Kenneth Copeland - Faith Is Your VICTORY
Welcome, everybody, to Thursday's edition of the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. And welcome to the rest of your life. So, what are you going to do with it? Who are you going to serve? Huh? Who else? The people. Meet the people's needs. Oral Roberts would say that to me over and over and over and over. Meet the needs of the people. And the day he shoveled past his Bible at me, said, "What is this"? "Word of God". And he said, "It's letters. And they're just as anointed today..." And he said, "You write a letter". He said, "You're not writing that letter to get your needs met. You write that letter to get their needs met".
That's what it's all about. Meet the needs of the people. That's our job. Actually, that should be the job of every born-again person on the face of the earth, is help meet the needs of people. Hallelujah. That's what this whole thing is wrapped around. So, now here we are. And it's in the fourth chapter of the book of Hebrews. And the 12th verse. "For the Word of God is quick and powerful. It's alive, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight". The Word of God. His. The Word of God. He. This is Him. And what we learned yesterday, that Jesus said, "He will take of mine..." talking about the Spirit of God. He will take of mine and show it to you.
All the Father has is mine. And I say again, the Spirit of God will take of mine. He'll take all that the Father has. Spirit, soul, body, financially, and show it unto you. When, 57 years ago, when Gloria and I went into this ministry, we didn't have anything. And then I went to a partner meeting. I was driving the car. And I heard what a partner letter was all about. And so he said, $10 a month. And since then, I haven't put a money figure on it. But he said, that's a good starting place. Well, I wanted to be a partner. They had a wooden pencil in that envelope. And so I filled it out and put the pencil in there. I said, "That's mine. That's the only thing I own".
The only thing I owned in the world was a wooden pencil. I'm going to get that over to you. And someone said, hey, hey, you. I turned around. I would figure her at about, oh, 35, maybe 40. And she was a woman of color. She was a black woman. She was sitting in the second row. She'd been right behind me. And I keep telling this, thinking, this woman will hear this one. I want to meet her. She said, now, this is a good Southern expression. The Lord's been waiting for me this whole morning. See, the whole time, the whole time, God was way ahead of me. He was way ahead of me. He'd been waiting for me this whole time to give you $10. I said, "Oh, thank you, lady. Give it to me". I grabbed that $10 and ran over there and caught the usher and got the pencil and put the $10 in there. We're partner with Oral Roberts.
So, I got back there in Tulsa and I said, "Gloria, we're partners with Oral Roberts for $10 a month". She said, "Kenneth, where are we ever going to get $10 a month"? I said that. Now, look around you. But that's where we started. And I said, "Sit down here, girl". And so, I preached as close as I could to what the way he did and the point of contact and so forth, things like that. And my bottom line was, "Gloria, we can have Oral Roberts anointing for $10 a month". She said, "Let's do it". We didn't know where we were going to get it. And then just right after that, we were driving to Oklahoma City to preach. And John and Kellie were in the backseat. "Danny, when are we going to eat"? I said, "Anytime now". I didn't tell them that all the money we had was in the gas tank. But we had a meeting coming up there.
Now, I want you to get this and I want you to get this. I didn't tell them we don't have any money. Because I'm a partner with Oral Roberts and God is responsible for me. I didn't say that. I said, any minute now. Yes. We hungry, Daddy. I said, "Yeah, we're going to, just hang on. We're going to eat any minute now". Well, I knew that if we got into that meeting and received some offerings, we'd have something to eat. That's what I was thinking. But the highway did this and then fast food alley. Well, the Sizzler had that big Hereford bull up there. And I had a meeting in Hereford, Texas one time and that's where the thing got its name. So anyway, I turned and I saw it. "Money", I said. So I got on and really slow over here to the right hand.
Now, listen to me. This is faith in action. This is partnership in action. Just make sure you don't ever forget this. Cause yourself to think about it. Amen. It would be worth the drive to Oklahoma City and look at that spot. I drove over here on the right hand side and there it was. The wind had blown it up on to a cyclone fence and I just peeled $20 bill off that fence. Now, I don't know who's $20 bill it was, but whoever they are, they're blessed whether they know it or not. Cause it fed us that day. God knows. So $2 for Jesus, $10 for Oral. I said, "Where are you going to eat"? "The Bull"! So we went to the Sizzler and we had lunch and with a little leftover. That's the way we started. And we kept believing God all the way through because we learned about the curse of the law and the blessing of Abraham.
And all these years we've never been in debt personally, the ministry, never. But it began when we were very small, but you can still do it today. But you have to go to the scripture and stand on it, according to the sixth chapter of the book of Ephesians, "Put on the whole armor of God". Everybody's shaking your head, yes. That means you have committed to do it. God saw this. Cause he's right there on the inside. All right, let's go back to the book. Thank You, Jesus. Divine access to all the Father has. He's the King of the universe. Developing a God inside consciousness, become God inside minded. He is our helper, our comforter, our advocate, our standby advocate. That means he is our personal attorney. He is our advocate. He stands there with the Father. The Spirit of God is between us and the Father. He, it is the Spirit of the Father. He is our advocate, our standby, our counselor, our strengthener, our intercessor.
Now, First John 4:4. Thank You, Jesus. Now these, these books like this, they're letters. Just sit down and read them. How long does it take you to read a letter three, four pages long? Four, four. Verse one, "Beloved, believe not every spirit. Try the spirits where they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Hereby know we the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses, confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Every spirit that confesses not Jesus Christ come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of antichrist whereof you have heard that he should come even now already in the world. You... you are of God, little children and have overcome them". Them what? Them spirits. That's not proper grammar, but you understand what I'm saying?
