Kenneth Copeland - Faith Always Prepares for What It Expects
Hello everybody, I'm Kenneth Copeland and this is The Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Father we thank You today for the Word. Oh God, You are so good to us and we love You with all of our hearts and all of our soul and all of our mind and all of our strength. And we thank You and praise You. We just praise You, Jesus for being Yourself, for loving us so. And we thank You. We are blessed beyond measure because of the Word of the Living God and the blessing of the Lord is ours. Amen.
Let's go right back over here where we were in the fifth chapter of the book of Mark. Now we're talking about faith prepares for what it expects, our beliefs will take place, will happen. Faith praises before it happens. Now this madman of Gadara, he never sleeps. He screams and carries on night and day and that demon would come on him. That ruler of the darkness had him completely totally possessed. Jesus called him, said, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit". One spirit, say "one spirit". One demon.
We read in the sixth chapter of the book of Ephesians, "We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world". That ruler had him completely demon possessed, spirit, soul and body. He even had hold of his voice. That was that devil that said with a loud voice, he saw Jesus afar off, ran and worshiped him in cried with a loud voice, "...Jesus, you torment me not". I know they talk like that because I've heard them.
I was with a friend of mine first time I ran into this, Charles Rogers. Lord, I love him. And he had more experience than I did because like I told you before, Gloria and I didn't know anything we were scriptural illiterates when we got born again. And T.L. Osborn said, "Copeland, you were born free". He said, "You didn't have any religion to unlearn. The thing you ever heard was faith". That's the first thing we ever heard. We had to find out about all this other. And people would say, "Why God can't heal anymore". I thought how stupid is that? If He ever did you think He can't? I mean what, what? I had to find out what all that unbelief was from somebody else.
Anyway, "He said, 'what is your name?' He answered and said," now a Legion, a Roman Legion was from three to 6,000. He had one ruler of the darkness of this world possessed him. Anyway, I was with Charles and this woman, and I was in a meeting with Charles. I was just sitting there, I didn't know anything. So she said, "Would you come pray for my mother? I don't know whether she's saved or not". So he said, "Sure".
Well I went with him. Back in those days I was way overweight. I weighed about 230 pounds. This morning I weighed 164 so you... Anyway, I'm just standing down here looking at the foot of the bed. Charles is right here at the side of the bed, the woman was laying there in the bed. And then they're just standing there talking. And she just... And she sat up in that bed and looked at me and said, "Sick boy, sick boy, sick". Scared me, I mean every hair on my body stood to attention. I just walked outside that hospital door and I thought you big dummy. That little 75 or 80 pound woman ran you out of the room. I'll never run from another one, never. I'll never run from another one.
Then again in Jamaica, I won't go into all the story, but this woman, bless her heart. Oh, anyway, it was very, very sad. And they asked me to go by and pray for her. And I said, "What's wrong with her"? He said, "Brother Copeland, she's mad". I said, "Mad"? He said, "Uh-huh, she's crazy". I got in there and we were back up in the mountains. I mean there was no electricity up there where we were. And I got back in the back room there that's all several out the front and looked to me like they qualified. But anyway, got back there in that back room and there she was. And just an old mattress. No bed, clothes on or anything. And she squatted down in that bed and had a little stick and a little bandana tied around it and had everything she owned in that little bandana.
I found out later that she got into a meeting and got saved. She was so frail. She was a waitress and she just fell in love with Jesus. And so she got her a new dress and decided she'd go to church. So she went and had her hair fixed and had it trimmed up and she painted her fingers up real nice and went. They wouldn't let her in the door. No, you have cut your hair and look on your fingernails. You can't come into this church. There's no way Jesus loves anybody that's cut their hair and paints their fingernails. That got on her heart and mind to the point where she finally just let that devil take her over.
So we walked in there. There's a man, the pastor had come with me and another man that was helping me. Walked up to that bed and she wouldn't look up. Directly she said, "You must be Brother Robert". He was a radio preacher Brother Robert, good one too. He said, "No, ma'am". "You must be Oral Roberts". "No ma'am, I'm not". And I was standing right in front of her. One of them was here and two other guys were here. "I know who you are and you're afraid of anything that's not flesh and blood". I said, "I fear no man or no devil. And in the name of Jesus, you come out on her right now".
Now see I didn't know that story. Then I just heard the Lord say this, "She's down". Funny she looked up I said, "Baby look at me. Look at me, look at me". I said, "I just want to tell you that Jesus loves you. Come on baby, look at me, look at me. Jesus loves you and He sent me here to tell you how much He loves you". And her eyes came back. Her eyes came back and I had to leave. I can hardly wait till I get to heaven to meet her for real.
Anyway, the important thing here is this. Now follow me. "My name is Legion, we're many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of that country". Now this shows you that demons are assigned and localized. "Now there was there now on the mountains a great herd of swine feeding and all the devils besought him". Now everybody there heard what that man said. They heard that. Jesus heard all of these devils. They didn't hear them. And everybody's standing around there, I mean their hair's sticking straight up. They don't know what to think. And it kind of settles down for a minute. Then they hear all of the, they don't hear all of the devils besought him. So evidently there was kind of a lull in this thing. "That we may enter those swine. Forthwith, Jesus gave them leave and the unclean spirits went out, entered into the swine and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the end of the lake. There were about 2,000, they were drowned". 2,000 screaming hogs.
