Kenneth Copeland - Put The Word First to Activate Powerful Faith
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 bettered 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 sayest thou, '"Who touched me"'? And he looked around 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 has made you whole. Go in peace and be whole of that plague".
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. What do you mean she received it? She began to see herself with it. Now this is usually where a failure comes. She'd been 12 years in that mess. As best as we can tell, this must have happened somewhere along about the second year of Jesus' ministry. But He kept coming in and out of Capernaum because He immediately moved His headquarters from Nazareth, where He was brought up. He immediately, because it had prophesied this in the scripture, He moved to Capernaum, set up His headquarters there. So He's in and out of Capernaum probably more than any other place 'cause that was His home. That was His headquarters. That right there on the Galilee. And his 12 disciples, all right there. And they would gather in His home and He would teach them, large place. And He would teach them.
So He's in and out of there all the time, and she's in the proximity of Him. She had to have meditated on this, and thought about this, because she heard of Jesus, somebody's relaying that message to her, that He's been preaching all this time. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He's anointed me. He's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor and so forth. Sent me to heal the brokenhearted. Set the captive free. Preach deliverance, preach recovery of sight to the blind, deliverance for the captive, acceptable year of the Lord and so forth and so on. Somebody's getting this message back to her because He preached it all the time everywhere He went. That was His text. And then He ministered it to people. You can prove that in the 10th chapter back. That message got through to her. She began to see herself with it.
Proverbs 4, turn there. I want you to put your eyes on this. This is the prescription for healing. Proverbs 4:20. "My son, attend to my words". What does that mean? Put it first, put it final priority. But in this case it means, put it up front, do this first, attend to it. Down here in Texas, we say, "Well, we're gonna tend to that. But that's what we're saying. We attend to this". Now, you know, you might see someone, well, let's say that I'm walking down the street here and I see a good friend of mine. And I say, "Man, how are you doing? And I tell you what let's do, Let's go down here and sit down and have a cup of coffee or something like talking". "No, Brother Copeland, I'd love to, but I can't right now. Well, I've got an appointment to see a man at the bank, and if I don't go right now, I'm gonna be late. Now, I sure don't want to be late to this appointment". Why? He has to attend to that first.
And then a less priority situation is fine. But first things first, say that, "First things first", the Word of God needs to be the first thing in your life all the time. Not just when you're in trouble, but all the time. the Word of God, and more than just reading the Word of God. I mean that His Word needs to be first place. And just like with Gloria and me. And we have others that we listen to. But Brother Hagin is one that introduced it to us. And so we listen to him and I mean all the time, but that's not the only thing we do. We spend time in the Word. We spend time reading the Word. We spend time dealing with the Word. We spend time taking communion, praise God, and so forth. But the Word and the things of the Word of God, are first place in our lives. That's our first attention. "Yeah, well Brother Copeland you're a preacher". Well, what does that have to do with it? Preachers have 24 hours a day, just the same as school teachers have 24 hours a day, just the same as mechanics have 24 hours a day. Amen.
Have you ever considered tithing your time? Now, of course you could have 2.4 hours a day, but just what about tithing your waking hours a day? Just half of that, 1.2 hours. "Brother Copeland that is a lot of time". Really? How much time do you spend watching television when you come home from work? "Uh, let's don't get into that". Well, let me give you an idea now. Gloria and I, we have our evening meal early and we get through about six o'clock, and we get ready for bed as quick as we can. And we get into bed and out comes that iPad, and set it up there and that little stand, and turn that thing on. And here we go, Brother Hagin's preaching to us. And depending on our situation, a whole lot of the time we'll get in two of those messages, which will run, an hour, hour and 15, hour and 20 minutes. Some of them just about 55 minutes or so, and we'll get into one maybe one and a half, and then get up the next morning and spend some time in prayer.
I have need to pray for my partners, glory to God. And I go into my study and I spend time in there and I take communion. Well, see. You can do the same thing, even if you're on a regular work schedule, and I'm blessed to have that time because of the ministry, but you can work it in the time. What if you had to get up just 30 minutes earlier? What if you arrange it. Listen to a CD on the way to work instead of listening to the news. "Well, Brother Copeland my car doesn't have a CD player in it". Well, you've got a telephone. Excuse me, an iPhone. I'm old school. Yeah, I'm old, I went to school. You have a phone, like I do. Praise God. Bluetooth that thing to the radio, through your player, whatever, however you've got it fixed in there, and listen to the Word of God going to work.
And pray in the Spirit as you go to work, and feed your feeds your spirit, learn something. Instead of listening to all that trash and all that news, you already know what they're gonna say anyway. Amen. Feed your spirit on the way to work. Feed your spirit at lunch. Take out your a little New Testament, like I do and you do, you got your little Bible app in your phone, and you get through eating you just open your phone there, and you read a verse or two and put it back in your purse, or put it back in your pocket. You've fed your body, now you've fed your spirit, you've fed your faith. You'd be surprised how much time you can spend feeding your spirit and feeding your faith on the Word of God. And you will be shocked at how strong your faith will become, and how small amount of time.
I remember when I was just first learning this thing. And I was still a student there, Oral Roberts University, and I had an invitation to come preach in Lubbock, Texas. And I was born in Lubbock, we didn't live there very long, but that's my birthplace. And then that interested me. And I was still a student there at ORU and Gloria and I, we had a car that needed a lot of help anyway. And it's a long ways from Tulsa to Lubbock. And I'm nursing this old car up there. Well, this is back before the alkaline batteries, all we had was those old carbon flashlight batteries. And I had a little tape recorder. I'm telling you, I had a small grocery sack full of batteries, and about one side and the other side of the tape, and it starts slowing down. So I'd take those batteries out and put in some fresh ones, thank God for alkaline batteries.
