Kenneth Copeland - The Cure for Unbelief
Thank you Lord. Amen! Thank you and praise you for the flow of your word and you're so good to us and we thank you in worship you and we, we ascribe all of the praise, all of the glory, for every word that's spoken in every deed that's done to the wonderful, glorious, matchless name of Jesus, whose we are and whom we serve. And it's in that name we pray and we thank you for it. Amen.
Now we're talking about the fundamentals of faith in our study of the faith of God. And when we closed yesterday, and the fact this is one, two, the third basic fundamental of faith, you cannot, it's impossible to receive Abraham's faith. You can't receive it. You cannot receive the bless... I said it wrong. You cannot receive the blessing of Abraham with Thomas's faith. And when you study this, you, you actually see the, it's a, it's a, it's a stark revelation comparing the way the world acts and believes, and I'm sad to say the way most born again and even Holy-Spirit-baptized Christians believe and the difference is the same now that it was then. Teaching.
You remember the sixth chapter of the book of Mark, the Bible said, "And there", you know at Nazareth, "Jesus could do no mighty works". Didn't say, wouldn't, said he couldn't. He laid his hands on a few sick people. If you study that out, it was people with minor ailments, because of their unbelief and he went about teaching in their villages. That's the cure for unbelief. Amen. Because Romans 10:17, "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God". Faith doesn't come because of traumatic experiences and all of that. If it did, everybody would be a faith giant. No, no. It's what you do in the traumatic experience with your faith that causes you to grow spiritually, but without the word you're crippled. That's like a, that's like a starving person physically, a person that's malnourished physically, trying to be an Olympic athlete.
Well, if I work out hard enough, I'll get there. No, you won't baby. You're going to have to eat and you're going to have to eat right or your physical body's not going to make it. Because you, you could just take a you, you could just take a pencil, that thing doesn't weigh anything. But you do this with it enough times, you'll be exhausted. It'll use up all the physical strength you have. You can use up your faith, particularly if it's feeble and if you're not walking in forgiveness, you faith is feeble. It just won't work. You can spend a lot of time in the word and still in unforgiveness and your faith is feeble. Amen.
I'll tell you something else. If you're really having a hard time with physical strength and you're, you, you're getting, you know, right amount of sleep and you're, you're eating right, but you're having a hard time in your physical strength, something's wrong with your joy. Something's wrong with your joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength. And you don't have to feel... Happiness and joy are two totally different things. Amen. But you get your joy working in just seems like you just become a happy person, regardless of what's going on around you. But joy... Love, joy, second fruit of the spirit. Amen. So how do you do that? You count it all joy when you fall into different trials and tests and temptations. James chapter one. Amen.
And those of you that watched Dr. Avery Jackson, a renowned brain surgeon, neurosurgeon and watched him on the broadcast. And the study has been proven. And, I believe you said John Hopkins, biggest cancer operation. Um, I think it's biggest in the world, but I know it's in the United States down in Houston. They have proven the fact that the body cannot tell the difference between a belly laugh and a put on laugh. Amen. But you know, they have laughing classes for people that are in a lot of pain, particularly cancer patients. And they just say, "I know this looks crazy and funny and weird, but this is part of your treatment. And if you're going to have me as a doctor, you're going to do this". And you have to dance a little. And finally that they're not saying this, but he was saying that finally the joy comes up in there. And just laugh at the devil. Glory to God. Praise you, Jesus.
We've been raised up with him and made to sit with him in heavenly places. He sits at the right hand of God and we sit at the right hand of Jesus and God sits in the heavens and laughs at the devil. Glory to God. We sit with him, We can laugh with him. Hallelujah. Glory be to, Jesus. Amen, thank you Jesus. Doesn't the word say he's been put under our feet. Hallelujah. And I mean your joy will come forth. Amen. And a Merry heart does good like a medicine. Didn't say a merry body. No. A merry you. Spirit joy! Thank you, Jesus. Well, glory to God.
Now then back to where we were. "As it is written, I have made thee". Not that I'm going to make thee, "I've made the the father of many nations before him or like him, whom he believed, even God who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Now this is Abraham's faith who against hope, believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be, and being not weak in faith he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God". Being fully persuaded that what he had promised, being fully persuaded that the covenant he had with God. The promised covenant, a blood covenant. That's what fully persuaded him. He was able also to perform.
Now next week we're going to study that from the 17th chapter of Genesis, but if you back up to the 15th chapter of Genesis, before his name changed, the 17th was the changing of the name. And God literally put his name, the H, In the middle of his name. Abra-ham. This Hebrew's hearing that. Amen. Amen. Now that's the way Abraham received the blessing of the Lord. Deuteronomy 28. Are you with me? All right now then let's go back over here to John chapter 20 verse 24, "Thomas, one of the 12", or Thomas, one of the twins, "was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, 'We have seen the Lord,' but he said unto them, 'Except I shall see'", say, "see". "In his hands the print of the nails, put my finger or feel, into the print of the nails, thrust my hand into his side".
