We are glad you could join us today for the Concepts of Faith broadcast. This program is dedicated to teach you how to put the word of God to work so that it will make a positive difference in the everyday circumstances of your life. And now, here’s Charles Capps.
The law said that if you’ve been cleansed, you go show yourself to the priest, but they have not been cleansed. But Jesus said, go show yourself to the priest. You know what he’s doing?
He’s calling them clean. You know, they could have thought, well, now he misunderstood us, and they could have hollered back and said, Jesus, have mercy on us. You don’t understand, we’re lepers.
And he would have just said, go show yourself to the priest. They could have looked and said, but we’re lepers. We’re not any better.
We’re the kind that we don’t believe it unless we see it. We want to see it first, then we’ll say it. Then we’ll go show ourself to the priest.
They’d have been lepers the rest of their life. You know what the Bible says? As they went, they were cleansed.
Now what happened when they turn and started toward the priest? The very fact that they took one step toward the priest, they were calling themselves clean. And I want you to know the power of God came on them and they were made clean.
As they went, they were cleansed. What would have happened if they hadn’t went? Now that’s not good English, but it’ll get you to think in one.
Now, Jesus is operating in the principle of calling things that are not. He did all through his ministry. In John the fifth chapter, let me just refresh your memory of something.
Here’s Jesus, he goes down to the Pool of Bethesda. And here is a man that’s been crippled. He’s been crippled for years, and there he lays by that pool.
Now his only hope is that when the angel come down in a certain season and troubles the water in that pool, if he can get in there before anybody else does, he’ll be made whole of whatever plague he has. Now that’s his only chance. And I don’t know what season it was, whether it was just once a year or once a month or whatever, but he’s got a problem there, hadn’t he?
Everybody else gets in before he gets there because he’s crippled. And some of them had different diseases, I suppose, and they could walk or move and get in there quicker. But Jesus walks up to this man and he says, Will thou be made whole? Now he didn’t ask him if he wanted to be, he said, will you?
There’s a difference in asking somebody if they wanna be made whole and will you be made whole? There is a great difference. In other words, if I lay hands on somebody and say, will you be made whole?
I’m not asking them if they want to be, I’m asking them, will they? Now, Jesus walks up to this man and this man starts telling him all of his problems. Said, sir, I have no man.
And when he gets through talking, Jesus said, rise, take up your bed and walk. The old boy just gathered up his bed and started home. I mean, he’s got his bed on his shoulder.
He’s going down through there and the Jews caught him in the temple and said, it’s the wrong day to carry your bed. Well, he said, the guy that healed me, he said, take up my bed. They said, well, who was he anyway?
He said, come to think of it, I don’t have any idea who he was. I want you to get this, this man got his healing because some guy said, rise, take up your bed and walk. Now, how many of you know that a cripple can’t get up and take up his bed and go home?
When Jesus said to that man, rise, take up your bed, he’s calling him well. Cripple people can’t rise and take up their bed. And if that old boy had started arguing, well, you don’t understand, fella, I’ve been this way for 38 years.
But anyway, here’s the man standing there. He’s carrying his bed, because somebody said, rise, take up your bed, and walk. He acted on the words of Jesus.
Now, he had faith as a seed. It was not the saying, but it’s the acting that caused him to receive his healing. Jesus called him well.
Now, when you follow Jesus’ ministry, you find that he was in the synagogue one day, and they were watching him to see if he would heal on the sabbath day. It seemed like Jesus got more trouble on the sabbath day. And here’s this guy with a withered hand sitting back there in the synagogue.
And he spoke to him. He said, you with the withered hand, stand up. The old boy stood up.
He said, is it lawful to do good or evil on the sabbath day? Then didn’t anybody answer a thing. And he looked at the old boy and he said, stretch forth your hand.
Now here’s a guy with his hand. I can just see it all withered and twisted. Been that way for years since birth.
And he said, stretch forth your hand. Now anybody in his right mind knows that a cripple man can’t stretch forth his hand. You know what Jesus is doing?
Jesus is calling him well. Now if he’ll act on those words, and he did, he just stretched his hand out. It was just as whole as the other.
He called him well. He called him well. And the very fact that he made an effort to stretch forth his hand, he was calling himself well.
He was acting on those words. And I think there’s something there we need to get a hold of. Because Jesus operated in this, all of his ministry, in every situation.
Now, we’re going to have to move quickly. There’s many things that we could say. In Mark the fourth chapter, Jesus in the boat going over to the other side of the lake, and they said, carest thou not that we perish?
Jesus got up out of the back of that boat. He looked out there and he saw the same storm they saw. He saw the same water coming in the boat that they saw.
And you know what he said? He said, peace. That’s what he said.
If it had been some folks I know there, they’d have jerked his coat tail and said, you can’t say that, there’s no peace out there. You know what he’s doing? He’s calling the thing that’s not.
There was no peace there, but he called it. And then he said, be still. There was no stillness there.
The waves were coming over in the boat, but he called it. And it ceased, and there was a great calm. Then he said to them, where is your faith?
