Kenneth Copeland - Faith Prepares for What It Expects
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland, and this is the "Believer's Voice of Victory" broadcast. And this is KCBC on Thursday morning, the year of 2020. Glory to God. Thank you, Jesus. And you know, we're like the disciples. We never changed clothes all week long. You know, I've had people actually say that, man, they wore their same clothes for three and a half years. Wrong. Have you never read the book of Luke? He said, now see what he was saying there, he said, you've gone to work for me. I'm taking care of everything. Don't take extra money. Don't take extra clothes.
Hey, you're working. You're working for Jesus of Nazareth, the evangelistic association. And we're in world evangelism here. I'll pay the bills. If we don't have it, we'll make it. If we don't have enough food, forget that. And he said, when I said, don't take any money, don't take any extra clothes. Did you lack anything? They said, "No, Lord. We lacked nothing". Nothing Isn't that good? No. Isn't he good? Yes. Thank you, Jesus. Let's go back to the fifth chapter. The book of Mark once again, please. And may I remind you faith always prepares for what it expects.
If you're praying, excuse me, and expecting your child to be delivered from incarceration. Set him a place at the table every day. Get up and set a place at breakfast. Don't just leave him there all day. Take those dishes and wash them. Just like you do the other dishes. Set another place at the table at lunch. And talk to that son, talk to that daughter. Include them in the meal. Your faith is expecting them home. And then that night they'll take those dishes. Wash those dishes. I mean, hey, they got imaginary food on them. They got faith food on them.
Wash those dishes and ask them if "You want to help mama dry dishes today? That's all, you take your seat. You sit down. You've been gone a long time. Sit right here. Mama wants you here where I can talk to your sweet face". Yes. "Don't you like this, baby? Isn't this wonderful? Now, you're going to get up early Sunday morning. Cause you're going to church with mama. Like he used to when he was a boy. Yes, that's right. I know you loved it then, didn't you? Now don't talk, don't talk back to your mama"! That's faith that does that. Amen.
Now, I don't ride airlines anymore. Of course, you know the reason why, but you get on an airliner. Before you get on there, Like you guys get together and you say, "Lord, thank you. Because three days from today on the flight back, we're going to come right back to this same place. And we are going to praise you for a wonderful flight. A problem-free flight". "And I expect to get upgraded to first class. Thank you very much". It'll happen all the time. Why? Because you're favored. You have grace. Amen? Faith always expects, and is always prepared for what it expects. Here we are. We're here in this fifth chapter.
Now, remember now, "when the madman of Gadara saw Jesus far off, he ran and he worshiped him". And what happened? He just fell down before him and worshiped him "and cried with a loud voice and said, 'What am I to do with me Jesus, you son of the most high God? I adjure you by God, that you torment me not'". Now the ones that I've heard in talking to me, that's what they sounded like. I was in Jamaica, years ago, about to go to the meeting, and I was up in the mountains. The Lord told me that I wasn't called to preach in the cities, I was called to preach up in the mountains. Come to find out there were people that had been fasting and praying, asking for someone to come teach them faith. And I was that someone.
And well, on one evening, before on the way to church, I mean, just as we're getting in the car, the pastor said, "Brother Copeland," he said, "could we stop by on the way and pray for a woman"? I said, "of course". I said, "what's the matter with her"? "She's mad". Now you tell me. So we drove on over and we got to this place, no electrical power. Boy, it looked like Halloween night, brother. And we walked through that place, kerosene lanterns. And of course all your children have never walked through a house it's lit by kerosene lanterns. I have. And you can't see much, but I could see enough to think which one of these are the mad ones? I mean, you come there.
Got all the way back to the back part, and here was this woman on her haunches, had a little stick about that long and a wrapped up, tied up bandana with her stuff in it. On a bed, had no bed clothes on it, just all mattress, old strapping mattress and cotton ticking, you know? And we walked in there. We walked in and I'm standing here. There were two, well a man on each side of me and the pastor.
