Kenneth Copeland - Looking Through the Eye of Faith
Very important scripture, particularly coupled with what we learn last night about the rank and file of Satan's kingdom, the kingdom of darkness. Let me just go over them again. Once more from the sixth chapter of the book of Ephesians, the Holy Spirit said through the apostle Paul, he talked about putting on the whole armor of God, remember that? And he said "for, we wrestle not with flesh and blood", now here they are "principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world" and then "wicked spirits in the heavenly". Tonight it's important to see rulers of the darkness of this world.
All right, Mark, chapter five, "They came over into the other side of the sea" or cross the Galilee "into the country of the Gadarenes". He is talking about Jesus. "When he came out of the ship, out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit, one, one unclean spirit. Now this is important, now. With an unclean spirit who had his dwelling among the tombs, no man could bind him. No, not with chains because that he had often been bound with fetters or shackles and chains that chains had been plucked asunder by him and the shackles broken in pieces. Neither could any man tame him".
Now let's look on the God's side at Samson. Samson was not a big man. That's the reason they couldn't understand the strength that he had. If he'd have been, you know a big, bulky man. No, he's just, he's just a regular guy. Good looking man. But he was just a regular guy until the power of God would come on him. Oh dear Lord. When I think about this, I think about differences of administrations. You remember? Well, if Samson had been in the lion's den, instead of Daniel, Samson would have killed the lions. And Daniel just went sleep with them, because an angel was with Daniel and the spirit of God was on Samson. This is the same revelation. It's the same function on the dark side. Here's a man, that's a cutter, he doesn't sleep, he moaned and groaned all night. People were afraid of him. They thought he was some kind of a god. Let me reiterate that now. An unclean spirit, now verse five, always night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting himself with stones. He's a cutter.
Now, any of you watching me right now, and the devil has moved in a particularly you young people and you're a cutter, come on, baby. You can be delivered from that, that quick, right now, right now I have a very, very close friend that was ministering to some young people. And they, some of them had been cutters and others had heroin tracks in their arms and he kept telling them "this is not, this is not who you are. This is who you were". And he baptized them in water and they came up out of the water and the scars were gone. Hallelujah. Man, that's exciting. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshiped him. And as I mentioned earlier, if there ever was a man that the devil could have stopped from worshiping Jesus, it would have been this man. But if he saw him afar off, he ran and fell before him and worshiped him.
Now I want you to notice this once more, let's go to that seventh verse "cried with a loud voice, and said, 'What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou son of the most high God? I adjured Thee by God that Thou torment me not!' For he had said, come out of the man, you unclean spirit". Now everybody there heard that. They thought it was the man. It was not. It was that ruler of the darkness. He was demon-possessed. Spirit, soul, and body. Amen. Can a born again, Christian have a devil? Yes. In your flesh, in your mind. But if you're born again, he cannot get in your spirit. Don't you ever let anybody tell you he can. Cause when you were made a new creature, old things passed away and all things became new and all things were of God.
Brother Hagin used this terminology. Here is an old house full of termites. And you live in the house. Well, the house is full of termites. You're not. The house you live in, which is your body. And you get your mind on something like that enough where the devil will take you over if he can. And if you keep saying the same thing long enough for it to get down into your spirit, it'll control your life. Now, particularly when I was overweight, I hated exercise. I didn't like it. And, then if you got in the ministry and I didn't have time, I was foolish enough to and inherit a better sense. And I just preached all the time and I stayed exhausted all the time. And the Lord said, I want you to start walking and don't quit. Well, I tried and man, I was some kind of sore and pain all over. Because I was exhausted, everything hurt.
Sometimes I said, I felt like my hair hurt. You know, it just, everything ached and hurt all the time. And, then glory to God. Oh man. And I fell in love with, with exercise because of my mandate of 120 and getting my physical body in the best shape it can possibly be. And I'm finally there, I'm in the best physical condition I've ever been in my life. Ever in my life. I love that treadmill. I do. Well, I don't love it, but I sure do enjoy it. I don't love things. I love people and I love God. Well, let me put it this way. I do love exercising, because of what Jesus said to me anyway. And I've got a little exercise room there in my house. And I walked in there and it felt so good, doc Jackson, I felt so good. And I walked up there a little A-frame, and I pulled down this thing. I'm fixing to do some triceps like this. I felt so good. And I got hold of that. And I said, God, I hate this. I had said that until got down in my heart. And before I could not say it, I physically felt that angry little spirit leave my body. And he is gone. I said, "no! I love this" and I do. And my treadmill doesn't have dirty clothes hanging on it anymore.
