"A Positive Gospel" & "Faith is Imparted" Kathryn Kuhlman

You know, I have a very decided dislike for negative preaching. And I mean just exactly that. Those of you who follow this ministry will have to agree that very few times do I ever bring anything negative in any of our little heart -to -heart talks or in my preaching. Oh, sure, my friend. I believe in hell with every atom of my being. As surely as there is a heaven, there's a hell. The Bible teaches it. We've got to believe in it. But instead of preaching about hell, I'd rather point men and women to heaven. The positive. There have been literally hundreds and hundreds of men and women who have been delivered from liquor to this ministry. And yet, I dare say that there is not one person who can bear witness that Catherine Kuhlman has ever preached a sermon against liquor. Not a man who has been delivered from liquor to this ministry. can say that it was some sermon that I preached against liquor that brought him to the Lord Jesus Christ or that made him aware of his drinking. No. I have always felt that if I preach the positive and lifting up Jesus is the positive, And when we preach the positive and we get that new birth experience, then these other things will just naturally fall off and we become a new creature in Christ Jesus. There have been literally hundreds, and I say that conservatively, many women who have been delivered from smoking. in his ministry. And yet, I have never made an issue at any time regarding smoking. And I resent it when I see folk who make a big issue over smoking when it comes to a new born again child of God. And they'll point an accusing thing at that one and say, if you've really been born again, you won't touch that old cigarette. I say, my friend, you left that young convert alone. The Holy Spirit has convicted him of his sin. Jesus has bought... given him his sin. Now let the Holy Spirit do the rest of the work. And the Holy Spirit will reveal to that one the deliverance there is in Christ Jesus. And it's just like that. Now, I'm only telling you my conviction. I repeat, I have a very decided dislike for negative preaching. There's some preaches that all they can talk about every time you go to church. It's against everything. Against a certain kind of dress. Against the way a woman should look against the way a woman should wear her hair. Now, all these things, I know these things are very much involved. I know it. I agree with you. But I still contend that when you get the heart changed, all these things must begin on the inside. And when it begins with in, then the outside will be taken care of too. You see what I mean? It's not sufficient for a preacher or a speaker or an author to discuss the disease. That's not enough for me. To satisfy my soul and my mind, he must give me the cure. Oh, we've got a lot of politicians running around today who's telling us everything that's wrong with the world. Everything that's wrong with our government. Everything that's wrong with the Democrats. Everything that's wrong with the Republicans. There's... Bouting off on television, the radio. Every time they'll get in somebody's ear, they talk about everything that's going with the world. Sure, we all know it. Every American living knows that things are wrong. Things are going badly. I want to listen to the person who will give me a kiss. cure for the thing. Not the negative. Anybody can stand on a soapbox and tell the world what's wrong with it. Any politician can get up on a soapbox and tell the whole world what's wrong with the condition today. There it is, hubby. I'm waiting for the person to come and Tell me how to right the things that are wrong. To give me an answer. Give us a solution. You see that? Oh, there's so much popping off these days. And so few people who come up with the cure. It's the easiest thing in the world to point out what's wrong. But I want to know what is right. Sometimes that's a little more difficult than one would suppose. However, when at last, Arm's mistakes had been rectified. and we're back on the path of truth, it may be that in the providence of God, the wrong trail will leave us a heritage of blessing. Think it over for a moment. To know that you're on the right road is a fine thing, but to return to it after being on the wrong one multiplies its blessing. And it's the big person who will say, I have been on the wrong road for a long time. I will now come back to the right road. It's after the rain that we appreciate the sunshine. After the cold and icy blasts of winter that we appreciate the bursting buds. the delicate green of the early spring. Us Phyllistan clouds, we appreciate the calm of a blue sky. And it's just like that. And the thing above all else that I want you to see is that you cannot generate this thing that's called... And there had been thousands of sermons preached on faith. There had been volumes, literally volumes, written on faith. You have your idea of faith. I have my idea of faith. Our ideas of faith may not be the same. And as you well know if you've been following this ministry, I say very little about faith, even though this is a faith ministry. And you will probably see more faith exercised in this ministry than in many ministries. And yet, I say so very little about faith, because I still contend that you really can't analyze faith. You really can't tell another what faith is. It's something that's so indefinable. When I put it all in a nutshell, as I told you before, Jesus is our faith. So I'm going to ask you in this little heart -to -heart talk, Whatever your preconceived ideas had been regarding faith, will you just sit there with an open heart and an open mind? And maybe you'll find out that you have been on the wrong road regarding this thing of faith for lo many years. You'll be a big person when you will admit that you have been on the wrong road and you'll... Come and travel the right road. I repeat, the thing above all else that I want you to see in the heart -to -heart talk is the fact that you absolutely cannot generate faith. You cannot work it out. You cannot manufacture it. It is impossible for you to manufacture faith. It is imparted