Kenneth Copeland - Strife Is The Killer Of Dreams
Matthew 17:14. "When they came down and so forth, 'Lord, have mercy on my Son'. Jesus answered and Jesus rebuked the devil. Then came his disciples to Jesus apart and said, 'why couldn't we cast him out'? And Jesus said, 'because of your unbelief. For verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you say to this mountain remove hence to yonder place and it'll remove and nothing shall be impossible to you. Howbeit this kind goeth out, but, this, goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting'".
Devils do not respond to fasting. No, they don't respond to fasting. So, what is Jesus talking about here? This kind of unbelief goes out with prayer and fasting. Well, yes, but that's not the key issue here. And this went on and it went on and it went on and it went on and it went on. They kept arguing with one another about who's gonna be the greatest. Where am I gonna be in the kingdom of God? He's gonna kick Rome outta here in a few days and what's gonna happen to me? What am I gonna get? What am I gonna do? Peter said, what about this fellow, talking about John? And Jesus said, what about him? In other words, you tend to your business. I mean this kept going on all over and over and over again. Devils don't respond to fasting.
The people that are helped in fasting are the ones that do the fasting. Fasting doesn't change God. Fasting doesn't change devils. Fasting won't give devils out. Well, what is he talking about, then? Had they been spending time fasting and praying and worshiping and praising God and pulled in closer to Jesus, spent time in worship instead of time in worry, worrying about their own position, that's what he's talking about. Pulled in there to a place, the closeness of God and pulled close to one another and come to that place where you begin to think, well, praise God, Jesus knows what he's doing and all of us, hey, we'll get a good thing. He'll take care of us. Glory to God, let's stay strong. Man, I mean, they'd have nailed that demon. Now I wanna mention something about Peter, James and John. What is the thing about Peter, James and John? Why those three?
We know John is the apostle of love, right? We know Peter had a revelation now unto Christ, the Son of the living God and Peter was very bold. What about James? Well, think about him. James is John's brother. This speaks well of Mr. Zebedee, their dad. I believe that John and James both had that, that love about 'em that caused them to be different kind of men. Peter knew who Jesus was and he's very bold. And John, the apostle of love, and his brother, James. I believe James was another loving man because they had been sons of thunder, praise God. Hallelujah. They were loving men, came from a loving, from a loving family, obviously. Those two men, especially, Jesus trusted them. Now, what happens when you spend time fasting and worshiping? You get your flesh out of the way.
Different times over the years Gloria and I have done this, I've done it numbers of times, just a few days ago, in fact, a little over a week ago. You have something strong on your heart and you need answers, so what do you do? You go back to the Book of James. Let's go there now, right where we were in that very first chapter of the Book of James. "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into different temptations, tests and trials knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom", Now, in certain cases Gloria and I have been in places where we just needed the wisdom of God. "Any man that lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and unbraideth, or let him ask. He gives to all men liberally". Upbraid means to find fault. "and finds no fault and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering".
So, for instance, when Gloria spent years, I mean she spent, she spent 30 years, I mean it began from the time we were at ORU in Tulsa, she started planning her house and she's planning this house and planning it. And she took, first she carried magazines around with us and finally got so many "Architectural Digest" and so forth, I said Gloria, just cut the pictures out you like. Okay. And so, she'd cut out the pictures and then she got her some graph paper and we'd be on the road for a while and we'd come back and then she'd go to the dining room table and out would go all of those pictures. And then, all the graph paper and so forth and she had everything placed like she wanted it, and she moved the rooms around. And she was playing house, just having a wonderful time at it. Whew. She said, Kenneth, this house, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I can't find a way to cut it down. I said, Gloria, it's a dream, girl, dream on. She said, do you mean it? I said, yeah, dream on.
So, now, I mean, and for 30 years she did that. Well, finally she said I'm gonna either have to build this house or just forget it. She said, now, all I need to know is it's God's will. If it's not, I've had a wonderful time with it and I have no regrets at all. Now, God kept us in nice places. Every house we had, and we don't borrow money, and every house got a little better and that one got a little better and we finally wound up man, we lived in it for 20 years and just, oh, and enjoyed it. And, she said, I'm gonna have to do it. I said, well, you know what? I tell you what let's do. Let's, let's just pull aside and we'll just, we'll just fast for three days and seek the Lord, see what he says.
And so, we did that. I've never gone the whole three days without the answer. And so, here we were and late in the evening of the second day and we're just sitting there on the couch at our little prayer place, prayer cabin. So, we're just sitting there on the couch. Oh my, the word of the Lord came to me. And he said, right in here, and when you're fasting it's, you're more sensitive to it. And see, this is what they should've been doing, get more sensitive to what Jesus is doing and what he's saying. And the Lord said, I want you to minister these verses of scripture to her because this house is part of your prosperity. Okay, good. So, I went to the 54th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, Jesus on the cross in the 53rd, and then here he is in the 54th and talking to the church. Build and lengthen your cords and your stakes and so forth.
