CALLING THINGS
THAT BE NOT AS THOUGH THEY WERE
Charles Capps at CGC, 4/19/95
As transcribed by Tammy
Duncan (1/97-6/97)
Open your Bibles tonight to Romans the fourth chapter. Jesus makes a statement in Matthew 13 that we really need to take heed to. He said "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom." You are going to hear the word of the kingdom tonight. "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one catches away that which was sown in his heart." That's why it is important to understand the Word of God. It's not enough just to know what it says, but we need to know what it meant. See, the intent of what what was said is important and an understanding of it.
You could hear and know what it said, and miss the whole point altogether sometimes, and some people do. I hear people on radio and television. They'll take the best prosperity scriptures in the Bible and preach poverty from it. "You know the grace of the Lord Jesus, though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor." "So, you see, Jesus didn't have anything, so we ought to not have anything." No, the whole intent of that verse was He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be made rich.
Someone suggested, "Yea Brother Capps, that's talking about spiritual things." Read those two chapters, the 8th chapter and the 9th chapter of 2 Corinthians. It's not talking about spiritual things, he is talking about money. Now, we are not going to get hung up on money, but you can't live without it. You can't even die without it now.
It's like the little boy in Sunday School. The teacher asked him, "Does anyone know what the sin of omission is?" Little boy raised his hand. "Well, what is it, Johnny?" the teacher asked. "The sin of omission is the sin you should've committed, but didn't." No! That may sound logical, but that isn't right.
So, it is important to understand the Word of God. Jesus said if you don't understand it, the wicked will talk you out of it. That doesn't only mean satan, it means wicked people, and you will find that even some well meaning Christians will try to talk you out of it. You see, they call us, they sometimes call us the "name it and claim it bunch", the "blab it and grab it." I don't know about you, but if God named it, I am going to claim it.
Before we get though tonight, you will have an understanding of the faith and confession message that they won't be able to beat it out of you with a ball bat. I want to share with you on a scriptural journey through the Bible and show you there is a principle that streaches from Genesis to Revelation through the scriptures. It is the foundation principle upon which Jesus operated throughout all his ministry, God operates in all eons of time, and He intends for us to operate in it.
And so many people scoff at it, call it "blab it and grab it" and "name it and claim it", but it is called the principle of "calling those things that are not as though they were." You don't get but two verses into Genesis, and you see God doing it. God looked out and saw darkness, and said "Light be!" "But God, there is no light out there." "I know it, but I am calling it." Why didn't He say, "Whew, it's dark out there"?
You know, most Christians will tell you, if you are saying something that is not already true, you are just lying. Wonder why God lied about the light, then. God looked out and saw darkness and said "Light!"
Someone said, "Yeh, Brother Capps, that's God." Just read a little further, verses 26, 27, and 28. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion...." Now, how was them going to have dominion? The same way that Him had dominion, by faith-filled words, by speaking and calling for things that are not there. See, this is a principle that runs through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. It is the foundation principle which Jesus operated in His ministry.
God taught this principle to Abraham. We, today, are benefitting from the faith message because of Father Abraham. Galatians says that when God saw that the heathen would be justified by faith, he preached first the gospel to Abraham. What gospel? the gospel of faith, to Abraham.
So here in Romans 4. Look at, starting with verse one: "What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. Foir what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness," right standing with God, because he believed in God.
Now, when we ask God for something, we are supposed to believe that we receive it, right? "What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." So, faith is right-standing with God. In 1 John 5, it says "if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him."
Then, Jesus in Matthew 21:22 said "all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Now, you can't get more emphatic than that. There's not a stronger word in the English language than "shall" or "will". "He SHALL have whatsoever he saith, if he believe, if he doubt not in his heart." "If he believe what he saying will come to pass, he shall have." What do we do when we pray? We say, don't we?
So, here's a message of faith that God's trying to get over to us, that we are only limited by what we believe concerning the Word of God. Now, see the Word of God is the foundation for all faith that we are talking about tonight. We are talking about Bible faith, we are not talking about natural, human faith. We are talking about faith that comes from the Word of God.
We are talking about a substance that comes from.... One translation says "the title deed." "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." So, then, faith is the title deed of it. Whether you see it or don't see it, faith is the title deed of it.
Now, let me give you a simple illustration to help you understand it. If you own a car and you paid for it, you have a title to it. Now, if someone steals that car, it doesn't matter, it is still yours, it belongs to you. You have the title deed, it is still yours. It may not be in your possession, but it is still yours. You may have a car and paid cash for it and left it down there to get it serviced, or undercoated, and someone says "You don't have a car." "Yes, I do. Here's the title deed." Whether it is in your possession or not, it is still yours.
What God says is ours is ours, whether we receive it or not. God's Word is truth, whether you ever experience it or not. You might say "Yeh, but here is the present fact in my life is that I am sick, I am in lack, or whatever." That may be present fact, but it is not the truth. The truth is what God's Word says. See, if you qualify. If you give, then it is given unto you, not going to be, it is, because when you activated the promise by giving, then far as God is concerned, it is already given, it belongs to you. But, you see, faith is the substance of it.
Now if we are going to believe what we see, then we are going to be locked into the realm of what is. Somebody said "Well, I can plainly see that we are not going to have the payment to pay our house by the end of the year. I can see that now." You hear people prophesy that six months ahead of time. How did they see that? Because they talked lack. They talked about it. They talked about it.
Words create images. It was their imagination. Paul said "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations." Image-in-a-tion. God's Word is designed to create an image in you of exactly what it says you have. If you will keep it in your mouth, it will do exactly that.
This is why God told Joshua, "Don't let the book of the law depart from your mouth, mediate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do." "That thou mayest observe." What does observe mean? Be able to see it. You say, "Well, I observe that." Well, what did you do? You looked at it. See, we observe things everyday, and don't realize it. Words create the images that we observe everyday. "All things whatsoever you ask for in prayer, believing, you shall receive." Believing, you shall receive." So, we are only limited by what we can believe, concerning the Word of God.
So, we are going to take you on a scriptural journey tonight to show you how God taught Abram, or Abraham, to walk in this principle. When I got a hold of this principle, I was sick in body, head over heels in debt. I was supernaturally in debt. You couldn't get that way naturally. Dear goodness! Had ulcers, worry holes in my stomach. Worried about my finaces. The craziest thing I ever did. Didn't have any finances to worry about.
Kinda like one preacher saying. He got before God. "God I'm going broke! God I'm going broke!" He finally got quiet and the Lord said, "Let me ask you something, how much money do you have?" He said "None." He said "You are not going broke, you are already broke."
