Kenneth Copeland - Faith Receives the Plan of God
— Now, of course, Andre and Jenny are no strangers to the Victory Channel because they're on there, an amazing broadcast. So to take a direction from the Lord. What I'm thinking about when I was flying into Meacham that night, and I heard that word, coming to you from the Revival Capital of the World. And I heard it audibly. I look down on my audio panel. I started off as a professional pilot and I fly professionally every time I get in an airplane. I make sure my checklist, I have every switch, everything. I look down at my audio panel because I heard it and that little switch was down where it was supposed to be and I thought, well, I know where the political capital of the world is. I know where the entertainment capital of the world is, in Hollywood, country music capital of the world, Nashville, Tennessee. Where's the Revival Capital of the World? I don't know. But it stayed in my heart, because I heard that and it came in that radio voice, coming to you from the Revival Capital of the World and so I set it aside and it wasn't but a few days. Dan Adams, one of the original members of our board, called me and said, "There's a piece of property out here northwest of town, I think you need to see". So we came out here. When we got out of here, I knew what it was because I graduated in high school in Ft. Worth, that it was an abandoned airbase and it was a terrible motion picture that was filmed out there. But at least it showed what the thing looked like at that time. Came out here and just, you know, just barbed wire fence around it. And I pulled the fence up like that for Gloria. She crawled through it. I stepped over it and it right here. This is the Revival Capital of the World. You're going to build it. And I said, "What on earth with..."?
— Seed.
— But there was no question about it. It will come to pass. And yesterday, when you said what you did, once I heard from the Lord, I heard that. Then the next thing to do is find out who owns it.
— Well, that's exactly what happened.
— So that's what we did. Found out who owned it. And when I spoke then to the Lord, I said, "Lord, I'm not going to see Mr. Puitt until you say so". I didn't hear anything. But I told the Lord that and just forgot about it. And it was quite some time. And then, and of course Gloria and I prayed, Pastor George prayed and everybody prayed, Revival Capital of the World. What in the world, checked in on it. It's 1520 acres of land. What with... Money. And finally... the strangest thing and I've had this happen several times. I was looking at myself in the mirror with a razor in my hand. Right in here. Go see Mr. Puitt and tell him I have need of that property. I have my direction and exactly what to say. He was 89 years old and never married, but he was in the oil and gas business, particularly natural gas, and he bought this place out of the government, believing there's natural gas here. And so then that's the first thing I said to him. And his answer was, "Well, it's for sale". Well, I had to go back and see him and I told him I didn't have any money. And then I told him I didn't borrow money. This property, I said it belonged to Jesus of Nazareth, they didn't write to mortgage another man's property. Finally he said, "I'm going to see you through this thing". I realized when I said, this is my point, when I said exactly what I heard from the Lord, and that's what I said to him, immediately he started... He said, "You got anything against rent"?
— Well, no.
— I'm going to divide it up into four equal parts and your rent is so much. And then as you pay, your ministry pays for a section and I deed it to you. And then the fourth part, all your rent money will go to the property. So we had a plan now. We had the plan of God. I knew exactly what it was. And back in that day, Barry Han was on our board, he's in the real estate business. And he said, "Meet me at a restaurant there in Glen Rose. Bring somebody that can write this down". So Barry Han wrote it down on just a regular letter sized sheet of paper. He said, "Write that down". Now here's what I'm coming to. This is like the direction that you received. And we'll get to it in a moment. He turned around and he said, "Portland Cement has been after me to get gravel off your property... off that property". And I told him they'd have to talk to you. So I knew right then that he immediately contacted them. And I said, "When I get a section paid for..."? He said, "No son, sell some gravel and pay for some land. I've given you the mineral rights". In Texas you can own the property and not own the mineral rights. They can drill an oil well in your backyard. He said, I've given you the mineral rights and gravel is a mineral. Well, so is natural gas. Are you enjoying the lighting here? It's coming out of our power plant, which is burning natural gas that Mr. Puitt used to own. The God that's more than enough. We sold $1,000,000 worth of gravel off the property. I came in there, I called pastor in, and I said, We don't need to do that. I don't like to butcher this property up because there's some other things we might need it for. And we don't need it anyway. We never did break it up into quarters. The partners and everything, it just flowed. It's all paid for. Then a number of years later, gas wells. I said, "Lord, why did it take so long"? He said, "Anybody can preach prosperity with a bunch of gas well flowing. The wells had to be product of the message instead of the message being a product of the wells".
— So good.
— Brother Kenneth, you heard it, you stepped onto it. You believed it and God did it.
— Yes and waited for the direction.
— You waited for the direction.
— That's what I received and learned from my father in the faith.
— And that's what we receive from this ministry.
— Praise God.
