Kenneth Copeland - It's Not Over in China Until We Win
Kenneth Copeland: Welcome everybody to the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. I'm Kenneth Copeland, and that's Marilyn Hickey. I'm thrilled that she's here, and I'm glad that you're here. Let's go.
Marilyn Hickey: Let's go. Let's go for it! Let's go!
Kenneth Copeland: We haven't got long enough to do what we want to do. I want to read this Scripture Marilyn Hickey.
Marilyn Hickey: Yes sir.
Kenneth Copeland: I remember the first time we were... back in those days, our meetings were two or three weeks at a time. And we came back and my office hadn't... I didn't have an office. My dad was helping me in his office. I walked in, and he just handed me a little... Most young people don't know what these are, but it was a little strip out of a calculator. A paper strip out of a calculator. $5000 and it was red and he just handed that to me. So I walked into his office, and I turned his chair around and got on my knees and put my Bible up in his chair. And I turned to this scripture. And in that day you shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily... You get too verilys, it means to listen up. Verily, verily I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the father in my name, he will give it you. And then I went to the Amplified. Whatever you ask and believe it's... No whatever you ask in my name, it will be granted you.
Marilyn Hickey: Yeah.
Kenneth Copeland: I've thought, this is a heavenly grant of $5000. And then I flipped over to Mark 11:23 and 24. Glory to God. I believe it's granted. I believe, I receive it. It's mine. That $5000 just come jumping in there, and I thought... This is a bird's nest on the ground. Glory to God. This the easiest thing I ever saw in my life, I think I said, "Gloria, we can take this and the agreement scripture, we can do anything God calls us to do". And we did. Amen! And I want to hear about you're asking God to give you China and taking Bibles into China. I'm especially interested in this because I've been there and I want to... When was that? When did you go there?
Marilyn Hickey: I first would have gone, Oh my goodness. Probably I want to say in the '80s? '88, '89 someplace in there.
Kenneth Copeland: I went in the '80s.
Marilyn Hickey: Yeah. So I had such a passion for China because when I would pray over China, I just had a heat in my heart. And so I met a man who did Bibles out of Hong Kong into China. So I began to help him with Bibles, and then I wanted to go to the underground church. See, this is Mao Zedong. All of that mess with Communism is so bad. And so he said, "I can get you in, but you know, it's not going to be a real soft spot". So I went to another province, and they smuggled me in. So I wore a scarf because they had a lot of Russians, and so that I had to cover my hair and look like a Russian. So I went in, and they had 150 pastors who came in to be taught the word. Now Kenneth, they spit on the floor. I mean, some of these things people think are such a picnic. It's not the Ritz Carlton. And so they would spit on the floor. So then somebody came into read the meter, in the house, and they didn't want them to see us. So I had our assistant pastor with us, and I said, "Get on the floor". Who wants to get on the floor? They're blowing their nose on the floor. They're spitting on the floor, but what do you do? You get it on the floor!
Kenneth Copeland: You get on the floor, that's what you do.
Marilyn Hickey: Right. And they didn't catch us there, but it was one of the most unique experiences of my life because a woman had just gotten out of prison, and her face glowed like Moses. And they threw her in prison for passing out Christian literature, praying with people and so on. And so they put her in there. And so they tried to shock her, and she wouldn't shock. So then they tried to starve her and she gained weight, and she won the whole prison.
Kenneth Copeland: All glory to God!
Marilyn Hickey: To Christ. I have a picture...
Kenneth Copeland: People need to understand this too, Marilyn, they counted a badge of honor to go to prison.
Marilyn Hickey: They do.
Kenneth Copeland: They don't count this as a wrongdoing.
Marilyn Hickey: No, they don't.
Kenneth Copeland: And they just met. And this is an opportunity like what Marilyn was saying, this is an opportunity to preach. It's an opportunity to do miracles. And the people that we were with, the man that was responsible for bringing us there, not too long after we were there, he went to prison and he won his appeal and they kept him in prison. He won his appeal again, and they kept him in prison. He won his appeal again, and they kept him in prison. He didn't care, just keep preaching. And finally they just finally figured out, we need to get rid of him.
Marilyn Hickey: Because he's getting the prison saved.