Anyway, and we had that little recorder, and I'd get up in the morning and I'd turn that on before I'd go to school, and I'd listen to Brother Hagin. We go to bed at night still doing it, back then only that thing and it start flapping then when it run out and I'd have to wake up and turn the tape over, and listening Brother Hagin, listening to Brother Hagin, listening to Brother Hagin, feeding my faith, feeding my faith. Gloria feeding her faith, feeding her faith. So anyway, I listened to all the way out there to Lubbock, listen to those tapes, listening and listening and listening.
And then I got in there the night before, and I went to bed that night, listening the Word of faith, the Word of faith, Mark 11:23, 24 and 25. And, and the woman with the issue of blood and I'm talking about putting the Word first place. I'm talking about, "attend to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not depart from your eyes", that's what we were talking about. That she began to see herself with it. "Keep them in the midst of your heart the life to those that find them and held their medicine to all their flesh". And I was listening all the way out there.
And that night before the next day, and then all that next day, because the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship meeting that night and first cafeteria wasn't done until late, because everyone would go to the cafeteria, just a while before they close, and everybody would have their evening meal. And then the cafeteria would close. And people would come out and bust the tables. And with a closed cafeteria, then we could have our meeting and oh, people God received, the people received, People got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, by the tens of thousands in those days. Well, I had to listen to all that Word. "Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word of God but you can't feel it".
I am using my faith on that old car for it to make it out, and it did good, it did well. And I've listened, and I've listened and I've listened and I've listened and I've listened. And I'm telling you the Word of God is final authority in our lives. If this is what the Word says, this is what we do. Anyway. And finally, they introduced me as a speaker and I got up there and of course, I ask them to turn in their Bibles to Mark 11:22, 23. Oh my brother, oh my sister, I want you to know all that faith came gushing up and blasted out of me. I'm telling you, Pastor George, I'm telling you, Aubrey, it exploded on the inside of me. All those tapes came out at once. And you know how I am, there's no way I can stand still and preach, particularly back there. Then I was almost running and I'm preaching, and I'm preaching over here. And they had a door came out on this side, and a door came out on this side that went into the kitchen.
And so, they would come out this side with trays and so forth, and they would bus the table, and then they would go in the kitchen over here. And I was just preaching just as hard and fast as I could. I'm telling you the power of God. I've been listening to this for days and days and nights and nights, and it just boiled over on inside of me. I went in that door. I came down here, I went in this door and I preached all the way through the kitchen. I preached to the dishwashers. I preached to the people in the kitchen, and they got big-eyed, and they were laughing, and some of 'em were clapping. And I'm telling you, the kitchen help was all excited and turned on. I came out this door, still preaching. All that Word see, that faith is built up on the inside of me, and I'm telling you it came out. Whoo, glory to God.
And of course the power of God was just all over the room. Well, the next day, now I'm still on the same subject here. "Attend to my Word, incline thine ear unto my sayings". And I'd been reading, was really interested in how speaking with other tongues worked. 'Cause this is one of the first things that happened to Gloria and I, we were still scripturally illiterate when we got born again and filled with the Spirit of God. And well, a man speaks in other tongues, speaks not unto men but God, I mean, no man understands him. And he edifies himself. That Greek word is edifice, or build up, or charge like a charge of battery. You build yourself up praying on your most holy faith in the Holy Ghost, Jude said. Mm, all right, I decided I'm gonna pray in tongues all the way from Lubbock to Tulsa. And I did that. Oh, I had a dry throat.
I remember I got out of that car. It was a job of work. I prayed in tongues the whole way. And I remember thinking I got out of my car, I thought, "Well, I know I'm edified because the Word says I am but if I am, I sure can't tell it. But I must be 'cause the Word says I am". Well, I walked in and Gloria said, "Kenneth, Brother Tommy Tyson is speaking over at so and so's house and their prayer group, and want to know if we would come". Well, I just got through driving for several hours, but Tommy Tyson is speaking, and oh my my, I just go any place to hear Tommy. It just, what a magnificent man of God, and had really helped Gloria and me.
And so I said, "Absolutely. Tommy speaking, I wanna hear him, just give me an opportunity here to clean up a little bit and we'll eat and go on over there". So we did. Well, 'course, Gloria and I got just, we got up just as close as we could to the front. And we were in the second row right here. And it was in somebody's home, it's a nice large home, but it's in the living front room of their house. And it's big place, there's a lot of people in there. And they had chairs set up in rows, kinda like this. And there was a front row, and then Gloria and I were right there. And then there was another row of chairs just right behind us and over one seat like that.
And Brother Tommy, he was a chaplain at ORU, and he was standing with a little podium here, and he was teaching and Tommy was funny, and I'm feeling better already. I was tired from that drive. Talked in tongues the whole time. Didn't feel a thing. So, I don't remember what his message was, but he said, "Now, anyone that needs healing in your body, hold up your hand". And there were several people in there, held up her hands, and there was a woman right behind us and one seat over, like I said, and so she held up her hand. He said, "Would you stand up, please"? She stood up. "Someone around them, lay hands on them". And he said, "Kenneth, would you and Gloria lay hands on her". "Oh, yes sir".
So, we stood up and we just turned around in our seat, kinda like this, and laid hands on her. I'm telling you when I touched that woman, the power of God knocked her backwards. I mean, just knocked her down. I thought... Wow, I was edified, glory to God, now I'm full of faith. And my spirit was so built up, by praying in the Spirit, when I've released that power. Whoa. You getting something out of this? Of course. And it all fits right into this block of four steps. This is what happened. She was aware of that power going in and Jesus was aware of that power going out. His garment, listen to this now, His garment was her point of contact and the contact of her hand, touching that garment, caused the transmission of that power to come into her body.