Correct Your Situation
Paul, writing to the churches in Galatia, said “Stand fast.” (Galatians 5:1) We need to realize there’s a God-ward side and a man-ward side to every battle, every victory. It isn’t all God, and it isn’t all you. You can see that in Hezekiaha’s case. God had His part to play. He said, “Isaiah, go tell King Hezekiah to set his house in order, for under the present circumstances he shall die and not live.”
Somebody will ask, “Did God change His mind?” No, God wanted to bless Hezekiah all the time, but He couldn’t do any more for him than what He was doing under the circumstances. Hezekiah had a part to play too. Notice even Isaiah couldn’t do it for him.
Often we’re looking for the prophet or the preacher to do it for us, but Isaiah did not change the situation. It was not Isaiah’s prayer that changed the situation – it was Hezekiah’s prayer!
Hezekiah was the only one who could do something about his situation. It was Hezekiah who turned his face to the wall. It was Hezekiah who prayed to God. It was Hezekiah who “wept sore.” It was Hezekiah who changed!
Now God could do something for him. Now God could answer his prayer. Isaiah hadn’t gotten out of the courtyard before God told him, “Go back and tell Hezekiah, “I’ve heard your prayers. I’ve seen your tears. And I’m going to add fifteen years to your life.”
You Can Change Your Situation
Study what Hezekiah did. What worked for him will work for you, because God is the same God! People who haven’t studied the Bible would read this story and say, “Look at the inconsistencies in the Bible. Here it says he’s going to die and here it says he’s going to live. So God lied. Didn’t He?”
Just picking out verses and reading them out of context doesn’t give you the whole picture. When you read this whole story, you understand what God is saying. It wasn’t’ the will of God for Hezekiah to die. God wanted the king to have His blessings. It was Hezekiah who stood in the way of God’s blessings. When he corrected that situation, God could bless him.
Very often God will tell you what’s going to happen under present circumstances, as He did with Hezekiah – and you can change it. YOU can change it, Hezekiah did!
Too often we’re looking for somebody else to do it for us. In teaching on faith, we bring out the fact that sometimes you can carry baby Christians on your faith. But you can only do that for a while. Usually people are going to have to receive help on their own, and no one will receive permanent help without developing his or her own faith and prayer life!
I’ve seen people healed, delivered, and even raise up from a deathbed through supernatural manifestations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in my own or other people’s ministries. But I’ve seen those same people one year, two year, or five years later, and the same disease, or something worse, had come back on them. And I’ve heard God say to me, “They’re going to die.” Under those circumstances, they were going to die.
They Turned Their Face To The Wall
Some of them didn’t do a thing about it. They went ahead and died. (That doesn’t mean they didn’t go to heaven if they were believers.) But others, thank God, did something about it. Medical science said they were going to die. Yet they turned their faces to the wall. They prayed!
I prayed for my mother. I could do this for her because she was a baby Christian. All she had ever heard preached is that Jesus saves. She had only heard me preach two or three times. Later on, she heard me quite a bit on the radio, her faith began to develop, and she began to get answers for herself.
But at the time she was so ill, I knew she was a baby Christian and wouldn’t be able to get healing for herself. That’s the reason I jumped right in the middle of it and got results. If she had been more knowledgeable in God’s Word, it would have been impossible for me to have done that for her.
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.