F4F | Copeland is Wrong: God Did NOT Create the Universe by Faith!

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ. This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the

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Word of God. So today we're going to be listening to Kenneth Copeland, and we're not going to listen to too much of him.

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And I would note that what I'm going to show you is not an isolated teaching. This is one of the core doctrines of the

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Word of Faith heresy, and the core doctrine is that God created the universe by faith.

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We're going to debunk that, and in debunking it, we're going to demonstrate that that whole concept, that God created the universe by faith, it is a twisting of Hebrews 11 .3.

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And it's not what Hebrews 11 .3 says at all. In fact, there are other clear passages that explain exactly how

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God created the universe, and it's not by faith. There are no biblical texts that say that God created the universe by faith.

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And by the end of this, hopefully you'll have a little bit of an understanding as to why that doesn't work in Hebrews 11 at all.

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And I would challenge you, those of you who disagree with me, go and call up a

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Greek professor at a reputable seminary or reputable

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Bible college, and ask them to fact check what I'm saying. And if you disagree with me, find out what they would say about the way the sentence works in Hebrews 11 .3.

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So a little bit of a shorter episode today, but we'll see if we can add a little bit of fun along the way, because I think there's some good stuff that we can still glean, even in a careful study of debunking one of the core claims of Kenneth Copeland.

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So let me do this. I'm going to whirl up the desktop, and we're going to open up the web browser. Man, Ken Copeland ain't looking so hot, okay?

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You know, he's 87 years old, and he practically looks like a walking corpse at this point.

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I'll comment on that a little bit, but let's get him to explain what we're going to be doing today.

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Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome to 2024. Praise God. You know, every day, when you wake up, is the beginning of your life.

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And I've never been 87 years old before. Praise God. I'm enjoying it. But he's enjoying it.

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I want to remind you all, four years ago, Kenneth Copeland famously said that he, that God told him he was going to live to be 120 years old.

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Here's the receipts on that. I'll tell you something the Lord said to me. I've gone into a very, how can

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I say this, Lord? He's trying to work out how he's going to tell this whopper of a lie.

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I've got to tell you something the Lord said to me. Oh, really? What did the Lord say to you, Kenneth? More than just a little exercise program.

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Ah, so he's been going to the gym. Okay. And I'm in very serious training.

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Praise God. I'm working out hard. Because everybody knows that going to the gym is the easiest way to make it to live to be 120 years old.

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Wrong. And, and I heard this.

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He heard it. He heard it. He said, Kenneth, I sacrificed my body for yours.

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He said, now you are sacrificing your body for mine.

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So, exercising at the gym is a sacrifice that's up there with Jesus's vicarious penal substitutionary death on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.

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I'm pretty sure God didn't say that. Yeah. I'm just going to go with, nope, this isn't God. I didn't want to do that.

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But then I have a mandate before me. God's given him a mandate.

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Has he now? Should the Lord, Terry, I will live and preach this gospel till I'm 120 years old.

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Uh, you know, Kenneth, I don't think you're looking like you're going to make it that far.

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No, no. The mileage. Plus you already have a pacemaker with a, you know, with a defibrillator in it and you've lost your ability to renew your pilot's license.

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And he's looking pretty awful. I'm, I mean, I'm not a prophet, I don't claim to be a prophet at all, but I would note that, uh, my keen observational skills make it clear to me, he ain't going to make it to 120.

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He might make it to 90, 91, 92, maybe 93.

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He ain't making it to 120, which will be further proof that he's a liar. And when that happens, yes,

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I will be pointing people to this video and the timestamp saying Rosebro called it.

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This guy was lying through his teeth. God did not tell him he was going to live to 120.

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Just saying. So you get the idea. So let's take a look at how this core doctrine works.

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Now, by the way, this isn't an isolated incident. Kenneth Copeland has taught this many, many, many, many times.

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And where he's going to start off in Genesis one, talking about how God said, let there be light and there was light. He's going to cross -reference it with Hebrews three and make the claim without really exegeting

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Hebrews 11 .3, saying that Hebrews 11 .3 says that God created the universe by faith.

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It doesn't say that at all. And I'll show you not only in the English, because you can see it in the

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English, but I'll also definitively show you from the Greek how there's no way that you can claim what he's claiming, because it's just grammatically impossible.