And notice he's functioning in his soulish man and he's functioning his operating his will, not faith. I will not believe. "After eight days, again, his disciples were within and Thomas was with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said, 'Peace be unto you.' Then sayeth unto Thomas, 'Reach here your finger. Behold my hands. Reach here your hand thrust it into my side and be not faithless'". Faith-Less. Now if you go back over there or are you go to the third chapter of the book of Galatians, you see where Abraham received his blessing by faith. Amen.
Now watch this. "Thomas answered and said unto him, 'My Lord, my God,' Jesus sayeth unto him, 'Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou has believed. Blessed", Say blessed. Now he's out and shaped to received the blessing. "'Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed". Blessed you cannot received the blessing of the Lord, which maketh rich and he adds no sorrow with it. That's talking about financially. You cannot receive it by waiting till you feel it and waiting till you see it. And that's, I'm sad to say what most people do and they have this idea. Well, and you can see why without the proper teaching. And this is where your and my role come in. This becomes our business. This is our business, this is what we do. We teach.
Notice teaching was first. Jesus, he went about teaching. He did more teaching than anything else, preaching and then healing because without the teaching and the preaching, very little healing occurred. Now there were incidents and instances where he, and I dare say there will be in your life and mine, but they are so rare where God just started something on his own.
Gloria and I were in London many years ago and they had already said to us before we went in there, someone said to me, "Now Brother Copeland, don't get, you know, disturbed if the British people, you know, they're responsive, but they're, you know, they're not a demonstrative people". Everybody's demonstrative over something. "These same people that are just not demonstrative at all". Have you ever seen them in a soccer game? Oh yeah. They'd demonstrate brother. Well, Christian people are the same way. If they've got something to shout about.
Well, I walked into the pulpit and I mean, my this place was packed out. There was a best, I remember somewhere around 8,000 to 9,000 people in there that night. And I just walked up the pulpit like I always do. And I just walked up there and I said, I probably said, open your Bibles to Mark 11. But I just said, open your Bible to that, to the scripture and I started reading the scripture and all of a sudden they started praising God. They just started praising God. I hadn't even said anything yet. They just started praising God and they started praising God. And then they started running around the room and then the whole bunch started praising God. They jumped to their feet and they are just screaming and they're hollering and they're praising God at the top of their voices and they're just praising God.
And it kinda calmed down a little bit. And I started reading the scripture again and they started in again. I actually literally got preached, I got shouted down. I never did get to preach. Never did. I didn't preach a word that night and I'm standing there and they're standing at that pulpit and I just said to myself, "Well Lord, you started this, finish it". And so I just stood there. Now there was a woman down in front, just right square in front of me and about two rows back. She just all of a sudden very conspicuously jumped up, just jumped just as high as she could and spun around and like that and sat back down. I thought, "That's strange". And I just went on and on and on.
I don't even remember now how the thing closed up. Well, I do too. I gave an invitation and bunch of people got saved. That woman, now this is what I'm going to point out to you now. See, she hadn't heard anything that night. God inhabits the praise of his people. The people that brought her there testified that young woman had cerebral palsy. Came in a wheelchair. Now when we pray, we enter into his presence. When we praise, he enters into ours. She just jumped as high as she could jump and spun around like a top. Then I understood why she did that and why it was so noticeable to me. Cause one thing, she's the only one sitting down, but I didn't know her condition. The man at the pool of Bethesda, he hadn't heard Jesus preach. He didn't even know who he was. But now these are rare.
And I'll tell you something else about someone and people who received their miracles in that kind of atmosphere. It's wonderful. Glory to God, yet still do not know how to function on purpose in faith. And if they believe the symptoms, all Satan has to do is put a little symptom back in there and here come their words, "I thought I was healed. I guess I'm not". Oh, of course. That rat'll steal it if he can. but you can just take a few moments and teach that person the power of their words and so forth. They'll see it like that. Well, amen. Glory to God.
Yeah, I see that. I see now that healing belongs to me. Yeah. I was healed all the time I was in that mess. I just didn't know anything about it. Praise God. Isn't that good? All right. So that was the situation here that, um, he was moved... And let me tell you something else about this situation. If all a person believes or maybe put it like this, if there, they pro predominantly believe their feelings instead of having the word final authority, then Satan has access by way of the five physical senses and to their inner most counsel like this.
"Well, I don't know whether it's God's will to heal me or not. I just don't know. I used to think healing had been done away with, but I see now that's not right. Cause there's people and in churches you get healed and, and I'm, you know, I hear testimony, I, I know that's not right. I know he heals today. I don't have any doubt about that brother. But I, you know, I don't know whether he heals me or not. Let's pray. And if I, if he heals me, I'll know it's his will". No, you're, you're, you're in bad company. You can't receive it. If he's gonna heal only one, it's going to be me. Yes sir. And we're out of time.