Kenneth Copeland: Yeah! And so I got a call from him, and they don't use that... And I never knew his name. They took Biblical names so that people don't know who they are. And he called me and he said, "Brother Copeland. This is John". I said, "John, how wonderful to hear your voice. Where in the world are you"? He said, "I'm in Dallas. I'm going to Christ for the Nations". These people believe, God, I'm telling you, you just show them something in the Bible, they take it. Hallelujah!
Marilyn Hickey: And we smuggled thousands and thousands of Bibles in because they didn't have Bibles, and they would take pages out and hand copy them to have a part of the Bible. I mean that kind of thing turned me on. But I believe right now in China is one of the biggest revivals going on, and it's probably all underground. I don't know. I think the Three-Self church that the government approves of, they have Christians. No question. They're born again Christians. Also they have spirit filled Christians in them. I don't know how the government is with them now, but I tell people, pray for China, pray for India, because these are the largest countries in the world. So pray over them because if you want to get them, most people saved, get the biggest nation with a revival. I love China. I've probably been in China 29 times.
Kenneth Copeland: Oh my.
Marilyn Hickey: Oh, I love China.
Kenneth Copeland: Oh my, praise God.
Marilyn Hickey: Yeah, I told you I'm yellow inside.
Kenneth Copeland: Yeah.
Marilyn Hickey: But we started early and see, I think again, process with God. You start praying over nations because I got her on Freda Lindsay. Then pretty soon God begins to send you to one of them, and then pretty soon he begins to use you in one of them, financially, and all those things go with it. But I have to tell you something hilarious. The first time I went to Pakistan, I was lacking $30,000, and I stopped in Indonesia. I was invited to speak there, spoke at a church, didn't tell anybody anything. I'm getting ready to leave. The next day they're taking me the airport to go to Pakistan. I'm lacking 30,000, and so, I'm sitting in the lobby waiting for them to pick me up. And a man was there, a businessman, and he was Chinese, but he spoke English, and he said to me, "What are you doing"? I said, "I'm going to Pakistan. I'm going to have a healing meeting". And he looked at me, now remember, I don't know this man. He said, "Do you have enough money"? And I thought, I don't know this man. I said, "Well, I'm lacking 30,000". "Well," he said, "You're not now". And he opened a briefcase and gave me $30000.
Kenneth Copeland: Praise God, Marilyn.
Marilyn Hickey: Now this about God is so last minute that it's scary, but sometimes he is last minute.
Kenneth Copeland: Well, you know, Gloria was reading just a couple of days ago, some things to me out of the book that we published on John G Lake's life.
Marilyn Hickey: Oh man.
Kenneth Copeland: And this is what they experienced back there then, when there were no communications like we have now, but if God said go, you just go ,and you standing there on the dock without enough money to get, without enough money to get in the country, and somebody walks up with it. But you don't say, "Well just as soon as I get the money, I'll go". You'll lose it like that. It just doesn't work that way, Marilyn.
Marilyn Hickey: No, but what it does, your faith is so precious. It talks about precious faith. So you go back, and you rehearse what he did back there?
Kenneth Copeland: Yes.
Marilyn Hickey: And he did this there, and he's supplied this there, and he opened this door here. And so you rejoice in what he has done. So what he's going to do now, so I want to tell you about Pakistan. They get so ugly with me when I go back there to get VISAs. So you know, I've got to have the visa cause I've got to leave on Sunday, and they haven't given it to me on Friday. I've had people there earlier to get the visa. Well we'll get it, we'll get it. But they don't get it. So here it is Saturday, and I'm to leave, and the place is closed, and they called at 2:30 and said, "We're going to open and give you the visa". Do we always have to do things last minute? And most of my visas on these real serious places have come at the last minute.
Kenneth Copeland: Isn't that something?
Marilyn Hickey: Yeah.
Kenneth Copeland: We've had experience with it.
Marilyn Hickey: You've had that too. You understand?
Kenneth Copeland: Not as serious as it is in those Middle Eastern countries, but in South American countries and you run into that kind of thing.
Marilyn Hickey: If you're going to do something, you're going to walk in faith. But I have found this personally, you go from faith to faith.
Kenneth Copeland: Faith to faith.
Marilyn Hickey: Faith to faith. There are some countries I'm praying over, I have not been able to do anything in, like Iran. Those are Shiite Muslims, and they just say, "No, you're not going to do it". But I am. Before I die, I will have a healing meeting in Iran with an imam.
