The Power of Faith and Love To Heal

so come on in class and take a seat and get your Bible. Don't you come in here without your Bible. Don't you be doing that.

Father, in the name of Jesus, we are so excited. I'm excited about this college, I'm excited about the students, and I'm excited about all of the people all over the world that are watching; and learning more about Jesus, more about the ministry of Jesus, more about the life of Jesus, more about his ideas and his thoughts that are written in this book of covenants; and we thank You for it in his name, and we believe we receive the anointing again today in his name. In the matchless sweet name of Jesus, we pray and consider it done because of the authority in that name. Amen.

So, open your Bibles today to the book of Hebrews. As students of ministry, it is an absolute necessity. Jesus taught on faith. The apostle Paul taught on faith. He is the one by the Holy Spirit that wrote in a letter, "Faith works by love". Well, of course it does. God is love. Now, I want to remind you of this. The apostle of love, the apostle John is the only one they couldn't kill. He's the one that wrote in 1 John 5, there's certain words throughout that little book of first John, you need to take time to... just for a time just to read that book every day. It's not long. Doesn't take long to read it, but devour it. Just read it and live it. We've known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love. Perfected love casts out fear, because fear has torment. And in that book, he made this statement.

Let's just turn over there. Hold your place there in the book of Hebrews and turn over to 1 John 5. Come down to the 17th verse, "All unrighteousness is sin. There is a sin not unto death. We know". Say we know. "That whosoever is born of God sinneth not". Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. What do you mean by that? Now, wait a minute. What did he start this little book with? Right there in the first chapter. "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, or righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". Now, the forgiveness is there all the time, but it's when we confess it that we get rid of it. I heard the Lord, you've heard me say this before, years ago, and I was in a meeting that... Anyway. And then the Lord said to me, Kenneth, when you confessed that sin was not when I found out about it. Did you ever think about the fact that all of our praying and so forth has not informed God of anything, but we need to do that because it is our communion with God. We are family, and we come to him as the father of the family and we ask and we receive, we knock and it's open unto us. Amen. We seek... That word actually means research. We research him in his Word, and we find and we search out the scriptures that cover our situation and we take those scriptures that cover our situation and we pray those scriptures. We pray those words. And we pray those words back to God.

And then we, in that prayer we're, "Thank God it's done. I have it now, and I forgive if I have ought against any". But now, notice this, come on back over here at that fifth chapter. "We know that whosoever is born of God". He's already said... He introduced the fact that God is love. We know that whosoever is born of love, sins not. He doesn't continually practice sin, but he that is born of God, keeps himself. How? In love. "And that wicked one touches him not". Touches him not. So you just tell the devils, you don't touch me. I walk in love and I practice love, according to John chapter 13, what is called the last supper right before Jesus went to the cross. And of 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 chapters of John are all in that upper room. And he said, "I give you a new commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. And all men will know that you are my disciples by the way you love one another". That's a commandment. It is not a strong suggestion. It is a commandment and it covers all of the other commandments. Jesus said it, the apostle Paul said it. Love your neighbor as yourself. If there be any other commandment, he said, it's covered by love your neighbor as yourself, because love does no ill to his neighbor. Amen. So, now to the book of Hebrews. We're going to talk about faith, what it is, and how it works. Now, I'm going to read this to you. In fact, we can put it up on the screen, and Hebrews 1 in the Amplified. Now, faith, you see that? When is faith? Now. Now. Faith is now, because this is the faith of God. The power of faith that we have in our spirit beings was the faith of God. And you know that. We won't take time this morning to go through all of the... We can find it in the book of Ephesians and so forth. Now, faith is the assurance. Look at this: the confirmation. Now, we're talking about healing and the importance of divine healing in every ministry, to teach it and preach it if you're a follower of Jesus. Now, faith is the confirmation, the title deed of the things we hope for being the proof of things we do not see and conviction of their reality. Faith perceiving as real fact, what is not revealed to the senses. So, we walk by faith and not by sight. That's what the apostle Paul said. We are totally convinced, and we know that the apostle Paul also wrote in the book of Romans 10. Amen. Well, keep your place there in the book of Hebrews, and we'll go back to Romans 10:4, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law that the man which does those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaks". It says something. God spoke and created the worlds. By faith, we understand that the worlds during the successive ages were framed, fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their inherited purpose by the Word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible. No, they were made out of faith. Prompted, actuated, activated by faith, Abel brought God a better and more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. Let me touch on a little something here. Thank You, Lord.