Now, those of you that are older and listened to radio, you remember Dr. Weber. You remember Dr. Weber? Came on every day. A real good, good Bible teacher. And he just, he was a Bible expounder. He just took verse by verse and went through the New Testament, strong Southern Baptist preacher. I think that's what, wasn't he Southern Baptist? I believe that's right. Anyway. So we're standing there and she's on her haunches like this and she'd look up and do this. And the man that was helping me was here on the right, and there was another man that was on the left, and then the pastor was down there and she said, "You must be Dr. Weber"! He said, "No, ma'am, I'm not". And she said, "You must be Oral Roberts"! He said, "No, ma'am, I'm not".
Let me get over here while I do this. She said, "I know who you are! And you're afraid of anything that's not flesh and blood". I said, "No, ma'am. I fear no man, I fear no devil, and I fear no beast". Now, I knew what the Lord wanted me to say to her. I said, "Look at me, baby". I said, "Look at me, look at me. Look". I said, "I came to tell you Jesus loves you". I said, "I came to tell you he loves you. And in the name of Jesus, you come out of her right now and you leave God's property". And she put her head back down, but that devil was gone.
Now, I learned from the pastor, some years before, she'd been on that bed since she was 18 years old, which meant she had been there for, I don't know something like 10 or 15 years, whatever it was. She had gone, I mean, she was just little 18 year old girl. She was a waitress and there was a group came and had a revival meeting and she got saved. She got born again. I tell you, she was so thrilled with Jesus. She was just beside herself. She was so thrilled.
And so she took nearly all of her money and bought a new dress, bought this new dress and had her hair fixed and had it trimmed, and she looks so good. And she puts some polish on her nails, and she went to church on Sunday morning and the church that she went to had the dress police out at the door. And when she came in, they said, "You cannot come in". "Why"? "What is that on your fingernails? You have cut your hair. You can't come in this place. This is a holy place". And said something like Jesus will not allow that. And she began to brood about it. "Well, he doesn't love me". And she just went back to her old job and just drug through it, and it got on her mind and it got on her mind and it got on her mind and it got on her mind, this is the gateway and it got on her mind.
She had no earthly idea how to resist that. All she needed to hear was that Jesus loved her. You paint your fingernails and shave your head bald, He loves you. I know when I left she was, I never did know the rest of the story. Another time, I had even been saved for a little while, saved and filled with the Spirit, but was still a spiritual illiterate, and it was right after I first went to Oral Roberts university and the man that I was with, Charles Rogers, he was a very early mentor of mine. And he invited me, there was, we were having a meeting in a small church there, and I was singing and Charles was preaching.
So a member of that church, a little small Pentecostal church, she said, "Brother Roger, would you come pray for my mother"? She said, "She's about to die. And I don't know whether she's saved or not. And would you come pray and minister to her"? He said, "Sure". So he took me along, and back in those days, Oh man, I probably weighed 240. And so, and I weighed in this morning, 163 and a half, that's where I'm supposed to have been then. But I was a glutton, but I was a delivered glutton! Anyway, I'm standing down here at the foot of her bed, Charles and this woman's daughter we're down here at the head of the bed where Charles was ministering her. And she's just laying there, just completely out of it. We're just standing there, all of us, and she sat up straight in the bed and said, "Sick boy! Sick! Sick boy! Sick"!
It scared me. I mean, ooh, thank you, sir. It scared me silly. Man, I got out of the room. It wasn't what she said, it wasn't the way she said it, it was the anointing on it. The satanic anointing on it. Just made your hair stick right straight up. It got me out of the room. And I stood out there and I thought, "What in the world is a matter with me"? That little hundred pounds, sick, sick woman run me out of the room and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I said, "Father, I commit myself before you right now. The longest day I'm on this earth I'll never run from another one. Never. I will never run from another one".