But, I got a hold of this principle. I was praying one morning. Here's how God taught it to me. I was praying "I said things are not working out. They are getting worse." The Lord on the inside of me, spoke up and said, "Who told you that?" Well, that shocked me. I stopped for a minute and thought about it and said, "It must have been the devil. You sure didn't say that." He said, "I would appreciate if you stop telling me what the devil said." Really what he said was "What are you doing?" I said "I'm praying." He said "No, you are complaining."
He said, "You have been praying for me to do something about your finances." He said "It is not going to get better, it is going to get worse if you don't change what you have been saying." Because, you see, the words I was saying was creating the image.
"It doesn't make any difference what I do. It won't work out anyway. Nothing ever works out right for me. I will always be at the wrong place at the wrong time, every time. I always make the wrong decisions." See, I am speaking what is. See, I have been taught, you have to say it like it is.
Now, being a farmer, I ought to have known better than that. You don't plant your ground like it is. If it is growing up in crockleburs (sp?), Johnson grass, and ragweed, you don't plant it like it is. You disc it up and plant it like you want it. But now, when you have people that say "You have to say it like it is." You can rest assured that that is someone that is very ignorant of the Word of God, because that is not what the Word says.
Now, follow me here. After I got my head screwed on straight. You know what I mean by that. When we think perpendicular to God's Word, we are in trouble. I said to the Lord "What am I going to do." He said "You have been saying what the devil said." Now think about it. If faith comes by hearing the Word of God, where does faith in the devil come, by hearing the words of the devil. So, if I speak God's Word, I'll have faith. So, if I speak the devil's words, I'll have fear, which is reverse faith, faith in the devil.
Job proved that that worked. Job said "The thing that I greatly feared has come upon me, the thing that I am afraid of has come unto me." He said, "I was not in safety, I had not rest, neither was I quiet, but yet trouble came." I guess so, that is the formula for it. And he proved that it worked.
But when I got a hold of this principle, and begin to say it. I want to say this up front. It doesn't work in three days. It is not going to happen overnight. But we have to renew our mind to the Word of God. We speak's God's Word until we start thinking like God thinks. And when you start thinking like God thinks, then things are going to change.
First of all, faith has to come. "Faith cometh by hearing," and we're going to find out in the scripture that it mostly and comes more profoundly by hearing yourself speak, quote, and say what God said. That is what the Apostle Paul, the intent of what he said in Romans 10, was is in your mouth and in your heart. It didn't say that it was in your neighbor's mouth and in your heart. It didn't say that it was in your pastor's heart. It said "your mouth and in your heart." So, yeh, you'd learn some knowledge from hearing your pastor preach and maybe even gain some faith, but the intent of Paul's writings in Romans 10 was that it was "in your mouth and in your heart." He is telling you the secret of how to get the Word of God in your heart. You speak it out of your mouth and then you hear yourself say it.
Now, you see you have two sets of ears. You have the outer ear and the inner ear. The inner ear is made up of bone structure inside the head. When you heard yourself on a tape recorder for the first time, you got embarrassed, didn't you? I did. I said, "Oh, that couldn't be me," but it was the way that everybody else had been hearing me all the time.
Now the reason that it didn't sound like me to me, but it sound like me to you, you know, was that I'd never heard myself totally with the outer ear. See, your voice is picked up by the inner ear, with a blend. You imagine that your voice sounds different than what we hear it; but if you plug up your ears, it's louder. It's louder to me when I plug up my ears.
Now remember what Jesus said in Matthew, the 12th chapter, verses 34 and 35: "A good man, out the good deposit of his heart, he bringeth forth good things. The evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart, he bringeth forth evil things. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." What is abundant in your heart is going to get in your mouth.
Now, Jesus didn't take time to tell you how to get it in your heart. We read over in the gospels, where he said "There is many things that I would say unto you, but you can't bear them now. Howbeit, when the spirit of truth is come, he will teach you all things and guide you into all truths; and he will take mine, and show them unto you.
Well, Paul came along in Galatians, the 1st chapter. He said "that which I preach, I wasn't taught it as a man, but I learned it by revelation knowledge of Jesus Christ." In other words, he got his by revelation. Jesus appeared unto him and gave it to him for revelation. And Paul was the one that come up with the revelation that the Word is first in your mouth, and then it is in your heart.
Now, let's watch in the scripture as God deals with Abraham, or Abram. Romans the fourth chapter, look at verse 13. "For the promise that he should be heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." Now, notice the phrase, "through the righteousness of faith." In other words, not by the works of the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
Now look at verse 16, "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed. Not that to that which is only of the law, but that which is that of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, 'I have made thee a father of many nations, before him who believe, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were."
Now there's the principle right there. God taught Abraham, or Abram, or Abraham, to call things that be not. Are not what? That are not manifest. Things that are not manifest, they are not yet seen. You can't feel them, touch them, taste them, smell them, they are not in the natural realm yet. Call things that are not as though they were.
Now, did you notice he didn't say to call those things that are as though they are not. Now, this is what happened in the early 70's, when the Word of God, was taught throughout this nation, as never before, the Word of Faith. People got the idea that we were saying, that if you're sick, you're supposed to say you are not sick. No, that is not God's principle. Now, you don't want to go around always confessing that you are sick,either because, "faith cometh by hearing." So, you don't want to continually want to dwell on that, but yet, we don't deny what exists. There is no power in denying what exists. The power is in calling for what you don't have. You call for it.
How do you call for it? With the Word of God. You go to the Word of God. It says, "by his stripes YE WERE healed." Is that past tense, or future tense? See, that has already happened. Now, that is truth, regardless of whether you ever benefit from it or not, it is still truth, whether you ever experience it or not. But, you see, if you get it in your mouth, and get it in your heart, then out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. You bring forth good things, by speaking, proclaiming, and saying, but yet, it has to be in there first. Now, most people give up before they ever get faith in their heart.
One fellow told a friend of mine, "That faith business doesn't work." He said, "Why you say that?" "Well, I said 300 times one day I had a new car, but I didn't get it." You wonder about folks like that. When they get up in the morning, how do they find the floor? I guess they jump up the wall and slide down the wall. No, it is not going to happen, just because you say it, but yet saying it is involved in causing it to happen. But the process is that you put the Word of God in your mouth. Now, you speak it until it gets in your heart.
Now, the reason we have two sets of ears, the inner ear feeds what you say right into what the Bible calls the heart, or the spirit of man. Remember what Paul said, "The outward man perisheth, but the inward man is renewed day by day. The outer ear is for the outer man. The inner ear is for the inner man. "It is in your mouth and it is in your heart, that is the word of faith we preach", Paul said.