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Again, if you disagree with me, call up a reputable Greek scholar and have him fact check what

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I'm about to show you. So, and then, like I said, we'll debunk this with some other texts, but here we go.

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Here's Kenneth Copeland and watch the dance. He's going to start in Genesis one and then reference

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Hebrews 11 .3. He does this all the time, claiming that God created the universe by faith. Here we go.

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I want to go over here to right at the beginning of the book, Genesis chapter one, and this introduces the spirit of power.

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Genesis chapter one, in the beginning, God, Elohim, El, God, Elohim, plural.

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That's correct. Okay. El is the singular for God. Elohim is the plural for gods, and it gets used regarding Yahweh throughout the

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Old Testament. And I personally think that that's an argument in favor of the Trinity.

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That just makes perfect sense, especially when you get to like Genesis 1 .26, when God says, let us make man in our image.

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So what he's saying here is true. All right. Yeah. And, you know, I only know a few like liberal critical scholars who would disagree, but I don't really put any stock in those guys.

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But let's continue. And that's why it says, let us make man in our own image.

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True, true. Again, he doesn't look like he's going to make it to 120. Just saying. So there we see the

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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the beginning, Elohim created the heaven and the earth.

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The earth was without form and void and darkness upon the face of the deep. Now, here he is. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

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And God said, let there be light or light be. There was light.

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Now, the Spirit of God was moving. He's always moving. Annoying.

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Let me explain something here. It's actually better than that. So if we go to Genesis 1, Genesis chapter 1.

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All right. So, Bereshit bara Elohim et ha'shemayim v 'et ha 'aretz. All right. So in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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So far, so good. Now watch where this goes here, because this is interesting. The earth was without form and void.

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So tohu v 'bohu, without form and void. And darkness was over the face of the deep, the tahom.

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And we're going to note that the Spirit of God was hovering over what? The waters. So we got water involved, you know, like, it's almost like the waters are like this big egg.

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And here's where it gets interesting. Moving is not really the verb here. The ruach Elohim was merekafet.

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Okay. So this is a verb used about birds.

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So if you, if you were to see a bird hovering over, you know, over a field or something like this, and just kind of staying in place, that's what the verb merekafet is referring to.

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It's a bird verb. So here you've got the ruach Elohim merekafetting, which is a bird verb hovering over the face of the waters of the ha'mayim.

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And, and it's, it's invoking, this is the first, first inference of God, the

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Holy Spirit appearing like a dove. It doesn't say it, it doesn't say it overtly here in Genesis 1, 4, or sorry, 1, 2, it doesn't say it overtly, but it's hinting at it using the verb merekafet.

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And then you, if you want to see what this looks like, then go to Jesus's baptism, which is then invoking the same text, the same idea.

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Jesus is baptized, you know, in a sinner's baptism in the waters of the Jordan and the

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Holy Spirit descends and alights on him and remains on him. It's kind of pointing out like new creation kind of stuff here.

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So yeah, there's, there's a hint at the Holy Spirit appearing like a dove at the creation using the verb merekafet, but you don't get at it unless you kind of understand how the

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Hebrew operates. But again, it's a lot better than moving. So yeah, clearly

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Kenneth Copeland isn't capable of getting at the deeper meanings here, because I don't think he has any concept of how

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Hebrew operates at all. So let's just listen again, back it up just a little bit. And God said, let there be light or light be, there was light.

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Now the spirit of God was moving. He's always moving. He's never static. And he was moving.

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He was merekafetting, which is not proper Hebrew, by the way. But nothing happened until God spoke.

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Correct. God said, let there be light and there was light. Now right in Genesis chapter one, we have, and it's brought out in the 11th chapter of Hebrews.

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So note, it's referencing now Hebrews three. Watch what he says. That God did it by faith. No, wrong.

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You get an F, sir. You get an F. You do. You are absolutely twisting up Hebrews 11, 3. Hebrews 11, 3 definitively does not say that God created the world by faith.

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That is not what it says. Notice he's not reading that text. Listen to what he does say here. And then he kind of stops himself.

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By faith, we understand he created the world. So he correctly, he correctly quoted

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Hebrews 11, 3, but says that, oh, we learned from Hebrews 11, 3 that God created the universe by faith.

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Wrong, sir. Now notice he caught himself and kind of chuckled and laughed.