Kenneth Copeland: Amen. Glory to God, I believe that.
Marilyn Hickey: Yes! Why not? If we don't believe for these things, we'll never get them.
Kenneth Copeland: I agree with that in the name of Jesus.
Marilyn Hickey: Thank you.
Kenneth Copeland: You know what reminds me of Oral Roberts again.
Marilyn Hickey: Yes.
Kenneth Copeland: I mean there wouldn't be enough money there. And because Oral operated the same way as we did. I mean money just came through the ministry. It did. It just flowed through, and the Lord would talk to him about building a building. He never waited till he had the money. He'd go dig a hole. He had money enough to dig a hole, dig the hole. If you didn't have money enough to dig the hole, dig a little hole, start something. I remember, Marilyn, we were on our way to the venue in Oklahoma city and I was driving and he, as you know, he never spoke to anybody on a meeting.
Marilyn Hickey: I know.
Kenneth Copeland: It's very quiet in the car. We're just driving along and, and I've never seen... I never could read in a car. I just, I gotta look outside. He'd get in the car and do this. I mean immediately would, and all of a sudden he said, "Kenneth"! I jumped about that high. He said, "People will always tell you you can't do it". He said, "Find out the will of God, then confer no longer with flesh and blood and get your job done at any cost". Then picked up his Bible and went to reading again. I'm going, "One, two, three... I've got to remember this. As fast as we got there, I wrote it all down. But that's the key. You go into the word, and you pray, and you seek God and you begin to find out, I'm supposed to go there. I'm supposed to go to Pakistan. Now you don't jump up and do something bold without knowing that. You don't do that, and you don't go asking people if you ought to go to Pakistan. They'll all tell you. Of course not. They'll kill you over there. But when you find out that's God's will, then they can't kill you. And if they do kill you, you're a martyr. So what do you care?
Marilyn Hickey: That's what I tell the Lord.
Kenneth Copeland: Then that's when you dig the hole, because you've got the word of God, then you get it done at any cost. Glory to God!
Marilyn Hickey: Right, right, right. If you walk by what you see, you'll hang it up. And if you walk by timing, you know, like with Sarah. I didn't get pregnant until I was in my mid thirties. All the doctors said you can't have a baby. So if you walk by that, it's just not going to be.
Kenneth Copeland: No, it never would have happened.
Marilyn Hickey: You just walk in faith, and I think...
Kenneth Copeland: Fear is the enemy.
Marilyn Hickey: Yeah. It is. It's the big enemy.
Kenneth Copeland: I'm thinking about your situation and the average woman would've said, "Hey, I'm running out of time here. Well, I just guess it wasn't God's will". It costs you. She would have never been born.
Marilyn Hickey: Yeah.
Kenneth Copeland: You don't quit when you know the will of God.
Marilyn Hickey: Exactly. And be careful who you listen to. You need to stay around faith people. There are people that I can go to and say, "I'm believing to go into this nation. I'm believing they have this many people". They'll believe, but there are people who would say, "You're getting too old to travel. What's your problem"? And they'll say to me, "When are you going to retire"? And I say, "I am retired". "What do you mean? You travel all the time"? I said, "Retiring is doing what you like".
Kenneth Copeland: Yeah, that's right. You retired years ago.
Marilyn Hickey: Exactly. Exactly. So I think claiming nations and faith things, it was a process. I didn't jump from one big place to another big place. It just took time to take a little, take a little, take a little. And even with television and media, now we have so many other ways that we can get to people to, that it is just out of this world. So you're constantly looking for more ways to reach people because God loves people.
Kenneth Copeland: That's it.
Marilyn Hickey: And I think again, how to win? You don't give up. Thanks be unto God, who always...
Kenneth Copeland: Always!
Marilyn Hickey: It's not over until I win, and I haven't won yet! So I'm gonna win.
Kenneth Copeland: Glory to God!
Marilyn Hickey: Right.
Kenneth Copeland: Hallelujah.
