Kenneth Copeland - Faith for Your Family: Trust God To Take Care of Your Children
— Hello everybody, this is Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. I'm Kenneth, this is Kellie and John Copeland. I want to ask you something. Has the Believer's Voice of Victory helped you grow in faith? We want to hear from you about a testimony, kcm.org/BVOVstory. I kept watching the BVOV broadcast on faith. As a third year PhD student, I was believing God to win the prize for the best research paper. The other students in my class all had much more training than I did. I kept repeating that I'm the head and not the tail. Whoa, good for you. Above only and not beneath. Able to do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Even when my research was not going well, I submitted my paper and kept standing on the Word of God. The PhD program supervisor emailed to say I was the winner. I knew this was the miracle working hand of God in my life and the beginning of a great journey as I have learned to and continue to have faith in his Word despite what circumstances may look like. I'm a partner with KCM and thank God for this ministry sowing into the lives of others. You are truly making a difference, KS in Massachusetts. Come on, praise God. Isn't that wonderful? Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord Jesus. I didn't have presence of mind enough to get this before, so I just used the one I had in my Bible case. The Fundamentals of Faith, and I want to say this again, faith begins where the will of God is known, not guessed out. On the way in Oklahoma City, Oral Roberts, and even before meetings and so forth, he would sit at another table from Miss Evelyn to keep his mind right on exactly what the Lord had directed him to do. We were riding along there and he said, "Kenneth, people will always tell you you can't do it". I noticed over the years, well, we're going to do this, but now I'll tell you what now, Brother Copeland, now you just need to listen to me in this. You just don't understand all that. Well, what do you want to dump that on me for? He said this, this is very important. People will always tell you, you can't do it. Number one, find out the will of God, prayer, and then the Word of the living God. Then confer no longer with flesh and blood, or people don't... He's not talking about Gloria and family, but people out there, just keep your mouth shut about it. Number three, get your job done at all costs. Let them get on it after you get in there, after it's already taken place. That's the way he built all of those buildings and everything else at Oral Roberts University, and the Prayer Tower was first. Praise God. Now, believe it in your heart, say it with your mouth. When you get your notes, all of these other scriptures that I have here, let me ask you this. Now, John and I are both baseball players and really like baseball, and I played football in high school. What are you seeing at the World Series? I mean both teams, masters of the fundamentals of baseball. They didn't get there stumbling around.
— They didn't get there overnight either.
— No. And the Super Bowl, Vince Lombardo, arguably one of the greatest football coaches. He would start out, gentlemen, this is a football. In the Air Force in World War II. It was so fundamental. I mean, and they'd start out and say, gentlemen, this is an airplane. Come on. This is the propeller. It propels. Now, I suppose everyone in here has ridden in an airliner and that kind of thing, but John and I know how to fly. So when we come around the wing, talk about the ailerons, the ailer-waterrons? And the empennage, the vertical stabilizer, the rudder, and the elevator. That airplane big enough to have an elevator on the inside of it? No, it's part of the structure of the airplane. It makes it go up and down. But fundamentally, you know how to go get on an airliner and go. But I can go somewhere without them. That's important. But that's fundamentally, those are the fundamentals of flight and the fundamentals of faith that are that way. A lot of people that I have met did not know the fundamentals of faith until they began to listen to this ministry, Brother Hagin's ministry. And the first time I came back to preach at Oral Roberts University, and it was, oh, what Lord, two years, I suppose. And so I was preaching in the different departments. And there at ORU, there's a fence there that on the outside, it looked just like a fence, but it was security. And at a code, it would open up, and then their home on campus was there. And so we were having lunch. And we came in the den, and he said, "Kenneth, take off your shoes and sit right there. Gloria, take off your shoes and sit right here". Because he did that first. He said, "Evelyn.."., she said, "Oral, I'm not taking my shoes off". He looked at me and he said, "Teach me faith". I literally said, you're going to be kidding me. No. He said, "You boys have learned about faith that I don't know. And you're looking at the hungriest man for God on this planet". Listen, what did he want to know? And I went through, he said, "It's the saying part". He was the preacher. Now he would teach in the mornings when we were on the road to the other pastors, but he would teach concerning what he was preaching as an evangelist. He said, "It's the saying part". Now that's what the Lord Jesus told Brother Hagin. And as we get into this later, we'll talk about that. But it is the saying part.