So, here Paul is quoting Genesis, where it says, God said "I have made thee a father of many nations." Now, verse 18 says, "who against hope, believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken: "So shall thy seed be." When there was no natural hope, Abraham believed in supernatural hope.
See, he went to the Word of God and got him some supernatural hope, but now, God had to train him in this, and it wasn't easy. If you'll notice in your scriptures in the 12th chapter of Genesis, when God appeared and spoke to Abram, he was 75 years old and told him to come out from among his people and that He would give him a world-wide ministry and he would be blessed and he would bless all the nations.
Now, come over to the 13th chapter and verse 14: "And the Lord said to Abram, after that Lot was seperated from him, Lift up now, thine eyes and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it," (verse 14 and 15).
I want you to catch this principle, here, that God is teaching. Cannan Land to the children of Israel, was a physical land. It was their promised land. God told Abram, "Everything you see, I am going to give to you." Now, our promised land are the promises of this new covenant. This is our promised land. You see, the promised land, is not a type of heaven, it is a type of our inheritance in this life. You see, there was wars to enter in there and they had to fight some wars after they entered in there. You won't have to fight any wars after you get to heaven. It is a type of our inheritance in this life.
So, here God, has told Abram, "I'm going to give you everything you see." Now, see, if we apply that today, we would say, we can have everything we can see in this new covenant. Now, you here people say it, "I just can't see this prosperity business." Don't worry, they won't will be bothered with it." "We don't believe in healing in our church." Well, God is not going to embarrass you with a miracle. If you can't see it, you can't have it, but it is still yours, it belongs to you.
"God hath given," 2 Peter 1 says, "God hath given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness." He's already done it, not going to. You see, it happened when Jesus died on Calvary. Now, how we have sat around and let the enemy decieve us, you know? Jesus was the only man that made out a will, here's his will. Now, this is one of the greatest revelations in this book before you get to page one "The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ." You can find yourself in here, find out what he left you. It belongs to you, NOT WHEN YOU DIE, WHEN HE DIED. It is yours, whether you ever claim it or not. Whether you ever enter into it or not. It's yours.
God told him, I am going to give you everything you can see. But now, we read over there where it said "Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness, but Abram didn't believe God like Abraham believed God." Now, we are talking about the same person, but a different time frame.
Now, look in the 15th chapter of Genesis. God appeared to Abram. In verse 2, and Abram said "Lord God, what will you give me, seeing that I go childless. This steward of my house, this Eleisar of Damascus. And Abraham said: Behold to me, thou has given no, and lo, one born in my house shall be my heir. The Lord said: this one shall not be thine heir, but he that cometh out of thine own loins shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth aboard, and said: Look now toward and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them, so shall thy seed be.
Now, notice he is trying to get an image in him. They sat out under the stars. They dwelt in tents. You can see about 4,000 stars on a clear night. He said, Abram, "What will you give me, seeing that I go childless." Now, what did God tell him back there, I am going to give you everything you can see. He said, "What will you give me, seeing that I go childless." As we say in Arkansas, he let the cat out of the bag right there. That's why it hadn't worked. That's why he's had the promise for 11 years and no manifestation of it. He sees himself childless. He can't see it. He can't see himself with a child, so he can't have it. So, God took him out and showed him the stars, and said "Now tell the stars, if you be able to number them, so shall thy seed be."
Now, you go out and tell 4,000 stars every night, "So shall my seed be." Well, I don't know if he meant to point to every star or not, but he is trying to get an image in him. So shall thy seed be, look at the heaven, so shall thy seed be. Trying to get an image inside him. Seeing himself with it. That is my decendants. Then he said to them, they will be as a sand of the sea, as the dust of the ground. Trying to get an image inside. But he said, "What will you give me, seeing I go childless.
Now, notice verse six, "And he believed in the Lord and it was counted for him for righteousness." Now, righteousness under the Old Covenant is not righteousness under the new covenant. See, God is having to lead him along. He believed in the Lord. Didn't say he believed God, it said he believed in Him. He believed in the Lord. There is a lot of people that believe in the Lord, but they don't believe His Word. "Oh yes, we believe God." Well, then, this is ours. "Oh no, that went out with the apostles. That is not for us today." They don't believe what God said. They believe in the Lord and they are born again, but many of them have let the devil cheat them out of their inheritance.
Did you know there's a law, called the Law of Adverse Possession. If you let somebody use your property for 7 years and don't stake a claim on it, they can take deed to it. That is what Christians have done. They've allowed the devil to take the promises of God by adverse possession, and he talked them out of it, cheated them out of it.
See, they've put a law on the books. They are fixing to change that in our country, because of some things that happened. If somebody starts mowing part of your yard and setting stuff over on it and you don't say anything for seven years, they can file them a deed for it, and you just lost a part of your yard. It's called adverse possession. You didn't stake claim to it and they did. Name it and claim it!
The devil is the master at it, because he is a master of deception. Now, if someone left you, your rich uncle died, left you as his sole heir. Would you go home and tell your wife "Oh, I just can't wait until I die to get that inheritance."? She will say, "What is wrong with you boy. Are you sick? You don't have to die, he has to die. You get it when he dies, not when you die.
The devil's tried to teach us that, we the church, you don't get it until you die. Now, there is some things that you will not enter into until you die, but all the promises of God are yes and Amen.
Now, here's Abram. We find that in the 16th chapter--see he believed in the Lord, but here again it shows that he did believe God, what He said. God’s teaching him. You see, when you just don’t know any better, God will teach you. And they got together, he and Sarah and decided, “You know we are going to help poor o God out. He doesn’t know how old we are. So maybe this is the way that it is.” She said, “maybe I am supposed to give you the maid and you have the child by the maid.” So they came up with an Ishmael.
Now look at the last verse in chapter 16, “And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram.” Eighty-six years old. Now look at the next verse in the next chapter, “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me , and be thou perfect.” Eighty-six years to 99 years. Never said another word to him for 13 years.
Yeh, God will let you do it your way, and when you fail, he will still be there. You see it was his, whether he ever entered into it or not. When he tried everything he knew to do and a lot of things he shouldn’t have done. But when he got over in the flesh, and tried to make happen what was supposed to happen in the spirit, God never said another word to him for 13 years and then notice what he said to him. You see, God recognized that he had a problem. Some folks think that God never had a problem. He has you, don’t he?
So, what’s God going to do about this thing? Now, notice what he says in verse 5, “Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.” God speaks the end from the beginning. Isaiah 46:10 says that God speaks the end from the beginning. You know what that means? That means that he calls those things that are not as though they were. He calls them already done. So, he spoke the end from the beginning. He said, “I’ve made you the father of many nations and he changed his name.
