Kenneth Copeland - Jesus Promises Your Prayers Will Be Answered
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Aren't you glad you're here? Hallelujah. Yes, amen. As you can tell, the wild bunch is still here. Oh, these are partners that have come in from all over the country, and this is a for-television meeting. In other words, I don't have to sit in the studio and stare at that camera. You'd be surprised, looking at that one hole hour after hour, amen. But there's faces in here. Hey, hallelujah. Glory to God.
Thank You, Lord, for Your Word. We thank You and praise You tonight. We come before the Word with expectant hearts. It is the Word of the living almighty God. And it is the Word of freedom, the perfect law of liberty. And when the Son has set you free, you are free indeed. And we thank You, Lord Jesus. We open our hearts and minds to receive revelation from heaven, and we give You praise and honor and glory and ascribe all the praise to the wonderful name of Jesus. Amen.
Glory to God. Let's open our Bibles tonight to John, Chapter 15, please. Week before last, we began this study with the fundamentals of faith. Now, why would we do that? Because the Scripture says, "Above all, taking the shield of faith..." All of the whole armor of God, we're going to look at some of that tonight. But the whole armor of God, all of its pieces, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, well, we got into righteousness last night. But all of it functions by faith. Amen. Now, we talked about the fundamentals of faith, and then last week, we talked about hindrances to faith. And, I got home last night, and, of course, you know, I have a tendency to go to bed and Gloria and I preach to one another, and then I don't sleep. I keep preaching myself, and so many things that I wanted to say last night, but we'll get them there next session because we'll keep records of this, and then we'll just take this right on.
Now let me give you a word of wisdom, not from God, from me, okay? You better find out when the next one of these is and get you some reserve, some reservations, because the word is out on us. The word's out on us, amen, about what's happening in these sessions. And next year about this time, Kenneth Copeland Bible College will be almost one year old. And the news of that's going to get out. Amen. So I suggest you get your hotel room or whatever it takes because this place is going to be jammed out the next time we come together around the Word like this. Amen. That's good, too. Now then, tonight we're talking about prayer that brings results.
Now, we don't have time to go through the entire list of seven. That doesn't mean that's the only seven there is. But they're laid out in a way... now, let me remind you again, those of you that have the Kenneth Copeland Reference Edition Bible, that my outlines, not all of them, but the main basic outlines are in the front of this Bible. And the "Seven Steps to Prayer That Bring Results" are in there. Now, the wording is a little bit different in a few them because I have learned a thing or two since the first time I did these things. Amen. Now, prayer that brings results, I started to tell you this. That's the reason it's called steps. If you will be diligent to these steps, they will bring results 100 percent of the time. Amen.
Now, in John 15:7, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you". What is it you don't understand about that? Huh? The Master said that. "Well, you just", no, don't start crying and whining around. Just say, "Yes, Lord, I believe every word of it. Now teach me what to did with it". Amen.
Let me tell you something. Well, I don't have time to get in there. Got to get into this. Let's read it again. "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall done unto you". I want you to notice and pay careful attention to the word "will". "You" are in this verse five times. Let's look at it again. You and your will. "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you". Five times. So, it's more up to you and to me getting our prayers answered than it is up to God. He has provided ways and means for us to receive from Him. He's already provided that. He is not holding out. That's religious tradition and all. It's just a lack of knowledge of His Word and lack of knowledge of Him. He's not the God that religion has painted. No, He's not at all.
And, "Well, you know, you know, sometimes He says, 'No,' and sometimes He says, 'Yes,' and sometimes He says, 'Wait a while.'" Would you show me in there anywhere it said, "Wait a while"? It's not in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it's not in the book of Acts, it's nowhere in the New Testament. Not one apostle, not one Christian, not one praying person in the New Testament ever told anybody they had to wait any time to receive something from God. That is natural thinking, and everybody in here has been guilty of it. Don't misunderstand me. I'm talking about good people that just don't know any better. That's the natural carnal mind trying to answer spiritual problems, and it can't handle Spirit. Your brain don't know nothing about Spirit. Your mind knows nothing about spiritual things until it gets them from the Word of God and becomes renewed. Amen? You follow me here now?
All right. You remember what John 16:23 says? Turn over there and look at it. You're just next door. John 16:23, "And in that day", what day is he talking about? He's talking about the day after He is risen from the dead. The Holy Spirit has come. He has been glorified, and the Church is born. That's the day he's referring to. And it was right around the corner. They didn't know it, but he did. Now, look at it again. Oh, this will make you run around the block. "And in that day, you shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily I say unto you, Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you". He said, "You don't have to come to me to get it. Go to Him yourself. In My name". Present your case "in My name". And why? What's the reason for this? Well, "Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full". He fully intended for your prayers to be answered.
