Kenneth Copeland - What Is Sense Knowledge?
Hello everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland and this is the Believer's Voice of Victory Broadcast. Have we had a good time with this? All last week and now this week, praise God. And for those of you, maybe that haven't been with us, we are talking about the difference between knowledge revealed by God directly to the spirit man, the spirit being. And we have established now that the spirit and the soul are not the same, no more than the body and the soul are the same.
And we found out in 1st Thessalonians 5:23, "That I pray God, make your whole spirit and soul and body". And then we found that out again from the book of Hebrews. So we've established that. Now let's talk about sense knowledge. We touched on it, but knowledge gained through the five physical senses. That begins, of course, as a child and you continue to use the five physical senses and you hinder or hamper in some way those senses. A very, very, very close friend of mine lost his eyesight when he was about 18 years old. And he's spirit-filled man. And he's an amazing man, but he's totally blind, but he can still see. How does he do that? His sense of smell is keener. His sense of hearing...
Now he got into the gun business, studied ballistics. Can you imagine that? And he owned a store for years. And there was a man told me, he said, "Listen". He said, "I did business with this man for a long time. I didn't know he was blind". He'd looked right, straight at you and smile, but he cues in on your voice. Now I won't go into all of that, but see, he can see. He just has to use a different set of senses, but he's very sharp in the spirit. Anyway. Now let's describe what sense knowledge learning is. Of course, this is a copy of the Bible, but let's say this is just a school textbook. And then as you came up through the grades, each time you learned a little more. So you didn't have to go back and redo that. You kept graduating.
So your knowledge of things that you learn out of the book, out of the textbook, and so forth. Now, that kind of learning, coming in a book. Let's just take mathematics, for instance. More mathematics than studying the English language, which I enjoyed very much. I really enjoyed studying English. Sometimes you can't tell it, but anyway. If I'm fouling it up, I'm believing it's on purpose. Anyway. But mathematics, a very intricate subject, particularly as you grow in that and get out of simple math, algebra, then trig and all that. Your ability to learn that depends a whole lot on how adept you are at mathematics. I was not. So, but not only that, it depends on that teacher's ability to teach. And then your ability to figure out what he or she said.
So there's a gap here. And particularly you get frustrated at it. When I went back to college I went to Oral Roberts University, I wound up in an algebra class. And I won't go into... Well, one of the professors, I said, "Sir, I'm here because the Lord sent me here. And so I just put it in your hands. You know why I'm here. I came here because I'm a brand new preacher and that's why I'm here". He said, "I understand that". So he said, "I'll just pick your classes". I said, "Great". And I had an algebra class now and I'll tell you what I learned. Anyway. Man, I didn't like it when I was in high school. I didn't like it. I just skinned by it. I began to study.
Now, all of this has to do with sense knowledge learning. But how do you apply your spirit to sense knowledge learning? Well, now I had been to aviation schools, I had been to sale schools and all of that, but now I got into an organized class. And that teacher, when he said, "Good morning," that was it. That's all I got. I didn't understand anything he said. And all these other kids are 18, 19 years old and I'm 30. I hadn't been to school. What am I going to do with this? So that's the one that hit me so hard. And so I got me a high school algebra book. And I'm at night, man, I'm trying to read this thing. And I'd study a little while and my brain would just freeze up. Boy, I'd have to look at my driver's license to see what my name was. I just froze up. My spirit didn't but my brain did. So what I do?
I said, "Lord, what am I going to do"? He said, "What's the matter with you? Pray in tongues". Oh, okay. And at first there, man, if I studied an hour, I'd just. Ugh. And I just started praying in the spirit. Just pray in the spirit. I'd go to bed, praying in the spirit. I'd get up praying in the spirit. And then the meantime I'm listening to Brother Hagin on tape. Never turned away from that. Never. Never. Had the Word going all the time. And now I want you to know what happened. The more I prayed in the spirit, the longer I could study, and it got to the place I could study for 45 minutes, I could study for an hour. And then it got to the place I could study however long I wanted to without my brain quitting. Can you see that I was going after what I had to learn through my senses, but I went at it by faith in the spirit.
And the Lord helped me to make a C in that class. And all the rest of them... I'll never forget it. I'm walking across the campus and I'm going to just from learning where my classes are. And I had this book called Roaming Through Romans and I'm headed to the class and I thought "Roaming through Romans. I think it would probably be good for me if I read the book of Romans before I start roaming through it". But I did. See what it pushed me to do? I had to go back. I'd read little pieces here and there. I went back and read the book of Romans. And read each of the books. And Romans is the only one that's very big. The rest of them, you can read them.
You can read I John every day. I read I John over and over and over and over and over until I finally got I John. And the revelation just began to be enormous. But I had to start with my physical senses. Everybody has to start there. Now had my parents known, they were strong Southern Baptist people. I was an only child. And they loved God. My dad traveled all the time. I sat at my mother's feet. She had a Singer sewing machine. This is before I ever started school. And so the first one she had was not electric. You had to pedal it like that. And she would be sewing and S-I-N-G-E-R. So she had me learn those letters. And then we had a Frigidaire refrigerator. So I learned some more ABCs out of the word Frigidaire refrigerator. And she's teaching me. And because of that, I had a quick learning of reading.