Verse seven, "Say not in your heart, who shall ascend into heaven? That is to bring Christ down from above, or who shall descend into the deep, the Abyss". Well, that's where Jesus was made alive in the spirit. He died the death of a sinner. He did not sin, but he died the death of a sinner in order to take your and my place, and he went to hell so that we don't have to go. He was raised up from the dead so that we could be raised up from the dead in that final day. You can think about it like this, as born again people, Jesus coined that phrase. People born from above, born of the Spirit. Everything that Jesus bought and paid for on the cross belongs to us. So, how do we look at the cross? He bore our sins, so we resist sin. He bore our sicknesses and our diseases and pains, so by faith, we resist sickness. We resist disease, his ministry... He primarily, primarily, primarily, everyone he ordained into his ministry and he set them against sickness and disease. You go heal the sick and raise the dead and cast out devils. Then that's what we're supposed to do. Amen. He was resurrected. We get resurrected. Amen. Everything he bought is ours. He was our substitute. He went to hell, we don't have to go. But he didn't stay in hell, he was raised from the dead. We get raised from the dead on the great day of resurrection. So, that's the reason I say it continually, every day is one day closer to the great resurrection. To keep myself mindful of it, so that I witness and talk about it in places. Places of business, and just walk in there and say, "Whoo, Jesus is coming". Huh. But then there are others say, "Oh yeah, he's coming. I wish he'd come today". Praise God. But you keep yourself continually aware of that. It's very, very important particularly, when you're on the street particularly, when you're in a place of business. Amen. And all the 55 years that I've been in this ministry, I have never, ever been looked down upon, embarrassed, or in any way... In other words, there has never been any reason to be embarrassed about witnessing things to someone about Jesus. I've never been turned down. I was downtown Fort Worth, one day, and there was a homeless man there. And so, I just walked over there and sat down next to him and gave him some money and just sat down there next to him and talked to him about Jesus. It brought a smile to his face and talked to him about the Lord and so forth. Just talked to him, visited with him, hugged him, and left. Well, I didn't think anymore about it. But then someone wrote in and said, "I saw", I think they said "Mr. Copeland, downtown, and he sat down next to a homeless man, and it so impressed me that I became interested in his ministry. I didn't do it for that reason. I didn't even have a leading of the Lord to do it. I just saw the man and it just went all over me, and he kind of had that down look on his face, but you don't just sit down there. You put some money in his hand first". Amen. That's the reason it's important. You remember the good Samaritan? He had to have money in order to do what he did. Amen. So, that's the way a witness works. Don't ever be backwards or shy about witnessing to anyone. So, what does it say? "The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart. That is the Word of Faith, which we preach". Now, that's where the term Word of Faith comes from. So, what does that mean? The Word of Faith. Well, they say, "The Word of Faith movement". Well, I know what they're referring to, but this is not a movement. It's a way of life. When you become aware that the faith of God is on the inside of us all the time and it is a powerful, strong, unseen force that can be measured and increased, strengthened, built up. "And if we confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Thou shall be sozo, saved and healed, delivered, for with the heart, man believeth under righteousness, and with his mouth, the confession is made under salvation there". Sozo again. You remember in the Word where Jesus said, "Daughter," talking about the woman with the issue of blood, "thy faith has made thee whole". Sozo again. Glory to God. For the scripture says, "Whosoever, believe on him shall not be ashamed. For there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek or the Gentile. For the same Lord, overall, is rich under all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved". So Sozo. How then shall they call on him and whom they have not believed they can? How shall they believe on him and whom they've not heard? They can't. How shall they hear without a preacher? They can't. And how shall they preach except they be sent? They can't. What does that mean to be sent? Anointed. As it is written, how beautiful of the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all believed the gospel, for Isaiah saith, "Lord, who have believed our report. So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God". Hearing by the anointed, the Christ Word of God. Do your research and look all those different translations up, look it up in your BLB, Blue Letter Bible. It comes. It always comes. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the anointed Word of God. It doesn't come by hearing some things. Amen. But it's there. If you have made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, it is so simple, and I've had people say, "Well, Brother Copeland, you just make that so simple and"... No, I'm not the one that made it simple. The Bible made it simple. Listen, Jesus did all the hard part. Suffered. We'll be all eternity, learning how really he did suffer. A suffering that's beyond human imagination. Read the 52nd chapter of the book of Isaiah. His visage, his form was marred more than any man. I mean, he didn't even look human. He had been beat, spit on, slapped until his face was so swollen. He didn't even look human. And then, just as he was about to leave his body, then his spirit began to go and that body began to deform. And then you remember what Cornelius said about him. Now, Cornelius had built the synagogue in Capernaum and Jairus was leader of the synagogue. And the centurion, that was Cornelius, we find in the 10th chapter of the book of Acts. He deemed him a great prophet. He said, "No, sir, I'm not important enough for you to come under my roof". I'm a man of authority. I tell this one to go, and he goes. This one to come, and he comes. I tell one to do this, and he does it. You just speak the Word, and my servant will be healed. Jesus said, "I have not found such great faith in all of Israel". He put the Word as final authority. Jesus was the source and his Word was the power. Golly, glory be to Jesus. Glory to God forever more. Amen. And then, what did he say at the cross? There's not two centurions there. It's Cornelius. He knew he was a prophet, this great prophet that had such great authority. He knew, but then he saw the way he died, and he had witnessed many crucifixions; nobody died like this man, nobody looked like this man, nobody had been abused like this man had; he no longer even looked human anymore, and yet he cried with a loud voice. And he gave up the ghost, and he said, "This must be the Son of God". And then in the 10th chapter of Acts, he couldn't get it off his mind, and he sent for Peter because an angel told him. Peter preached a sermon to him, and he said, "Jesus. How God anointed Jesus Christ of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power who went away doing good and"... Healing, healing, healing, healing, healing, healing, healing, healing for God was with him. And someone said, "Ah, but that was Jesus". No it wasn't, it was God. Oh Lord. Oh Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Oh, we got the signal. We'll be back in a little bit.