Kenneth Copeland - Faith Says It Before It Sees It
Now we've been talking about covenant in its different forms and so forth. 2 Corinthians 5, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation". He's a new creation, new. Say new, he's a new creation. He is a new creation. Old things... have passed away. Old things have passed away. In Numbers, chapter 21, verse six, "The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people and much people of Israel died".
And most of you know that story. The people came to Moses, they said, "We've sinned, we've spoken against the Lord and against you, pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us". And Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said, "Make thee a fiery serpent Set it upon a pole. It shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looks upon it shall live". Excuse me, "Moses made a serpent of brass, put it on a pole and it came to pass if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at that brass, when he looked at that brass, the brass, what a brass snake, he lived". What is this?
Now wait a minute. We already know that everything in this first covenant, everything in this first covenant is always looking forward to Jesus. He's in that story right there. Looking forward to Jesus. Now then, let's go to the Gospel of John, chapter three, verse 12. "If I have told you earthly things and you believe, not how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things. No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man, which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up".
Now, when I first read that, I thought, "well, now come on, I don't get this Lord. I mean, come on what? There should have been a lamb on that pole, not a snake". No, no, no, no. I'm telling you the power of God and the Spirit of God just rose up on the inside of me And he said, "No, no. Kenneth, no, no, no. Couldn't have been the lamb, no, no". Well, I sat there a minute and suddenly. Well, yes. He who knew no sin, get this, was made to be sin. What is sin, it's the nature of the devil. The devil is the one that sinned from the very beginning. He's the one that broke off. He's the problem. He's the snake. He's called a snake, a serpent. But that's Jesus.
After bearing the very nature of sin, he didn't sin. But when we look on him, he bore that, he bore that the nature of man, the nature of fallen man, he bore it. So we could be born again and receive the nature of God. Somebody oughta be shouting glory to God, hallelujah. I know you are, just can't hear you from here. Praise God isn't that wonderful? Isn't that just magnificent?
So let's go back over there to second, Corinthians chapter five once more. And look at that again. "Now you can see it now that you know. If any man, any person be in Christ, he is a new creation. That old sin nature passed away". And the very nature of God came in in the twinkling of an eye. And your inner man, the real you, your nature was changed. And things that you used to just couldn't do without, oh, all of a sudden, you just despise it, you don't want that. And the things of him, you want them, you're hungry for them, all of a sudden.
And right before that event, particularly if you're own up in life a full adult like Gloria and I were in our mid twenties, when we accepted Jesus, amen. I mean, all of a sudden, all of a sudden I was talking about this this morning, for those of you that weren't able to be around, I'm telling you, I just, I'm gonna tell you in every sense of the word, my own natural, carnal, ugly, nasty self, cussing self. I mean, I had a terrible mouth, I just... We came in.
But anyway we came in, we'd been to town or I don't remember where, and Gloria in her sweet way said, "I'm not going out in public with you anymore". I said, "Why baby"? She said, "It's your filthy mouth". Before I could think I said, "What the hell did I say"? Oh Gloria, oh Gloria, I'm sorry. But she, that's just part of me. That's just part of my old unregenerated self. The night I got born again, the night Jesus came into my heart. I mean, I could literally feel it. I could feel my mouth was changing. It was, it felt like, I had the sensation that it was like I had a block of something I, For several minutes, good, good. I don't remember exactly how long, but a long time. And I recognized it, I saw it.
And from that moment until this, that was in November of 1962 and all kinds of profanities of any kind was just gone out of my mouth, gone, amen. Why, my nature changed. My cussing nature went out and my praising nature came in. Hallelujah, oh, glory, glory, glory, glory to God. Now, good people, born again. I'm telling you wonderful people that love God and... after you're born again, that old nature, the devil's gonna see to it that you have an opportunity for it to creep back in there. It's not gonna get in your spirit, but that mess is still in your mind. And that mess is still around you.
If you're around people all the time that use profanity, I'll tell you what, you need to get in the Word and stay there. You need to just get in there and stay there because it'll get in your mouth. The next thing you know, you'll be slipping up saying just a little word here and there and then you'll be just racking back like the rest of them. Amen, what do I do? You repent, that's what you do. But just repenting all the time won't do anything. You're forgiven and cleansed, but then you have to renew your mind and renew your mouth and your thinking. Amen. And take that praise God, take it to prayer, but bind it and bind the devil that's doing it.
Praise God, the people that are around you, they're not your problem. Well, yeah, they're no no, they're no. Oh, I know Brother Copeland, I'll just get me another job, no, no, no. Not unless God tells you to. That place will go to pot sure enough if you leave. Be a witness there. Don't join in with their way of speaking, don't do that. That old nature. Yeah, I'll say that Lord. Using profanity is a habit. It becomes a speech habit. It's a very nasty form of slang and it's, and I'll tell you something else. Thrill me to death, scared me to death. I'm afraid so, I'm afraid not. And that's the same thing.
And some of that can unknowingly be blasphemous. Particularly if you begin to use the devil's words to express yourself, you're using death words, sin words, what do I mean by that? Well, you draw a line on a piece of paper for the law of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made me free from the law of sin and death. So you put all the words over here that come under the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. And you put all the words that come over to here under the law of sin and death. Does it have to do with sin? Does it have to do with death? Sin and death are synonymous terms and they both mean the devil.
