Kenneth Copeland - You Have the Spirit of Faith
— Hello. I'm Jeremy Pearsons. Welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory. Recently, my grandfather, Kenneth Copeland recorded some broadcast with Mark and Trina Hankins for their TV program. They taught about the spirit of faith and how to live in this world victoriously, by applying the power of faith. And these were so good that we decided to share these messages with you, our partners and friends. So get your Bible, get ready to receive. As they begin today's study.
— We're going to talk about just one of my favorite subjects that just changed my life. And that is the spirit of faith. And so we're going to use 2 Corinthians four and verse 13. And this is from the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:13, the apostle Paul said, "We having the same spirit of faith according as it is written, I believed and therefore have I spoken". He said, "We also believe and therefore speak". And so Paul said, if you were to ask the apostle Paul, what is it that you have, that keeps you from collapsing in all the adversity and the challenges you go through? What is it that you have that enables you to be productive and go forward and be a major influence in your generation and the next 2000 years? What is it that you have that enables you to go forward in the will of God and to follow the Lord Jesus? Paul would just say, "Let me tell you what we have. We have the same spirit of faith". I just like that terminology.
— Amen. That spirit of faith, he had it when he was floating around, out there in the ocean about to drown.
— Yeah.
— He had it when they nearly beat him to death and did beat him, stoned him to death. He still had the spirit of faith.
— Yeah. Yes sir. Yeah. And I like it when the spirit of faith has these two main ingredients, I believe and I speak. In other words, it's not enough just to be a believer you're going to have to say what you believe. In other words, the voice of faith. So when Paul and Silas were in prison in the book of Acts, it says, "At midnight, they lifted their voices to God and the prisoners heard them". And I imagine Paul saying, "All right, Mr. Devil looks like you got my hands bound, got my feet bound, got me in a prison. You got my back bleeding, but devil, you made one mistake, you forgot to tape my mouth shut. Because as long as I can move my mouth, I can move them out".
— If you tape my mouth shut I'm going to be grinding in faith.
— And so with his voice, with his words, you call it the Voice of Victory, which is the voice of faith. And so the spirit of faith has these two ingredients, I believe and I speak. Amazing.
— Mark, there's something else about that. Now you notice here, we having the same spirit, small S, indicating our spirit also indicating the spirit of the thing.
— Mm-hmm.
— There is team spirit.
— Yeah.
— That's good.
— There is the spirit of the whole crowd. There is...
— Yeah used to call the spirit of St. Louis like this...
— That's right.
— ...Pioneer advanced...
— You can also put a capital S on it.
— Uh-huh. I think so. Yeah.
— Because He is the Spirit.
— The Spirit of God by faith.
— That's right.
— Because that's how God does everything. That's how He did everything. Always will do everything.
— Yeah.
— Jesus did everything He did by faith.
— Yeah. The same.
— Because we know that.
— Yeah.
— Because it's very plain in the book of Romans. The Classic Amplified says, whatever does not originate in and proceed from faith is sin.
— Oh my. God's pretty radical in the faith department.
— Absolutely He is.
— He is, absolutely.
— So we have the spirit of faith.
— And the spirit of faith is really more than just the formula or the steps of faith.
— Yes it is.
— The formula or the steps of faith, are absolutely necessary, but the spirit of faith is like the fire of faith.
— Mm-hmm.
— It's like, you gather the wood and God sets it on fire.
— Yes sir.
— That's the spirit of faith.
— Ooh, yeah. Over the years, no, just a few days, we will have been in this ministry 54 years. So after a while, you don't think any other way.
— Yeah. Yeah.
— I remember reading after E.W. Kenyon and at the tomb of Lazarus, this marked my life. There's no way that Jesus had to stop and say, "Man, I hope I've got faith enough to do this". No, it never crossed his mind.
— Yeah.
— He lived by faith. He act by faith, he talked by faith, he thought by faith, didn't think any other way. He just walked up there and said, "Move the stone". And then the boom of faith came.