Those spirits, the spirit of the antichrist. Well, that's nobody but the devil. He's anti everything but himself. Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Now look at five, four. In the world. For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world. "And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith". Glory to God. Now thinking about Hereford, Texas, for those of you that haven't heard me say this, this was back in the beginning. And I, I was there and I was there without Gloria and had a three week meeting there. So I do my outlines with the subject in blue and the scriptures in red like that. I had my outlines. I was in my motel room and I had them laid out here on the bed. The new birth, baptism of the Holy Spirit, and healing, miracles... And I began to pray and I prayed in tongues there for a good little bit and in order to get my thinking here instead of here.
And there's a whole lot of times I'll do that. In order to tune, tune into here instead of here. This sounds like it was just a few minutes, but no. This took half of the morning and just there praying. And I said out loud, I said, "Father, in the name of Jesus, what should I do first"? I heard it. "Is there victory in the new birth"? I said, "Yes, Sir". I said, "Is there victory in the overflowing of my Spirit within you"? I said, "Yes, Sir". Is there victory in miracles and healing? I said, "Oh, yes, Sir. Yeah". It says so in the 15th chapter of the book of First Corinthians. "We have victory over death, hell in the grave. This is the victory, which we have". He said, "Every believer has a voice and it is the Voice of Victory". That's where the Believer's Voice of Victory came from way back there. And we had mighty things happen in that meeting. Just mighty things. So one of them, there was, I found out later he's pastor of a local Methodist church.
Well, I had gone into the first couple of chapters of Acts out of its points out the fact that Jesus went to hell and he didn't like that. And some of his people had been baptized in the Spirit and he didn't like that. Big man. I was standing here and that platform wasn't much higher than this. And I was standing there like this. And he came through the back of this old abandoned drugstore building. He came back through there and he was every bit as tall as I was. And I'm standing up on this. I mean, he's a big man. And he's walking there with me and I was standing there like this. And I said, "Whoa, Jesus, here he comes". And so I just stood there and watched him. He got right up there to me. He walked up there to me. He said... Turn around and walk down. I thought, what is that all about?
Now remember now, this is the first time I had the victory. I tell you, it was running over inside me. "I'm an overcomer, and this is my faith that overcomes the world, that victory, my faith". So he came back. He said, "Brother, may I speak to you"? He's just right there in front of everybody. I said, "Well, yes, sir". Then he introduced himself to me. He said, "I was an alcoholic truck driver. And I got saved. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior". And he said, "They've been telling that you said Jesus went to hell". I said, "That's right". Well, he said, "I didn't like that. And I didn't like it, my people, being baptized in the Holy Ghost". But he said, "You saw what happened to me in there last night. It just happened when I opened my mouth. I couldn't sleep last night". Now listen, he said, "I just was laying there in the bed, and I just went over the next door to the sanctuary, got there on my knees, and I just prayed there for a little bit. And I said, 'Jesus, did you go to hell?' He said, 'You better believe it, big boy. If I hadn't, you would have.'"
That's the truth. What does the Scripture say? Had the devil's known, they'd never would have crucified the Lord. He had to. He had to go into hell itself and defeat it. And he embarrassed all the demons of hell. He embarrassed the devil in his own domain. And the glory of God came in that place. The Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead. Right there in the book of Romans, and it says, "And the glory raised him up". That glory came in hell itself and shook that place. I like to say it like this, demons bouncing off the walls of hell. Because he went in there on the 22nd Psalm. He didn't do anything without the Word. Read it in the Classic Amplified. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me"?
And read that whole 22nd Psalm. And right as you get to the end of it, it says, "It is finished". And that you and I reap the benefits. Thank You, Jesus. Amen. Hallelujah. So here we are now. "Whosoever," mean of me, "whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Everyone that loves him, that beget loves him also that's begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is," one translation said, "this is loving God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world". What does that mean? How many in here are born of God? Did everybody raise your hand? Raise it up there. Look at your hand. I'm an overcomer.
Now, whether you are overcoming or not is up to you. A lot of overcomers don't know they're overcomers because they don't know anything about that. But this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. So actually, every born-again believer's an overcomer. Yeah, but I'm not overcoming. Well, that's your fault. Oh God, help me overcome. Well, that's not a bad prayer, but you know what he's going to say? Have you not read in my Word? Where's the Word? There was a woman that had been healed of cancer in our ministry. And there was one of her helpers called us. I got on the phone, but when they said her name, of course, I knew who she was. And she said, "Oh, Brother Copeland, this old cancer's come back on me. It's come back on me". I said, "Okay, get your Bible". I heard her say, "Where's my Bible? Where is my Bible"? Uh-oh. I said this one time, I'd rather be in a place where I actually didn't have any pants to wear than to be without my Bible. Because I can take my Bible, and I can get me some clothes.
The first thing the Lord directed me to do after I began to learn faith from Brother Hagin, Kenneth E. Hagin, and he said, don't be... He said, "Believe God for some socks". Well, and then I was at the store, and I was looking at the socks, and I said, "No, I'm going to believe God for you". And I just sort of said, "Oh, I love my new socks. Oh, I like my new socks. Yes, I have new socks". Here they came. Well, then it's time for shoes. Then it's time for clothes. And you've heard me tell this, most of you have. I was preaching for Roy and Opal Sprague in Oklahoma, staying in the home of them. And I did need some clothes. And if I remember correctly, I knocked a note or something off the podium in the church, and I bent over and ... Oh, so I didn't turn around anymore until I finished, and I said, "I'll see y'all tonight". Split from... I got back in my room and sewed them up. I still carry a needle and thread with me today and put buttons on and stuff like that. Haven't used it in a long time. And we're out of time. We'll be back in a few moments.