our partners all over the world. Amen. And then there are times, other times when I'm alone, I just start naming off the countries. Praise God and in the meetings that we have, we consistently have China and Taiwan both online. Now there are people take their lives in their own hands to do that. Talk about all nations. United Arab Emirates, England, Scotland, Ireland. Is your house a house of prayer? We pray about everything, and I'll give you my testimony. How am I doing with time?
I had a little thing come up here about the size of a grain of rice and it scratched it. It began to itch, and then it kind of whipped up, and sore. So I went and had it looked at and, you know, it always... And I said my name is Kenneth Copeland, He said, "Oh, I know you, my parents and grandparents been partners of yours for a long time". I said thank you. He came back. He said, "Well, it's malignant". So what? So what do you do? You go to James 5.
So Pastor George and Terri, Kellie was on the phone. John was on the other phone. And Gloria's a really, really good friend, BB was there in our kitchen. So Pastor went to James chapter 5 and read that whole scripture, and he took that oil bottle and put it on his hand and put it there. And a shock went through my hand. I said, "That did it. I mean it". So then we went to the other doctor, he's a specialist. And this woman came out and she said, "Now, Mr. Copeland, Doctor is going to go take a little shave of that. Be ready to stay 30 minutes, maybe as much as 2 hours, because he's going to continue to just shave that till there are no more cancer cells".
Okay. So they came out and did the thing. She came back in there. Yeah, 20, 30 minutes. She said, "Well, Mr. Copeland, you can go home. There's no more cancer cells". I said, "Well, of course there's no more cancer cells". And that anointing killed it. Well, but there was no fear, because we stay in faith all the time praying in the Spirit a lot. And so we just began to thank God. So he sewed it up. Tony, you can almost see that scar. It never was any problem because of the Book. Because of "the" Book. I like what Brother Hagin used to say. He said, well, I have inside information and it's all inside of this Book I have. Yes, it is. It's all there.
The apostle Peter wrote, "We have exceeding great and precious promises". In my Bible I wrote Covenant right there. I did some teaching on that at KCBC. But this is what prayer is and it's what prayer is for. It is our divine connection. Isn't it wonderful that it is written? And there have been scholars that have tried to debunk it for centuries. They can. There's too much evidence. There's too many miracles. There's too many healed people. My dad said one time, he said, "Kenneth, if I found out there wasn't any Jesus, there wasn't any God. I live this way anyway because it works". But he said, "Because it works, I know there's a Jesus and I know there is a God". Amen. Hallelujah.
And Mama just kept believing and kept, just kept, just stayed strong right up until she left and people said, "I'm so sorry you lost your Mama", I didn't lose her. I know exactly where she is. She knows where I am. I saw her before she left but I was driving down the freeway one day cause I refuse to be full of grief over it. Grief is a killer. It's death's first cousin. And that's what depression is, you're grieving over something you haven't lost. Anyway, all of a sudden, it just came on me. I said, "Fly, little bird, fly". And that was it. So at her homegoing and of course, it was there at EMIC and I had a picture that she had.
And I remember the time when those pictures were made, I was a small boy, but it was back before colored film. And they an artist colored those pictures. It just gorgeous. She had her head back on this couch. I was sitting there next to my dad and I said, "Dad, that's what you're looking for. She's in your future". He said, "She is, isn't she"? I said, "Yes, sir". And that's the way she looks now. And he sat there with a smile on his face. God is a faithful God, and I'll close with this. Gloria's little brother, Stanley, I'll tell you, if he wasn't a case, he just the funny little guy. We were there at her grandfather's place just up the road there from our prayer cabin. And in fact, Gloria's grandfather and grandmother gave us four acres just up the road there from them.
And so that's where our prayer cabin was built. And so we were at Pop's house and we smelled something, went in there and the bottom of the mattress was on fire. Stanley! Just called Stanley. So anyway, and he became a journeyman rock mason. In fact, he built the chimney on that house. That house was over 100 years old. And it was just in shambles. And so we had it moved, the first man came out said, "Copeland, know what I'd do"? "What"? "Let her set". So I called Mr. Wooten. He said, "I'll move anything".