Now, what’s the problem here? Now, let me show you two ways that God delt with two different individuals. In Luke’s Gospel, Zacharias was executing in the priest’s office. He and Elizabeth have been praying that they have a child. She was barren. An angel appeared to him and said, “Your wife is going to have a child and I am bringing you good news.” He said, “What sign are you going to give me. You’ve got to give me a sign. How do I know you are telling the truth.” He said, “I am going to give you a sign alright, you are going to be dumb until the day it comes to pass because if I don’t get your mouth shut up, it will never. You talk all that unbelief.”
Now, if the fellow down at the filling station said, “I will have your camels full of water at 7 o’clock in the morning”, I wouldn’t doubt it at all, but an angel appears from God and says you are going to have what you’ve been praying for, he said “You are going to have to give me a sign.” He got the sign, alright. God shut his mouth for good, for nine months. See, if you keep talking that old unbelief, you can’t get an image in there. So, God just sealed his mouth off, where he couldn’t talk, just took his voice away.
You see, you can talk yourself into unbelief or you can talk yourself into faith. You can talk yourself into the promises of God, or you can talk yourself into dispair. The “word is nigh you, it is in your mouth and in your heart.” So, here God changed his name. Now, what did he do? He forced Abraham to say what He said about it. Now, what did Paul say about it? The word is nigh you. Turn there to Romans the 10th chapter and notice what he said in verse 6, because here is the principle that we are dealing with.
“But the righteousness which is of faith says,” Now, first of all, he is going to tell you what it wouldn’t say. The righteousness which is of faith wouldn’t say, “Who sahl ascend into heaven? (that is to bring Christ down from above; Or who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)” Or reverse the process of death, get Jesus back on there in His physical body, so that he can touch me and get me healed or tell me which fish to catch to get the money out of his mouth so I can pay my taxes. No, he said that the righteousness which is of faith wouldn’t say that.
“But what saith it? The word is nigh thee.” It’s as close to you as getting it in your mouth and speaking it in your heart. Just as close to you as getting it in your mouth and speaking it in your heart. “In your mouth and in your heart.” Now, you see what he is trying to get Abram, trying to get the word in his mouth. All He’s got him to believe so far is that he sees himself childless. So, what’s he do? He changes what he has to say. You see, God will deal with people when they don’t know any better.
Now do you realize that Abram could not read Romans 10 and find out that faith cometh by hearing yourself speak and quote what God said. So, God is leading him and teaching him. So what he did, He just changed his name and when he met somebody he had to say, “I’m Abraham.” In those days, they knew what names meant. Today, we don’t really know. But they knew that when he said “I’m Abraham,” he said he’s a father of many nations, or a father of a multitude. And they knew that he didn’t even have a child and he was 99 years old. They wanted to laugh, but they didn’t dare do it because all the people in the county worked for him.
Now, everytime that they said “Abraham, where do you want to put the sheep. Abraham, where do you want to dig the well. Abraham, what do you want to do with the cattle?” He’s hearing “Father of Nations, Father of Nations, Father of Nations.” He had 350 some odd people working for him. He had enough people working for him to overtake 5 kings and their armies and bring back the spoils of Lot’s, Sodom and Gommorrah. Perty good group. So, no telling how many times a day he heard his name. “Faith cometh by hearing” and hearing, and hearing, and hearing, and hearing, and hearing. Now, in this case and in Romans 10, where Paul said it is in your mouth and in your heart. It was in Abraham’s mouth and in his heart.
Here is the principle, you call for what is not there. God changed his name so that he would have to say it the way God said it. See, when you look out and see things like they are. “Now, I am just saying it like it is,” somebody said. Yeh, and as long as you say it that way, it will stay it like it is, or get worse.
I walked into an elevator one day and punched the button, and I stood there a little bit and I said, “What’s wrong with this dumb elevator.” And I punched it again, and it was dumb. I punched the same floor I was on and I got a revelation. You say it like it is and it will stay where it is. You sit there and punch, and pray, and fast, and just do all kinds of religious stuff, and you are going to stay right there. Ain’t none of it going to work until you punch a button where you are not. Yeh, but somebody said, “I’m just saying it like it is.” Well, that’s what I was doing, I was punching the 4th floor and I was on the 4th floor and I stayed on the 4th floor until I punched the 1st floor. Now, I had to punch somewhere where I wasn’t. I had to call for somewhere I was not. This is the principle that strectches through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.
Now, notice what Abraham, “in less than a year.” He’s 99 years old. He doesn’t have the child. His wife is 90, but now, he’s got God’s Word in his mouth. In less than a year, the promise child was born. He had the promise for 24 years, and not manifestation of it. But after he started saying what God said, in less than a year the child, in no more than a year, the child was born. Now, if you took those numbers, it’s 24 times faster to get a manifestation if you say what God said. But I’m convinced that if he hadn’t got him to saying what God said, it would’ve never happened It would’ve never happened because there is creative power in the Word of God.
Not, see, for us to just pull something off the wall and start saying “I am going to get 700 million oil wells.” There is no power in that, because you don’t have any scripture for that. Somebody said, “Yeh, you can have what you say,” but you can’t believe that, see, you’ve got to believe and doubt not in your heart. You’ve got to get that Word. That faith has to come from the Word, and the more you speak the Word, the more of that divine energy that is resident in the Word gets inside you, and it filters into through the inner ear and right into the heart--not the blood pump--the center of your being. It becomes a part of you.
Now, remember what Jesus said, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask what you will, and it shall be done.” Now, there’s people, you know, that will try to come up all kinds of reasons why that won’t work. It works exactly like he said. Have you heard people say, “Well I’m just standing on the Word. I am just going to stand on the Word of God I’m trusting God.”? Well, what are you trusting about God? You’ve got to know what He said, before you can trust what he said.
You can only stand on the Word of God that abides in you. If somebody can talk you out of it, it does not abide in you. See, when the Word abides in you, they can’t beat it out of you with a ball bat. You just keep saying, and keep saying, and keep saying, and keep saying, and keep saying what God said, because faith cometh. Somebody said “Why you keep saying?” because faith keeps coming. See, you can’t exhaust the divine energy of God. Faith is the divine energy of God, it is resident in His Word. If you speak it, it gets inside you. The more you say it, the more you believe it, the more you believe it, the more you say it, the more you believe it. It is in your mouth and in your heart.
What does it do? It creates an image. If I were to say “animal,” most of you thought about a dog, because it is probably your dog. Now, “horse,” changed your image, didn’t it? Why horse? Some of you saw a black horse. Changed your image, didn’t it? Saddle on it, now, changed it again. See, just a few words and changed the image, and you saw it. You can sit right there and walk around your house. Some of you can see the loose singles that you’ve been tending to fix for three months, but you haven’t left here.
