Kenneth Copeland - Release Your Faith by Using the Fundamentals
Tonight, oh it thrills me when I hear the Lord say this. Go back to the fundamentals of faith, for the most important fundamentals you can know are the fundamentals of faith. What it is. How it's released. Amen. Because without faith, it's impossible to please God. Why? He's a faith God, and He loves you. And God is love and faith works by love. That's a basic fundamental. Faith works by love. Without love, there's no faith. Without faith, there's no grace. Without grace, you in a heap of trouble. Without the grace...
He's doing everything He knows how to do to bless you. He's doing everything He knows how to do to make your body well, and your brain strong, and your whole life a brand new thing. But He needs these fundamentals out of you and out of me, and we need to practice them, and practice them, and practice them, and practice them. Practice and practice, and practice just like Dr. Jackson. Amen. Just like Dr. Finerman ,and just like these other men of science. We have to practice, and practice, and practice, and practice. And renew our minds, and renew our minds, and renew our minds, until we no longer even have to try.
We just believe God. We believe it in our heart, and we say it with our mouth. Glory to God. And we're not moved by what we see, and we're not moved by what we feel. We're moved only by what we believe, and we believe the Word of God. Amen. Hallelujah. And we practice, and we practice, and we practice, and we practice, and we practice. We pray in tongues, and pray in tongues, and pray in tongues. "But I don't pray in tongues". Well, that's your fault. He said, "How much more your heavenly Father give the Holy Ghost to those that ask Him"?
It's amazing to me. I've been watching people from... Just in few days, it'll be 53 years. Actually longer than that. Because Gloria and I got saved six months after we got married and then three months later we both of us got baptized in the Holy Ghost speaking with other tongues. And I've watched people in attempt to receive and they frown. Come on! Hey! It didn't get any better than this. This is not work. This is just yielding. "I might get the wrong thing". Oh, shut up. Jesus already dealt with that. He sure did. Yeah, He dealt with that. You, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. Are you going to give them a snake or a scorpion when they won't food? He was referring to evil spirits when He said that. Amen? Isn't that right, Thomas? I mean, that's what He was doing, man. He told me you ain't going to get a devil... What's the matter with you?
Now if you're not born again, that's a different story. If a son... Well, it only takes you 10 seconds to get born again. "Copeland, it can't be that easy". There wasn't anything easy about it, but Jesus did all the hard part. There's only one thing he couldn't do. He couldn't pray your and my acceptance prayer. We had to do that. Jesus, God's gift to the world. He's a free gift. The basic fundamental of faith. Believe it in your heart. Say it with your mouth. Faith will not work in an unforgiving heart. You cannot receive Abraham's blessing with Thomas' faith. And the last one of them... Of course, we could go... But these are just the basic fundamentals. Faith calls things that be not as though they were. Not as though they are, as though they were.
The Lord said to Brother Hagin, "I said call things that be not as though they were. My people are calling things the way they are and now so they stay that way". Amen. Call the way they are... And I just got... Oh Charles Capps, my my my. Oh my. Oh, You talk about somebody that... He's in heaven today. Glory to God. Glory to God. Oh that Charles. He just has a way of putting things. He said "Here dog! Here dog"! Somebody said, "what are you doing"? "I'm calling the dog" He said "what's the matter with you? Your dog's laying right there"? "Yeah", he said "I know, but I'm calling him". "what"? "I'm calling my dog". "Look dummy, your dog is right there". "I know, I'm calling him".
It just takes you a little bit of this... But in reality, that's what people do. Calling things the way they are. Well you know how it is Brother. I'll call them like they are. I know it, that's the reason you ain't got nothing else. Tonight I want us to... Of course, the basic fundamentals are outlined in Mark 11:22 through 25, but this, first of all, let's go to Matthew 21:21. Matthew 21:21. It's Matthew's account of the fig tree.
ow listen to what he said. This will give you some insight into these fundamentals. I've heard people say it. I mean, I've had them say it to me in criticizing me. They said now He wasn't talking about the literal fig tree. I mean, you know, a literal mountain. You're not talking about a literal mountain here. He's talking about spiritual mountains. Well, a spiritual mountain bigger than the literal mountain. But let's check that out. Out of the mouth of two witnesses let everything be established.
All right, Matthew 21.:21, are you there? Jesus answered and said unto them, verily I say unto you, if you have faith and doubt not, you shall not only do this, which is done to the fig tree, but also if you will say under this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, it shall done. That settled that. He's talking about physical things... spiritual things too, of course. That's a higher ranking area of faith anyway. Amen. The greatest miracle of your life was when you got born again. That's the most powerful thing that's ever happened. Amen.
I had the Lord ask me that one time. He said "Kenneth, what is the greatest display of power"? I said "there's no question about it. It's when you said light be". "Oh no". He said, "that was easy". He said "I didn't have anybody against me on that one". He said "They were all for me, but when I raised Jesus from the dead... When I raise him out of hell", he said "it was all against me. People were against me. The devils were against me. All of hell itself was against me. He's in hell and nobody's ever gotten out of there before".
