I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.
(Ps. 118:17)
In 1943, God sent my wife and I back to Farmersville, Texas – a little farming town in the backland of north central Texas. One of the women in our church lived fifteen miles away in Greenville, Texas, but her mother lived right behind the church in Farmersville.
When the mother learned that my wife and I were going to Greenville to do a little shopping, she said, “Brother Hagin, I don’t want to impose on you, but could I ride over there with you and visit my daughter? She only lives two blocks from the highway. Just let me off there and I’ll walk to her house.”
“Well,” I said, “sure, you can go.” We took her right to her daughter’s house and then went on and did our shopping.
Later in the afternoon, at about six o’clock in the evening, we went by to pick up the mother. The daughter said, “Brother Hagin, there’s a woman right down the street here who is bedfast. Could you pray for her? Her husband took her to the clinic here, and the doctors said, ‘There’s nothing we can do. She’s very weak. She’ll just grow weaker and weaker and, eventually, die.’
“She has several things wrong with her. One of those things is a blood disease in the last stages. Her husband, who isn’t a Christian, wasn’t satisfied with what the doctors said. So he put her in an ambulance and took her to a clinic in another city. They kept her there several days, and ran all kinds of tests. Then they said the same thing: ‘She’s not many days from death right now. She could die before you get her back home.'”
Confession
God is bigger than a doctor’s report. God is bigger than any negative report. No matter what the doctors have told me, I believe that God can turn the situation around.
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.