Kenneth Copeland - How Faith Becomes Second Nature
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome to the Believers Voice of Victory broadcast and welcome to Kenneth Copeland Bible College. Praise the Lord. Let's give the Lord a hand here. Praise God. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. This is the first time for us to actually... Well, of course we taped the very first morning class, but today is actual class. You're gonna sit in on it today, so you behave yourself, now, you understand? You're in school again this morning. Thank you, Lord. We're going to be talking about the fundamentals of faith. Of course, we'll open our Bibles in Mark 11:22. Of course, this same account is recorded in Matthew and in Luke, but Mark's teaching, Mark's recording of it, rather, is so detailed that, of course, we use it, then, as our basic theme when studying the fundamentals of faith.
Now, if you're actually studying, if you're actually seeing the fundamentals of faith, then you should see it consistently throughout the Bible anywhere there was a miracle, anywhere God manifests Himself, because faith is gonna be involved. Amen. Now, let me remind you of something else. It's impossible to please God without faith, right? Well, that means that Jesus did everything He did by faith. Everything. All of His life. Now, He never did a miracle, never preached a message, 'til He was 30 years old and until He was baptized in water and baptized with the Holy Spirit and power. Never did any miracle, never preached a sermon, but He lived by faith. Everything you see Him do, He said, "The words that I speak unto you, they're not my own. It is the Father that dwells within me. He does the works. Then," He said, "I only say what I hear my Father say. I only do what I see my Father do".
God is a faith God and Jesus is a faith Jesus because God and Jesus are one. Total, absolute, complete agreement. Alright, now let's begin reading with Mark 11:22. "Jesus, answering, saith unto them, 'Have faith in God,'" or the cross-reference says, "Have the faith of God," "'for verily I say unto you that whosoever,'" this is a word for anybody, right? "'Whosoever shall'", Yeah, thank you, Lord. That's the reason it's a basic fundamental. It isn't a fundamental if it doesn't work for everybody. We'll see why in just a moment. "'Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, "Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea" and shall not doubt in his heart or in his inner man, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. When you stand praying, forgive if you have ought against any, that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses.'"
Hold your place there 'cause we'll be coming back by there and look at the third chapter of the book of Romans. Now, when you realize, I think most people just... think that the spiritual world is just a free-for-all place where God just did anything He wanted to do. Do you know most people have the idea that Jesus just came into town and just healed everybody to prove He's God? Well, if He did, He really blew it in His hometown, then, 'cause He got run out of town. No, see, the principles of faith had to be in operation. What did He do? He taught and He preached and then He healed. He taught, ninth chapter of Matthew. He taught and He preached and He healed. If we get this far today, we'll see that when He was at home that day and the men broke open the roof. One account says that He taught the word, the other account said that He preached the word. Which is right? Both.
Folks, you have to understand that He's not like us. We're like Him. When we are teaching and we get excited, we preach a while. Amen. We read that like that whole thing happened in probably 30 minutes. Listen, I have never preached for three days without stopping and then let anybody eat, but Jesus did. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Now, see, I've already done it this morning. I'm gonna get back here where I belong now. Alright, good. Third chapter of Romans, verse 27. "Where is boasting, then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith". Faith functions according to spiritual laws. Let's look at Romans 8. "There is, therefore now, no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walked not after the flesh but after the Spirit". Look, now. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death".
The laws of the Spirit govern life and death. Now, once you learn and once you function in the laws of faith, they become your way of life. I liken this to, since I spent a lot of my life flying airplanes, I had to learn the basic fundamentals, but you still use the fundamentals every day all the time. The more of it you do, the more second nature they are to you. There are certain laws of lift you just don't violate. I don't have to stop and go through drag and thrust and all of that and come up with the law of lift. I'm just not gonna stall this thing. But I have to function on those laws. I have to think that way. When you realize you're thinking according to the laws of faith, you also instinctively know they are the same laws that govern fear. Exactly the same, because they are the same force, but they're reciprocal of one another. Alright. You following me so far? Okay, good.
Now, then, we know we're dealing with spiritual laws. Spiritual law created the law of physics. Amen. The spirit realm was first. The natural, material realm came to being by God exercising the fundamentals of faith. Amen. Alright, number one, believe it in your heart, then say it with your mouth. All faith is based on that. That is the foundation platform, if you will, upon which faith is fixed. Now, everything we add to that, you could say, the next block to that foundation, but this is where it begins. You know, let's go back over there now to Mark 11 and... I wanna read through that very carefully. "Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, 'Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea' and shall not doubt in his heart, but believe that those words which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith".