So, I just opened my Bible and I said, Gloria, here's what the Lord said for me to read, to minister to you to build this house. I started reading it and she just began to cry and she wasn't weeping, she was just crying. I said, what is it, baby? She said, those are the very verses of scripture that I put on my little list when we were in Tulsa in that little old, nothing of a house we lived in. The perfect house for this family and for this ministry and those were the verses of scripture. God confirmed it. You see that? Now, here, just, I mean just a tad over a week ago, I fasted a Saturday, Sunday and Monday for a very specific thing. And here I was, the last day of the fast, which would've been over Monday evening at six, and the word of the Lord came to me very, very plainly at a little while before five and he spoke to me just exactly, exactly what he had to say to me. I heard it, he said, "your fast is over". "I love you. I'm very interested in your welfare and success" and so forth and so on. I had my answer, my fast was over. I still didn't eat until 6 o'clock.
Now, when you go into a fast like that you have no hunger. But, something happens in your spirit. I'm still, I mean that was just a little over a week ago. I'm still strongly under the influence of it tonight. I saw things in preparing this message for this service and for this week. I saw things in it that I've never seen before. That's what begins to happen when your spirit is open to God and you're hearing from him and things are become stronger and stronger on the inside. Had they been doing that, had they been spending time on their knees before God and worshiping him, had they been saying, I don't know what the three of them are doing up there on that mountain, but it must be important because the Master has them up there. And then, when they came down they were amazed at him because his face still shone with that glow and glory. Had they been taking the time, had they been spending time thinking about him instead of about themselves, the devil would not have been able to get in there and create an argumentative situation between them.
Now, let me tell you something else here. Let's think about this. There are people that just have an argumentative air about them. What is strife anyway? Strife is anything that violates the law of love. It doesn't have to be a loud argument. Gloria mentioned to me this afternoon, I was discussing this message with her. She said, well, hey, you can get mad at yourself. Well, I hadn't thought about that. You can argue with yourself and create the same kinda thing on the inside. And your brain's not wired for that. Creates confusion. Medical science has proven that. Dr. Caroline Leaf proved that, I mean, scientifically. Of course, that woman is amazing. And the things that God has opened to her and has shown her in the spirit about the brain and how the mind works and then, oh my, Dr. Avery Jackson, I wish I was there where I could see your face and your family tonight. Praise God. The things that I've learned from you, sir about the mind, the will and the emotions and the brain, especially the brain in strife and arguments.
Now, let's go over now to the Book of Galatians. Once again. Now we know, in the fifth chapter and the 22nd verse, "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and temperance, against such there is no law". But now, wait a minute. What about the works of the flesh? Verse 19, "The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these:" And, he's writing to Christian people, born again, Holy Spirit baptized Christian people. "Adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings and as such like".
Look at the company strife keeps. It isn't worth it. It's absolutely not worth it, the things that it destroys. It destroys dreams. The very apostles of the Lamb, of course Satan attacked them with that. But, these are the same men that changed the history of the world. What changed everything? First of all, the new birth happened right there. Jesus breathed on them and said, receive the Spirit. That's when they were born again. And then, on the day of Pentecost, glory to God, filled to overflowing with the love of God, himself, the Spirit of the living God. Once that took place, what happened? The love of God was shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost. Can you see it? The strife and the fussing was over.
Now they knew who they were. The devil was defeated and the rest is history. Strife is a killer. It's a killer of families. It's a killer of nations. This nation is suffering with it today and I've been around a long time. I'm 83 years old, I've seen a lot come and go in this country. I've never seen this kinda strife before between parties. I have never seen it. They've always you know, politically fought one another, but not like today, no, not like that. It opens this nation to terrible, terrible consequences and I'll tell you right now, if it were not for the praying people in this country it would destroy it because that's what Jesus said. A house divided against itself can't stand. What's it saying? A house that's arguing and fighting with one another, what strife, confusion, every evil work. And the devil just runs away with it 'cause you've just handed him your life, just handed it to him free of charge. Amen. It's just not worth it.
So, how do you do it? How do you change it? Greater is he that is in me, greater is the love that is in me than the hate that is in them. Learn how, learn how to put the greater one to work for you. I learned this from Brother Kenneth Hagin many many years ago. Learn how to put the greater one, the love of God, the God himself who is love, learn how to put him to work for you. The first thing is just what James said. Shut your mouth. Just shut it, don't be talking about it. Shut it down. And they're just ranting and raving and screaming and goin' on, my my my my, using all kinds of language and you're just standing there looking at 'em and saying, oh God, greater is, greater is the love in me than the hate that's in them, the anger that's in them. The greater One is in me.