What is it? Imagination, imaging. You image it. The Word creates images. What you see is what you can recall. When you get the Word in you, you can recall that Word anytime. You can recall that image and you can perfect that image. Now, in printing, printed material is made up of a series of dots. The more dots you have per square inch, the clearer the image. God’s Word is filled with dots. If you keep saying it, those dots keep getting in you and they create the image, the exact image of what that Word says.
“I have given, and it is given unto me. I have sown bountifully and I reap bountifully. My God has made all grace abound toward me that I having all sufficiency of all things, I abound to every good work. Thank God by His stripes I am healed, and delivered from the authority of darkness.”
Now, you see, it takes time to build that into your spirit and, you know, you always get questions like “Should I have an operation? The doctor says that I am going to die in two weeks if I don’t have an operation. I want to confess the Word of God.” It has a head start on you, sister. You better have an operation and trust God for healing. You see, confession brings faith, but when you get something get ahead of you--you see, you have to use common sense. You know, if you was in an Olympics and a runner get 50 yards ahead of you, you can forget, you ain’t going to catch him. I don’t care how good a runner you are. So, when we’re talking about faith, now, the reason I say this is some people, you know, can’t believe God to get rid of a headache and want God to get rid of cancer in 10 days. See, it has to be a lifestyle. When people call me and say “What shall I do?” What can you believe? Can you believe that you can have an operation and that we will agree together that you’ll heal and be well. “Yeh, I can believe that. I can believe that.” That’s what we will pray and agree on, see.
See, don’t push people where they’re not. Now, if you teach them faith in the Word of God and they develop themselves--but you see, the very fact that they have to write you and ask you what they should do proves that they are not sure. You see, faith and common sense. Nothing wrong with doctors. Thank God for doctors! I tell you what I like to do, I like to use my faith up front, believe not to get sick. Brother, when I get sick, I want well, as quick as I can get it and I am calling for it. You see faith cometh by hearing, and hearing, and hearing, and hearing. Here’s a sister sitting right here that called it, and called it and called it, and called it--until it straightened her face up. You can do it! You develop faith from the Word of God. It is the divine energy of God.
So, here’s Abram. God’s taught him how to walk in faith. He forced him to say what He said about him. See, if God would come down and change our name, it might help us some. But, now, here’s what I want you to see, the difference in a confession and a lie. See, this is why, when people misunderstand things--that’s the reason that people criticize because they don’t understand it. If this brother was to say to me (if I was sick and hurting, you know and he said) “How do you feel brother, do you have any pain?” I said, “Oh no, thank God I am healed, I don’t have any pain at all.” That’s not a confession, that’s a lie. I am convincing him of something that is not true. Now, if he hears me saying “Thank God am healed by the stripes of Jesus!” See, I might be in a motel room just taking my God’s medicine, “Thank God I am healed by the stripes of Jesus. 1 Peter 2:24 flows in my bloodstream. Galatians 3:13 is flowing in my bloodstream. Thank God I am healed. No pain in my body, I am calling my body well” and he goes off and tells somebody, “You know, he don’t have a pain in his body.” I didn’t lie to him, he just heared me calling for what I don’t have.
Somebody said, “Why are you saying you are healed when you’re sick?” I am calling for what I don’t have. Why would I want to call for what I had and say, “I’m sick! Dear God, I am as sick as a horse.” Hey, it is already there, don’t call it. I am going to call for what I don’t have. He’s already given it to me. Now, let me show you something about that. People say, “well you are just demanding of God.” Now, wait a minute. You have a bank account. Have you noticed that they don’t send you money every morning in the mail. Why don’t they, it’s yours, isn’t it? The provision’s made, it belongs to you, but if you never make a demand on it, they’ll not give you one cent. You can live and die and not benefit one cent from that bank account. You can’t even go down there and talk them into giving you some of that money, unless you sign a demand note. You have to make a legal demand. The legal demand on God’s promises is faith. I speak it in faith. I make a demand by faith on the provision of God. I am not demanding of God. Why would I demand of God something He’s already given me. He’s already reserved it in an account. What I do is just simply make a demand on the provision that He made.
Now, see if you went to the grocery store and you had a $100 worth of groceries and you opened your billfold, you only had a dollar. Somebody said, “Yeh, but you got to say it like it is.” So you write a check for a dollar. That ain’t going to work, itn’t it? “Well, I can’t write it for any more because a dollar is all I have, so I will write a check for a dollar.” Yeh, you will have to write 100 of them. See, that doesn’t make any sense at all, does it? No, you write the check for what you need. You make a demand on the provision. Now, see, if you didn’t know what provision was made, you needed to write a check for $5,000, you got to thinking “Wait a minute, now, I don’t know if I have that much money in there or not,” you wouldn’t know whether to make a demand on it or not. See, most people don’t know what provision’s been made. They never read the will. They don’t know what He put into their account. They don’t know it’s theirs if they make a demand on it or not. It’s theirs, whether they ever experience it or not, but they have to make a demand on it, and the thing that you use to make a demand on it is faith, it is the substance of what God’s given you. See, when it says “faith is the substance of things hoped for,” what do we hope for? We hope for what God’s given us, don’t we. We are not talking about something that God doesn’t want us to have. It is what He’s already given. So, we are not demanding of God, we’re demanding of His provision.
Now, I read there in the scripture, in Hebrews 11, where He says that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” You know why? Because He made provision and He’s not pleased if we don’t make a demand on the provision. He’s “given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” How? Through the knowledge of his Word, “through His exceeding great and precious promises, that by these, you might be partakers of the divine nature.” It didn’t say you wouldn’t be, it said you might be.
So, now, you see, people misunderstood it back in the early 70’s, and they were sneezing, coughing, and runny nose, and had the flu, and someone said, “Well, I see, you’re sick.” “Oh no, I’m not sick, I’m well.” And people thought, you know, these folks are like a brick having a load. But, you see, there’s no power in denying what exists. Nobody ever got healed by denying they’re sick, it is calling for what you don’t have. For instance, if someone had emphasema, and they started dying, “I don’t have emphasema. I don’t have emphasema,” if they could get healed by saying that, they might die with cancer. So, that’s not the answer, is it? What’s the answer? “Thank God I’m healed!” Now, when you call that into manifestation, what happens? What happenes to sickness? We don’t know and we don’t care, but go to 1 Corinthians.