Now I have a professional treadmill. Anyways, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. He's talking to one spirit, "what is your name"? He answered saying "my name is Legion, for we are many". Legion of course it's referring to the Roman army is from three to 6,000. You have an angel. This is the other side. Every born again, child of God has an angel and he doesn't leave just because you grow up. When you grow up in the ministry like Bishop Debra, Jerry, Pastor George. In order for this man to do what he's called to do all over the world, he has an angel. As his ministry grows, then that angel needs help. Other angels come to assist his angel in order to get that job done. Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for the heirs of salvation? Hebrew chapter one.
Now then go back over to Mark chapter five, verse 14. "They that fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in the country, they went out to see what was done. They come to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil and had the Legion sitting and clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid". where did they get the clothes? He's going to go home I don't want him going home, looking like that. Nasty beat up, scrawny looking thing. I want him to look good. He's going to preach. He's going to preach the compassion of God. Now I'm throwing this in. He's going to preach the goodness of God and he needs to look good. He needs to have more than one suit. I mean, this management called me.
And if you study your Bible, he preached the 10 cities. The capitalists came right back into that same area and preached. And that same people that ran from him, ran to him. And that whole area then was changed. Where did he get the clothes? He prepared for what he knew by faith was going to come to pass. You're believing for a new car, clean up the clunker, clean it, get the spilled Frito bags out of the bottom of it, clean it out. Polish the thing. Oh yeah. Because however you treat that one is the way you're going to treat the new one. Amen. Just few days ago, my grandson, Jeremy and his wife, Sarah in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado. They dedicated their new church building. And I had the honor and the privilege of dedicating that building, glory to God and you can't dedicate something that's not yours. Amen.
Now, the first little twin engine airplane, I was preaching in Shreveport and Brother Jerry has talked about that and that's where we met. The church that Carolyn was raised in Life Tabernacle and Jack Moore and what a man of God. Anyway, I had a little single, a little red single engine Cessna Skyline and first airplane the ministry ever had. Carolyn's dad was in the car with me, Olin Creech, and we were driving back out. I've forgotten now exactly where we were going. I saw that little brown Cessna 310 fly over. And the Lord said, that's your airplane. Wow. He was headed to the airport, so I headed to the airport. I got up there and I just show it and go in the hanger. Then I drove over there and I said "Sir, is that your airplane"? He said, "No, it's belongs to my boss" I said, "is it for sale"? He said, "knowing my boss everything's for sale".
Amen, anyway, to make a long story short, it's a good story, but I need to shorten it. I wound up with that little brown, 310 Cessna. Oh. And I had it at the airport and I would go out. And in those days, the airport was just a little ways from the house. And I just take my Bible and stuff and go out there and sit in that airplane and study. And, the kids were small and that was, it was a get away from me and I was out there one day and I'd pulled it out of the hanger and I'm polishing it, man, I'm telling you just polishing it. And these two young men came up there and they're both preacher boys, came up and said, "Brother Copeland, is that the new airplane"? I said "well, it's not new, but it's new to me" they said, "oh, think about that. The Lord's airplane" I said, "no, it didn't". I said "No, this doesn't belong to the Lord. He gave it to me. I dedicated it to him, but it's mine" "okay" that was completely foreign to their thinking.
And then we were at one of Mary's sisters, I think, anyway, they were building a home and we were, we were having supper there and everybody was around the table and Carolyn's dad was in the building business and they've, they were, we're building them a new house and their sister, whoever she was. Anyway, we were sitting there at the table and she said "Brother Copeland, I need to ask you a question" I said, "what" she said, "well, we're building a new house, and something just happens all the time" and she said "it's just look like we get one wall up, one wall up and another one falls down" and she said, "I keep telling the Lord, this is his house. This is his house" And the Word of the Lord came to me and he said, that's the problem I keep trying to give it to her. She keeps trying to give it back. It doesn't belong to anybody. And see all of this has to do with faith, but you have to have faith in the unseen world. Amen.
And I told her that, she said, oh, I man she got mad. I tell you, she just. And of course the house went up. You see, you receive it by faith. You take it by faith. Then you dedicate it by faith. Faith requires confidence in God. Faith requires action before and after. Faith has to be in the plans and you have to see it. We came home from one of Brother Hagin's meetings one night, John was just a little boy. And he said "daddy, isn't it wonderful. We have three eyes" I said, "what John"? He said, "We got a right eye, and a left eye and the eye of faith" When he had heard Brother Hagin say that in that meeting, but that's true. You got these two eyes. Then the eye of faith, Jesus was looking through the eyes of faith. And what he believed and knew would happen. And he provided the clothes for that man before he ever got in the boat, before he ever went over there to start with, he didn't get him delivered and then taking him back across the Galilee and try to hunt him up some clothes. Hallelujah. Glory to God.