Kenneth Copeland - Prayer Is a Vital Part of the Christian Life
Hello, everybody. Now, before I start in today, it's good for you to know, but for this radio and television audience, this is what we do at Kenneth Copeland Bible College. This is what the Lord has directed us to do. The Lord said this to Gloria and me way back at the beginning. Bring people into being to know and understand and to be skillful in the Word of righteousness. And that, in simple terms, that's what this is. And prayer is such a vital part of the Christian life. And it's a problem spot. And like my dad said to me one time, after I started teaching him these things, he said, you know, we just kind of shot a scatter shot and hoped some of it hit. Well, that's the way I did. I didn't know any better.
So here we go again now. In I Corinthians, the 12th chapter, "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant or uninformed". Now, we have to deal with something else before we even go here, because this depends on the fruit of the Spirit. So let's go over there to Galatians 5. And in the 19th verse of the 5th chapter, "The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, and heresies, envyings, and murderers. He's not writing to the world".
He's writing to the church at Galatia. You mean all that stuff is in the church? Read it and weep. This is what happens. And ever so often, you hear about it. When a ministry of any kind is based more in the emotional arena, and I don't care what a ministry is or its purpose or what it's called to do, if you don't teach in that ministry to get into these letters and study them, if you didn't do anything else but study the in Christ, in whom, just study that, what we have in Christ, in Him, and in whom. If you just studied that, it'd change your entire life because the prayer scriptures are involved in that. But now, what is that? That's what all the flesh wants to do. But, Verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit is love. Oh, praise God. Faith works by love. Joy, the joy of the Lord is your strength. Peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. Actually, it's faithfulness, meekness, temperance.
Listen now. Against such, there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and the lust. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. That's a prerequisite for the gifts of the Spirit. Amen. Because actually, when you... These are manifestations of the Holy Spirit Himself. Now, Jesus, we found this yesterday. He operated in all of these, except speaking in other tongues. That came after He was raised from the dead, and He called it the promise of the Father. And He said, "Don't you leave Jerusalem until you get it. Because that day, you receive power". In that magnificent, called the Last Supper, well, it's the Last Supper of that, but now it's the First Supper of this, because He said in that day. In that day. He said, "It's the Father within me. He does the works".
So He instructed for us to receive that. But without the fruit of the Spirit, what does that produce? Holiness. That's where you ... That produces holiness. And against that, there is no law. Because he just named the fruit of the flesh. And you move over there in the fruit of the Spirit. In other words, the believer is allowing himself or herself to be in that place of humility. Now, once we do that, let's go back over here where we were in I Corinthians, and let's back up to the 11th chapter. Look, now he goes through... "I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread. And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner, He took the cup. When He had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament".
Now, this is in the New Covenant. "In my blood. This you do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me". Now, look down here at this 31st verse. "If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. When we are judged, we are chastened, or corrected, of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world". So God is trusting us to judge ourselves. And when you learn to do that, where you just go before the Lord and say, "Lord, I humble myself before You. I mean, I blew it on this deal, and I repent of it, and I thank You". Well, that takes me over to 1 John, and that all of the covenant instructions are there to get rid of the sin. And back there, years and years and years ago, when I got in that really tough meeting down in South Florida, and I really lost my temper. But I did not cuss, quite. Oh, I did it in my heart. I was really upset.
But anyway, I just wasn't going to go over there and preach in that tent that night. I was so hurt. In my spirit, I was just so hurt. And I just said out loud. I said, "Lord, You're just going to have to get you another boy. I'm not going over there and say, Thus saith the Lord". And I heard it inside me. Didn't you confess that? I said, "Yes, I did". And I learned something extremely important. The Lord said, "Kenneth, when you confessed that sin was not when I found out about it". Well, of course not. He said, "That's when you got rid of it. Now, you get prepared and go over there and preach". That really... So I learned then what this is talking about, to judge myself. Just go before the Lord and say, "Lord, forgive me. I judge myself for that. And I apologize to You for it. I disappointed You and disappointed me".
But I judge myself. And I shake myself and I stir myself up on my most holy faith. Praise God. Get dressed and go. Hallelujah. Just suit up and go. So now that we've settled that, now we can come to this. "Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant or uninformed". You know ... Now listen to this. "You know that you were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols even as you were led". What is a dumb idol? It cannot talk back. And it can't do anything. Not only that, when you spend time doing that, you get the spirit of that idol. That becomes idolatry. "Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. Now, there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit. There are differences of administrations but the same Lord".
Now, what does that mean? It depends on the calling and the way God manifests Himself. Now, the Spirit of God would come on Samson, and the Spirit of God would come on Daniel. Both called men of God. Just two different manifestations all together of the Spirit of God. Daniel, an angel, shut the lion's mouth. If they'd put Samson in there, he'd have killed every lion in the den. Same Spirit. Two different administrations. Differences in the calling. And I'll talk about that more in a moment. But the manifestation of the Spirit, now this is what this is. It started out talking about gifts, but gifts here are in italics. In a little bit, we'll see where it is not. But these are manifestations of the Holy Spirit. This is the way He manifests Himself. So, I'll give you an assignment here. Go through the ministry of Jesus and watch for the Word of wisdom and the Word of knowledge, gifts of healings. Well, of course, they were there.