— Just interject real quick. I think a big place where a lot of Christians are at is the difference between hope and faith. Because they don't understand that they have the authority by faith. And so they hope, they pray and then they hope. They hope God will do something. You know, it's like they're sitting, waiting for God to move and God can and will move. But it's for people, but it's the use of words with your faith. God's looking for you to take a step, right? Because faith without works is dead. And we can hope all day long. I can hope to be healed and just hope God sees me down here and will answer my prayer. And that's where so many Christians are. They're hoping rather than understanding that they have the authority given to them by Jesus through faith. And God wants to see you take those steps because he's going to meet you wherever you go. And so I think it's important for people to understand the difference between hope and faith. Faith is active. Hope is sedentary. It's like it's not moving anywhere, but faith is moving forward towards that goal. And it's real Bible hope that faith is a substance of. Well, are you going to get healed or not? Brother Copeland and I sure do hope so. That's wishing. Well, I'll tell you, Brother Copeland, I'm standing on these words right here. That's what faith becomes the substance of. Faith does not become the substance of, I sure wish I would. Time after testimony, after testimony, after time, after time, after time, after time. I can't remember the amount of time. That Brother Copeland would tell people exactly the same thing that he was anointed in exactly the same way. And one would get it and one wouldn't. There was a couple, she had cancer. Now the Lord told Brother Hagin, you tell them that you saw me. You tell them that I laid my hands in the palm of your hands. You tell them that. Every time you pray or lay hands on anybody, well, faith comes by hearing. So we were so excited about it and they came over and I said, I'll tell you what, he's having a meeting in certain such place and we've learned so much from him and so forth. He had so many cancer people healed. And so if you guys like to go, Gloria and I'd like to pay your way there. Oh, they got so excited about it and we just knew that they were going to just come home healed. So they came back over and I said, "How'd it go"? That's the most egotistical man I have ever heard in my life. Stand up there and tell how he saw Jesus and how he put his finger in his hands. She died of cancer. Why? She didn't receive the prophet. Worse than that, she didn't receive the Word that he said.
— Well, the Bible talks about mixing faith with the Word that you hear.
— Let's go back to the book of Hebrews.
— When you're talking, John and both of you, I was picturing a fishing rod. Faith is the hope and the faith. Faith is like the hope and faith of fishermen. Every time he stands out there and just keeps casting, it has to come out of a hope. But there's that place where he keeps casting it, believing that there's a fish coming and you cast out those words to draw it and you draw it back in. You cast out those words. You keep going and you catch a fish.
— If you look in the book of Hebrews in chapter four, Let us therefore fear or have reverence lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. Listen, For unto us the gospel, the good news was preached as well as unto them, but the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Now, let me point out something else to you. I knew exactly where that was the moment it was mentioned. How? I could see it in my mind. I knew where I marked it.
— In from of your eyes.
— mean, it was in my heart and it just immediately came out. Well, in a situation like Kellie was in, in a situation like John has been in, like one time he was in a situation where with a friend of his in a dune buggy kind of a thing. And that thing crashed and tumbled and all of that. And he was just a young boy, but he knew what to do and he knew what to say. That was our prayer cabin. He came home. I mean, he's just white as a sheet, but he knew what to do. Even in that, that moment. Go ahead and talk about that, John.
— Yeah, it was a, it was a Toyota Land Cruiser is a... which is a type Jeep. It was an older one. And so, uh, we were going fishing one night about 2:30 in the morning. Um, probably not the wisest thing, but it's Arkansas and the country. What else do you do? You know? And so my friends, Land Cruiser, the brakes would grab to the left when you hit them gravel road curve to the right, hit the brakes, went off in the ditch and just went into over in ejected both of us out. And it was pitch black that night. There was no moon. And, uh, I came to, I couldn't really see anything. There was a barbed wire fence right here in front of me.
— Uh, mom and daddy prayed over him.
— Yeah. Yeah. Prayer, had a lot of prayers.
— You hadn't reach the age of wisdom yet.
— Yeah. No, I was, I was 16. So no, I was not wise. And, uh, but it was, I was sitting on the ground, but I was up a hill from the Land Cruiser and my legs were underneath the fence and the fences right here in front of me. And I was, I was hollering out for my friend and he finally answered me. He got thrown down the ravine into the rocks. And, but I couldn't, I really couldn't hardly move my legs. Cause I guess I got, I hit him on something because I don't remember leaving the vehicle. I don't remember landing, but I was about 25 feet above the vehicle up a hill. And so I slid down the hill, got to him and it's, you know, it's the peace of God that when you get in situations like that, when you do have faith and you've been taught the fear never came, you know, I literally could hardly...
