Join us in this episode of Concepts of Faith as we explore the intricacies of applying faith in everyday life. Charles Capps delves into the difference between the formulaic application of faith and understanding its deeper principles. Through humor and real-world examples, we learn how shallow interpretations can lead to missed opportunities and how a grounded faith can transform one’s life.
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.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now let’s talk about that for a minute. See, you can misjudge things from just a little understanding of it. It’s like the story I heard about the Cajun. He was sitting down on one of those bayous down in Louisiana, and you know, he’s fishing. And there’s a guy come by there, and he said, is there any way for me to get across this bayou? He said, yeah. I said, it’s no problem. The guy had on knee boots. He said, if you go right down there, right where that willow limb is hanging out over the water, he said, you can walk right across there with no problem at all. The guy goes down there, and he steps off of that bank, and he just went ka-chug. I mean, floated his hat off his head. He’d come out of there spitting and sputtering and come back up there and said, I thought you told me that was shallow down there. Well, he said, I don’t understand that. He said, there was a little duck a while ago that didn’t have legs but about four inches long. Walked right across that. Now, would you say that he misjudged the situation? He just didn’t think far enough, see. Now that’s a little humorous, but you laugh about that. If you’re not careful, you’ll do the same thing in some of the things the Bible says. Now see Mark 11, 23 says, Whosoever shall say to the mountain, Be removed, be cast into the sea, shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe those things which he says shall come to pass. He shall have whatever he saith. Now, see, this guy that said to my friend why that stuff doesn’t work, because I said 300 times in one day I had a car, but I didn’t get it. Well, you see, he got a hold of the formula, but he didn’t get the principle. The principle is you believe, you doubt not in your heart, you believe the things you’re saying will come to pass. There’s a lot involved in that. I like to say it this way. It won’t work just because you say it, but saying it is involved in working it. You see, you could have the formula but not be involved with the principle and you’re going to bomb out somewhere. You’re going to end up in the ditch either on the right hand or on the left hand side of the road. So we need to study the scriptures and know. I know for a fact that when I got a hold of that and began to see it and began to confess the word of God. Started studying that. The Lord said to me one day, said, you need to study that scripture some more. I thought, I’ve heard Brother Hagin teach on it. I’ve heard Brother Copeland teach on it. I believe I’ve got everything that is in there. And he said, you better read it some more. And you know, I read it, and I read it, and I read it, and I read it, and I thought, and I dwelt on it, and I stopped, and I’d think about it. See, on the surface, sometimes you miss something. And he said, believe those things which he saith. And the word those things just stood out to me when I thought on it. See, not just what he said to the mountain, but what he’s been saying about everything. See, to learn to release faith in every word you say. Say the things that you believe come to pass. Don’t talk the foolishness like, I laughed, I thought I’d die. Just die and go. I’m going to die if I don’t. You better not believe that or you’re in trouble. Now let me give you an illustration of the difference in a formula and a principle. When I was about, I’m trying to think, I think I was about four years old, maybe, and my brother was about seven. Now, we’re standing out there on the farm one day, and we’re watching these birds jump off the barn. They lied on top of the barn, and they’d sit there a while, and they’d jump, and they’d flop their wings, and they’d just fly off into the wild blue yonder. My brother, being older than I was, he got to looking at that, and he said, you know, if we had wings, we could fly. He said, I’ll tell you what, I’ll just make us a set of wings. And said, we’ll fly down to our cousin’s house, down to Junior’s house. Billy Joe and Junior was kind of our favorite cousin, you know. They lived about five miles away. So he went in the house and he engineered a set of wings. Now they looked like perfectly good wings to me. To a four-year-old boy, you know, I mean. So he gets those wings. And he climbs up on the barn. Now the edge of the eave of the barn is only about six or eight foot high. It was a pretty steep pitch, so on the sides it came down pretty close to about six foot high. He first started to climb all the way up to the top, but he decided, no, I’ll try it on the lower level first. So he got up there. Now here’s a seven-year-old boy. It’s got a set of wings strapped on his arms now. Now they were perfectly good wings as far as we were concerned. They were two shoebox lids tied on with a string. And he got up there and he jumped. And he just went cathod and he hit the ground, man. And you talk about somebody disappointed. I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed. I run over there, you know, and I look down at him. I say, buddy, why didn’t you flop your wings? He’s laying there on his back. He says, I didn’t have time. I said, well, give them to me. I know I can do it. There’s no doubt I can fly. You know, I mean, I could see his problem was he didn’t flop his wings. And it’s very plain to see that that’s all the birds are doing. They jump and they flop their wings. They sail off into the wild blue yonder. No reason we can’t do it. We’ve got the wings, so he helps me up on the barn. Now let me tell you, for a four-year-old boy… Now, see, I told this somewhere else, and he saw it on satellite, and he said, you made me look foolish. You said I was nine years old. He said, I wasn’t nine years old. But anyway, for a four-year-old boy and a seven-year-old boy to get on a barn and to jump off a six-foot barn, they’ve got to believe in what they’re doing. Now, see, there wasn’t a thing wrong with what we’re believing. I mean, faith is there. There was something wrong with what we were believing, but there was nothing wrong with our believing in what we were doing. We had faith, no doubt about that. The