Marilyn Hickey: So when we look at the world now and the opportunities that we have now to reach people, so I'm going to go back to something in Hungary. Because people are going to say, "Oh well you don't do anything in Europe". Yes I do. But I remember, this is a long time ago. Sarah would have been young, maybe five, six years old. And a man sent me a letter. I didn't know him from Joe Schmoe and he said, "If I could get you into Hungary to do a Bible encounter, taking people through the Bible seeing Jesus, would you go"? And so I didn't know this man, and I haven't traveled that much. And so I prayed about it. And so I felt like God said yes. So I said yes, I would go. So he said, "Well, I have to contact the pastors. They're under Communists". So he writes back and said, "They said no, they don't want you to come". I said, "Well, ask them again because I still feel led to go". Faith is stubborn. So they said, "She asks you to pray about it again". They said okay. So then they did and they said, okay, you can come. So I came, and this was under Communism, and we had 700 people who came.
Kenneth Copeland: Praise God!
Marilyn Hickey: And a lot of people got saved that came in that timing and got spirit-filled. Now listen, now they have a church of 180,000.
Kenneth Copeland: Praise God! Yes ma'am!
Marilyn Hickey: One of the biggest churches in the world, but look at the process. If they had invited me at 180,000 , I would have thought, wonderful! But you have to think, wonderful when it's 700.
Kenneth Copeland: Just because you get the opportunity to go.
Marilyn Hickey: Exactly.
Kenneth Copeland: That's where the excitement comes.
Marilyn Hickey: Exactly. And seeing the people that were saved and of course they became real good friends. So I got...
Kenneth Copeland: You always run the risk of a reputation of being a real pushy woman. I am!
Marilyn Hickey: I am. I don't doubt it, yeah.
Kenneth Copeland: When you know, when you know.
Marilyn Hickey: Right, right.
Kenneth Copeland: That isn't pushy, you just don't take no for an answer when you have an assignment.
Marilyn Hickey: God wants you to go.
Kenneth Copeland: An assignment, and you're in my business is a mandate.
Marilyn Hickey: Yeah, that's good. I like that.
Kenneth Copeland: You have to do it. And so I don't care who thinks I'm pushy. I'll be smiling about it and nice about it, but I'm not going to quit until I get in there.
Marilyn Hickey: No. Same here.
Kenneth Copeland: And the more you do that- now, if you do that and you don't get results, then you're pushy. You're just a stubborn old man that is wanting his own way. But when you know what you're called to do and you're supposed to do it there, and you have a job to do there, then you begin to press, and you're going to get maybe one no after another, but you just keep pressing. You just keep pressing, and that door will open one way or another. Then when the results come, you're no longer pushy.
Marilyn Hickey: Yeah, then you're wonderful.
Kenneth Copeland: Oh yes. Isn't it wonderful at it? And before it was, that's a pushy old man.
Marilyn Hickey: My husband thought I could do anything. I mean, I think that's such a wonderful thing. He never said, "I don't want you doing that". You know? But let me tell you something funny. When I would come home from these big trips, he never wanted to hear about the meeting first. He would say, "We're out of groceries. You know, you need to do the laundry". And then he'd want to know about the meeting.
Kenneth Copeland: Then he wanted to know about the meeting! That's cute.
Marilyn Hickey: Interesting how the process of your mate and your family, now here is Sarah. She has such a heart for missions. Bangladesh especially. Now, Isabel, my granddaughter, she has a heart for missions. So she said, "Mimi, God is calling me to go with you". I said, "I didn't know it". "Well," she said, "I'm telling you".
Kenneth Copeland: Pushy little granddaughter.
Marilyn Hickey: Pushy little granddaughter! Where'd she get that anyway?
Kenneth Copeland: Thank God she is.
Marilyn Hickey: Yeah.
Kenneth Copeland: Isn't that wonderful?
Marilyn Hickey: So we affect our children. They talk about generation blessing. See what is on the head is going to come down.
Kenneth Copeland: Absolutely so.
Marilyn Hickey: And maybe... I have a son, we have an adopted son that just out of sync, got into drugs, everything. But now his family are getting in sync. Takes a long time.
Kenneth Copeland: But you don't give up.
Marilyn Hickey: You don't give up. It's not over till you win. And so I went back to see them. They're back in Ohio, and really had a good time. And I'm on the way home on the plane. I'm crying. I said, "Oh God, you're so good. You're so wonderful". I'm crying. And he said, "Why are you crying? You prayed every day". We don't give up.
Kenneth Copeland: No, you don't.
Marilyn Hickey: We play until we win.
Kenneth Copeland: You pray until you win.
Marilyn Hickey: Right.
Kenneth Copeland: And we're out of time.