MINISTERING WITH THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT

I started a revival the last Sunday night of December 1952 at a Full Gospel church in Tyler, Texas. I was putting some things in my motel room when a knock came on the door and the pastor came in to talk with me. He told me he trusted that his niece would receive her healing during this meeting. She had been diagnosed as having cancer of the left lung and had been unable to take care of her two small children.

In fact, by this time she was skin and bones and was bedfast. She had refused exploratory surgery, saying she was going to trust God, and if she died, she died. Doctors had said the cancer had now spread to both lungs, and she was beyond medical help. In those days, we had healing services on Tuesday and Friday nights. The pastor's niece was brought to the Tuesday night service. I laid hands on her and prayed, but got no results. Friday night they brought her again, and still there were no results. The second week they brought her again on Tuesday. Still there were no results. Friday night we had another healing service, and still there were no results.

At the last minute the pastor decided he wanted the meeting to continue another week, so I agreed. I have thought so many times, What if we had not gone on? Tuesday night of the third week, this girl was brought to the service again. When I reached out and laid my hand on her forehead, I was in the Spirit. It seemed like a white cloud came down over me, enveloping me. Every person and pew disappeared. The altar disappeared and it seemed as if the young woman and I were standing there in that white cloud. No one else could see what I saw nor hear what I heard, but they heard me talking.

I saw a demon hanging onto the outside of her body. It was like a little monkey hanging onto a tree limb. It looked like the pictures we've seen of little elves. It was oppressing her body, but was not in her spirit. I dealt with the evil spirit oppressing this girl. I told him he was going to have to leave her. He said he knew he would have to, but no one else heard him say that. I then told him to come out of her body in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. When I said that, he turned loose and fell down to the floor. He lay there and whimpered. He shook like a little dog who had been whipped. He whined and kept saying that he sure didn't want to leave. I commanded him to leave the premises in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he went down the aisle and out the front door.

The young woman lifted her hands and began to praise God. Almost instantly she was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues. She returned to the last clinic where she had been treated and asked them to x-ray her lungs again. They did, and they said the cancer was gone. She testified in a service that the doctors asked her what had happened. They thought maybe she had been under the care of some other doctor. But she told them exactly what I had seen and done. The doctors said they would give her an affidavit that she'd had cancer and that now it was gone. They said they didn't know by what method it had left, but "more power to this fellow who has the answer." They knew they didn't have the answer.

I believe God has the answer, not I. If I had been operating the gift, I'd have done this the first night the girl came. But if the Spirit doesn't give it to me, I'm helpless. I teach, preach, and minister the best I can, but I do not operate or manifest gifts of the Holy Spirit at will. The Bible says, "But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will" (1 Cor. 12:11). (Kenneth E. Hagin)