All right, let's go to the book of Matthew, and we'll look in the 21st chapter of Matthew and the 22nd verse. Jesus said, "And all...", how many? 90 percent? 98 percent? "...all things, whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive". Now, that's the mouth of three witnesses already. Okay, let's go back to where we began week before last, Mark 11:24. "Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them". Hallelujah.
I tell you, folks, this is good news. This is good news. But, I'll tell you this: It's hard work. You're not working at praying. That's not work at all. That's a joy. But you're going to have to spend some time in the Book. I'm not talking about the little promise card that you grab right before you go out of the joint and then stick it back in the... ah, no, no. That ain't going to get it. No, no, no. Huh-uh, nope, nope. Thank You, Jesus. But let's see what I'm supposed to do today. Let's see. "And thou shall", what? "Thou shall do likewise". What? Oh, I know. I know how to do this. I know how to do this. "And Judas hung himself". No, no, no! That's not the way you go about doing it. Oh, glory to God. Thank You, Lord.
Now, step number one, decide what you want from your heavenly Father. Prioritize. Be specific. I remember Brother Hagin saying that in this whole thing I learned from him. And he said, there was a period of time he purposely ran polls, and he preached in churches all the time. And they were all Full Gospel churches, but back in those days, it was practiced that when a message is over with, everybody that wanted to would come down around the altar benches and get on your knees and pray and pray in the Spirit and so forth, which was a good practice. I'd like to see us get back to more of that today. But anyway, and he would just say, "Uh, what are you praying about"? And they'd say, "Well, nothing in particular". He said, "Well, that's what you're going to get". "What scripture you standing on"? "Mm, none in particular". Not specific, see.
Well, there's nothing wrong with just praying in the Spirit, but you need to have some purpose in it. Just take one word, "He that prays in an unknown tongue edifies himself". He's talking about your spirit man, not talking about your body or your mind. And also you can take a scripture out of the book of Isaiah, and "I will speak to this people in another tongue". And "This is the rest". You can just rest your mind praying in the Spirit. Just lie down and just pray, and your mind'll start dancing... no, no. And you can just close your eyes and say, "I'm focusing on the face of Jesus". And then your mind goes dancing around, you say, "No, no, no, no, no, no. No, come on, get back in here, get back". You may have to do that over and over and over and over and over a while until your mind begins to quiet down. That's good because when you pray an hour, hour and a half a day in tongues, you have time to do that. And you have time to pray an hour, hour and a half in tongues, you just don't know it yet. If you don't, you're too busy. Amen.
Now, what do I mean by being specific and prioritize? "Father, you know how bad I need a new car. This thing, this thing, Lord, it is on its last legs. I just, I need a car". "Well, what kind of car"? "Uh". "Huh? What kind of car do you want"? "Well, I can't afford much". Go on and drive your old wreck. We know you can't afford much. That's why you're on your knees, right? God never asked you to pray for it, He told you to believe for it. So you start praying about the car. You start praying about not "a" car, "the" car. Begin to prioritize.
Well, what's the mission? "Well, I have to do this, I have to do that. I'm... I know..." See, you'll have to take some time. Take some quality time. Take a weekend and just pray in the Spirit and take James, Chapter 1, and believe for His wisdom. I Corinthians 1:30, Jesus is made unto us wisdom, sanctification, righteousness. He's made unto you wisdom. He knows about cars. He cares about cars. He knows how to fix a clutch. Girls, he knows more about cooking than anybody. And, men, he knows more about cooking than anybody. I mean to tell you. See, quit trying to figure so much stuff out by yourself. What you figured out's got you in this mess in the first place. Take the time, well, I tell you what I really do need, but this thing is so far, just shut that up. If you can get it yourself, it brings no glory to God. Well, you thank Him for it, of course. But you're talking about situations, things that you can't do by yourself. Amen.
Prioritize. Take time to listen to Him. We were a million dollars behind in the ministry a number of years ago. I've got just time enough to finish this, and we'll go on tomorrow. And so I went up to our prayer cabin in Arkansas, and I got up there, I said, "God, I need a million dollars". And it sounds like it was about 10 minutes, but I went up there to fast and pray on James, Chapter 1, the wisdom of God. I've never done it three days without getting the answer, not one time in 51 years. But, you know, by faith, you understand?
And just right at the end of my time, I heard this just as plain. "God, I need a million dollars"! He said, "No, you don't". I said, "Well, you could have fooled me"! "No, You don't need a million dollars". I said, "What do I need"? He said, "You have a spiritual problem in your ministry. I told you to do something several years ago, and you almost did it, but you let it slip. If I gave you a million dollars today, that same problem would eat it up, and you would still be a million dollars behind". The minute He said it, it just flashed across my mind. I knew what it was. I came back home. We corrected it, and I'm telling you, the money just come jumping in there. Almost overnight. Yeah, you can give the Lord praise for that.