Faith Bible Study Guide
I was in one church where a man had been burned over the lower part of his body and it had left him unable to walk. He just scooted his feet along on the floor. We were having a healing service, and through a gift of the Holy Spirit, the Lord told me to have everyone who had something wrong with their bodies from their hips down to come up first in the healing line. About twelve people came forward. This man who had been burned was the first one in line. I waited until they were all down front before I told them what else God had told me to tell them to do.
I came up to this man and asked, “Can you run?” It took him so much by surprise that he said, “Oh, my God, no! I can’t even walk, much less run.” Then I said, “Well, the Lord told me to tell you to start running.” This man didn’t even give it a second thought; he just turned around and started scooting up the aisle just as fast as he could. The third time he came around the aisles, the Spirit of the Lord came on me and I jumped off the platform, grabbed him by the hand, and ran around that building with him.
When we got back to the front, he was walking – not scooting – but walking normally! He was perfectly healed! If I had not been able to get him to act and cooper-ate with the Holy Ghost, I couldn’t have helped him. Faith, you see, is acting on God’s Word, doing what-ever He says to do in the Word or whatever He may say to us to do by the Holy Spirit. To show you how much of a miracle this was, let me relate what happened as a result of that man’s healing. The next night in the service there were two elderly gentlemen who responded to the invitation to be saved. Both were white-haired gentlemen and they looked so much alike I thought they were twins. I found out later that they were brothers; one was seventy-four and the other was seventy-two. One of the men in the church told me that I would be interested in hearing their testimonies of why they came to church that night. These men were next-door neighbors to the burned man who had gotten healed the night before.
These brothers had seen the man out working in the yard. They thought he must have crawled out to his yard, but in a few minutes they saw him stand up, straight and well, and walk to his house. They hurried over to see what had happened. He told them of his healing and what the Lord had done for him. They both came to the service and got
saved, and one of the gentlemen was filled with the Holy Ghost. The miraculous power of God convinced those fellows of the reality of Jesus the Savior and Healer!
Besides the man who had been burned and had been healed, there were eleven other people in that line. One by one, as they ran, they were healed. When we came to the last woman, I said, “Sister, are you ready to run?” “Oh, Brother Hagin,” she said, “I can’t. I can’t.” “The rest of these folks couldn’t run either, but they did,” I said.
“Yes, but I know I can’t,” she said. I said, “All I know to do is just to tell you what the Lord told me.” So after she turned around and scooted up the aisle a few steps, I said, “Turn around here, Sister.” She turned around.
I continued, “You didn’t want to do that, did you? You resented those instructions from the Lord and everything inside of you rose up against what He said, didn’t it?” She replied, “It sure did.” “You go sit down then,” I said. “I can’t help you.” God can’t help folks who won’t cooperate with Him. But I want you to get this fact, friends. Faith is giving substance to things hoped for. Faith will eventually bring into reality what you have hoped for.