So they moved it across the road and then built it all together, made it nice. Anyway, there's a highway, just a little way from there. And there's a curve that goes around this way, but it has an adverse lean and it does this. You really have to slow down on that curve. He was asleep and in a pickup and a young man was driving, driving too fast. And that pickup just left the road and flew into the trees and burst into fire and in flames. So we called the family together and went by the Bible through all these things.
Well, not long after that, Gloria was at a women's conference and this woman had been to heaven and had seen some marvelous things. And she said the choir came out on this gorgeous stage, a huge choir, and everyone was singing hymns of the church. And she talked about the hymns that she knew. And then Jesus walked out there and the ceiling flew away because the ceiling was made out of angels and they just all left. And she was seeing this. She said, "Now the next great event in heaven is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The hall, this huge dining hall, and people were doing place settings there".
So she came to Gloria after the service. She said, "Gloria..." Now let me tell you about Stanley first. I bought him a brand new dress shirt, tie and everything. He cut the sleeves out of that shirt because I saw him walk up a ladder with two buckets of mud, just leaning forward on that. I told Gloria's older brother, I said, "I hope you got your licks in". He said, "No". He cut the sleeve out of everything he wore. And she said, "Gloria, you don't know me. But when I was in that large dining hall, there's a young man that came over to me," faithfulness of God now and said, "Would you tell Gloria I was not in that truck when it burned"? But she said, "Gloria, the strange thing about him, he was the only one that didn't have any sleeves in his garment," so he knew it was Stanley.
So don't grieve over your loved ones. Grieve not. The letter to the Thessalonians, it says sorrow not, look it up. It's the word grieve. Well, sorrow. I had the Lord just really correct me. He said, "Stop using that word unless you mean it. The word is apologize. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you telling me you're sorry? Good for nothing. Is that what you're saying? Words count". I had a man say to me one time, "Copeland, you're too picky".
Listen, I'm a lot more picky about this than I am flying that airplane. And I'm not about to stick that airplane up somewhere like a dart. You have to be really picky about it. And I'm very picky when it comes to my words. Very picky about what I say. If you're going to apologize, apologize, don't say, "That was a sorry thing to do". Is that what you want to say? Rude could be a good word. That was a rude thing to do. That word Sorrow is part of Isaiah 53. He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. That word is also translated weakness. It's also translated sicknesses and pains. He bore our griefs and our sorrows. Words count. I said words count. Faith-filled words dominate the laws of sin and death.
So fill every word with faith. Well, how do I do that? By expecting ever word to come to pass. I was in a particular meeting. There was a very difficult meeting in Florida, and we'd had a lot of... this was in the early days, and, oh, it was in a little tent. And the rain came. The tent fell and I went to... people were buying more tapes, this was back with cassette tape. So I had ordered tapes from home. They sent a big box. I went to the post office to get it and all that was left was a big tire mark that went over my box full of tapes.
And I went out there and I got on that. I started laughing at that tent, man, I'm just soaking wet and Gloria, "What are you laughing about"? I said, "I didn't know I was this big of threat, but we just were laughing about it. Roll the care over and we're done". Well in that meeting I got mad. I didn't cuss. Oh, I got close. All that made me mad. And oh, and then I ashamed of myself. And so I was walking around the room and I said out loud, "Lord, I'm not going back over there. Just get yourself another boy". Oh, no, I'm not going back. Stick to this "Thus saith the Lord". Me getting mad like that.
I heard him say, "Did you confess that sin"? "Yes I did". I learned a big lesson that day. He said, "Kenneth, when you confessed it, it's not when I found out about it. That's when you got rid of it according to the Covenant in First John". We repent of our sin. He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of that unrighteousness. So be quick to repent, slow to anger and stay over on the repenting side all the time and do everything you do with one hand on the love of God. Because the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. When? The moment you made him Lord.