The Bible and Life

Apostolic Church History Podcast

Tuesday, October 20, 2026

The Gift Of Healing

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

The Lord showed me while here that I had the gift of healing and of laying on of hands for the recovery of the sick. (Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit...But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

Google commons

For to one is given by the Spirit, to another the gifts of healing. 1 Cor. 12. 4, 7.9.) I had been working day and night for many months and had no strength only as God gave me each meeting. It would be two o’clock often before I would get to sleep. When God began to show me I must preach divine healing I could not understand that it was the Spirit of God leading me. For three nights when I was almost dead for want of rest I lay awake.

God was teaching me a lesson I could not, or would not learn. I said: Lord, you know I started out to win souls for heaven, and I have been busy all the time. I have tried to be faithful in everything you have given me to do. I am so exhausted with constant labour that I have to be helped many times to rise from my bed.

I thought if I would preach divine healing they would bring all the cripples in the country, and I would neglect the salvation of souls. The Lord showed me He would take care of the work. I told the Lord if He wanted me to pray for the sick to send them to the meetings, and show me He wanted me to pray for them, and I would. When I made this promise I had perfect rest of mind and soul. From this time God began to lead me to teach divine healing and pray for the sick. It is now nine years since, and God has healed thousands of all manner of diseases. Thousands have been brought to Christ by seeing the people healed. The devil tried to make me think there would not be nearly so many saved.

- Maria Woodworth-Etter

Apostolic Church History

Friday, October 16, 2026

Faith and Hope

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

The Difference Between Faith and Hope by Kenneth Hagin

Google commons

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

— Hebrews 11:1

First, faith is not hope. Too often people are just hoping they will receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, healing, or an answer to prayer. But it's not hoping that gets the job done; it's believing.

“Now” faith is. If it's not now, it's not faith.

When someone says, "Well, I believe I'll get the Holy Spirit sometime," that's not faith; it's hope.

Hope is always future tense

— pointing to the future— but faith is always now. Faith says, "I'll receive right now. I have it now.”

“What Faith Is”

Kenneth E. Hagin.

Google commons

Apostolic Church History Podcast

Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Faith Activates The Power

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

FAITH ACTIVATES THE POWER!

Let me give you an illustration along this line. In March 1971, I was preaching in Tyler, Texas, in the grand ballroom of the old Carlton Hotel. After ministering one night and sending folks to the prayer room to be saved, we invited the sick to come forward to be prayed for.

Google commons

When I called for folks to get in the healing line, I noticed a lady sitting right in the front, in the first couple of rows. But this woman couldn’t get up. Her husband was trying without much success to help her get up.

Finally, one of the ushers helped, and the two men together got her to her feet. She had a cane in one hand, and with her husband holding her by one arm and the usher holding her by the other arm, she slowly made her way into the healing line.

The people were lined up straight across the room, and I went down the line, laying hands upon them. Well, when I laid hands on her, it was just like I had laid hands on a doorknob — there was no receptivity on her part whatsoever.

I went on down the line, laying hands on folks and praying. I didn’t have time to stop and preach her a sermon. I knew that in her case, it was a matter of her not having faith. You see, faith receives when you pray, you believe you receive! The Bible says that then — after you believe you receive — you shall have whatever it is you were desiring (Mark 11:24).

Google commons

Believing is receiving. Receiving is believing. If there is no receiving, then there’s been no believing. If there’s no believing, then there is no receiving. It’s just that simple — so simple, we stumble over the simplicity of it.

I finished the healing line in that meeting in Tyler and went back to the platform to get my Bible, my notebook, and my watch. This crippled woman was still standing there with her husband by her side to hold her up. With great effort and with her husband’s help, she moved a little closer to me and said, “Brother Hagin, I want you to lay hands on me again.”

I remembered when I laid hands on her a few moments before, there was just no response. So I said, “Well, I’ve already laid hands on you,” and then I tried to encourage her to believe. You see, she had a part to play in receiving her healing.