The first act of faith is to believe in your words. Your words. It's necessary to know and to understand and instinctively know that all of my words are important. Everything. Because I'm gonna stand judgment for even the idle stuff. Amen? We know from the 12th chapter of Matthew that we are justified by our words and we're condemned by our words. Amen. Alright, now, let's look at Romans 10:10. "For with the heart," remember Jesus said, "And believe in his heart that those things which he said will come to pass, he'll have whatsoever he saith". "For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation". Make you a side note here. Confession brings possession. Confession brings possession.
2 Corinthians 4:13. "We, having the same Spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed and therefore have I spoken. We also believe and therefore speak". What you say is your faith speaking, because whatever you say, you say all the time what you believe. I say all the time what I believe. I mean, even when we're just having conversations, you don't stand there and say things to someone else you don't believe. Duh. I mean, that's just the way the system works. The human thing, the human being created in the likeness of God, hallelujah. In the Chumash, a statement is made by one of the sages. I've forgotten now which one it was. He said that "man was created in the likeness of God, a living, speaking spirit". That says it, doesn't it? Think about that's who you are and that's who I am, a living, speaking spirit. Man, goosebumps just get double parked on that one. Say, "I am a living, speaking spirit like God".
Now, that's the reason Jesus would say these things to us in Mark 11 is because He's saying, "Have the faith of God". We qualify. We can do these things. He wasn't talking to some kind of people that are superhuman or beyond us. No, they're just people like us. We're just people like them. Amen. But He's talking to spirit beings. The primary use and function, or I'll say it the other way, primary function and use of words is not communication. That's secondary. The primary function and use of words is power-release. See, God was not communicating to Jesus when He said, "Let us make man in our image". He was speaking. Amen. He was releasing power. "Man, be. Light, be". Amen. Let's go. I mentioned this earlier, the 12th chapter of Matthew. Let's go there quickly.
I remember when I first realized what this was saying. I was still a student there at Oral Roberts University and, of course, when I went there I was Scripture-illiterate, but I had some basic knowledge of the word, but not anything in the way of revelation much. But I remember this, my goodness. Look at this 37th verse, "For by thy words shalt thou be justified or made right with God, and by thy word shalt thou be condemned". Amen. You know, most people think it's by your actions. That's not what that said. The dirty deed is not what condemns you, it was your words that condemned you. Well, tell me it isn't true. The power of death and life are in the tongue, isn't that true? The 18th chapter of Proverbs? Of course it is. Now, what did it mean when it said, "The power of death and life are in the power of the tongue"?
If you'll research that a little bit, it's in the hand of the tongue. Now, I might come to you and I'll say, "Look, I need you to do this and do this and do that. Are we on the same page"? "Yes, sir". "Okay, I'm putting this in your hands". Then it goes ahead to say, "They that love it will eat the fruit thereof". Whichever one you're saying it, actually if you'll check that out in the Amplified, they that continually practice it, I believe that's the way it puts it, that's what they get. You continually talk death and be carnally minded as death, well, however minded you are is what you say because your words are an expression of your mind. They should be an expression of your spirit, but most people speak out of their mind all the time and not their spirit. That's another subject, but it's a good one.
Now, I wanna look at this same account in the sixth chapter of Luke because of the detail here. Just as a reminder, Luke, his writings, are documentary. He questioned people. He talked to people. Instead of just being right there like Matthew and John, he gained knowledge from other people. That's the reason we have such detail in some of his accounts, particularly when he says a man was full of leprosy. He did a thorough diagnosis of the man and he's full-stage. Alright, what'd you say, Tim? How much time we got? Okay. I'll just read this one and then we'll take it up here tomorrow.
In Luke 6:43, "A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither does a corrupt tree bringeth forth good fruit, for every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns, men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush do they gather grapes". You don't get healing from talking sickness. Alright. You're not expressing faith with words full of fear. It's one or the other. Amen. "A good man out of the good treasure or the deposit of his heart bringeth forth that which is good. An evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil. For of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks". Whatever is in there in abundance is what's gonna come out.
Now, we may be able to stand in one place and just stand there and talk faith and it just sounds really good, you know, and sounding really good, but you leave, you go get in your car and you drive out the parking lot, somebody blindsides you and t-bones your car. What's gonna come out your mouth then? Faith or something else? Depends on what's in there in abundance. It's not what's in your head, it's what inside your spirit. Saved or unsaved, that's what's gonna come out of your mouth. Amen. Praise the Lord. Alright, you get anything out of this today? Praise the Lord. Amen.