Kenneth Copeland - Love Is a Faith Activator
— Hello, everybody. Welcome to the "Believer's Voice of Victory" broadcast. We're Kenneth and Gloria Copeland. Gloria, thank you for being so good to me.
— Oooh, thank you for being good to me.
— Father, we thank you today for this broadcast and we just praise you, and worship you, and bless you today. We magnify the name of Jesus.
— Yes, we do, Lord.
— Oh Lord, we give you praise and honor.
— Thank you.
— And we look into your Word today concerning having faith in God, having faith in your Word, having faith for life, and healing, and the best of everything. And we worship you and praise you for it. Thank you so much, Lord Jesus for providing it for us. And it's in your name we pray.
— Yes, Lord.
— Amen.
— Amen.
— Hallelujah!
— Praise God!
— Oh, glory be to Jesus.
— Are you wound up?
— I am.
— I'm gonna loose you and let you go.
— Oh, yeah. Glory to God. Let's go back to Mark 11:22. We're talking about the fundamentals of faith. The very basic fundamentals. Now, as I mentioned Monday, I learned this, or I heard it first time from my grandson, Jeremy. You've seen him a lot of times on the broadcast. And he... It struck me because I was right in, involved in teaching and preaching the fundamentals of faith. And he's the one that reminded me. "What are you watching when you're watching the World Series? What are you watching when you're watching the Super Bowl, the U.S. Open, the... What are you"... Masters of the fundamentals. And you get that way through practice, practice, practice, practice. And you just stay with it, and stay with it, and stay with it. And when everybody goes to locker room, you just keep practicing, you just keep practicing.
— You don't quit.
— You don't quit. You totally immerse yourself in the fundamentals of that game and what you're doing. And you... Till you become the best you can possibly be at it. This is what you have to do in spiritual forces. And... So the base... The very basic fundamentals, the... Let me say this again. In fact, before we read Mark 11:22, let's go over to the book of Romans. I quoted this yesterday, but I want you to put your eyes on it. I want you to see it. And from the 3rd chapter of Romans, the 27th verse, look at this, "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith".
— Yeah.
— Now, remember this, Galatians 5:6, "Faith worketh by love". No love, no faith.
— That's right.
— So they... What is grace? Okay... Well, while we're out here let's go... Let's look right here in the 4th chapter, 16th first. "Therefore it is of faith so that it might be by grace". So, no love, no faith. No faith, no grace. "To the end the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the Father of us all".
— Amen. Now, as Gloria said yesterday, faith is not optional. And this is the reason why, Gloria, it is so plain, it is so simple. You really have to have help to misunderstand this. They... Faith... Gloria said faith is not optional. Well, it's impossible to please God without faith. Why? Because of the grace. What is grace? Undeserved favor? Yes. Grace is God's overwhelming desire. To treat you, and to treat Gloria, and to treat me, and every other human being alive, like sin never happened.
— Amen.
— I remember the commercial where all the people got the green trucks and they come in and they clean up everything. And I was watching that one day and it said, "Like, it never even happened". I hollered out loud, "Gloria, that's faith. That's faith. Like sin never"... I mean, "That's grace. Like sin never happened. That's what God said. Even I'm here and brought out your transgressions... I remember them no more". Glory to God.
— Praise God. Hallelujah!
— Like it never...
— Like it never even...
— Happened. Isn't that wonderful?
— Yes, it is. That's grace. Well, now...
— Something to be grateful for.
— So that's the reason it is so vitally important to know and practice constantly, all the time, the very fundamentals of faith. "Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, 'Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea,' and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he says".
— Praise God. "Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. And when you stand praying, forgive"... Now, you can see why this is so important, Gloria, because if you're not walking in love, your faith just isn't working.
— That's right. In the 13th chapter of first Corinthians, he just got through laying out the nine gifts of the Spirit, manifestations of the Holy Spirit. And he begins the 13 chapter, "Even though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not love, I'm nothing but a lot of noise". And he just goes right through there and just wipes out all of those gifts of the Spirit that he just listed in the 12th chapter. Well, why is that true? Because they don't work without faith. And faith cometh, worketh by love.
— That's right.
— These are manifestations of God, who is love.