and infused by God himself. It must be given you by the Holy Spirit. It is literally something that must come from God. I still think it is something that is so simple that most folks miss it, and yet it's supernatural. You cannot sit in your homes and struggle to have faith and affirm that something is. Nor can you turn your hope and desire into faith. By your own power, you can't do it. See, that's one of the things that has brought such reproach on divine healing. Somebody says, I was healed of a tumor. And yet, the tumor is there. It's just there. You say, well, it's there. Oh, I know it's still there, but by... space, I've taken the healing for that tumor. But any intelligent person will say, but how can you say that you're healed when it's still there? I still contend, my friend, that if you're healed of a tumor by the power of God, that Tumor will not be there. Faith isn't something that you can just close your eyes and say, it isn't there. I'm not going to acknowledge it. I'm going to act like it never happened. And you close your eyes. Well, everybody else has their eyes open. You're the only one who has your eyes closed. Everybody else can see. You absolutely cannot sit there in your homes and struggle to have faith and affirm that something is when it isn't. Nor can you turn your hope and desire into faith by your own power. You can't do it. You can't just say, now I'm going to have faith. It doesn't work that way. The only place you can get it is from the Lord. For the word clearly and distinctly and definitely states that faith is one of two things. It's either a gift of God or of fruit of the Spirit. And we're told in Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, Now abideth faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. While love might be the greatest, it certainly is not the first. It must be preceded by faith. Let me give you an example. Look out of your window at the tree on the outside. Oh, what a thing of loveliness it is. That's right, literally. Look out of your window. See that tree out there? It's lovely. It's beautiful. only god can make a tree that's what i like to say to the old infidel all right you have no faith in a god higher power only god can make a tree only god can make a human hand four fingers one thumb If you're so smart and you try to do away with the deity and divinity and the existence of God Almighty, just take your hand out of your pocket and look at those four fingers and one thumb. If you should lose that hand, all the wealth in the world could never buy you a new one. You can buy most everything else, but when you lose a limb, when you lose a hand, only God can create that hand, that limb of your body. Look out of your window. Only God can make a tree. Beauty in its twisted branches. There's loveliness in its trembling leaves. Every leaf of the little world unto itself. With its tiny little veins carrying the life that God supplies. That gives it all that it possesses in its native realm. Yet there is something back of the tree. Beneath. the surface of the ground, there is a great system of roots. You will never behold them. Even while you're looking at the tree at this very moment. You see the beauty of the tree. You see the leaves. But you are not looking at the roots. But without those roots, tree would die. It would have no life at all. The roots are ugly. They're hard in comparison to the beautiful greenery above the ground. Yet, the greenery is there partly because of those roots. Now, let us call the top of the tree love. You can see it. You can contact it. You can enjoy its fragrance. You behold this beauty. It is there because of something that is back of it. Something that is hidden away that causes it. They are the roots. Now you expect me to say that those roots are the roots of faith. No. Faith is the light that flows into the roots. It is that mystical quality that only God can produce, that only God can give. There are roots that you could plant and they will never, never grow. You yourself and your inner nature are those roots. Your senses, your avenues of approach to the expressions of life itself are buried below the surface where People cannot see them. I am a different person than probably thousands and thousands of people know. You see me as I stand on the stage. You visualize me as I am speaking to you now. But inside of me, the real me, the me that God knows, inside of me, you've got to be a good person on the inside of you before you'll be a good person in extending your love. It's like that. Do you want to know why some people are bad in their actions? Because they're bad on the inside. Because they're mean on the inside. Your senses, your avenues of approach to the expressions of life itself are buried below the surface where people cannot see them. They can only see the result. They can only see the fruit of that which is the real you inside. All the world beholds is what you produce and not you yourself. What did Jesus mean when he said, By their fruit ye shall know them? shall know them. The fruit that is produced is an index to what the tree really is. Let me repeat something that's vitally important. The roots of the tree are not faith. The tree can grow its own roots. but it cannot grow its own life. And what I mean by that is just this, that the roots do not produce the life, but the life produces the roots. It is the life that is the faith. It's that wonderful and glorious quality that is of gift. of the divine heart that flows into us when we need it and for the purpose that this life will be manifest. And manifest to the world by the fruit we bear, by the arms of love outstretched, by the things of grace and beauty that through God we grow day by day on the tree of our lives. How foolish it would be for that tree to... in an attempt to create the life that flows into it. It need not struggle. It does not struggle. All it has to do is to drink it in. All it needs to do is to function in obedience to the laws divine. And if the life is there, It simply has to manifest that life in the fruit that it bears and the beauty with which it gives to the world. And for me to live is Christ, and Christ is love.