What happened? Jesus... Hey, listen to me. You have to have this. You have to get this. Who, who, get your catchers out? Jesus, the first born from the dead. He's the first human being, Mark Barkley, to ever be born again. Isn't that something? The new birth. The first one happened in the pit of hell with all the demons of hell against it. Arrayed against him felt they had Him forever. He was so emaciated he no longer looked like a human being. Read it in the 52nd chapter of the book of Isaiah. The new birth took place. The re-creation of the human spirit. The death of a human spirit and its rebirth.
Now, spiritual death is a very real thing. You cannot... Death doesn't mean cease to exist. That doesn't even mean that the cessation of life. That isn't even true physically, because everybody's going to get raised from the dead. Everybody's going to get raised up from the grave. Everybody. There's such a thing called the second death. That's everybody in hell being raised up and reunited with their old sin filled nasty body forever and ever and ever and ever. My God, forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. And they will torment the devil himself in a lake of fire forever and ever and ever. Amen. But we're done with him. Removed from human contact. That day is coming sooner than we think. It's shouting time in the household.
Now, can you see why the new birth is such a powerful thing? Well, of course it happen to us, but exactly the same thing happened to us that happened to Jesus. So that's the most powerful miracle in the universe. Amen. And it happened to us. Go back and think about little Mary. And the angel came in and explained to her and she said, "How can this be seeing I know not a man"? If you allow me, I'm going to paraphrase this. The Holy Spirit, of the living God, will come and he will hover over you and a Holy thing will be born in you from that Holy seed. You and I, we're born again, not of corruptible seed, but by the word of God come out. It's the same thing that happened to her by the word of God. Not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the word of God, which lives and abides forever. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
The same thing happened, man. The same thing happen. The same thing happened, Stan. I mean the same thing, Brother. I mean, think about it. The Holy spirit came, hovered over you, man. Glory to God. Just hovered over you and your old spirit man just, just laid there and died, Brother. And there is a spiritually visible mark, a cut. It's called the circumcision of the heart and invisible to the human eye. You'll be able to see it once you get out of this body and we're glorified. It'll be... It's a big scar. Just a slash across your spirit and it kills you by the sword of the spirit. Hallelujah.
And that same spirit that hovered over Mary hovered over you, hovered over me, and it was born in you a holy being. Hallelujah. Any man, any woman, that is in Christ is a new creature. Old things passed away and all things became new and all things are of God. Now your mind has to be renewed and your body, your flesh, has to be trained so that now you are spirit, soul, and body and the fundamentals of faith, hope and Love. The greatest of these is love. Glory be to God. Glory be to God. Glory be to God forever more. Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you Lord Jesus. Greater is He that is in me. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world! Hallelujah! Oh praise God. Oh, come on. Just give him glory and praise his name. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
That's why these things are so, so vitally important to meditate these things. You remember what God said to Joshua? I mean the last time he was over in that land, I'm telling you, all he saw was giants. Well, you know that's the last time he was there and those images are still in his mind. Hallelujah. Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you Lord Jesus. This book of the law, or the word of God, shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate...
See, you don't say anything but the word. See what he was telling Joshua? He's about to go back over there for the first time in 40 years. "But you meditate there in day and night that you may observe..." That means to see... "To do according to all that's written therein for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shall have good success..." Or do wisely "meditating in that word, have I not commanded thee be strong and of good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed for the Lord thy God is with the whether so ever you go". Verse 13 "remember the word which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you saying the Lord your God has given you rest and has given you this land".
Meditate on that, meditate on that before you go over there tomorrow. Meditate on that. You don't need to be afraid of those giants. I'm the giant here. I'm the giant here. I'm the giant here. Even though you walked through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil for I'm with you. How can we fear not? Because he's the biggest thing in the valley. You get your mind on him, not the giants, not the valley of the shadow of death. May I remind you of something? Are you listening? The shadow of a dog never bit anybody. Isn't that right? The valley of the shadow of death.
Well, we're in the shadow of it all the time. We're living in the 23rd Psalm right now and that's spiritual death more than anything else. The spiritual death is a frightening thing. But not for us. We've already died. We've already done all the dying were ever going to do. Yeah, we died the death of the cross. We died with him. Resurrected with him. Did you ever notice that anything he got, we get? Anything he received, we receive? Hey, he got born again, so we got born again. He's no longer called the only begotten son of God. He's the first born of many brethren. glory. He gets resurrected. He got a glorified body. We get a glorified body. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord Jesus.
Fundamentals of Faith. Fundamentals of the love of God. And in these last moments, we'll close by looking at the woman that was healed of the issue of blood. Jesus said, "Thy faith has made the whole". She believed it. She said it. She acted on it. Then she testified of it. When Jesus appeared to Kennedy E. Hagin back in 1950 and Brother Hagin asked him about it. He said "Am I right in this sermon that I began to develop, this woman with the issue of blood"? but he said "that there's a point missing here. He said she believed it. And she said it and she acted on it according to James with corresponding action, but he said, it just seems to me like I'm missing something, Lord". And He said "you are". He said "she told it". She testified to it. He said "anybody that'll do those four things can receive anything they want or need from me". Fundamentals of Faith. Say I got it.