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He can't spend any time in Hebrews 11, 3. No, because it would prove him wrong.

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And so he just kind of moves on from here. Watch this. The first introduction of faith in God and the introduction to the spirit of power.

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Faith in God, the faith of God in God. Uh huh. And he was moving on the face of the deep.

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All right. So here's the question. Does Hebrews 11, 3 teach that God spoke the universe into existence by faith?

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Answer? No. So let's take a look. All right. So we're going to head over to Hebrews 11, 3 and we have it isolated and I'll kind of explain the

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Greek along the way. So here's what it says. So by faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God.

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Okay. All right. So let's focus here, shall we? By faith.

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So piste here is a dative noun. Now, because nouns in Greek work differently than nouns in English, you're going to have to work with me here.

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When a noun appears in the nominative, it's the subject of the verb. When it appears as the dative, it's usually in an indirect object kind of way, or it's showing kind of instrument or means.

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Okay. So oftentimes you can say, you can add helping words, by or to, to help with translating a dative noun.

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Okay. So piste, by faith. Here comes your main verb.

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And you're going to note the subject of the verb is, and the subject of the sentence is in the verb itself.

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It's not actually, it's not actually parsed out in our, in our sentence here.

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And the verb here is not at all. And this is a, it's a, let's see here.

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First person plural present active indicative. Okay. So this is a, so this is a first person plural, which means we.

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By faith, we understand. Okay. So here's your main verb.

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We understand. So what do we understand? We understand that was created.

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So here you have the Greek verb katarizzo, and it's a passive infinitive, which, which means it ain't the main verb.

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We're dealing now with a subordinate clause in the, in the text. So you're going to note the main part of the sentence, by faith, we understand.

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That's the main, that the sentence can be summarized by that. And the rest is building off of it as subordinate clauses.

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By faith, what do we understand? Well, here's where the direct object comes in. So this is in the accusative.

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And when something, a noun appears in the accusative, that means it's the direct object of the verb.

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Okay. So by faith, we understand what, what do we understand? That the universe was created.

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How was it created? Now we have a second subordinate clause. It was created.

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Ramati Theou, so, so Ramati, sorry, Ramati Theou.

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Ramati is a dative, which means again, by, so by the word of God.

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So what he's trying to say is that by faith, God created the universe.

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That's not correct. The text says by faith, we understand. What do we understand?

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That the universe was created. How was it created? By the word of God.

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So he's pulling a fast one, trying to make it appear that Hebrews 11 .3 says that God created the universe by faith.

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That's not what it says at all. And I challenge anybody who disagrees with me, you go in and find a

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Greek professor at your local seminary and you'd have them put their own video out saying, no, it says here that God created the universe by faith.

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Wrong. It doesn't. There's no way around it in Greek. It doesn't say that at all. It says by faith, we understand not by faith

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God created. In fact, this is an infinitive. So that's even, that even puts even more nails in this coffin.

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So as a result of it, it's just, this isn't going to work by faith. We understand, what do we understand?

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Direct object that the universe was created infinitive. How was it created?

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Second subordinate clause, by the word of God. Theu here isn't in the nominative.

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It's in the genitive. And Remati is in the dative, which means it's another one of these subordinate clauses, indirect concept here.

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So nope. What he just said is a flat out lie. Hebrews 11 .3

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doesn't teach that God created the universe by faith. And there are no passages in scripture that say that the universe was created by faith.

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Nope, not one. Not even, not even close. Instead, we have clear texts that explains to us exactly how

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God created the universe. By what means did he do so? All right. Let's take a look at the samplings and we'll just focus in on the prophet

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Jeremiah, just to be tidy, shall we? And so you're going to note, we're going to take a look at several passages in prophet

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Jeremiah that explains the means by which God created. Ah, Lord God, Jeremiah says, it is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power.

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Oh, you mean God didn't exercise faith? Of course he didn't exercise faith. Faith always has an object by the way.

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Okay. So if I say I have faith in someone, you know, I have to have faith in someone. I have faith in Jesus.

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Have faith in Jesus for what? The forgiveness of my sins and the gift of eternal life. I have faith in him for those things.

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If I were to say, I have faith in my mechanic, I have faith in my mechanic that if there's a problem with my pickup truck, he'd be able to sort it out and to fix the problem and that my truck would be able to run again properly.

