The Bible and Life: Kenneth Hagin

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

Whosoever.....

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Mark 11:24 is the verse that brought me off the bed of sickness. It is the verse I’ve used as an individual in prayer more than any other verse in the Bible. I’ve preached and taught on this verse more than any other text in the Bible.

Mark 11:24 was such a great blessing to me as I lay sick in bed. I had been given up to die by medical science. In those dark days on the bed of sickness, five doctors came and went, shaking their heads, saying that I had to die. They said I didn’t have even one chance to live, not even one chance in a million.

Then the preacher came and said I should be patient because in a few days it would all be over. It may seem funny, but I can’t tell it without tears coming to my eyes. It was between 2:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon on a hot August day in Texas. The sun was shining brightly and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. But when that preacher left my room, telling me it would all be over in a few days, that room was dark. It was as though someone had pulled the blinds and had just put out the sunlight.

It was so dark. The preacher said I had to die.But thank God for this Word that fell from the lips of the Master as He walked the old dusty roads of Judaea long ago. Thank God, Jesus was talking to me when He said those words in Mark 11:24!

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I wrote in the margin of my Bible that this verse is for me. The word, “whosoever” in Mark 11:23 applied to me. So beside the words, “. . . WHOSOEVER shall say unto this mountain . . .” I wrote: “This means me.”

Mark 11:24 says, “Therefore I say unto you . . .” and I put my name where it says “you.” Jesus said, “Therefore I say unto Kenneth Hagin.” I just took God at His Word! He said it, and I believed it. And you can put your name in that verse too.

My heart leapt within me when I read this verse of Scripture and something on the inside of me was overjoyed and thrilled with these words from the lips of Jesus. It seemed that someone had turned on a light inside of me. On the inside of me something lit up.

Jesus is talking in this verse about what you desire. He’s telling you how to get the desires of your heart. He’s discussing the subject of prayer. He’s talking about how you through prayer can receive the desires of your heart.

This is the verse of Scripture that brought healing and strength to my body and to my poor deformed heart. This verse has enabled me, through these more than fifty years, to go almost constantly day and night without sickness, disease, or pain.

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For the first thirty years of my ministry, I never really stopped to take a vacation. I would hold two to four services almost every day. Minister friends told me they didn’t see how I held up under it. They said it surprised them that I didn’t wear out.

But I live by what I preach. It’s not a chore and it’s not a job to teach the Word of God. It’s a thrill to do it. The Word works!

Jesus is talking about how you as an individual can receive the desires of your heart. Many times, people read something else into Mark 11:24. They think God might answer their prayer if it’s His will. Well, it must have been His will to answer their prayers or Jesus never would have said to ask!

If it wasn’t God’s will that you have the desires of your heart, then Jesus lied about it by saying believers were to ask. I would much rather believe that someone else lied about this verse, than to believe that Jesus lied.

For about a month after that preacher left my room as I lay on the bed of sickness, I never even looked at the Bible. I didn’t even ask to have the Bible brought to me because I thought I was going to die at any minute. I thought, Surely if the preacher knew of any help for me, he would have told me. But he just told me that in a few more days it would all be over.

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In October, following that day in August when the preacher came to see me, I asked Momma to bring the Bible to my bed. I opened it to this verse in Mark 11:24 and I read it again. Then I told the Lord that the doctors said I had to die; in fact, five of them had said I had to die.

The last doctor spent forty-five minutes talking to me one day explaining my condition to me. He told me nothing could be done for me. He did say that unless a Higher Power intervened, I would die. He told me to stay ready to go. When the preacher came, he wasn’t even as kind as the doctor was about my condition! He didn’t even ask me whether I was ready to go or not. He just said that in a few more days it would all be over.

So I told the Lord what the preacher had said. Then I pointed out to Jesus that when He was on the earth He had said, “ . . Wha.t things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

I told Jesus that the desire of my heart — the one main consuming desire of my heart — was to have a well body. I told Jesus that I was going to take Him at His Word. I told Him that if I didn’t get off that bed, it would be because He told a lie in His Word. I said that if His Word didn’t work, then I was going to have my folks throw my Bible in the trash can.

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But I knew that His Word wasn’t a lie, and I also told Him this. I knew it was the truth. I told Him that I was going to get off that bed. I didn’t get off the bed that day, but you can see I made it!

Don’t try to put some kind of an interpretation on the Word of God. Just take it for what it says. In Mark 11:24, Jesus is talking about your desires. I can’t make this scripture work for someone else. I can help the other fellow with my faith sometimes, and get the blessing of God to work for him to some extent, but there is a part that he has to play in answered prayer.

I can’t always make God’s Word work for the other fellow; it depends on what He does with the promises in God’s Word himself. But I can make God’s Word work for me, and you can make it work for you too. Jesus is talking about what things soever you desire. He’s talking about your praying. This verse does apply to the other fellow, but he has to appropriate it himself. You can’t do it for him.

- Kenneth E Hagin ( Bible Prayers Study Course)