— Not a bunch of trash kind of start coming out of my mouth,
— Yeah, but the peace of it. And, you know, there's been several times in my life, um, a couple of times with the same guy where you're close to death because you know, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. And, but when you still have that Word in you, I had people praying for me, but that Word was instilled for me from a little kid. Even though I was doing things I shouldn't have been doing, God is still there. God is still working. God was still arrest that fear. Um, I probably could have used some more respect for things, you know, as far as machinery and all that. But when you teach that to your kids and they wander when... they may wander, when they get a little older...
— And instill that in them,
— Yeah, it's still there.
— He's still there. Even though it seems like they may not be listening and they're headed as fast as they can to hell. Those seeds are planted. They're planted in there and you pray for them and you love them. Um, you love them right where they are. You don't push them away. You don't tell them to get out of my house. You love them. If they're gone, how do you minister to them? You know, I wanted to leave when I was a teenager and I don't know if you wanted to get in all this, but I think somebody needs to hear it. It's a challenge when your kids with your kids to, to take your hands off and let God handle it because you feel like you need to help them and always bail them out. Um, mothers are notorious for enabling, right? And just bailing them out every time, bailing them out. But there's a place you come to that you have to just trust God, roll the care. And when you do that, it takes the... it takes the conflict away from you in that person. You and that child, right?
— No longer having to be the savior.
— Yes. And you're not beating them over the head and pushing them away because I wanted to be out. It was like, as soon as I graduated high school, I'm gone. I knew enough to know I needed to graduate high school. But dad came to me one day at 16 and he said, from this day forward, you're your own man. The decisions you make are yours. I will always be here for you. I love you. I will support you. If you get thrown in the deepest, darkest dungeon, that's the day I'll be working to get you out. You know, I was still in his house and I did not change right away. Um, this is, when we're talking about faith, this is faith on his part, trusting God that God's got me.
— There's a man that made just magnificent Bowie knives and he was making it for me. I said, "No, don't put KC on top of that. Put JC". He said, well, it's nice. I've already been offered 2,500 for it. Well, he and I like knives and knife collection thing. So I had it in a case and I said, "I want you to meet me in your mother's office". Well, that didn't sound good. So he came in there. I said, here, he opened that up and eyes just got big. I said, "John David, this is the token of the covenant between the two of us. I'm your dad only in the fact that your mother and I brought you into this world, but there's coming a day. Now we are brothers in Christ more than dad and son. And this is a token of this. And there's coming a day, one of these days when you're going to be working and taking care of me, that day has come". Amen. He doesn't work for the ministry. He works for me personally. That day has come.
— That started though, is that conversation you had with me then, because at that point I was not rebelling against you anymore. And that was my biggest issue was rebellion. You know, if you said you can do anything, just don't touch that cup. It's like, Oh my God, I got to touch that cup. Um, but once dad said, you're your own man, you make your own decisions. Um, I no longer was rebelling against him. And it was just at this point of rebellion against, you know, against God.
— I'll tell you what he said. I brought that up for this reason. How much time do we have Tim?
— Three minutes.
— Good. He, uh, he took that and he teared up a little bit. He said, "I'll get back to you. I want you to meet me". And so he, uh, we met, he began to confess things to me. Now, some of them I already knew about others I didn't. So I literally, as his dad, I became, well, the Word says we are kings and priests in our lives. I became a priest to him and it's nobody's business in this world, but Jesus, John and me. Because I preached the sermon about David and Goliath when he was four and I preached it from the book of Samuel because his name is John David after the fearless King. And I preached it to him. And he said, "Daddy, that was a long one". Well, that was the day I led him to the Lord that day and then didn't do anything to violate that down through the years. And I want to say this again to the radio and television audience, do not ask your children's permission. Now, listen, sweetheart, you put that down. Okay... Darling, you put it down. My folks discipline me because they love me. And my dad would say, "Kenneth, you do that again. I'm going to spank you". No, he'd say, I'm going to whip you. Not like this. Well, I did it again. He said, "You remember what I told you"?
— Yes, sir.
— It's coming. Kenneth, it's time. And I remember it today. And it was hard on my little hind end for a while to sit down... twice. Mother was a switcher. She'd take... get after my little legs and just go until the day I took her belt away from her. Listen, that Cherokee got on. She literally whipped me. She jumped right in the top of me. Well, Gloria threw a Perrier bottle at him one time and jumped over the couch. He ducked. Mama... she said, "You don't do that anymore".
— I deserved it. But my encouragement to your parents out there, love your kids, trust the fact that the seed is in there and the seed will come to fruition and trust and roll the care on God.
— Amen. All the time. And we're out of time. Hallelujah. Glory to God.