— Yeah.
— If you've read that very carefully, what most, the lion's share of Christian people don't research that enough to know what's being said there, because in Egypt, the same thing, true to Jesus. They mummified the dead. They learned that from the Egyptian.
— Right.
— That's the only way they had of doing that. And because all the blood and everything was still there. And so Lazarus come forth. Ah, he's dead.
— Yeah.
— The power of faith picked him up. That's the reason Jesus waited long enough for this thing to solidify.
— Yeah. It's true.
— Picked him up.
— Yeah.
— And stood him in the mouth of that tomb and He said, "Loose him and let him go," in other words, get him out of that cage he's in.
— Yeah.
— The last thing to be done, let's go back now to Jesus' tomb. The last thing they didn't put people in coffins. Now, if the last thing was that little napkin, if you wanted to see your loved one's face one more time.
— Yeah.
— Okay.
— Now they wrapped each finger. They're wrapped each arm, each leg in this thing. And you got to see your loved one one more time and you place the napkin over it. And then that solution put over this and it just became a large plaster case. When they walked in there, there was that form. There was a shape.
— Yeah. All wrapped up.
— But it had a hole in it.
— Yeah.
— Because that glorified body, and he just took the thing off.
— Wow.
— Because there's glorified spirit body.
— Yeah.
— He just got up and got out of it.
— But what Jesus said there in John 11:40, He said, "If you will believe, you will see the glory of God".
— See the glory of God.
— Yes He did.
— And He's not talking about in the eternity He's talking about right now.
— And Jesus...
— If you will believe.
— Jesus was raised from the dead, by the glory of the Father.
— Yes He was.
— Same Spirit.
— He said, if you believe, yeah, you'll see the glory of God, a demonstration.
— The Holy Spirit raised Him up.
— Oh man. It's amazing. And so that spirit of faith, Jesus demonstrated that in His whole lifestyle. Matter of fact, the most impressive thing about Jesus Christ, if you'll read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there is no physical description of Jesus in the Four gospels. The most impressive thing about Jesus Christ was His words. They said, "No man ever spake like this man". When He talks storms stop. When He speaks sickness leaves, when He speaks demons go out. There's something about His words. And you and I have that same word and we have the same spirit of faith.
— Mm-hmm.
— That's right.
— And David, because Paul is quoting from the Psalmist David in 2 Corinthians 4:13. And he says this, "We have the same spirit of faith, according as it is written".
— Mm-hmm.
— So He's quoting from the Psalmist David. And so David had the spirit of faith at 17 years old.
— Yes he did.
— And Joshua and Caleb had it at 80 years.
— Yes they did.
— So one of the things that inspires us when we see Kenneth Copeland Ministries and what y'all are doing is here, you're 80 something. And at that age, you still have such a fire of the spirit of faith. And so you can have it at 17, you can have it at 80. You're not looking for a rocking chair.
— No, no. I'm 84, so. But here's... And we go back. The Owens family, my mother's family had heart situations that none of them live... My youngest one, my aunt Maggie, she was the youngest and she was my buddy. And my mother was the oldest of four. And her name's Maxine. But she was the youngest and she was my buddy when I was a little boy and she would intercede for me. Mother get ready to switch my little leg and she grabbed me and run outside.
— She interceded.
— You're not going to spank him anymore. Whoa, aunt Maggie.
— Every little boy needs an aunt like that.
— She made 80.
— Wow.
— Just a little while before she went home to be with the Lord. And I'm the first of that Owens clan to even go past 80. Now at 69, 70, man, the devil started a worrywart in my mind over that. Worrywart, it's a Southern term. Just making me anxious in my mind.
— Frustrated, yeah.
— And frustrated over that. I begun to think about that. Well, my dad long lived, but I'll take after the Owens family and then my uncle people thought I was his son because we look so much alike. And anyway, but the spirit of faith wouldn't let me think like that.
— Yeah.
— Wouldn't let me think that way.
— Yeah.
