Kenneth Copeland - Four Steps To Activate Powerful Faith
Father, we thank You tonight for Your Word. And I pray, Lord, as people are listening with open hearts and open minds, that I receive the anointing to deliver this Word tonight accurately and plainly with simplicity but at the same time depth of revelation and insight and knowledge, concepts of this life of faith. And we thank You and we praise You and ascribe all of the glory to the magnificent Name of Jesus, amen. Glory to God. Thank You, Lord.
Let's go to the Gospel of Mark. As everybody knows that knows anything about this ministry, my father in the faith, Oral Roberts, while I was, when I went to Oral Roberts University, I was 30 years old. Gloria said I was the oldest freshman in the world. And then had the honor and the privilege of being part of the flight crew on the ministry's airplane. And I was so thrilled with what I saw, watch him, I saw him use faith on purpose. I saw him and I thought, this man uses his faith like a mechanic uses a tool. And he said to me in the healing room where people are so sick and ambulatory and so forth, couldn't manage. You know big crowds make sick people very nervous. And my first night in the healing room, an invalid room, he said, "You're gonna do the praying. You're gonna do the laying on of hands and don't touch them 'til you're ready to release your faith".
I thought, this man uses his faith on purpose. And I was, oh, I just, I studied him and everything he said. And a few weeks later, I was given my first tape by Kenneth E. Hagin. You know, those big tapes, one on each side. This is a long time, we never heard of cassette. Amen, this is 1967. And I just, I never heard anything like that. I was so hungry for faith. I was so hungry for it, I tell you, I just, when Gloria and I, when both of us got born again, she first and then me a couple weeks later. And ah, we just, if we saw a church steeple, we just wanted to go find out what they're doing there. We were so hungry for God. Well, I learned from Kenneth E. Hagin where faith comes from, what produces it, what feeds it, how you release it, praise God. And all of the different aspects of faith, what hinders it, what stops it.
And now, I'm working with Oral Roberts and I'm listening to Brother Hagin on tape and I'm telling you, my faith was just, just growing, just and it's hard for me to explain it, how it just, seemed to me like just overnight. It got so strong. And then I heard him. I heard him tell this story more than once. But, and Gloria and I listened to Brother Hagin just all the time. And he's been, you know, he's been in heaven since 2003, but I have a telephone, iPad, just full of, I mean, literally, I don't know how many messages are on there. And so I listened to this again and it caught my heart and caught eye again and re-energized this in me and in Gloria, glory to God. He was preaching a meeting, oh a number of years ago, and after the service, he was staying there in the home with the pastor, and they had invited a number, several couples over after the service to have a bite to eat after service and they were all gathered there and had, you know, those of you that remember those days.
Yeah, we'd have a great service and go out and we'd just rehash everything that was said around in a restaurant someplace and you'd just get to talking and it was just absolutely marvelous, just wonderful. And he said the spirit of prayer came on him and he said normally, you know, something like that I would just excuse myself. He knew, when something like that happened, he said, "I gotta pray and I have to pray now". But he said all of these people were well aware and they were not novices in the things of the Spirit all of 'em, and he said, "I just told everybody, excuse me, but I've got to pray and I've got to pray right now". And they said, "Well, all right. We'll just pray with ya". And they just all got on their knees and just began to pray in the Spirit. When his knees touched the floor, he saw Jesus in the Spirit.
So Jesus began to talk to him about some other things and 'til this day, I've never heard him say what it was. And just as Jesus finished with what He was discussing with Brother Hagin, Brother Hagin said, "May I ask You something before You go"? He said, "Well, certainly". He said, "Now, the woman with the issue of blood", he said, "I have one message there and I have another message there about her, but" he said, "I haven't been able to put those together and I'm missing something". And Jesus said, "Yes, you are". He said, "Now I'm gonna give you four points to your message". And he said he got his notepad out, put it down there, closed his eyes again. There was Jesus again. He said, "Put down point number one, point number two, point number three, and point number four". He said it's amazing how good you can write with your eyes closed when you're in the Spirit. Now He said, "If anyone anywhere will do these four things, they can receive whatever they need and whatever they want from Me in any area of their lives". And He said, "Point number one, she said it".
So he wrote that down, "She said it". "Point number two, she did it". Corresponding action to what she believed in her heart and what she said. "Point number three, she received it". "And point number four, she told it or she testified to it". Excuse me. She said it. She did it. She received it. She told it. Amen, so let's go look at this in Mark Chapter Five and let's look for it. And you'll find this. You'll find this all over the Bible. It's the laws of faith. You can find it in every miracle. You can find it in the First Covenant. You can find it in the Second Covenant. Why, it's the way David defeated Goliath. Amen, he said it, "You uncircumcised Philistine! You don't have a Covenant. I do". He said it and then he did it. He killed him, cut his head off. And then he chased, he and the rest of the Israeli army chased the rest of those people all the way back to the giant's hometown. Then what did he do? He took that man's armor. He turned his head in. He had that guy's head in his hand. Turned that in, but then they sang songs about it and he told it and he told it and he told it. You just search it out. All the miracles and so forth happen exactly the same way. Praise God.