So if you're using those words and let me say something else to you, do you know where the almost curse words came from? Darn. Dang. There were profanity laws, on the books in early America. And if you said something out in public, you could get fined for it. But darn wasn't damn. So that's where it came from. Well, you just didn't know how to spell it. But when you got mad and said it, it's the same action. It's the same action. It's not the way you spell the word, it's what came out of your mouth in force and fear and anger. Amen, constitutes the same thing. 'Cause that runaway temper comes out of that old nature. Be angry and sin not and give no place to the devil. Don't let your anger... Last. Any further than sundown. Huh, read the book of Ephesians. Amen, all of that is right in there together.
So now let's get back in the main line here. We're talking about covenant and we got over into the fourth chapter of Romans and so forth where Abraham call things that be not as though they were. Now, we made the statement, let's go over there and look at that now in Roman chapter four. We made the statement that in calling things that be not as though they were, Abraham in that first verse of the fourth chapter, "What shall we say then that Abraham, our father has found as pertaining to the flesh has found".
He found in the 17th verse. He found the key to life. That 17th verse, as it is written, "I have made thee a father of many nations before him, or like him, whom he believed even God who quickeneth with the dead and call off those things that be not as though that were". He calls things that be not as though they were. God calls things that be not as though they were. He already has it planned. He already sees it, for as he's concerned, it's already done and he knows when he says it, it's done. He knows that when he says it, it's done. And when he says it and it's done, and then you receive it by faith, you're walking and standing on the same authority of his, and you're calling things that be not as though they were, and they are. But you call things they way they are, and they stay the way they are. It's as simple as that. Spiritual law, it works both ways.
Now I want you to see this. See, you did this and really didn't recognize it. You call things that be not as though they were the moment you got saved. And from there on after, come into my heart, Lord Jesus, take my life and do something with it. I receive you now as my savior. Up until now, just those few seconds before that, no you're still an old sinner. You're still in the process. I believe I receive this new birth, take my life and do something with it. Come into my heart, I receive you now as my Lord and my savior. And the very next day, somebody said, "Hey. I heard you got born again last night". "I sure did. I sure did, glory to God, isn't that something"? "Well, did you get healed"? "No, no, I didn't, no I just got saved".
See what you don't know is you got healed too. Because actually, Oh. It is really sad that wars have been fought over this, when all you had to do was look up the Greek word saved. Amen, that same word means sound, healed, delivered. It's an all inclusive word. You were saved. Made sound, healed, well, delivered from all forms of calamity and troubles. It's all in that same word. And the people that were ministering in Greek and heard it in Greek, they heard the same thing. They heard save the same that they heard, that they heard healed, they heard delivered at the same time they heard saved. It's when it was translated into English, trying to make it simple and they made it simple that they lost a large portion of it. It's all the same package, glory to God. The same one saves you, heals you. Glory to God.
Actually, let's get our terminology correct here. That moment in your life, oh I remember mine so well, first week of October, 1962, at just about eight o'clock in the evening. Glory to God, in our little brand new furnished apartment. I just got in from a trip, I had just flown a man with Louisiana, Arkansas, Louisiana Gas Company down to Shreveport and came back that night and, his name was Weir, I just will never forget it. It's just stamped indelibly into my mind and my being. And I can just see Gloria over there at that little brand new, we came out of a house, didn't have any furniture in it. I won't go into all how I fouled the whole deal up. But anyway, Gloria had accepted Jesus two weeks before, hadn't said anything to me about it.
When I got home that night and I just went in to change clothes, I'll tell you I was a happiest fellow. Here we had furniture, we had a stove and a refrigerator and the mess I made, we didn't even have any, I mean, thank God, it was in the winter time, we didn't have a refrigerator. And my mother sent us 25 pound sack of potatoes and there was no way I was gonna tell them we was hungry, but particularly since it's my fault. And so, and it was cool enough we could put stuff out on the back porch in a cardboard box, what little dab we had. And mother sent us that 25 pound sack of potatoes and Gloria was cutting those potatoes up and put them in at the bottom of one of those big two piece percolator coffee pots, and boiling those potatoes and that's what we were eating. And Gloria started praying we got us a new apartment.
Yeah, oh Jesus, it was wonderful. And I tell you, I forget, it's just indelible in my mind. And in my thinking, that was the night I was talking about a moment ago when God stuffed stuffing square, like a big bar of soap in my mouth to stop my cussing, amen forever. And he just washed my mouth that night. I had one shoe on and one shoe off then all of a sudden, the glory of God just filled up that room. And I heard this in my spirit. "Kenneth, if you don't get straightened out with me, you're going to a devil's hell, son". I said, "I know it, I know but what I do? What do I do now"?
All this is going on on the inside of me. Jesus, Gloria and Jesus were over there at the stove. She wasn't paying any attention to me. I wasn't making any noise at all, this just going, I just dropped that shoe and closed my eyes and bowed my head. I said, "I know, what do I do now"? He said, "Ask Jesus". Oh no, when I said, "What do I do now"? I heard my Sunday school teacher's voice. It's still on the inside of me, "Boys, you have to ask Jesus to come into your life, into your heart". I thought, "Well, that just sounds just as dumb as it did first time I heard it, but I don't know what else to do". And I just said as quietly, "Jesus, come into my heart".
And he did. He did, changed everything. Just changed all of it. Right then. Right that moment. I was a new creature. But now all of our entire life is ahead of us. All of our spiritual life and we continued to flop and bang around until we finally came to the point where, and I knew fairly early, I was supposed to go to Oral Roberts University and I did not wanna do that. I just sensed it so strong in my spirit, I didn't wanna do that. But finally had just, I just necessary, and so, of course, I did. And all the rest is history, now. The key to life is calling things that be not as though they were.