— And finally, the Lord said, "Get your natural DNA off of your mind". He said, "Get your spiritual DNA on. You're born of me". And by faith and by thinking that way, with the spirit of faith more, then the spiritual, I started that same trajectory going downhill, but the spirit of faith and my spiritual DNA just came in and just picked that up, man.
— Picked it.
— Praise the Lord.
— And it just kept fighting the good fight of faith in which would not let it do what it would naturally want it to do. And I've outlived the whole of that family.
— Wow.
— I mean, the whole family going way, way, way back.
— That's the same spirit of faith.
— Same spirit of faith.
— Paul is talking about, David is talking about, but look at this Romans 8:11 says the same spirit.
— Same spirit.
— That raised Christ from the dead.
— Yes.
— It's eternal.
— Dwells in you.
— What's he going to do?
— He's going to quicken, give life
— Quicken your mortal body.
— You've got mortal body.
— Mortal body.
— Don't think that word in my mouth, the devil trying to pull me down.
— Yeah. No, it's got to be in your mouth. I believe in and I speak. And so the spirit of faith has those two main ingredients. Number one, I'm a believer, but I have to have my speaker connected to my believer.
— That's right.
— And something dad Hagin said just phenomenal. He said, believing and speaking opens the door to the supernatural.
— Yes, it does.
— I believe and I speak. And he said this, many people are looking for the spectacular and they're missing the supernatural.
— The supernatural.
— In other words, the law of faith is activated by believing and speaking and that's the spirit of faith.
— There are things that happen in the Spirit that are not big noisy.
— Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
— And Jerry and I started out together and we'd been together for all these years. Well, over 50 years. And T.L. Osborn, said to me, you know how T.L. talked, "Kenneth". He said, "You're born free, brother".
— Yeah.
— I said, "Sorry," he said, "You don't have any religious training to unlearn". Well, neither did Jerry, the first thing I ever heard was the Word of Faith. The first preaching I've ever heard was Oral Roberts.
— Wow.
— I was flying for him.
— Yeah.
— And then wound up driving his car. And then just watching him use his faith. And it had dawned on me, he uses his faith on purpose. He's aware of it. He knows it. And he uses it like a mechanic uses a tool. He goes to his toolbox and he gets the faith that he needs right now.
— Yeah.
— And he pulled me over in the invalid room. The first time I was ever in there, pull me up to him and said, "I'm in there, I'm seeing all these extremely sick people. Crowds make really sick people very, very nervous".
— Yeah.
— And so anyway, he said, "You're going to do the praying".
— You're in charge now.
— You stepped out by faith.
— And you're going to do the laying on of the hand. Oh dear Lord. Now this is what he said, "Kenneth". He kind of laughed because he saw, first thing he said, "Don't worry about it. If you make a mistake I'll fix it".
— Yeah.
— Now listen to what he said, "Don't touch them until you're ready to release your faith".
— Oh, good.
— At first I thought, how am I going to do this? I was studying at the time, the series that you and I both, all three of us could quote the thing. The three ways that the power and authority of the name of Jesus, it was conferred upon him, he inherited and he took it by combat.
— Yes, sir.
— And I was studying that, I thought, the name of Jesus that's my point of contact. And I walked over to this woman, the little tummy old pooched out, malignant. Said in the name of Jesus and just as I touched her head. I'm telling you he's right here.
— Wow.
— The lion of the tribe of Judah roared. You foul, unclean spirit take your hands off her in the name of Jesus, whose I am and whom I serve, you take your hands off of God's property. She spit that tumor out on the floor.
— Wow. Man.
— Ran around the room. I'd say he did what I didn't know to do. He released it with his mouth.
— On purpose.
— On purpose.
— And that brings me to Acts 3:16, which I call it the other 3:16. Instead of John 3:16, Acts 3:16 says, "Through faith in His name has made this man whole and the faith, which is by Him has given Him perfect soundness".
— Perfect soundness.
— Perfect soundness.
— In the name of Jesus.