Now my grandfather used to raise three or four hogs or five and they make enough noise just three or four of them make you want to just get out of the way, the nasty and the nasty sound in there. And I think back on that, when I was a little boy and we kept a five gallon bucket, a slop bucket at the end of the table. And all of the leftover food, they'll eat anything that's not metal. And just pour that in a slop bucket. Come out and then you go slop the hogs. That there makes me, I don't want to eat slop. I don't want to eat anything that eats slop. So now are you ready for this? Now all the region, there's frightened people so.
2,000 are so real, a herd, a whole herd of pig hogs, obviously full grown hogs. They were food for the Roman army and the people that were keeping those pigs, they don't know what's going to happen to them. They may get blamed for all their food drowning in this lake. And what are we going to tell them? They're never going to believe what nah. And it scared everybody there, frightened everybody in the place. Now remember, faith prepares for what it expects or believes what will happen ahead of time. "They that fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. They come to Jesus and they see him that was possessed with the devil", one devil and had the Legion, 3 to 6,000 devils.
So now what does that mean? That ruler was boss over all those others. That place was so full of fear. This man had everybody in that whole region upset. He never sleeps, he must be some kind of a god. I mean what is this guy? What, who, we had no idea, what is this? Possessed with the devil and had the Legion. Now understand this television radio audience and class, understand this. The devil has nothing new, he just perverted what already was. Move that over to the angel forces. That's what these devil are, fallen spirits. Huh? We know from what Jesus said, every child has an angel. We know that from what He said. What makes you think when you got grown that your angel quit? No, no, no, no, no.
How much time we got Tim? Oh perfect. I'll just turn over there and read it because I want to go right back to this. First chapter of the book of Hebrews verse 13. "But to which of the angels said he at any time, sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thine footstool, are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them that shall be heirs of salvation". Sent forth to minister for them. That would include ministering to you because they ministered to Jesus. Amen.
I was in Beaumont, Texas, little of small meeting there. I was there for three weeks and just all I knew how to do is just teach Mark 11:23, 24 and 25 and corresponding action. And I didn't know that phrase back there then. And I'm just going along, going along. And we had had a lot of Southern Baptist people that had come over into that meeting. Little small church but man, it was so packed out and we were having morning classes and night classes. And in the morning time I was teaching on faith. Well there was a man that had come there I mean every service and he set right on the front row and he was... And then all of a sudden he wasn't there for about three days. And I thought to myself, I wonder what happened to him. I just didn't pay attention and went on.
And then he came back to a morning service and at night the little building is just packed. We had people standing outside with the windows up. But in the morning of course it wasn't that full. And he sat right next to the door. Everybody else's up front. And I saw him back there and I thought, I'm thinking, well, he's back. That's good. But he's sitting there like this, that's the way he finished the service. So after the service he came around and he said, "May I speak to you"? I said, "Yeah, please". He said, "I really got mad at you". He said, "Because of something you said".
I don't know whatever it was and all that Baptist, I don't know to this day what I said. But I probably said something about Jesus going to hell. That couldn't be, that's what? That still upsets a lot of people. But he did. If He hadn't, we would. Spent three days and nights there. Anyway... And all of a sudden he said, "Brother Copeland, do you know you have an angel"? Well, I knew that. That's one of the first things I heard. In fact, it was on the first tape I ever heard of Kenneth Hagin's. He read that verse in the book of Hebrew. And back there then, really? And he had gone into some of these things.
He said, "Brother Copeland, he is huge". I said, "Yeah"? He said, "You know that commercial, Mr. Clean"? I said, "Yeah". He said, "He kind of looked like him only he was huge, he was just stuck to you. He was just right on top of you, just right everywhere you went". And he said, "You'd kind of calmed down a little bit". And he said, "He'd lean over and say something and off you'd go again". I've never seen him. But now that picture of all those other demons working for that one ruler, they all are under the control of Satan and the wicked spirits in the heavenlies. Oh, I wish I had time to get into all of that because it's real, maybe sometime. But now think about it. Every person in this room has an angel.
I'll tell you something. A very, very close friend of mine, Ed Dufresne. he's in heaven today. Now still Nancy pastors a church here in Murrieta, California and she's really close to Gloria and me and I go out there every January and preach in her church. And now Ed was in a building program and he didn't have the money and he needed $500,000, but he had to have $300,000 right now or the bank wanted that property. It had become more valuable and they were not going to give him any extensions. And he had to have $300,000 right now. And they just finally come to the end of it. They didn't know what they were going to do. He and his attorney they're just walking the floor.
A few days before that, Ed had gone somewhere to preach. He's in a hotel. This was back when they actually had keys. And he's dressing for the service that morning and he hears the key in the door and he looks at it. And when he turned around and looked, the ceiling had disappeared. And these two huge angels were standing there. He said, "Who are you"? They said, "We are your prosperity angels". And he just stood there, "We've come to help you get that money". He said, "Well, what are you waiting on"? And he said the command, he said, "Go," they went. There was a lawyer jogging, showed up at his office. His secretary said, "There is man out here you need to see". He said, "I won't see anybody". She said, "You need to see this one". He said, "I've heard you preach, I don't like you, you scare me". But he still had his jogging clothes on. But he said, "I just had to bring you $300,000". One of those big angels. And we're out of time.