Now look at this. Mark 5:25, "A certain woman which had an issue of blood 12 years and had suffered many things of many physicians and had spent all that she had and was nothing better, but rather grew worse. When she heard of Jesus, she came in the press behind and touched his garment", or his prayer shawl. He's a Rabbi. "For she said, 'If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole.' And straightway", or immediately, "the fountain of her blood was dried up and then she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. Jesus immediately, knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned Him about in the press and said, 'Who touched my clothes?' And His disciples said unto Him, 'Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee and then sayest Thou who touched Me?' And He looked round about to see her that had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before Him and told Him", she testified to it. "She told Him all the truth. And He said unto her, 'Daughter, your faith hath made you whole. Go in peace and be whole of that plague'".
Now we know that it was the power. It was the Anointing. Jesus of Nazareth, God anointed with the Holy Ghost and power who "went about doing good, healing all that were oppressed of the devil". We know it was that anointing. We was the anointing He talked about in Luke Chapter Four. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor" and so forth. We know it was. But look, there were other people touching Him. They were thronging Him and, but the power didn't flow. That power, that spiritual anointing power the burden-removing, yoke-destroying power of the Living God, dwelling in and on Jesus was inert until her faith activated that power and pulled it out of Him, that touch of faith. You remember how many times Jesus said in His ministry, "Be it done unto you as you have believed".
Do you believe I can do this? Yes, Lord. Then be it done unto you as you have believed You remember the young boy that went into convulsions and that demon knocked him to the ground and caused him to violently convulse. Jesus spoke to him and told him to come out. What did Jesus say to the man, the father of that young boy? That young man said, "If you can help us, have compassion on us". And Jesus said, I mean, you know, the boy's laying there wallering around on the ground. He didn't do anything. He said, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes". If you can have faith, if can release your faith right now, then I can do something. If you don't release your faith, I can't do anything. That's an amazing thought. And with tears he cried and he said, "Oh Lord, oh Lord, I believe. Help me mine unbelief". It woulda been better if he'd have said, forgive me of my unbelief. But just that little spark of faith, Jesus went into action, praise God, and delivered his son and told that devil, "Don't you ever go back in him again". But it took the faith connection, that man, and Jesus' authority for that child to be delivered. Praise God.
Now, the two things that are so important here, listen to this. "Jesus immediately, knowing in Himself that virtue", you know, I wish they hadn't a translated that way. That's the Greek word dunamis, power. "knowing that power had gone", it's that Anointing power, "had gone out of Him". So we got power going out of Him. Now, she said, "If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole and straightway, the fountain of her blood dried up". And then she felt in her body. She knew it. She knew it. She was healed. Well, certainly she would know it. I mean, she'd been that way 12 years. She'd been unclean for 12 years. She'd been shut in for 12 years and not allowed, illegal for her to get out in public. Of course she could tell it. She was very aware of that power going into her. Jesus was very aware of that power going out of Him.
I remember years ago. Back in those days, we were in a large auditorium, large city auditorium and huge, huge platform and stage. So we had people. We had a prayer line. I was laying hands on people as they came up and came up on that stage. In fact, it was big enough that you could have a line of people for oh, long as this whole platform here, that stage was just huge. And they would come up there. I was standing up on the platform itself. And this young woman came up before me and I laid my hands on her. Now, I didn't physically feel it. I didn't feel the warmth of it or anything like that. Oh, but I'm telling you, I was so aware that that power went out of me. I mean, particularly in this area right in here. Ah, I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. And I said something to the effect of, "You're healed". I said, "I know when that power goes out of me". "Yes", she said, "I'm healed. I'm healed". I said, "Well, what are you gonna do about it"?
Now, what I couldn't tell when I first looked at her but she had on braces from her neck all the way down her whole body and she just plopped down on the floor and she began to take those braces off and she took the braces off her legs and her legs were just like noodles and she caught ahold of the theater curtain on the side and she pulled herself up. And somebody started over there to help her. And I said, "Don't help her. Don't touch her". The power's gone into her, see. It's the same thing that happened here. And she pulled herself up that curtain and she began stagger around, but every step she took, strength began to go into her legs. That's where the problem was. The strength began to go into her legs. Her name was Kathy Bruce.
And then they told us later, she had come there. A pastor had put together a bus of people in the church. And they came to come to that meeting and particularly to get in the healing ministry. Oh, my, my, my. And she began to walk and then they said later, she wouldn't let anybody help her much. She's walking and they said later, George, they got out to the bus and they couldn't get her to get on the bus. She wanted to walk along the side of the bus. And as the bus was moving, she started walking. They finally got her in the bus and she's just shoutin' and praising over the next few days, glory to God. I mean, she's totally, perfectly healed.
But see, that was that Anointing power. Now, I didn't have anything to do with that power going through me. Like Jesus didn't have anything to do with that power leaving Him. He didn't do it. She did it. That woman's faith pulled that out of me. There were other people in that prayer line that didn't get anything. Others did. Well, that's the way it is, Copeland, just some get it and some don't. Yeah, but there are reasons why. And tonight, you know, we don't have time to get into that. But this'll solve that. This is the way you solve that. She believed it in her heart, first fundamental of faith. She believed it in her heart and she said it with her mouth and then she acted on it and put corresponding action to it and she received it.