Kenneth Copeland - God's Prescription For Healing
KENNETH: Hello, everybody. We're Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, and this is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast.
Father, we thank You today for Your Word. We thank You for sending Jesus to be our Savior and our healer, our baptizer with the Holy Spirit, and our soon-coming king. Glory to God. And we thank You and praise You with all of our hearts today, in Jesus' name.
GLORIA: Praise God.
KENNETH: Amen.
GLORIA: Amen.
KENNETH: Hallelujah. Now then, we are here, as we said earlier, in Southwest Arkansas. Gloria was born just two miles up the road here. And not long after we were married, her grandad and grandmama gave us four acres right around here, and then the kids were just little guys. And I was telling some of the guys yesterday, my mom and dad came up, and we were so thrilled. And I was just standing back over there, of course, the house wasn't here, standing over, back over there, where that big sweetgum tree is, and I was just standing there, praising the Lord, a little old dry creek bed coming down through here. And I was just praising the Lord and just worshiping Him. And I heard the Lord said, "That's a pond". Well, it didn't look like any pond to me. I said, "Sir"? He said, "That's a pond". He said, "You see that tree over there"? And it's still over there in the corner. And I said, "Yes, sir". And He described it and pointed it out to me. There's two trees standing over there, you know? And He said, "If you will build a levy from there over to here," and He pointed out another spot there, "That's a pond". Well, then I could see it, of course, that little creek coming down through there. I said, "Yeah, that's a pond". So I asked Gloria's grandad. I said, "Pop, what would you have to do to", and I mentioned to him if you build a dam across there and so forth. "Yeah," he said, "that'll work". And I said, "Well, who do you get to do something like that"? He said, "Well, I'll call the county and check it out". They had a water conservation plan going on.
GLORIA: As the Lord would have it.
KENNETH: Yeah, of course. And they said, "We'll dig the whole thing and build the dam and everything for $600". Oh, come on! Okay.
GLORIA: Where could you get a swimming pool for $600?
KENNETH: No, you can't. Hallelujah. Got that beautiful pond. It's just the Lord, and He's just done wonderful things like this. And of course, I'm sure they've already shown you the shape this house was in when we've, it was across the road over here and down a ways. And it was on her grandad's land over there, and it's just been, I think they said it was 105 years old...
GLORIA: I think that's right.
KENNETH: ...something like that when we got it.
KENNETH: And he said, "You know, just move it over across the road". So the first guy came out and looked at it. And he said, "Copeland, you know what I'd do"? I said, "What's that"? He said, "Let her sit". And so we checked around, and I called Mr. Wooten. I'll never forget it. He came out there and looked at it. I said, "Mr. Wooten, what do you think"? I said, "Do you think we can move that"? He said, "Kenneth, I can move anything". And he laughed, and he said, "It'll work". And he said, "I'll move it right over there and set her down for you right where it belongs".
GLORIA: And he did.
KENNETH: And it was Mr. Wooten that moved that log house when it was a piece of junk in here. Praise the Lord. Now, the other log house was, it was in good shape when we moved it. We didn't have to do much to it, but...
GLORIA: They were both antique, I mean, old log...
KENNETH: Oh, yeah, old, old.
GLORIA: They were both antique houses.
KENNETH: They were, there ain't nothing modern about any one of them.
GLORIA: No.
KENNETH: And faith girl over here, believing God for a log cabin, "I want a log cabin". "Good. We need a log cabin. It'll look nice".
KENNETH: So, "We want a log cabin". Yeah, okay, "log cabin" this and "log cabin" that. Yeah, okay, okay. So we're driving toward town one day, she said, "Stop"! Okay, then I said, "What is it"? She said, "I want to go look at that".
GLORIA: Old house.
KENNETH: Oh, oh. She said, "I think that's a log cabin". I said, "Gloria, that ain't no log cabin. There ain't no log there. You can see it from here". The thing had laid down over on its side, and there had been a kitchen built on the back of it. It fell off, and it's just laying out there. Oh, it was just awful looking. She said, "I'm going out there and look at it". I said, "Okay". And so we crawled through the fence and walked out there. And it had covered it with shiplap. It just looked like an old, broken-down old roll house.
GLORIA: I wonder why.
KENNETH: Yeah. And she pulled up the edge of that shiplap. She said, "See here"? It was logs, man. And that was way over, that's, I think...
GLORIA: Big logs, about like that.