I’ll tell you where their faith was. Their faith was in their mouth. They said, we’re going to drown.
See, there’s in that negative stream. You’ll find out your faith will always end up in your mouth, whether you believe God or whether you believe the devil, it’ll always end up in your mouth. Now, the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
Now, you see Jesus then, as he goes to raise Lazarus from the dead, in the 11th chapter of John, here you see they come send a runner down there and said, he whom thou lovest is sick. Jesus said, this sickness is not unto death. Oh, but wait a minute, wait a minute, the man died.
What’s Jesus doing? He’s calling things that are not. And they start down there.
See, he stayed two days there. Two days later, he starts down there. And as he’s going down there, he said, Lazarus sleepeth.
And they said, well, Lord, if he’s asleep, he’s doing well. But he said, Lazarus died. Now see, what’s he doing?
What is Jesus doing here? He’s made the statement that this sickness will not end in death, but the end results of this whole matter will bring glory to God. That was his first statement about it when he heard that Lazarus was sick.
Now, as he goes down there, he’s calling Lazarus asleep. Lazarus is asleep. They thought he meant he’s just taking a nap.
And he finally explained to him he died. Then he gets down there and he tells him to roll the stone away. And they said, but Lord, he stinketh, but now he’s been dead four days.
As if that’d make any difference. But anyway, they finally rolled the stone away. Jesus looked up to heaven and he said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
What do you mean heard him? He hadn’t said anything yet. Oh, but he did four days ago.
He said, this sickness is not under death. See, he’s reminding God of what he said four days ago. I said it four days ago, and I thank you that you heard me.
And I knew that you always hear me. That’s the reason he said it. He’s establishing something.
He’s calling things that are not. And then he steps out there and says, Lazarus. Now, you see, if it had been a Bible principle to call things that are as though they are, he’d had to stepped out there and said, Lazarus is in the grave.
But he didn’t. He said, Lazarus, come forth. And I want you to know he came forth.
Stood there. Now, in Luke the 13th chapter, you find that Jesus walked up to a little woman. She’d been bowed over for all these years and couldn’t lift herself up.
And Jesus said, woman, thou art loosed from your infirmity, but she wasn’t, until he laid his hands on her. See, he called the thing that was not. Jesus in all of his ministry did this.
He talked to fig trees, he talked to the sea, he talked to dead people. And it’s amazing they all obeyed him, cause he was highly developed in it. So you can talk to your problems.
You can conquer the things that loom as mountains before you by calling the things that are not. Can you see that? Can you say amen?
Praise God. Thank you so much for joining us for the Concepts of Faith broadcast. I trust you’ve been with us all this week.
Now, this is the last day for DVD offer number 7856, Calling Things That Are Not, a 60-minute DVD for $20 plus $4 postage and handling, a total of $24. What does it mean to call things that are not? Call things that are not manifest.
You know we do that in everyday life. If your children are out playing and you have dinner on the table, you call them and they come. Well, you don’t sit out and say, Well, I wish to God they’d come in.
I guess it’s not God’s will for them to come. But did you know that’s the way a lot of people do concerning the promises of God? They say, Well, if it’s God’s will, then it’ll happen to me, and if it’s not, it won’t.
No, you have to call for the promise of God. You have to be faithful and diligent in calling things the way God said they were in His word, because there’s a devil out there to steal, kill, and destroy. He’ll steal your finances.
He’ll steal everything you’ll let Him steal. But if you call for the promise of God, first of all, did you know that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God? So if you’re saying what God said in His Word about you, then faith is coming.
So you need to know that you’re creating faith by confessing the Word of God, and confessing God’s Word may be calling things that are not as though they were. This is the way God taught Abraham faith. Abraham had a promise for 24 years and no manifestation of the promised child until God changed his name, changed his name to Abraham, which meant father of nations.
See, his name was first Abram. God changed it to Abraham, so he had to say what God said about him. And the more he said it, the more he believed it, the more he believed it, the more he said it.
I want you to know that God’s Word is spiritual law. It is the power of God to create, to change situations and circumstances. So when you call for the promise of God, you’re calling for what God’s already given you.
You’re not calling for what you have. You already have that. So you say what God said about you.
Thank God there’s abundance and no lack. My God has met my need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. Well, I want you to know God’s Word will change your life.
It will teach you how to call for what God has already given you, but it has not yet manifest. It’s a biblically sound principle. Abraham, after he started saying what God said about him, the promised child was born in less than a year.
That’s offer number 7856, Calling Things That Are Not, a 60-minute DVD for $20 plus $4 postage and handling, a total of $24. We have a toll-free order line, 1-877-396-9400. Until Monday, this is Charles Capps reminding you, the enemy is defeated, God is exalted, and yes, Jesus is coming soon.
To order the product offered today, call 1-877-396-9400 or write Charles Capps, PO. Box 69, England, Arkansas, 72046. A complete list of CDs, books, and DVDs are available online at charlescapps.com.
Through the website, you can listen to this radio program again and subscribe to our podcast. This broadcast is sponsored by Charles Capps Ministries and our listeners in this area.