Now, notice what Paul says in the 27th verse of the first chapter, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not.” Did you catch that, you ought to underline it. God has chosen things that are not, “to bring to nought things that are.” Now, you missed a good place to shout. God chose things that are not yet manifest, that you can’t see, feel, touch, taste, or smell. They are not in the natural realm, to reduce to nought, that means zero, things that are manifest. That’s God’s method. Did you notice three times in these two verses said God chose this method. Man didn’t choose it, God chose it. It is God’s method. It’s the method He used from Genesis to Revelation.
Jesus operated in this principle in all of His ministry. Unless I forget it, I ought to take the time right here to share it with you. The marriage of Cana, Gailiee, they came to Him and said they had no wine. He said fill the waterpots with water. They filled them to the brim. He said “draw out now, and bear to the govenor of the feast.” I could see Peter say, “You do it, John, not me.” What’s He doing? He’s calling it wine, or grape juice, or whatever you want to call it; and when they got there with it, it was. You see Jesus walk into a synagogue one day, there’s a man with a withered hand. He says to the man, “Stand up.” The old boy stood up. He said, “Now stretch forth your hand.” You know, I know, and Jesus knew, and especially the crippled man knew that if your hand’s crippled, you can’t stretch it forth as the other, but if it’s well, you can, and he did. So, what did He do, He called it well.
He walked to man that had been crippled for 38 years, never walked a step in his life, said to him “Rise, take up your bed, and go home.” Jesus knew, especially the crippled man knew, and everybody around there knew that if you’re crippled, you can’t carry your bed home, but if you are well, you can. He is calling it well. He gathered up his bed, and went home.
You see Jesus get in the boat and He says, “We’re going to the other side of the lake” and he went to sleep on those words. They got out in the middle of the lake and a storm came, contrary winds, and the disciples woke him up and told him what the devil said, “We’re all going to drown.” You see, the Word didn’t abide in them. They cast out the Word for the experience they were having. It didn’t abide in them. Jesus, they woke Him up and He got up. I just see him walk up there. I see him do this, He put His foot up on the bow of that boat. He looked out there in the face of that storm and said “Peace!” “But, Jesus, what do you mean, there’s no peace out there.” But then, there was. What’s He doing? Calling it. He called it “peace.” Then, He looked at the waves, He said, “Be still.” There was a great calm. Then, He turned around and He said, “Now, where was your faith?” That’s a rebuke. “Why didn’t you do it.” If the Word was abiding in them, they would have. Jesus said, “We’re going.” All they had to do was step up there and say, “Hold it! Hold it! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Jesus said we’re going to the other side, now, you stop that.”
Now, where was their faith, it was in their mouth, “We’re going to drown! Going down the tube! This next one is going to get us for sure!” What are they doing? Calling it like it is. How did Jesus call it? Called it like it wasn’t. Things that are not manifest to bring to nought things that are manifested. God looked out and saw darkness and said “Light!”
Ten lepers one day, standing one day, afar off said, “Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on us.” He turned around, looked over there, said “Go, show yourself to the priest.” You don’t do that unless you’ve been cleansed. They could’ve said, “But Jesus, we’re lepers, look, and they would’ve probably died as lepers. The Bible says “as they went, they were cleansed.” What did He do? He called them clean. First step that they took toward the priest’s house, they are calling themselves clean. Are they lying? No, they are calling things that are not, and they were cleansed. It’s the principle that runs through the Bible. We could go on, and on, and on, and on with it, because it is all the way through the Bible.
Jesus, in the 17th chapter of John, stood there praying to the Father. He said, “Father, I am no more in this world.” And He was looking at him, eyeball to eyeball, He said, “I am no more in this world.” What is He doing? Calling things that are not. If there is anytime that you ought to tell the truth, is when you are praying to the Father. He knows when you are lying. Now, listen to this. He said, “Father, I have finished the work you gave me to do.” Ut oh! What do you mean that He’s finished. He hadn’t even died, hadn’t gone to the cross yet. Hadn’t redeemed mankind, but He saw Himself doing it, so He called it. He called it. He called it done. He’s calling things that are not as though they were. He’s establishing it to himself.
See, in the book of Job, it says “Decree a thing, and it shall be established to you and light shall shine upon your path.” In other words, God will show you how to bring it to pass, if you will decree it and proclaim it. See, when faith is in you and the Word of God is in you, when the Word abides in you, there is no struggle to faith. It is not a lack of faith, well, it is a lack of faith in a sense, but sometimes, but…let’s say it this way, it will help you. If the Word is in you, faith is there, if the Word abides in you, faith is there, but when we cast out the Word, in favor of experience, faith is not there. So, what it is, is a lack of Word.
Now, for instance, you’ve got people that can get you saved in a minute. “Yes, God will save you, just repent, confess Jesus as Lord.” But some of those people will turn around and tell you, “…but God won’t heal you, that went out with the apostles.” Now, wait a minute. What they said first was right and got me born again. What ‘s the problem here? They have the Word concerning salvation, no Word concerning healing. You can’t believe any futhur than you have knowlege. See, I am not critizing them. If you’ve been taught that way, you would believe that way, but you see, they don’t have the Word, so they don’t have the faith. So, the key is, just get the Word in you, and faith will be there, then you don’t have to struggle with it, and light will shine upon it. When you begin to decree a thing, because of the faith that is in you, because of the Word that is in you, you won’t have to struggle with.
You will wake up some morning and while you are shaving, you’ll feel lead to go downtown, and you think you are going down to the bank, and you get about halfway down there, and you think “Woo! Coffee. Yeah, I’d like to have a cup of coffee.” And, you turn into the restaurant to get a cup a coffee and meet some guy that you went to school with and you just lost your job and you are looking for a job and He’s been thinking about you for three days. He’s been building a manufacturing plant in town and wants you to be the manager. And you end up right there sitting and drinking coffee and he hires you and pays you three times what you was getting at your other job, and there was no struggle at all. Why? Because you decreed what the Word said and the Word in here and the faith in here just simply lead you. “As many as are lead by the spirit of God, they’re the sons of God.” “God’s Spirit bears witness with our spirit.” So, when the Word is in there and the image is in there, and you can see yourself with it, you’ll be lead by your spirit and you don’t have to struggle. That is when the Word abides in you.
Now, come over here to 2 Corinthians. Listen to what Paul said, referring to David, in the 13th chapter. Second Corinthians 4:13, “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.” See, David said, “I believe, therefore have I spoken.” Paul said, we also believe, and therefore speak. If you want to know what you are believing, check up on what you have been saying. You’ll be suprised at what you have been believing and what you’re saying is going to determine what you believe. “The Word is nigh you, it is in your mouth and in your heart.