— Because that's what I want you to understand. When God spoke to me in that vision, in that half an hour I prayed, I saw the complete building. I saw it, but I did not know where it was. I had no idea where it was. I said, "Lord, where is that building"?
— Were you guys living in East London?
— We were living out on a farm outside of East London at that moment.
— Well, how did the Lord lead you to East London in the first place?
— I was born and bred in East London. I was raised in East London.
— So that's your hometown.
— That was my hometown. And then I went when I graduated from school and I went up into the military, I was served two years in the military. We had two compulsory serve two years in those days. And in the military, God called me into full-time ministry. And when that call came on my life, that's when I met Jenny, because I went to Bible school in Pretoria and that's where I went to study for the ministry.
— Did you meet in Bible school?
— No, she was young then, alright she was still in school.
— We met when I was 16 and he was 18.
— Yeah, and it was the church, but not the Bible... I was in Bible school. She was in school still at that point. And God called us.
— He was an older man. That's what Gloria says about me. He was an older man. She was 19 when I met her.
— We always joke because she always says to me, the first question she asked me when I met her. She said, "So what grade are you in"? And I'm like already in the military. It's like, you know, but the way they shaved your head, you know, because...
— I'm glad I asked that question, I knew that yesterday there was something here. That's what I was talking about yesterday.
— And our journey together really started there.
— Glory to God.
— I'm like you, I married up you know.
— Glory to God yes.
— So there we were in the prayer meeting. The Word of God had come and the anointing was so strong that I knew what God's purpose was. I said, "Lord, where is this building"? He said, "Tomorrow I will take you to it". I did not know where it was. I said, "Lord, I need to know where it is". And I was under that anointing and I was clearly hearing the Word of God. And it was then that the next morning I woke up and I said to Jenny, out of coming out of this anointing. I said, "I have to know..."
— So you're a senior by now.
— Yeah, I said, "I have to go. I have to go and find this building". I did not know where it was. I climbed in my car, said, "Lord, here I am, I'm being obedient," much like you coming to climb through the barbed wire fence. I knew I had to put my feet into the building. It was critical for me, and I drove into town from the farm and I came through... You'll see there's a mountain pass, like a like a ravine cut with the road coming through the mountain. And as I came around, I looked up and there was this building and the Lord said, "That's the building that I have for you". And I looked at it and I still remember these words. I said, "Which one"? Because if you look at it and if you see this picture of the building, it looks like a whole lot of buildings altogether. It does not look like one building. It looks like multiple buildings.
— And those pictures that were on the screen when I was there to dedicate. Then I saw that and it was built like you would build a plant. It had different levels of things.
— Right
— Which is what it was. And I think at one time there were different things.
— There's all different things in the building.
— Do you suppose they added a lot to that.
— 13 buildings in one.
— Oh my...
— All right.
— Over 100 years old.
— And the building's over 100 years old, some parts of it. And I looked at it and to put it in perspective, it's 600,000 square feet, all right, 600,000 square feet, to put it in perspective. And I looked at this and I said, "Lord, which one"? He said, "All of it". All of it. And that's where the power of God hit me as I'm looking at the building, because now I'd seen it in the vision, now I'd seen it in reality, and there was a little sign on one little section of the wall that said, "To let", which means to rent, to rent and or for sale. And I parked my car and I drove and I parked outside and I walked in. There was a security guard at the gate and I said, "I've just come in to look at the building". He said, okay. And he just let me in. I walked up onto the top floor of the building, and that's where the anointing of God came upon me. I looked all over and it had housed sheep's wool. It was a wool sorting floor that housed sheep's wool. There were bales and bales of wool all over. And the spirit of the Lord spoke to me and he said, "This has housed sheep's wool, but it is now going to house my sheep". And that was the word that the Lord gave me standing right there. And I realized there and then.
— Glory be to God.
— From that moment, this building was earmarked for the Kingdom of God.
— Amen.
— And I stood there and as I stood there, the anointing hit me again like it had the night before in the meeting. And I began to weep. And then God gave me a vision and he gave me a vision of standing in the center right where I was standing. There was bales of wool all over it, stank of lanolin and the smell of wool. And I stood there and as the anointing was upon me and I'm busy crying and tears running down my cheeks. And the Lord took me into a moment of the future and I saw there and then the dome over the facility I saw there and then worshipers, thousands of worshipers coming together to worship. And he said, "Don't look at it as it is. Look at it as I see it".
— Thank You, Jesus.
— And I want you to realize that because here we are, young, married couple just in ministry a couple of years. God is doing this in our lives and God is showing us a future. You see, because God's not looking at where we are right now. God's looking already into the future. And I realized then.
— Well he was already there.
