Kenneth Copeland - God's Way Of Doing Things
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Let's have a word of prayer, we'll get right into today's Bible lesson.
Father, we do praise You and thank You today. You are our Lord. You are our God. You are the rock of our salvation. And we give You praise, and we thank You today with all of our hearts, all of our souls, all of our mind, all of our strength. And by faith, we receive revelation from heaven today, and we're blessed. And we bless You, sir. In Jesus' name, amen.
Don't forget to download the free study notes. You hear me? Amen. KCM.org/notes, and you'll have it, and you can teach your Sunday class off of it, you can preach off of them. Hey, they're yours. Praise God. And let me explain to you... see, this is not live. We're recording this sometime before you get the broadcast.
So we have time to go... not "we". I don't do it. But we have people that do this. I'll tell you a story about that in a little bit. And they go through it, and they outline everything. And now, of course, that smart-aleck, George Pearsons, Pastor George, he does it all himself. I'm not going to do that, you understand me? There's a lot of stuff George does that I'm not going to do. Anyhow, I don't work that hard. Amen. I mean it. I really mean it. And they outline everything and any word of the Lord that comes and so forth. It'll all be in there. And so you'll have it, and you'll enjoy it. Praise God. And, of course, we don't charge you for anything on this broadcast. Amen.
Let's open our Bibles today to Isaiah 55. Now, let me give you the setting that this is in. I told you I'd tell you a story about that. My granddaughter, Rachel, was just a little girl. And she was about, oh, I don't know, 12 maybe. And she came and said, you know, they were doing a mission trip or something at the church. Said, "Papaw, you got something I could earn some money for my trip"? And I said, "Sure, Rachel. Come here". We were at the hangar. That's a big hangar. It was built by the government, well, the flooring and everything was built back there during World War II, and, of course, we got new buildings and all that. But it's big, you know. And it's got these 15-feet squares that just goes forever, looks like, to a little girl.
And I handed her a push broom. I said, "Now, Rachel, all you've got to do, baby, you know, just do it one square at a time, and it don't look so big". I said, "You just sweep this up like this, and you just sweep it up like that. And then if you've got time, you do another square. And tomorrow you come back and do another square". She was out there about 15 minutes. She came back in, she said, "Papaw, don't we have people that do this"? I said, "Yeah, you". Yeah, we got people that make those outlines. Amen. Praise God. She said... well, of course, amen.
Now, let me set the setting up for this in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows". So here is Jesus on the cross. Chapter 54 is the Spirit of God prophesying to the Body of Christ. Then you come into the 55th chapter, and it begins to talk about faith. It begins to talk about an "everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David". "Behold, thou shalt call a nation that knows not, nations that knew not thee shall run because of the Lord thy God, for the Holy One of Israel; he hath glorified thee. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near".
Now, this is describing God's ways of doing things. How does God do things? God is love, and He always does things by His Word, by His Spirit, and by faith. I had someone say to me one time... well, they didn't say it to me personally, but they said, "God doesn't have faith. He's the object of faith". If He didn't have faith, where do you think you got yours? See, He's everything, that's just religious ideas and so forth. But we know, from Mark 11:23, where the Scripture says, "Have the faith of God," Jesus said. Amen. So, anyway, God's way of doing things, the ways of love, the ways of the world, the ways of faith equal the ways of Jesus in the earth. Amen. Jesus, the Father, the Holy Ghost, same yesterday, today, and forever. It's you and me that need to do the changing. Okay? You follow me now?
All right. Now then, well, let's just go back here to Verse 6 in the 55th chapter of Isaiah. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near". Now, let me remind you of something that Jesus said, and He was talking about this right here. He said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall opened unto you". Now, if He'd have just stopped there, well, okay, what now? But He said, "Everyone that asks receives; everyone that seeks finds; everyone that knocks it shall be opened unto him".
Now, that just, "Well, uh". No, no, no. No, no, no, wait a minute. Don't ever drift off into religious traditional ideas. Remember this now: There's a difference between being religiously brainwashed and New Testament taught. What's number one? It's always by love, by faith, by the Word, and by the Spirit. Amen. Always. That's the way God does everything. That's the way Jesus did everything while He was on the earth. So when you go back to Scriptures like that, you ask, okay, "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering". "Seek, and you shall find". Seek the face of God where? In the Word. In the Word, always in the Word. "Believe you receive when you pray".
So you put those together... let me interrupt this right here with this because this is so important. Don't ever forget this. Write it down. Of course, you'll have the outlines, and mark it. I mean, highlight it, do whatever you need to do to really make this stand out, and think about this all the time and think about it all the time. It has to do with your prayer life, it has to do with everything. Find the promises of God that cover your situation, whether you're needing healing, you need your family restored, to be born again. I mean, whatever it is, financial, it's all in here. There's not anything in this world order that's not answered right here in this book.
Now, find the promise that covers your situation. Go to that promise, or promises. You need to be scripturally correct. "Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established". So, you don't just take a verse and twist it around and make it say whatever you want it to say. No, no, no, no. No. You search the Word. You search it by the Spirit of God. "Lord, show me where this is. Show me what to do". And you need to be doing your Bible study every day.
That's the reason it's very, very important to read the Word every day. And as you do, if you have a systematic way of reading the Bible, here's what's good about that, not only does it make you acquainted with the Bible, but as you go through, you say, "Lord, show me promises. Show me things and quicken these things to my spirit as I go through here". And as you're reading the Word, you come across a Scripture, you may not have read it that way before, but you think, "Uh, okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, I can see that. But now, Lord, help me now. I need a couple more at least to substantiate this". And He'll give you four or five, you know. Hey! There's 8.000 of them in here. You think you can find three? Glory to God. I mean it, that's how many promises. And the Scripture says, "In him his promises are Yes and Amen".