— That's right.
— Amen. That's the reason it's so vitally important that you understand and... That... Love is not optional, it is a commandment. "Yes, sir"! I'm a soldier in the army of the Lord. "Yes, sir. I'll walk in law".
— And, it's a blessing. It brings blessing to you...
— Oh, beyond measure.
— It opens doors... So, when it becomes a commandment to you, it becomes real...
— No choice but to walk it out Amen. So now, the fundamentals of faith. Now, I wanna give you these five fundamentals of faith. And... So, you can be outlining them, if that's what you're doing. But because of the time restraints we have on this broadcast, I wanna get these out and get them on your study notes. The number one fundamental of faith: Believe it in your heart, then say it with your mouth.
— Number two: Act on your faith. James 1:22, and 2:14-17, "Faith without corresponding action is dead". Then we'll study number three: Thy faith has made thee whole, from Mark 5:25-34 What this woman did. Number four: Faith will not work in an unforgiving heart. Mark 11:25, Romans 5:5, Galatians 5:6 and Ephesians 4:32. Nobody can... One cannot receive Abraham's blessing with Thomas's faith.
— That's right.
— And we'll go down through the... Romans 4:17-20, and then John, chapter 20, verse 24 trough 29 "Now then, believe it in your heart, say it with your mouth". Let's go... We've read Mark 11:23, Let's go to Romans 10:10.
— Can I say something?
— Yo, please do.
— And don't say anything different.
— Absolutely, never. If you catch yourself saying something di... I mean stop right there.
— Repent. Do like David, "Put a watch over my mouth that I do not sin against you". "Oh, Brother Copeland, that couldn't be sin". Really? Let me just check out something here. I just wanna make sure. Oh, yeah. I remember that Romans 14:23, "Whatever is not of faith, is sin".
— Yeah. Unbelief, sin.
— Yeah, it is.
— Doubt, sin.
— Yeah.
— Praise God. We'll deal with that...
— That's powerful.
— If we, you know, if we have time, we'll spend some time on that. Now, let's go. Romans 10:10. The 10th chapter of Romans. This is a great faith chapter because the word of faith is what the Apostle Paul preaching, and he said so in the 8th verse. Now, 10th verse: "For with the heart," with the inner man. "Man believeth unto righteousness. And with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation". Now, remember Ephesians 2:8, "We're saved, by grace through faith". It was faith that received it. It was faith that released it. And this is a basic fundamental, you believe it in your heart and say it with your mouth. That 9th verse, "If thou shalt confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus," or Jesus is Lord. "And shall believe in that heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shall be saved". Believe it in the heart, say it with a mouth. 2 Corinthians 4:13. "We..". Now the Apostle Paul is including himself with the church here at Corinth. "We, having the same spirit of faith. according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken. We also believe and therefore speak". Now, can't you see that in Mark 11:23?
— Yeah.
— Where Jesus said, "Believe it in your heart, say it with your mouth. You will have what you say".
— Amen.
— So now, let's go to Matthew, chapter 12. This one is... This one is just... Oh! It's... When I first really saw this and what it was saying, it just, kind of, stunned me. I was just... You know, I... When Gloria and I got born again, both of us scripture illiterates where we didn't know anything about the Bible, and I began to see certain... Well, we, you know, we both had heard religious things. And... But when I saw this one in the 12th chapter of the book of Matthew... Look at that, 37th verse, "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, or made right with God, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned".
— What are you saying?
— Yeah. It's not left up to God. It's what's in your heart coming out your mouth. Now, let's go to the gospel of Luke. And here again... This is Luke's account of the same teaching of Jesus, but he points out something here that... In the 6th chapter, I want you to see this because it is so detailed, so plain,
— Where are you going?
— Luke Chapter 6 and the 43rd verse. Now, notice this. Now get the impact of this. Remember, the sower soweth the Word. Everything is a seed. Every action, every word. There's nothing on this planet alive that didn't come from a seed. "A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes". You can tell what is in a person's heart, what is in their inner man, by what comes out of their mouth. Now, if they're saying the same thing you say, you don't pay any attention to that. But when you've had your mind renewed to the Word, and you're so aware... Well, I came home from school one day there at ORU and Gloria was out in the yard hanging out clothes.