And so by the time I was in a the third grade or so I could read pretty good. I knew my ABCs before I ever went to school. So can you see what I'm talking about here? That's sense knowledge training, but I had an advantage. Number one, my mama loved me. She loved me enough to spank my little hind end when it needed it too. And even my big hind end. She spanked me. Oh, God love her. That makes me miss her. But anyway, sense knowledge is, and as it grows through the years, knowledge learned, progressive knowledge gained through books, and now of course, through devices and so forth. But now wait a minute. You have to be careful with that. You have to know from whom you are getting that knowledge. They may not know half what they tell you they know. And nowadays, I'm very sad to say, that so many colleges and universities in the United States are just riddled with socialism.
And I have a very close friend, very close friend, that her grandchild is in a secular school. And they have begun to challenge her on her Christianity. She's just a child. Now she's been taught all of her life, particularly by her grandmother. Of course. But then they started challenging her, just a bunch of old men that wrote a bunch of books over the years. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right there in the school of her choice. You really have to be careful about it. Who says that they know what they're teaching? Who says that they know anything about it? Well, I've got this... Well, who said that where you got your credential? I don't know where you got your credentials. I don't know who you are.
You come in here and talking to me about that. I don't know. I was with a very close friend of mine back in the beginning days of this ministry. And he and I, like I said, very close friends. And he was one of my early mentors in the New Testament and so forth. I went with him to visit a man that was an instructor in a Christian university, a Christian university. And we're sitting there discussing things. Well, they were. I was just listening in and enjoy enjoying the conversation. And he said, "Is so-and-so still in your seminary"? He said, "Yes, he is". He said, "You do know he is an atheist, right"? "Well, yes, but he knows the Bible".
He doesn't know the Bible. He knows words. I don't want him teaching my children the Bible. I certainly don't want him teaching my future pastor. And him, an atheist? Well now what about him? Well, what about some other instructor? What is their private life like? That has an effect on what they teach. Amen? But if your child is raised to know God and is taught these thing from the beginning, then they go to a secular university for a specific reason. Otherwise, I'm not going there. Well, baby, you can just be whatever you want to be. Not and be a born again child of God, you can't. You need to find out what God calls you to be and then get over there in that.
I don't care if you are an American. Amen? We need to check these things out before we ever get there. Before we ever start picking colleges and universities and so forth and so on. Now, my mother, even when I went to elementary school, she made a point of meeting all my teachers. And she had reason for doing that. She had reason for doing that. And of course I was blessed with good teachers and so forth. It was a case of double jeopardy. My mother said, "If you have to spank him, you call me because I'm going to spank him again when he gets home".
So I had reason to behave myself. Amen? But I see, I was taught to love this country. We were in World War II. I was taught to love it. And I remember it well. I remember in that elementary school in Abilene, Texas, Fair Park Elementary School. I can just see it today. We were saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. And when they brought the flag out that morning, it wasn't any different. We had a little auditorium upstairs and we did little plays and stuff. And we were all singing the national anthem and pledged allegiance to the flag. But I remember it.
I can just see it in my mind right now. I'm just a little guy, sixth grade. And they brought the flag out there just like they always did. And I fell in love with that flag. And I love it today like I love my own life. I fell in love with that flag. I'd seen it. Gave the Pledge of Allegiance, sang the national anthem, but that day I had a heartfelt revelation of what it meant and what it was. And I love it today more than I love my own life. So there was a difference there. I saw it with my five physical senses, but all of a sudden a spiritual revelation came up on the inside of me and God revealed to me the flag of my nation. And whatever country, you ought to be the same way about your flag. Glory to God. Hallelujah.
So now. All the time, all the time, being very aware. All the time, everywhere you go, and you have to practice this. For a long time. We read yesterday, let's go over there again. The 12th chapter of the book of Romans. I want to read that again. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God". It's acceptable unto God. Your body's acceptable unto God. Aren't you glad it is? "Which is your reasonable service. Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind".
Now there's the body. There's the mind. "That you may prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God". For a long time, in order to renew my mind to that. Now I'm learning these things, that I am a spirit, and I have a soul. I have a mind, and I live in a body. For a long time, long time, I didn't call this my body. In order to renew my mind, I began to call it my sacrifice. Now that turned into something that I didn't see coming. And the Lord dealt with me as all of you know about the 120 and so forth and so on. And so that, and you know what that entailed. I got to get...
I was in a meeting in Miami, Florida. This was good time before that. Just before I went out, I was tying my tie that night to go out the service. And I heard the Lord say, "Will you get your spirit in the best spiritual condition in which it can be"? I said, "Of course". "Will you get your soul in the best intellectual condition in which it can be"? "Yes". "Will you get your body in the best physical condition in which it can be"? "Oh, okay". I, wasn't all excited about that one. And so I began to call this my sacrifice. This is my sacrifice. Well, you know, all the things it became... Then it came time to get in that exercise room and go to work. I heard thisю
Now every born again believer can hear the voice of God in their spirit if you learn to listen. Most people don't listen. But you can hear His voice. And I make a point like this. I may have something in my hand or something on this and hear His voice. But here's what I heard. He called me by my name. He said, "Kenneth, I sacrificed my body for yours. Now you're sacrificing your body from mine". When I agreed to live another 30 plus years. That did something to me on that treadmill. I fell in love with it. Glory to God. Because I'm so much in love with Him. Amen.