Then she said to me, “This is the very first time I’ve ever been in one of these kinds of meetings. I’m Presbyterian, and I’ve never been to a meeting like this. But I’ll tell you why I came.

“I have arthritis,” she explained. “That’s the reason I couldn’t get up out of my seat. That’s why my body is so stiff.”

Google commons

She continued: “But I saw one of my neighbors walking down the street this afternoon. She was just about as bad off with arthritis as I am maybe worse. I knew she couldn’t walk, yet there she was walking down the street perfectly, with nobody helping her!

“I sent my husband to go get her so I could talk to her. I thought she’d gotten hold of some new medicine somewhere or found some doctor who was an expert with arthritis. “I asked her about it, and she said, ‘No, I was just down there at the grand ballroom of the Carlton Hotel last night. And a minister laid his hands on me, and the Lord healed me instantly. I fell on the floor, and when I got up, the arthritis was gone.’

“When she told me that,” this woman continued, “I said to my husband, ‘Well, you just get me down there; we’ll have that minister lay hands on me too.’ “That’s why I came tonight. I came here to try you out to see what you could do.”

I said, “Well, you found out what I could do, didn’t you?” “Yes,” she said, “nothing.” You see, so many times that’s the case. Folks just want to see what the minister can do instead of believing God for themselves and believing in His power.

Google commons

Then this woman said to me: “In this meeting, I heard you say that the Lord appeared to you.”

“Well,” I said, “He did appear to me. I’d be lying if I said He didn’t.”

She said, “I heard you say that He laid the finger of His right hand in the palm of each one of your hands.”

I said, “He sure did. A fellow would go to hell for lying just as quick as he would for stealing. And I’d be lying if I said Jesus didn’t lay the finger of His right hand in the palm of each one of my hands.”

She continued: “I heard you say that Jesus told you to tell us that if we’d believe that and receive it, then that same anointing would flow from your hands into our bodies and drive out the sickness and disease.”

I answered, “I said that, all right. Jesus told me to say it. If I said He didn’t, I’d be lying about it.”

“Well,” she said, “I’ll tell you, I’m ready to believe it. Just put your hand on me.”

Google commons

I could see that she was ready. I could see her earnestness, so I just reached out toward her, and, really, I barely touched her. I barely brushed her forehead with my hand, and I was conscious of the anointing just rushing into her. You see, she pulled it out of me, and it just rushed into her.

Then she fell backward onto the floor and lay there for a little bit. When she made an effort to get up, her husband and another lady nearby helped her. When she got up, her husband tried to hand her that cane. She pulled away from it and said, “Can’t you see I don’t need that?” Her body was just as limber and free as mine was — all the arthritis had disappeared! Every bit of it was gone, glory to God! Well now, what activated that power or anointing? Faith did. Faith activates the power!

Now I was anointed with that healing power the first time I laid hands on the woman. In fact, although I didn’t tell her, the anointing on me was stronger when I laid hands on her the first time than it was the second time when she finally received.

Well, why didn’t that anointing heal her the first time? Because she came to the meeting to see what I could do — to try me out. But when she put her faith in God and His power, and she acted upon her faith, she received her healing. Why? Because faith activates the power!

Remember Jesus said to the woman with the issue of blood, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.” Her faith in God and His power is what activated the anointing on her behalf to drive out her disease and heal her.

- Kenneth E Hagin ( The Healing Anointing)

Google commons

Apostolic Church History

Friday, October 9, 2026

The Jeffreys Brothers

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

In early 1913, Stephen began preaching at an evangelistic crusade in Swansea, Wales, and the meetings quickly grew in frequency and size. Urgent for help, Stephen called George home from Bible school to help him.

Google commons

The meetings went on for seven weeks and officially launched the ministries of both Jeffreys brothers. From there, they preached in other parts of Wales and had scores of converts.