I had someone say to me one time, “I believe I am going to be so sick I can’t go to church tonight. I looked, and they wasn’t there. They believed for it. They decreed a thing. Come down to verse 17. “For our light afffliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.” Now, “our light afffliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; WHILE we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. It only works an eternal value in you, while you are looking at the unseen. If you are looking at the things that you’re experiencing, it’s not working an eternal value in you, it will defeat you. You see what He’s saying. Don’t look at the seen, but at the unseen. What’s he saying? Call for what you don’t have, it will reduce to zero what is.
Now, if I call for healing, if I’m sick, and I start saying, “Thank God, I am healed, I call my body well. Thank God I am healed by the stripes of Jesus! Thank God!” If I call healing into manifestation, what happened with sickness. It was reduced to zero. So, what you can see, feel touch and taste. Now the problem you face. Now, this is the very same thing. See, the scripture says it so many ways, you can’t hardly miss it. You have to have somebody to help you misunderstand it. “Whosoever shall say to the mountain, be removed and cast into the see, shall not doubt in his heart but believe what he says shall come to pass, he shall have.” What’s he going to have, what he prayed? No, what he said. If your praying with your saying, your saying will nulify your praying. You are going to have what you said. Why? Because it was in your mouth and it went down in here and you were lead by your spirit to live out the reality of what you said. You don’t have to consciencely try to do it. You’ll think that God lead you to do it, but no, it was the seed that you sowed with your mouth.
Now, let me give you an illustration. I farmed for 29 years before I went into the ministry. I got negative on life, because of a bad business deal I got into and I got into saying: “Well, it don’t make any difference what I do, it won’t work out anyway. You watch and see, I’ll plant my cotton that deep and it will turn cold and rain and it’ll rot.” And it did. I said, “Now, I will probably plant it real shallow and it will turn all dry and it won’t rain for a month and it will not come up.” And it did. Finally, got a half a stand up and I said, “Yeh, it will probably freeze before it matures.” And it did.
Now, somebody said, “How in the world can what you said cause anything to do with the weather?” It didn’t have anything to do with the weather, but it had everything to do with how I planted my cotton. I said: “You’ll watch and see and I will plant it the wrong depth. If it’s dry, I’ll plant it shallow, if it’s going to be wet, I will plant it deep.” So, when I got ready to plant, you know, you always think, “What should I do?” “Well, I just feel led to plant it deep. I believe the weatherman said it’s going to turn dry, I better plant it deep so that it can come up.” So, I just felt led to plant it deep. So, I planted it deep and it turned cold and rained and it all rotted. Now why did I do that, because I said. I decreed a thing and it was established to me. So the Word went down into here and said, “Find a way to cause him to plant it the wrong depth. Now, folks, if you study the parable of Mark 4, that is what Jesus is trying to tell you, the Word is the seed, whether it is the Word of God or whether it is the Word of the devil, it is a seed, and when you plant it, it is going to come up, and you’ll be led by your spirit to walk out the reality of what you said, and there will be no struggle, whether it is right or whether it is wrong.
Now, it says here, “While we look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal”, that means they are subject to change, “…but the things that are not seen are eternal.” In other words, the things we are calling for. We are calling for eternal forces to change what is temporal. Temporal means subject to change, just like you ladies you get a permanent, that’s temporary. See, today, we have words that don’t mean what they did in the Bible. See, my wife says “I am going to get a perm.” I said, “You got one last month.” “Yeah, but I need another one.” “Well, there was nothing permanent about it, it was temporary.”
But you see “While we look not at things that are seen, but at things that are not seen.” So, the Word of God admonishes us to look at what is not seen. Now, what is it you don’t see when you are sick, you don’t see yourself well. So, how do we go to see ourselves well. Go to the Word of God and find that Jesus bore our sickness. He took our infirmities and our sicknesses. Now, that’s the truth, whether we ever experience it or not. But if we get it in our mouth and get it our heart and in our heart and in our mouth, then we begin to see it. I see it. When you can see it, you can have it. Wasn’t that what he told Abram? “I’m going to give you everything you can see,” when you can see it, when you image it, when the Word creates the image in you. Now, you know, some people think you are getting into mind science, no we are getting into the Word of God above all matter. It’s not mind over matter, it’s God’s Word over all matter. The Word creates an image in you.
Now, you’ll always have a fellow that’ll say, “Yeh, bless God! I believe in saying it like it is.” No you don’t! The only time he’d believe that is when he is in church. He’ll go right home after testifying in church, “Bless God! We don’t believe in that ‘blab it’ and ‘grab it’, ‘name it’ and ‘claim it’, we believe in saying it like it is. He’ll go right home to feed his dog and he’ll walk on the back porch and the dog is not there. He’ll stand right there on the porch, say “Here Pooch! Here Pooch!” Now, I’m going to say, why are you lying about Pooch, he’s not here, he’s yonder somewhere. Now, remember he don’t believe in calling things that are not, but the dog is not there, the dog is gone, and he is saying “Here Pooch!”, but the dog is gone. That would be the “dog-gone” truth, wouldn’t it? Little humor there, someone said very little. But, now you see, he will stand right there and call that dog until he comes and he will critize you for calling yourself healed when you are sick. Now, what is the difference.
If you, you know, if you had a…, you mothers, if you wanted to talk to your child and he is in the other room, and you say: “Well, Jonnie’s not here. If Jonnie was here, I would talk to him, but he is not here. It must not be God’s will.”
Now, this guy that says that he believes in calling it like it is, what if he goes out to feed the dog and the cat’s there. Now, he’s got to call the cats. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty!” All the neighbors’ cats come over. They’re crawling on him, licking him in the face, and he’s still calling the cats; and the neighbor looks over the fence and says “What are you doing with all these cats?” “I don’t know, I am trying to feed the dog.” He says, “Now, wait a minute, if you are trying to feed the dog, why are you calling the cats?” “Well, you see, when the cats are here, you have to say it like it is, you have to call the cats.”
Now, laugh, but some of you laughing [have] been doing the same thing: “Everytime we save any money, all the kids come down sick, have to spend every dime on doctor’s bills. The devil does that everytime.” Hey the cat’s there, quit calling it. See, you are calling it like it is. You see how suttle the enemy is. If he can get you to talking it, he can keep that image before you. Brother, when you begin to change that image and start saying what God says, all the religious spirits in the world will get on their high-horse. Man, they’ll scream like a smashed cat: “You can’t do that, you’re lying.” No, I am calling for the truth. God’s Word is truth. Whether I experience it or not, it is still truth. So, now if he sat there and called the cats, you know, no body is that stupid in the natural, when it comes to cats and dogs.