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Things like this. So my question is, who did God have faith in if he created the universe by faith?

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There is no one for God to have faith in. That's ridiculous. God is the source of everything.

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God doesn't have faith in even in himself. That doesn't make any sense. Instead the text says, God created the earth, heavens and the earth by what?

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By his great power. Next verse, Jeremiah 10 verse 12.

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It is he, Yahweh, who made the earth by his power. So God made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

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Jeremiah 27 five, God says, it is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth with the men and animals that are on the earth.

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I give it to whomever it seems right to me. So how did God do it? Not by faith. He did it by his great power.

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And Jeremiah 51, 15 parrots what we read earlier. It is he, Yahweh, who made the earth by his power.

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So you'll note that no text actually says God created the universe by faith. That's a complete made up lie by the heretic,

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Kenneth Copeland, who isn't going to make it to 120. I'm just saying,

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I don't think anybody in Vegas will even take bets on that because it's very obvious he's not going to make it past 93.

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It's just not happening. So all that being said, these texts tell us exactly how

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God created the heavens and the earth, and you're going to note here, so yes, it's true. God, by his mighty power, then spoke the world into existence.

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He said, let there be light. And there was light, but God didn't only create in this way. Okay. You'll note that God created in other ways as well.

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Let's take a look. So like Genesis 1 26, then God said, let us make man in our image.

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So here we have the father, son, and Holy spirit communicating with each other after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

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So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created a male and female, he created them.

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Well, how did he do it? How did God create Adam? How did God create

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Eve? Well, Genesis 2 is very clear on this, how God created

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Adam. And so let's take a look. All right. So when no bush of the field, this is Genesis 2 5 was yet in the land, no small plant of the field had yet sprung up for Yahweh Elohim had not caused it to rain on the land.

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There was no man to work the ground. A mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground.

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Then Yahweh Elohim formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathe into his nostrils, the breath of life.

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And the man became a living creature. So how did God Barah Adam?

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By forming his body and then breathing into his nostrils, the breath of life. Now here's a fun detail.

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Okay. So there's Adam's lifeless body. God has formed it, fashioned it, put it together.

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And Adam is not alive at this point. And it says that God did what he breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life.

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And the man became a living creature. So there's God breathing into the nostrils of Adam, the breath of life, which means that when

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Adam opened his eyes for the first time, the thing he saw, the first thing he saw was the face of his

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God. It's amazing. When you think about it, it's spectacular. And then how was

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Eve formed? Eve was formed from the rib of Adam. Yahweh Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.

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And while he slept, took one of his ribs, closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the

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Lord, that Yahweh Elohim had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

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So Eve herself was also not spoken to in existence. She was fashioned from, this is why she was fashioned from Adam's rib.

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This is why humanity is called mankind. All human beings come from one man.

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Yeah. Every other, every other human being, every other human being on this, on this earth comes from the one man,

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Adam. Eve came from Adam. And, uh, and, and the rest of humanity comes then from the union between Adam and Eve and their descendants.

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So just keep that in mind. And then the man said, at last, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

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She shall be called Eshah because she was taken out of Eve. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

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You get the idea here. And then I would note that, uh, since Jeremiah so clearly says that God created everything by God's great power, not by faith, there is no text that says that, especially

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Hebrews 11, 3, that, uh, you'll note that then Romans 1, 20, kind of going with that same line says for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature.

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They have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So Romans 1, 20 is a great cross reference to what we were reading from the passages in Jeremiah that God created the heavens and the earth by his great power.

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And then note that the creation itself demonstrates his great power and that God exists.

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And then I would note, just kind of throw into the mix here, one last passage, and that would be

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Psalm 19. Um, hang on a second. I need to put a space between the

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PS and the 19. There we go. Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God.

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The sky above proclaims his handiwork. And so how did God create everything?

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By his great might, by his great power, not by faith. Ken Copeland is a liar.

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And I would note that him teaching that God created the world by faith is the whole foundation of his word of faith heresy.

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Why was it during COVID -19 that Ken Copeland was saying COVID -19, I blow the wind of God on you and all this kind of nonsense.

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Why? Because he was practicing what he preaches, but what he preaches is a complete lie.

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God did not create the universe by faith. He created it by his great power.

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And Hebrews 11, three makes it clear that by faith, we understand that. That's the whole point.

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Thank you for your support. So until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.

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