— Those were the old days.
— Yeah. And I came in and she said... So, when I came in, she came in the house. She said, "I wanna tell you what I got today". She said, "Believe that those things which He says shall come to pass, you'll have whatever He said". She said, "Kenneth, I got it today. We have to believe that everything that comes out of our mouth comes to pass". I had gotten the same thing in school that day.
— Praise...
— I said, "Glory to God, Jesus, you've given that to Gloria and me, both". Look at that. We have to come to the place... Well, this... See, this is a law; that everything comes out of our mouth comes to pass. And so...
— From that time we paid attention to everything we said.
— Oh, yeah.
— We still do.
— So, as your mind is renewed and you hear someone say something, well, you don't just jump all over him, unless you know him, really. And then you don't jump all over him, you just... Worse...
— Or if you say something, you just correct yourself.
— Oh, yeah, right then.
— Yeah.
— But you'll hear someone and you're thinking, "Now, that's not what the Word of God says about this. That... We all know that". Because your mind's been renewed to the Word. And you're thinking... They're thinking, "Oh man, that flows coming. I'm gonna tell you what, that... You know". And they're saying, "This year, it's some kind of strain nobody ever heard of before". And, "You know, it come from Timbuktu or wherever it was. And then, you know..". "And, you know, we're always the first to get it... Oh, glory to God. Oh, thank you, Jesus. All glory... And we'll get it. We"... See?
— Yeah.
— So...
— You know what else? Someone's thinking or saying, that's extreme. That's just too extreme. For every word comes out of your mouth...
— Yeah.
— They're saying... It's just too extreme...
— The second Corinthians says, very plainly, in the 10th chapter... Let's turn over there.
— Okay, let's do it. I believe the Spirit... No, no, no. Let me finish this right here and we'll go to that. Don't don't let me forget that.
— Okay. "Every tree is known by his own fruit". Now, verse 45, "A good man out of the good treasure," or deposit, what he's putting in his spirit. "Bringeth forth that which is good". Good in, good out. Junk in, junk out "And an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil". Now, remember, Hebrews 3:12 says... Calls an, "Evil heart of unbelief". Now, unbelief is not non-belief. Unbelief is believing the wrong thing. And what comes out of your mouth is a result of what you're believing. "Well, I don't believe that". Well, you just told me what'd you believe. "Huh"?
— Yeah.
— "For of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaketh". He can't help it. You can't help it. I can't help it. Gloria cannot help that.
— Unbelief in, unbelief out.
— that's right.
— That's the way it is.
— That's just the way it... Whatever's in here is coming out your mouth, and whatever comes out your mouth is what you have. Your life, my life, everybody's life. What we have today is a product of what we said yesterday. No, let me ever change it. It's a product of what we believed and said yesterday. Amen?
— Amen.
— Now... Thank you, Lord. You wrote down a note on that. What'd you say? What were we going to?
— The last thing was Hebrews 3:12
— No, when you said... What was it she said, Tim?
— By your words... Oh, junk in, junk out.
— No.
— Yeah, second... Yeah. Thank you, Tim.
— What was it?
— 2 Corinthians 10. Let's go there. Now, this is for people that say, "Well, you know, in the first place..". Oh, it's Gloria who said, "Oh, now that's a bit extreme. You mean every word? Every word"?
— That's what I said.
— It said right... We just didn't read it. It read there in the book of Matthew. It said, "And you'll stand judgment for every idle word that comes out of your mouth".
— Mm-hmm.
— Now, an idle word is a faithless, useless word. All that scared-to-death. All of that idle, non... Words not originating from faith. We can joke and have a good time 'cause a merry heart does good like a medicine. And on all of that proceed from a life of faith. Those are not idle words. Now, let's look here. 2 Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 4. "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Casting down imaginations," or reasonings. "And every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God," or what you know from the Word of God. "Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ". Every thought. Every thought. What you think is what you say.
— Praise God,
— Did you hear me? What you think is what you say, and what you say is what get.
— That's right. That's right.
— Glory to God. Somebody shout "Amen"!
— Amen.
— I done preached myself slaphappy. Hey, glory to God. We're out of time.