Kenneth Copeland - Prayer Must Be Based on the Promises of God
The first scripture I want to read will be from the Classic Amplified in the book of Ephesians 6. "In conclusion, be strong in the Lord, be empowered through your union with him, draw your strength from him, that strength which is boundless and might provides. Put on God's whole armor, the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which God supplies, that you may be able to successfully stand up against all the strategies, the deceits of the devil, for we are not wrestling with flesh and blood, contending only with physical opponents, but against power, the possessions and powers and master spirits" and so forth. Put on God's complete armor, that you may be able to resist and stand your ground on the evil day, having done all and so forth.
Stand, look at the 18th verse, or 17th, "Take the helmet of salvation, pray at all times on every occasion in every season in the Spirit with all manner of prayer and in treaty". Now let's read that. And Ephesians 6, "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, having done all to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins gird about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, your feet shot with the preparation of the gospel of peace and above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God praying".
That's what that armor is all about. Now there are other things there, but that's what the full armor of God is about. All manner of prayer. There's the prayer of faith, the prayer of petition, the prayer of intercession, and prayer of commitment. But prayer doesn't make faith work. Faith makes prayer work. So here again, let's go to the book of Hebrews. Now, that was chapter now, "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it, the elders obtained a good report. Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen are not made out of things which do appear". And God didn't create out of nothing. He created it out of something you can't see. Now, let's get a definition of faith again. "Now, faith is the assurance, the confirmation, the title deed," oh, that's strong, "of the things we hope for, being a 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".
Now, prayer must begin on the promises of God. My father in the faith, Oral Roberts said this, he would say it publicly. He said it to me a number of times. And then I heard Brother Hagin say it. The largest failure among Christian people is a prayer failure. And one of the main problems is being feeling oriented. I feel like he heard me. I don't feel like he heard me. Well, see, your physical senses will get you in trouble in the field of prayer. So you don't depend on that. Well, what does the book say? And this is a book of blood covenants. There's not anything light about this at all. And we lost a lot concerning the King James, the Old Testament, and the New Testament. But actually, that isn't right. It is actually the first covenant.
Now, in 17th chapter of Genesis, "When Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, 'I am the Almighty God.' He said, 'I am El Shaddai. I am the God who's more than enough. I will make my covenant between me and thee and will multiply thee exceedingly.' Abram fell on his face and God talked with him saying, 'as for me,'" you don't have to accept this, but this is my decision. "'As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name anymore be called Abram, thy name shall be Abraham. For a father of many nations have I made thee.'" The H, Hashem, it is the H in Yod Heh Vav Heh, the first record of a covenant name change. Now, "I will establish my covenant between me and thy seed after thee and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee," an everlasting covenant.
"I will give unto thee thy seed after them, the land where you're in a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. I will be their God. And God said to Abram, you'll keep my covenant there for thou and thy seed after thee and their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and thy seed after you, every man child among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a token of the covenant between the two. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generation. He that is born in the house bought with money, any stranger, which is not the seed. He that's born in my house, he that is brought before with money must needs to be circumcised. My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. The uncircumcised child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised shall be cut off. He hath broken my covenant. God said, as for Sarai thy wife, her name will be Sarah and I will bless her and give you a son also of her. I will bless her. She shall be a mother of nations, kings of people shall come from her. Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said, Shall a child be born under him that's a hundred years old and Sarah is 90 years old. O that Ishmael might live before you".
Now listen to this. "God said, Sarah, thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed. You'll call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant". He named him, gave him his name. "As for Ishmael, I've heard you behold, I blessed him, make him fruitful, multiply him exceedingly. 12 princes will beget. I will make him a great nation, but my covenant I established with Isaac". That started the fight that's going on right now. So we have to be a people of prayer and we must know the difference between the prayer of faith, the prayer of petition, the prayer of intercession and the prayer of commitment. We must know that. Now, of course, I read the definition of faith and of course, the prayer of faith is in the 11th chapter of Mark. Let's look there. I'm going to read this from the Classic Amplified because it has a footnote about it. That's excellent.
In that 13th verse, "And seeing in the distance of 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 happened? Think about it. How many times have you seen pictures, artist renderings of the original couple eating an apple, but then they covered themselves with fig leaves. Come on. And this tree paid the price. Now there's a whole lot more to that than this. One of the things that you need to pick up on now concerning that I won't spend much time on it, but think about this. How many times just, it's just in the book of Mark. How many times did he go to the temple? How many times did he go to the temple? Let's look it up. That beggar was there the whole time. No wonder he was expecting to receive something. He's thinking my boys are here.