I didn't know the Bible even said "Resist the devil, he'll flee from you". I didn't know that yet. Are we listening? Now, that devil said that with a loud voice for Jesus had, look at that, for a Jesus had already said to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit". He's dealing with the devil that was ruling him. He's dealing with one devil. "You come out of the man". And that's when then that devil answered him. This wasn't the man. It was the devil that was doing the talking. And Jesus said, "What is your name"? He answered saying, "My name is Legion for we are many".
Now there was nigh unto the mountains, a great herd of swine feeding. What is legion? 3,000 to 6,000. The 3,000 to 6,000 did not possess him. That one did. The 3,000 to 6,000 worked for the one. You have one angel assigned to you at birth. As your ministry grows, your angel will call in assistance. And God has plenty of angels. He has multiplied trillions of them. Hallelujah! Is this saying anything to you? Amen. That's the reason the Lord allows us to see things like this, so we can see rank and file.
So, now notice this, "he besought him much that he would not send him away out of that country". That's where he was assigned by the devil. That's where he was assigned. He was assigned to that country. That's where he lived. That's where he operated. Norie, I'll submit this to your son. Coming from Africa, there's regions and places where you find one type of spirit. You'll find another type of spirit. You'll find spirits that are assigned to places like Lagos, where there are financial centers. And you need to be sensitive. You need to be sensitive.
I knew, I remember during the Soviet Union and flying into that airspace. Man, you could feel it. Well when you crossed over in there, it's heavy. It's heavy. Isn't there anymore. Now, back when, right after the Soviet Union fell, we were back there again. And we went to Kiev and places, and we went to Moscow. Praise God, thank God for Denise Renner. I mean they were over there, back then in the early days, particularly in Latvia. And we dedicated the first church built in Latvia, and particularly a Christian Church in centuries. Anyway, if you're sensitive, you can tell the difference when you go into different areas of the United States. And you should be sensitive like that. But you won't be, unless you prepare yourself before you go and ask God to improve your senses, or if it's a serious situation, fast for a couple of days before you go.
Now then. "Now there was there now to the mountains, a great herd of swine feeding. All the devils besought them". Now, the people heard what the man said. They didn't hear what the, now Jesus heard all those devils. They didn't hear that. And the devils besought Jesus saying, "Send us into the swine that we may enter into them and Fort worth, Fort Worth dear God, and forth with Jesus gave them leave, and the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine. And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, into the lake, there were about 2,000 and they drowned in the sea".
Any country boys in here ever heard a swine, a pig squeal? It's a shrill kind of a sound that makes you want to kick him. Particularly if it's a little one. Just shut your fat mouth. And you get several of them out there. And it's nasty. And I don't care a thing any more about eating one of them, you understand? You may not bother you much, you go feed some of them awhile. I'm not eating that. I become what they eat. When I was a kid, man, we had slop bucket by the table. Gah! A slop bucket. And put that all of this, dump all this after, all your trash, in that big five gallon bucket and then go slop the hogs. You don't understand this when you're getting your bacon at Kroger's. But there was a time when there was slop.
Now, why is it that the word specifically forbids consumption of pork? Because of Genesis 6:3. The days of man should be 120 years. And because of the way that animal digests his food and so forth, it's not fit to eat. And today you don't need to eat that. I mean, there's other things you can go and get the same taste. Ham doesn't taste like what you think it tastes like. You're tasting this, you're tasting the curing and the, if you eat pork that hasn't been seasoned, it doesn't taste like pork. It's just another meat. You're not tasting the pork. You're tasting the seasoning, because it really doesn't taste very good. And it used to be steak and eggs.
And there was a high tone salesman that made a deal with the pork people. And they had parades. "Ham and eggs"! And the whole United States bought it. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Mm hmm. I ain't going to say more about that. All right. This is so, how much time have we got, Tim? Ooh. We will get to this tomorrow if I get off of pork. We will. I promise you. Thank you, Lord Jesus. We'll get there tomorrow. Jeremy, help us, son.