KENNETH: ...way, way over 100 years. And I said, "Glory to God. All right". And we went and talked to the people that owned it. And, well, it had been in their family for years and years, but she said, "Yeah, I will". She said, "I'll sell it to you kids for $500". And called Mr. Wooten. He hauled it out there and set it up. And now you see the pictures of it, and it's a great blessing. The Lord has a blessing for you like that. But see, Gloria believed God, exercised her faith. So she's seeing that thing on the inside. There's no telling how many, how many, how many times we drove by that thing and never looked at it. But the Spirit of God knew that was logs.
GLORIA: Yeah, He did.
KENNETH: Huh? Amen. Amen. Now then, let's go back to Proverbs 4. "My son", from Verse 20, this is God's prescription for healing. "My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they," My words, "are life", Cross-reference says "medicine". "unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh". They're life, they're medicine, they're health to your flesh.
GLORIA: What a Scripture.
KENNETH: They'll heal your flesh. You can get on those few verses of Scripture right there and do what Verse 23 says, "Keep your heart," protect your heart. Don't let a bunch of junk get in there. And just lock in on the Word.
GLORIA: What a Scripture.
KENNETH: Healing words. We've already talked about Luke 5. They went to hear and to be healed.
GLORIA: Yeah.
KENNETH: The hearing came first because Jesus' preaching brought faith.
GLORIA: Now look, Verse 24 is the key to success, though. That's the key to success.
KENNETH: Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. "Put away from you a froward or a disobedient mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee". Don't let your mouth be disobedient. The words of your mouth should be the Word of God about every situation and everything. Amen.
GLORIA: That's right.
KENNETH: Confession of the Word brings possession of what you're saying.
GLORIA: And the New Testament makes it so plain. You put it in your eyes, put it in your ears, put it in your heart and say it out your mouth. You've got to say it out your mouth.
KENNETH: Yeah.
GLORIA: And that's the way it all works.
KENNETH: Some very close friends of ours, they were not a part of the Word of Faith. And they had invited me, well, it's John and Carol Arnott in Toronto, the church where that great...
GLORIA: Toronto blessing?
KENNETH: ...outpouring of the Toronto blessing. Whoa, I'm telling you, here's people that knew a whole lot more about praising the glory down than we did. Well, we majored on faith; they majored in the glory. See, God has specialists. You don't want a general practitioner doing a lung transplant on you.
GLORIA: That's right.
KENNETH: And, I mean, you have a specialist, faith's what we were called to specialize in. And back there years ago, people would jump on me and say, "You don't preach the whole counsel of God". Well, the first thing, I don't know the whole counsel of God. I know what He's called me to do, and I'm not going to jump the traces and get off out here, trying to get over into somebody else's calling.
GLORIA: Yeah.
KENNETH: But, oh, and I wanted, man, I was so eager. I met John and Carol Arnott in Rome when we went to see...
GLORIA: The Pope?
KENNETH: Pope Francis that time. And, oh, I fell in love with them. And so they said, "You've got to come preach faith to us". So I did, and Carol said, "You know, I see it". She was telling, I believe it was Kellie, she was telling either Kellie or Terri. She said, "I see it". She said, "We had the believing part. We didn't have the saying part and I see where we". Well, we had the believing and saying part, but we didn't have the praise and worship part. We were praising and worshiping, but not on a level that these people were, you know? Oh, you know what, Gloria? The streams are coming together, turning into a river.
GLORIA: Like at a river, yeah. That's right. Praise God.
KENNETH: Glory to God. Hallelujah.
GLORIA: And a river, now, a stream will just, we've got streams around here. They just kind of rock along, going down through the rocks. But a river, it'll take a...
KENNETH: It's got force.
GLORIA: ...It'll take your house down if it gets out of its boundaries.
KENNETH: Yeah, it's got force.
GLORIA: Praise God.
KENNETH: Praise God. Now then, believe the Word. How do you do that? I remember then that, and back there then, I didn't know this. But the Lord led me in this direction. And it just marked my memory. This is before we went to Tulsa. Now, we were born again and baptized in the Holy Ghost. But we didn't know how to use faith on purpose. I didn't know you could. And I had driven Gloria to the cleaners, and she had gone in. I had every flu symptom. My eyes were aching, and I'm sitting out there in the car waiting for her, and I'm thinking, "You know, I believe she's going to have to drive home. I just, I am so sick". And I had my Bible laying open here to I Peter 2:24, "Himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed".
GLORIA: Yeah.