You know, good and well Jesus didn't pass him by. He kept telling Judas, "Put something in this man's hand..." Expecting to receive something from him. Can you see there's more to it than that? That's the reason you need to not just pick these things out, but there's some tracking. And there was only one centurion. His name is Cornelius. There's only one there. He's the one that built the synagogue. He's the one that had the servant that was sick. He's the one that impressed Jesus with his faith. I'm not important enough for you to come under my roof. You speak the Word only. I'm a man of authority. I tell a man to go where he goes. I tell one to come and come and do this. They do that. You just speak the Word. He'll be healed.
Jesus said, "I've not found such great faith in all of Israel". That's the reason he said at the crucifixion, this must have been the Son of God. He knew who he was. Because he spoke the Word and his servant was healed. He built the synagogue at his own expense. So what happened? That's the one God picked. Come on. You're going to be number one. Thank You, Jesus. So prayer was involved in all that. In this case, it was the spoken Word. He said, "You say the Word only". That is a form of prayer. There is prayer of worship. The Lord had just instructed me. In fact, when I came here, I really had something else on my heart. This afternoon, the Lord said, no, no, no. We're going to do it this way. Well, you know, I just work here. Now, the prayer of petition. Let's go over to first John chapter five. This is a letter. There was a time the Lord had me just read first John every day. It was just a letter to me. So just read it every day.
Well, you just wind up writing all kinds of notes. God is life. God is love. In him is no darkness. In him is no death. In him is no hate. Now here. Well, yes, sir, I can do that. But here is a prayer that feelings get so involved in. Verse seven, "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood..." Now, when you see that from now on, don't just kind of go by that. I mean, this is a blood guaranteed covenant. "The blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in it. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". When? When you confess it, not when you feel better about it.
I struggled with this years and years and years ago. And I said, "Lord, I'm not going over there and preach again tonight". Why? No, not in here. Why? Well, you know. Well, why? Well, I really, I really lost my temper. I didn't cuss, but I wanted to. No, there was enormous amount of pressure in that meeting. And it had been really hard. And he said, "Didn't you confess that sin"? I said, "Yes, I did". Now, listen to what he said. Pastor Nancy, he said, "When you confessed it is not when I found out about it. That's when you got rid of it". He said, "Do you believe what I said"? I said, "Yes, I do". What difference do your feelings have? He said, "Get a hold of your feelings. Do something about that. Confessed it".
I sincerely confessed it. I repent of this. And then you can go over there to the 12th chapter of Hebrews, get rid of the sin that so easily besets you. All of that's prayer. Every prayer of every kind must believe, must begin on the promise that it's based on. So here we are in first John. Let's go over here. The fifth chapter. And we see here in the 14th verse, "This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. If we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know we have the petitions that we desired of him. If any man see his brother's sin, a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask and he'll give him life for the sin, not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for that".
Okay. Let's go to Hebrews chapter six. And there's a lot of people ask about this all the time. So we'll just deal with it right now. Hebrews six, four. "It is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift for God so loved the world that he gave and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good Word of God and the power. So here's somebody that's been born again. And somebody that's been filled with the Holy Spirit, operated in the gifts of the Spirit, tasted the good of Word of God and the powers of the world to come. If they fall away to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucified to themselves, the Son of God afresh and put him to open shame. Didn't say God wouldn't do it. He said it's impossible to get them to repent.
So now let's go to the 12th chapter of the book of Romans. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, Holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me, every man among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to every man, the measure of faith," every person. Amen. Think soberly. Think about it.
Come on, the same substance, the same force that created this universe and the God of the universe is living on the inside of us. That makes us somebody out of nobody. Ask me how I know. But you have to yield and pretty well take yourself out of the equation and whatever he's blessed you with. Oh, there's so many times just sit down to have a meal and it just, I don't know, just bless him all the time. Bless my food all the time. Bless this, bless that. Well, "bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me, bless his Holy name. Bless the Lord oh my soul and forget not all of your benefits. You've delivered my life from destruction. You've forgiven me of all my iniquities and healed all of my diseases and you fill my mouth with good words that my youth is renewed like the eagle's". Glory to God. So it is an awareness in prayer of his presence.