Now, watch him, if he goes off and shuts his house up and goes on vacation and comes home in August and it is 100 degrees in there, you know what he will do? Walk right into that house and turn that thermostat to 74 degrees and I will tap him on the shoulder and say: “I thought you didn’t believe in calling things that are not. It’s not 74 degrees in here. You see, he does it all day long, except when it comes to the promises of God, and the devil has convinced him by the law of adverse possession, that you can’t say it unless you already got it. The devil talked him out of it.
Now, what if he really believed what he said, you see, if he lived that philosophy that he claims to believe? And he comes home and it is 100 degrees in there. He walks over there and says: “Well, I believe in saying it like it is. It is 100 degrees, so I have to set this thermostat on 100.” So, he sets it on 100, and it is hot, calls the air conditioning man, saying, “What is wrong with this thing?” “Well, I don’t know, what’s it doing?” “It’s not doing a thing.” “Well, how hot is it in there?” “It’s 100 degrees.” “Well, where is the thermostat set?” “Well, on 100, of course. We always say it like it is, you know.”
He said: “Now wait a minute. Let’s see, it’s 100 degrees and you’ve got it set on 100. It’s working perfectly.” I’ve had people to say, “Well, that stuff don’t work for me.” I said, “I know it!” “Yeah, but it really doesn’t.” “I know it.” But it really is, you see. They said it didn’t work and it didn’t work. So it is working. Just like Jesus said, he shall have whatsoever he saith, if he’d believe, if he doubt not in his heart, if he believe what he is saying will come to pass. This is the underlining principle of the whole Bible.
God called things that were not as though they were, from the beginning. 750 years before Jesus was born, God called it out that he would be born of a virgin. That is what prophecy is, calling things that are not. All through the Word of God, God calls things that are not as though they were, from Genesis to Revelation. It is in the Word of God. [He] changed Abram’s name to Abraham. Abraham had to say, “I am Abraham. I am the ‘father of nations.’” Call things that are not as though they were. Call abundance when there’s lack. Call healing when there is sickness. It is the Word. The Word has to abide in you. “The word is night thee, it is in thy mouth and it is in thy heart, that is the word of faith which we preach.
Now, watch this, faith is the substance of things hoped for. What do we hope for? What God’s given us. Right? If faith is the substance of things desired, then on the other hand, fear being the opposite force of faith, dyometrically opposed, it is the substance of things not desired, and Job proved that it work. If faith in God comes by hearing the Word of God, faith in the devil comes by hearing the words of the devil. Now, I will tell you where many Christians are missing it. They’re talking about what the devil is doing, what the devil is saying. We need to be talking about what God’s saying and what God’s doing and ignore what the devil says. I’ll tell you, the devil said something to me 25 years ago, and for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was, and I don’t care. I don’t care. I got off of speaking terms with him over 25 years ago and I’ve never talked to him since. No, I’m going to talk God’s language. “The Word is nigh you, it is in your mouth and it’s in your heart, that is the Word of Faith, which we preach,” Paul said.
Brother Rob, come here. Now, what did you come up here for. “Because you called me.” Oh, he came because I called him. Now, he sat there for an hour and didn’t come. Why didn’t you come awhile ago. “Because you didn’t call me.” Because I didn’t call him. Itn’t that amazing! But as soon as Icalled him, he came. “And all the promises of God are ‘yes’ and ‘amen’. See, God said yes to it, and we are supposed to say, “So be it! So be it!” You call for the thing that you don’t have, but most people talk about what they have.
I was in Hickory, NC, in June of 1974. I was preaching on Mark 11:23 and got a revelation. It is profound, but it so simple, it’s almost foolish. While I was teaching from that scripture, the Lord said, “I told my people they can have what they say, but…,” he said, “the problem is my people are saying what they have.” And when you say what you have and have what you say, you have say because you say because you say what you have.
Now, that may be a little vague to some of you, until you write it down. But go back to the checkbook, if you have a dollar in your pocket and you are going to say it like it is with your checkbook, you can’t write a check, but for a dollar. See, God said you can have what you say, but he said “my people are saying what they have.” So if they’re in lack, they are going to have lack.
You know the slogan, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” There is some truth to that. You know why there is some truth to that. You know why there is truth to that? Because there is a principle involved. If you say it like it is, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because the poor talk poverty and the rich talk riches. Do you see any thing? Now, what does the scripture say? “Now take from him that hath not and give to him that hath. But Lord, he hath ten talents. Yeh, but take from him that hath not and give to him that hath, because he will take away even that which he hath.” Why? Because there’s a principle that when you talk what is, you are led to do the things that will keep you where you are.
“The poor man’s poverty is his destruction,” Proverbs says. Why? Because they think it, talk it, eat it, sleep it. We’ve got to change this way of thinking, see. I’ve had people say to me, “We’ve been dirt poor all of our lives, we’ll never have anything.” With that attitude, they will be, see. Now, you see, this is the principle I am talking about. I am not talking about just for money. It will progress in any area of your life, see. Prosperity is a lot more than money. Money is just a small part of it. But you see, the Word says, “to him that hath, shall more be given to him, and he that hath not, from him shall be taken away, even that which he hath.” Now, what is He talking about in the 13th chapter of Matthew. “Now, he that hath ears to hear.” So, if you hear what the Word said, “He that hath ears to hear, to him shall more be given”, so if you hear what God’s principle is, call for what you don’t have, and more will be given to him, but he that doesn’t have ears to hear the Word of God, shall be taken from him, even that which he hath. Because if you don’t act on what you know, you will lose it. And you see, this is the deception of the enemy, and by the law of adverse possession, a spiritual law of adverse possession, the enemy tries to steal what God has already given you. It belongs to you. . But if you stake your claim on it. The Word says it is mine. Begin to proclaim it and pursue it with the Word of God, until faith comes.
Now, it took me a year to change some of that old unbelief that was in my heart and in my head. You see, you can be right in your heart and wrong in your head. But, it took a year to get some of that stuff changed around to where I could believe what God said is more true than what I was experiencing. I remember the day it happened concerning my finances. It took me a year to change my thinking on that. I come running into the house one day and told my wife, I said, “Honey, I feel rich, but my bank book doesn’t show it.” What happened? Now, I am thinking like God thinks. “I can see it.” I saw it before I ever lived it out, but folks, I am telling you that it is the underlining principle of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation; and after this service tonight, when you read the Bible, you will begin to see it.
See, if you don’t look at it from that angle, you will miss it. Jesus operated in it all of His ministry. Walked up to a little woman one day. She is all bowed together and crippled. She can’t even raise herself up and He said, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” But, she wasn’t, not a bit better. She was bowed together and then, he laid his hands on her. Instantly (clap), she was made straight, but did you notice that He called it before it ever happened. He called it. Called it! Hallelujah! Glory be to God!
THE END