problem was it was based on the wrong assumption. Now, when you do something based on the wrong assumption or on the wrong principle, you’re headed for trouble, man. Well, anyway, help me up on this barn. Now, I’m standing up there, and I’ve got a pair of overalls on, brand new overalls. They’re about three inches too long. And I’m getting ready for my solo flight. Now, see, the thing about this that I didn’t realize, in fact, I didn’t realize this until I started talking about this and telling these stories, was that when I was small, I always wanted to fly. The proverb says, when desire cometh, it is a tree of life. Now, I didn’t know anything about the principles of the Word of God at four years old. I did go to Sunday school, all right, but I don’t think they taught Mark 11, 23 where I went. But now you see, I had a desire. When desire cometh. Now that doesn’t mean when the thing you desired comes, it becomes a tree of life. It means when desire is in you, it becomes a tree of life. The reason is it’ll lead you to the means to cause the thing you desire to come to pass. That’s why our desire should be given of God. Delight yourself in the Lord and he’ll give you the desires of your heart. Not everything you desired, but he’ll give you the desire that should be in your heart. Now, from that time, I started confessing and saying that I’m going to fly one of these days. Every time an airplane would come over, I’m going to fly one of those one of these days. I didn’t know what I was doing. But it programmed me and put a desire in me to fly an airplane. And eventually I made it, but I had to get a better set of wings. Now, I’m standing on the barn and I got the shoebox lid strapped on my arms. So I jumped, and when I jumped, my britch’s leg hung on a nail in the top of that barn that was holding, you know, they had those old square nails in those things, and it worked up about a half an inch, and my britch’s leg being long hung on that when I jumped, and I had plenty of time to flop. I mean, I was flopping the wings. Inverted. And I flopped, and I flopped, and I flopped, and I flopped my wings, but I didn’t fly. Now there was nothing wrong with my believing because I was believing all right. The thing I was believing was wrong. Can you see what I’m saying? Now you laugh about that, but some of you have been doing the same thing. You’ve been operating on the wrong assumption. And God’s Word is very explicit in the things that we must do. See, if we’re going to take Mark 11, 23. Mark 11, 23 says, Whosoever shall say to the mountain, Be removed, be cast into the sea. Doubt not his heart. Believe what he says will come to pass. He shall have, he shall have. Eventually he shall have. What’s there he saith? If he believe, if he doubt not his heart. If he believe what he’s saying will come to pass. But if you’re not believing what you’re saying. See, a lot of people say the right things. A lot of people are saying and making the right noises, but they don’t believe, they don’t have any faith in their words because they’ve talked foolishness, doubt, and unbelief, and laughed till I thought I’d die. Dying to go, going to die of a doubt. There is no faith released in their words. See, it’s one thing to just say it, and it’s another thing to believe and doubt not in your heart and believe what you’re saying. Believe what you’re saying. Now, to continually believe what you’re saying, you’re going to have to develop yourself in that, and it just doesn’t come overnight. It takes discipline. So, if we’re going to operate in the principles of God… There are formulas in the Scripture, and yet there are principles. And if you try to operate a formula without the principle, then you’ve got problems on your hands. Now, the problem is that sometimes and many times we jump to conclusions about things in the Bible. It’s like someone said, the only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions and running down their neighbors. Laughter
SPEAKER 04 :
God bless you. We do appreciate you joining us for the Concepts of Faith broadcast today. We trust you’ve been blessed by the broadcast. Now, some of you I know have heard parts of the broadcast. There’ll be some of you who miss parts of it. And you’d like to have this whole teaching. It’s available to you. It’s offer number 7120. It’s a single CD for $8 plus $3 postage and handling. A total of $11. Entitled, A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like a Medicine. You know, Proverbs 17.22 says, A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dryeth the bones. Well, there’s certain kinds of cancer that dries the bones. And I’m telling you, Jesus and God put these things in the Word of God. You know, Jesus said, A man will have whatsoever he saith, if he believe and doubt not his heart, believe what he sayeth, and have come to pass. And you hear some people saying things like, You know, when I got 40 years old, I just started coming unglued. And there is a medical condition today where the cells come unglued. Now, I would be careful about saying something about that because Jesus said you can have what you say. So James said, James chapter 3, he said, if a man can control his words, he won’t have any trouble with his body. He said, we put bits in a horse’s mouth and we turn about the whole horse. Now, bits to a horse’s mouth just puts pressure on his mouth. Don’t say the negative things. Don’t talk about the things. They may not be lovely and of good report, so don’t spend time meditating on it because it creates images in you. The things that happen to you in life is not what defeats you in life. It’s what you think about what happened to you. And people get the idea, well, you know, God just sent this my way. Well, the thing that came your way won’t defeat you in life. But if you believe God sent it, it may very well defeat you because you’re going to have high expectation based on wrong information. You’re going to have things all squirreled up in your mind and thinking that God is your problem and not the answer. That’s CD offer number 7120. It’s a single CD for $8 plus $3 postage and handling, total of $11. It’s entitled, A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like a Medicine. We have a toll-free order line, 1-877-396-9400. Until tomorrow, this Charles Capps reminding you, the enemy is defeated, God is exalted, and Jesus is coming soon.
SPEAKER 02 :
To order the product offered today, call 1-877-396-9400 or write Charles Capps, P.O. 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.