KENNETH: And I had read that, and I, "Oh, Lord, thank You". Oh, oh, you know, I didn't know. Now, look how the Lord led me. I picked up my Bible and I read, "By his stripes ye were healed". I held my Bible up like this and put my finger on it. I said, "Lord, I choose to believe this. I choose. I choose to believe". See, your born-again spirit knows how to believe, but you're going to have to put it in motion. Amen? Yeah. So I choose to believe. The moment you choose to believe and you say that with your mouth, you have released faith where that verse is concerned. Let that Word work by putting it in your mouth. Amen. So I noticed, by the time she got back out to the car, I was feeling a little better. I thought, "Well, you know, I believe I'm going to go ahead and drive home". And so I drove home. And by the time we got home, I felt like eating a little something. So I sat down at the table, and by the time we got through supper, I was feeling pretty good, and went on to bed and slept good. Got up the next morning, every symptom was gone.
GLORIA: Praise God.
KENNETH: And I really didn't know much, I just made a choice.
GLORIA: Mm-hmm.
KENNETH: Now, let's go over to Mark 11:22.
GLORIA: Did you make a choice and say it?
KENNETH: Yeah, I did.
GLORIA: Okay.
KENNETH: Now, like I said, the Spirit of God was just leading me in that direction. I really didn't understand what was happening. But I've looked at all these years later, and I was thinking, "Glory to God, that's exactly what He was leading me to do". Now, Jesus said, in Mark 11:22, "Jesus answering saith". And now, they came by there and saw that fig tree dried up. You remember the situation? Well, I best read Verse 20. "In the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots". Now, Jesus said, "No man eat fruit of you again forever". "And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursed is withered away. Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God". The cross-reference says, or "Have the faith of God," or "Have the God kind of faith". Now, what He's doing here, He is revealing to you and to me and for all who care to know how faith works. It's the faith of God.
GLORIA: Yeah.
KENNETH: "Yeah, but Brother Copeland, that's the faith of God". I know it, and He said, "Have it". Now, when you got born again, the faith of God was put in you. That's the way you got born again. You were saved by grace through faith. And, "For verily I say unto you, Whosoever", so whosoever can use the faith of God.
GLORIA: "Whosoever" meaneth me.
KENNETH: Yeah, it meaneth me, too. "Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart". Now, listen. Here's what you're supposed to believe: "But believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass". That's what you believe. You believe that those things which you say, those words which you say, will come to pass, "he shall have whatsoever he saith," or whatsoever he says. Now, remember, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God". Here's the key to it. "Well, Brother Copeland, you know, God always answers. Sometimes He says, 'Yes.' Sometimes He says, 'No.' Sometimes He says, 'Wait a while.'" Really? Where'd you get that? Chapter and verse, if you please. "Well, I know that had kind of what happened to me". Well, see, that's not good enough.
GLORIA: No.
KENNETH: The promises of God in Him, in Christ, are "Yes" and "Amen". Nowhere, not in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, or anywhere in the book of Acts did any of the apostles or anybody else that's in the book of Acts ever tell anybody, "You'll have to wait". It isn't in there. It isn't in there. The key to it, "Get the promise". That's the reason that promise book is so important. All those scriptures in four different translations, healing scriptures, go to that Book. It'll send you to the Bible. Go get your Bible and mark all of those healing scriptures. Glory to God. Mark them, look at them, read them. Sit down and write them out longhand, that whole verse. Write Mark 11:22, 23, 24, and 25. You ought to write them out in longhand. Get you a notebook and write them out long. "Well, you see, I'd rather". No, don't type it. Write it in longhand. Look at it as you write it. You remember it more strongly when you write it and look at it, and write it and look at it. Amen. Then it gets in your spirit, and it'll get in your mouth. But that's the guarantee. Let the Word fight its own fight. The Word is the answer to your prayer. Can you see that? Either a promise or a Bible fact. Oh, Gloria, I just, I just, phew.
GLORIA: Praise God.
KENNETH: It just looks so clear and so plain. It's not something He's going to do. It's already done. This is where the twist comes in, and people have a hard time with it. It's not a hard thing. It's right there, Mark 11:23 and 24. "Therefore I say unto you," Jesus said, "What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe you receive them, and you shall have them. And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any: that your Father in, which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses". That's critical.
GLORIA: Yeah.
KENNETH: Check it out. Check Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That's the only thing Jesus specifically called out as a hindrance to faith, is unforgiveness.
GLORIA: Praise God.
KENNETH: That's the way you believe the Word.
GLORIA: Amen. Praise God.