Now, this is what I wanted to get through to you in your prayer life. Don't be so quick to just start praying and throwing words around in every direction. Proverbs 4:7 says, "Wisdom is the principal thing". And you're going through here, you find that promise. "Well, Brother Copeland, I really don't know whether it's God's will to heal me or not". Well, that's a valid question if you don't know. If you don't know, you don't know. And like I said, religion has taught, you know, maybe He does, maybe He doesn't. He has three answers; "Yes," "No," and "Wait a while". That's a lie.
Now, it may have turned out that way for you or somebody else. But see, you don't know the ground you're on. When you find the promise, and/or a statement. See, "By his stripes ye were healed," that's not a promise, that's a fact. That is a Bible fact. He bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases on the same cross, on the same day that He bore our sins. Now, here's a point here. Let me get this to you. When I have that promise, it is "Yes" and "Amen," because He would not promise you something in His Word that's not His will to do for you. You catch that? Whoa, man, I'm telling you, "kchh," that'll load your gun, brother, when it comes to faith. Ah, yeah. You got your sword in your hand. The devil comes up and says, "It's not God's will to heal you at this time". "Shhh. Hold that, Satan". Amen. Just stick it in him and twist it. He'll get so where he don't want to run up on the end of that sword so much anymore. Let the Word fight its own fight.
Now that puts your prayer life on absolute solid rock ground of the Word of God. Now let me show you how to use that. I have a situation, and let's say, well, whatever the situation is, whether it's your family that's messed up or so forth, you find the problem, you find the answer. You find the problem right here in the Word and the answer to it. I'm thinking, well, we're right here, let's look at Isaiah 54. He's speaking to the Body of Christ, the 8th verse. "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For it is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee".
Now, there ain't no way God's mad at you. And most people don't know that verse is in the Bible. Everybody knows we ain't going to have another flood, but it's right there in the same verse. See, this is talking about after Jesus is raised from the dead. God's wrath is done away with. Glory to God. Jesus bore his wrath. There ain't no more wrath to come for those that know Him. Amen. That's good news.
Some of you got big-eyed and shouting happy right there because you thought God was mad you. "I know He's", Ah, come on, baby, put a smile on your face and look at Isaiah 54 in Verse 9. "This is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn", He made covenant, see, the rainbow covenant with Noah, "that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn", where? In the New Testament, the blood of Jesus, "that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, the hills shall be removed; but my kindness". "Kindness" right there, the word translated "kindness" is the Hebrew word "hesed". And it means covenant promise. It means there's blood behind this. It means God has sworn an oath here. He just got through saying, "I swore, My covenant". "But my covenant kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that has mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold".
Now, see, all of these are promises. Are you listening to me? These are answers to prayers. All of this is answer to prayer. That's the answer to that, that's what I've been asking God. That's what I've been asking God. Oh, glory to God, I got the answer. When I pray, from now on, I start with the answer. I just want to thank You that you're not wroth nor rebuking me. Glory to God". Now, He'll correct you, but He's not going to correct you with sickness or disease, and He's sure not going to beat you up. He's your Father. Amen.
Now, stay with me here. "Thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, not comforted, behold" "Look at here," He said. "I will lay your stones with fair colors, and lay your foundations with sapphires". Hey, it's prosperity time in the kingdom of God! Glory to God! Amen! "Well, Brother Copeland, that's when you get to heaven". "I will make your windows of agates, and your gates of carbuncles, and all your borders of pleasant stone. And all your children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness thou shalt be established: thou shall be far from oppression". There ain't no oppression in heaven. We're talking about right here on the earth. "Stones of fair colors, foundations with sapphires... and windows of agates, and gates of carbuncles, and all the borders of pleasant stone". Glory to God. He's talking about the laws that govern prosperity have been released in the kingdom of God when Jesus was raised from the dead. Hallelujah. Now listen, "All your children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of your children".
Gloria and I, back when our children were very small, I had noticed how Satan attacked children of ministers, pastors, anybody in the ministry. Man, I mean, the devil'd attack them and try to destroy that ministry, see, through the children. Now, and Gloria and I noticed that. And I said, "Father, I'm not having that. That's not going to happen with our children. We're not going to turn our children over to public schools. We're not going to turn them over to somebody to teach them there ain't no God, and we get home, and they're confused all the time". No, I'm not going to give the devil a shot at my children he ain't got coming.
And so we took those promises right there, and we went up to our prayer cabin. We stayed up there all one week, and we got our Bibles up in the middle of the bed. And every Scripture, every promise we could find that had anything to do with children, that had anything to do with family, that had anything to do with any of it, and we wrote it all down, and we prayed, praise God. All of us love one another. Glory to God! Hallelujah! Amen! Why? "Yes" and "Amen," not "Yes," "No," "Wait a while".
See, that comes from an attempt... I'm talking about good people, you understand? But still don't understand the laws that govern these things. So, now listen to me. That comes from an attempt to answer spiritual problems with the understanding or the carnal mind. It doesn't work. And then when you don't get anything, "Well, maybe it wasn't God's will. I guess not, or He'd have done it". You understand that? But what we're doing here, we're breaking it down step by step to do it His way, the love way, the faith way, the Word way, and the Holy Spirit way. It's in the realm of the Spirit.