Now, diversities of operation. "But it is the same God which works all in all. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the Word of wisdom. To another the Word of knowledge". Now, you notice it's a word. A word of God's wisdom concerning His wisdom and knowledge of the future. A word of His wisdom in a situation that just looks like there's no answer. But class, it must always agree with this book. It's not going to be some wild off the wall thing that doesn't match this book. Like, this young man's going to be greater than all the apostles. Well, I didn't hear that, but Brother Hagin did. No. I don't have time to get into that, but that's a familiar spirit. Somebody operating over there in that. We'll talk about that later. "A word of wisdom. To another the Word of knowledge by the same Spirit".
Jesus knew that about that nobleman, about that royal man. He knew. And what He said turned that thing around. And that boy began to amend. To another special faith. In 2 Corinthians 12:9. "To another wonder-working faith by the same Holy Spirit. To another extraordinary powers of healings". So it's wonder-working faith. It is special faith, not saving faith. If you're not saved, you can't operate this in the first place. So now watch what it says. Now, in the Greek, that's plural. "Gifts of healings by the same Spirit. To another the working of miracles. To another prophecy. To another discerning of spirits. To another different kinds of tongues. To another the interpretation of tongues. All these work that one and the selfsame Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will". As he wills. So I'll give you a little word of my testimony. This is back before... I mean, I was born again and baptized in the Holy Ghost. But this was back before I had any learning about this much.
And one situation, I was invited to speak at a very large prayer group. And so they put people out here in a chair in the middle of the room. They called it the hot seat. I don't know why they called it that, but anyway they did. And I had begun to learn these things, but it was before Brother Hagin separated me to the office of the prophet. I was functioning in the office of the teacher at that time. And I'd lay hands on people and I'd just start praying off in another direction. And I'd lay hands on another and I'd start praying in this direction. I'd lay hands on someone else. And I just prayed what came up to me to pray. Not realizing I was operating in the Word of Knowledge. But it was happening before. But I'm telling you now, any born-again Christian has this. The prophet with all. The born-again human spirit can be trained and should be trained. And should be trained to hear the voice of God.
Bill Johnson in Redding, California. Wow. He has classes on it. And take the scriptures and spend time on these things. Spend time learning and actually praying for one another and praising God a lot. And get over into praise and then operate in these gifts. They're there. They're inside every born-again Spirit-filled believer. Now a certain amount of it is there before you receive, before you're baptized in the Holy Ghost because you're a believer. And Brother Hagin said, you know, before that he was just a young Baptist boy just preaching healing because he got healed. And he was getting people healed. He was anointing people with oil and getting them healed. But then he said when he broke through that spiritual realm and moved over into the supernatural, he said, of course, it just then was a little explosion.
So now why do people come back and preach that these have been passed away? Well, they break in here before the subject is changed and that they've taken upon themselves to kill and just destroy women's ministries by butting in on right in the middle of that without taking it all the way through to the bottom of the 15th chapter of first Corinthians. Cause that's when the subject changes. So we don't have the right to change it until we get there. So, but you come down through these, "All of these work that one and the selfsame Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will". And I heard there was a woman came up and asked Brother Roberts, well, which one of those is the best one? He said, the one you need at the time. Well, that's was the way his faith went. He put it right square where it needed to be, right back in the hands of Jesus, right back into the hands of the Christ, because these are manifestations of his presence. This is what he did when he was here on the earth. And this is what God has called every born again believer to do.
Look at the 16th chapter of the book of Mark, the believer lay hands on the sick and they recover. Well, that's here. So you don't stop reading when you get to the bottom of this. I want to talk about these a little bit more. There are times that, uh, any believer that, that spends enough time. I'm going to go over here at the eighth chapter of Romans. Let's look over here for a moment. And, let's look here. Verse 25, "But if we hope for that, we see not," then have patience, wait for it. "Likewise, the Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings, which cannot be uttered". Well, that's prayer, isn't it? Well, no, wait a minute. And I understand it. That word helpeth is a three Greek words takes hold together with us against our infirmities for we know not what to pray for as we ought.
Now, you may know what to pray for, but as we ought, he makes intercession for us. Well, the apostle Paul put it like this. We see through a glass darkly. Amen. Spirit knows. He knows what the situation is. He knows what it's going to take to turn it around. And he's here to do that. All of these things, all of these were made available the very moment that Jesus was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father. And he said, "I will pray the Father and he will send". Well, in God's time, that wasn't all that long ago. Thousand years as a day. Well, what? Less than a month? 24 days since it's 2024 by our calendar. And he keeps sticking that sign up there that we're out. Okay. We'll be back in a moment.