— He was already there. He was already in the future. I just needed to get into his movie. I needed to get into the place of the future of what God had for us. And I needed to receive my future now. Then I realized what faith is now. It may manifest in the future and it may take some time for it to manifest in the natural. But in the spirit it's done... it's done. It is done there and then in the spirit. And that's when I realized and I saw all that God had for us. And it was at that moment where I realized I had to go talk to the owners. Within one week I was in the owners boardroom. I was sitting across as a young man then, across from all these elderly gentleman and the words that you just said, I want you to know this, were the words that the power of God came upon me. And the Lord said to me, "Go and tell them I have need of their building".
— The same words.
— The exact same words.
— I had no idea.
— That's why I wanted to tell you, because I stood up in the meeting. They said, "What are you wanting"? And I put my hands on the table like this. And I stood up and I looked across at them at the meeting and the power of God all over. I don't know to this day why I stood up that I still need to get the revelation of. But it was like I was under the authority of God to be able to address them. And I said to them, and I had one of my men with me, and I said to them, "Gentlemen..."
— I had a man with me when I went to see Mr. Puitt.
— And I said to them, Gentlemen, I'm not here but as a servant of God, God has need of your building. Those are my words. And it was in that moment where the power of God hit that meeting. They said to me, "Well, we've got an offer on the building that we turned down for 16 and a half million". Now, the Lord had told me what the price would be when I was in that vision, in that moment on the sorting floor of the wool. And he said to me, "Give them four and a half million". I said to them, "Gentlemen, I'm here to make you an offer of four and a half million". They said, "We've just told you two weeks ago we turned down an offer of 16 and a half million". I said, "Gentlemen, God told me to give you four and a half million. That is the price". They said, "We need time to talk about this. We will tell you on Monday". So I left the meeting. As I was walking out the meeting, they'd taken my phone number. They said we would phone you on Monday. On Saturday, one of the men phones me who had my number. He said, "We've spoken about it. They're going to try and get more money from you, but we've already agreed to accept your offer".
— Praise God.
— So on Monday, the call came. "Well, we'd like a little more money". They were trying. I said, "You did not hear me. God said, four and a half million". They said, "We accept". Now here was the point, afterwards... This is the point I wanted to make. If I had not stood on what God had said...
— He wouldn't provide.
— He would not have provided what he said he would provide, because anything above that I would have had to pay for.
— You took a position of authority when you stood up in their presence. They had to look up at you to hear what you had to say.
— Come on, that's powerful.
— Now, Moses fell on his face before God. But the only person he fell on his face, too, was God.
— Was God.
— The rest of the time he spoke for God. And in their eyes, he was God. That's what rose up in me when you said that. You said you didn't know why you stood up, well, it's a place of authority. Now, when you stood up, you became the general in the room. The highest authority in the room. You weren't there to discuss...
— No.
— If you were just going to discuss this, you can sit around and talk to this. And you would of paid somewhere around 12, 13 million dollars. But you stood up and spoke for the Almighty God. That was the price, turned around and walked out.
— And that's exactly... Hallelujah. It was accepted. And how we got the money. I got to tell you that story maybe next time.
— Praise God.
— Now, I'll say this to you, but of course, to the television audience, you don't do these things without having heard first.
— Oh, that's right. That's right.
— Because if you do without the anointing to do it, you come across as arrogant. Which in fact that's what it is, it's arrogance. Well I'm going to believe for that big home over there.
— Really?
— Yes.
— Well how much is it.
— Well it's three and a half million dollars.
— Can you keep a three and a half million dollar house up. Can you pay the taxes on a three...
— Well, yeah, but God... Wait a minute, don't but God here. Have you spoken to him about it? Maybe you need to have a smaller home than that paid for. Gloria and I came back from Tulsa. I really plan to stay because I knew I had the direct direction of God. And I already had the Kenneth Copeland Evangelistic Association in the state of Oklahoma drawn up because I was going to stay there, finished school, and all that. Got up the next morning. It was May 67 and I got dressed and put my suit on, came out in the living room of that little house, and sat down there to get the direction of the Lord. He said, "I want you to go back to Fort Worth because greatest amount of your destiny is there". I said, "Lord, you know what happened to you in your hometown. I don't want to go back. Okay, I'll go". I had no idea. I didn't know Mr. Puitt existed. I didn't know this was going to turn into the Revival Capital of the World. I wanted to stay in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now, if I'd of violated that...
— And I didn't want to go back home neither.
— No, I bet you didn't.
— God called me back home. God called me back home.
— But that was the plan, that's what's important. The plan.
— That's what God wanted.
— Yes. Amen.
— Hallelujah.
— It's amazing to me now. It didn't used to be... We only have a minute or less... Because I didn't know what I was going to do. While I was sitting there thinking about it, the phone rang and I'll tell you tomorrow what happened. We'll be back in just a moment.