Promotion Day is Coming
Consider what God did for Joseph because he stayed true. Yes, he was sold into captivity. Yes, he was put into prison. But God blessed him in Egypt.
Ordinarily, a man would become bitter after spending years in prison. But because Joseph was faithful, God promoted him and made him prime minister of the greatest nation of that day.
Did it pay to be faithful? Did godliness pay off? Did it pay to say “No!” to his master’s wife when she tried to seduce him? Yes!
Remember this: Joseph spent about 14 years in prison. Most men would have given up by then. But also remember this: God doesn’t settle up every Saturday night. God doesn’t pay off the first of every month – or the first of every year.
But I want you to know, brother, sister, that someday payday’s coming!
We take that text from Galatians 6:7 – “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” – and we make an evangelistic sermon out of it. Yet Paul never wrote it to sinners; he wrote it to Christians! He wrote it to be read throughout all the churches of Galatia.
Faithfulness is The Key
What he’s saying to the Galatians is the same thing he said to the Church at Corinth, when he encouraged them to be faithful. He encouraged the Galatians not to faint, but to know that sooner or later they were going to receive the reward – the promotion – for their work in the Lord: “Let us not be weary in well doing,” Paul said, “for in DUE SEASON we shall reap, if we faint not” (Gal. 6:9).
That’s the only way you can make it in ministry – by refusing to be weary in well doing. I completed four years of ministry in August 1981. I had every reason in the world to be weary. But I simply refused to be weary in well doing.
There were times when it didn’t look like it was working. I mean, I preached faith when it didn’t look like it was working for me!
• I preached faith boldly, bless God, without a dime in my pocket.
• I preached faith and prosperity boldly with bills stacked up all around me.
• I preached the Bible because I knew it was the Word of God!
• I knew if I’d stay with it, sooner or later I was going to rise to the top.
If you think you’re just going to float through life on flowery beds of ease, everything is going to come to you on a silver platter, and somebody is going to feed you with a silver spoon, you’ve got another thought coming.
God will promote you. Sure He will. But you’re going to have to make the dedication and consecration.
You’re going to have to make the choice. You’re going to have to have the intestinal fortitude that some people call guts to say, “This is what God called me to do, and I’m going to do it, go over or under, come hell or high water, sink or swim, live or die, burn every bridge behind me, praise God.”
No Turning Back
My wife and I made that kind of dedication. It looked like we were going to do all of it, too! It looked like we were going to sink. It looked like we were going to go under. It looked like we were going to die.
But I had meant it when I said, “I’m not going to turn back,” because Jesus said, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).
Praise God, I knew this was it. I knew this was what God wanted me to do, even when it seemed nobody was listening. I preached this way when I was young, too. People would say, “You know, that Brother Hagin’s an odd character. He’s odd.” And my friends would say, “Well, I don’t understand him myself.”
You see, you’re an oddity to others when you won’t worry. You’re an oddity to people when you’re obeying God and preaching that God will promote you – and you have to sell your automobile for junk and light out on foot.
When that happened to me, I told myself, Praise God, I’m not going to stop, even if I do have to junk that old car. I’m still going. If I have to walk to go, I’m still going. Because sooner or later, He’s going to promote me!
Excerpt permission granted by Faith Library Publications
Rev. Hagin served in Christian ministry for nearly 70 years and was known as the "father of the modern faith movement." His teachings and books are filled with vivid stories that show God's power and truth working in his life and the lives of others.
Rev. Hagin was born on Aug. 20, 1917, in McKinney, Texas, a son of the late Lillie Viola Drake Hagin and Jess Hagin.
Rev. Hagin was sickly as a child, suffering from a deformed heart and an incurable blood disease. He was not expected to live and became bedfast at age 15. In April 1933 during a dramatic conversion experience, he reported dying three times in 10 minutes, each time seeing the horrors of hell and then returning to life.
In August of 1934, Rev. Hagin was miraculously healed, raised off a deathbed by the power of God and the revelation of faith in God's Word. Two years later, he preached his first sermon as pastor of a small community church in Roland, Texas.
In 1937, Rev. Hagin was baptized in the Holy Spirit and began ministering in Pentecostal churches. During the next 12 years he pastored five churches in Texas: in the cities of Tom Bean, Farmersville (twice), Talco, Greggton, and Van. In 1949, he began an itinerant ministry as a Bible teacher and evangelist.
During the next 14 years, Jesus appeared to Rev. Hagin eight times in visions that changed the course of his ministry. In 1966, he moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he opened a ministry office. That same year, he taught for the first time on radio—on KSKY in Dallas. In 1967, he began a regular radio broadcast that continues today as Faith Seminar of the Air. Teaching by his son, Rev. Kenneth W. Hagin, is also heard on the program.
In 1968, Rev. Hagin published the first issues of The Word of Faith magazine, which now has a monthly circulation of more than 250,000. The publishing outreach he founded, Faith Library Publications, has circulated more than 65 million copies of books by Rev. Hagin, Rev. Hagin Jr., and several other authors worldwide. Faith Library Publications also has produced more than 9 million audio teaching tapes and CDs.
Other outreaches of Kenneth Hagin Ministries include RHEMA Praise, a weekly television broadcast hosted by Rev. and Mrs. Kenneth W. Hagin; RHEMA Correspondence Bible School; RHEMA Alumni Association; RHEMA Ministerial Association International; RHEMA Supportive Ministries Association; the RHEMA Prayer and Healing Center; and a prison ministry.
In 1974, Rev. Hagin founded RHEMA Bible Training Center USA and in 1976 moved the school and ministry offices to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where they remain. To date, RHEMA Bible Training Center USA has 23,000 alumni, and RHEMA Bible Training Centers have opened in 13 other nations: Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Samoa, Singapore, South Africa, and Thailand. Together, the 14 schools have more than 28,000 graduates worldwide.
RHEMA Bible Church, pastored by Rev. Hagin Jr., began holding services in October of 1985 on the RHEMA campus in Broken Arrow and has since grown to become a thriving congregation with more than 8,000 members.
Rev. Hagin's daughter and son-in-law, Pat Harrison and the late Doyle "Buddy" Harrison, founded Harrison House Publishers in 1975 and Faith Christian Fellowship International Church in 1977. Both organizations are based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Until shortly before his death in September 2003, Rev. Hagin continued to travel and teach throughout the United States and into Canada conducting All Faiths' Crusades and other special meetings.