Their first healing miracle occurred when Edith M. Carr was healed of a diseased foot, which her doctors had planned to amputate. Stephen and George went to her home, anointed her with oil, laid hands on her, and prayed. God answered the prayer of faith and healed her completely.

She later gave a testimony to the power of God that had touched her as the Jeffreys brothers prayed, saying, “A great light came around me, and filled me with great power, and I arose from the couch and stood on both feet and then walked gently round the room with scarcely any help.” People came from miles around to see for themselves the woman who had been healed and to hear the Jeffreys brothers preach.

God’s Generals' (The Healing Evangelists)

Roberts Liardon

Google commons

Apostolic Church History Podcast

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

Walking In Christ

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

WALK - Watchman Nee

We have sought to make it clear that Christian experience does not begin with walking, but with sitting. Every time we reverse the divine order, the result is disaster. The Lord Jesus has done everything for us, and our need now is to rest confidently in Him. He is seated on the throne, so we are carried through in His strength. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that all true spiritual experience begins from rest.

Google commons

But it does not end there. Though the Christian life begins with sitting, sitting is always followed by walking. When once we have been well and truly seated and have found our strength in sitting down, then we do in fact begin to walk. Sitting describes our position with Christ in the heavenlies.

Walking is the practical outworking of that heavenly position here on earth. As a heavenly people, we are required to bear the stamp of that heavenliness upon us in our earthly conduct, and this raises new problems.

What then, we must now ask, has Ephesians 4:1-2 to say to us about walking? We shall find that

the epistle urges upon us two things. We will look now at the first of them. “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness . . .”

“This I say . . . that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind” . . . But . . . “that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:17, 23).

“Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:2).

“Walk as children of light, . . . proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord ” (Ephesians 5:8–10).

Google commons

Eight times in Ephesians the word “walk” is used. It means literally “to walk around” and is used here figuratively by Paul to mean “to comport oneself; to order one’s behavior.” It brings immediately before us the subject of Christian conduct, and the second section of the letter is largely taken up with this.

But we saw earlier that the body of Christ, the fellowship of Christian believers, is another great theme of Ephesians. Now, here in chapter 4, it is in view of such fellowship that we find this matter of a holy walk arises. Paul proceeds, in the light of our heavenly calling, to challenge us upon the whole field of our relationships, both domestic and public, addressing himself to neighbors, to husbands and wives, to parents and children, employers and employed, all in a most realistic way.

Let us be clear that the body of Christ is not something remote and unreal, to be expressed only in heavenly terms. It is very present and practical, finding the real test of our conduct in our relations with others. For while it is true we are a heavenly people, it is no use just to talk of a distant heaven. Unless we bring heavenliness into our dwellings and offices, our shops and kitchens, and practice it there, it will be without meaning.

Google commons

May I suggest this, dear friends, that those who are parents and those who are children look through the New Testament to see what parents should be and children should be? We may be surprised, for I fear many of us who say we are seated in the heavenlies in Christ display a very questionable walk in our homes. And husbands too, and wives—there are quite a number of passages for them.

Read Ephesians 5 and then turn to First Corinthians 7. It would do every husband and every wife good to read the latter chapter carefully to discover what a real married life—a spiritual one before God and not just in theory—demands. You dare not theorize about a thing that is so practical.

Look now, in the field of Christian relationships, how forthright are the commands of God in the section here before us. “Walk . . . with longsuffering, forbearing one another.” “Putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor.” “Be ye angry, and sin not.” “Steal no more.” “Let all bitterness . . . be put away from you.” “Be ye kind . . .forgiving each other.” “Subjecting yourselves to one another.” “Provoke not.” “Be obedient.” “Forbear threatening” (see Eph. 4–6). Nothing could be more realistic than this list of imperatives.

Google commons

Let me remind you that the Lord Jesus Himself begins His teaching on this very note. Notice carefully the wording of this passage from His Sermon on the Mount:

"Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the Gentiles the same? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. 5:38–48)

By Watchman Nee

Google commons